Shanghai - 17 April 2009
When we got to the train station in Hang Zhou we were the only two ‘Westerners’ it seemed. We had to take a photo (!)… just as ‘hilarious’ was the fact that the departure board saying ‘Shanghai’ was written all in Chinese and if it wasn’t for the train number and 11:07 departure time in standard numbers too, we would have never known what train was departing when. As it happens, because there was a big gap between departures, we just followed the crowds when everybody got up.
I think we were in standard class as it wasn’t as posh as the one I’d taken last time (with carpets and paintings on the wall). But at least it left bang on time and arrived bang on time. Max speed was 169km/h but by next year they will have built a brand new track with levitation magnets and the speed achieved on such lines will be up to 420km/h (half of what a plane can do !!!). So instead of taking 12 hours to go from Shanghai to Beijing, it will only take 4 hours, and commuting time from the airport to downtown Shanghai will shrink to 8 minutes I seem to recall. Quite impressive.
Our new guide was quite young, quite tall, and, according to Nathalie, ‘quite gay’. I can never tell but she was adamant J The poor chap was worried as there’d been severe restriction access to the platforms… then our car broke down and we had to get a new driver and car… then Nathalie & I needed to get on-line urgently to book our aisle seats as close to the ‘24H before departure’ as possible but the business centre of the nearest hotel was ‘closed for lunch’ so he had to get help… then we got to our lunch break and his face was a picture when I dropped in passing the ‘bombshell’ that I was ‘vegetarian’…he turned to Nathalie in a panic and said ‘how about you?’… and sighed a big sigh of relief when she said she could eat meat -- you could guess the pre-paid set meals were not designed with vegetarians in mind. Poor chap, it was going to be one of these days.
Our first stop was the beautifully Yuyuan garden of the old town. They used to be privately owned and featured some lovely temples, ponds with the compulsory goldfish and would have been a truly relaxing spot and a green oasis in this bustling city but for the fact that it was packed with tourists.
Shanghai, believe it or not, only experienced a massive boom fairly recently…. Only as little far back as 1840 it was just a fishing village and it expanded because of the opium trade… today, it has a 18-20 million population that increases to 25 million during business hours as many commute from outside. The population density is so high that most people have to share flats or facilities. Space is a luxury here and our guide said that when he lived in a flat with shared facilities, he would often have to queue in the morning to use the toilets, and then queue to have a wash, etc. In fact, space is so scarce that most people in China are simply used to having no privacy at all. Students can share a small dorm between 8 of them and have to dress and undress in front of one another… parents have to make love in front of their children, and there is nothing offensive about bodily functions either because nothing is shameful it seems. I’m sure that in a way it must be quite freeing, but for anyone who’s not used to being this liberal, it’s quite a shock and something that we simply cannot imagine. How can anyone feel ‘romantic’ when one is being watched? It just boggles the mind for us. It goes totally against our ‘instincts’. Made me realise just how much what makes us cringe or not cringe is totally cultural and not primeval.
We then walked around the old town which is the gem of Shanghai and totally exquisite. Delicately carved buildings that left us in total awe… and yet, our guide said that when Shanghai ‘exploded’ population wise, bull-dozers knocked down entire streets of such beautiful old buildings to make room for tower blocks. Only a fraction of what once was remained and it really sounds criminal to think that so much more has disappeared forever. I could have wept.
Shanghai, as you would expect, is incredibly polluted but we had the perfect day when we were there, with blue skies and bright sunshine. It also seems to have more beautiful modern buildings than Beijing. At night, it is certainly much more atmospheric with beautiful lights coming on at the top or on the side of many buildings (rainbow effects, etc).
The Bund area was being renovated for the 2020 World Exhibition unfortunately, otherwise, we could have enjoyed a stroll there. We heard they will plant back the flowers that were once on display on the waterfront and had been uprooted to make more room for another lane. So, if you do visit Shanghai, make it 2011 and it should be perfect :)
Nathalie had forgotten to recharge her video battery unfortunately, and had run out of disc space ('can't get the staff these days') so we don’t really have any videos of the old town but I took lots of photos to make up for it. In fact, I was impressed with myself as I was able to play with my exposure settings to get just the correct picture that would really show how it was – you just could not use a flash, you’d have totally ruined the ambiance.
