John & Sun-Ling are winding down in Shanghai after a two-year tenure and are planning for a 5-month adventure in southern China and northern SE Asia. Go to http://meckleyearth.blogspot.com for our upcoming travels.
Yesterday, in the space of 10 hours, we experienced Shanghai's colonial past on the cricket pitch in Pudong and it's Olympic future on the athletic track at Shanghai Stadium in Puxi. Two sporting events. Two Shanghais. An old game, cricket, in the new economic zone. A new game, the Olympics, in the old town.
Here's the story. After a leisurely morning including breakfast on the balcony, an attempt to pack for our upcoming Japan trip, and a lemonade lunch, we hoped on the metro and headed over to the Shanghai Ruby Football Club in Pudong to spectate at the Shanghai International Cricket Sixes 2006 tournament.
I had never seen a cricket match in person. We saw the movie Lagaan several years ago which does a pretty good job of explaining the game, but I was interested in seeing a live match. It turned out to be quite the colonial affair. A mostly expat crowd with folks from the UK and the former British Colonies: Australia, India, South Africa, etc, either sitting under white tents next to the pitch sipping cold drinks or sunning themselves practically on the pitch as northern Europeans like to do. One could imagine a Merchant and Ivory scene. See photo below.
There were 16 teams in the tournament from all over Asia. I had corresponded via email with the captain of the CBB team (Colonials Behaving Badly) who graciously invited Sun-Ling and I to stop by the tent and have a beer or three. So we did.
There was a Chinese team in the tournament - the so-called China Women's Team - who played the Scotland Women's team in the marquee match of the day, complete with national anthems. The Chinese team was surprisingly good even though they lost. Their bowlers were capable and their fielding was strong. The first two batsmen were impressive, but the rest of the lineup was not very savvy and was "run out" to end the inning.
We don't usually get over to Pudong, the new-development zone of Shanghai, but it's noticeably different with wider streets, newer and cleaning building, and certain areas with lots of businesses catering to foreigners.
Then it was back to Puxi for the Shanghai Golden Grand Prix 2006, a world class track and field meet featuring the 2004 110 meter hurdles gold medalist and Shanghai native Liu Xiang. We grabbed a quick dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant and then bought 2 tickets from a scalper. These tickets had a face value of 1888 RMB each, about $250 US, but we bought 2 of them for 200RMB, 10% of their value.
The track meet was great. Lots of action in 14 events. The highlight of course was the penultimate event, the Men's 110M Hurdles which was won in dramatic fashion by Liu Xiang who came from behind to nip Alan Johnson by two hundreths of a seconds. The crowd went wild. Liu Shan collapsed in either joy or exhaustion or relief or all three.
Here are the photos.
On the way out of our apartment we ran into the Pizza Hut delivery guy. Cool logo on helmet. And cool electric bicycle.
The Chinese and Scottish teams line up for the National anthems.
The pitch of the Shanghai Rugby Football Club.
The women's polevault before and during the competition.
Tip: When you are on the 28th floor of a building in a 3rd world country, know where the emergency stairway is located before you start your yoga class. That way, you'll know exactly where to head when, at the end of the class, the instructor says "fire" instead of "see you next time".
Sun-Ling needed to use up 3 yoga class tickets before the end of the month, so she took me along this afternoon so she could use up 2 of them. The yoga studio is on the 28th floor of the Olympus Building across the street from her office. Anyway, when the instructor said "fire" and the hallway outside the studio filled with white smoke, the kind that you get when plastic and styrofoam burn, I wished I had noted the location of the emergency exits when I got off the elevator.
We quickly grabbed our belongings and headed out to the hallway. There were no alarms. Luckily it was about 4PM so there was plently of light. Some of the folks on the 28th floor seemed not concerned and were waiting to take the elevator down. I yelled at Sun-Ling to take the stairs. Where are the stairs? At first we headed to the wrong end of the floor. We could not see more than 10 feet. A guy said the stairs were at the other end. So we hurried back to the other end and started walking down the 28 flights of stairs.
A mother and daughter who were in the class were walking down with us. The young girl looked really scared and was coughing at first so I gave her some encouragement and she did OK the rest of the way. The stairwell was filled with smoke, but not too thick, for about 10 floors. Then it got better. We ran into people at several of the landings - cleaning folks - but they did not seem concerned. I heard sirens. Then again, in a big city you always hear sirens.
We made down and out OK. I walked down all 28 floors in my bare feet. A fire truck was pulling up as we walked out. But again, no one seemed concerned. The first floor of the building is a shopping mall and it was filled with shoppers going about their business. I took a quick photo of smoke coming out of an upper story window and we headed over to Sun-Ling's nearby office to change clothes and rest.
