Suzhou

October 9, 2006 by Leave a Comment

I went to Suzhou today, located approx 1 hours train ride north west of Shanghai on the grand canal. A city of gardens, my favourite is the ‘Humble Administrators’ garden, which has the most beautiful gateways and lattice work screens giving glimpses of the manicured trees and magnificent rock structures beyond…

Walkways and bridges tread there way through the vistas, traversing ponds full of fat goldfish and the odd turtle

The Chinese love to have their photo taken, so at each turn, family members line up to pose in front of the new ’scene’… providing an excellent photo opportunity for the voyeur…

One of the gardens had the most extraordinary collection of ‘flower arrangements’ encompassing pieces of twisted metal, or grids of bamboo, with out and explanation in english, I could only image that they were for some sort of local flower arrangement competition

Then a visit to a magnificent pagoda and temple area cloistered by monks who were quite officious…

And then the toilets… in this case, a long trough providing tiny screens for privacy… my position provided me with a fabulous view of half a dozen ’sweet young things’ dressed to the nines for their weekend family outing… all talking on their mobiles with their bottoms in the air… a perfect photo opportunity missed!

Then lunch at a local restaurant, fish, rice, sea based creatures and soup, which I shared with a family from Sichuan and back onto the ‘barge’ for a tour of the canal – not unlike the train from Newcastle going through the inner city suburbs where you can observe the residents cooking, washing, cleaning or just sitting enjoying the sun

And finally after being released from the tour guide… back to the station to catch a train which is half an hour late, every seat has been triple booked and 50 people crowd each door to get on while another 50 try to get off

Quite a friendly experience really, once you’ve worked out which seat is ‘really’ yours and who your travel companions are…

I saw a very young boy ( 3 or 4 years old) at the station who was being tormented by a crowd of locals… his frustration rose to the point where he pulled down his pants, ran at the crowd and proceeded to wee on them … very primal

Kate

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Shanghai Museums of Art

October 8, 2006 by Leave a Comment
Shanghai Biennale 2006 - Shanghai Museum of Art

Shanghai Biennale 2006 - Shanghai Museum of Art

Shanghai Museum
I spent most of today at the Shanghai Museum located in People’s Square – it took 6 hours to cover 4 floors of ceramics, bronze, calligraphy, painting, coins, furniture, seals (not the fur kind), sculpture and my favorite, the ‘ethnic minority groups’, each with a separate gallery showcasing the most amazing fabrics, clothes, tools and other artifacts from about 3,800 BC ish

I had a very rough knowledge of Chinese History which has now been greatly enhanced

This is a must for all who would like to ‘understand’ the ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ of technological and creative advances that have had major impacts on our society as a whole

Set aside plenty of time as the bookshop alone will consume you for hours!

MOCA Shanghai
The Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai (MOCA Shanghai) is the first non-profit, independently-operated contemporary art institution in Shanghai. Its a fabulous glass structure nestled into the gardens on the northern side of People Park

I was fortunate to visit during the Shanghai Biennale 2006 and spent hours exploring the various indoor and outdoor interactive installations. The retail shop is tiny and has a very limited range of books and cards, you can however, unlike Australia, take as many photos as you like!

Shanghai Art Museum
Tucked away behind the National Theatre is the Shangahi Art Museum, established in 1956 in the circa 1930’s Shanghai Race Course clubhouse

Renovations in 2000 resulted in the creation of 12 gallery spaces covering 5 floors. I found the exhibitions themselves quite difficult to navigate as the ‘english’ signage is very limited and many of the spaces are narrow and mazelike. More problematic is the fact that exhibition schedules are in Chinese only, and so is the Website

The gallery hosts a huge range of international exhibitions and has managed the Shanghai Biennale since 1996

Filed Under: Catherine Croll

Shanghai, China

October 8, 2006 by Leave a Comment

Nee Hao, Wo boo hway shuo han yu … this is phonetic so noone else will be able to read it.

I’m in Shanghai… spent yesterday at the Peoples Park celebrating the national day holidays with 6 million other shanganese, friendly people (generally) – tend to love to have their photos taken – even thrust the young emperor (single male child) in front of the camera and command he smile.

Lunch at ‘5’ on the Bund – crispy river prawns (eaten whole) followed by seared something on a bed of fresh beans, corn and capsicum with a bottle of aussie white (VVV Expensive) – just joking total each $120 Yuan = $20AU ish

Then the town temple… i got into the spirit of things, burning incense and bowing a lot… fantastic Buddha’s, amazing architecture, millions of friendly Chinese tourists and a very pert pagoda.

Then the back street tiny shop front markets … would you like a Mao – cap, t-shirt, poster, book, bag, watch, lighter, badge, button, suit or set of playing cards?

Tommorrow I’m off to the Moganshan Lu artist colony – studios, galleries (Bizart, Shangart and the new Red Door Gallery) about 100 studios in a converted cement enclave… found several well known chinese contemporary artists ‘at home’ and was able to organise ongoing discussions via email

Then the Town Buddhist Temple and it’s museum of Buddhism with hundreds of different incarnations in a variety of medium.

Just for something really Kitsch I’m going to catch the underground trolley car through the gaudy bund sight seeing tunnel (a stupefying 678m long voyage of flashing lights under the Huanhpu River) to the China Sex Culture Museum.

My mate Wendy flys back to Ghongzhou this afternoon – then I’m on my own?!

Have to run the gauntlet of the thought police again later … logging on to google and bigpond is a bit hit and miss here…

Take care

Love XXX Kate (Mum)

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