There are just about three more weeks left to us in Shanghai.
It's hard to believe we will be leaving here in just three weeks and one day. There's still a lot to be done before we leave.
This past Saturday, we took a tour of sites relevant to the history of the Jews in Shanghai. This was a really excellent tour, and we recommend it highly if you ever make your way to Shanghai. Here is the tour's web site:
http://www.shanghai-jews.com/
There were three waves of Jewish immigration to Shanghai. The first wave, in the early to mid 19th century brought a small number of families of Sephardic Jews from Iraq to Shanghai via India. Some of these families became extremely wealthy and influential in Shanghai and other cities of China. The second wave brought Russian Jews escaping the pogroms to Shanghai in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This wave largely settled in the Hong Kou district. The third wave consisted of European Jews escaping the Nazis. If you could obtain exit papers, you would leave Europe by a Mediterranean port, transit the Suez Canal, cross the Indian Ocean and reach Shanghai. Shanghai, like Casablanca, was an "open port" where stateless persons could freely enter. The Japanese occupation did confine stateless persons to a few blocks of Hong Kou, and the immigrants of the third wave had to live in very cramped conditions.
Pictures from the tour are here.
I promised to share the movements of the Sonatina I've been working on as they come out. Well, I just finished the second movement — a Chaconne. If you aren't familiar with the chaconne form here's a link to the wikipedia page for it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaconne
If you go there, be sure to read about the passacaglia form while you're at it. One person's chaconne is very often another person's passacaglia, and if you insist, my Chaconne can be either. The .m4a (for iTunes) is here; the .mid (for QuickTime) is here.
One more movement to go!
29 November 2009
25 November 2009
Thursday, 26 November 2009
It's Thanksgiving in Shanghai!
And the nearly 20 million people we live amongst here neither know nor care.
It's a bit odd to feel that you have a holiday when nobody else does. Of course, I've been out of work since July (sabbatical is spelled U-N-E-M-P-L-O-Y-M-E-N-T for me), so essentially every day is a holiday for me. It might feel more like Thanksgiving if this Thursday morning were a bit quiet, like a Thanksgiving morning usually is (trust me, it's not here). Or if the Macy's parade was being shown on TV (trust me, it's not here). Or if the weather was still as cold today as it was last week here when we were under the influence of the "Siberian Express" weather system (nope, it's low 60s F, sunny, and dry). There's no turkey or yams or pumpkin pie in the oven. Turkey is very rarely encountered here (we've never seen it for sale in any market — even the ones catering for expats). Pumpkins are, and sweet potates are, but there's also no oven, and I don't think you can credibly make a pumpkin pie in a wok. We are going to have our Thanksgiving dinner today with the University of California Education Abroad students that Miles is teaching at Fudan University. And we are going to have it at a Howard Johnson's over near Fudan. There are actually quite a few HoJos in Shanghai — including one right across the street from us on Yan An Road. We are not too sure where they are going to get the turkey they are promising to serve. I just hope they don't serve us duck labelled as turkey (I'm allergic to duck).
To cap off this post, here's one third of a projected three movement Sonatina, fresh off the press. You'll get the remaining movements as I finish them. The .m4a (for iTunes) is here; the .mid (for QuickTime) is here.
Happy Thanksgiving!
And the nearly 20 million people we live amongst here neither know nor care.
It's a bit odd to feel that you have a holiday when nobody else does. Of course, I've been out of work since July (sabbatical is spelled U-N-E-M-P-L-O-Y-M-E-N-T for me), so essentially every day is a holiday for me. It might feel more like Thanksgiving if this Thursday morning were a bit quiet, like a Thanksgiving morning usually is (trust me, it's not here). Or if the Macy's parade was being shown on TV (trust me, it's not here). Or if the weather was still as cold today as it was last week here when we were under the influence of the "Siberian Express" weather system (nope, it's low 60s F, sunny, and dry). There's no turkey or yams or pumpkin pie in the oven. Turkey is very rarely encountered here (we've never seen it for sale in any market — even the ones catering for expats). Pumpkins are, and sweet potates are, but there's also no oven, and I don't think you can credibly make a pumpkin pie in a wok. We are going to have our Thanksgiving dinner today with the University of California Education Abroad students that Miles is teaching at Fudan University. And we are going to have it at a Howard Johnson's over near Fudan. There are actually quite a few HoJos in Shanghai — including one right across the street from us on Yan An Road. We are not too sure where they are going to get the turkey they are promising to serve. I just hope they don't serve us duck labelled as turkey (I'm allergic to duck).
To cap off this post, here's one third of a projected three movement Sonatina, fresh off the press. You'll get the remaining movements as I finish them. The .m4a (for iTunes) is here; the .mid (for QuickTime) is here.
Happy Thanksgiving!
23 November 2009
Monday, 23 November 2009
Hangzhou was really beautiful!
But you can judge for yourself. The pictures we took are here, here, and here.