My main disappointment is that the beautiful square I so loved (with the pond in the middle, by the oldest tea house in Shanghai) was totally spoilt by banners advertising the Tea Season (Spring being the best harvest of all for top quality). So they had stalls all over selling fresh tea and the banners were in bright yellow and green when the wood was red/brown and decorated white… it totally clashed visually. I was absolutely gutted… I had certainly not banked on that and you know how utterly fussy I am when it comes to such matters !!! We were also being constantly pestered by people wanting to sell us bags, etc. Our guide explained that due to rifling corruption at the top, to set up a business in a proper shop can cost up to $120,000 equivalent, whereas in Europe it might be 1/4 of that. Therefore, people have no option to set up stalls or try and sell things 1:1 to avoid these astronomical fees.
Our guide had advised us to come back to the old town at night as it becomes magical and though we were really tired by 5pm, we did make an effort and went back, and sure enough, at around 6.45pm, when it starts to get dusky, they turn on all these little lights that you never knew were there, and it highlights all the structures and shapes of the buildings of the old town. It was a real ‘wow’ moment… like Disney but real :)
We were also taken to a silk factory and though we hate tourist traps I told Nathalie that to see silk in the making was so interesting that she shouldn’t miss on the chance to check it out. She sighed ‘but I know they’re bound to want to sell me something and I’m broke!’… still, we went and sure enough, she fell in love and bought a beautiful gold duvet cover for her Lombok four- poster bed (women can be so predictable, hey?).
They had displays of the moth that lay eggs and then as they turn into worms, they make cocoons and they explained there were 2 types, the one with 1 worm in it, and another with twin worms in it. They use the 1 worm cocoon for duvet covers and silk garments but use the twin cocoons for padding the inside of quilts. They showed us how they put the cocoon in water where it’s easier to stretch on a small wooden arch and then a few minutes later, it is moved onto a much larger arch to stretch it further. The silk is then left to drip dry. The next step is for 4 women to stand on each side of one bed, and place the silk pocket in the middle and pull on the fibre so that it matches the length and width of the bed. They will repeat the process 72-250 times, depending on the duvet quality that’s needed. The fibre doesn’t break, oddly enough, it just stretches. It is also better than duck feathers because they don’t end up in one pack on the side but are evenly stretched. Silk is also able to keep us cool on a hot day but warm on a cool day. It doesn’t burn as easily either, etc. They did say that they can get ‘1km’ of thread out of a good cocoon. We argued that we’d heard 3 days earlier that it was up to 5KMS, the guy smiled and said it was definitely not true… drat. It would have sounded really good as a trivia question otherwise…
We then went into a room that was a showcase of beautiful paintings done with embroidery. Flowers, birds, fish, pandas, Angora cats, tigers, lions, people… and most stunning of all: dogs. People had brought pictures of their pets and they had printed the photo on silk and matched every hair of the dogs with a silk thread. It was just the most exquisite portrait you could have wished for. The dogs’ ear seemed to move in the wind and the portrait seemed ‘alive’… as silk changes colour if you move it from left to right. Just as amazing was the fact that the portraits were placed on frames that spin round so that you could see that it was equally perfect recto or verso. No knots to be seen anywhere. HOW do they do it I just have no idea… Nathalie & I were just in awe. It almost moved me to tears…and I really do mean that... to think that we have something so utterly creative about us made me realise I was, indeed, created in the image of THE Top Artist up there. It spoke volumes to me, as a Christian person.
Our guide explained that the first 'wealthy' immigrants to move into China were the French and they left behind the 'French Concession quarter' which has some of the nicest houses in Shanghai. If anyone stays there, you just know they have the best quality houses and something really nicely designed inside. After that, the Brits and the Americans moved in and after that, the Japanese but their buildings were very mediocre and anyone who stays there is not going to have a good quality of life (thin walls, thin roof, shared facilities -- and it's where our guide had been staying for a year. No privacy basically). He showed us the Japanese quarters and you could tell that the houses were completely run down. The side facing the main street was 'nicer' as the government felt they shouldn't let on just how bad they are and had them all repainted, but if you could find a side opening from a back street, you could tell the facilities were dire with the main sink in a courtyard, etc. Nothing like what you'd expect right in the middle of Shanghai. It was like going back 100 years in 10 seconds. Quite bizarre.
