4 May 2016 Wednesday 12:35 am Shanghai, China
But it is really Wednesday, Or maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s Monday-Tuesday – since I lost a day coming here from Ashland – ii’s all a blur. The flight was fine; the food was terrible. the plane was cold. Delta is not what is used to be. I was happily picked up at the airport, and my room was available. But I realized I needed to stay in Shanghai for another night – did not comprehend that until i arrived here, and it took most of the next day – Tuesday? Wednesday? to book the room for a second night. Do not query why it should take hours and hours to book a room for one additional night. Do not even ask. Or why when I got on the elevator to reach the twenty-third floor, the elevator stopped at the twenty -first. so after innumerable trys and doing the same thing in the second elevator, I found the stairs – that took awhile – and climbed the stairs and came out on the twenty-fifth floor Not. I went back down and staired to the twenty-third floor and, after all that, discovered with the help of a kind non-English speaking person that you have to slap the roomcard over a very special place in the elevator if you want to go beyond the twenty-first floor.
I knew that. Of course. A world traveler, yes, but I am slow to comprehend the nuances.
Traveling without fluency in the language is no problem. You just have to allow an extra day for everything you plan on doing.
But I did finally book a room – and a great room Great shower; clean, lovely cotton sheets and most comfortable bed and a great desk and good lighting and a flat screen TV that comes on the minute you put the room card in its slot – automatically turns on the flat screen TV, all the lights, the air conditioning, and I guess the hot water for tea.
Today – only now it is yesterday, Shanghai’s Wednesday took up a bit more of the morning than planned, while the rebooking for the second night of the room was confirmed. But confirmed it was, and out into a beautiful day, sunny and not too warm as yet and the bustle of Shanghai. But first to withdraw money. The first bank had ATMs that were not available to foreigners. The second bank did not take this foreigner’s card. The third bank would only let me withdraw 100 Qui RMB, but at least I could withdraw 100. But I had to wait for assistance from a n English speaking person, and after a long wait, i attempted matters myself. Then she came to the rescue and asked me why I only wanted 100 RMB. I could withdraw 500 and up to 2,000 on the same day. And she spoke English. Oh well.
I needed to take a photo of Southgate High School, the site of a school the Gambles had visited in 1908, located – where else, in the south area of Shanghai, but not so very far south these days. I had taken a photo earlier, but it had not turned out at all well, So I hailed a cab – none of the cab drivers speak English – and showed him the address in Kanji of Southgate School, which a very kind person had written for me in kanji -That is how you communicate with cab drivers. They all read kanji, but they do not understand fa oreigner’s attempt at Mandarin. Off we went to Southgate, but when we arrived, something was different, and he did not know what to do but he talked to two other interested bystanders in front of this different entrance to Southgate who told him what to do and then all three told me what to do and then finally the last two disappeared and returned with a rather chubby and amiable partially speaking Chinese lad who hinted at what to do and then we all found the other entrance and and the cab driver left and i took my photos and I eventually found another cab driver who brought me back to the hotel and left me in its outskirts and after a half an hour I found my way back to the hotel.
The cab drivers seldom bring you to the exact address you give them, which I can understand. So many one-way streets, and to reach an exact address can mean miles of circling, and they do not have tine for that. They have to pick up the next customer as soon as possible
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Southgate photo secured, I wanted to visit a museum or see the French Concession which the Gamble saw in Shanghai. Everyone knows about the French Concession in Shanghai. It emerged after the win of the Opium War by the British in 1848. The Europeans – the French, the British, some Americans – came in and built beautiful houses and eventually infused Shanghai with the remarkable prosperity she enjoyed until the Japanese destroyed it all, but everyone knows about the beautiful French and foreign concessions that even the current-day Communist government is attempting to preserve for the viewing of money-paying tourists such as myself that who come and circulate money in Shanghai just to see these lovely historic nineteenth-century areas and homes,
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But I did not have my English Shanghai guide book. I could not get through the Chinese firewall to download any English language information on Shanghai, and the hotel where I am stayong does not have real English speakers, and goodness knows, they would not – did not know – about the French Concession area. But – aha. At the MAC store, at the beautiful Apple seven-floors of Macs Apple store in the midst of a the Prada and Gucchi and incredibly expensive and explosively fashionable malls and over-the-edge high end retail stores 0 there at the Apple store, a bevy of highly educated English speaking young people, who know all sorts of things,because they are the kind of people Mac hires, would be.
So another taxi ride to the Apple store.Do not even think to go anywhere other than by taxi in Shanghai, even though the drivers only leave you in the vicinity of wheree you want to go. At least, it is in the vicinity, and Shanghai is sooooo big.
At the Apple store – lovely place – all white and clean and glass and stainless steel and spacious – an English speaker was produced. Smart, lovely young lady. Only been in Shanghai a week and three days on her new job, but a year inEngland after graduate work. But no, she never heard of the Opium War and 1848 nor of the French Concession. She called an English-speaking colleague. equally educated. Equally bright and amiable. No. Never heard of the French Concession. How would the Chinese translate French Concession? Do not know None of us ever figured that one out,
After calling the English speaking boyfriend of the second Mac worker, who called a another English-speaking person. Etc. ETc. I decided to see what I could ofShanghai anyway.
Tt was a lovely day, and all around were trees, tall trees and blue sky and happy people, and so I just started walking. It really did not matter where you walked in this area. it was all lovely, much like Paris, with many older buildings in this very upscale area, which somehow the Communists never managed to destroy.
Shanghai – in this part of town – wherever it was that i was in- has beautiful wide steets and wonderful tall trees and the boulevards are shaded and so many plantings and also parks.
I followed the road and passed the most over=the=top fashion shops. I think we are moving into another Baroque age- stuff on top of stuff. There is Eileen Fisher and after that there is infinite variety in color , embroidery, lace, frills, ruffles, overlays, decorative elements – something for every taste, but all very much overdone for my taste. All opulent and overblown and decadent, And people buying buying most of it. Even if they do not know about the French Concession.
I wandered on, and as I reached the slowing down of the fashion stores, I came into the food stores – Paris bakeries, and fried and all manner of fixing of all parts of what were living birds, fish, and animals. Perhaps you can see the encased in deep fried something the small open-beaked bird, sitting atop other closed-beak birds, all baked or whatever, along with the deep-friend chicken feet and various other parts of animals that Americans would never dream of eating, let alone looking at or discussing.
I came to a park named, in English – there was an English sign – the SQUARE PARK. And indeed, everything was square, but amidst the square aesthetic, lovely curving and wandering and circular paths and plots with plants. But all the bushes were cut square. Not an irregular twig jutting out anywhere. All bushes and plantings cut off to make ione flat, flat -topped square. The trees were not squared off, but anything less than six feet tall was absolutely flat and square. It went on for blocks, with smaller spaces and benches and pavilions arising on either side, – right in the heart of the City, The park not was not full of people. Not many people at all. Everyone was shopping, I guess.
Finall, very tired, I hailed a taxi, and amazingly, the woman cab driver dropped me right at the door, and flat on the bed and to sleep.
I keep looking for Marnie when I go out and come in.. ,