The first westerner to see Hangzhou was Marco Polo (in the 13th century). He liked it, too. It has in the past been an imperial capital city, but that ended when the Mongols conquered China and choose to make Beijing their imperial capital. Today Hangzhou has a population of over 6 million and is one of the second tier cities of China, quite prosperous, but not a commercial center like Shanghai or Hong Kong. The leading feature of the city for tourists is Xi Hu (West Lake). About 3/4 of the circumference of the lake is unspoiled, with one of the downtown areas of Hangzhou meeting it along the remaining 1/4. For those 3/4, just about every view is like looking at a classical Chinese watercolor.
The train journey to and from Hangzhou went quite smoothly, although I'd have to say that the ultra-modern Shanghai South train station is not quite equaled by the somewhat tired and cramped Hangzhou Central train station. The trains are very fast "bullet" trains — with a top speed of around 150 kilometers per hour — and the trip takes just over an hour each way.
Upon arrival midday on Friday, we settled into our really posh room at the Hangzhou Shangri-La Hotel, had a quick lunch in the hotel "coffee garden" and then went out for a little walk. It was just a short way from the hotel (across the street, really) to the north shore of West Lake, and we spent a couple of hours walking to and then right around Gu Shan Island, one of the islands in the lake. After that, it was dark, and we were quite cold, so we quit touring for the day and had a nice dinner at the Chinese restaurant in the Shangri-La.
Saturday morning the weather had improved considerably — it was completely dry although still pretty cold. We took in the Mausoleum of General Yue Fei (right next door to our hotel). The general commanded the army during the Southern Song dynasty and successfully battled northern invaders. But he was betrayed by a prime minister, recalled to the Song court, and executed in 1142. Some 21 years later he was exonerated, a big mausoleum was built, and his body was moved to a new tomb there. After seeing the mausoleum, we trekked up the hill behind our hotel, seeing the Zi Yun cave, the Daoist Bau Pu Temple, and the Bao Chu Pagoda. After all that, it was high time for lunch! We thought of having our lunch at an Italian restaurant we had spotted the day before on Gu Shan island, and made our way there, only to find it functions just as a bar at lunch time. Oops. So, plan B. We had read in our guide about a grouping of shops and restaurants named Xi Hu Tian Di, modeled after a similar grouping we know in Shanghai called Xin Tian Di. We caught a taxi to try for Xi Hu Tian Di, but we pretty much completely failed to make the driver understand this destination (which was supposed to be 147 Nan Shan Road, according to our guide). This sometimes happens. Our pronunciation of Chinese names can be just far enough off as to be incomprehensible (at least to taxi drivers). We do somewhat better with addresses, but this sometimes doesn't work either. He got us about 2/5 of the way there, and put us out when he hit the first clot of traffic on Nan Shan Road. Hmmm. Catching a second cab, we tried again. This second driver was also pretty much at sea about where we wanted to go, but he got us to where I could see number 150 on Nan Shan Road (which should have been pretty much across the street from number 147, our destination). The driver was at that point busily conferring with someone by cell phone about our destination, and since I thought we were pretty much there, I told him to let us out. We weren't, however, pretty much there. Across the street from 150 Nan Shan Road, there was no 147 (and in fact not really any buildings at all, just the lake front of West Lake). It turns out we were still only about 3/5 of the way there from our original starting point. By this time, it was well time for some plan C. Miles spied an Indian restaurant nearby, and so we had our (rather mediocre) lunch there. Oh, well. After lunch, we went (on foot!) to an old market street (Qing He Fang Old Street) downtown and poked around a bit there. Still wanting to do more touring, but fed up with taxis, we took one of the buses that service simple loop routes set up for tourists that we'd read about in our guide over to the Lei Feng Pagoda, and enjoyed the 360 degree view of all of Hangzhou from the top. The original Pagoda dates to 977, but it collapsed in 1924. Today's pagoda is just called a tower and it was built in 2001. The Buddhist Jing Ci Temple was just across the street, but it was 4:30 by the time we got to the entrance, and it closes at 4:45, so we left that to the next day. Having cleared off nicely, the weather promised to be really fine for Sunday, but equally to be really cold for Saturday night, so we decided not to leave the Shangri-La and had a nice enough dinner in their Italian restaurant.