At 7pm it was time for us to try and find a cab to go to meet our Chinese/French couple (I'd met them in Palau just 3 months earlier, as fate had it). By then we knew that hailing a cab was useless as someone was always going to beat us to it, so we just stood by the side of the road and hoped that a cab would pull up right where we were to let someone else off. It worked... we only waited 5 minutes. Phew. By then we'd also relaxed about personal safety and had stopped dreading kidnapping plots, etc. We had the name of the restaurant and street written in Chinese, we showed it to the cab driver who nodded and we just had to assume all was well and that we would indeed end up in the right place ! :)
I hardly knew this couple as I'd only spent one day with them but it turned out they were really interesting and we had the most wonderful time. She had started learning Chinese in France at the age of 13, over 20 years ago, when no one was doing this (fate or what??) and then took 2/3 of a degree in Chinese law !!! IN Chinese. However, she did say that the written word is so complex that she still struggles to read it, 20 years on. She first came to China, all on her own, at 19 (pretty impressive) and went blank when she landed... unable to ask for directions, etc. She said she had to get on a train to go somewhere but had missed her direct connection and so had to change and stay overnight in the middle of a place that wasn't even on a map. She asked where the nearest hotel was, she was told 'no hotel here, only dorms'. She then asked where the nearest bathroom was hoping for a decent shower and was directed to the 'public house'. She said that she had the biggest shock of her life when she opened the door and found one big room with shower heads all around, no curtain to hide behind and dozens of women washing each other, completely naked, from 9 to 95. She said that there she was, very French, prim and proper, brought up to be quite prude, hiding behind a towel that got soaked in 5 minutes as water was going in all directions and when she realised nobody cared at all, she dropped the towel and just got on with it. She said that strangely enough, she actually found the experience quite beautiful and thought provoking because in Europe women are taught to believe that when you get to the point when your breasts are drooping and drying out it's so ugly that you can't possibly show any 'private bit' off and yet over there there was no concept of beauty vs ugliness or anything like that. It was just a social occasion like any other and everybody saw past the body shapes. Not one critical eye - which women in the West are so quick to do, especially towards other women ('has she got more cellulite than I have?', etc).
All in all we had a really fascinating evening and they were both very charming and seemed so suited. Though they did say they went through a rough patch when they had children as they clashed on the best way to bring them up as the two cultures are worlds apart when it comes to upbringing.
They had both travelled extensively as they earn far more than the average (he is a partner in a law firm and she set up her own business re-intellectual property for foreign companies who want to get into the Chinese market + they live in a house in the French concession quarter too which says it all over there) and she told me that the most beautiful places in the world that she has ever seen were all in China.
She mainly loved the Yellow Mountains (only 1H by plane from Shanghai) and Xinjiang, in the West. She said the Yellow Mountains were thin high mountains with tiny temples at the top and looked just like the famous paintings, totally stunning -- I then realised to my horror that I'd made a huge mistake by going to the Stone Forest as I actually meant to go THERE !!! ahhhh... (didn't I just say 'can't get the staff these days', applies to me too, ooops).
Xinjiang she said was more rugged, very green on one side, very dry on another, at the border of 6 countries and the skies are so blue and the scenery just breathtakingly beautiful. However, it can go from 20C to -20C as soon as the sun goes down so you need thick coats for the night (that they sell you at the border for $18, ex-army coats). They slept in a tent once in a national park, and they were taken to this tent and when she lifted the blanket she said a few rats squattered around, ahhhhhh.... and it was SO cold at night that she said she was literally shaking. However, she reckons it was still worth it !!! As Nathalie & I heard this and looked seriously horrified she said that you can no longer stay overnight in the national park anyway, so you'd get a hut not so high up now. But she warned us that the food was absolutely disgusting, mainly lard and fat and mostly meaty. She said it was really a struggle to eat it so we may need to come over with quite a few muesli bars in our suitcases !!!
