All the World Loves a Shopping Mall

A view from my room!

Friday Night …

After my afternoon nap following my exploration of the Old City of Shanghai with its pungent aromas and bittersweet incongruities, I must admit that I did something unusual. After a week of Chinese cooking, some very good, some not so good, I gave in for a craving for some good Italian food. The hotel has an Italian restaurant with a good reputation. As I entered a friendly European, obviously Italian, greeted me with a mellifluous “Bona Sera” … I was seated and asked for a glass of Sangiovese and he suggested a delicious wine from Moltepulciano. I selected a very good insalata di patate for my starter course. The breads and relishes were delicious. For my main course, there was an exquisite Tagliolini Verdi with Shrimp and Zucchini. For desert, an espresso accompanied my cannelloni with a delicious mango custard. I guess it is obvious that I have a preference for Italian food. I do have a reservation this evening for a very good Chinese meal to end this journey.

After my dinner settled a bit, I headed out to Nanjing Street, which is the highlight of the traditional Shanghai shopping world. Based upon my experiences this last week, EVERY place is a shopping place. It appears that the Shanghaiers have nothing better to do than buy and sell things. The main part of the street is closed to traffic and the lights are legendary. So are the street urchins. It didn’t take more than a minute before I was accosted by a young man wanting to know if I wanted a massage or maybe a young boy. More than a handful of young women asked me to join them for coffee. I’ve never been so popular. After a while I discovered it was easier to just keep moving.

Many people were out strolling in the sub-zero night area and all the shop girls stood shivering attentively. The lucky ones were cooking hot things for the evening snacks. I reached the end of the strip and turned around for home, keeping the “lighthouse” in my sight. I wasn’t lost, it was just soothing to know where I was going to wind up: in a nice warm hotel room with the sheets turned down and maybe a message from a friend or relative on the sluggish e-mail log.

Saturday Morning …

As has been my custom this week, I awoke early, downed some fruit, an energy bar and some coffee and headed to the fitness center. A few hardy souls like myself were toiling on the machines of torture. I put in almost two hours, producing copious amounts of sweat, headed for a shower and then down for a full and varied breakfast, complete with those delicious Shanghai Dumplings they keep bringing me. After breakfast, I headed out with the camera, this time with an extra layer of clothes because it was supposed to be even colder than yesterday. I was heading towards People’s Square, but did so in a circuitous way. The main streets on the way were lower middle class but the side streets and the back alleys were the most scenic.

The traffic, both pedestrian and vehicular was intense. I discovered one of the specialized jobs in China, “The Traffic Assistant”, wearing an appropriate uniform and baseball cap and wielding the requisite whistle. Not all of the cars were happy with these people.

I arrived at the area of the main square and saw the Raffles Mall where every standard western store can be found. Inside the mall, many stories in height, the Musak featured Billie Holiday. I wonder who picks their music. By the way, that syncopatingly-challenged trio was playing jazz again this morning at breakfast. In the mall, they were showing King Kong, appropriately dubbed in Chinese right next to the Starbucks and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

There are millions of people walking around Shanghai. There is no end to them. They almost all seem to be in a hurry to buy or sell something. There weren’t too many people in People’s Square. I guess that’s because you can’t buy anything there. There were a few people in the park, but not many. Who would want to be in a park on freezing day like today when you could be warming yourself and the Chinese economy by buying something?

The views from the park of the many skyscrapers and new structures were phenomenal. So was the obvious smog. Not a handful of people walk the streets with their faces covered with masks. Of course all the rest have a cigarette in their mouths. Maybe not all.

I looked at Shanghai Museum but decided that I was in no mood to look at old stuff so I headed back towards Nanjing Street to see what it was like in the daytime. No lights but many more shoppers. For at least one fellow the shopping got too intense or maybe his wife was lost in one of the malls. Since it was daytime, I was only asked if I wanted a watch or something. The girls must be resting.

After finishing with Nanjing Street, probably forever, I wandered back towards the hotel, again via side streets and alleys. On one corner there was bustle with many official looking men with “INSPECT” on their tunics. They appeared to have “captured” a street person who had constructed a small cubicle out of an old table or something on a street corner. The band of mighty keepers of the public good dismantled the edifice and loaded its content onto an official looking truck, much to the amusement of the onlookers.

I headed back another side street and a door opened and a young woman tried to get my attention. “No thank you”, I said and headed back to the hotel. I guess you can get anything you want in Shanghai, though I’m not sure what the price will be.

