China: Shanghai

Shanghai

Our boat sailed from Hong Kong to Shanghai and I came back from Xian to meet it in Shanghai.

Shanghai, like Hong Kong, is fabulous. A city with the principles of Feng Shui * guiding placement of buildings and structures, Shanghai reinvents the ancient Chinese city planning designs for open spaces and monumental buildings enhanced by flowing waterways. The beautiful colonial era “Bund” with European-style buildings along the south bank of the Huangpu River balanced against the skyscraper-crazed 20/21st century development just across the river on the north bank in Pudong are stunning examples of modern Chinese design at its best.

Shanghai Harbor

Giant skyscrapers

Our ship docked and positioned us across from Pudong. Each evening Shanghai gave us a show when the skyscrapers and iconic Oriental Pearl TV Tower are lit with neon and glittering reflective lights.  Oriental Pearl, the pagoda-like Jinmao Tower, and the Shanghai World Financial Centre, “the Bottle Opener,” stand tall above the rest of the city.  In Shanghai, the Chinese are crazed to house the highest buildings in the world.

Except for Japan who only allowed western influence to penetrate a small off shore island, all the countries we visited were touched by colonialism. Shanghai first opened up to Western influence in the mid 1800’s when China lost the Opium War to Great Britain.  Part of the city became a “British Concession” and after that was controlled by the Americans and the French.  The beautiful Bund area and a lot of the waterfront remained under colonial control for nearly a century. The buildings of the Bund strongly reflect the influence of Western architecture. We enjoyed walking along the Bund with hundreds of gregarious Chinese, an exquisite esplanade, with the gorgeous city on one side and beautiful waterway on the other. While all is well today in this prosperous city, unhappily, we were reminded that for a great number of years when this part of Shanghai was a foreign concession, the Chinese were not allowed to enjoy the benefits of the esplanade or even set foot into the financial buildings and shops of this area ---their homeland.

The Bund

Walking on the Bund

 
I spent most of my time in Shanghai looking at art in the wonderful Shanghai Museum and visiting artist’s galleries. The vibrant art community with the influence of centuries of great Chinese art and the wonderful Museum with its ancient bronze and jade collections were a highlight. The powerful history of art, creativity and scholarship in China is something I hope to continue to study -- most certainly it will draw me back to this fascinating and richly complex culture again and again.

Bronze, Shanghai Museum
As a symbol of China's ancient civilization and cultural heritage, bronze artifacts have been regarded as important treasures ever since the Shang and Zhou Dynasties. More than 400 pieces of exquisite bronzes are displayed.

Bronze wine vessel, or "Gong," with a bull's head, a small dragon on its central ridge and two little snakes behind the animal ears. It was decorated with phoenix patterns on the whole body. The principal phoenix pattern with a long and sinuous tail looks very large and graceful. This Gong was very distinctive in the late Shang dynasty due to its skillful and lively decoration using animal forms.

Bronze vessel at the Shanghai Museum.

Bodhisattva, Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618-907).

Thousand Buddhist Stele Stone, Northern Zhou Dynasty (A.D. 557-581).

Jar with Wucai design of fish and algae, Jingdezhen ware, Jiajing Reign (A.D. 1522-1566), Ming Dynasty.

Porcelain plate with dragon motif.

The Chinese regarded carved-jade objects as intrinsically valuable. They metaphorically equated jade with human virtues because of its hardness, durability and (moral) beauty.

The Western Zhou dynasty (11th century-771 B.C.) began a system of using jade as a status symbol. Jade was believed to be a link between humans and the gods and carried a special function to get rid of evil.

The Chinese used jade for tools but also for carved insignias and talismans probably related to ceremonial ritual.

Hong Kong, Xian, and Shanghai were just a small sampling, I am anxious to come back to this wonderful land of great art, scholarship, natural beauty and vibrant people. It would be good to learn Mandarin because only a very few people we met spoke English. I found the cities modern and thriving and clean and the people vibrant and seemingly very happy. If communism is restrictive, on the surface we could only see its affect in the tight control of public areas, the cleanliness of the cities and countryside and in the slick organizational structure of public life--- transportation and infrastructure.  But I have been studying the avante guarde art of China and Japan and have been reading interviews with artist/spokesperson, Ai Weiwei. Through these interviews we see the strangle hold of communism--politically, culturally and soulfully. It is also very apparent in contemporary Chinese art:  in Weiwei’s writings and interviews as well as the clever and very remarkable work of the Chinese Cynical Realists.  And, of course, we were awakened to widespread social injustice in the working conditions of the manufacturing  complex at Shenzen.

Ai Weiwei is my new hero. The great Chinese artist/ architect who designed among other things the famous Birdsnest in Beijing, has a reputation for speaking out against social injustice, communism and commercialism. His public actions, his life and art remind me of the important legacy of great Chinese Scholar Painters who centuries before made political statements and life choices that profoundly affected culture, politics and art in China and the world. Already penalized by the Communist government for his outspoken criticism, Ai Weiwei continues with great intelligence and guile to openly stand up for the Chinese people and their human rights. I was enthralled by a book Ai WeiWei Speaks that detailed a bit of his life and work. We need more Nelson Mandela’s, Desmond Tutu’s and Ai Weiwei’s in our new global society. 

Ai WeiWei

* Feng Shui is an ancient art and science developed over 3,000 years ago in China. It is a complex body of knowledge that reveals how to balance the energies of any given space to assure good fortune and the health for people inhabiting it.