Last Sunday, we went exploring a bit in the "Old Town" neighborhood of Shanghai, which is south and east of People's Square, right along the Huang Pu river on the Puxi side. As I neglected to take any form of camera, I'm afraid there aren't any pictures from our walk. We'll have to make do with some images I've garnered from the web. (They're much better than mine would have been anyhow.)
It turns that much of the Old Town neighborhood has been taken over by the Yu Yuan Bazaar, an unpleasantly crowded shopping mall for tourists, which is kind of sad. We did get to see some real sights though:
- The Taoist Temple of the Town Gods (originally from Ming dynasty, middle 15th century but much altered since)
- The Yu Yuan Gardens (also dating from the Ming dynasty, middle 16th century)
- The Buddhist Chen Xiang Ge Nunnery
While trying locate some of these sights, we also got to see some of the old residential part of this neighborhood. With all the pressures exerted on this neighborhood by development on all sides, its quiet "Old Shanghai" way of life is probably not going to continue much longer.
Last night, I went to a concert. Or I should say: half a concert. The first half was so excruciatingly execrable I didn't stay for the second half.
There's no other way to say it: this concert was a total fraud.
I was supposed to be hearing the same wonderful pianist (Behzod Abduraimov) that we heard last week playing Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, this time playing Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. There were also to be a work by a Dutch composer (Rogier van Otterloo) and two by Chinese composers (Huang Yijun, He Luting) on the program, along with Mahler's Totenfeier and Strauss' Till Eugenspiegel. The orchestra was to be the "Philips Symphony" which I had never heard of, but which was billed to be "the best orchestra in Holland."
The Philips Symphony turned out to be an amateur group comprised of employees of Philips (you know, they make TV sets, etc.). They were passable as an amateur group, but not one I would advise to tackle the likes of the Rhapsody or Totenfeier or Till Eugenspiegel. Well, no matter. They didn't play the Rhapsody, they hacked their way through Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto instead. Oh, and it wasn't Behzod Abduraimov at all! I don't know who the impostor at the keyboard was, as he was never identified by name, but he was also (at best) passable. (The program still had Abduraimov and the Rhapsody on the bill. Some program changes were announced in Chinese and English, but the change of piano personnel was not. If I was Abduraimov, I'd definitely explore legal action.) The Chinese works were not played on the first half (where the program said they would be). Perhaps they played them in the second half I could not bear to stay for. I did get to hear van Otterloo's mercifully brief Soldier of Orange. As I really can't say anything nice about that, I won't say anything at all.
Miles must have sensed that this concert was one to skip, and he did. I know I wish I had. As I sat squirming in my seat, once it became brutally clear the evening would be no better than a total débacle, dying to walk out, but not daring to do so until the intermission (a recorded announcement forbade doing that), I decided to focus on the clinically interesting sounds produced by the man sitting just behind me, who snored during the entirety of the Tchaikovsky. Not even the tutti sections would rouse him. Nor, apparently, did his cell phone, which rang out loudly several times.
I guess I now know the best — and the worst — that the Shanghai classical music scene has to offer.
Weather permitting, we're thinking of taking a day trip out of town this Saturday. We want to explore the town of Suzhou with some friends visiting from Australia. Yesterday, the Saturday forecast was for rain, but that seems now to be moved to Sunday, so we may yet get to go. Fingers crossed!
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