July 3- Shanghai

After a simply incredible trip, we have come to our final full day. Today is another free day and I set off at 9:00 am with my ever faithful traveling companion Jona Hall, 7th grade social studies teacher from Marietta, Ohio. Our first stop is to the museum commemorating the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. After a short subway trip and brief walk, we arrive and a modest looking 19 century apartment. Upon entering, we a greeted by 3 very serious looking guards who ask to check our bags. When it is discovered that we are carrying bottles of water, we are told to take a drink in order to ensure we are not bringing any high grade explosives into the museum. As I prepare to drink, I give the guards a rousing “GAMBE!” (Chinese for Cheers). Every guard cracks up, and returns my Gambe! One even says “Cheers!” in English. Glad I didn’t get thrown in the slammer. We explore the museum that traces the founding of the CCP. It becomes apparent that it was largely founded as an anti-imperial, nationalistic movement. We look at a variety of exhibits concluding with Mao and his cohorts signing a charter on a table in one of the rooms.
Our second stop takes us to the home, of Sun Yat-Sen, founder of the Chinese Republic. Western educated, Sun was instrumental in overthrowing the Qing dynasty and creating the first Chinese Republic, a democratic government founded largely on western principles. As I walk around the museum, I am amazed at how incredibly intelligent Sun was. His ideas for improving China were much better thought-out than Mao’s and simply made more sense. He also looked to unify the nationalist and communist parties in China. Unfortunately, he died in 1925 at the age of 59. How China might have been different had he lived.
The highlight of the day was a visit to the Propaganda Poster Museum. This museum traces the history and evolution of Chinese Propaganda posters from 1949 until the death of Mao in 1976. After a 50 minute walk, we discover that we can not find the museum despite being in the correct location. A friendly Chinese man who speaks English asks if he can help us and he indicates that we are in the right place. The museum is located in the basement of an apartment complex (odd location) and he gets us headed in the right direction. We enter the building and take the elevator to the bottom floor, all the while wondering if we are about to loose our kidneys to the black market. We enter and see the museum is a bit unconventional, yet fascination. Original propaganda posters, which are becoming incredibly hard to find, are in large plastic sleeves and tacked to the wall. Next to each poster is an English translation of what the poster says. The museum of divided into various eras of Mao’s rule from 1949-1954, the Great Leap Forward period, Cultural Revolution and mid 70’s until his death. Many things about this museum struck me as interesting. Firstly, it did not tow the party line as most museums do. It offered criticism of Mao and was the first place in China where I saw the disastrous Great Leap Forward mentioned (really a Great Leap Backwards, right my students?) There were also some posters that I found simply fascinating. The most interesting poster, by far, focused on the Civil Rights Movement in America in the 60’s. It’s caption was, “Help Out Black Brothers in America Obtain Freedom” clearly playing on the racial divide in America and screaming “how can you tell us Chinese our government is denying people’s right’s when 10% of your population is denied basic rights.” There was also a poster criticizing Deng Xiaoping, very interesting considering the fact that he was Mao’s successor.
In the gift shop, I could have spent hundreds of dollars. In addition to original propaganda posters for sale, the museum had an original middle school workbook used during the Cultural Revolution. It clearly demonstrated why the students during the Cultural Revolution were known as the “lost generation” as the books were simply filled with Maoist propaganda.
While in the gift shop, we struck up a conversation with the museum curator. He was clearly excited that two Americans were so fascinated with his museum. He gave us a plethora of information about the posters, Mao, and the Cultural Revolution. As we were thanking him and getting ready to leave, he looks at us and asks, “Do you have 5 more minutes?” Of course we do was the emphatic reply! He proceeds to walk us down a dark basement hallway and my spleen begins to worry that it is about to leave my body. He turns to a section of the wall and produces a set of keys, then seemingly unlocks and opens the wall. Behind that hidden door is another door that it also unlocks for us. He leads us into a dark room, flips on the light, and reveals the Nirvana on Mao propaganda. Inside the room is a wide array of posters, original propaganda paintings, statues, and most interesting Da-Zi-Bao. Da-Zi-Bao were propaganda posters made by average, usually young Chinese citizens during the Cultural Revolution. Often made by students or Red Guard, these home made posters accused teachers, parents, government leaders or fellow students of disloyalty to Mao and the Communist Party. Commonplace in the late 1960’s, original Da-Zi-Bao are now incredibly rare, most being destroyed and lost to the annals of history. The curator of the museum said that he as done an exhaustive search of China in order to fine preserve these pieces of Chinese history. It is also evident that he clearly does not want the Chinese government finding these exhibits. We talked for a number of minutes and I asked the curator point blank what he thought of Mao, as some of his exhibits had been somewhat critical. He said that prior to Mao, China was “like a million grains scattered all over. Mao brought all of those grains together.” When asked about the Cultural Revolution, he simply said, “let the art speak for itself.” Enough said.
After spending way more time in the museum that anticipated, we found a café for a late lunch around 4:00. After eating, we took a short walk town the famed Nanjing Road before deciding it would be better viewed in the evening. We then took a cab back to the Yuyuan Garden for some last minute shopping at the market. After making a few purchased including Olivia’s panda bear and some Dairy Queen ice cream, we decided to take an evening walk along the famed Bund, the embankment of the Huang Po River. As we walked, we discovered that construction preparing for the 2010 World Expo made the walk along the Bund a death-defying experience as we dodged construction trucks, tour busses, and crazy Shanghai cabbies. It brought me back to the 80’s and gave me a new-found respect for the frog in Frogger. As we walked, we came upon a lighthouse north of the Bund that turned out to be a restaurant. We decided to enter in order to get out of traffic and learned that we could eat at the top of the lighthouse. We ascended, our arrival at the top produced a spectacular view of Modern and Colonial Shanghai along the Bund. Across the Huang Po, we could see modern Shanghai in all its grander, with the Pearl and the world’s tallest building dominating the panorama. Our side of the river displayed colonial Shanghai, highlighting the 19th century architecture along the Bund.
We headed back onto the road and continued to proceed with caution as we made our way to Nanjing Road. Nanjing Road is the Times Square of Shanghai. Bright lights, throngs of people, and every high-end store you can imagine. At this point, exhaustion was beginning to set in as we had been on the go for nearly 14 hours so we headed back to the hotel to grab a bite to eat. We found an exotic Pizza Hut and shared our adventures with curriculum director John Frank. Simply and excellent day.