Sunday proved to be clear and warm enough to enjoy with just a sweater and no coat! We armed ourselves with several cards written by the front desk staff to show taxi drivers, and started our touring with the Jing Ci Temple that we had run out of time to see on Saturday. Then we took the tourist bus out to Ling Yin Temple — the biggest single tourist site of Hangzhou. The walk up to the temple itself passes by hundreds of buddhist rock carvings — some of which are very old. These are carved right into the rock of Fei Lai Peak "Peak Flying from Afar". There is a legend that says this mountain was magically transported here from India. Some of these carvings survived being damaged during the Cultural Revolution, presumably because of their locations inside caves or uphill by a considerable climb. The temple itself has, due to various wars, fires, and other disasters, been reconstructed 16 times. It is still impressive. After a simple vegetarian hotpot lunch, and a cable car ride up the hill behind Ling Yin Temple, we got to Bei Gao Feng (the Northern Peak). We saw another temple up there. I don't have the name, unfortunately. But we had really gone there for the view you are supposed to have of the entire city anyhow. But it was pretty hazy, so the view was not what we'd hoped for. After the cable car ride back down, it was time to catch a taxi and, hoping third time was the charm, make our way to Xi Hu Tian Di, to choose a restaurant for dinner. This time, the taxi driver understood our card and got us there just fine, but there was not much there there. We didn't really scout out any nice restaurant for dinner and left wondering a bit what all the fuss was about the place in the first place. But we found ourselves right by the pleasure boat piers, so we took a boat ride out on West Lake, arriving at a very picturesque set of small islands connected by causeways. The sun set for us out on those islands, and we got another boat back to downtown. The dock we landed at was not quite the one we'd left from somehow. By this time, in just our sweaters and no coats, we were no longer quite warm enough, so we ducked into the Hyatt Regency right by the docks that we did land at. After very civilized cocktails in the lobby bar, we found a really nice Chinese restaurant right in the same Hyatt and had our dinner there. It took a while, but we caught a taxi back to the Shangri-la and thus ended our touring Sunday.
There are some specialties of the local Hangzhou cuisine that we got to try. The most memorable was probably something called Dong Po Rou, after a poet of the Song dynasty called Su Dong Po. It is composed of fatty pork (something like what Americans call bacon) which has been cooked with Shaoxing wine and is served in one long slice that has been wrapped up into a pyramid shape. The pyramid sits atop a preparation of bamboo shoots that have been cooked in some sweet-salty sauce. This is served with something called "pancakes" that is more like a small delicate pita bread. You take the little bread and split it open, add some of the pork, and some of the bamboo shoots, and enjoy the whole thing something like a pita pocket. It's very rich, but very tasty.
But you can judge for yourself. The pictures we took are here, here, and here.
The first westerner to see Hangzhou was Marco Polo (in the 13th century). He liked it, too. It has in the past been an imperial capital city, but that ended when the Mongols conquered China and choose to make Beijing their imperial capital. Today Hangzhou has a population of over 6 million and is one of the second tier cities of China, quite prosperous, but not a commercial center like Shanghai or Hong Kong. The leading feature of the city for tourists is Xi Hu (West Lake). About 3/4 of the circumference of the lake is unspoiled, with one of the downtown areas of Hangzhou meeting it along the remaining 1/4. For those 3/4, just about every view is like looking at a classical Chinese watercolor.
The train journey to and from Hangzhou went quite smoothly, although I'd have to say that the ultra-modern Shanghai South train station is not quite equaled by the somewhat tired and cramped Hangzhou Central train station. The trains are very fast "bullet" trains — with a top speed of around 150 kilometers per hour — and the trip takes just over an hour each way.
Upon arrival midday on Friday, we settled into our really posh room at the Hangzhou Shangri-La Hotel, had a quick lunch in the hotel "coffee garden" and then went out for a little walk. It was just a short way from the hotel (across the street, really) to the north shore of West Lake, and we spent a couple of hours walking to and then right around Gu Shan Island, one of the islands in the lake. After that, it was dark, and we were quite cold, so we quit touring for the day and had a nice dinner at the Chinese restaurant in the Shangri-La.
