Here China's best are on display, I can almost see the skyline through this thickening cloud of egos (is this a city of angels or demons?)
Today was an entirely different day in Shanghai.
We woke up around the normal time that we wake up here, maybe 7:00 AM, and got ready. We were out the door before 8:00 AM, and walked to the nearest subway stop. We took the subway to the middle of Shanghai, a place called The People's Square. And from there we started walking.
The first place that we walked was the Jing An Temple (the Temple of Tranquility and Peace). It was built during the Three Kingdoms Era in 247 A.D. but it was much like any other temple I ever went to in Taiwan, except you had to pay to get in. We got there just as a group of Japanese tourists got there, and I had a lot of people take pictures of me, and a few ask if I would get in pictures with them. I'm a huge star in Japan.
After going to the temple we walked back to The People's Square and walked from there to the 'Bund'. This is where a Chinese history lesson might be helpful in understanding the layout of Shanghai. c. 1820-1830 Great Britain was facing a major economic crisis, as was most of Europe. The problem was they all wanted goods from China, namely: silk, spices, and in Great Britain's case tea. The reason that this was a problem is the Chinese had no need for any goods that the Westerners had to offer, so they required that these Western nations pay for their products in silver. European nations were quickly running out of money and were looking for anything that they could sell to China to offset the trade deficit. Britain found their solution in opium, which they grew in India and exported to China via Canton (Guangzhou, right by Hong Kong). When the Chinese tried to stop the British from importing opium into China, the British decided to uphold their right to smuggle these drugs with force. The result was the Opium War (1839-1842). The Opium War ended with the Chinese losing and signing the Treaty of Nanjing. This treaty not only gave the British (and consequentially all other Western powers) the right to continue to import whatever they wanted into China, it also required the Chinese to open ports besides Canton to Western trade. One of those ports was Shanghai, and so the British and French both built semi-cities within Shanghai for their citizens to live in when they came to trade in Shanghai.
The 'Bund' (if you forgot, I mentioned it at the start of the last paragraph) is the British concession. The buildings were all built by the British, and have western architecture and decor. It was pretty cool, especially since Pudong (the famous futuristic part of Shanghai that you always see pictures of) is right across the Huangpu river.
After walking along the Bund, we made our way over to the Yuyuan Gardens and Old City Bazaar. The gardens were originally built in 1559 AD, but the city surrounding it had been around long before that. Of course today everything has been refurbished, and there is a McDonald's inside the Yuyuan Gardens. The side streets all around the old city area alternate between streets where vendors sell knick knacks for tourists and streets where the poor people of Shanghai live. It made it interesting wandering around that area for a while.
After lunch and a little rest inside a restaurant we made our way over to the French concession, where the French built post Treaty of Nanjing (technically post Treaty of Whampoa, which was the French version of the Treaty of Nanjing/Bogue). It had a much different feel to it than the Bund did. The streets were wide, they were lined with trees, traffic was sparse, and the entire area was dotted with coffee shops, cafes, and art stores. When you got off the main streets the alley ways were narrow and winding, but still clean, and still full of coffee shops and art stores.
By the end of our day of touring I had taken another 160 pictures. That makes over 300 in the past two days alone.
From there we made our way back to the People's Square one last time, where I would meet up with my other roommate. While waiting for my other roommate to arrive I was sitting at the exit of the subway station when a security guard came out for a cigarette break. He saw me sitting there and nodded, so I went over and started talking to him. I ended up having a 30 minute conversation with him, and finding out all sorts of cool things about him. That will be my next post on my other blog. While talking with the security guard another person stopped and waited by the side. When the guard left to go back on duty, this man started talking to me. He said that he was walking by and heard me speaking Chinese and was amazed, he'd never heard a white person who spoke Chinese with such fluency he said, and he was curious and wanted to meet me. The two of us ended up talking for another half an hour and I found out that he lives only about 5 minutes from our apartment in Nanjing, that he was here in Shanghai today visiting as well. He gave me his number and said that he'd be more than happy to show me the sights in Nanjing or just spend some time hanging out if I'd like.
When my roommate made it there we headed out and he showed me a shopping mall nearby (I know that Courtney is going to love to hear this), it is 6 floors, and the entire shopping mall just sells rip off brand name clothes, watches, phones, or anything else that you could think of.
To end the long day we headed to the Adult Session of District Conference. Elder Oaks is here, as well as my old Mission President, Elder Perkins (now of the Asia Area Presidency and 1st Quorum of the Seventy). Now I need to get to bed, I've got a lot of meetings to go to tomorrow, and I still will be spending the night sleeping on the tile floor.
