Have I mentioned the cold showers? Last night I finally found the magic touch
that makes the water warm instead of cold.
Twice I took showers in water warmer than my cold hands, but cooler than
the rest of my body! It’s a great
motivator to be quick, but not comfortable, especially if one is washing
hair. Somehow I got it right last night
and had a quick, but wonderfully comfortable shower. It is humid here in Shanghai, so any exertion
results in lots of drippy sweat.
And speaking of exertion takes us to the Automotive History
Museum … You know how in America all car lots are at the edge of town (cheaper
real estate and all that)? Well, guess
where the Shanghai Automotive History Museum is? That’s right; it’s at the edge of town with
all the car factories and sales floors.
For Shanghai, the edge of town is at the end of the newest subway line
(No. 11), just past Shanghai Automotive City.
It took us about an hour and a half to go from my hotel to that subway
station. Then we walked about 2 km to
the actual museum.
It is a really new place, built in 2007, and Gloria and I
were the only visitors. If we had made
any noise, I’m sure it would have echoed back and forth against the walls for
several minutes. Consisting of five
floors, only the first three floors contained exhibits. The children’s exhibit had really hands-on
fun for kids: video games of driving
cars, touchable engines, explanations of tire treads, and much more. Floors 1 and 2 contained a wide variety of antique,
modern, and futuristic cars, including racecars.
The first exhibition was a timeline of the development of transportation. There, tucked in with other, larger placards
and displays was an artist’s rendering of the “Ming Sheng” truck, designed by
my father and built by the Chinese at the Liao Ning Trench Mortar Arsenal,
completed May 31, 1931. A man is
standing beside the truck with the face of Zhang Xueliang and (I would swear)
the body of Li Yichun. J It was a drawing, not a photograph.
We did manage to meet the director, a very young man who was
not even sure of the Ming Sheng display, but went to research an article on
it. We showed him printouts of the
celebration at the factory in June 1931 and offered to send him copies. He seemed to think it would be okay, but did not
display much enthusiasm. After the warm
reception I received from Professor Wu, I was somewhat disappointed in this
gentleman’s attitude, but there could have been many reasons for that. At least I can send him the photos. Maybe someone there will care.
Gloria and I walked back toward the subway and had lunch
(another feast of tasty dishes, including rice and pork porridge, buns, chicken
feet, little steamed bao with shrimp, and a crunchy bread roll in a rice flower
wrap. Then we boarded the subway for the
ride back. Interestingly enough, the
subway actually is an above-ground train at the far end of the line so I could
see a little bit of countryside (with trees) and several of the car
manufacturing facilities, not to mention the huge high-rises going up. The factories did not look much different
than those one sees in South Bend, Indiana, or Detroit, Michigan. We rode to Xin Tian Di to begin our evening explorations.
