Old China
A free day in Shanghai! I decided to explore some of the culture. Since I don’t speak a word of Chinese (well, OK, I speak a word-- I can say “thank you”, xie xie), I decided to stick to standard tourist stuff. Even that is an adventure. English is pretty limited around here, so there is a real sense of adventure to be headed off into the city.
My hotel supplies tourists with a little card that has the names of popular locations written in Chinese, so you can show it to the cab driver. (Crucially, it also includes the hotel name so you can get back!). This system actually works. Still, it feels weird to communicate with someone by showing them a piece of paper and pointing at some characters. Sort of dangerous, somehow.
First I went to the Jade Buddha Temple. This is a functioning Buddhist monastery that was restored in the early part of the 20th century and recently done up into a tourist attraction. However, it is mainly a tourist attraction for Chinese tourists-- there is very little English there except on the major signs. There are two famous jade Buddha statues there, as well as many wooden and stone statues of gods and mythical heroes.
You pay 10 RMB to get in and look around the courtyard, main chambers, and at the small reclining Buddha statue. The courtyard has several fires where you can light incense sticks and use them to pray. Inside a couple of large halls, where there are many god statues and elaborate painting/decorations, there are kneeling stools for praying or doing prostrations. This whole area is crowded with Chinese people bobbing up and down in prayer and waving incense intensely. They are as much a part of the place as the silent, awesome gods.
Much of the decoration is the intense gold and red often associated with Chinese art. Everywhere the eye falls there are little details: gargoyles, painted railings, bronze bells, carved doorways, and little platforms with handfuls of rice for the numerous sparrows flitting about. Now and then a shaven-headed monk walks by in golden robes, carrying his satchel with a single thermos of tea and some books.
The reclining Buddha is something I was glad I had read about ahead of time. The jade statue is about 3.5 feet long and beautifully shaped; it depicts the Buddha just after his enlightenment. But it sits in a room that is crammed with other statuary and mainly devoted to being a souvenir shop! Worse, there is a full-sized marble Buddha statue directly across from it. How many tourists have gazed at the large marble statue thinking it was the ancient relic? Apparently this small jade Buddha and the larger jade Buddha upstairs were made many centuries ago and have been preserved by monks and other devotees.
To go up and see the large jade Buddha, you have to pay another 10 RMB. It’s a one-way circuit through a few rooms of photos and other art, then into the main room. The photos show monks from the monastery with famous visitors. Most seem to be Chinese dignitaries, but I also recognized one familiar face: Nancy Reagan. There were also some very nice carved devotional objects.
The jade Buddha himself, a bit larger than life size, is seated in meditation about 20 feet from where you walk by. The statue is surrounded by decorations and altars, and the walls and ceiling of the room are covered with paintings and small nooks holding golden Buddha icons. Again, the visitors formed part of the scene, as many Chinese walked by with hands clasped in prayer, bowing their heads. The Buddha was gorgeous, depicted in a simple style. His carved, draped clothing was ordinary, with only a few bits of jewelry. He was slim and calmly solemn, rather than rotund and laughing boisterously. He looked peaceful and wise.
A table right in front of the statue had a couple bottles of what looked like tea and a sign showing the tea being poured into a bowl, along with some writing I couldn’t read. People were signaling to two women seated along the wall, and when they came over, the visitors would pay a fee and get a bottle of the liquid. They prayed with it for a while, then gave it back to the ladies, who would take it to the altar and pour it into a special chalice. (This must have had a drain below it because they poured several bottles in while I watched, and it didn’t overflow!). I wish I knew exactly what it was for, but clearly it was a way to offer a specific prayer.
Somehow I found it off-putting to have the exchange of money going on in both rooms with the ancient jade statues. The Chinese Buddhists seemed quite sincere— devout, even— and there was no explicit solicitation of funds, but nonetheless, it made me a little uncomfortable. I watched for a while, then continued along the path back outside.