We woke up around the normal time that we wake up here, maybe 7:00 AM, and got ready. We were out the door before 8:00 AM, and walked to the nearest subway stop. We took the subway to the middle of Shanghai, a place called The People's Square. And from there we started walking.
The first place that we walked was the Jing An Temple (the Temple of Tranquility and Peace). It was built during the Three Kingdoms Era in 247 A.D. but it was much like any other temple I ever went to in Taiwan, except you had to pay to get in. We got there just as a group of Japanese tourists got there, and I had a lot of people take pictures of me, and a few ask if I would get in pictures with them. I'm a huge star in Japan.
After going to the temple we walked back to The People's Square and walked from there to the 'Bund'. This is where a Chinese history lesson might be helpful in understanding the layout of Shanghai. c. 1820-1830 Great Britain was facing a major economic crisis, as was most of Europe. The problem was they all wanted goods from China, namely: silk, spices, and in Great Britain's case tea. The reason that this was a problem is the Chinese had no need for any goods that the Westerners had to offer, so they required that these Western nations pay for their products in silver. European nations were quickly running out of money and were looking for anything that they could sell to China to offset the trade deficit. Britain found their solution in opium, which they grew in India and exported to China via Canton (Guangzhou, right by Hong Kong). When the Chinese tried to stop the British from importing opium into China, the British decided to uphold their right to smuggle these drugs with force. The result was the Opium War (1839-1842). The Opium War ended with the Chinese losing and signing the Treaty of Nanjing. This treaty not only gave the British (and consequentially all other Western powers) the right to continue to import whatever they wanted into China, it also required the Chinese to open ports besides Canton to Western trade. One of those ports was Shanghai, and so the British and French both built semi-cities within Shanghai for their citizens to live in when they came to trade in Shanghai.
The 'Bund' (if you forgot, I mentioned it at the start of the last paragraph) is the British concession. The buildings were all built by the British, and have western architecture and decor. It was pretty cool, especially since Pudong (the famous futuristic part of Shanghai that you always see pictures of) is right across the Huangpu river.
After walking along the Bund, we made our way over to the Yuyuan Gardens and Old City Bazaar. The gardens were originally built in 1559 AD, but the city surrounding it had been around long before that. Of course today everything has been refurbished, and there is a McDonald's inside the Yuyuan Gardens. The side streets all around the old city area alternate between streets where vendors sell knick knacks for tourists and streets where the poor people of Shanghai live. It made it interesting wandering around that area for a while.
After lunch and a little rest inside a restaurant we made our way over to the French concession, where the French built post Treaty of Nanjing (technically post Treaty of Whampoa, which was the French version of the Treaty of Nanjing/Bogue). It had a much different feel to it than the Bund did. The streets were wide, they were lined with trees, traffic was sparse, and the entire area was dotted with coffee shops, cafes, and art stores. When you got off the main streets the alley ways were narrow and winding, but still clean, and still full of coffee shops and art stores.
By the end of our day of touring I had taken another 160 pictures. That makes over 300 in the past two days alone.
From there we made our way back to the People's Square one last time, where I would meet up with my other roommate. While waiting for my other roommate to arrive I was sitting at the exit of the subway station when a security guard came out for a cigarette break. He saw me sitting there and nodded, so I went over and started talking to him. I ended up having a 30 minute conversation with him, and finding out all sorts of cool things about him. That will be my next post on my other blog. While talking with the security guard another person stopped and waited by the side. When the guard left to go back on duty, this man started talking to me. He said that he was walking by and heard me speaking Chinese and was amazed, he'd never heard a white person who spoke Chinese with such fluency he said, and he was curious and wanted to meet me. The two of us ended up talking for another half an hour and I found out that he lives only about 5 minutes from our apartment in Nanjing, that he was here in Shanghai today visiting as well. He gave me his number and said that he'd be more than happy to show me the sights in Nanjing or just spend some time hanging out if I'd like.
When my roommate made it there we headed out and he showed me a shopping mall nearby (I know that Courtney is going to love to hear this), it is 6 floors, and the entire shopping mall just sells rip off brand name clothes, watches, phones, or anything else that you could think of.
To end the long day we headed to the Adult Session of District Conference. Elder Oaks is here, as well as my old Mission President, Elder Perkins (now of the Asia Area Presidency and 1st Quorum of the Seventy). Now I need to get to bed, I've got a lot of meetings to go to tomorrow, and I still will be spending the night sleeping on the tile floor.
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