Shanghai is known all over the western world, and why? Because it is a major financial and trading center. It is the western version of China. At least, those were my thoughts when I decided to visit Shanghai.
Other than being a great big city with lots of foreigners and tall buildings, Shanghai ain't got that much going for it. It's not a historically important city in China, as comparable to Nanjing or Beijing, nor does if have as much foreign influence or economic freedom as Hong Kong. Why in the world is Shanghai one of China's big tourist cities? I'm not at all certain that I found an answer to this question, but below is what I did find out.
1.
In part due to its history as a manufacturing and export city, and in part due to greater western influence, Shanghai has a large art community. From what I understand, back in the 1990s a number of artists moved their studios in a number of abandoned warehouses with low rent prices. As the art community here blossomed in the wide-open buildings, private art galleries also began to pop up. Now, a whole bunch of blocks are completely taken up by these studios and art galleries. The artistic presence is particularly obvious because of the quality and quantity of wall graffitti.
2.
Shanghai also has a couple famous Buddhist temples. The most interesting, from my point of view, is the Jade Buddhe Temple. Here, there are two Buddha statues carved from jade!! This type of statue is pretty rare, and these two were actually brought from Burma almost 150 years ago; each is carved from a single block of white jade. During the revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty, these statues were almost destroyed.
On my first full day in Shanghai, I decided to walk from my hostel down to the Jade Buddha Temple, and then on to the art district. Although the walk was at least an hour to the Temple, an another half hour to the art district, I enjoyed myself a lot. During my time in China, I've been thinking a lot about religion. Many Chinese have asked me if I am a Christian (they assume yes, because I'm a westerner), and I have explained my beliefs many times. I've also met a few westerners who have converted to Buddhism. Due to these interactions and my own questions, I decided that I wanted to pray to Buddha once. It was a strange experience. I really don't understand the beliefs or teachings that underpin Buddhism, so my prayers ended up more as a one-sided conversation and challenge to Buddha, asking that he grant wishes that were either almost not possible, or so vague that almost any happy occurrence could be attributed to Buddha. For example, I prayed that my mother's back would be "healed" so that she wouldn't have pain or the inconvenience of a short leg, and that my sister would find success in her career and love life.
After questioning Buddha's existence to his face and arrogantly challenging him, I moved on to the art district. Happily, the art galleries were free to walk through. I visited four galleries, each devoted to a different artist. One of the galleries was actually devoted to the photographer Michael Wolf, whose work I generally like. It was really fun to finally see his works all in one spot and read about his career. Below is one of my favorite photos by him.
Two galleries were devoted to modern painters, one whose works used biiiiggg, circular strokes and lots of partially mixed primary colors. The dynamism of each painting was awesome; using such similar techniques in different combinations and different hues, the artist managed to create entirely new scenes and emotions. The second painter's works were on the opposide end of the spectrum, using thousands of individual, single-color, interwoven lines or paint strokes to create space and movement. Although each stroke or line was a single color, his use of hues managed to create depth and a melded vision.
3. Shanghai is home to the delicious Xiaolongbao dumpling. The Xiaolongbao dumpling is unique among Chinese dumplings because there is not just meat and veggie filling inside the skin--there is soup! I visited a famous Xiaolongbao restaurant near Yuyuan Garden with a coworker from my NGO in Chengdu. There were dumplings with regular pork filling, dumplings with pork and crab meat, and tastiest of all, dumplings with pork, crab meat and crab roe. I never even knew that crab roe existed, but boy does it make for a creamy dumpling!!
It's a good thing I visited with my coworker, who used to live in Shanghai. There is a special technique to eating Xiaolongbao that many tourists don't know. The Xiaolongbao is steamed in bamboo steamers, and when served, the soup inside each dumpling is blazing hot. Many people just stuff the dumpling in their mouth and end up with a scalded tongue. I learned that one should first bite a small hole in the dumpling skin and let the soup cool before sucking it out, and then eat the dumpling. I also learned that Xiaolongbao are best eaten with raw ginger and dipped in soy vinegar. The Chinese believe that foods have hot and cold qualities beside their physical temperature. Eating the ginger helps balance out the cold qualities of the dumplings.
Besides the Xiaolongbao, Shanghai is also the origin of the Drunken Crab dish. Unfortunately I did not have the means to eat this; however, I did splurge and eat Shanghai's other local specialty: seafood porridge. If you can call frog "seafood". I went to a restaurant to eat porridge, and found that I could only buy a big clay pot of porridge, and that the seafood additions were sold by weight. The restuarant didn't make single servings of seafood porridge, so I decided to order that big clay pot of porridge, and added frog meat and another seafood to it.
Yum! Yum yum yum!!! The frog meat definitely did not taste like chicken, but neither was it a strong flavor. The bones were still in, so I had to be careful of them when I ate, but I was definitely satisfied. Although I paid around 60 yuan for the entire meal, I was able to take the extra porridge home, and it made for two more delicious meals.
4.
Shanghai used to be a canal city. More importantly, Shanghai sits at the mouth to the Yangtze River, one of China's two great rivers and the lifeblood of the southern provinces. As such, it is a major shipping hub, and most of its treats are from the sea, but it also has assimilated a lot of foreign and other Chinese treats into its cuisine. Now, Shanghai has two little canal towns that serve as tourist hot spots.
When my friends Genevieve and Nina arrived in Shanghai a couple days after me, one of the places we visited was Qibao Ancient town. Although it was no Venice, there were boat rides for sale, and lots of kitschy treats and souvenirs to be bought. Happily, there also turned out to be a nearby Buddhist temple. In order to get away from the crowds, we three entered this working temple and rested in their garden. After that, we explored their 7-story pagoda, and were treated with a bird's eye view of Qibao town and the surrounding landscape.
I wa really happy to be able to meet up with my friend Genevieve. After just a week of travelling around on my own, I was already missing my friends. Genevieve had been a fellow student in my foreign language program at Sichuan University. Nina was Genevieve's good friend from Germany who was coming to travel around Asia with Genevieve. Once I was able to meet up with them and travel around with their company, I felt a lot less lonely.
Finally, though, I left their company again and headed on to the next leg of my travels.
Next post, Nanjing!! City of ancient governments and modern tragedy.