I saw a sign for something called the Hall of Ten Thousand Buddhas. I followed some stairs up and happened upon an intriguing scene. The Hall turned out to look like a hall in a conference center, with lots of folding chairs and a stage. There seemed to be programs going on at certain times, but I couldn’t read any of the signs. And what I saw was lunchtime! There were little flocks of people sitting around with picnic lunches they had brought—steamed buns, fruit, slices of meat, jugs of soup, and of course many thermoses of black tea. The whole hall smelled of the same Chinese tea they serve in most American Chinese restaurants. Were they waiting for something to start? What? I have no idea what was going on, but it was certainly interesting to see them.
In general, I had the feeling that the other Jade Buddha Temple visitors (except the Westerners) knew a lot more than I did. Of course it helped that they could read the signs, but this was also clearly their home turf. (Then again, I feel like people at Christian churches know a lot more than I do, too!) Anyway, the version of Buddhism I am familiar with is much simpler, with fewer trappings, so it was really neat to see the elaborate figures and rituals.
Next, I stuck with the theme of Old China, but headed to the modern-looking Shanghai Museum. (Ah, a Western bathroom— I was waiting for that). The cab trick worked, and I was greeted by people flying kites in a large open area by the museum. Kite vendors tried to entice me to buy one. (In general, I was approached by people wanting money nearly continually when on the streets. They all call out the word “hello!” and smile very warmly if you meet their eyes. One man had only one leg, and he pointed at the missing one, grinning wildly, then held out his hand. I felt simultaneously moved and put upon, as well as rushed. I can’t act when I’m rushed. I didn’t give any money, something I feel a bit guilty about now).
The Shanghai Museum is fascinating. It has four floors filled with pretty large galleries, but I couldn’t help comparing it to the National Museum in Taipei, which is about the same size but is only showing 5% of the collection! Perhaps there is more in Beijing, but my impression is that Chiang Kai-Shek got away with a hell of a lot of valuables from the mainland. (I have heard, by the way, that almost everything in the museum was unearthed after 1960, meaning that he really got away with a lot. It’s a huge country, so I’m sure it was no problem to find four floors worth of precious art buried in the soil during the last 40 years, but still…).
I started at the top, with the jade galleries. Centuries and centuries of carved figurines, belt buckles, jewelry, little boxes, etc. At first the figures are fairly crude, but they rapidly evolve in sophistication, and then go through various stages of fashion. They began as items for nobility, then fell out of favor for a while due to political issues, then came back as popular items that filled both rich and middle-class houses.
The various motifs used on the jade were identified by standard names: animal mask, dragon, snake, phoenix, bird, clouds, grain, etc. After seeing many examples, I began to understand what qualities of the design determined how it was labeled, but in some cases, I still couldn’t see it, or why one motif had been chosen over another. (Some dragons really look like snakes, and sometimes I couldn’t identify the dragon at all in something labeled “cup with dragon design”).
The coins were interesting too. I hadn’t realized that China began using currency in the late Neolithic period, many centuries BC. At first the coins were spade- or sword-shaped and made of cast bronze. Later they changed into the familiar round-with-a-central-square-hole form. And then these were replaced with solid coins. Paper money was also used very early in China. One interesting section showed paper money that had been issued by foreign countries for use in China during the 19th century. Apparently it is a long tradition to have currency that you can only get once inside China!
The exhibit of paintings, scrolls, and calligraphy was gorgeous. It showed the development of many styles through the various dynasties. In the Song dynasty, there was a National Art Institute where artists trained and were supported, but later this was discontinued so that artists made a living by being retained in individual households.
There was an interesting lighting system in this section. The scrolls were kept in semidarkness until a person walked close to the glass case. Then a motion sensor turned on the light, sort of like those outdoor lights people get for their houses that turn on when people approach. This probably helped preserve the scrolls by limiting the number of photons that hit them.
In this section in particular I noticed that the museum guards often took a minute to look at the items on display. Normally museum guards look bored at best by all the aesthetic delights they are surrounded by. These ones seemed to notice the art and take an interest. It seemed surprising, which made me realize how unusual it is.