And you thought I was brave? Not that brave. However, she made it sound so magical and unique that it is tempting in a slightly masochist kind of way... maybe in another 5 years when tourism over there has boomed a bit more. She said a few French tours are already running there but it's still relatively unknown and totally unspoilt.
We also discussed working conditions and I was stunned to find out that annual leave only became compulsory in China last year, starting with 5 days of paid leave in the 2nd year (you get nothing at all the first year !). She joked that her husband was quite tough and stuck to this with his own employees but being French, she was more leniant and gives the 5 days from year 1 to hers and then adds 3 days as of year 2, etc. Up to now, people were allowed to have time off, but at their own costs basically. No wonder most didn't take more than two weeks off per year.
We went to have dinner in a beautiful Spanish restaurant called El Willy, on Dong Hu Lu street and it was very popular with Westerners. Food was superb and SUCH a welcome relief for Nathalie. She was SO excited. It was quite expensive though (it came to £25 a head with drinks), so double what I'd spend in the UK basically but as it was our last night, so we felt we'd go with a bang... Originally we were going to go to the famous Lost Heaven, 38 Gaoyou Lu, Xuhui, nr Fuxing Xi Lu, but it was fully booked. Maybe next time? She reckoned the ambiance there is absolutely wonderful.
Outside that, we had the usual conversation with our guide about the Chinese thinking that 'white is beautiful' and us thinking that 'white is sickly and tanned is healthy'. We told him that in the West we sell self-tanning lotion and he looked seriously shocked as if we'd willingly chosen to spoil the gift of natural whiteness... it was almost cute... another told us that when he took tours abroad, he could always tell where his female tourists were because they'd the only ones who, on a hot day, would hide under umbrellas !
When we got back to our hotel Shanghai looked really nice, and we had a superb view from our hotel window.
Still bright sunshine when we left the next day and when we got to the airport, we found a post office there (our last chance to buy stamps for postcards) but... wait for it: they had none left. Shock and horror. We had to give the guy the cash and he issued us a receipt promising that "he'd buy the stamps later". We looked seriously suspicious. Our guide said 'it's ok, he works for the government, he's honest'... and strangely, this made us even more uneasy as it seemed like a contradiction in terms ! :) I told Nathalie 'I think we should mail our postcards from the UK if we want to have the slightest hope of our friends and family getting them at all' but she plain refused saying it's not the same. So, if you don't get your postcard, blame her - and corruption. She sent 25 but I only wrote 5 as I'm personally convinced I've wasted my time. We'll see...
We found cigarettes at 90p a pack in their Duty Free section so smokers would be happy here, we used the internet for an hour (surprisingly reasonable at just 10Y for an hour !! it could be 30Y for 15mins in a 5* hotel) and then flew off on time... but BA's "on demand" entertainment system had broken down so we had to make do with 1/5 of the usual selection. We didn't get much sleep on the plane either. Food was disgusting too and gave me a nasty stomach upset.
I got home at around 7pm (by the time we got our suitcases, etc. - mine was still the last one !!) and I managed to stay awake till 9pm and then just brain crashed. And I mean brain crashed... as in: dead to the world... I woke up 14 hours later. Unbelievable. I still don't know if it was the feel of my nice soft bed that made my body relax so much more or catching up on lack of sleep, but it did me good. I was still a bit dopey on the Sunday, managed to sleep another 9 hours straight Sunday night (amazingly) but was still not quite 'with it' at work (no energy to talk much) but slept another 9H straight on Monday night and by Tuesday I was back to normal. Phew. Nathalie took a lot longer to recover as she kept waking up at 4am.
The next exotic adventure we'll share will be Peru & Argentina (28 Aug - 7 Sept 09) but before that we'll also go to Chamonix with our parents mid-June (most of my foreign friends have been to the French alps, but we haven't !). Making up for lost time as kids... we figured that at least our parents would understand the menus ok there ! :)
Till next time...
