Our third day in Shanghai featured links to China’s past, present and future.
Pat and I visited a silk museum, the city’s colonial French section, an antiques market, Shanghai’s oldest street, the upscale Xintiandi entertainment district, a gigantic pedestrian shopping mall, the restored 1930s home of a wealthy banker, and the site of the Chinese Communist Party’s first National Congress. We also dined at a gourmet restaurant near the top of the historic Fairmont Peace Hotel, ending an exhausting but exhilarating day in what has quickly become one of our favorite cities.
We started off by visiting a cramped, traditional Chinese neighborhood filled with mom-and-pop shops and outdoor stands selling fruits and vegetables. Some local residents hang their clothes to dry on trees above the ramshackle alleys that, in a jarring contrast, are surrounded by luxury high-rise apartments.
En route to our next stop at the silk museum, our tour guide Kevin gave us a lengthy lecture on the merits of Shanghai men, particularly their value as hard-working and considerate husbands.
As a married man and lifelong Shanghai resident, he may not be the most objective commentator on the subject. But some quick Internet research revealed that his description of Shanghai men as smart, trustworthy, loyal, independent and respectful is a common one and has made them very desirable in the mating game. “Every Chinese woman would love to marry a Shanghai man,’’ Kevin said with a proud smile.
At the museum, we got a briefing on the life cycle of silkworms (as babies, “all they do is eat, shit and sleep’’) and were shown how a silk-making machine works. That was followed by a pitch to buy expensive sheets and bed covers that, our salesman promised, would trigger pleasant memories of China every time we slept. We decided we would sleep better by not spending up to $1,000 on super-soft bedding.
We then visited an antiques market, which we were warned sold many fake products. Small booths displayed toy trains and cars, Buddhist monk figurines, an old Underwood typewriter and assorted trinkets that had as much connection with the real China as General Tso’s chicken.
We had lunch at a restaurant next to the Shanghai Library and U.S. Consulate, where we were served a delicious buffet of tofu, lemon chicken, fish soup, bok choy, rice and beef with green peppers. The Chinese often eat large lunches, which seemingly have no effect on their slender physiques.
The restaurant was in the old French Concession, now a posh neighborhood filled with gated mansions, upscale restaurants and trendy bars. The area’s name comes from the mid-19th century, when French, British and American sections where established in Shanghai.
While still in the French Concession, we toured a spacious 1930s home that has been turned into a museum. The residence included a servant’s bedroom with a bust of Beethoven on the dresser and a Victrola “talking machine’’ that was made in Camden, New Jersey. No matter where you travel in the world, it seems you can never escape my home state.
Later, we visited a museum on the site where the Communist Party of China held its first National Congress in 1921. The exhibits trace the history of Chinese communism with essays and photos, including one of the 1919 student protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square that spurred the May Fourth anti-imperialist movement. That was back in the day when communist leaders supported, rather than crushed, student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square.
The museum’s lobby has three large electronic touchscreens that provide information on local dining, shopping and entertainment. There’s also a small gift shop where you can buy Mao busts, books, photos, buttons and key chains. It’s a perfect symbol of today’s China, where capitalism and communism exist side by side.
As night fell, we strolled down the iconic pedestrian mall on Nanjing Road. It’s lined with name-brand stories, restaurants, neon billboards and giant video screens, making it look like a combination of Times Square, Fifth Avenue and the Champs-Elysees.
We ended up at the Peace Hotel, an Art Deco landmark opened in 1929 that has hosted many heads of state, including U.S. Presidents Carter, Reagan and Clinton. We had drinks in the cozy, wood-paneled Jazz Bar, where we met two cast members from a touring production of “The Phantom of the Opera.’’ Then we headed upstairs to the ninth-floor Cathay Room restaurant, which offers spectacular views of the neon-lit Pudong skyline across the Huangpu River that divides the eastern and western parts of Shanghai.
Pudong is a prime example of China’s economic boom. Twenty years ago, it was mostly farmland. Now it’s another Manhattan, crammed with skyscrapers such as the Shanghai World Financial Center and the still-under-construction Shanghai Tower, which already is the world’s second-tallest building. It’s also the home of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, an international airport and a variety of world-class shopping and dining.
Though the restaurant’s balcony was closed, our waiter let us walk outside to take photos against the postcard backdrop. We then enjoyed a delicious meal in soothing solitude until another couple arrived shortly before we left. (As the gourmand in the family, Pat insists I mention our dishes. I had a herb crusted lamb filet with potato gnocchi, mushrooms and green beans, while Pat ordered black cod and prawns with braised Cotechino sausage, asparagus and roasted mushrooms.)
Our waiter was a young man from the tropical southern island of Hainan, known as China’s Hawaii. He told us he came to Shanghai three months ago without a college education or any contacts, normally prerequisites for getting a good job in China. But he managed to talk his way into a position at the prestigious hotel largely because of his ability to speak English, which is a requirement for working at a hotel with so many foreign guests.
I think I’ll tell that story to my English-language students at Henan University of Technology when I return next semester.