There was a section on seals—- the stamps used as signatures and markers of authenticity. They started out pretty simple, then got large and elaborate over time. Somehow, they didn’t grab me.
Next I saw the pottery. This put me into system overload, so I stopped trying to read the captions. There was too much history to absorb. As always, I am amazed by the long timespan of Chinese history: the first pieces are from about 9,000 BC. I saw all the usual stuff—- celadon plates, red-painted vases, underglaze, overglaze, the period when pure white was fashionable, the period when gaudy designs were fashionable, etc.
This section finished with a nice exhibit on the making of porcelain. It showed the various steps, like gathering the clay, mixing it with water, throwing it, and firing it (one type of kiln was called a “dragon kiln,” and was set into the side of a hill). I was reminded of an article I read about the development of porcelain in Europe, inspired by the lovely samples brought back from China during the early Renaissance. It turns out that Europe lacks the right type of clay to handle firing at the high temperatures needed to make fine porcelain, and it took more than a century of fiddling by alchemists and true chemists to add the right minerals to make porcelain possible.
The exhibit of bronze was similarly impressive and history-spanning. I liked the sets of bells that hung in the courtyards of mansions during the period around 600-400 BC. Also there were endless samples of “food vessels” resembling small cauldrons but perched on three legs. Clearly the Chinese knew early on that having three legs assures a stable footing. The one piece with four legs looked sadly out of place. I also marveled at the fancy wine vessels. Most had two prongs sticking up out of the edge, as if to hold a lid that wasn’t there. I never did figure out what they were for. Some people had bought audio guides (those things were you can listen to descriptions of some pieces), and I wondered if it might be on there. So I snagged a Caucasian woman to ask, but it turned out she only spoke Spanish!
There was some furniture too. Mostly it is from pretty late (the past few centuries), after people started sitting in chairs rather than on the floor. The joinery was interesting; metal nails weren’t used at the beginning, so they had complicated joints that held together on their own.
There was also an odd section entitled something like, “National Minority Arts and Crafts.” It was largely clothing and jewelry from the ethnic groups around the edge of China, sort of like we might show Native American items. There was stuff from Tibet, Mongolia, and, as might be expected, Taiwan. The most eye-catching piece for me was a jacket and pants made entirely from salmon skin. Yow! I wonder how it smells.
The gift shop is pretty good. Touristy, yes, and far more expensive than a street market, but not outrageously priced like a Western museum gift shop. I got a print and a couple of books for about $40.
All in all, I was at the museum for four and a half hours, and I was beat. I went slower than most visitors, but still only saw certain galleries in detail. But what a fabulous day! Lots of history, both living and sequestered behind glass.
Oh, and I ran into a guy I know from the display industry. It is getting creepy to recognize people in cities halfway across the world. That’s twice this trip (the first was seeing my father’s friend in the Tokyo airport).
The cab delivered me home safely, where I attempted to pay with a 100 RMB bill—somehow I had managed to wind up with only those in my wallet. The driver couldn’t break it, so the bellman had to run to the hotel desk and get change. I probably looked like some rich Occidental, even though I had effectively only tried to hand him about $15. I’m still getting over the fact that a 15-minute ride might only cost $4.
Back in my room, I am learning to work with a rather historical set of facilities. The toilet has already failed once (the water in the tank leaked away so that it couldn’t flush). The electricity is a little wonky—I am still baffled by lights that seem to go on or off only after much cajoling. And they don’t have switches! You have to control them with a flaky remote-control panel. The shower oscillates in temperature, encouraging you to be quick. The Internet connection is only available sometimes. And the heating system produces very dry air, such that I am getting nosebleeds. I am thinking of turning on the shower to generate some humidity.
Also, I am remembering that in China, non-smoking is a non-concept. My room smells quite heavily of cigarettes, especially in the evening when other patrons are smoking and it wafts through the ducts. This gives me a constant low-level headache, makes my eyes sting, and reduces my appetite. I realized at the museum that I was feeling really good, probably because I had been in clear air for many hours (or as clear as the air ever gets in Shanghai—at least it was non-cigarette air). [I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: if you smoke, quit. Every pore of my body screams “poison!” when I encounter the reek of cigarettes. If your pores don’t seem to do this, you’re not listening.]