From Sun-Ling's office, we looked back to the Olympus Building, expecting to see more smoke pouting out windows, but there was nothing. I guess it was all smoke and no fire. Not sure if we will ever know what exactly what happened, although Sun-Ling will go back next week to take her final class.
Moral of the story: Look for the little white man on the green sign exit sign before you take your yoga class.
When I got home, I was very surprised when I took a close look at the photo I took of the smoke coming out of the Olympus Building. I zoomed in to the window with smoke pouring out, and there were four heads sticking out nearby windows. Hmm.
I also have to admit, that after all the excitement was over, I was pissed that I had had my camera with me but had not taken any photos on the smoke filled 28th floor or on the emergency stairs. Oh well.
The same day we hit the Shanghai Art Museum Biennial, we also toured 3 of the 1930's era Art Deco buildings nearby: The Park Hotel, The YMCA, and The Grand Theatre. It was an unofficial tour. Walk in like you belong and see how far you get. ;-)
If you remember, the current Shanghai Art Museum is the former clubhouse of the Shanghai Race Track (horse racing).
Here is an old photo (from the 1930's) looking from the clubhouse to the Park Hotel - the tallest building in Asia when it was built in the 30's and the tallest building in Shanghai until the mid 1980's. The Grand Theatre is to the left, the YMCA to the right.
Here is a photo I took 2 weeks ago. See if you can find the 5 buildings in this photo that are in the 1930's photo.....The building in lower left foreground is a Starbucks. The greenery to the right is People's Park.
And a closer view of the Park Hotel (left) and YMCA (right). The YMCA still operates as a hotel and sports club.
And finally the Grand Theatre. A fine Art Deco movie theatre. The usher let us "sneak a peek" from the balcony. Yes, the recent X-Men sequel is showing - dubbed in Chinese.
Sun-Ling says: Shanghaining (Shanghai natives) are an arrogant lot. They strongly identify with their city and are intensely proud of their city. They look down upon their provincial brethren.
Not having lived in Shanghai for most of my adult life, I don't much consider myself a Shanghaining in its cultural sense, though it's undeniable that the fact I was born in Shanghai and my parents were born in Shanghai makes me a Shanghaining. In fact, I have gotten together with a colleague who left and returned about the same time as I did, and complained how clueless Shanghaining are. They delude themselves as social sophisticates when they have no clue about consideration for others when in public, standing on the left side of escalators, cutting in lines, honking mercilessly at every opportunity, parading on the street in pajamas, shouting into their mobile phones, etc, etc.
This past Sunday, we went to the Shanghai Art Museum 2006 Biennial Hyperdesign exhibit. We were completely taken by surprise. The exhibit was so well curated, John and I went around gawking at everything, fascinated and enchanted. At the same time, I was brooding over this jealousy for Shanghaining. We have traveled the world, seen a lot & done a lot. Yet a mere two-month long Biennial broadened my horizon and opened my eyes. Shanghaining can just go down the street leisurely stroll to the exhibit on a Sunday and it happens for them every two years! None of this traipsing around the world is necessary. No wonder Shanghaining consider themselves as sophisticates, not to mention the cosmopolitan world they live in, mix of Chinese/West, modern/colonial/3rd world. The world comes to them.
The Shanghai Art Museum is housed in the former clubhouse of the horse race course from the colonial past. In the 1950's, the Communists demolished the old horse racing track and turned it into People's Park and People's Square. The old clubhouse became the public library. In the 1990's the park, was reduced in size, the square "filled in", and we now have the Shanghai Museum, the Shanghai Opera House, and the Shanghai Grand Theatre in their place.
We caught the Biennial on its 1st Sunday afternoon. A lot of other people had the same idea. We got there at the right time. 15 minutes after we went in, the line started going out of the door. By the time we left, the line was going around the building. I credit Shanghaining for having the good taste of catching/creating such a top rate exhibit. Click here to go to the homepage.
The content of exhibit is entirely accessible. The audience was really having fun. The museum had the atmosphere of a science museum. The level of interaction between art & its audieunparalleledparallel.
We were so enthralled by the exhibit, we are already planning on going back before it closes in November.
John says: I become an ugly American again. Let me ramble a bit starting with the first time I was an ugly American. Several years ago we flew to Marrakesh from Paris. On arriving we set our watches back one hour to the local time. I was excited to be in Morocco, and Marrakesh. I giddily exchanged a few words of French with the taxi driver on the way in from the airport. A certain CSN&Y song was playing in my head. I was ecstatic to find an internet cafe with a French keyboard and sent email to all my friends with every "a" and "q" reversed. Thqt wqa auite fun. I snickered to myself when I noticed that the clock on the wall of the internet cafe was off by one hour. These locals don't even bother to keep the correct time.
