Day 1 & 2: Arrival / The Shanghai Museum

你好！I'm assuming most people will be able to use basic context clues to figure out what that means, or I guess, if not, you can head to Google Translate. It's already Day 14 here in Shanghai, China, and I was planning to post more often, but Internet at this hotel is a lot worse than I was expecting, so I lived off the unlimited 2G data on my phone (thankfully provided by T-Mobile). I tried visiting various internet cafes that had been recommended by alumni from this program, but I couldn't stay for long because all were small, dark rooms that reeked of cigarette smoke. Definitely, not good for the lungs. I also tried the WiFi offered by convenience stores, but unfortunately, I don't have a "Chinese phone number," so I couldn't exactly receive the verification text messages to access the internet. I've had a lot of fun here in China (aside from the stressful dictation quizzes assigned everyday in class) and took many pictures that I've wanted to share (but had to compile in a Word document), so I guess I'll get started?

Day 1: After delayed flights and a long layover in Korea, I arrived in Shanghai at approximately 8:30 PM. Unfortunately, this meant that I missed the group bus to the university hotel (教师活动中心, AKA the Faculty Club Hotel). Nervously, after collecting my bags (also after standing at the wrong conveyor belt for a good 30 minutes), I headed to the taxi riding area. I was aware of the "black taxis" (basically, fake taxis) in China, so, basically, I was pretty nervous, especially with my not-so-great Chinese language skills. Luckily, there was a man there (I still have no idea who the man is), who quickly assigned me a taxi, got me in a taxi, and moved on to the next person. My taxi driver was a nice lady who seemed very understanding of my not-so-great Chinese. After giving her the address of the hotel, I tried to put on my seat belt but soon realized that although the belt strap existed, there was no seat buckle, which I pretty much expected because it's pretty common to not wear seat belts in Asia anyways. I just sat back and enjoyed the ride, and let me say, Shanghai at night was quite beautiful. The driver also drove really fast, so the wind flowing into the taxi felt great. She actually drove so fast that I beat the group bus to the hotel, so I guess missing the bus was a good thing? I definitely should've taken pictures on the taxi, but I totally forgot because I was enjoying the views out the window while also nervously and continuously asking the driver if we were going to the right place. I'll definitely try to get pictures in next time. After getting checked in, meeting my roommate, and taking a shower, I fell right asleep. Wow. It was a long day. 

Day 2: Today we headed to the famous Shanghai Museum, which is pretty much a world-famous museum of ancient Chinese art. We went pretty early, but the line was still very long. I think we stood in line for a good 30 minutes. After getting through security, our professors let us just scatter and explore, so my roommate and I went through all of the different exhibitions - we definitely learned a lot and had a lot of fun! 

The inside of the museum itself was quite beautiful, especially the dome roof! The museum actually stops entries each day after 8000 entries, which means a huge amount of people visit this museum, right?

 

My favorite exhibit was definitely the Chinese Minority Nationalities' Art Gallery, which I believe is a permanent exhibit, so if you ever decide to visit Shanghai and the Shanghai Museum, make sure to stop by this exhibit. This exhibit basically displayed costumes, embroideries, batiks, metal wares, bamboo and wood works, and masks of China's various ethnic groups. Everything was so fascinating, and it made me realize again how big China was as I had the chance to see so many types of different clothing that shared similarities with other cultures neighboring China. The clash of various cultures seen through the clothing (and of course, through all the other works of art) was just astounding. I especially liked one piece of clothing where the sleeves, in terms of both the design and the color choices, really resembled the sleeves of the "hanbok" (한복), or the Korean traditional dress, so I just couldn't help but take a picture!

 

Of course, we also visited other exhibitions, and while in the Ancient Chinese Ceramics Gallery, the ceramic pillows really caught my attention. There were just so many designs, and although some of them seemed a little strange, it was definitely interesting. Our biggest question was whether or not these pillows were actually comfortable. 

 

 

Yes, I took a whole bunch of pictures of pillows from ancient China, and I actually have some more, but I'll save those, so you can go visit the Shanghai Museum and take pictures of them yourself! While at the museum, I also got see Chinese bronze, Chinese sculptures, Chinese paintings, Chinese calligraphy, Chinese jade, and the list goes on and on. Like I keep saying, the museum is totally worth visiting, especially since they have other cool exhibitions throughout the year, like the Treasures from Japan's Daigoji Temple exhibit, where they unfortunately wouldn't let us take pictures. However, here are just some other pictures I took while at the other exhibits, but again, everything looks so much more beautiful in person! Also, even though the last picture's orientation throws off the spacing with the other pictures, I just had to upload another picture of a pillow.