My hotel supplies tourists with a little card that has the names of popular locations written in Chinese, so you can show it to the cab driver. (Crucially, it also includes the hotel name so you can get back!). This system actually works. Still, it feels weird to communicate with someone by showing them a piece of paper and pointing at some characters. Sort of dangerous, somehow.
First I went to the Jade Buddha Temple. This is a functioning Buddhist monastery that was restored in the early part of the 20th century and recently done up into a tourist attraction. However, it is mainly a tourist attraction for Chinese tourists-- there is very little English there except on the major signs. There are two famous jade Buddha statues there, as well as many wooden and stone statues of gods and mythical heroes.
You pay 10 RMB to get in and look around the courtyard, main chambers, and at the small reclining Buddha statue. The courtyard has several fires where you can light incense sticks and use them to pray. Inside a couple of large halls, where there are many god statues and elaborate painting/decorations, there are kneeling stools for praying or doing prostrations. This whole area is crowded with Chinese people bobbing up and down in prayer and waving incense intensely. They are as much a part of the place as the silent, awesome gods.
Much of the decoration is the intense gold and red often associated with Chinese art. Everywhere the eye falls there are little details: gargoyles, painted railings, bronze bells, carved doorways, and little platforms with handfuls of rice for the numerous sparrows flitting about. Now and then a shaven-headed monk walks by in golden robes, carrying his satchel with a single thermos of tea and some books.
The reclining Buddha is something I was glad I had read about ahead of time. The jade statue is about 3.5 feet long and beautifully shaped; it depicts the Buddha just after his enlightenment. But it sits in a room that is crammed with other statuary and mainly devoted to being a souvenir shop! Worse, there is a full-sized marble Buddha statue directly across from it. How many tourists have gazed at the large marble statue thinking it was the ancient relic? Apparently this small jade Buddha and the larger jade Buddha upstairs were made many centuries ago and have been preserved by monks and other devotees.
To go up and see the large jade Buddha, you have to pay another 10 RMB. It’s a one-way circuit through a few rooms of photos and other art, then into the main room. The photos show monks from the monastery with famous visitors. Most seem to be Chinese dignitaries, but I also recognized one familiar face: Nancy Reagan. There were also some very nice carved devotional objects.
The jade Buddha himself, a bit larger than life size, is seated in meditation about 20 feet from where you walk by. The statue is surrounded by decorations and altars, and the walls and ceiling of the room are covered with paintings and small nooks holding golden Buddha icons. Again, the visitors formed part of the scene, as many Chinese walked by with hands clasped in prayer, bowing their heads. The Buddha was gorgeous, depicted in a simple style. His carved, draped clothing was ordinary, with only a few bits of jewelry. He was slim and calmly solemn, rather than rotund and laughing boisterously. He looked peaceful and wise.
A table right in front of the statue had a couple bottles of what looked like tea and a sign showing the tea being poured into a bowl, along with some writing I couldn’t read. People were signaling to two women seated along the wall, and when they came over, the visitors would pay a fee and get a bottle of the liquid. They prayed with it for a while, then gave it back to the ladies, who would take it to the altar and pour it into a special chalice. (This must have had a drain below it because they poured several bottles in while I watched, and it didn’t overflow!). I wish I knew exactly what it was for, but clearly it was a way to offer a specific prayer.
Somehow I found it off-putting to have the exchange of money going on in both rooms with the ancient jade statues. The Chinese Buddhists seemed quite sincere— devout, even— and there was no explicit solicitation of funds, but nonetheless, it made me a little uncomfortable. I watched for a while, then continued along the path back outside.
