Animal Market, World Financial Center, Chongming Island, and Beijing!

I am writing this week’s entry from a spacious hotel room overlooking the Bird’s Nest stadium and the rest of Olympic Park in Beijing!  I had a bit of a surprise at work last Wednesday evening when Jun Li brought Brad and I in for a routine meeting and in addition invited me accompany him on a business trip to Beijing! For our last week of work, Brad and I naively thought we could leisurely wrap up our current assignments and enjoy a more slow-paced, restful week before heading stateside. Of course our office had no such ideas, and in keeping with the hectic pace of Xian Dai and our internship thus far, we were given plenty of additional assignments to keep us more than busy for our last week. We left our meeting with Jun Li in a bit of a daze as he had informed us of the deadlines and criteria due for our current two projects and additionally introduced a brand new project for which two new iterations needed to be designed and modeled by the following Wednesday morning. I wasn’t sure how a trip to Beijing would fit in with all of these deadlines, but I was willing to make it work!

For our last weekend in China, Brad, Misha, Tina and I set out to cross a few remaining sights off our must-see list. First we investigated a small-animal, insect, and plant market in Old Town I had read about and was interested in visiting after reading as far as “small-animal”. The market is spread throughout the ground level of a block of traditional longtang alleyways and two-story dwelling/shops- similar to the Tianzifang Art Street we visited last weekend. Unlike Tianzifang, this market has no upscale, artsy aspirations or even a desire to attract tourists as its very unsouvenir-like business is selling pets. I thoroughly enjoyed exploring the maze of crowded alleyways and viewing the unexpected variety of plants, animals, and pet supplies for sale. The animal selection offered the largest variety of turtles I have ever seen, an abundance of colorful squawking birds in beautiful wooden cages, glittering goldfish of all shapes and sizes, crickets, crickets, and more crickets, a large selection of rodents, and of course adorable fluffy kittens and puppies! From my observations, it seems the Chinese like their dogs to be small and fluffy, which of course aligns with my puppy preference as well, and I even saw a puppy identical to Shelby!! I spent way too much time trying to get a good picture of her but she wouldn’t sit still. Mom and Dad, you can rest assured that I restrained from making any rash purchases at the small-animal market, and I should make it through customs without any problems tomorrow.

Although I was glad to visit the pet market, the top priority on our list for the day was visiting the observation deck of the World Financial Center. This skyscraper defines the skyline of Pudong, (the East side of the Huangpu River), and is currently the tallest building in Shanghai, (although soon to be surpassed by 450 feet in 2014 with the completion of the Shanghai tower). The World Financial Center boasts the highest observation level in the world at the 101st level, 1,600 feet in the air, and we were hoping for a clear evening to see Shanghai from a new perspective. Considering I can count on one hand the number of days I’ve seen blue overhead while in Shanghai, the weather was decent enough and the evening lights of Pudong and the Bund on the West side of the river were a beautiful sight. We also got a bird’s eye view of the neighboring Jin Mao tower, the second tallest building in the city. Afterwards, we made a quick visit to the hotel lobby of the Jin Mao tower to have a refreshment and to take in the 33-story atrium overhead that runs the entire height of the hotel.

Sunday was easily the highlight of my weekend if not of the whole trip. Brad and I were invited to join our coworkers for a Xian Dai organized social outing to Chongming Island, an island about an hour and a half North East of the city, located at the convergence of the Yangtze River and the East China Sea. Misha tagged along as well and per usual, the three of us really had no clue what was on the agenda. We were all surprised and excited to spend the day at a large wooded park enjoying a delicious bbq, riding paddle boats and bumper cars, rock climbing, and even riding down a zip line! My favorite activity by far was cruising all over the park along shaded winding paths on tandem bikes. Our whole office of almost 20 was out on bikes and it was quite a sight! Thankfully I got a rest on the bus ride back to Shanghai because that evening I was joining a few girls from work to see the James Blunt concert. Apparently he is quite popular with the girls here and for the couple weeks leading up to the concert, the topic of discussion at lunch was always how handsome he is. Although I am familiar with his music, I agreed to go mostly because I thought it would be interesting to see a concert while in Shanghai and he was playing at the Cultural Center at the World Expo site which looks like a giant UFO. It was a wonderful evening and a lot of fun although I may be hesitant to see any of my favorite bands while in China because the crowds are a little too tame. James Blunt even made a joke about being told performing here would be like playing before an audience at the cinema, which got a good laugh. To be fair though, James Blunt is more of a melodic singer and the floor audience was standing for a few of the more popular upbeat songs.

