A Taste of Asia: A Slice of Shanghai (Part 3)
May 22nd 2008 06:55
One day Debra decided to go to a local gardens to relax, and so we donned our warm clothing and headed out into the polluted city air. (I should mention that Shanghai's pollution is very close to unbearable - not quite as bad as Beijing (I hear), but pretty damn formidable.) The gardens were decorated in the traditional Chinese style, with white walls with curved entraces and an emphasis on natural beauty. There were several small boats to rent upon a lake, and Debra wanted us to get onboard one. I had my hesitations, as I had flashbacks to my primary school camp when the canoe I was on capsized, but decided not to express them as we paid the man at the booth and he came out to assist us. By the time we reached the water's edge my misgivings about the situation had grown, and anyone paying even the slightest amount of attention to my stance and my face would have realised that I was determined not to get on. For one thing, the boat was tiny. For another, I had no knowledge of how deep or shallow the lake was, and I had no intention of finding out. Yet the man had it in his mind that I must now complete the step of hopping into the boat, despite my variation in willingness. I went so far as to attempt to place a foot in while holding on to his arm so as to show my disinterest, but he remained willfully ignorant of my desires and I felt slightly abused as he continued to try to help me do something I clearly regarded as unpleasant. I was a bit disturbed by the entire experience, as it reminded me of my childhood in Bulgaria where I had faced similar insensitivity. I attribute this to the particularities of the emotional rituals facilitiated by Communism. It just wouldn't happen in the Australia, being pushed to do something you didn't want to voluntarily do. Being a very independent spirit, I suddenly felt out of place in China.
It turned out that Debra and I had more in common than I had known: my grandfather had been an official (apparently known for his patriotic speeches) in the Communist party, and so had hers. Hers was still alive and I got to meet him over the Chinese New Year's celebration. I should have guessed: we had the same kind of self-possession and confidence that came out of knowing that we were part of the ultimate power machine and that our claim to this power was reliant on our ability to convince the rest of the world we were worthy of it. We were also the only children of our families, and paid a lot of attention and had a lot of time to nurture our imaginations. Some people have called me spoilt, actually. Anyway, her grandfather loved having me at his family's celebrations because apparently having a foreigner around was good luck. He gave a speech to the assembled party at a high class Chinese restraunt and gestured to me, giving me the impression that I was somehow carrying out his purported agenda. I figured that anyone else in my position would smile self-consciously as everyone in the room looked at me at the same time for a beat, but I was simply amused in my bemusement. Debra had told me that while her father still had strong patriotism for the government, almost no-one else in the family, especially the two younger generations, shared it. They went along with his speeches and rhetoric, but were critical of the CP amongst themselves.
But that was on New Year's day; New Year's eve was hosted at the grandparents' house, and we watched a cheesy, patriotic but interesting program featuring comedy routines, singing and gymnastic performances. Some of the songs featured English phrases in the chorus, and I was a bit embarassed for the singer when he sang the line 'To live' as 'to laive', sounding more like 'we are coming to you live from China'. Prior to the program I had the opportunity to meet Debra's cousins, one of whom was female and worked for the Communist Party herself. The Lord of the Rings, the movie, came up in conversation, and she adamantly announced that she did not like the fantasy genre. It reinforced the Communist obsession with literal narrative in my mind; my dad has a similar disdain for the genre and wouldn't see the movies, considering them "nonsense". Yet what is fantasy about, if not a representation of the world? I felt lucky that she didn't know how anti-totalitarian I was.
The male cousin turned out to be slightly homophobic, so I teased him by jokingly claiming to be in love with the female cousin. He cringed and made audible sounds of discomfort, but said nothing else, and it appeared everyone else on the family was on my side. I was interested by the reaction Debra's family had to me - they were not used to empathising with anyone who was a foreigner, but I was so friendly, educated and polite that they couldn't help but continue their exploration into the art of intimacy between people just met, almost depsite themselves. It was a special experience for me to get a glimpse of the family life and dynamic, and one I remember fondly, even if there was much these people couldn't hope to grasp about me, or I communicate to them. At one point one of the family members asked if I could understand Chinese, because I was listening closely to her tone, and making similar nods of approval as the others on the table - I wish! I pride myself on my powers of listening and emoting, so clearly we had momentarily created a language which transcended lingual boundaries.