I saw a sign for something called the Hall of Ten Thousand Buddhas. I followed some stairs up and happened upon an intriguing scene. The Hall turned out to look like a hall in a conference center, with lots of folding chairs and a stage. There seemed to be programs going on at certain times, but I couldn’t read any of the signs. And what I saw was lunchtime! There were little flocks of people sitting around with picnic lunches they had brought—steamed buns, fruit, slices of meat, jugs of soup, and of course many thermoses of black tea. The whole hall smelled of the same Chinese tea they serve in most American Chinese restaurants. Were they waiting for something to start? What? I have no idea what was going on, but it was certainly interesting to see them.
In general, I had the feeling that the other Jade Buddha Temple visitors (except the Westerners) knew a lot more than I did. Of course it helped that they could read the signs, but this was also clearly their home turf. (Then again, I feel like people at Christian churches know a lot more than I do, too!) Anyway, the version of Buddhism I am familiar with is much simpler, with fewer trappings, so it was really neat to see the elaborate figures and rituals.
Next, I stuck with the theme of Old China, but headed to the modern-looking Shanghai Museum. (Ah, a Western bathroom— I was waiting for that). The cab trick worked, and I was greeted by people flying kites in a large open area by the museum. Kite vendors tried to entice me to buy one. (In general, I was approached by people wanting money nearly continually when on the streets. They all call out the word “hello!” and smile very warmly if you meet their eyes. One man had only one leg, and he pointed at the missing one, grinning wildly, then held out his hand. I felt simultaneously moved and put upon, as well as rushed. I can’t act when I’m rushed. I didn’t give any money, something I feel a bit guilty about now).
The Shanghai Museum is fascinating. It has four floors filled with pretty large galleries, but I couldn’t help comparing it to the National Museum in Taipei, which is about the same size but is only showing 5% of the collection! Perhaps there is more in Beijing, but my impression is that Chiang Kai-Shek got away with a hell of a lot of valuables from the mainland. (I have heard, by the way, that almost everything in the museum was unearthed after 1960, meaning that he really got away with a lot. It’s a huge country, so I’m sure it was no problem to find four floors worth of precious art buried in the soil during the last 40 years, but still…).
I started at the top, with the jade galleries. Centuries and centuries of carved figurines, belt buckles, jewelry, little boxes, etc. At first the figures are fairly crude, but they rapidly evolve in sophistication, and then go through various stages of fashion. They began as items for nobility, then fell out of favor for a while due to political issues, then came back as popular items that filled both rich and middle-class houses.
The various motifs used on the jade were identified by standard names: animal mask, dragon, snake, phoenix, bird, clouds, grain, etc. After seeing many examples, I began to understand what qualities of the design determined how it was labeled, but in some cases, I still couldn’t see it, or why one motif had been chosen over another. (Some dragons really look like snakes, and sometimes I couldn’t identify the dragon at all in something labeled “cup with dragon design”).
The coins were interesting too. I hadn’t realized that China began using currency in the late Neolithic period, many centuries BC. At first the coins were spade- or sword-shaped and made of cast bronze. Later they changed into the familiar round-with-a-central-square-hole form. And then these were replaced with solid coins. Paper money was also used very early in China. One interesting section showed paper money that had been issued by foreign countries for use in China during the 19th century. Apparently it is a long tradition to have currency that you can only get once inside China!
The exhibit of paintings, scrolls, and calligraphy was gorgeous. It showed the development of many styles through the various dynasties. In the Song dynasty, there was a National Art Institute where artists trained and were supported, but later this was discontinued so that artists made a living by being retained in individual households.
There was an interesting lighting system in this section. The scrolls were kept in semidarkness until a person walked close to the glass case. Then a motion sensor turned on the light, sort of like those outdoor lights people get for their houses that turn on when people approach. This probably helped preserve the scrolls by limiting the number of photons that hit them.
In this section in particular I noticed that the museum guards often took a minute to look at the items on display. Normally museum guards look bored at best by all the aesthetic delights they are surrounded by. These ones seemed to notice the art and take an interest. It seemed surprising, which made me realize how unusual it is.
There was a section on seals—- the stamps used as signatures and markers of authenticity. They started out pretty simple, then got large and elaborate over time. Somehow, they didn’t grab me.
