Saturday March 6, 2010: Sam Walton's Chinese Dream

**NOTE** I'm going to give credit where it is due...this blog will have a mixture of my own pictures as well as some from Will Stewart.  He's the one with the fancy camera and tripod, so I felt like these needed to be seen.  I can't take credit for great photography, but I can write around it.  An example of his work:

I love staying in foreign hotels because they do breakfast so well. They serve all of the breakfast foods that you can think of, then they throw in European things like cheese and anitpasti, while also giving you Asian options of rice and meats or the Chinese pastries (Dim Sum). When the pastries are filled with pork or other meats, it is much like Emapanadas, the bane of any person trying to keep up a diet in South America.

Onto the real activities of the day. This was our introductory day to the city, so we began with a guided tour to get our bearings of Shanghai. We loaded up on our Charter bus (the main mode of transportation of the trip) and headed off to see the sites. It took about an hour to get to our destination of the Jade Buddha Temple. Let me make a note here that everything in Shanghai (and China for that matter) is an hour away from everything else...mainly because of traffic. 30 million people have to get around this place. That scale will continue to overwhelm throughout the duration of our trip.

Jade Buddha Temple...reminded me alot of my trip to Korea with all of the monks. It was nice to understand the significance of all of the bows, and the statues, and all of the different prayers and offerings to the many various gods.  The temples sell lanterns, and these red prayer ribbons that you can tie to trees and buildings around the complex.  I paid my respects with a few bows to all of the golden gods (no idea what they all stand for, but they are the Asian version of the Saints).  Everyone else decided to join in with some incense and bows in all directions...here are Benton and Keith joining in with the locals.  With about fifty people lighting incense, the area took on a very strong aroma, and now I look back and wonder how we ever managed in Korea with all of the smells indoors.  It is a shame that it is another rainy day because most of our tour is outside.  But the rain will supposedly wash away the smog, so that is good.  I will say that I worried about the smog becoming acid rain :)  When we were at the temple, I ended up leading the group around to talk about the different symbols around the complex.  The lotus flower is good luck and people could buy candles of the lotus to light their incense and also raise the candle in prayer.  You can see that we were all trying our different ways to battle the elements, but under the cover of the temple, we could relax. 

The Jade Buddha itself was transported to Shanghai from India, the jade is a white jade, which is softer and more mold-able.  The green jade that is so popular with jewelry is the expensive stuff because it is much rarer (more valuable).

The Yu Garden is located in the center of the city.  It is the largest garden in the city and has a few dozen buildings within its walls.  The garden surrounded by these great ponds and the architecture of the buildings is amazing.  The Chinese value raw stone that has been shaped naturally by ocean or river water, so throughout the garden there are rough, rocky arrangements of very natural stone.  It is a juxtaposition to the Japanese gardens with their finely combed rocks.  The coy in the pond were amazing, they were bustling over each other and at times seemed like they could grow legs and get out of the water.  I think the rain had them near the surface.  They are all sizes and colors and if I lived in the residence that owned this garden back in the 1600s, I could have spent alot of time watching these fish.  Another cool aspect of the garden were the zig zag bridges that ran between buildings.  They made them in that shape because the Chinese believe that evil spirits could only walk in a straight line.  They also believed that the evil spirits could not step over thresholds, so the entrances to all of the buildings and rooms were raised, with higher thresholds corresponding to more important people inside.  Here is a shot of the zig zag bridge and some of the rough rocks around the garden.

Our next stop was none other than the bustling business of Wal-Mart.  I know that Dad would be proud.  There is only one Wal-Mart in the whole of Shanghai, so you can imagine the scale of a store that has to service the 30 million people that live in the city.  The store has two stories and employs 400 full time workers.  The only way that Wal-Mart could get into the country was by joint venture, and all of the profits have to stay within China.  Doing business over there takes alot of flexibility and creativity.  The grocery area had ever sea creature imaginable and a few other sights that would have been typical of a street market.  But this is where people came to load up on all the essentials. Unfortunately I forgot my name tag that was bestowed upon me from the staff of the Snellville Pharmacy in Wal-Mart from 1999, but they still let me take a picture when I told them about my family connection.  You all may not like the corporation, but it put food on my table for 19 years, so I'm on the Wally World Bandwagon.  That is all for the guided trip of the city, I'll be back once we venture out on our own to fill you in on the less formal tour of Shanghai.  Til Next Time, Britt