One of my favourite experiences was going to the Shanghai Museum, which had an astounding amount of artifacts on display. Everything from ancient pots to coinage, representations of landscape and jade designs. I felt like I would never see Chinese representations of the natural environment again; before my visit I had assumed that the angles and curves I had seen in Chinese paintings were an affectation; a stylised rendering of nature that couldn't have been so different to the ones I was familiar with - but whilst soaking up the nature in China I realised that the paintings were realist, striving for an accurate depiction of the particularities of Chinese landscape. I am not an expert when it comes to the natural differences between China and the West, but I was charmed and awed by the paintings, the scale they were mounted on and the use of colour and brush stroke. Many were inclusive of mountains and water (sometimes with waterfalls on the mountains), or other dramatic transitions in landscape, perhaps involving rocks. They were all painted on long rectangular scrolls of varying sizes.
I bought a pocket-sized unlined notebook with bamboo shoots on the cover from the Museum gift shop, and Debra and I drew a bit in it. I asked her to write 'postmodernism' for me, but have forgotten how to say it. I already had a travel diary with me, but I ejnoyed the lack of lines upon the page, and so I often doodled or wrote in a way that takes advantage of the visuals of writing. Do any of you create pictures out of words? It was in this book that I came up with a new email address for myself... my first email address had been silver_raincloud@hotmail.com (it is no longer), and while I had grown to further embrace my love for clouds, the sadness which seemed to hang over the 'silver_' had long ceased to appeal to me. I had a saying that clouds looked like they tasted like marshmallow, and I was inspired by Chinese food when I came up with 'crispyclouds'. I thought it was fittingly incongruous, in fact I couldn't imagine crispy clouds at all, but liked the combination of the words on my own conceptual level, so I used it as my email address for years before i forgot to sign in for more than 30 days and it got deleted.
Back to the markets, I was so curious about one of the products that were being sold on one level of a shopping mall that I asked Debra, and she said "that's a placenta." The thing was dried and brownish in colour, and as I glanced at it again I felt a little queasy. Red lanterns were raised everywhere inside the mall, and 'Happy New Year' was written in both Chinese and English in the middle of the shopping centre on a grand scale. I bought a cute cup, and some chocolate. The favourite Western import for chocolate appeared to be Dove. In fact, the brand had varieeties of chocolate I hadn't seen in the West. Debra explained that the Chinese liked theirs creamy, but not very sweet.
We also journeyed out to Nanjing Road, the most famous shopping street in Shanghai, where I bought some silk - lime and pink, in the same pattern, so that I could sew them together if I liked. They had what looked like a cherry blossom motif,. The road was packed - sometimes shoulder to shoulder, so populous is this city.
Debra's aunt worked at a university, and we would go there to shower every two days or so. I don't think it was entirely legal, but the university grounds struck me as interesting, with statues of famous people on huge lawns, and red cloth banners with yellow (or was it white?) writing hanging everywhere. This was Communist Party propaganda, and I was almost surprised to see it, because Debra didn't often mention politics. It was a stark reminder of the thought control that is practised in China, the censorship and the intolerance for political dissent. What a pity, because China has such an interesting intellectual culture and it deserves to be enhanced by the freedom that comes with a democratic system.
TV proved to be an important source of entertainment and information. There aren't many channels, and they're all owned by the government, such as CCTV. I was intrigued by a soap opera set in Ancient China, with very uncreative camera work and a somewhat limited budget. It was almost all shot in medium shots, with the occasional close-up here and there when the drama called for it. There were also some TV shows- one of which followed a group of firefighters taking part in dramatic rescues. Elsewhere there were documentaries on China. They must have shown the same shampoo ad fifty million times. They did have a channel dedicated to news in English, and one in Chinese. I found Debra and her aunt give forth a peal of laughter at one of the announcements and asked what had triggered it. Apparently, after a brief guide to simple exercises, the news anchor had decreed exercise patriotic, and they were laughing at the propaganda of it. Yet they wouldn't take part in any protest against the goverment - just criticise passively. Being an all-or-nothing person in a lot of areas, I couldn't see how they were able to maintain such an equilibrium.
