Home and time to sleep!

 

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What if they turned right

I had hoped to have written by now about our visit to the "new synogogue" in Harbin but still am processing much of it. Harbin was created as a railroad town in the mid 19th century and Jews first arrived at that time. The major migrations happened at the end of that century with the first Jewish cemetery opening in 1903. I had assumed that it was just Siberian Jews that escaped the pograms to Harbin but the bulk of those first waves appear to have been from the pale of the Ukraine. But it wasn't just those escaping persecution. Jewish soldiers settled their after the Dino-Japanese wars and merchants set up shop seeing the area as ripe for development. schools, music academies, soup kitchens, theaters all developed in a community that was unique in its acceptance. The museum show pictures of the vitality of life of that at period and of the important place Harbin became for the arts of that period. So if our families had turned right when they left Europe - what would that have changed? As it was, the bulk of those people left. There were 20,000 Jews in Harbin by 1920 which dropped to 13000 by 1930 and with the advent of the Japanese invasion of China Jews throughout the country were being rounded up.

We've just boarded our Detroit to Syracuse leg and hope to home and asleep by 1:00 am. I'll start processing the pictures this coming weekends. Thanks for sharing the trip with us. Talk to all soon!

 

lotus blossoms in market

 

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Shangai thoughts

Most every trip we take we return thinking about how huge the world is and how little we know of it and I become more and more convinced you can't comprehend it till you experience it. I read a lot and used to think i had a handle on such things. Quite naive. We just touched on a little bit of China but absorbed and saw so much of both the old and the new. We were especially pleased with having read the book Three Swans before we left which gave us an important overview of living in China over the past 100 years. We had some excellent guides who provided further insights but it was just seeing what has happened there over the last 20 years that is mind bending.

On the silly side, think about how many watermelons need to be shipped into Shanghai to serve 34 million people( the total residents and transients in the city). Think about where the financial capital comes from to feed the incredible rate of construction. Think about the planning required to build infrastructure and dramatically improve housing stock for 10's of millions of people. Over the last 50 years the living space for a resident of Shangai has grown from 1 square meter per person to 16. With that kind of growth, it becomes understandable that their priorities are different than ours.

We've written the least about Shangai but there is more there than we can hope to relate on a blog. I urge to check out is Lisa See's Shangai Girls which helped give us an historical context for viewing the city. Her sequel is also great for an overview on growing up Chinese in America and for reflection on our persanol views on the Cold War. I grew up with the Chinese flag representing threat and evil and danger. I am not saying that there were not real dangers and threats, but to be able to sit on a rooftop bar overlooking incredible sights under that same flag and feel safe and friendly does give pause. I asked one of our guides (30ish) and she confirmed that she grew up thinking of Americans as the enemy.

We pretty much did not hear English on the streets until we arrived in Shangai. We did hear Japanese ,Korean, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish and a number of what we presume were Balkan languages. Also some Hebrew.

 

Even then it wasn't till we French Concession that we actually saw Americans. We know there is a large American expat community - but it's a drop in the bucket in a country this large. Consumption is conspicuous with shopping and having the least fashions and gadgets an important part of te middle and upper class experience.

 

 

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Sun 7/28

Hard to believe we're leaving today. Fastest 2 weeks plus ever. Friday night had an uneventful dinner except for the wine specialty.

Clearly I skipped the wine even though they said it was for good health. The restaurant also had a pretty poor floor show of no talent people but check out the nails on these women. yes those 6 inch gold things.

 

But then we went to the acrobats. That was amazing. No flashy costumes like in Vegas but I think because of that you could see the talent. One woman balanced wineglasses on her he'd while playing jingle bells on the clarinet

Our favorite was 2 young men dressed as infants. Their core muscles were amazing. One stood upside down on the others head balancing with just one hand. There was also a comic act that translated very well even though no words were spoken as well as juggling, high wire, spinning plates and gymnastics. Again this is hard to write about and is best discussed. No pictures were allowed. ( To protect intellectual property.....uhh.)This is the one time i wished I had the grandchildren here. They would have loved it.

Yesterday we visited a town on the canals. Like Venice but Chinese architecture. It was the original location of the city.

Went for a gondola ride.

 

In 100+ weather that felt good. We visited a house where the old guy who lives alone just wanted to talk. Fine but he had a parrot and I'm skittish about bird flu. Also past a pet shop with turtles and birds but again afraid to go on. Apparantly if we had come a few weeks earlier, we would not have of had chicken in the restaurants because of that. There are some bridges across the canal but most of are wood and basically connect houses through their living and or bedrooms.