Saturday morning the weather had improved considerably — it was completely dry although still pretty cold. We took in the Mausoleum of General Yue Fei (right next door to our hotel). The general commanded the army during the Southern Song dynasty and successfully battled northern invaders. But he was betrayed by a prime minister, recalled to the Song court, and executed in 1142. Some 21 years later he was exonerated, a big mausoleum was built, and his body was moved to a new tomb there. After seeing the mausoleum, we trekked up the hill behind our hotel, seeing the Zi Yun cave, the Daoist Bau Pu Temple, and the Bao Chu Pagoda. After all that, it was high time for lunch! We thought of having our lunch at an Italian restaurant we had spotted the day before on Gu Shan island, and made our way there, only to find it functions just as a bar at lunch time. Oops. So, plan B. We had read in our guide about a grouping of shops and restaurants named Xi Hu Tian Di, modeled after a similar grouping we know in Shanghai called Xin Tian Di. We caught a taxi to try for Xi Hu Tian Di, but we pretty much completely failed to make the driver understand this destination (which was supposed to be 147 Nan Shan Road, according to our guide). This sometimes happens. Our pronunciation of Chinese names can be just far enough off as to be incomprehensible (at least to taxi drivers). We do somewhat better with addresses, but this sometimes doesn't work either. He got us about 2/5 of the way there, and put us out when he hit the first clot of traffic on Nan Shan Road. Hmmm. Catching a second cab, we tried again. This second driver was also pretty much at sea about where we wanted to go, but he got us to where I could see number 150 on Nan Shan Road (which should have been pretty much across the street from number 147, our destination). The driver was at that point busily conferring with someone by cell phone about our destination, and since I thought we were pretty much there, I told him to let us out. We weren't, however, pretty much there. Across the street from 150 Nan Shan Road, there was no 147 (and in fact not really any buildings at all, just the lake front of West Lake). It turns out we were still only about 3/5 of the way there from our original starting point. By this time, it was well time for some plan C. Miles spied an Indian restaurant nearby, and so we had our (rather mediocre) lunch there. Oh, well. After lunch, we went (on foot!) to an old market street (Qing He Fang Old Street) downtown and poked around a bit there. Still wanting to do more touring, but fed up with taxis, we took one of the buses that service simple loop routes set up for tourists that we'd read about in our guide over to the Lei Feng Pagoda, and enjoyed the 360 degree view of all of Hangzhou from the top. The original Pagoda dates to 977, but it collapsed in 1924. Today's pagoda is just called a tower and it was built in 2001. The Buddhist Jing Ci Temple was just across the street, but it was 4:30 by the time we got to the entrance, and it closes at 4:45, so we left that to the next day. Having cleared off nicely, the weather promised to be really fine for Sunday, but equally to be really cold for Saturday night, so we decided not to leave the Shangri-La and had a nice enough dinner in their Italian restaurant.
Sunday proved to be clear and warm enough to enjoy with just a sweater and no coat! We armed ourselves with several cards written by the front desk staff to show taxi drivers, and started our touring with the Jing Ci Temple that we had run out of time to see on Saturday. Then we took the tourist bus out to Ling Yin Temple — the biggest single tourist site of Hangzhou. The walk up to the temple itself passes by hundreds of buddhist rock carvings — some of which are very old. These are carved right into the rock of Fei Lai Peak "Peak Flying from Afar". There is a legend that says this mountain was magically transported here from India. Some of these carvings survived being damaged during the Cultural Revolution, presumably because of their locations inside caves or uphill by a considerable climb. The temple itself has, due to various wars, fires, and other disasters, been reconstructed 16 times. It is still impressive. After a simple vegetarian hotpot lunch, and a cable car ride up the hill behind Ling Yin Temple, we got to Bei Gao Feng (the Northern Peak). We saw another temple up there. I don't have the name, unfortunately. But we had really gone there for the view you are supposed to have of the entire city anyhow. But it was pretty hazy, so the view was not what we'd hoped for. After the cable car ride back down, it was time to catch a taxi and, hoping third time was the charm, make our way to Xi Hu Tian Di, to choose a restaurant for dinner. This time, the taxi driver understood our card and got us there just fine, but there was not much there there. We didn't really scout out any nice restaurant for dinner and left wondering a bit what all the fuss was about the place in the first place. But we found ourselves right by the pleasure boat piers, so we took a boat ride out on West Lake, arriving at a very picturesque set of small islands connected by causeways. The sun set for us out on those islands, and we got another boat back to downtown. The dock we landed at was not quite the one we'd left from somehow. By this time, in just our sweaters and no coats, we were no longer quite warm enough, so we ducked into the Hyatt Regency right by the docks that we did land at. After very civilized cocktails in the lobby bar, we found a really nice Chinese restaurant right in the same Hyatt and had our dinner there. It took a while, but we caught a taxi back to the Shangri-la and thus ended our touring Sunday.
There are some specialties of the local Hangzhou cuisine that we got to try. The most memorable was probably something called Dong Po Rou, after a poet of the Song dynasty called Su Dong Po. It is composed of fatty pork (something like what Americans call bacon) which has been cooked with Shaoxing wine and is served in one long slice that has been wrapped up into a pyramid shape. The pyramid sits atop a preparation of bamboo shoots that have been cooked in some sweet-salty sauce. This is served with something called "pancakes" that is more like a small delicate pita bread. You take the little bread and split it open, add some of the pork, and some of the bamboo shoots, and enjoy the whole thing something like a pita pocket. It's very rich, but very tasty.
18 November 2009
Thursday, 19 November 2009
We're getting our first snow in Shanghai today.
It's not much — it's melting as it hits the ground — but it's definitely snowing rather than raining. Snow in Shanghai in the middle of November is really not supposed to happen. It's all part of a weather system coming straight from Siberia that has been bring lower than normal temperatures and earlier than normal snowfalls to much of China since the day we left Beijing (last Monday).
We're heading off tomorrow morning for a weekend in Hangzhou, returning on Monday. We're going by train, so that's another first. And we're going to try to tour Hangzhou without any guides (other than the printed kind), so that's yet another first. We'll need as much help as we can get from the weather gods. The forecast looks like things might be pretty bad on Friday, but may well improve by Sunday, or even by Saturday.