When we got to the train station in Hang Zhou we were the only two ‘Westerners’ it seemed. We had to take a photo (!)… just as ‘hilarious’ was the fact that the departure board saying ‘Shanghai’ was written all in Chinese and if it wasn’t for the train number and 11:07 departure time in standard numbers too, we would have never known what train was departing when. As it happens, because there was a big gap between departures, we just followed the crowds when everybody got up.
I think we were in standard class as it wasn’t as posh as the one I’d taken last time (with carpets and paintings on the wall). But at least it left bang on time and arrived bang on time. Max speed was 169km/h but by next year they will have built a brand new track with levitation magnets and the speed achieved on such lines will be up to 420km/h (half of what a plane can do !!!). So instead of taking 12 hours to go from Shanghai to Beijing, it will only take 4 hours, and commuting time from the airport to downtown Shanghai will shrink to 8 minutes I seem to recall. Quite impressive.
Our new guide was quite young, quite tall, and, according to Nathalie, ‘quite gay’. I can never tell but she was adamant J The poor chap was worried as there’d been severe restriction access to the platforms… then our car broke down and we had to get a new driver and car… then Nathalie & I needed to get on-line urgently to book our aisle seats as close to the ‘24H before departure’ as possible but the business centre of the nearest hotel was ‘closed for lunch’ so he had to get help… then we got to our lunch break and his face was a picture when I dropped in passing the ‘bombshell’ that I was ‘vegetarian’…he turned to Nathalie in a panic and said ‘how about you?’… and sighed a big sigh of relief when she said she could eat meat -- you could guess the pre-paid set meals were not designed with vegetarians in mind. Poor chap, it was going to be one of these days.
Our first stop was the beautifully Yuyuan garden of the old town. They used to be privately owned and featured some lovely temples, ponds with the compulsory goldfish and would have been a truly relaxing spot and a green oasis in this bustling city but for the fact that it was packed with tourists.
Shanghai, believe it or not, only experienced a massive boom fairly recently…. Only as little far back as 1840 it was just a fishing village and it expanded because of the opium trade… today, it has a 18-20 million population that increases to 25 million during business hours as many commute from outside. The population density is so high that most people have to share flats or facilities. Space is a luxury here and our guide said that when he lived in a flat with shared facilities, he would often have to queue in the morning to use the toilets, and then queue to have a wash, etc. In fact, space is so scarce that most people in China are simply used to having no privacy at all. Students can share a small dorm between 8 of them and have to dress and undress in front of one another… parents have to make love in front of their children, and there is nothing offensive about bodily functions either because nothing is shameful it seems. I’m sure that in a way it must be quite freeing, but for anyone who’s not used to being this liberal, it’s quite a shock and something that we simply cannot imagine. How can anyone feel ‘romantic’ when one is being watched? It just boggles the mind for us. It goes totally against our ‘instincts’. Made me realise just how much what makes us cringe or not cringe is totally cultural and not primeval.
We then walked around the old town which is the gem of Shanghai and totally exquisite. Delicately carved buildings that left us in total awe… and yet, our guide said that when Shanghai ‘exploded’ population wise, bull-dozers knocked down entire streets of such beautiful old buildings to make room for tower blocks. Only a fraction of what once was remained and it really sounds criminal to think that so much more has disappeared forever. I could have wept.
Shanghai, as you would expect, is incredibly polluted but we had the perfect day when we were there, with blue skies and bright sunshine. It also seems to have more beautiful modern buildings than Beijing. At night, it is certainly much more atmospheric with beautiful lights coming on at the top or on the side of many buildings (rainbow effects, etc).
The Bund area was being renovated for the 2020 World Exhibition unfortunately, otherwise, we could have enjoyed a stroll there. We heard they will plant back the flowers that were once on display on the waterfront and had been uprooted to make more room for another lane. So, if you do visit Shanghai, make it 2011 and it should be perfect :)
Nathalie had forgotten to recharge her video battery unfortunately, and had run out of disc space ('can't get the staff these days') so we don’t really have any videos of the old town but I took lots of photos to make up for it. In fact, I was impressed with myself as I was able to play with my exposure settings to get just the correct picture that would really show how it was – you just could not use a flash, you’d have totally ruined the ambiance.
