These are just some of my favorite photos arranged in no particular order. Many of my photos in the first semester were from some of Shanghai's more touristy and more famous areas, like Pudong or Thames Town. That doesn't bother me too much, sometimes places are famous for a reason. Still, I do have some great photos from the less famous places, like the subway stop photo. To be honest though, I think the picture of East China Normal's Mao statue overlooking the Global Harbor Mall is the best photo I took all year.
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After I turned in my final final paper for the year one of my friends and I decided to take a trip to People's Park, the Bund, and Pudong to take some more photos before we leave. To be honest, while it is one of if not the most touristy district in Shanghai I actually quite like the Bund area. There is just something inherently interesting about the mixing of Old Shanghai and New Shanghai in the Bund area. Also, the Shanghai Municipal Government has markers on most of the historic buildings on the Bund telling you, in English and in Chinese, what the building was and why that thing was important. The Royal Canadian Navy apparently agrees with me since they had a very new looking ship docked at the People's Liberation Army Navy base located by the Bund. We then went over to the Pudong side of the river to take some more photos and get some dinner. We went to a Japanese place that, while empty, wasn't bad. They did seat us by the window since I guess they thought that an obvious foreigner (like myself) would drum up customers. We finally took some last pictures of Pudong at night before returning to campus.
Today a friend of mine and I went to the Rock Bund Art Museum to see an exhibit of art by Felix Gonzalez-Torres on gifting. It was very modern but actually quite interesting and interactive. Since the whole point of the exhibit was to discuss gifting, he actually gave you some of the art. You get a guide book, some candy, and a photo book containing three picture of seagulls. Other than the guide book (which is given to you with your ticket) the rest of the stuff is on the floor of the exhibit. If you want a photo book just go to the pile and pick one up. Hungry? Grab a candy, or two, or a handful, dosn't matter. While once pice of candy, the black lickerish was good the other pice wad the type of candy that am old lady has in her purse from 1882, I actually needed warm water to get the rapping off. The gifting thing was hard to get use to, it is so un MET and MOMA. It was an interesting experance though, and my friend and I definitely talked a lot about it.
\nWe then got an early dinner at a Hainanese (海南 ) hot pot place. The island Providence of Hainan is famous for coconut and chicken. We did try the coconut broth hot pot with chicken and it was very good. It wad a bit sweet but it wasn't that super sweet coconut shrimp taste. Finally, we finished up with a Shanghaiese cake that tasted almost French. Yesterday as part of the Global Business Project at ECNU I got to go to the Shanghai Bank Museum and stop by one of ICBCs management branches. The Museum itself was actually rather well put together. There were a good number of diaramas, electronics, and actual artifacts. The artifacts though might get stale if you arn't really into banknotes, which fortunately I am. The Museum did have a very modern and very Shanghai focus. They briefly mentioned the money shops of Northern China that represented the early Chinese banking system and they had one diorama of a pawn shop, perhaps the oldest and most universial form of lending. The story of the Bank Museum really starts post-Opium War with the, as the Chinese say, Unfair Treaty of Nanjing. A great deal of time was spent talking about HSBC, one of the major British banks founded in Shanghai, and the Imperial Bank of China, the first Chinese owned comerical bank, who were both based on the Bund in Shanghai. Furthermore, the also spent a good deal of time talking about the problems caused by the Nationalist's management of the financial system. I think this is an attempted dig at Taiwan, where the old Nationalist Republic of China still rules. Interesting everything post-Civil War was put into one section, both the Capatlist banking system of Deng Xiaoping and the Marxist banking system of Mao Zedong. The oddnesses of Mao's Marxist banks, or more properly bank since the People's Bank of China served as the one comercial bank, central bank, and Ministry of Finance at the time, was unmentioned even though they had a lot of artifacts form the early days of the People's Bank of China. The Museum also had a tempeory exhibit on triditional Chinese painting and calligraphy, with all the art shown having a running theme of frugality. We then walked to one of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China's (ICBC) management branches. Funnly enough for a day about banking, this walk took us past the meeting place of the first Congress of the Communist Party of China. When we arrived I found that the ICBC branch was nice, the employees we talked to were happy, and the frut provided was nice, but I also found that ICBC is obviously a Party controlled institution. When you first walk in the flag you see next to the reception desk is not the flag of the Chinese Nation, it is the Party's good old red hammer and sickle (☭☭☭) flag. There were also posters from the Party bairing the hammer and sickle in plane view of the reception area. Finally, the confrence room we were taken to had a Chinese state and the Party's flag on the podium. The meeting with the ICBC staff went well and they did give me my favorate Chinese fruit to take home who's name I am still not sure of. Overall, it was an interesting day of banking and comradeship.
Last night some friends on mine and I returned to Yuyuan Garden, the Bund, and East Nanjing Street. While I have been to the Bund before on this trip, it really comes alive at night when they light up all the buildings in Pudong.
While the Shanghai Peace Hotel (上海和平饭店) looks down right quaint now compared to the other buildings on the Bund, one of Shanghai's main drags, the Shanghai Peace Hotel still has an interesting history all its own. The Peace Hotel was built in what was then the Shanghai International Settlement, now the Bund, during the 1920s by Sir Victor Sassoon, a British supported Baghdadi Jew, as Sassoon House. With bases in Bombay, Hong Kong, and Shanghai the Sassoons were dubbed the "Rothschilds of the East" making a large part of their fortune in the then legal Opium Trade following the Opium Wars. While it may seem funny now looking a the modern skyline of Shanghai, the Peace Hotel was the largest building in the city. The Peace Hotel became a symbol of Shanghai, even though this symbolic status has been chipped away in recent years as the Peace Hotel was outclassed by larger and large buildings. Today, the Peace Hotel continues to operate as a hotel serving guests forma around China and the World, although now it is operating under the name the Fairmont Peace Hotel. |
AuthorI am a junior at Juniata College spending a year studying abroad at East China Normal University. Please feel free to join my on my journey to China and beyond. Archives
November 2021
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