President Obama has now left China for South Korea on his Asian tour.
Coverage in the official Chinese media during Obama's time in Beijing has been subdued — to say the least. I would speculate that, for the average Chinese Joe, it's pretty much as if Obama were never there. There was nothing like the Town Hall Meeting for young Chinese students that was held here in Shanghai (and even that wasn't carried on official Chinese media). There was a press conference held after the talks in Beijing. The format was very, very formal. Hu Jintao and Obama both stood woodenly at their respective lecterns. Both spoke in the halting way one must do to accomodate simultaneous translation. Neither took questions from reporters. Reading between the lines, it appears that China's leaders are really anxious to avoid spotlighting the contrast between Obama's charisma and their own lack of it. Anyone who might have thought that China would take this opportunity to open up will simply have to nurse their disappointment.
Not much else to report, other than that I've started another composition. I've got a good start, but it's at the "needs more percolation stage." I'll get back to it when we've returned from Hangzhou.
It's not much — it's melting as it hits the ground — but it's definitely snowing rather than raining. Snow in Shanghai in the middle of November is really not supposed to happen. It's all part of a weather system coming straight from Siberia that has been bring lower than normal temperatures and earlier than normal snowfalls to much of China since the day we left Beijing (last Monday).
We're heading off tomorrow morning for a weekend in Hangzhou, returning on Monday. We're going by train, so that's another first. And we're going to try to tour Hangzhou without any guides (other than the printed kind), so that's yet another first. We'll need as much help as we can get from the weather gods. The forecast looks like things might be pretty bad on Friday, but may well improve by Sunday, or even by Saturday.
President Obama has now left China for South Korea on his Asian tour.
Coverage in the official Chinese media during Obama's time in Beijing has been subdued — to say the least. I would speculate that, for the average Chinese Joe, it's pretty much as if Obama were never there. There was nothing like the Town Hall Meeting for young Chinese students that was held here in Shanghai (and even that wasn't carried on official Chinese media). There was a press conference held after the talks in Beijing. The format was very, very formal. Hu Jintao and Obama both stood woodenly at their respective lecterns. Both spoke in the halting way one must do to accomodate simultaneous translation. Neither took questions from reporters. Reading between the lines, it appears that China's leaders are really anxious to avoid spotlighting the contrast between Obama's charisma and their own lack of it. Anyone who might have thought that China would take this opportunity to open up will simply have to nurse their disappointment.
Not much else to report, other than that I've started another composition. I've got a good start, but it's at the "needs more percolation stage." I'll get back to it when we've returned from Hangzhou.
16 November 2009
Monday, 16 November 2009
President Obama was in Shanghai briefly today.
While he was here, he hosted a town hall meeting with students from the many universities here in Shanghai. We were not able to attend in person, and had to make do with watching the coverage on CNN and the White House's live streaming site.
It's not clear how large a role the Chinese government played in the selection of the students. The questions, for the most part, were "soft lobs," although there was one pointed question about American arms sales to Taiwan, and another from a student wondering whether winning the Nobel Peace Prize will increase the pressure to make progress on long-standing global conflicts.
Chinese national TV did not carry the event live, although Shanghai TV did, and the Xinhua news agency is reported to have run a transcript on its Web site. There was even a rumor that Twitter was unblocked for the duration of the event, although yours truly is not himself a tweeter, so he did not verify this for himself.
The president had, and took, several opportunities to make the case for the freedom of speech that is still lacking in today's China, even after much progress towards openness. Here is one especially elegant statement:
To close this post, here is another of my Shanghai compositions. (If you've been counting you'll think it's my third, but it's really my fourth. The third was written especially for Miles' birthday last week.) It's another Prélude, and, if anything it is even more animated and intense than its predecessors. It's very short, so don't be surprised if your download starts playing right away. The .m4a version (for iTunes) is here and a .mid file (for QuickTime) is here.
While he was here, he hosted a town hall meeting with students from the many universities here in Shanghai. We were not able to attend in person, and had to make do with watching the coverage on CNN and the White House's live streaming site.
It's not clear how large a role the Chinese government played in the selection of the students. The questions, for the most part, were "soft lobs," although there was one pointed question about American arms sales to Taiwan, and another from a student wondering whether winning the Nobel Peace Prize will increase the pressure to make progress on long-standing global conflicts.
Chinese national TV did not carry the event live, although Shanghai TV did, and the Xinhua news agency is reported to have run a transcript on its Web site. There was even a rumor that Twitter was unblocked for the duration of the event, although yours truly is not himself a tweeter, so he did not verify this for himself.
The president had, and took, several opportunities to make the case for the freedom of speech that is still lacking in today's China, even after much progress towards openness. Here is one especially elegant statement:
I have a lot of critics in the United States who can say all kinds of things about me. I actually think that that makes our democracy stronger and it makes me a better leader, because it forces me to hear opinions that I don't want to hear. It forces me to examine what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis to see if I'm doing the very best that I could be doing for the people of the United States.From Shanghai, Obama has by now already gone to Beijing, for high-level meetings, and some sight-seeing. He'll be taking tours of many of the same sights I saw last week, including The Forbidden City and The Great Wall.
