Aventurina King

I arrived back in Beijing this morning at 7 and stepped off the night train in a daze (eventhough the beds were much more welcoming than the tattered leather equivalents of the Paris-Venice train I took when I was 12, sleep still didn't settle in).  I'm relieved to be back in Beijing.  Shanghai is beautiful, dazzling, stunning etc... but it lacks authenticity.  It is a city built to project a modern image of China, it is not a city built for the Chinese to live in. 

Gold sheened shopping malls, glass glaciers and Martian-like constructions--the Oriental Pearl Tower--guard the sides of every wide avenue.  They are silent like sentinels, there is no one behind the massive glass curtains.  Behind every tree hides a kodak stand, providing cameras, batteries and film for absent tourists.  This is the modern quarter on the east side of the river.  It is empty, like an extraterrestrial base whose inhabitants haven't landed yet. Accross the river I can see, the Bund, the part of the city that was constructed by the first westerners arrived.  It looks like London with its red telephone boxes, pompous black gates barring the ancient stone walls and their carved golden capitals.

I got a whiff (it was a smelly experience) of the authentic (what I believe to be the authentic) Shangai in the afternoon, walking through one of the Nangtong (slum) districts.  I crouched and slid into a small restaurant on the side of the littered road and drank MaLa Tang (for those who read my Spicy and Spicy entry, it's a soup that has both sorts of spices in it) sitting on chair with a cat underneath it.  Around me, small children were pealing boiled eggs and watching cartoons on a TV positioned right above my head.

1)Taipei: clean (no eating aloud), efficient, spacious, also because people waiting for the train neatly cue up in front of doorway signs on the floor, it reminds me of "Welcome to Aggatica", has large plasma tvs

2)Shanghai: clean but doesn't cover enough of the city, it has doorway signs on the floor but nobody cares, also has large plasma tvs

3)Beijing: clean but doesn t cover enough of the city, doesn t have any plasma tvs

4)France: dirty, beggars seem to cue up to ask you for money, but little can surpass the charm of the parisian metro system with it's crouched ceilings, white old fashioned tiles and towering fashion billboards (often displaying scantily clad top models in provocative or original positions)

6)London: clean, efficient

5)New York: dirty, efficient, definitely unsafe at night although the 24/7 characteristic is a plus, I enjoy riding the express train down to 42 street, it s a bit like space mountain except you don't trust the driver.

Shanghai:

I came, I saw, I wrote ( Scripsi is a wild guess, I don't know one word of latin).

I arrived here yesterday morning at 7 am after 12 hours of train.  The train experience was unlike anything I heard about it.  No there were no chickens running around, excrementing up the ramshackle floor boards, or natives using sheep as pillows.  That isn't to say there were western style toilet seats (which automatically stars a location in my opinion), but there were bunkbeds, clean linen (I stole un extra two quilts and three pillows from the empty cabins), there was even an open bar where I bought a bottle of Kahluah.

Shanghai versus Beijing (the ultimate showdown)

It is more modern (but that had been repeated so many times to me before I left).  I mean, everywhere, there are glass curtained skyscrapers, like in New York.  But then, there are trees which flank the wide avenues, like in Paris.  In fact, it is exactly the same species of trees, I'm guessing they were imported from Europe   It is much hotter than Beijing, Beijing has dry heat, Shanghai has a humid, heavy atmosphere which upon contact causes instantaneous sweat.

I haven't seen Beijing's national museum yet (shame on me) but I don't think it could beat Shanghai's art museum.  It has the most extensive collection of Chinese artifacts I have ever seen.  Five floor of jades, ceramics, paintings, calligraphy samples and clothes.  The ceramics are the most impressive collection and I have fallen in love with Chinese porcelain(see the ceramic photo album on the blog).  I have decided to write a summary of its history on my blog.  Coming soon...

This is an ancient Chinese pillow.  I can't imagine what the beds must have been like, predecessors of the wooden beds that welcome tourists in Beijing. I don't have a quilt because I sleep on it.