When a general came through many hundreds of years ago he had no way of getting the horses across so the stopped for three days while they built a stone bridge

 

Visited a Buddhist temple of the jade Budda which is a 3 meter pieces of solid jade. Many of the jade and other artifacts were destroyed during the cultural revolution. Also visited some beautiful gardens. Got our last foot massage. Heaven. Then off to the French concession for dinner. They no longer refer to it as French or British concessions since the revolution. But we could both picture the Shanghai girls hanging around the French part.

Here's what we haven't discussed and David can really tell it better. Visited the Jewish museum in Harbin. It was pretty emotional. When our grandparents came to the US others went to Harbin for the same reason. There was no anti semitism felt by these people and they flourished, there was a strong group of entrepreneurs and another of artists - musicians and singers. When we walked in there was a 40 foot mural of many of the people and i swear, if my grandmother had a twin, she was there. Jerry, Judy why do you think? Is this Fanny or what?

 

They had many incredible artifacts from the time. The Jews apparently felt pretty much at home there and were involved with the politics (deputy mayor) and raised money for disasters such as flooding plus helped evacuated Chinese from floods. there were also zionist groups as elsewhere. The Jews left when the Communists came in. As far as Shanghai, when no one would take in Jews the Chinese did and many came after Crystalnicht. I find this is hard to write about and best discussed in person.

Last thought, whether it was a middle class apt or high end, people had clothing drying off the balconies. Also on the balconies at the boat. Like in the lower east side in my grandmothers day.

 

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July 25 some more catching up

We did not discuss our massage on the ship. I love to try new kinds of massages. David choose reflexology - a foot massage. The woman started on his inner thighs, which, in David's understated words, was surprising. I had a back massage but they suggested cupping since I had many knots.

After:

looks a bit odd, but.....

We will have one more foot massage tomorrow. I will miss those.

Yesterday we landed in Shanghai on the hottest day in 100 years. It was 40 degrees Celsius, which if I remember from my temperature taking days, means 104. We waited to go out walking until the sunset and it stIll felt as though someone had a heater focused on my face. It doesn't cool down at night. Today the temperature was even higher. It is dryer heat but 104 is still VERY HOT. Today is now the hottest day in 142 years. (105) All outdoor work has been suspended. Yesterday's heat only required shortening the work day from 8 hours to 6.

Silly factoid. drivers must pass 10 tests to drive in China ( personaly I think they need 10 more) no one stops for a red light even if there is a pedestrian (me) crossing the street legally. it takes a minimum of three month's to take all the tests. But even after they pass the test the number of cars is limited in Shanghai. so one must go to a monthly auction to " buy" a license. That costs15,000 dollars. plus Shanghai has 10,000 "floaters" people who work or study here but don't live here. They are not allowed to use hiighways during traditionl rush hour. The must use regular streets. Because of the rush hour is from two to 5 for floaters, 5 to 9 for Shanghai citizens, 9 to 11 for the floaters again. They have an extensive system of elevated highways that from above create the Chinese symbol for the founder if tpt he city (we think). Here you can see 4 of the 5 levels all centered on a pillar you can see in the center of the photo.

Here is the pillar in more detail:

We went to what the driver called China town. Does that sound strange to you? I got up the nerve to ask why is it called China town since you're all Chinese ( I worded it better I promise). It's actually called the Old City by the Chinese. The Japanese destroyed this part of town during the war with Japan, what we call WW II. So they rebuilt it to look like old China which does look very much like our Chinatown. In the center is an extensive garden from the 19th century.

 

 

Here is the oldest vegetarian restaurant in the city (100years)

And then of course a trip to the tea shop for some medicinal teas.

And here is what the toy store in old Chinatown is featuring....

A

Btw, until we got to Shanghai we most of what we heard about the japanese most had to do ewith collaboration. In Harbin they had a Japonese expert reviewing their curriculum whole i was there. Today the guide talked about that the Japanese were building this building but company went bankrupt. the Chinese confiscated it and finished building it themselves. The top was going to have a circle and they felt it was too much like the Japanese flag so they changed the shape to a square. It is know know as the bottlecap opener. After visiting the old city we went to some beautiful gardens. Then I went shopping - with a vengeance. I had a great time. I'm catching up with the blog while David is at a museum. Tonight the acrobatics.