Shortly, I will indulge myself with a sports massage at the spa in the hotel. All those hours standing in front of class, or staring into space on the treadmill, or wandering the streets of Shanghai have left me somewhat sore. Then tonight, there will be that final classy Chinese dinner. In the morning I will awaken, perhaps do a short workout, have breakfast and head out to Podung Airport for the long flights home. Fortunately, from this end we get the prevailing Westerlies that shorten the trip a bit. Also, the first leg to San Francisco is only 10 hours and the second leg about five hours. Still, it will be a twenty-four journey from East to West, heading over the poles along the Great Circle Route.

It has been an interesting journey. Thanks for listening. In a few days, check here, or at www.yermish.com/Shanghai for the postcards. Since I took over 750 pictures there should be at least a dozen worth looking at. It will be months before the book comes out. You can place your reservations now by writing me at ira@yermish.com

Oh, and remember, if you were expecting a souvenir, don’t hold your breath. It will take a while for the good pictures to get processed. I’m still only halfway through the Italy trip!

Cultural Disconnections

This morning on my way to the gym to put in an hour of sweat on the treadmill, I heard in the lobby (at 8:00 AM no less) a piano, clarinet and bass playing American Jazz. You could tell they weren’t American. There was no swing. Later, after my workout at breakfast, complete with Shanghai Dumplings the trio was no longer to be seen, rather the Musak played Dean Martin singing Volare … Something is wrong here.

I am off to the Old City this morning…

No harsh shadows in Shanghai. I awoke knowing that it was supposed to be a sunny day according to Accuweather.com. The sun was up but the haze and smog muted its glow. That will be good for pictures, even if it will be cold this morning.

Later in the afternoon …

It was an intense morning, made more so by the sub-zero temperatures. There is only so long that this man can walk around in the cold. After three hours of exploring back streets and markets I headed back to the hotel for a much needed nap.

The catchwords of the day were, “Hello, Hello! Would you like to buy Rolex Watch?” On every street corner in the Old City district a young man or woman would flash a card with pictures of all kinds of watches, luggage, you name it. This was clearly an organized endeavor as each had the same card. Every stall yelled out to this obvious rich westerner to hawk their wares. Was it the fancy zoom lens on my camera, or was it the Boston Marathon cap that gave me away from the rest of the local population? Beggars and happy children crowded the streets. Parents with little children made a point of having their children say “Hello!” to me even as I said “Nie Hao” in Chinese. Is this early occupational training?

The other obvious ruse was the lovely young woman who claimed to be an art student. “Would I come to see the exhibition of her and her fellow students’ works?” Since this happened three times in different parts of town I developed (pardon the pun) the answer that I was there to “take” pictures, not to buy them. That seemed to work to get them to say goodbye.

The proximity of this Old City and its rural life with the steel and glass high-rises emphasized the growing distance between the haves and the have-nots in this country. I wonder what Chairman Mao would have to say about all of this? From the Starbucks to McDonalds, KFC and a host of other Western enterprises, it is clear which direction China is facing.

The main area for tourists featured seemingly ancient buildings. These were stuffed to the gills with shops of all kinds, most of which featured over-priced stuff that we used to associate with “Made in China”. There is a formal garden that one can see for 30 Yuan (about $4) but I passed it up since there is nothing flowering of any interest at this time of the year. There were many Chinese and a few Western Tourists. On several occasions my services as photographer were called upon. It was the least that I could do. Those of you expecting souvenirs will have to wait for the pictures. As I mentioned before my bags are already overstuffed.

On a couple of occasions I witnessed police giving tickets to bicyclists. In one case the argument from the offending woman was hot and heavy, but it seemed that she was losing her argument as the officer continued to scold her about some infringement or other of the local traffic laws. What do she do? Yield the right of way to a pedestrian?

I wandered away from the obvious tourist trap area towards the lower rent districts and back alleys with more than enough local flavor and smells (some not so good, I’m afraid). In general, the streets were clean. The street cleaners with their ancient brooms were abundant. The sounds were happy and noisy, especially when you were in the way of a motorcyclist who forgot to read that manual about pedestrian right of way. Open-air markets abounded and given the cold weather, the meat and fish will stay fresh. I wandered into market with stall of all kinds of delicious looking fruits, vegetables, meat and fish. The giant eel were shiny and waiting to make some family or restaurant very happy.

In the din the juxtaposition of old and new was highlighted as a large white Lexus drove through the side streets and stopped nearby. From the passenger side came a tall beautiful Chinese woman dressed stylishly including high-heeled leather boots. Perhaps she needed some eel for her family’s dinner tonight.

