July 2- Shanghai

Today was a highlight of the 3 week trip. We started the day with a visit to Zhu-jia-jiao, a water town about 45 miles outside of Shanghai. The best was I can describe Zhu-jia-jao is that it is the Venice of China. It is a town where the streets are canals, only accessible by boat. It is as if one has stepped back if time when visiting here. We took a boat cruise down the canals to get a taste of this ancient city. Afterwards, we had the opportunity to explore the many shops town the side streets of this amazing water town. You can keep Venice, I’ll take Zhu-jia-jiao.
We returned to downtown Shanghai in the afternoon and visited the Shanghai Museum. This museum contains a plethora of artifacts from all era’s Chinese history. Lonely Planet guide book suggests spending at least half a day here; we had a whopping 90 minutes. Like my first visit to the Louvre, I had to spend my time wisely. I started with a quick stop to a Ming and Qing dynasty furniture exhibit. It highlighted the simplicity of the Ming era and the opulence of the Qing era.
The highlight for me was the exhibit of ancient Chinese coins. It highlighted the evolution of Chinese currency and coinage from the Shang to the Qing dynasties. Materials and sizes of coins underwent huge changes over 2500 years of history. The most interesting part of the exhibit was a collection of coins used on the ancient Silk Road. This collection demonstrated the impact of cultural diffusion on Chinese culture as many of the coins used on this route were written in Latin, Greek, and Arabic.
We ended the museum visit by checking out the bronze exhibit. This exhibit showed all things bronze from every Chinese dynasty ranging from swords and spears to water vessels and wine vats. Our main mission in the Bronze exhibit was to find an ancient Chinese seismograph for study tour member Jona Hall, but to no avail. After 3 weeks of searching, we were ultimately unable to find this Chinese artifact. Bummer…
Our final scheduled stop was to a silk mill. We had the opportunity to see how silk was made, from the silkworm to the final product. It was extremely interesting and I was amazed at how strong silk fibers were. We eventually learned that the main point of the stop was for us to further aid the Chinese economy by purchasing a variety of extremely expensive silk products. No takers however…
That evening, the group had its farewell dinner where gifts were given to advisors, guides, and tour leaders. We also were serenaded by a synopsis of the trip sung to the “Gilligan’s Island” theme as created by a few study tour members. I think the trip was a bit longer than a three hour tour…
We ended the evening with the entire group going to a karaoke club. The karaoke clubs in China are much different than those in the States. Rather than one person singing in front of a packed house of 500 patrons, you instead rent out a room for a 3 hour block. This equals less pressure, more fun. After finding a way to cram 24 people in a room build for 10, the hilarity began. The first song was the B-52’s “Love Shack” and I got my vocal chords working with a rousing rendition of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline”. In addition to the lyrics, the TV screen also plays video, most of which appears to be taken from bad recreations of trashy romance novels. It makes it hard to sing when you’re trying your best not to bust out laughing. Other highlights (or lowlights) of the evening included “Superfreak”, “Just a Jigalo”, “Summer Lovin’” (a karaoke must), “Piano Man” (again sung by yours truly) and an awful rendition of “Bohemian Rhapsody”. In spite of some off-key singing, a good time was had by all…