To close this post, here is another of my Shanghai compositions. (If you've been counting you'll think it's my third, but it's really my fourth. The third was written especially for Miles' birthday last week.) It's another Prélude, and, if anything it is even more animated and intense than its predecessors. It's very short, so don't be surprised if your download starts playing right away. The .m4a version (for iTunes) is here and a .mid file (for QuickTime) is here.
09 November 2009
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
Just a quick post today.
Sorry for a bit of terseness, but it's Miles' birthday today, and I have a lot to do, and it's not going to be easy, because it's really just pouring rain here in Shanghai.
We just got back yesterday from our quick four day trip to Beijing. While Miles was off being a gentleman and a scholar at something called the Beijing Forum, I went off on a pair of all-day bus tours. The first one took in sights in Beijing (The Summer Palace, The Forbidden City, Tien An Men Square, and The Temple of Heaven). The second one went out to one of the Great Wall sites (Badaling) and took in one of the Ming Emporer's Tombs on the way there. (If you've never heard of the Beijing Forum, it's a kind of academic extravaganza — with the theme The Harmony of Civilizations and Prosperity for All — put on annually since 2004 by Peking University with support from The Beijing Municipal Commission of Education and The Korean Foundation for Advanced Studies.) After the forum had wound down, we went together on a half-day tour sponsored by the forum to the Olympic Stadiums (Bird's Nest, Water Cube) and Beijing's 798 Art Zone. You can see pictures of all of this tourism here, here, and here. The forum also hosted the National Ballet of China for a dance recital at Peking University Hall: Journey into a World of Ballet. It was quite a busy time. All the more so, because I got sick (what started out as a hay fever type of allergy morphed into a cold or maybe the flu). I'm better now, but I'm going to take it a bit easy for the next few days.
Our way back from Beijing was not quite smooth, unfortunately. Our aircraft had some mechanical problem, could not take off, and they taxied us back to a gate where we were deplaned. Then all hell broke loose. Sadly, China Eastern didn't seem to have much of a procedure in place for dealing with the cancellation of a flight. The idea seemed to be to put half the passengers onto a flight within a half hour, and the other half onto a flight leaving an hour later. This message was not received by the passengers with equanimity. We thought it might come to fisticuffs between some passengers and the poor China Eastern staff, but the worst in the end was some mild form of battery committed with a boarding pass. But the shrieking! We stayed well out of it until most of it had died down, then got our boarding passes for the later of the two replacement flights and made our belated way back to Shanghai.
Sorry for a bit of terseness, but it's Miles' birthday today, and I have a lot to do, and it's not going to be easy, because it's really just pouring rain here in Shanghai.
We just got back yesterday from our quick four day trip to Beijing. While Miles was off being a gentleman and a scholar at something called the Beijing Forum, I went off on a pair of all-day bus tours. The first one took in sights in Beijing (The Summer Palace, The Forbidden City, Tien An Men Square, and The Temple of Heaven). The second one went out to one of the Great Wall sites (Badaling) and took in one of the Ming Emporer's Tombs on the way there. (If you've never heard of the Beijing Forum, it's a kind of academic extravaganza — with the theme The Harmony of Civilizations and Prosperity for All — put on annually since 2004 by Peking University with support from The Beijing Municipal Commission of Education and The Korean Foundation for Advanced Studies.) After the forum had wound down, we went together on a half-day tour sponsored by the forum to the Olympic Stadiums (Bird's Nest, Water Cube) and Beijing's 798 Art Zone. You can see pictures of all of this tourism here, here, and here. The forum also hosted the National Ballet of China for a dance recital at Peking University Hall: Journey into a World of Ballet. It was quite a busy time. All the more so, because I got sick (what started out as a hay fever type of allergy morphed into a cold or maybe the flu). I'm better now, but I'm going to take it a bit easy for the next few days.
Our way back from Beijing was not quite smooth, unfortunately. Our aircraft had some mechanical problem, could not take off, and they taxied us back to a gate where we were deplaned. Then all hell broke loose. Sadly, China Eastern didn't seem to have much of a procedure in place for dealing with the cancellation of a flight. The idea seemed to be to put half the passengers onto a flight within a half hour, and the other half onto a flight leaving an hour later. This message was not received by the passengers with equanimity. We thought it might come to fisticuffs between some passengers and the poor China Eastern staff, but the worst in the end was some mild form of battery committed with a boarding pass. But the shrieking! We stayed well out of it until most of it had died down, then got our boarding passes for the later of the two replacement flights and made our belated way back to Shanghai.
02 November 2009
Monday, 2 November 2009 (Updated!)
It's really cold in Shanghai today!