Overall, my first trip to Shanghai was one of the most insightful, pleasant and rewarding travel experiences in my life. I learnt so much about Debra, other Chinese friends back in Sydney, and myself from the experience that I was quite disappointed when it was all over and I longed to go back. Luckily, this would not be my final visit to China...
This photo was not taken by me, but is slightly reminiscent of the gardens we went to
It turned out that Debra and I had more in common than I had known: my grandfather had been an official (apparently known for his patriotic speeches) in the Communist party, and so had hers. Hers was still alive and I got to meet him over the Chinese New Year's celebration. I should have guessed: we had the same kind of self-possession and confidence that came out of knowing that we were part of the ultimate power machine and that our claim to this power was reliant on our ability to convince the rest of the world we were worthy of it. We were also the only children of our families, and paid a lot of attention and had a lot of time to nurture our imaginations. Some people have called me spoilt, actually. Anyway, her grandfather loved having me at his family's celebrations because apparently having a foreigner around was good luck. He gave a speech to the assembled party at a high class Chinese restraunt and gestured to me, giving me the impression that I was somehow carrying out his purported agenda. I figured that anyone else in my position would smile self-consciously as everyone in the room looked at me at the same time for a beat, but I was simply amused in my bemusement. Debra had told me that while her father still had strong patriotism for the government, almost no-one else in the family, especially the two younger generations, shared it. They went along with his speeches and rhetoric, but were critical of the CP amongst themselves.
We had wave after wave of delicious food for New Year. At the restraunt I tried pig's foot and a number of other unusual items, all small and neatly packaged
But that was on New Year's day; New Year's eve was hosted at the grandparents' house, and we watched a cheesy, patriotic but interesting program featuring comedy routines, singing and gymnastic performances. Some of the songs featured English phrases in the chorus, and I was a bit embarassed for the singer when he sang the line 'To live' as 'to laive', sounding more like 'we are coming to you live from China'. Prior to the program I had the opportunity to meet Debra's cousins, one of whom was female and worked for the Communist Party herself. The Lord of the Rings, the movie, came up in conversation, and she adamantly announced that she did not like the fantasy genre. It reinforced the Communist obsession with literal narrative in my mind; my dad has a similar disdain for the genre and wouldn't see the movies, considering them "nonsense". Yet what is fantasy about, if not a representation of the world? I felt lucky that she didn't know how anti-totalitarian I was.
The male cousin turned out to be slightly homophobic, so I teased him by jokingly claiming to be in love with the female cousin. He cringed and made audible sounds of discomfort, but said nothing else, and it appeared everyone else on the family was on my side. I was interested by the reaction Debra's family had to me - they were not used to empathising with anyone who was a foreigner, but I was so friendly, educated and polite that they couldn't help but continue their exploration into the art of intimacy between people just met, almost depsite themselves. It was a special experience for me to get a glimpse of the family life and dynamic, and one I remember fondly, even if there was much these people couldn't hope to grasp about me, or I communicate to them. At one point one of the family members asked if I could understand Chinese, because I was listening closely to her tone, and making similar nods of approval as the others on the table - I wish! I pride myself on my powers of listening and emoting, so clearly we had momentarily created a language which transcended lingual boundaries.
One of my favourite experiences was going to the Shanghai Museum, which had an astounding amount of artifacts on display. Everything from ancient pots to coinage, representations of landscape and jade designs. I felt like I would never see Chinese representations of the natural environment again; before my visit I had assumed that the angles and curves I had seen in Chinese paintings were an affectation; a stylised rendering of nature that couldn't have been so different to the ones I was familiar with - but whilst soaking up the nature in China I realised that the paintings were realist, striving for an accurate depiction of the particularities of Chinese landscape. I am not an expert when it comes to the natural differences between China and the West, but I was charmed and awed by the paintings, the scale they were mounted on and the use of colour and brush stroke. Many were inclusive of mountains and water (sometimes with waterfalls on the mountains), or other dramatic transitions in landscape, perhaps involving rocks. They were all painted on long rectangular scrolls of varying sizes.
