China 2009 Shanghai

China 09 Day 06 – Wednesday July 1, 2009

Stupendous Shanghai seen from the bus—too bad we only went from place to place by bus all day long, and it was a long one, leaving the hotel in Hong Kong at 6am (up at 5am) and returning to our hotel in Shanghai after the circus at 10pm. I was beat so this is a day late.

First impressions – everything half finished, amazing amount of construction everywhere getting ready for Expo 2010 – how will they finish? Roads, bridges, buildings, all with scaffolding and things dug up everywhere. Bus had a hard time getting around the mess.

Next impression — huge contrast in each street here, one side slummy rundown tenements, the other side glitzy towers. Out with the old, in with the new is their motto.

Another oddity here, the tops of the towers are idiosyncratic with fences, palm leaves, spires, etc. etc. It does make the towers very individualistic, and the shapes of some are also odd, most not as weird as the famous radio tower, but all different, unlike Hong Kong, which is just all towers. Here they are spread around more, given the flat landscape.

And bicycles everywhere, mopeds too. At last we are in China. Driving would be a real challenge, but our bus driver seems expert at it.

Lunch en route to the hotel from the airport, another huge dim sum, then a visit to a Chinese garden and shopping mall recently built to look like old pagodas. Odd, but I did have my Starbucks there. Then dinner at a restaurant near the garden, then a rushed bus ride to the acrobatic circus, which was fantastic, but we were all too tired to get the most thrills -- motorcycle racing (8 in the end) inside a spherical cage.


China 09 Day 07 – Thursday July 2, 2009

I am way behind—it is already Friday, but here goes anyway.

8:30am Bus out to Shanghai University, a very good school in a very modern setting out in the “country” so a 1.5 hour bus ride as there is so much traffic, we were quite late and arrived at 10am for our lecture by an economics prof. They served us tea, which did keep me going a bit, although I was still so tired from the night before.

SU is a VERY well funded university, one of the 100 funded in the 211 project to increase status to western standards. The talk was by a very engaging young prof., about the financial crisis or non-crisis on China’s export-dependent economy. Basically if the west shops less, then China hurts more, factories close, workers have no work, etc. etc. So they are quite dependent on western markets, chiefly the USA. There are 20 million workers jobless now, with 6 million college grads every year, and with few jobs in sight; only half found work last year.

Then another great lunch in their staff lunchroom, very spiffy. After lunch most went back to the city and I got a guided tour from a very nice and knowledgeable librarian, a vice-director. The library is brand new and very large, over 3 million volumes, etc. etc. Students have to pay to use the computers though it is cheap, 1 yuan per hour. (our hotel costs far more, 1 yuan per minute, hence not much internet for me—I write this offline). Seating areas are very bright and comfy looking, but no school in session now, so nice and quiet. No bags or drinks in the library reading rooms, so they just leave their bags and drinks outside and no one takes them!!

Got a taxi back to the hotel with two others who stayed to check out student services—not many according to our standards.

Rushed out to dinner with students in another area of the city, but were were late due to traffic, which is intense here, worse than NYC. Many many bicyclers, moped riders, motorcycles, etc, all competing with cars and buses. A mad house, and Hong Kong quiet by comparison. Here they don’t queue up as they do in HK, nicely left over from British times.

Back very very late and my eyes very very tired.


China 09 Day 08 – Friday July 3, 2009

ONE WEEK IN CHINA already and it seems that I’ve been here a month, we have seen and done so very much and learned so very much. How much more can there be left? Quite a lot it seems.

8am call to the Bus (now capitalized as it’s always the Same Bus and same excellent driver and our same wonderful guide, Joe Jin) for a TWO HOUR drive to another city, Kunshan, full of brand new towers, and all new unlike Shanghai which still has a lot of the old. Kunshan however seems ALL new. And the college we went to is all new too, but no students at all so it seemed like a Fellini movie, with a big “Welcome CUNY Visitors” sign in front. And we were warmly welcomed indeed.

[I am finishing this up Sunday morning on the Bus, so I hope I remember stuff]

At the private Dengyun College of Science and Technology, there are 4400 students, and nearly 90% get jobs after 3 years of college, which is really a vocational community college. It was started by Taiwanese business men to train vocational workers, and is very successful in that. They do on the job training (internships) for part of their course work, and half get their jobs from that experience.

They gave us a wonderful buffet lunch in a nearby restaurant as the college was closed for the summer. Then a two-hour Bus ride back to Shanghai, and dinner at 6pm in a spiffy hotel restaurant, where we met CSI alumni business leaders who are very successful here. One a bank vice-president, another owns a construction company, etc. etc. All had very positive experiences at CSI as visiting faculty scholars. One met his wife there when she was an exchange student.

We were supposed to walk back to the hotel, and some did, but not me, being much too tired.


China 09 Day 09 – Saturday July 4, 2009

Happy Fourth!! Well no notice of it here of course, but we had a day off from activities, so it was a well needed break. I went to the Shanghai Museum and the Shanghai Art Museum, walking there both ways, not getting lost going, but getting really lost coming back. Met up with some others at the SM, but they went elsewhere afterwards.

So about the art—very weird as you can imagine. Photo exhibits more like documentary work, going from the sixties to now. One was on Mao and communist folk, the other by a former worker so much more interesting. Two shows of paintings, one very pop art like, with heads of doll women, the other just fuzzy abstracts. The building however was wonderful, an old one modernized, but with the grand stairway left intact.

The Shanghai Museum (art and archaeology) is worth coming here just for that. The entire cultural history of the country with artifacts arranged in very nice cases with labels. Arranged by theme, with huge rooms of bronzes, sculptures, ceramics, paintings, etc. This is great for learning the medium but not great for learning what went with what. Fantastic bronzes from BCE times, way before anything else. And the whole place was hugely crowded with families with children in tow; seemed like way more than the one child per family. But great that they consider it worth learning. Everyone was taking pictures of everything, and I wonder what for since most were camera phones.

Found a Starbucks on the way so I sat and people-watched for a bit. Chinese are a very good-looking people for the most part, much more so than generally in the US.

Finally ended up at the “Shanghai No. 1 Department Store” a huge Macy’s like 8 story building with really really cheap stuff. I mean cheap quality, not just price. Even cheaper type stuff than Kmart or Walmart, so if this is the mass quality of things, then you can understand buildings falling down.

Have to pack up to leave tomorrow for Suzhou.


To Suzhou