Monday and Tuesday were busy days at work as Brad and I were trying to wrap everything up for our Wednesday morning deadline and before I headed off for Beijing. I wasn’t actually told when I would be going or for how long until the night before and felt a little unprepared to jet set off for two days right before flying back to the states, but I simply could not miss such a great opportunity. Unfortunately Jun Li knew that Brad was traveling to Beijing with friends the following week, and since the opportunity could only be for one person, I got the invitation. Again, I was not sure what the agenda was for the trip but soon realized that Jun Li was sending me and a fellow coworker up a day early so I could enjoy some of the sights. My coworker Liu Gong is relatively familiar with Beijing and served as my tour guide. Liu Gong seems to be one of the busiest in our office and rarely has a day off even on the weekends. Although our communication was limited due to the language barrier, and he was probably worried about work the whole time, I hope he enjoyed spending a day out of the office.  I felt less like an employee and more like a special guest while in Beijing, as I was taxied around from site to site, given my own spacious hotel room, and fed many fantastic meals. What a memorable end to two months at Xian Dai!

Beijing is the second largest city in China and like Shanghai, requires much more than two days to fully appreciate; although I think we made a good attempt in our limited time. I enjoyed seeing the famous Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square as well as some modern architecture including the Center for Performing Arts, the National Library, and Olympic Park with the Bird’s Nest Stadium and the Water Cube Aquatics Center. Liu Gong also took me to Wangfujing Snack Street which is exactly what the name implies- a crowded pedestrian street lined with food vendors offering an amazing assortment of Chinese cuisine from all over the country. I wish I had been prepared and been more hungry! I will only briefly mention my sightseeing tour of Beijing as it is late and I am leaving tomorrow for the U.S. I also need to save some stories to share with everyone when I return!

Week 6

Friday was an unusually exciting end to the work week as it began with a torrential rainstorm and ended with Karaoke! It seems we all had difficulties waking up Friday morning as storm clouds blanketed the sun and rain masked the construction noise that regularly begins at 6am. We were all a little confused about how to get to work since we have walked everyday thus far, but 1.8 miles is much too far to walk in the rain. Eventually we found our coworker from down the hall who we could tag along with to catch the bus. We had all heard and seen the downpour from our hotel window before we left for the bus, but were shocked to see a muddy river where our little Aomen Road should have been. The street was filled with colorful poncho clad people as they attempted to go about their morning routines despite the flooded street. Scooters, taxis, and bicyclists slowly passed by and people had to wade through the murky water because the sidewalks had disappeared. It seems nothing can stand in the way of the city buses as they defiantly plowed through the water, creating a large wake that lapped against the neighboring shops. There was no way out of our hotel besides through the water, and having a change of shoes in my bag and holding a canvas dress over my head as a makeshift umbrella, I made my way through the shin-deep murky river to the nearest bus stop. It looked like our street was one of the worst from what we saw that day and thankfully most of the rest of the city seemed to have properly functioning storm drains. By evening the flash flood on Aomen Road had subsided and things appeared to be back to normal.   