The first hotel we stayed in was not up to standard so the next morning we inquired about a room at a well known backpacker hotel (the name of which escapes me now). The woman behind the counter had a free room and said to come back at 12 noon and the room would be ready. When we showed up at noon, the room was not ready. I thought these locals are not with it. Well to make a long story short, I will reveal what you have probably guessed. Morocco is two hours behind France, not one, and we were so arrogant that we went about our business for almost two days thinking that we knew the time better than the locals. That explained the internet cafe clock, the woman's wrist watch at the hotel, the hotel room non-readiness, the children walking to school at 10am, and the tourist attraction that was supposed to close in 5 minutes but was actually open for another hour. I was mortified that I had been an ugly American.
So now I'm in Shanghai. I few months ago we went to a special exhibit of Impressionist drawings and paintings at the Shanghai Museum (not to be confused with the Shanghai Art Museum). Of course I know how to handle my self at such an exhibit. I've been to the Prado in Madrid, The Hermitage in St Petersburg, the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, etc. You first study the work from a distance, careful not to get in anyone else's line of sight. You don't touch the art. It's uncool to take photos even if no "no flash" is allowed. Sketching is OK and very cool. You wish you could draw. You read your guidebook's description of the work or punch a number on your audio guide and stand then in awe of the work of The Masters. "Wow" you whisper to your companion.
Thus I was shocked when this method did not work in Shanghai. The locals like to really enjoy and understand art up close and personal. They stand eyeball, nose, and finger to canvas. They touch, take illegal photos, and talk loudly. They come and stand right in front of you as you admire the work from a distance. I shook my head. Uncivilized. This is an art museum, not a "touch and feel" science museum. And then ... I unhappily elbowed my way in close to each work to get a good look....Much to my surprise, a close-up view of an impression drawing or painting with lots of neighbors is pretty neat. And why not chat loudly with my companion. It's not a hospital. So I found myself enjoying the exhibit quite a bit. Maybe "up close" is the way to enjoy art...Once again the ugly American reveals himself and repents.
So... We now come to the Shanghai Art Museum 2006 Biennial -- HyperDesign. So just what is HyperDesign? ... Anyway this was quite an exhibit with a large, lively, and loud crowd, not to mention that everyone had a cell phone or camera and was clicking away. Photos were allowed. I was very happy. Rarely are cameras allowed in museums and I was ready for up-close art.
The show was fantastic. The best ever. I took 165 photos and short videos, too many to show here. So what we have below is about 4 minutes of video. Sorry that I do not know the artists. I'll have to go back and buy the catalog. And Â… below that, about 20 photos. Each is a photo of someone taking a photo of the art or posing for a photo in front of the art or both. Hope you find that interesting.
《HALONG-KELLONG NO.1》 by Shi Jinsong. It's a cross btw the poor man's walking tractor and the rich man's Harley.
《Valiant Struggle NO.10》 by Chen Wenling
《Urbanus-Male》 and 《Urbanus-Female》 by Choe-U-Ram
《Dazzled》 by Wang Luyan - See if you can find the photographer - me - in this one.
《Fake Female Artist Life》 by Mathilde ter Heijne
《The Eternal Wow 1260》 by Sylvie Fleury
The artist is Julian Opie.
"Wall Adhesive Tape" by Ceal Floyer UK
《Nightlife-Xintiandi》 by Daniel Lee
《Bala de Leite》 by Beatriz Milhazes
《Four Seasons》 by Jimmy
《Four Seasons》 by Jimmy
《Landscape: A Tribute to Huang Binhong》 by Shen Fan
《Landscape: A Tribute to Huang Binhong》 by Shen Fan
May 5, 2006 - Nuns, Monks, and Muslims - And we switch hotels .....Again!
The plan for the day is to visit the Ani TsangKung Nunnery just southeast of Jokhang temple for 11AM prayers, then head to the nearby Muslim Quarter to see if anything is shakin' for Friday prayers, then over to Sera Monastery, 4 kms north of city center for the 3PM debating session.
Sera Monastery: The monk on the right, clapping his hands, was quite a debater. We watched him literally "work up a sweat" over the course of 30 minutes.
Part 4 is now up at Livejournal. Here's a preview.
John wearing a traditional silk Tibetan prayer shawl.
This is a shot of the street outside the Daxia Hotel – entrance at right - with the symbols of the morning festivities. Note red paper on ground at left – remnants of the morning fireworks; congratulatory flower stands on each side of the hotel entrance; pan of burning herbs sitting on tripod; auspicious markings on the ground right in front of the entrance.
I have posted the full story of our 3rd day in Lhasa over on Livejournal. The highlight of the day was visiting Drepung monastery. Here are a few photos.
The main assembly hall, or Tsokchen, is a large space with a roof supported by 180 wooden columns.
This woman hangs out by the monastery kitchen during lunch where she is sure to get a handout. She is a happy, contented soul.
