They call Shanghai the “Paris of the East” and it was our last tour day together. Also Shanghai has its own special feel about it, lots of energy, sort of reminds me of a big city in the mid 70’s early 80’s when everybody was making money and disco was big. Shanghai is a good picture of how fast China is growing but it doesn’t give a good picture of the people in China. For that matter neither does Hangzhou. Shanghai Province and Zhejiang Province (where Hangzhou is located) are very well off areas with many affluent Chinese and that is not “the norm’. Before the 1990’s there was 1 skyscraper in Shanghai’s PuDong district now there are more than 300. (great article in the NYTimes- you have to register but its free http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/18/business/worldbusiness/18bubble.html )
I was starting to get teary eyed every time I thought about going back to Hangzhou and my semi-solitude. Sometimes I get weary trying to talk slowly and remembering to leave out all the slang we use. You really start to notice how much Americans use slang once you are in a country where the meaning of certain phases are not understood.
After a nice breakfast in the hotel we joined Marco our guide for another day of touring Shanghai. First stop was a couple of hours at the Shanghai Museum, a must see for any Shanghai visitor. Afterwards we did lots of successful shopping at the museum store. No bargaining, but you were pretty sure about the quality. You really never know what you are buying in most places. On Saturday we saw an obvious storeowner bargaining at the knock - off stall we were in for 50 shirts that he was going to pick up the next day. What prices do you think he was going to charge for the shirts, when he got them in his store?
Next stop was visiting the home of Dr. Sun Yat Sen, the founder of modern China. The house and backyard looked like it belonged on Union Street in Brunswick Georgia. The plants were the same and the type of landscape was very similar. Look at the picture of Maria standing under a Magnolia tree, don’t those plants look familiar. We later found out that the second wife of Dr. Sun was Song Quigling, who lived in Georgia. Song Qingling is second of three famous daughters of Charlie Soong, a former missionary and owner of a printing firm. Her sister, Song Meiling, was famous too. She was the wife of Chiang Kai Shek. Both sisters were raised in America and went to Wesleyan College for Women in Macon, Georgia. Small world isn’t it.
Last stop was the Jade Buddha Temple. There are two jade Buddha were brought from Burma in the 1800’s. The Sitting Buddha and the Recumbent Buddha are carved with whole white jade. After this stop I sadly left the Paula and Maria and went to the train station to wait for my train home. The next day Paula and Maria got to ride the Mag-Kev a German really fast train – that took them to the airport. I was extremely jealous that they got to go on that train. I am going to try and do the train right before I come home in July.