Our workday was cut short not only by the rainstorm which made us late, but also by an afternoon discussion/lecture session the company hosted for all of the interns. Although the majority of the dialogue was in unintelligible Chinese, it was nice to meet the Chinese interns and have a break from work. The company also organized a social outing afterwards at a nearby KTV (the local terminology for karaoke bar). As most are probably aware, karaoke is insanely popular in China and KTVs are easy to spot as they tend to be giant, ostentatious buildings brightly lit and reminiscent of Las Vegas casinos. This particular KTV was called PartyWorld and was the first and only KTV I have ever been too; I have never even done karaoke in the states! As is typical, our group of 15 got a small private room with a wrap around couch, some tables, and a large TV. Maracas, a couple tambourines, as well two microphones were also provided. I think the five of us Americans were all a little hesitant to start belting out tunes, especially in front of a group of coworkers, (1/2 of which we had just met), but our coworkers had no such inhibitions and jumped right in. The KTV offers a large list of Chinese as well American songs and it wasn’t long before we gave in to our coworkers’ encouragement and were queuing songs for ourselves. In case you are wondering, between the five of us we performed a nice selection of American hits including embarrassing numbers from Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber as well as classics like Hotel California and Hey Jude. I can now proudly say I have done karaoke and in Shanghai no less! Our coworkers were very gracious, complimenting us on our performances, although I think we lack the endurance and attention span of the Chinese KTV regulars. A coworker of mine was telling us about her love of KTV and how she recently did karaoke for 6 hours straight, and that was still not enough… I think one evening of KTV was plenty for us.

Saturday Misha, Tina and I did some more local sightseeing, starting with the Shanghai Museum. Visiting the museum requires traveling to People’s Square, which is the largest and most popular public square in Shanghai and one of the city’s most well-known landmarks. A number of prominent museums and public buildings are all organized together in a gigantic park setting and this complex constitutes People’s Square. The Shanghai Museum is one of the most famous museums in the city if not China, and is also free to visit! As an aspiring architect, I have to comment that the organization of this museum and its various collections was maybe the most orderly and easily navigable of any museums I have visited. The collections represented all things Chinese throughout the country’s unimaginably long history and included exhibitions of jade, furniture, currency, bronze, ceramics, and painting. We spent varying amounts of time in the different galleries depending on our interests and I found I was most intrigued by the calligraphy gallery. I have never seen so many different and beautiful variations of Chinese writing!

After the museum, we made our way over to Tianzifang Art Street, which a coworker of mine had recommended visiting. Despite its name, Tianzifang is more than just a street. It is actually a district of traditional longtang alleyways turned into design studios, boutiques, and cafes. The traditional architecture of Shanghai consists of small two story buildings clustered together along narrow alleyways called longtang. These crowded, mazelike alleyways serve a variety of functions beyond just circulation and are essentially the front and back yard of the residents as well as a place to socialize and even set up a small storefront. The longtang and their associated neighborhoods can be found in patches throughout the city although they are fast disappearing and being replaced by high-rises. The charm of Tianzifang is in the hodgepodge nature of the buildings and crooked alleyways and half of the fun shopping here is in the exploration.

I am sad to report that Sunday was not a fun-filled sightseeing day, but a workday for Brad and me. Right before our afternoon meet & greet with the other interns on Friday, Brad and I were surprised with a new project. A new design idea needed to be developed and modeled in 3D for a new twin-tower office/hotel/entertainment complex by Monday. At this point in our internship, we are fairly used to being given gigantic design projects and short deadlines but this was our first time having to work over the weekend, (although the majority of my coworkers spend at least one day of every weekend in the office). We allowed ourselves a late start Sunday morning, and were able to work on our computers from the comfort of our hotel which was also nice. All of our running around this last month and a half is finally catching up to me and a day inside sounded just fine, although working wasn’t my first choice for a relaxing Sunday. These hurried work assignments are a little frustrating because the limited design time we are given makes it difficult to develop strong design ideas and to really think through the details but it is also a very good exercise in time-management and efficiency. I think this internship has been one of the most eye-opening and educational of all of my work experiences thus far and I hope to maintain some of the quick decision making skills we have had to develop here.

