Well, again I am writing this a bit after the fact but there were a couple of other things that happened to me while I was in Shanghai that I wanted to write about.
On the second morning I woke up and headed out of Xie's place at about 9:30 or so. I was planning on going to the Museum and walking around downtown a bit more, and walking down her street I put in my iPod and negotiated the subway tickets with ease and a real sense of confidence.
"I could live here," I thought to myself as the subway zoomed along eventually depositing me at my destination near the museum.
I got out and found the museum which was incredible, and best of all completely free. You are actually allowed to take photographs inside the museums in China and in much of Asia so I was pretty delighted to bring in my camera and of course the light in museums is always excellent. I did notice a small amount of very subtle propaganda concerning Tibetans compared with other indegenous, or "minority" cultures, mostly in the sense that they portrayed the Tibetans as a very violent and war torn culture. For example, in the exhibit where the minority clothes were displayed, Tibet was the only outfit which included swords (two of them) and skulls creating this very agressive looking character. Ahhh China and its imagination.
After the Museum I wandered around a bit and as I walked past a couple of students they smiled at me and we began talking. They told me that they were art students and they were holding an exhibit of their art and that it was their job to share their work with foreigners and wouldI please come with them to their gallery.
I agreed, and decided to go with them but I definitely got a bit of a strange vibe so I decided to stay as alert as possible. A number of times I almost decided to turn back but they were all very nice and kept urging me on with them. I decided that if they led me into a dark alley I would certainly turn and get out of there, but we came to a large buisness looking building with a big sign outside that said "Gallery Something or other" and it all looked pretty legit so I decided to go with them and we got into the elevator and went up to the 23rd floor. It was all quite eerie as there was no one else in the building and I was reminded a bit of Kafka's "The Trial."
So we get to the door and I walk inside but the gallery is comprised of a number of very small rooms and cooridoors so that it was set up like a maze of some kind, and the entire experience began feeling more and more surreal, and I became more and more on edge, as the students I was with kept dissappearing as I was looking at the art and then reappearing from some other entrance from the one they had left. I kept expecting someone to be waiting just behind the next wall with a knife or a cake or something, but the fact that this tension was never broken made it even more surreal.
Finally we got to the last room where there was a table set up with a lot of artwork on the table and they sat me down and told me that the work on the table was thiers and the work on the walls was that of thier teachers. The asked if I might be interested in looking at their own work, and I agreed, knowing that they were going to try and sell it to me, but going along for the ride anyway so as not to be rude to them. And I was also genuinely interested in seeing their artwork.
So we look at all of it which was quite mediochre to be honest and then they kept pressuring me to buy. The whole scam was set up so perfectly and they were really such endearing people that I was nearing the breaking point when this muscular Chinese guy burst in the room with a bag of lunch and a very aggro demeanor and kind of approached me from behind my back. I stood up and told the students that it was time for me to go.
So we went back through the maze and out into the empty hallway which was empty accept for the Chinese guy who was waiting for an elevator and motioned for me to go in before him. I motioned for him to go in first and then afterwards I waited for another elevator. The whole experience was very intense.
After that I walked around the Bund a bit more and then went for a really nice dinner with Xie with an incredible view and amazing food that would have cost 50 dollars a piece in the US and we paid 20 for the two of us. All around, I think Shanghai is a very livable city and a wonderful place to visit as long as you can avoid the scams.