There was laundry hanging everywhere. This seems to be a cultural landmark as it was noted in my guidebook. There was laundry hanging from places where it was not obvious that it was associated with some neighboring home. Every size and shape of laundry is hanging from wires, windows, doors, and light poles. I guess it will dry since it isn’t all that humid here as it was when I saw all the laundry hanging in the back alleys of Venice.

I snacked on a large Shanghai dumpling served for about a quarter by a nice looking young woman on the corner of one of the “fancier” shopping areas. It is amazing to me how many people were out selling on this cold winter day from their tiny shops open to the elements.

The cold finally got to me and though I had taken only about two hundred pictures I looked skyward to see the distinctive (and for my money ugly) topknot of the Westin and headed back. The elegant room was clean and welcoming. The clean white sheets did their magic for the afternoon nap as the sun sank quickly in the murky dusk sky behind the skyscrapers.

The Other Side of Town

I left the Galaxy Hotel at about 11:30 AM yesterday and we got in the cab and the taxi driver said he knew where the Westin Hotel was. We proceeded to head across town from the lower priced areas near the University towards the modern high-rise office towers in the center of city. As we got close the driver called on the phone to his office in obvious confusion. I interrupted him and pointed out on my map where it was and he was much happier. Fortunately, we weren't very far from the hotel.

The Westin is 4.5 stars and not 3 like the Galaxy and the difference in quality (and price) is greater than the numbers. Of course they didn't have my on-line PRE-PAID reservation, but that was "No Problem". See a pattern here? I went up to my room and was greeted with an elegant, modern 19th floor room with a wonderful view of the Old City and some of the high rises. A “complimentary” bowl of fruit awaited me. I also noted a chrome and glass end table that is in my living room. How nice to give me a touch from home! It shows they have good taste. My over-packed luggage arrived shortly and of course the bellhop was expecting a tip in this country that you are not supposed to tip in!

I setup my computer so that I could get the information about the reservation and it turned out that the Internet connection was not quite as good as the Galaxy Hotel which meant that I couldn’t use all of the tricks to get around the Great Firewall of China that I could at the Galaxy Hotel, but I was still able to get the reservation information. I proceeded down to the Registration Desk and was informed that they had contacted Expedia.com to determine that I did have my reservation.

I then unpacked my suitcase, loaded up the camera and headed out towards the Huangpu River and the Bund, the strip along the river where the old colonial offices in grand European style were. I took many pictures along the way, but it was cold. Why didn’t Saint Joseph’s send me here in May? I wasn’t alone with my camera. Everyone was taking pictures, especially with the background of the Pearl of the Orient Tower behind them. Every 100 yards was a little stand with photographers who would take the requisite tourist picture with the small person in front of the far away famous site.

The wind was blowing and it was cold. I continued up the Bund along the “park” area by the River. In the room there was a card from Runners World Magazine with a running course from the hotel along this road. One must be really crazy to run these streets and sidewalks. I’ll stick to the 4.5 star gym in the hotel.

After a bit I turned down off of the riverside walk towards Nanjing Street, which is the famous shopping district in Shanghai. I didn’t get as far along this road as I wanted because I was getting very cold and there were a few snowflakes (or was that frozen pollution). I wandered down some side streets and was greeted by people selling socks and wallets and whatever. Also, a couple of times I was greeted by men who wanted to engage me and become my friend. I wonder what they had in mind? The people here are very friendly, but I could sense these “gentlemen” were too friendly, though there was one man who seemed genuinely interested in talking about teaching.

I took lots of pictures that show the new riches and the old realities. I am certain that the once I get home and have a decent connection it will be reasonable to post them as well as my messages.

After walking for a couple of hours, I headed back to the hotel that was easy to find because of its garish rooftop adornment. The buffet dinner was much better (and you guessed it, much more expensive) than the Galaxy Hotel. But I am worth it! My goal was to return to the room, process a few of the pictures for this post and then get to sleep. Wrong. I could barely keep my eyes open, so I headed into the lovely bed, pressed the remote control light switches by the bed and was asleep instantly.

I awoke at about 5:00 AM to write these words before heading down to the gym, to a certain deliciously expensive breakfast and then off for a cold day of picture taking. The sun will be shining and I will wear an extra layer.