I guess no one can feel too badly for Brad and I considering we were able to finish our model in time to celebrate with Misha for his birthday with a fantastic dinner followed by a hip little wine bar. It wasn’t the most relaxing weekend ever and I was definitely tired at work on Monday but I can’t complain, I’m in Shanghai!

Another Busy Week In Shanghai

This past week has been another busy one, but of course exciting and fun-
filled as well! Wednesday night I joined Misha to meet a friend of his from
undergrad who also has a summer internship in Shanghai. We met Eric
and Eric's American roommates and several other friends of friends for yet
another fantastic dinner, but the main excitement for the evening
was the bar we headed to afterwards to hear Eric's roommate do stand-up at
an expat open mic night. I have never been to an open mic comedy night and
was a little unsure about it when we first arrived and there were only about
10 patrons at the bar and a really awkward "comedian" reading bad jokes off
of his iphone. After about two so-so performances, the acts started to pick
up and by the end I was laughing a good deal. The comedians, as well as
most of the audience, were all Westerners and the jokes centered around the
experience of living in Shanghai as a foreigner. It was entertaining to hear
many of the thoughts I've had as well as many scenarios I can easily imagine
being vocalized. Eric's roommate was among the best of the evening and I
was surprised and impressed to hear that it was only his second time doing
stand-up, how brave!  


At work, our hospital project doesn't seem to be on a rushed schedule,
allowing Brad and I to leave at 5pm most days and giving us greater
opportunity to enjoy different areas of the city in the evenings. Thursday,
Misha, Tina and I took advantage of our free time and headed to Old Town
to check out the Dongtai Road Antique Market. This outdoor market only
stretches over a couple of blocks but hours can be enjoyed here sifting
through the dusty piles of knick-knacks at the overflowing vendor carts. The
range of goods include colorful Communist propaganda posters, porcelain tea
sets, cracking leather suitcases, lacquered wooden jewelry boxes, ornate lion
and Buddha statuary, and much much more. Needless to say we all picked up
a few goods while perusing the stalls. 


After tossing around a few ideas of possible trips for this weekend, we
decided to stay in Shanghai. Between work and travel, we have been
incredibly busy and a free weekend without set plans sounded pretty nice to
everyone. Friday night we all went out together and got a taste of Shanghai's
nightlife. Shanghai doesn't offer the rich abundance of laid-back bars and
microbreweries that I take for granted in Portland, and "going out" generally
entails patronizing a multi-level, smoke-filled club with flashing lights,
expensive drinks, and thumping music hidden somewhere on the upper floor
of a high-rise. Although it is not likely to be a regular outing for me, Tina and I
did have a great time getting some exercise on the crowded dance floor!  


After enjoying a lazy morning on Saturday, I joined Misha and Eric for lunch
at a street vendor in the French Concession offering whole fried ducks. This
literal hole-in-the-wall take-out "restaurant" consisted of 2 men, 2 giant frying
vats, and a knife and cutting board. The duck was served in halves and was
literally 1/2 of the duck. After being fried, each duck was cut once length-wise,
(head and neck included), and then cut again perpendicularly about 6 more
times and each half thrown into a paper carton. It seems that the art of carving
meat is not known or appreciated here as I am rarely served a piece of meat
that I can identify as any recognizable anatomy. Although I have not picked
up the Chinese technique of eating meat served this way, which involves a
lot of gnawing and spitting, I managed to get a decent size lunch out of my 1/2 duck. All in all, lunch cost less than $3 USD per serving and was crispy,
golden, and delicious! 