So there is a section of Shanghai that had nothing 20 years ago. It's now completly built up and is the financial district for China

This phoo was taken on the bund in the old English cones ion looking over the Yangste to this me area that didn't exist 20 years ago. You can see the bottle opener in the upper right of the photo. Yes the haze is what the air is like and it ain't fog.

. There are 4 buildings taller then the Empire State Building and a new building that will be 200 stories currently being built. David asked if the ground was bedrock/ granite and apparently not. There's no earthquakes in Shanghai but we will see. Remember there were no building over 10 stories 20 years ago. Its an island that they had to bribe people to move to. Now it is prime real estate. An apt there costs 30,000 dollars a square meter.

The city has 22 tunnels and16 bridges conecting it and 16 subway lines. All built since about 1990. . Apparently 50 percent of cranes world wide, as in building cranes, are used in China. Of those, two thirds are used in Shanghai. You really can't image how much building is going on. It's as though this country was totally empty and aliens landed and started building their civilization.

David is famous. I keep telling David that women love him. Today a teenage girl asked hi, and asked if she could take her picture with him because he is so handsome. He graciously agreed.

More later. We've given up with trying to relay all that we have been learning, it truly is overwhelming.

 

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Gorges

As the only English speakers at our meal table, we've felt a bit isolated with no interaction from our table mates for the first several meals. Like no eye contact or other acknowledgement. Our theory is that we have a couple about our age traveling with the husband's parents, a 30 something couple, and the only guy we are sure about is a man from Beijing who is the interpreter for the French group that is onboard. He at least has treated us from the start with a Bon Jour and Goodbye, but his English is pretty much as weak as our Chinese.

Last night I got a nod out of the man my age and this morning we got a smile from his mother-in-law. By the time we were ready to embark on today's excursion they were downright friendly and laughing with Melanie. When they offered to take this picture of us with the smiling Budda we jumped at the chance for international dialogue. At tonight's final dinner tonight we all toasted each other and I felt much better.

While waiting for our trip to the gorge Melanie checked out the Dr.'s office

She was a bit bothered that his name was Mr. Lee. She was looking for some sort of initials before or after his name, such as MD.

Today we explored two of the three major gorges and the three minor gorges on the river. What you need to know is that in the '80's the Chinese decided to damn the Yangzi river to control flooding and harness hydroelectric power. These steep deep gorges leant themselves to the project. This meant flooding hundreds of villages as the depth in some places went from less than a meter to between 80-150 meters. So we kept having to imagine that 40 years ago we would have been 80 yards lower down. (Hmm did i cover this already?

However, although they flooded the area, the area regularly flooded on its own. So they relocated the people and then flooded the area. I guess there was somewhat of a worldwide uproar over moving people and messing with the ecology. My opinion is, I believe in Maslow's hierarchy. It's nice to worry about relocating ( and let me point tour history) but this has upgraded people's lives a tremendous amount. The greater good is not always my philosophy but it is here. The old houses were hovels with no electricity. Now there are apts with electricity and the people have been moved back. Plus this damn supplies electricity for 5 percent of China's population. They hoped it would supply more but as the standard of living rose, so did the electricity consumption.

We saw hanging coffins. The prehistoric Chinese ( that's defined in China as any civilization over 6000 years old. This one was called the Ba people.) lived on the cliffs. They buried their dead in caves up on the sheer cliffs. how? No one is sure. Maybe by hanging ropes down. I've decided as a last group puzzle I'm asking the 3 boys to figure out how to bury me in a cave off a sheer cliff. You'll have to work together and not fight. No Aaron you can't just throw me off the cliff.

I've been trying to describe the 3 gorges. It would be kind of like floating through the Rockies or the Grand Canyon (which has a river) but the cliffs are more narrow on the Yangtze. Except there is vegetation all over except for intermittent sheer rock. Is that clear as mud? The river itself is muddy some from the recent rains. The tributaries we went through though cleared up to an emerald color (thus one of the gorges was called emerald gorge.)

The story is that once upon a time 7 dragons guarded the river. Some god got pissed at the people and turned them to stone and stopped the flow of water leading to calamitous conditions for the people. A kindly goddes was engaged to carve a path through the dragons to let the water through. With the help of a giant yellow ox she did so and was immortalized as one of the peaks we passed.

There are three gorges on the Yangtze and the minor gorges on the Dam river. To do this stretch we transferred first to a small passenger boat and some kilometers later to an even smaller wood boat. You can see one of the boatmen wearing traditional rain garb over his life vest.

