Shanghai March 5 - 7, 2007

Shanghai

We are at the turnaround point in this odyssey. After Shanghai, we go south and west and we regain all the hours we lost in getting here. Just so you don’t think this cruise is balmy and sunny and all times, we are experiencing cold rain at 40 degrees Fahrenheit with a 20 degree wind chill factor. In fact if it rains tomorrow it may come down as snow. California eat your heart out. Last night when we arrived we had to personally present our passports to Chinese custom officials ensconced in the ship’s performance theater. It was late so six of us went to the observation lounge and watched the brilliantly displayed colored lights from the buildings on both the Bund side of the Huangpu River and the opposite Pudong side, the financial district. As if not enough, a radiation of rockets and fire works light the sky in celebration of the Lantern festival that signified the end of the Chinese new year. We are now in the year of the Golden Pig, which means “much prosperity”. Shang hai means up the river from the sea. This last decade burst of building, was to rival the splendor and financial success of Hong Kong. The latter was a British colony until China asked for it back in 1997. Although we do not arrive in Hong Kong until March 9th, let me tell you the story of Hong Kong. In the 1880s China tolerated British, French, and German and United States businesses on the Bund section of Shanghai on the Huangpu River. China told the British that they were self-sufficient and did not needed to bring any increased trade in from the West. The frustrated British traders then met in some exclusive club in London and devised the following plan. British traders would buy opium cheaply from India where the East India Company ran the country. They then gave it away to people in the streets and at local shops. Remember when the cigarette companies gave away the cigarettes to soldiers during World War II and to us on airline flights? Within a few years, China’s populace was lacing their workday with opium smoking breaks in quiet smoke filled dens. The Chinese were referred to as the “sleepy people”. Then, addicted to opium, their self sufficient infrastructure began to crumble. Chinese leaders tried to fight: and the first and second opium wars took place. It did not stop the inflow of opium and the Chinese capitulated. The tradeoff was: no more opium to enter China and the British could have the island of Hong Kong as their colony from which mutual trading would be transacted. So much for the benefits of capitalism and free trade! Now, on to tourism. Today we bused to the well-preserved ancient water town Zoujinjiao, the Venice of the Shanghai provinces. Canals run between homes and businesses. The Great North Street is too narrow for cars, but is filled with eager purchasers of tasty foods and a wonderful array of artifacts. It was a bitter cold, so we bundled up with hats, gloves and the heavy jackets Regent gave us as World cruisers. We saw the working of an 18th century Post Office and learned the Chinese had a postal system as far back and as 200 B.C. Remember, they had invented gunpowder and the compass by 600 A.D. We then learned how peasants planted, harvested and processed rice at a 250-year-old mill site, now the Rice Museum. We visited the Ma family home that rivals in painting, furniture and gardens, the beauty of the rooms and grounds of the Forbidden City in Beijing. In groups of six we boarded hand rowed boats to travel a section of the canals that are laced with weeping willows and also lanterns from the oriental holiday festivals. As we were quite famished they took us to a lovely bustling restaurant, that presented at least 20 courses of food from battered shrimp to sweet and sour fish, presented with it’s head and tail. I feasted on Hairy Crab, a local delicacy. Dessert consisted of sections of a fruit that must be a hybrid between a pear and apple that was both succulent and sweet.

Tonight it was a session with acrobats at the Shanghai Center Theater. Before hand we had room service for a bite of supper: chef salad for Barb; prosciutto and melon, BLT, and a bourbon pecan pie with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce for, Guess who. What a life! We bussed to the theater Hall which is a geodesic globe 20 stories high in which the staging of the acts occurred at all levels.(I think Jim is exaggerating a little!) These acts occurred with a Cirque de Soliel like presentation and aura through this newly created show in this new dome. The show began with a young man coming out in a small boat with his young female assistant pushing it along with a long pole. A canal-like setting was created by projections onto the huge backdrop walls. To a dramatic buildup of music, he placed a barrel-like tube on the deck of the boat and then proceeded to balance on a series of three trays, each separated by four clear water glasses. He then was carefully thrown a series of small bowls. He then put these on an outstretched leg. First one, then two, then three. Each time, tossing them together thru the air into a single bowl he was balancing on his head. He then similarly tossed a cup into the bowls and then a teaspoon into that cup! Acrobats then flew dangerously from trapezes and others swung from huge ribbons of cloth in the various poses of intimacy. Lastly, a huge enclosed metal mesh cage was dropped from the ceiling. One by one motor cyclists in ancient colorful warrior costumes entered and drove in dangerous weaving circles up and around in this globe-like cage, until there were eight. No one could sit still watching this stupendous undertaking by these noisy speedy demons. Enough excitement, its shopping day tomorrow.

I have tried several times to add pictures to this, but its not working-altho there are some to follow. Barb