First Post from Shanghai

I have just finished one and a half days of my course at Donghua University in Shanghai. There are three days left in the class and then three more days for sightseeing, but I have the afternoon off for New Year's Day and I think I've caught up with the missing sleep and it is drizzly and not particularly walking and picture-taking friendly. My computer is programmed with two clocks, one for local Shanghai time (13 hours ahead) and one for Eastern Standard Time. That helps me to figure out where and when I am. I've got the Internet working well enough so that RadioParadise.com is working on the computer while I compose this. The Internet has been problematical at best (See the Great Firewall of China below). Even with the problems, one wonders how people traveled before the Internet.

The trip started without much of a hitch. It was a pleasure at the airport since I flew Business Class. Given the conditions where we are staying near the University, I would guess that none of the past faculty who taught here would make the trip again without that upgrade. I am ahead of myself. The flight to Chicago got off to a slow start because of problems loading backage, but they made up the time and the connection at O'Hare went smoothly. The flight from Chicago to Shanghai left on time. I sat next to a woman from Belgium who works for Black and Decker in their Information Technology area. She was with a group from her firm doing software (Yes, SAP for those who are in the know) at one of their factories somewhere in China. She wasn't very talkative which was a shame because we had fourteen and a half hours to share the friendly skies of United. They were quite friendly. The primary flight attendant in our cabin was one of the nicest I've seen in a long time and I told her so. The food for us in the privledged section wasn't all that bad. It is amazing that those planes can hold enough fuel to fly that long.

I arrived at the new Pudong Shanghai airport on time after twenty-four hours of restless travel. The airport was clean and mostly empty which made it most interesting that it took nearly an hour for the bags to come off of the flight. When I finally got my bags and made my way out through their multi-phased customs I was supposed to be met by a student from Donghua University. There were lots of signs for arriving passengers, some in Chinese, some in various qualities of English, but none that even looked like YERMISH. After hanging around for another fifteen minutes, I got a cab for the half hour and not expensive cab ride to my hotel. The funniest thing for me was the first clearly recognizable sign was for Hooters, a version of which appears here. The highway was wide and modern. Most signs were in Chinese and English. The drive was through much of the industrial areas around Shanghai. As we approached the city I got confused as we crossed a bridge into the city. For some reason, I thought the hotel was in a different part of town. When we got into the city the traffic was horrendous and we slowed to a crawl which was a problem as I was in serious need of a bathroom. Finally, we got off the elevated road and there was the hotel, all shiney and welcome. They had my reservation and I was quickly escorted up to my room which of course was a smoking room.

I went down to the hotel desk and asked if I could get a room on a non-smoking floor. The reception clerk was apologetic. They were doing repairs on the non-smoking floor. It took about a day of keeping the window open but it's not a problem any more. Nothing special but serviceable and it does have the good fortune of being across the road from them University. However, it is far away from the interesting center of town. Originally, I was planning on staying here for three more days but I will move to a different hotel for those days despite the higher cost. This hotel is really not for American tourists or college professors who would like to think they weren't tourists.

Shortly after I checked in I got a call from one of the students that is assisting in the program and she apologized that the student who was supposed to pick me up was late and arrived after I left.

The view from my window that first evening wasn't very spectacular, just that elevated highway and some of the many tall buildings, most of which are pretty ugly. I figured out how to get connected onto the Internet, got out messages saying I was alive and went to bed. It was a long day. Sleep was moderately successful. I got up early, went down for the buffet breakfast which catered to Western, Chinese and Japanese guests adequately. It didn't matter as long as there was coffee and that was surprisingly good. I started wandering the streets but first I had to take a picture of that view, but in the daylight. You can see the traffic and the smog. Not very exciting.

This part of town is like most parts of town, mostly involved with business. There are new buildings sprouting around old buildings and lots of laundry hanging outside. I wandered the modern roads but did find a couple older back roads which were much more photogenic. There will be some good images from this trip like this one.

Of course it didn't take long before I found a very high fashion mall within a block complete with fancy designer stores. The classes are clearly evident in this part of town as you can see from this view of top floor of that mall. I did see many interesting and contrasting places. Clearly, the juxtapositions of the old and the new, the rich and the poor are a grand theme in China. I'm sure I will see much more of this when I move to the old part of town for the end of the visit.

On the venture I found the most important thing, a good market in the Friendship Mall which is not quite as high class as the first mall that I found. I will be out of snacks in short order.

At 1:00 PM, Cythia (really Jian Ye), the student who is the assistant at the program met me at the hotel and we proceeded across the street to Donghua University which once was the Textile Institute of China. It is a typical campus with old and new buildings, mostly bland and in need of repair.

