French Concession
I’ve been home all day and although I only have a week left in SH, I told myself I’d stay indoors to catch up on the much-needed writing of the past week. What I managed to do today was flop around between my bed and couch – yet again – and do some light reading and studying. Not a bit of writing was achieved, even though I thought a lot about what I would write if I had the energy.
Now that I have had a few too many beers, I’ve given myself the task of writing half of what I had planned to write today before I allow myself to go to sleep.
And without further ado, the first of many entries:
The French Concession.
So, last Sunday, I set a very strenuous day for myself. I walked to the SH railway station and took the subway to Jing’an Temple stop. From there, I followed Huashan road to the residential block that houses the Propaganda Poster Museum in the basement of the fourth residential building. Tonight at dinner, I got Artur so excited about the posters and their fiscal importance to the world around us, that he will go with me tomorrow when I try to find out about having a showing of the posters in the US.
The French Concession is a section of town dedicated to the old Shanghai. The Shanghai of the colonial years when everything was about comfort and copying the French way of life. It is, indeed, a respite from the rest of town where everything is the hum and whir of building and moving and shaking. I loved walking down the tree-lined avenues and seeing the hints of French architecture from behind gated walls and hidden courtyards.
My next stop was the Shanghai Arts and Crafts museum. A good thirty minute walk east of the SH Propaganda Poster Museum. The A&C museum was housed in an old French officer’s abode and all four stories were chock-full of impressive Chinese craftsmanship. From jade carving to careful paper-cutting craftsmanship, every facet of Chinese artistry was represented. The basement floor was dedicated to selling wares, and a careful maze was planned out so that before leaving the museum, one had to see every little item that was up for sale. There were Chinese colorful silk lanterns, ethnic jewelry, painted glass bottles, knit-ware, embroidery, paper-cutting, silk painting, ceramics, jade name stamps and jewelry, ivory-etching, wood-carving, and I could have even had my name written on a grain of rice for a price.
I managed to make my way through the maze without feeling required to buy something, although there were less-fortunate visitors. The lantern-maker had a wonderful little speech perfectly prepared in English for just such an occasion and when I was leaving the basement, I heard a man pleading that he couldn’t possibly manage to get the lantern on the plane and have it stay intact through the flight, only to have the salesman shout, “New model folds up, easy for transportation by foreigner. No reason not to buy, you see?” to which his unwillingly customer replied, “Which one is the cheapest, then?”
After visiting the Arts and Crafts Museum, I made my way along another small street to the “Old China Hand Reading Room” – a small coffee and tea joint run by an Expat photographer. I ordered a pot of green tea and picked out a book in English called, “A morning in Shanghai” and read for a bit. The coffee shop had the ability of stopping time for a short while and I would have stayed until closing but I still had much to see around the French Concession before my dinner plans.
As I left The Old China Hand Reading Room, it was a quick jaunt to Taikang road, also known in Shanghai as a major arts area. However, at the time of my visit, the entire south side of the street was hidden behind the bamboo latticework of building refurbishing. I passed street vendors cooking snacks for the pre-evening meal and women throwing buckets of water in the street from washing hair or vegetables. I took a left and found the major antique market, also of the name Taikang and walked quickly through as it was obviously closing for the evening. Men were getting in their last round of Mahjong or cards and looked annoyed to see a potential customer. I walked through quickly as not to interrupt their game since there was no chance of me purchasing a huge chest of drawers from the pre-Mao era.
Back out on the street, I was starving and knew I was close to Fuxing Park, known for the clusters of old folk who mingle at dawn and dusk. It being close to dusk, I was excited by the prospect of seeing many of Shanghai’s older generations out and about. I entered the park and soon came across a vast expanse of elder Chinese under the big trees in the center of the part. Women practiced Tai Chi or sat in groups gossiping and staring hard at the groups of men sitting absorbed in games of Mahjong or cards. When I passed one group of men playing Goh, an excitable move must have just been made because men started slapping their thighs victoriously and pointing and shouting. When they saw me though, they quickly sobered up.
I walked through the park for a good thirty or forty minutes and then grudgingly made my way back into the reality of Shanghai to get home. I found myself out of the French Concession and missing it badly. I was hungry and suddenly thrown back into the hustle and bustle of Shanghai. Walking down the fancy Huaihai Lu, I found myself walking bedraggled among the most alluring and fancy of Shanghainese shoppers. I managed to quickly hide in the first subway station I found and quickly made it home where I sat for a good forty minutes with my feet up on the coffee table after an excruciating day of walking in the sun.