 

The Chinese don't even pretend to have truth in advertising. So this guy below, after singing as a beautiful song, passed out souvenir key rings "freely." After he handed them out he said if we want to keep them we must pay. A little annoying but minor once you understand that's the way it is.

After dinner tonight we retired to our room, figured out how to get stuff into only two bags and called it a night.

Moon over Yangstee River

The amount of building going on in China is remarkable. Our guide in Xian said it was fine for her and her parents but her grandparents hardly leave the apt because so much has changed. When I first visited Israel about 40 years ago and then visited again I would feel the rapid change with every visit. But he last time i visited I felt the rapid change had ended. Yes it is changing but not the way it had when developing. Groups of 15 to 20 30 story apt houses going up side by side in a group. Since and including Xian every place we go, it's clearly a new city. Say within the last 5 years. Along the river the villages are built since the last flood that triggered the damn project.

Now We're flying to Shanghai out of Yichang, a small city ( their words) of 4.1 million. The district is 47 percent forest which explains the " low" population number. Wildlife in the forest includes, monkeys, bears, tigers and big foot. I think big foot in China is any animal with a larger then size 6 foot.

 

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Day 5 - David goes shopping back to the 18th

We didn't realize just how dependent we were on internet access. We really missed the casual communication with family (were not missing communication with work!). I do. So i thought i would just run out and get a Chinese sim card for my phone while Melanie went to opening ceremonies.

Crossing the street in China ca be a real adventure. A red light seems to be more of a suggestion than a rule and the little green figure that lights up to indicate you can walk really means your odds are better now than if you wait till it turns red. Actually many lights are also accompanied with a countdown clock which i thought was a really good idea till i realized that with an intersection with 5 lanes going each way (yes i mean 40 queues of cars) you have now idea what it is counting down to. It may mean that people from some lines will turn left or maybe center lane will go straight - its an adventure. The rule when crossing the street is to get close to a cluster of Chinese and move only when they do. Do not dawdle. Cars will continue to move through the clusters of people. They do often have underpasses at major intersection which are really subterranean malls. The streets as well were lined with carts and booths. But this was clearly not a tourist city as no one called out to me to buy as happened every where else we went. This made it much more comfortable to look at things without being harassed.

Anyway, back to the simm card. No English in any of the windows. Except for words like SAMSUNG. Found a shop with a bunch of phones in the window. When I had determined that no one spoke English, I pulled the battery and pointed to the SIMM card and one woman smiled and be bekoned me to follow. Into the back down the stairs to another set of counters where she handed me off to three young women behind a counter. They smiled and pulled out a printout of phone numbers for me to chose from. The luckier the numbers, the more expensive the card. I picked one with lots of 4's because the number 4 is unlucky, hence cheaper and then said "data? Internet?" Their response was a big smile and they pointed with a chart for megabyte packages. We did the deal and i sat down and installed the new card. Phone worked great. Don't know about Text's as i had long ago removed all languages but English from the phone to save space. But when I tried to browse or use internet i got a message that my package did not allow it and I had to contact provider. So back up to the counter and through sign language and google translate we worked on the phone. The conclusion was that they said card was fine but my phone was too old. Would I like to buy a new phone? I smiled, we all laughed and i left the store.

After getting back to the hotel i logged onto AT&T and just bought a larger international package for my current phone. A fun, if not productive experience. It did appear that they used a different system for cellular data in Harbin. The ipad could use it by my old SIMM card could get emails but had no luck browsing either.

Later I was picked up by Yu Ling's husband and one of her grad students for a tour of Harbin. Minimal English again but we had a good time. After a drive through one of the newer sections they took me to a giant mall built as a replica of the Hutong.

We had lunch

Bread soda really non alcoholic beer

And finally a walk through the old harbin music park where the week before a chorus of10,000

Yesterday i went to eat cooked carrot with a fork. I've only been using chopsticks. I couldn't spear it although I tried and tried. Then I picked it right up with the chopstick. Something weird is happening to me.

Also wanted to mention that for the opening ceremonies i was told to sit on the dais. There were speeches that totaled an hour, all in Chinese. And I sat there able to sit still without checking my iPad or iPhone or grading papers. If i can do that I can sit through any faculty meeting.

I'm sitting here with a cup of chrysanthemum and Lilly tea. Life couldn't be better.

Off to visit a gorge.

 

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