I parted ways with Eric and Misha for the afternoon and enjoyed a little alone
time exploring a district called Hongkou in North Shanghai. A coworker
had told me about a renovated slaughterhouse turned shopping complex
in the area called 1933 that she recommended visiting for its interesting
architecture. Hongkou has been a hotspot for new construction in the last
few years but also offers some beautiful historic streets and lively markets to
explore. I used a map from my guidebook to locate various sights in the area
and spent a few hours walking around before heading to 1933 and a famous
historic street called Duolun Cultural Street. 1933 may easily be some of my
favorite architecture in the city thus far, although it was difficult to photograph
due to the overcast sky as well as the complex shapes and layers that make
up the building. The slaughterhouse was built in 1933, (hence the name),
and is a maze of concrete ramps, stairs, and bridges that connect a central
circular building with a larger rectangular building circumscribed around it,
with an open air 4-story atrium space between the two. The many ramps and
bridges had been used to funnel cattle through the building and passages
of varying widths were used to control the animal traffic. Even the concrete
lattice facade was functional as it served to keep the animals inside while still
allowing for adequate ventilation. The complex is so beautiful with its graceful
flowering columns and sculpted spiral staircases, that it is hard to imagine it
functioning as a slaughterhouse. I enjoy seeing architecture built so beautifully
for such a brutal and private function as a slaughterhouse. I can’t imagine
anyone spending any time or money on aesthetics for such a building today
but this initial investment has obviously paid off as the building is still highly
valued and has not been torn down like the surrounding neighborhoods have.


Saturday evening we were treated by some coworkers to another fantastic
Sichuan style dinner and Tina and I were treated extra specially with roses
because it was Chinese Valentine's Day. As evening approached, many
young couples filled the streets, all dressed for the occasion, and
the young women were parading around with giant fancy bouquets of
flowers and stuffed animals. Besides giving flowers, it is also common to
give bouquets of small stuffed animals such as teddy bears which I had never
seen before. Although it was cute, I’m not sure what I would do with a dozen
miniature teddy bears on sticks…


Sunday our employer Jun Li was again gracious enough to spend half of
his day touring us around Shanghai and as always, the tour ended with
a fantastic meal. The theme of this tour was “old and new architecture of
Shanghai” and we visited several historic buildings, a new high-rise designed
by Jun Li, as well as a newly renovated cluster of historic buildings turned high-end shopping district. Due to the forecasted typhoon that was supposed to hit Shanghai this weekend but ultimately changed its mind, the weekend was very overcast and rainy, which is not conducive to photography, but I tried anyways. The rain and wind was a welcome relief from the heat, although short-lived as temperatures were back to normal after the weekend.


As always, I have posted a link to pictures from this weekend, but I also posted an additional link to a compilation album I put together of some of Guillaume's photos which focus specifically on pictures of us as a group. I tend to focus mostly on the scenery and surroundings with my photos but thought you all would enjoy some more photos of us in action!

Wuzhen

Our latest weekend excursion was to the water town of Wuzhen, about 2 hours SW of Shanghai by bus. Our coworker Pamela had recently visited this small town and recommended us going. Unlike our last trip and possible future trips, this one was not listed in my Shanghai guidebook and I didn’t have a map! I couldn’t even find a decent map online because apparently Wuzhen doesn’t have many major roads. Wuzhen really is a small town even by Western standards. The town only has 12,000 permanent residents, (although this is not counting the thousands of tourists visiting daily). The town is only about 2 miles long and the only way to get around town besides walking is by bicycle taxi! Tina and I enjoyed a nice ride from the train station in a rickshaw. It was humorous to hear the taxi drivers chatter to one another as they passed by and Tina translated some of the comments for me- all of which centered around us being foreigners such as “were did you pick up that cargo?!” Although Wuzhen is quite popular for Chinese tourists, I think we saw about 5 other Caucasians over the weekend. At least us UofO kids don’t have to worry about losing each other in the crowds.