The tall building in this picture is white tile and up close it really is quite in need of repair. She led me to the newish Glorious Sun School of Management. In the lobby were placques with pictures of J.M. Keynes, Peter Drucker, and other famous names in Management. Only their names were in English. We went to the third floor classroom which was small but newly equiped. I made it a point to get there a day early to test the facilities. This is China and I know things aren't quite up to our standards. The classroom podium computer was loaded with Windows XP, all in Chinese. I was glad that I brought my PowerBook. There was a wireless system in the classroom that the Apple found immediately, and I was able to get out onto the Internet, but it was treacherously slow. Fortunately, I could survive without it, but it was annoying. Then I discovered the REAL problem, "The Great Firewall of China".

The Great Firewall of China

When I setup my laptop in my room in the hotel I was able to make the standard AOL connection and was even able to connect to my old standby Radioparadise.com, but a couple of my standard sites, e.g., www.philly.com didn't seem to load. I didn't think very much about it until I was in the classroom and started to do some playing and found that their connection was even slower than a dialup line. I got a real kick out of that because on my way to class I noted the sign at the right. This was a Microsoft and Cisco training center yet their connections were really bad and unreliable. I closed up my equipment and went back to my hotel to see if I could get to the bottom of this issue.

After careful experimentation I noticed that I could read www.nytimes.com online but not www.philly.com which made no sense at all. However, if I opened the browser inside of AOL I could get to www.philly.com. I tried to use Google to see what was going on, but Google came up in Chinese. Finally I opened up Google from inside of AOL and searched for "Chinese Internet Filtering" and it all came back to me. It seems that to protect the morals of the Chinese people, the government has installed major firewalls to block all sites that they deem inappropriate. There was a wonderful article in wikipedia.org about the situation and about how the sites were selected. Interestingly enough, they had chosen not to block www.nytimes.com. One of the most interesting things I discovered was that all of the blogspot sites, like this one were blocked, though you could edit the blog, you couldn't see it! I had wondered why my Chinese students had written to me that they couldn't see this site but could see www.yermish.com. I guess I haven't posted any pornography in those pictures. So the American government lets us go to any sites we want and watches us do it and the Chinese just don't let you go there. It turns out there are lots of ways, like AOL, to get around the Great Firewall of China, but none of the students admitted that they knew about them. I wonder if there were any "party" members in the class. It reminded me of the Choral Arts trip to Poland before end of the cold war when members of the orchestra that we were traveled with were careful about what they said in front of whom. Remember, Orwell had it right: "All Animals are created equal, except that some animals are more equal than others."

The final incident in this interesting issue was when I tried to read www.nytimes.com this morning and it didn't come up. I hopped over to the browser in AOL and opened it and sure enough, on the first page was an article critical of China. I guess they are very dilligent in Beijing.

I finished preparing for my class, had dinner at the hotel and crashed.

On Saturday, December 31st, I met the class of thirty young Dongua University Chinese students in their late twenties. A couple of students were older. They were very friendly and welcoming. I did the appropriate apologies about not knowing all of the customs and would do my best to communicate. I told them that I would understand if they didn't get all of my jokes. Most of my jokes go over the heads of my English speaking students as well. We got underway and they were moderately attentive. I was concerned from reports of prior teachers that students were reluctant to speak English. I planned a structure of the course where the students would use Saint Joseph's on-line system. Unfortunately, that was unavailable with the technological problems. Finally, in the afternoon, I gave them an assignment to review a case and identify some of the issues in the case. Immediately, they went into their teams and the din started.

It was quite an experience to watch just about all of the students hovering over their laptops and pouring over the textbook to address the issues in the case. Then, I was taken aback by the competition of the teams to make their presentations first. No, their English is not all that good, but they seemed very willing to take the risks. The results of their work were excellent and I could see why some experts predict that China will outpace the United States, possibly in my lifetime. These are not the elite students of China, more like our regular MBA students at Saint Joseph's, but they showed unbelievable energy and enthusiasm. Though I had some trepidation about this course, I have none now. It is hard work explaining things several ways so that all of the students will understand but I can see progress already. Tomorrow, they will work on a case study about the Boston Red Sox and how they used information technology to build the 2004 World Series Championship team. I have a feeling they will get a great deal out of that material.

Oh, I forgot one thing ... If you look carefully at the Donghua University website you will find a picture of a nice rubber running track. I knew it was there and after checking out the classroom I wandered around the campus and found the track, but there was a problem. There was this high iron fence around it. Students were playing basketball, soccer and tennis on facilities all around the model track, but no one was on the track. Interesting. So, I've done all of my running on the treadmill in the hotel because running out on those streets with drivers who all seem to want to solve China's population problem would be less than a good idea, not to mention the smog.