Next I saw the pottery. This put me into system overload, so I stopped trying to read the captions. There was too much history to absorb. As always, I am amazed by the long timespan of Chinese history: the first pieces are from about 9,000 BC. I saw all the usual stuff—- celadon plates, red-painted vases, underglaze, overglaze, the period when pure white was fashionable, the period when gaudy designs were fashionable, etc.
This section finished with a nice exhibit on the making of porcelain. It showed the various steps, like gathering the clay, mixing it with water, throwing it, and firing it (one type of kiln was called a “dragon kiln,” and was set into the side of a hill). I was reminded of an article I read about the development of porcelain in Europe, inspired by the lovely samples brought back from China during the early Renaissance. It turns out that Europe lacks the right type of clay to handle firing at the high temperatures needed to make fine porcelain, and it took more than a century of fiddling by alchemists and true chemists to add the right minerals to make porcelain possible.
The exhibit of bronze was similarly impressive and history-spanning. I liked the sets of bells that hung in the courtyards of mansions during the period around 600-400 BC. Also there were endless samples of “food vessels” resembling small cauldrons but perched on three legs. Clearly the Chinese knew early on that having three legs assures a stable footing. The one piece with four legs looked sadly out of place. I also marveled at the fancy wine vessels. Most had two prongs sticking up out of the edge, as if to hold a lid that wasn’t there. I never did figure out what they were for. Some people had bought audio guides (those things were you can listen to descriptions of some pieces), and I wondered if it might be on there. So I snagged a Caucasian woman to ask, but it turned out she only spoke Spanish!
There was some furniture too. Mostly it is from pretty late (the past few centuries), after people started sitting in chairs rather than on the floor. The joinery was interesting; metal nails weren’t used at the beginning, so they had complicated joints that held together on their own.
There was also an odd section entitled something like, “National Minority Arts and Crafts.” It was largely clothing and jewelry from the ethnic groups around the edge of China, sort of like we might show Native American items. There was stuff from Tibet, Mongolia, and, as might be expected, Taiwan. The most eye-catching piece for me was a jacket and pants made entirely from salmon skin. Yow! I wonder how it smells.
The gift shop is pretty good. Touristy, yes, and far more expensive than a street market, but not outrageously priced like a Western museum gift shop. I got a print and a couple of books for about $40.
All in all, I was at the museum for four and a half hours, and I was beat. I went slower than most visitors, but still only saw certain galleries in detail. But what a fabulous day! Lots of history, both living and sequestered behind glass.
Oh, and I ran into a guy I know from the display industry. It is getting creepy to recognize people in cities halfway across the world. That’s twice this trip (the first was seeing my father’s friend in the Tokyo airport).
The cab delivered me home safely, where I attempted to pay with a 100 RMB bill—somehow I had managed to wind up with only those in my wallet. The driver couldn’t break it, so the bellman had to run to the hotel desk and get change. I probably looked like some rich Occidental, even though I had effectively only tried to hand him about $15. I’m still getting over the fact that a 15-minute ride might only cost $4.
Back in my room, I am learning to work with a rather historical set of facilities. The toilet has already failed once (the water in the tank leaked away so that it couldn’t flush). The electricity is a little wonky—I am still baffled by lights that seem to go on or off only after much cajoling. And they don’t have switches! You have to control them with a flaky remote-control panel. The shower oscillates in temperature, encouraging you to be quick. The Internet connection is only available sometimes. And the heating system produces very dry air, such that I am getting nosebleeds. I am thinking of turning on the shower to generate some humidity.
Also, I am remembering that in China, non-smoking is a non-concept. My room smells quite heavily of cigarettes, especially in the evening when other patrons are smoking and it wafts through the ducts. This gives me a constant low-level headache, makes my eyes sting, and reduces my appetite. I realized at the museum that I was feeling really good, probably because I had been in clear air for many hours (or as clear as the air ever gets in Shanghai—at least it was non-cigarette air). [I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: if you smoke, quit. Every pore of my body screams “poison!” when I encounter the reek of cigarettes. If your pores don’t seem to do this, you’re not listening.]
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