Shanghai Museum

Night tree

 Two versions of the tree outside Max' roof garden: night, uplit by streetlight, and day. This tree had pendulous stems of winged, maple-looking seeds, and leaves that looked a little like nut trees-- eye-shaped with about 5 on a stem. I have not seen this tree before. But many of the plants in both Shanghai and Beijing are very familiar: the thyme, rosemary, basil and mint grown by Max' neighbor; park plantings of petunia, marigolds, etc; often the parks are planted with liriope. (no one walks or plays on these lawns.)

Day tree

People's Park in Shanghai is a large green space that feels like a huge set of small parks because of the landscaping. There was a glade of Tai Chi practitioners, a class of people practicing some kind of sword-martial art, several groups of people singing under the boughs of trees. Scattered around it are various cultural venues including the Shanghai Museum, shaped like a ding, a large pot with handles at the top, and which contains artworks spanning several millennia. Besides the paintings, calligraphy, jade carvings, and ceramics, there was a display of ethnic works on the top floor. These included metalwork, costumes, embroideries; including a suit made of 'salmon feathers' which looked like fish skin, pieced, with appliques of fish skin. Below is the lovely ink and ink wash picture of the silkworms eating leaves. It is hard to see the worms in this copy.

I also visited the Museum of Urban Planning which was a five-storey monster that was mostly hung with pictures of people smiling and laying cornerstones-- but which included an enormous scale model of Shanghai that occupied an entire floor. That, and a bus ride, confirmed that the 'downtown' part of Shanghai actually does go on forever. In China, I think it's not really a city until it gets to 5 million; below that it is a town.