My main disappointment is that the beautiful square I so loved (with the pond in the middle, by the oldest tea house in Shanghai) was totally spoilt by banners advertising the Tea Season (Spring being the best harvest of all for top quality). So they had stalls all over selling fresh tea and the banners were in bright yellow and green when the wood was red/brown and decorated white… it totally clashed visually. I was absolutely gutted… I had certainly not banked on that and you know how utterly fussy I am when it comes to such matters !!! We were also being constantly pestered by people wanting to sell us bags, etc. Our guide explained that due to rifling corruption at the top, to set up a business in a proper shop can cost up to $120,000 equivalent, whereas in Europe it might be 1/4 of that. Therefore, people have no option to set up stalls or try and sell things 1:1 to avoid these astronomical fees.
Our guide had advised us to come back to the old town at night as it becomes magical and though we were really tired by 5pm, we did make an effort and went back, and sure enough, at around 6.45pm, when it starts to get dusky, they turn on all these little lights that you never knew were there, and it highlights all the structures and shapes of the buildings of the old town. It was a real ‘wow’ moment… like Disney but real :)
We were also taken to a silk factory and though we hate tourist traps I told Nathalie that to see silk in the making was so interesting that she shouldn’t miss on the chance to check it out. She sighed ‘but I know they’re bound to want to sell me something and I’m broke!’… still, we went and sure enough, she fell in love and bought a beautiful gold duvet cover for her Lombok four- poster bed (women can be so predictable, hey?).
They had displays of the moth that lay eggs and then as they turn into worms, they make cocoons and they explained there were 2 types, the one with 1 worm in it, and another with twin worms in it. They use the 1 worm cocoon for duvet covers and silk garments but use the twin cocoons for padding the inside of quilts. They showed us how they put the cocoon in water where it’s easier to stretch on a small wooden arch and then a few minutes later, it is moved onto a much larger arch to stretch it further. The silk is then left to drip dry. The next step is for 4 women to stand on each side of one bed, and place the silk pocket in the middle and pull on the fibre so that it matches the length and width of the bed. They will repeat the process 72-250 times, depending on the duvet quality that’s needed. The fibre doesn’t break, oddly enough, it just stretches. It is also better than duck feathers because they don’t end up in one pack on the side but are evenly stretched. Silk is also able to keep us cool on a hot day but warm on a cool day. It doesn’t burn as easily either, etc. They did say that they can get ‘1km’ of thread out of a good cocoon. We argued that we’d heard 3 days earlier that it was up to 5KMS, the guy smiled and said it was definitely not true… drat. It would have sounded really good as a trivia question otherwise…
We then went into a room that was a showcase of beautiful paintings done with embroidery. Flowers, birds, fish, pandas, Angora cats, tigers, lions, people… and most stunning of all: dogs. People had brought pictures of their pets and they had printed the photo on silk and matched every hair of the dogs with a silk thread. It was just the most exquisite portrait you could have wished for. The dogs’ ear seemed to move in the wind and the portrait seemed ‘alive’… as silk changes colour if you move it from left to right. Just as amazing was the fact that the portraits were placed on frames that spin round so that you could see that it was equally perfect recto or verso. No knots to be seen anywhere. HOW do they do it I just have no idea… Nathalie & I were just in awe. It almost moved me to tears…and I really do mean that... to think that we have something so utterly creative about us made me realise I was, indeed, created in the image of THE Top Artist up there. It spoke volumes to me, as a Christian person.
Our guide explained that the first 'wealthy' immigrants to move into China were the French and they left behind the 'French Concession quarter' which has some of the nicest houses in Shanghai. If anyone stays there, you just know they have the best quality houses and something really nicely designed inside. After that, the Brits and the Americans moved in and after that, the Japanese but their buildings were very mediocre and anyone who stays there is not going to have a good quality of life (thin walls, thin roof, shared facilities -- and it's where our guide had been staying for a year. No privacy basically). He showed us the Japanese quarters and you could tell that the houses were completely run down. The side facing the main street was 'nicer' as the government felt they shouldn't let on just how bad they are and had them all repainted, but if you could find a side opening from a back street, you could tell the facilities were dire with the main sink in a courtyard, etc. Nothing like what you'd expect right in the middle of Shanghai. It was like going back 100 years in 10 seconds. Quite bizarre.
