Exploring Shanghai

We enjoyed exploring Shanghai on foot, walking from our hotel to People's Park.  This time, we checked out the Museum of Contemporary Art, a small but interesting collection of cutting-edge Chinese art.  Next, we strolled down Jiangyin Lu, several blocks of small shops specializing in ornamental things for people's homes:  fish, birds, flowers, plants, pet crickets, etc.  We ended the afternoon at Yu Yuan, a complex of interlocking gardens in the center of the city.   The park was divided into a series of gardens -- pavilions, rocks, trees, and water -- by low walls and unique gateways.

http://picasaweb.google.com/trucknmama/Shanghai202#

Christmas in Shanghai

Steve flew from Dalian and Susie flew from L.A.  We met late on Christmas Eve in the Shanghai airport and began a two-week tour in central and southern China.  Our first stop was Shanghai, where we stayed in a nine-room hotel in a former European mansion in the city center.  Shanghai is the largest city in China and one of the largest in the world with a population somewhere around 20 million.  It is a sleek, modern metropolis, the center of China's international trade, finance, and banking.  The Bund, a riverfront area dominated by banks and hotels dating from the 1920s, gives the city a European flavor, while the futuristic neon-lit architecture across the river in Pudong creates a skyline with a contemporary flair.

Our first stop on Christmas Day was the Shanghai Museum.  It has a collection of more than 120,000 pieces of Chinese art spanning the entire history of this ancient civilization:  jade, bronzes, sculpture, calligraphy, painting, furniture, coins, seals, etc.

http://picasaweb.google.com/trucknmama/Shanghai#

December in Dalian

This is the last week of the semester for me. I'll be giving and grading exams starting tomorrow. Susie is in New Mexico and will visit Will and Maya in California before flying back to Shanghai on Christmas Eve. We're going to take a trip to some more rural areas in southern China before heading off to France for January and February. Keep watching the blog for updates on our adventures!

In the meantime, here are a few random pictures I took this past week -- some in my classroom building, some in the city, and a few here in the neighborhood.

http://picasaweb.google.com/SteveDC505/December#

Talking Turkey

For the past two weeks, I have been leading classroom discussions about Thanksgiving and Christmas. I took pictures to class for Thanksgiving (pilgrims and the Mayflower, turkey dinner, football game, Macy's parade, etc) and Christmas (paintings of the Nativity, Santa Claus and his sleigh, trees and decorations, stockings on a fireplace, etc) and answered the students' questions. They were especially interested in Ralph Stone's pictures of a real Thanksgiving and had many questions about both holidays. Some were what I expected: How do you cook a turkey? Is it a real tree and what does it cost? Are there special songs for the holidays? However, a few of the questions were real stumpers. Here is a sample.

• Why do Americans give each other colored eggs at Thanksgiving?




• Who do you give thanks to on Thanksgiving Day?




• How much do turkey eggs cost and how do you cook them?




• What kind of ID card do you need in order to go inside a church?




• In the Nativity scene, which one of the men is Santa Claus?




• If you can afford to buy new decorations every year, why do you still use the old ones?




• The animals pulling the sleigh: are they elk? (They remembered Rose Mary Harty's wonderful pictures of the elk at Horseshoe Loop)




• They were thrilled to learn that 85% of artificial trees are manufactured in China.

• Very few knew that the Western calendar numbered years from the supposed date of the birth of Jesus. They knew ther abbreviations "B.C." and "A.D." but were not aware of what they stood for.
  
  
  
• Asked to identify the people in the Nativity picture, about half knew the baby was Jesus and a few knew that the woman was named Maria. Asked who the white-haired man standing beside Maria was, they replied in unison: "STEVE!"




• They love to sing in English, so I taught them the words to "Silent Night." Then I was asked to explain the "Virgin and Child" concept. Not as easy as you might think...

The questions were earnest attempts to understand Westerners and I repeat them here not to make fun of my students, but to give an idea of how eager they are to penetrate the mysteries of beliefs and traditions that we take for granted. These kids are wonderful, always surprising and a pure joy to teach.

Quiz: What Is It?

Today's round of the "What Is It Quiz" features a few random objects from daily life, mostly in our apartment. See if you can guess what each object is before you read the captions. A perfect score is a "10." Lucky contestants with scores of 8 or above can join me on the street for a quick snack of Grilled Squid on a Stick.

Seriously, several of these things are gifts from Chinese friends and small souvenirs of our travels. They add color and pleasure to our lives and will bring back happy memories for many years to come.

http://picasaweb.google.com/SteveDC505/WhatIsIt#

A Memorable Birthday and Thanksgiving

Today is Thursday, November 27. When I arrived for my morning class with thirty sophomore English majors, I was stunned by the gifts they had prepared for me. Scott, our class artist, had made some original drawings for me on the chalkboard. Cathay, our class musician, brought her two-stringed erhu. She played "Happy Birthday to You" while the class sang to me, first in English and then in Mandarin. Then Cathay played a tricky traditional melody called "Running Horses" as a special gift for me. Last week, the class took up a secret collection and sent out a delegation to buy me a handmade stocking cap and scarf to protect my health during the Manchurian winter. At Thanksgiving, I always have so many blessings to be grateful for. These young men and women made Thanksgiving 2008 a day that I will never forget as long as live.

http://picasaweb.google.com/SteveDC505/Birthday#

November in Dalian

We thought the warm weather would never end, especially when our apartment was invaded by a large batallion of mosquitoes. Susie made an effective bug zapper out of a long cardboard box so that we could kill them when they landed on our ceiling. Our ceiling now looks like it has the chickenpox, covered by dozens of tiny red bug corpses.

But the weather finally turned crisp and cool -- highs around 50 most days -- and we even had our first light snowfall. One thing we have enjoyed observing is the way street vendors sell different kinds of produce as the seasons change -- first grapes, then cabbages and turnips, and now big apples. Previously, we mentioned the custom of drying winter vegetables outdoors for use in pickles and soups. Food and the traditions surrounding it are central to Chinese culture. One reason the Chinese dine on so many "funny things" to us Westerners is that they have lived on the verge of famine for so long. We have read estimates that as many as 30-60 million people starved in the three years' famine of the early 1960s during the disastrous years of the "Great Leap Forward." Today, instead of asking "how's it going," one can still greet a good friend by asking "Ni chi bao le ma?" [Have you had enough to eat?] So things that to us might seem inedible have been transformed by innovative Chinese cooks into a delicious cuisine. Necessity + creativity = culinary art.

Speaking of food and traditions, I am doing a unit this week on Thanksgiving -- Mayflower, pilgrims, turkey, Macy's parade, football, and feeding the homeless. It's one of the most successful topics I have tried so far. I'll try to do the same for future holidays as well. As you can see from the pictures, China is already busy importing some features of our holiday season -- especially as they pertain to retail marketing.

http://picasaweb.google.com/SteveDC505/November#