On Sunday, we continued our efforts at checking out Shanghai’s highlights. We wandered over to the Shanghai Museum of Science and Technology, which had been described as interesting and striking. Striking, yes — the building is beautiful and would be quite at home as the upscale home of a huge multinational corporation. The huge courtyard was amusing in the number of sellers of kitsch that were collected together, selling kites, small Matchbox style cars, hair ribbons, etc., etc. One older man was using a large paintbrush to gracefully draw Chinese characters in water on the dark grey courtyard. A child would squeal in delight at whatever he was drawing, and in the heat, the sign would quickly evaporate as the man would patiently draw another one.
Inside the museum, we solved Bill’s question of “where are all the school-aged children in Shanghai?” — all 8 million of them had chosen to visit the museum that day with their doting parents and grandparents. There were three floors of exhibits — all of which were being subjected to a constant barrage of squealing, screaming, hyperactive kids. A large model of a DNA strand appeared to be a perfect climbing wall. Kids were ducking under, around and over barriers to quickly glance at an exhibit before rabbiting off to the next wonder. I stood at one exhibit and watched a robot solve a Rubic’s cube — a child would take a cube, determinedly mix it up with many twists, and then place the cube in a small frame, where the robot would pick it up, examine it, and start to twist it. 57 seconds to solve — bang! It was pretty cool — assuming, of course, that I had been allowed to watch it. Several times, from my perch at the side of the exhibit, parents holding kids up would try to elbow me out of the way (I did say try, didn’t I? There are advantages to being the tallest person in the room 🙂 ) and would glare at me when I stood my ground. Hey, I paid admission, too, guy. Unfortunately many of the exhibits were broken — I was most disappointed that a laser exhibit that etched 3-D designs into lucite blocks was down. Out of five or six computer pattern-matching exhibits, only one worked, and so on. I got a kick out of the English subtitles on many of the exhibits, especially the one that discussed the Human Genome Project. “Brilliant Chinese scientists successfully contributed 1% to this effort!” Okaaay . . . good to know . . .
There was a human body exhibit that had nicely gross examples of preserved organs that had been inflicted with various types of diseases, and a theater that had a giant mock-up of a caveman reclining in the middle of the theater-in-the-round, with parts of his skin removed to illustrate how the muscle and joints worked. A god-line Chinese voice boomed from the speakers as the model obediently moved its arms and legs — the kids screeching in delight, even though all of them probably owned battery-powered toy dogs that did more tricks than this caveman. I could only take a few minutes of this one — the kids running around, and the parents pretending that I was invisible as they tried to deposit their children in the exact same space I was standing.
One of the genetic exhibits was on Mendel, and it was possibly the most surreal. His “lab” was pictured as a cross between a old farmhouse kitchen and the inside of a cathedral, with the mock-stained-glass windows back-lit and painted with a depiction of Jesus with a comb-over, stubbly beard and a somewhat perplexed look on His face. He wasn’t the only one. 🙂
Wandering through the ecology exhibit, we were admonished that ecological disasters were common in “so-called developed counties,” with exhibits on Chernobyl (downplayed to a small plaque), the Exxon Valdez, etc. Apparently China has never had an ecological mishap, or if so, it wasn’t mentioned.
The final area was a huge activity playground where kids ran around riding a “bike” on a “tightrope”, riding a spin-cycle, etc. The noise level was truly astonishing. We wandered around a bit, watched a fake tornado, and then decided that we had seen enough. As we were leaving, we wandered through a shopping area (or was it a flea market? Hard to tell . . .) by the training station that serves the Museum, and Bill got to experience a full-out assault by eager stall merchants. He was looking a little desperate at the constant hawking of wares, and we eased out, not needing a Chinese fan or flip-flops or any of a thousand other little doo-dads.
The next day, Bill mentioned that he might like to have a suit made while we are here in Shanghai. So we started looking for a tailor, and, just for fun, we went to the Shanghai South Bund Soft-Weaving Fabric Conmpany. Imagine three stories of a department store, but each floor is crammed with about 100 small 10 feet wide by 20 ft. deep stalls, stacked with bolts and bolts of cloth for suits, shirts, dresses, skirts, etc., etc. Fabric, as far as the eye can see. And each stall has someone who is more than happy to help you. “You want suit?!” “I make you nice suit? Shirt?” “We have nice suit here!” “Fix you nice suit!” After the third floor, we both confessed sensory overload, and started slowing making our way down and out . . . but my eye kept getting drawn to beautiful bolts of lovely, shimmery, silk and thinking, “Ohhh, that would make a really pretty skirt . . . ” Now tha we have the first dizzying onslaught out of the way, we can plan our attack.
The next day, I visited a camera shop. Yeah, well, this is a camera shop sorta like the Farmers Market is a fruit stand. Again, three or four floors, all with booths hawking different camera wares — lots of lenses (although the prices don’t seem to be any less than the States), lots of filters, lots of cases, lots of . . . everything. There was even one floor with antique cameras, which was fun to look at. I was trying to find a polarizing filter for my new camera, but apparently there’s a problem with the size, which is a bit wonky. I frustrated several stall owners who weren’t able to sell me anything, but I did splurge $18 on a nice camera case.
We’ve settle into a bit of routine now that classes are well underway. You still catch your breath from the heat when you step outside, but I’ve taken to carrying my “parasol” with me during the day (i.e., my folding umbrella). About 1/3 of the women do (none of the men, interestingly enough). It does keep you from toppling over from heatstroke, and I have a red dotted-Swiss patterned umbrella with a flirty tiny ruffle around the edge. I could almost wish for one of those elegant Edwardian lace numbers, but it would look ridiculous with shorts and sandals. 🙂
The Cornfield Diaries East (FAR East) 