Week Si (Four)

Shanghai, Week Si (Four) November 5 to November 9, 2007

This week has been pretty mellow. On the school front, I channeled my Colbert Report withdrawal into an essay and presentation entitled “My Favorite TV Personality”. Using the visual aid of my First Edition Colbert, along with sound bites from the ebook, I was able to persuasively present the awesome-ness of one Mr. Stephen T. Colbert. My classmates were especially interested in the US presidential electoral system, especially after I shared the grand news that Mr. Colbert was running for president in his home state of South Carolina. It took a little pantomiming, white boarding (Mr. Mark, master of the white board, you would have been so proud…I had an impressive array of stick figures and blobs and arrows and whatnot) and English supplementing, but I think I got the gist of the primary and two-party system across.

On the non-school front, let’s see. Another visit to Dragonfly for the long awaited foot massage along with a Shiatsu massage. I got the Shiatsu massage first. It was quite lovely, similar to the Chinese-style, but with subtle differences. After the Shiatsu, and my therapist lead me to the foot massage treatment room. I was quite mellow and docile after that massage, she could have been leading me in front of a truck, and I would have happily went. Then on to the main event…The foot massage….heaven. The treatment room is a dimly-lit, serene oasis with a wall of gently running water, a striking centerpiece stone sculpture lit with soft candlelight, and eight, super-comfy reclining chairs and ottomans, upholstered in crisp linen. The room was occupied with only one other patron when I entered. It was so dark and quiet, and she must have been so blissed out, that I don’t think she realized another person had walked into the room. The therapist brought a steaming tub of scented water for me to soak my footsies in, retrieved some heated, buckwheat cushions to drape over my shoulders, along with a soft, warm blankie, and began rubbing my much-abused toes with a fragrant scrub. After my feet were rinsed and dried, what commenced was the most mind-blowingly awesome foot massage ever known to man. That went on for a good half hour, before my therapist let my feet enjoy their state of complete happiness….and then she went to work at my neck, shoulders, and arms. I was ready to profess my love to the therapist right then and there.

This week, I also visited a couple of other sights. One was the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center located in People’s Park, near the Shanghai Museum and Grand Theater. It, like the other buildings, is an architectural delight. It reminds me a bit of a pi sign, with a sweeping, arched room over a straight metal body, intersected with shimmering glass panes. Now don’t be turned off by that the Planning Center name. This is actually a very cool museum that documents the past, present, and future growth of Shanghai. It uses scale models (I heart scale models) to illustrate the changing and current Shanghai landscape, as well as state of the art technology to bring an educational, interactive, multimedia experience. One floor was dominated with a scale model of the entire city. Now I know intellectually, that Shanghai is huge. But to see it scaled in a way that gave me a bird’s-eye view, the true scope of this city really hit me hard...kind of like a bird against a windshield of a car going 60 MPH on the freeway. The transportation plan, the housing plan, the greening plan, the information technology plan…my OC heart swelled to Shanghai-ian proportions at the thought and care that the city went into making, and implementing these plans. This center is the best “invest in Shanghai” promotional vehicle ever made. And we have to pay to see it. Genius. Seriously, though, I think my former peers in the good ol’ CoB Planning Department would have loved this center. The emphasis on sustainable, smart, planned growth is admirable, as is the conscious decision to include well-being issues like green space and conservation. Sidebar: The center mapped the growth of per capita green space since 1900, and it went from the size of a pair of shoes to the size of a 10x10 room. That is pretty amazing, especially when you take into account the population growth in the time period. I can see now why the parks and landscaping is so cherished…citizens actually use the space, enjoy it, and know that the green spaces offer them a respite from the wacky hectic pace of the city.

