Shanghai

Shanghai

“China isn’t how I thought it would be” Eden told me yesterday.  “Oh, how did you think it would be?”  “More capes I guess and maybe silk”  Most of what Eden expected came from her “Story of the World” unit on mid-evil china so I can’t blame her for being a little confused. 

Shanghai is wicked modern.  We live on a street that is filled with lights and more advertisements than time square.  We are by far the least fashionably dressed people (nothing new there) and the streets are sparkling clean.   

We walked the mile through Shanghai through the loud smokey streets past dozens of sky scrapers to old Shanghai.  Walking into the old town was almost jarring.  It is like walking into a Narnia door.  Suddenly you are in the China Eden expected.  The streets are too narrow for cars and the swooping roofs shade the lanes.  Everything is made of brick with curves and elegant lines.  

There was a tea shop filled with old men who stared out at me through the smokey room as I used my translation ap to see if there was any herbal tea.  There wasn’t and I left.  We went to a Ming Dynasty garden built by some rich guy for his aging parents.  It is called the Garden of Happiness and it was such a sweet place filled with bridges and little gazebos.  There was far more rosewood furniture than plants but that was okay.  I’m guessing the term “garden” meant something different back in Ming times.

We were welcomed into the Toa temple by a monk in blue robes and a black hat.  Incense was being burnt like logs in a square metal bin in the center of the courtyard.  The smell was dizzying.  Everywhere there were devout worshipers waving incense, bowing to golden statues and holding hands in contrite submission.  The two largest gods were that of wealth and literature.  I get the wealth.  That makes sense.  But literature?  I’m still trying to wrap my brain around Literature beating out the god of War, Strength, Fertility and Love (all of which sat in smaller representations in a tiny neglected room).  I got the same feeling I got in the garden.  Maybe the term Literature means something else here?  Or maybe the people who brought us paper money and movable type feel differently about the printed word than we do. 

The Museum of Shanghai was both free and amazing—my favorite combination.  The displays showed the progress of money, porcelain and painting through the ages.  Not exactly kid content but I have to say my kids were absolute rock stars.  They honestly seemed to enjoy the whole place.  They read informative sections, they asked me questions they even asked to stop and spend more time on the video about why coins have a square in them.  I noticed we were being trailed through the exhibit on porcelain and my mommy spidey sense jumped when the middle aged man dressed in a old tan suit and brown tie approached me.  “Pardon me” he asked while bobbing his head “are your children Chinese?”  My kids are definitely not Chinese.  Curly hair and blue eyes…yep, not Chinese.  I must have looked surprised at the question because he continued “I mean, do you live here?  Is this,” He gestured to the museum “their heritage?” 

  No I explained we were just here for the day before our cruise ship left.  He looked a little crestfallen.  “My children were raised in the UK for school.  They are the same age as your kids but when I took them here I couldn't get them to be interested.  They thought is was boring and asked constantly to go home.  They didn’t understand that this was their heritage.  Why do your kids enjoy the museum so much?”

 If I had been honest I would have said “because I threaten them with their Disney world trip if they don’t” but that wouldn’t have been fair to my kids who were listening.  Their interest is definitely started by the firm expectations that we travel to learn things but I think it is beyond that.

 I think that when kids see the narrative of history they want to take the pieces they see in the museum and pop them into that narrative.  So I told him how in the porcelain display I had talked about the China their grandma ate off of for fancy meals.  Then I had them show me as the pots progressed how we were getting closer to grandma’s china.  I told him about the dozens of games we play while in museums and how I ask my kids questions I don’t know the answer to and then just accept whatever answer they have.  I make them take me through the museum.  It works so much better that way.

The man and I had a great talk.  One of those talks parents have to when we are baffled at the differences between kids.  We swap advice and know in our hearts that nothing has changed.  Kids are so unique.  It is more a form of group therapy than really a problem/solution conversation.  But hopefully he got the idea that his kids aren’t rejecting their heritage because they think the box full of coins is dull.  Kids are just like that.  And coins are dull.  But my favorite moments of traveling is when I can show my kids the box of dull coins and let them see that it is a placeholder for something grand and beautiful and awe filled.  And then I will likely have to give them with ice cream for doing well at the museum.