At 7pm it was time for us to try and find a cab to go to meet our Chinese/French couple (I'd met them in Palau just 3 months earlier, as fate had it). By then we knew that hailing a cab was useless as someone was always going to beat us to it, so we just stood by the side of the road and hoped that a cab would pull up right where we were to let someone else off. It worked... we only waited 5 minutes. Phew. By then we'd also relaxed about personal safety and had stopped dreading kidnapping plots, etc. We had the name of the restaurant and street written in Chinese, we showed it to the cab driver who nodded and we just had to assume all was well and that we would indeed end up in the right place ! :)
I hardly knew this couple as I'd only spent one day with them but it turned out they were really interesting and we had the most wonderful time. She had started learning Chinese in France at the age of 13, over 20 years ago, when no one was doing this (fate or what??) and then took 2/3 of a degree in Chinese law !!! IN Chinese. However, she did say that the written word is so complex that she still struggles to read it, 20 years on. She first came to China, all on her own, at 19 (pretty impressive) and went blank when she landed... unable to ask for directions, etc. She said she had to get on a train to go somewhere but had missed her direct connection and so had to change and stay overnight in the middle of a place that wasn't even on a map. She asked where the nearest hotel was, she was told 'no hotel here, only dorms'. She then asked where the nearest bathroom was hoping for a decent shower and was directed to the 'public house'. She said that she had the biggest shock of her life when she opened the door and found one big room with shower heads all around, no curtain to hide behind and dozens of women washing each other, completely naked, from 9 to 95. She said that there she was, very French, prim and proper, brought up to be quite prude, hiding behind a towel that got soaked in 5 minutes as water was going in all directions and when she realised nobody cared at all, she dropped the towel and just got on with it. She said that strangely enough, she actually found the experience quite beautiful and thought provoking because in Europe women are taught to believe that when you get to the point when your breasts are drooping and drying out it's so ugly that you can't possibly show any 'private bit' off and yet over there there was no concept of beauty vs ugliness or anything like that. It was just a social occasion like any other and everybody saw past the body shapes. Not one critical eye - which women in the West are so quick to do, especially towards other women ('has she got more cellulite than I have?', etc).
All in all we had a really fascinating evening and they were both very charming and seemed so suited. Though they did say they went through a rough patch when they had children as they clashed on the best way to bring them up as the two cultures are worlds apart when it comes to upbringing.
They had both travelled extensively as they earn far more than the average (he is a partner in a law firm and she set up her own business re-intellectual property for foreign companies who want to get into the Chinese market + they live in a house in the French concession quarter too which says it all over there) and she told me that the most beautiful places in the world that she has ever seen were all in China.
She mainly loved the Yellow Mountains (only 1H by plane from Shanghai) and Xinjiang, in the West. She said the Yellow Mountains were thin high mountains with tiny temples at the top and looked just like the famous paintings, totally stunning -- I then realised to my horror that I'd made a huge mistake by going to the Stone Forest as I actually meant to go THERE !!! ahhhh... (didn't I just say 'can't get the staff these days', applies to me too, ooops).
Xinjiang she said was more rugged, very green on one side, very dry on another, at the border of 6 countries and the skies are so blue and the scenery just breathtakingly beautiful. However, it can go from 20C to -20C as soon as the sun goes down so you need thick coats for the night (that they sell you at the border for $18, ex-army coats). They slept in a tent once in a national park, and they were taken to this tent and when she lifted the blanket she said a few rats squattered around, ahhhhhh.... and it was SO cold at night that she said she was literally shaking. However, she reckons it was still worth it !!! As Nathalie & I heard this and looked seriously horrified she said that you can no longer stay overnight in the national park anyway, so you'd get a hut not so high up now. But she warned us that the food was absolutely disgusting, mainly lard and fat and mostly meaty. She said it was really a struggle to eat it so we may need to come over with quite a few muesli bars in our suitcases !!!