The thermometer would say it's in the mid-fifties Fahrenheit, but that doesn't tell the whole story. There is a really strong gale off the water that adds considerable damp wind chill to the equation. I guess our all too brief Autumn is making its inevitable segue into Winter.
Last night's concert at the Conservatory was really fascinating. This was the "closing night gala" of the 5th Shanghai International Piano Competition.
We were both prepared for just a concert, but the evening actually began with the official announcement (with both the jury and the contestants on stage) of the positions of the six finalists in the competition, starting with sixth place, and going up through first prize. Before this could happen there was a lengthy introduction of all of the members of the jury (in Chinese and English), and someone representing the Shanghai International Arts Festival droned on for about 10 minutes (only in Chinese), while most of the color drained from the faces (and probably the knuckles) of the contestants. Following this, each of the finalists played some of their competition entries. Talk about maalox moments! The sixth runner up not only had swallow any disappointments she may have had about not doing better, she also had to come out first to perform! The end of the program might have afforded a nice opportunity for all the runners up to get one more dose of applause for all their efforts, but after the first prize winner's bow, the house lights came up abruptly, and that was that!
Among the six finalists, there were four women and two men. China provided one of the women and both of the men. The other women were one each from Belgium, Kazakhstan, and Korea. Here was the roster of finalists:
Duanduan Hao really was impressive, both as to technique, and for his evident musicianship. His piece at the concert was the Ginastera Piano Sonata No. 1, Op. 22, which was presented complete. Before we heard him play a single note, we gave him high marks just for having the courage to program this "modern" piece (actually it was written in 1952, so it's hardly "new music"). Everyone else made far "safer" choices: one played the Bach-Busoni Chaconne in D minor, another played a Haydn Sonata and a Liszt concert etude, a third coupled the Chopin Polonaise-Fantaisie with the Bizet-Horowitz Carmen Variations — well, you get the idea. It seemed like about half the program was either a piece by Liszt, or a transcription by Liszt, or one by someone who was "the Liszt of his time."
There was, sad to say, more bad concert-going audience behavior — the usual cell phones bleeping, unabashed talking, and the ceaseless restless rustling of candy wrappers. We really had hoped for better at a Conservatory Hall. But, this time, Miles spotted a real drama (sadly, I missed it — I was too engrossed in the Ginastera Sonata, I suppose). One woman was visibly (if not for once audibly) arguing with another, in the denouement of which, she apparently knocked her opponent to the ground!
I guess they don't call it a Piano Competition for nothing.
The thermometer would say it's in the mid-fifties Fahrenheit, but that doesn't tell the whole story. There is a really strong gale off the water that adds considerable damp wind chill to the equation. I guess our all too brief Autumn is making its inevitable segue into Winter.
Last night's concert at the Conservatory was really fascinating. This was the "closing night gala" of the 5th Shanghai International Piano Competition.
We were both prepared for just a concert, but the evening actually began with the official announcement (with both the jury and the contestants on stage) of the positions of the six finalists in the competition, starting with sixth place, and going up through first prize. Before this could happen there was a lengthy introduction of all of the members of the jury (in Chinese and English), and someone representing the Shanghai International Arts Festival droned on for about 10 minutes (only in Chinese), while most of the color drained from the faces (and probably the knuckles) of the contestants. Following this, each of the finalists played some of their competition entries. Talk about maalox moments! The sixth runner up not only had swallow any disappointments she may have had about not doing better, she also had to come out first to perform! The end of the program might have afforded a nice opportunity for all the runners up to get one more dose of applause for all their efforts, but after the first prize winner's bow, the house lights came up abruptly, and that was that!
Among the six finalists, there were four women and two men. China provided one of the women and both of the men. The other women were one each from Belgium, Kazakhstan, and Korea. Here was the roster of finalists:
- First prize: Duanduan Hao (China)
- Second prize: Cunmo Yin (China)
- Third prize: Oxana Shevchenko (Kazakhstan)
- Fourth prize: Siqian Li (China)
- Fifth prize: Kang-Eun Cho (Korea)
- Sixth prize: Stephanie Proot (Belgium)
- Tigran Alikhanov (Russia)
- Lydia Artymiw (US)
- Pierluigi Camicia (Italy)
- Hyoung-Joon Chang (Korea)
- Guillermo González (Spain)
- Shikun Liu (China)
- Jean Bernard Pommier (France)
- Pierre Reach (France)
- Jerome Rose (US)
- Liqing Yang (China)
- Keng Zhou (China)
Duanduan Hao really was impressive, both as to technique, and for his evident musicianship. His piece at the concert was the Ginastera Piano Sonata No. 1, Op. 22, which was presented complete. Before we heard him play a single note, we gave him high marks just for having the courage to program this "modern" piece (actually it was written in 1952, so it's hardly "new music"). Everyone else made far "safer" choices: one played the Bach-Busoni Chaconne in D minor, another played a Haydn Sonata and a Liszt concert etude, a third coupled the Chopin Polonaise-Fantaisie with the Bizet-Horowitz Carmen Variations — well, you get the idea. It seemed like about half the program was either a piece by Liszt, or a transcription by Liszt, or one by someone who was "the Liszt of his time."
