Shou Ning Lu and modern times

June 28, Seafood Street: Shou Ning Lu

Luscious soup dumplings for breakfast ( idea—a periodic table of the dim sum) Max is packing to go, and I went to the Chenxiangge nunnery near Yuyuan gardens. Yuyuan Gardens is a tourist version of an old Chinese neighborhood, paved with tourist shops selling inflatable swim toys, shoes, 'crafts' and 'antiques', ant high volume. I think they also have music and dance shows; this is mostly for the benefit of Chinese tourists. 

I negotiated Metro with success on the first try! The Shanghai metro is very transparent. It is hard to believe it is all new from scratch in 15 years. My guidebook from 2009 is useless, since several new lines have been added, and a number of new stations. 

I emerged into a busy metro area. I started following the crowds, trying to get my coordinates, and heard those birds in the narrow strip of greenery separating the highway and sidewalk, but these caged birds had no obvious owners....a trio of young guys volunteered info about the birds and we talked about parrots.  “Happy New Year” and “Give me Money” seem to be popular things to teach parrots to say. These birds are about the size of robins, but not as plump. They have white around the eyes, I think featherless, and a white eyebrow heading behind the eye, and are otherwise brown. They are very engaging with people, look and bob their heads I think aggressively when you look at them, and do sing long and beautifully. Old men bring them in their cages, which are about three times the size of the birds, a foot cubed or so, to the park or hang them on balconies.

Long before I got to the nunnery, I hit blocks and blocks of tourist stalls, selling silk scarves, shoes, dollar store stuff, 'antiques' chops and brushes (chicken, wool, oxhair, other odd fibers. These seemed low quality to me). I did get a couple of things...but it was really overwhelming. There are wandering touts for purses and watches; and once your eye rests for even a second on anything, the seller will start to harangue and not let you go. If you try to walk away, they follow and even grab your arm. It is not possible to 'just look' without real fortitude.

Temple Bells

I did find the nunnery, which was lovely-- rows of great bells and an anteroom with 6 large Buddhas, one of which was dredged from the river during some construction project centuries ago and was the basis for the temple. There were tiny black clad nuns and also visitors making obeisance. And lots of incense. There were a pair of columns studded with red LEDs every inch. The basic structure was a courtyard, a covered pavilion with the statues about 7ft on left and right, then another courtyard, and the main temple where the nuns were. In the courtyard was a row of huge bells under a colonnade on the left wall. A cart in the middle was filled with  bunches of joss sticks. But as with the museum, I felt I could only see these surface things, and not really see their meaning; so I felt like a gross invader.

On the way back to the subway, I walked  down some alleys that reminded me of the alley houses in Bossa, up in the hills. The streets were cobbled, and the houses' second floors were slightly cantilevered over the cobbled alley. There were tiny spaces along walls where people had planted beans or melons.

Back in Huaihai Road, Max and I went provisioning: half a duck, a small melon, bread for a picnic lunch. Ryan happened to see us  from the window of a food shop and texted Max, advised on duck venues, and ultimately joined us. While we ate, we were the subject of much extended amazed attention from elderly gentlemen who occupied the park. 

Later we met Jacob, Qing, Torin, and Seuan for an expedition to a seafood street called Shou Ning Lu. This was sensational, like nothing I have ever seen.  So busy and crowded with happy diners. A block of shops with grills, grilling every kind of seafood, and oysters on the half shell, as well as eggplant, unidentified stems of some green, sliced skewered grilled bread, stinky tofu, lamb, and so on...oysters doused with garlic and chili, black bean sauce, or I think sweet wine-- we ate and ate, and it was 255 rmb, about $6 apiece. I am very sorry not to have my camera. This would make an amazing feature in a food/travel magazine. I should find out the name of the street.

On the way back we saw what looked like a tai chi Jazzercise group, more than 100 people in a park with a boombox playing chinese pop music; also in a plaza in front of a modern office building,  ballroom dancers surrounded by an audience of onlookers.

Shanghai is incredibly vibrant and diverse.  Using words to describe it sounds flat.

                                           

Shanghai reflected in pool in People's park

It is strange being totally dependent on the boys. They are very good, and certainly helping me to see things about Shanghai that I never would otherwise. They are being generous with their time and space-- I am occupying Max' apartment, and he is staying with Jacob around the corner. To a large extent, they are showing me their lives here, too. I am thrilled about this, but at the same time I feel rather incompetent and have a variety of frets-- didn't pack the right things, carry too much or too little, etc. but mostly that they live in such a different world and I am the past. In Charlottesville I am smart and competent enough, but here I am an oaf. I am seeing the way they are in constant touch with each other by text, and meet up at the drop of a hat. I see how, while we are standing in front of an empty table on the seafood street, Qing uses her iPhone to figure out where an even better place is, 20 feet down the road (they seem the same to me) or how Ryan uses an app to coordinate the metro map to the street map.
Well, I have never been part of a cohort like that. Maybe being in a foreign  city helps cement these relationships, though most of these people are college friends who have all come here.