And you thought I was brave? Not that brave. However, she made it sound so magical and unique that it is tempting in a slightly masochist kind of way... maybe in another 5 years when tourism over there has boomed a bit more. She said a few French tours are already running there but it's still relatively unknown and totally unspoilt.
We also discussed working conditions and I was stunned to find out that annual leave only became compulsory in China last year, starting with 5 days of paid leave in the 2nd year (you get nothing at all the first year !). She joked that her husband was quite tough and stuck to this with his own employees but being French, she was more leniant and gives the 5 days from year 1 to hers and then adds 3 days as of year 2, etc. Up to now, people were allowed to have time off, but at their own costs basically. No wonder most didn't take more than two weeks off per year.
We went to have dinner in a beautiful Spanish restaurant called El Willy, on Dong Hu Lu street and it was very popular with Westerners. Food was superb and SUCH a welcome relief for Nathalie. She was SO excited. It was quite expensive though (it came to £25 a head with drinks), so double what I'd spend in the UK basically but as it was our last night, so we felt we'd go with a bang... Originally we were going to go to the famous Lost Heaven, 38 Gaoyou Lu, Xuhui, nr Fuxing Xi Lu, but it was fully booked. Maybe next time? She reckoned the ambiance there is absolutely wonderful.
Outside that, we had the usual conversation with our guide about the Chinese thinking that 'white is beautiful' and us thinking that 'white is sickly and tanned is healthy'. We told him that in the West we sell self-tanning lotion and he looked seriously shocked as if we'd willingly chosen to spoil the gift of natural whiteness... it was almost cute... another told us that when he took tours abroad, he could always tell where his female tourists were because they'd the only ones who, on a hot day, would hide under umbrellas !
When we got back to our hotel Shanghai looked really nice, and we had a superb view from our hotel window.
Still bright sunshine when we left the next day and when we got to the airport, we found a post office there (our last chance to buy stamps for postcards) but... wait for it: they had none left. Shock and horror. We had to give the guy the cash and he issued us a receipt promising that "he'd buy the stamps later". We looked seriously suspicious. Our guide said 'it's ok, he works for the government, he's honest'... and strangely, this made us even more uneasy as it seemed like a contradiction in terms ! :) I told Nathalie 'I think we should mail our postcards from the UK if we want to have the slightest hope of our friends and family getting them at all' but she plain refused saying it's not the same. So, if you don't get your postcard, blame her - and corruption. She sent 25 but I only wrote 5 as I'm personally convinced I've wasted my time. We'll see...
We found cigarettes at 90p a pack in their Duty Free section so smokers would be happy here, we used the internet for an hour (surprisingly reasonable at just 10Y for an hour !! it could be 30Y for 15mins in a 5* hotel) and then flew off on time... but BA's "on demand" entertainment system had broken down so we had to make do with 1/5 of the usual selection. We didn't get much sleep on the plane either. Food was disgusting too and gave me a nasty stomach upset.
I got home at around 7pm (by the time we got our suitcases, etc. - mine was still the last one !!) and I managed to stay awake till 9pm and then just brain crashed. And I mean brain crashed... as in: dead to the world... I woke up 14 hours later. Unbelievable. I still don't know if it was the feel of my nice soft bed that made my body relax so much more or catching up on lack of sleep, but it did me good. I was still a bit dopey on the Sunday, managed to sleep another 9 hours straight Sunday night (amazingly) but was still not quite 'with it' at work (no energy to talk much) but slept another 9H straight on Monday night and by Tuesday I was back to normal. Phew. Nathalie took a lot longer to recover as she kept waking up at 4am.
The next exotic adventure we'll share will be Peru & Argentina (28 Aug - 7 Sept 09) but before that we'll also go to Chamonix with our parents mid-June (most of my foreign friends have been to the French alps, but we haven't !). Making up for lost time as kids... we figured that at least our parents would understand the menus ok there ! :)
Till next time...
posted by Sylvie at 9:39 AM
<< Home