An amazing photograph of a rural part of China somewhere, since I can't find a painting like the ones I saw in the museum on the internet
I bought a pocket-sized unlined notebook with bamboo shoots on the cover from the Museum gift shop, and Debra and I drew a bit in it. I asked her to write 'postmodernism' for me, but have forgotten how to say it. I already had a travel diary with me, but I ejnoyed the lack of lines upon the page, and so I often doodled or wrote in a way that takes advantage of the visuals of writing. Do any of you create pictures out of words? It was in this book that I came up with a new email address for myself... my first email address had been silver_raincloud@hotmail.com (it is no longer), and while I had grown to further embrace my love for clouds, the sadness which seemed to hang over the 'silver_' had long ceased to appeal to me. I had a saying that clouds looked like they tasted like marshmallow, and I was inspired by Chinese food when I came up with 'crispyclouds'. I thought it was fittingly incongruous, in fact I couldn't imagine crispy clouds at all, but liked the combination of the words on my own conceptual level, so I used it as my email address for years before i forgot to sign in for more than 30 days and it got deleted.
Back to the markets, I was so curious about one of the products that were being sold on one level of a shopping mall that I asked Debra, and she said "that's a placenta." The thing was dried and brownish in colour, and as I glanced at it again I felt a little queasy. Red lanterns were raised everywhere inside the mall, and 'Happy New Year' was written in both Chinese and English in the middle of the shopping centre on a grand scale. I bought a cute cup, and some chocolate. The favourite Western import for chocolate appeared to be Dove. In fact, the brand had varieeties of chocolate I hadn't seen in the West. Debra explained that the Chinese liked theirs creamy, but not very sweet.
We also journeyed out to Nanjing Road, the most famous shopping street in Shanghai, where I bought some silk - lime and pink, in the same pattern, so that I could sew them together if I liked. They had what looked like a cherry blossom motif,. The road was packed - sometimes shoulder to shoulder, so populous is this city.
Debra's aunt worked at a university, and we would go there to shower every two days or so. I don't think it was entirely legal, but the university grounds struck me as interesting, with statues of famous people on huge lawns, and red cloth banners with yellow (or was it white?) writing hanging everywhere. This was Communist Party propaganda, and I was almost surprised to see it, because Debra didn't often mention politics. It was a stark reminder of the thought control that is practised in China, the censorship and the intolerance for political dissent. What a pity, because China has such an interesting intellectual culture and it deserves to be enhanced by the freedom that comes with a democratic system.
TV proved to be an important source of entertainment and information. There aren't many channels, and they're all owned by the government, such as CCTV. I was intrigued by a soap opera set in Ancient China, with very uncreative camera work and a somewhat limited budget. It was almost all shot in medium shots, with the occasional close-up here and there when the drama called for it. There were also some TV shows- one of which followed a group of firefighters taking part in dramatic rescues. Elsewhere there were documentaries on China. They must have shown the same shampoo ad fifty million times. They did have a channel dedicated to news in English, and one in Chinese. I found Debra and her aunt give forth a peal of laughter at one of the announcements and asked what had triggered it. Apparently, after a brief guide to simple exercises, the news anchor had decreed exercise patriotic, and they were laughing at the propaganda of it. Yet they wouldn't take part in any protest against the goverment - just criticise passively. Being an all-or-nothing person in a lot of areas, I couldn't see how they were able to maintain such an equilibrium.
As educational as it was problematic
Overall, my first trip to Shanghai was one of the most insightful, pleasant and rewarding travel experiences in my life. I learnt so much about Debra, other Chinese friends back in Sydney, and myself from the experience that I was quite disappointed when it was all over and I longed to go back. Luckily, this would not be my final visit to China...
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