Wuzhen has two historic/scenic districts that cost a fee to enter and after we arrived early Saturday morning and checked into our hotel, we headed over to  Wuzhen West. Pamela thought we would enjoy Wuzhen West best as it is cleaner and quieter than Wuzhen East, which gets the brunt of the tourist flood. Both historic districts are surrounded by walls, canals, and security guards and to enter Wuzhen West we had to pass through the visitors’ center and take a small wooden ferry. After disembarking from the ferry, we were free to roam. Wuzhen West is oriented around a main canal a little over half a mile long and includes numerous little alleys and side streets. We had the whole day to leisurely wander the many winding streets and visit the shops because the tickets were single entry only and Pamela said we had to stay till evening to see the canal all lit up. Saturday was easily over a hundred degrees, humid, and sunny, so we took our time walking around and frequently took breaks either in the shade or in an air-conditioned shop or restaurant. We were all tired by the time sunset arrived but seeing the waterways and shops all lit up at night was most definitely worth seeing. After dinner we walked to the far end of the main canal and rode a small water taxi back to the visitors’ center, a fantastic and relaxing ride. The view from the water was picture perfect, (although I couldn’t take any pictures because the boat kept rocking). We ventured back to the hotel around 9:00pm, all sweaty and tired from the day. After showers, we got some beers from a nearby convenient store and enjoyed some late night grilled skewers of various meats, seafood, vegetables, and mushrooms that are popular street food in China. We sat on tiny plastic stools under the yellow street light at a trash littered corner, (no one seems to use trash cans in China), and enjoyed our greasy skewers. It was quite a different scene from the day we spent in Wuzhen West, but enjoyable none-the-less.

Reflecting on Saturday in Wuzhen West, I think we were all pleasantly surprised at how beautiful, quiet, and immaculately clean the historic district was.  The shops, houses, and streets were all in pristine condition but it seemed that something was missing. It took a minute to realize that no one appeared to live in Wuzhen West. There were no clothes hanging out to dry, no children using the sewer grates and landscaping as toilets, no elderly sitting on small wooden stools observing the street life, no one doing laundry in buckets on the sidewalk, no noisey scooters or bicycles whizzing by, and no shops that offered any kind of daily household items. It seems that the 2,000 year old architecture of the town has been preserved and filled with souvenir shops and tasty restaurants but all of the inhabitants disappeared. After doing some more reading on the town, I found out that Wuzhen West was just recently renovated/”preserved” and in deed all of the inhabitants had been kicked out. The town is a lovely place to visit but it is a little museum or resort-like in that it preserves and presents only the photogenic parts of its history. We decided not to visit Wuzhen East on Sunday but to walk around the rest of the town- the “normal” parts of town with actual residents and that doesn’t cost to enter. We enjoyed escaping the tourists and wandering down various alleys. We saw a number of combination garden/animal farms with vegetable vines growing up telephone poles and chicken coops built from a variety of scrap materials. We happened upon a grandma watching her two little grandchildren playing outside their home and we spent a good 20 minutes being entertained by the little kids. When the little boy and girl saw us, they quickly became a broken record of “hellos” and“bye byes” intermixed with giggles. Even grandma joined in the game.

We headed back to Shanghai Sunday afternoon and Brad and I are continuing to work on the 3D model and elevation designs for our hospital project this week. Our employer, Jun Li, reviewed our designs on Tuesday, provided some feedback and told us of some changes in the plans. Once Brad and I finish our designs, we have been instructed to each build another iteration only this time around Brad is to design a classical façade and I am to design an art deco façade option. By next week we will have four 3D models of different façade studies to show the client. Brad and I are not accustomed to designing in a particular style, and it will be a little challenging to copy a period style like the client wants. In architecture school, we have taken extensive history classes that review the development of architecture over time and have studied many various styles including classical and art deco. In our design studios though, we are not taught to design in a period style as architects back in the early 20^th century did. Again, this assignment should be a good learning experience as not all clients care for the contemporary aesthetic that many designers my age favor. I am enjoying the challenges at work and being busy just makes the weeks go by even faster, for better or worse. It is hard to believe I have been in Shanghai for almost five weeks now!