I’ve only been out of Shanghai for 4 days, but it is taking some adjusting to come back home. The Chinese in Shanghai appear to have little concept of personal space and think nothing of barging into you or cutting you up on foot or in a vehicle. It is a nuisance on the metro where a family stand at the doors with luggage completely filling the door space as you try and get off the train and in the end if someone stops to read their phone at the top of the escalator you simply have to push them out of the way. The Hong Kong Chinese stand on the right of the escalator and let people walk up on the left c.f. London. On the metro in Shanghai in most places it’s a barging free for all where a recorded female voice incessantly tells you to “Step onto the escalator and hold the handrail”, except our local metro stations where the local Korean and Japanese ex-pats stand on the right and let you walk up on the left.
But more dangerous is walking around outside…. in particular trying to cross the road. The pedestrian crossing means nothing here – the little green man precious little – so as you cross the road you must do so with heightened senses operating at 360°. And Hong Kong drives on the left, whilst mainland China drives on the right. They stop at lights and pedestrian crossings, mainland China does not, particularly if they are turning right and certainly not if they are on a scooter or a bicycle.
And I’m now back to the land of the spit……
The Shanghai Museum
So it was with heightened senses that I arrived at The Shanghai Museum on the south side of the People’s Square, the site of the pre-Revolution race course. The building is the way it is as the square base represents the earth, the upper circle the heaven. A number of Chinese buildings are designed in this way.
There are four floors to this museum and I have decided that as I have the luxury of time, I’m only going to do a floor at a time. Even so that was more than enough, so I shall come back to this museum and theme several times over the coming weeks as I explore more and write about what interests me.
When we were in Taipei in Taiwan last summer we were underwhelmed by the Jade Department and when we saw the reverence around the carved Jade Chinese Cabbage (much like that around the Mona Lisa) we left the gallery and headed home. It may have been that it was the end of a long hot day in that museum, as I found the Jade Gallery here in Shanghai a little more interesting. These Jade pieces – the ones on the left are the size of rings, the ones on the right the size of tea plates – were made between 6000BC and 2000BC. They have none of the pure translucency of the modern highly priced jade and I love them the more for it. They come from a Liangzhu tomb here in Qingpu, Shanghai.
Carved Jade from between 2100BC and 771BC
Jade piece from the Warring States Period
Between 2100BC and 771 BC they started to carve jade for ritual purposes (left) and by the time we get to 475-221BC the civilisation of the warring states is capable of creating this gem on the right.
One thousand years later, this was being produced:
Ornament with Grape design Jin (1115-1234AD)
and the later Ming dynasty was carving hairpins like this:
Hairpin Ming Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) was producing pieces as delicate and as thin as this:
Qing Dynasty Jade Censer
Qing Dynasty Jade Vessel
I’m glad I visited this gallery. It has changed my opinion of Jade. Whilst I do not like what is currently considered to be valuable pieces of Jade there is a beauty in the coloured stone and the way in which the ancients carved it.
Next was the furniture gallery which had examples of Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) Dynasty furniture. I like Ming furniture it has simple lines whilst being strong. It reminds of the UK’s Georgian furniture.
Ming Dynasty Study LHS
Ming Dynasty Study RHS
The room layout on the left is a Ming Dynasty hallway. A formal reception area where things were taken very seriously and the most precious items were on display.
Remember Charles I was executed in 1649, by which time the Ming Dynasty had been usurped by the Manchurian Qings.
Now as far as furniture goes the Qing in my opinion were doing all the wrong things that the Victorians ended up doing with furniture. Big and chunky was the name of the game with huge chairs called thrones and elaborate but massive cabinets.
Proto-currency pre Qin Period
Chinese cast coins
From there I went onto the Coin Gallery. Now the first thing of interest here were the proto coins of the pre-Qin period (221BC), but after this the Chinese established a standard format for currency which was a cast circular metal disk with a square hole in it. There were lots of these on display, but I didn’t find them very interesting. What I did find fascinating was a section which covered the various coins that have been found along the silk road where the influence of
Coins of Alexander the Great
first the Greeks and then subsequent dynasties brought their coins into modern day China. This was the overland route between the Mediterranean and China that brought silk and probably pasta to the west and took jade, lapis lazuli and other things east. Over the centuries traders from various civilisations travelled along the various routes east and there are their coins displayed in this museum.
From the Greeks to the Arabs there are coins from all the trading groups and nations involved including The Parthians, The Sassanians, Ancient Indians, The Macedonians, The Bactrians and The Yueh Chih and that of Ghenghis Khan.
Coin of Ghengis Khan
Going back on the metro I watched a toddler struggle to get free from his mother, trying to get across the carriage to his father who was having none of it.
There was no crying, just a lot of struggling and a mother doing all she could to keep the child occupied. I see very few prams or pushchairs on the metro. Most small children are carried and sit on their mother’s laps (mainly) and often Grandmother is in tow. This child wasn’t interested in sitting on his mother’s lap and was a wriggling worm. He wore the usual Chinese toddler’s trousers which have no crotch seam. This allows the toddlers to squat down whenever they need to relieve themselves. Travelling on the metro though, parents do put a temporary nappy into the gap in the trousers to retain any loose cannons as it were.
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