There was, sad to say, more bad concert-going audience behavior — the usual cell phones bleeping, unabashed talking, and the ceaseless restless rustling of candy wrappers. We really had hoped for better at a Conservatory Hall. But, this time, Miles spotted a real drama (sadly, I missed it — I was too engrossed in the Ginastera Sonata, I suppose). One woman was visibly (if not for once audibly) arguing with another, in the denouement of which, she apparently knocked her opponent to the ground!
I guess they don't call it a Piano Competition for nothing.
01 November 2009
Sunday, 1 November 2009
I think we've pretty much figured out classical Chinese gardens.
I'm generalizing from our viewing of the Yu Yuan Garden here in Shanghai last week, and the tour we made of three more classical chinese gardens in Suzhou yesterday, which may be too small a sample, but I would conclude that there are these four necessary elements:
The gardens we saw in Suzhou yesterday were:
In addition to these gardens, we also saw the Suzhou Museum — a small but nicely-displayed collection of classical Chinese art, housed in a building designed by I. M. Pei (who was born in Canton to a prominent family from Suzhou), as well as the Tiger Hill complex with its "leaning" Pagoda.
Pictures from all of this are here. Here's a couple I especially liked. They are little architectural ornaments from Tiger Hill.
As I write these blog posts, I often recall, somewhat at random, that I've been meaning to write about some aspect of Shanghai life for some time, but somehow never have done so yet. Today is no exception, and the topic of today's random observation is firecrackers.
Every so often, and far oftener than I would have expected, a really big and really loud noise will suddenly break out in whatever particular Shanghai neighborhood I happen to be in, a noise that sounds like a really big explosion. It usually goes on, intermittently, for a few minutes. The first time this happened, I happened to be up on the 31st floor in our apartment, and I simply had no earthly idea what could be going on. Was a building being demolished nearby? Had terrorists struck? Frantic, I looked out our windows for signs of fallout from the implosion of a building, or smoke from a bomb site — nothing. When peace reigned again, it was entirely as though nothing had happened. I finally figured out (maybe somebody told me) it was Chinese fireworks (we'd call them firecrackers). A big family occasion like a wedding will typically call for a heap of these as part of the celebration. When it happens (as it just did a few moments ago as I was composing the first part of this post) I now know it is meant as a joyful noise. I still find it unsettling though.
Tonight we're going to a concert at the Shanghai Conservatory's He Luting Concert Hall. It's the gala closing performance of the Conservatory's Fifth International Youth Piano Competition, and the top prize winners are supposed to be performing. Should be exciting!
I'm generalizing from our viewing of the Yu Yuan Garden here in Shanghai last week, and the tour we made of three more classical chinese gardens in Suzhou yesterday, which may be too small a sample, but I would conclude that there are these four necessary elements:
- water
- rocks
- plants
- buildings
The gardens we saw in Suzhou yesterday were:
- The Humble Administrator's Garden
- The Lion Forest Garden
- The Master-of-Nets Garden
In addition to these gardens, we also saw the Suzhou Museum — a small but nicely-displayed collection of classical Chinese art, housed in a building designed by I. M. Pei (who was born in Canton to a prominent family from Suzhou), as well as the Tiger Hill complex with its "leaning" Pagoda.
Pictures from all of this are here. Here's a couple I especially liked. They are little architectural ornaments from Tiger Hill.
As I write these blog posts, I often recall, somewhat at random, that I've been meaning to write about some aspect of Shanghai life for some time, but somehow never have done so yet. Today is no exception, and the topic of today's random observation is firecrackers.
Every so often, and far oftener than I would have expected, a really big and really loud noise will suddenly break out in whatever particular Shanghai neighborhood I happen to be in, a noise that sounds like a really big explosion. It usually goes on, intermittently, for a few minutes. The first time this happened, I happened to be up on the 31st floor in our apartment, and I simply had no earthly idea what could be going on. Was a building being demolished nearby? Had terrorists struck? Frantic, I looked out our windows for signs of fallout from the implosion of a building, or smoke from a bomb site — nothing. When peace reigned again, it was entirely as though nothing had happened. I finally figured out (maybe somebody told me) it was Chinese fireworks (we'd call them firecrackers). A big family occasion like a wedding will typically call for a heap of these as part of the celebration. When it happens (as it just did a few moments ago as I was composing the first part of this post) I now know it is meant as a joyful noise. I still find it unsettling though.
Tonight we're going to a concert at the Shanghai Conservatory's He Luting Concert Hall. It's the gala closing performance of the Conservatory's Fifth International Youth Piano Competition, and the top prize winners are supposed to be performing. Should be exciting!
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