Aside from the scale models of the city, the harbor, and various transportation hubs such as railway and metro stations and the airports, the center also had multiple LCD kiosks at every display, some encased in nifty casings that were shaped like huge books. You would page through the information just like a book, by tapping at the corners as if turning a page. There were a couple of huge dioramas with LCD features, as well as various video exhibits. The best one, for me, was the huge Virtual Reality theatre, which is a round theatre with 360 degrees of high def video screen. The movie that shows is a short, nausea-inducing ride through Shanghai’s main development areas. It’s very slickly shot, and I got more of a “amusement park ride” feel from this movie than I did from the Bund Tourist Tunnel. Very cool. The center also had this random “interactive educational game area” where a bunch of computers were set up with pre-loaded games that were pretty lame, but had an odd, “edutainment” charm to them. Think Oregon Trail with prettier colors. All in all, the center is worth a visit. Directly beneath the center is a small underground corridor that leads to a cavernous shopping complex. The corridor is called the 1930-Flavor Street, and is done up to look just like a Shanghai street from that era, with dark crowded shopfronts, cobblestoned paths, and authentic-looking facades. Oddly enough, this “street” reminded me most of Las Vegas more than anything else, including the neon-and people-packed Nanjing Road. You wanna know why? The fake sky. Just like the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace, the sky in this street is artificially frozen at dusk, and the street’s fully operational shops, despite their retro facades, hawk, like the Forum Shops, modern services and merchandise. The Internet Café and modern hair salon detracts a little from the painstaking artifice of a 1930s street at dusk. I got a little lost in that cavernous shopping mall. All those tiny shops, all squeezed together in a maze. Like a lab rat, I followed my nose to the food court, and found an escape route to fresh air.

Another touristy site that I absolutely had to see was the Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, which is right off People’s Square, in the 12^th Floor of a huge shopping mall/hotel. I went to the Madame Tussaud’s in Las Vegas (I like Vegas, sue me) and must confess, I was hooked. I am true to my Chinese blood and thus, am a sucker for celebrity in any guise, even a wax one. The admission price, the student price, mind you, was outrageous (100 yuan -- $13.50 US, which could buy me food for at least 2 days). I paid it a tad reluctantly. However, I must admit, my celebri-hound heart was absolutely smitten with the likenesses found here. There was Yao Ming, of course, along with a couple of Chinese Olympians. Then there were the Chinese pop and movie stars. Tony Leung, Aaron Kwok, Andy Lau, Rosamund Kwan, Anita Mui, Coco Lee, Twins, Teresa Teng, Joey Yung, Nic Tseng, Louis Koo, Leslie Cheung, Kelly Chen, Bruce Lee…I know I’m missing quite a few. There were also lots of non-Chinese celebs (Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Audrey Hepburn, Pierce Brosnan as James Bond), a couple of politicians (Putin and Clinton), British royalty (Princess Diana, and a cute display of Prince William next to a tufted pedestal complete with glass slipper); Sports figures such as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and David Beckham; a couples/quartet exhibit with Becks and Posh, Brangelina, and the Beatles. A cute display had Bill Gates and Li Ka-Shing (very rich Chinese businessman) together in a rich guys club setting. I love how the wax figures are posed in different environments…movie stars are posed on movie sets, sports figures in sports arenas, etc. I also like how the museum encourages interaction with the figures, many times the displays had seats that let you pose with the celebs, size them up close, so to speak.

I enjoyed myself thoroughly, and loved the cheesy, shiny celebration of international celebrity, and celebrity-hounds. Great fun.

My student ticket also granted me entry into a Haunted Maze exhibit. What a waste of space. The build up was huge, with dire warnings for young children and people with heart conditions, etc to not enter the site. We were given stern warnings to not take pictures, as there are “live actors” in the exhibit, and flash photography might jeopardize their safety, and were handed 3-D glasses. A long rope was pulled out, and we each took hold of it. The group consisted of about 10 peeps or so, with lots of nervous giggles. I just wanted to get my money’s worth…I wasn’t too keen on going through this exhibit, since, to be honest, it sounded really lame. And it was…Dark, exaggerated soundtrack full of screams and chains rattling, we following a path that twisted between more dark blobs (ok, my night vision sucks, maybe that’s why I couldn’t get into it.) A couple of “actors” jumped out at us, scaring the crap of one gal, while the rest of us, just looked at him, and her, blankly. The actor skulked away, probably sulkily muttering he went to a prestigious acting academy or some such and was too talented for this. This went on for another 5 minutes, and with another actor trying to one up his predecessor. No luck. We groped our way out of there, grumbling about how lame, and what a rip off, that was. In different languages. No need for a translator here. “That sucked” is pretty universally understandable, even in different languages.