China 2013 Part VII: In Shanghai, A Piece of Paris

Attention: Lovers of Culture, and also, but to a lesser extent, architecture buffs and people watchers. And might as well include the folks who feel suffocated by Pudong's overreaching steel-and-concrete denizens or blinded by The Bund's glorious but overexposed restoration.

In Shanghai, skip those who sit atop (almost) every guide book's amateurish instructional lists. Head straight to where the French once baked macarons, supped over bisque and foie gras, and reveled in the awesomeness of cheese-infested air.

To step foot on Shanghai's French Concession is to be transported to a different land - no, a different time altogether. Look at the roofs, the walls splashed red, and the angular buildings all asserting their Western origins. Down an alleyway guarded by balconies (like come on, what is this? Shakespeare?), sit outside a cafe housed in preserved shikumen, or stone gate, houses. Keep still and just... feel.

We're talking the center of Shanghainese Catholicism. This one greeted us "peace" upon exiting the train station.

We're also talking about residences that, put anywhere else in China, would probably attract the curious. Maybe not. But houses with open gates and open front doors - you can be certain they're destined attention-seekers.

And don't we all love chimneys? At least, when they're not out spewing noxious stuff.

One of our online consults yielded an itinerary that placed Fuxing Park as a starting point. Witness nature-loving, stranger-welcoming locals strut their stuff - mahjong games, choir practices, taichi demonstrations. They'll deliver arias to the world, or simply bend a brittle joint when and where they feel like it.

This is not Central Park - that would be Century Park in Pudong, if size were the basis. But Fuxing provides a nice playground for a round or two of "Spot the Terence!"

Now about that stone table in the photo below: Remember when Gimli tried to slice the One Ring with his dimwitted axe, and a magical force field hurled him backwards? The dwarf actually took an Air New Zealand flight to Pudong and tried it again (and we wonder how).

Speaking of Tolkien-dom, a few minutes' walk from Fuxing Park is a mall, and in the mall is a shop that sells this:

Not exactly a LOTR shrine, but a humble movie fan shop, though they don't have the Pale King yet. (That, I asked one of their salesmen, who are all well-versed with these mystical things they sell). (Reference: The Pale King is the half-baked-looking head orc in the recent Hobbit movie). 

If you've yet to see Rust and Bone, watch it now: Le Cotillard's marvelous in it. Then again, she's marvelous in every reel of film she appears in. And that autographed photo of hers is one of the many delights that populate Xintiandi, literally "New Heaven and Earth."

Sometime in the map of the past, someone thought it would be cool if one day, rotting shikumen houses could find new life as uteri housing Starbucks and Coffee Beans. Hence, the birth of this visionary upscale neighborhood that calls to mind the Philippines' very own The Fort (or High Street plus Serendra, to be exact), only smaller and with fewer dogs.  

Maybe it's just me, but for some reason, above photo has "Frankfurt" smeared all over it. Below photo, on the other hand, is the portrait of the shikumen house as a... museum, I think.

But red leaves in spring and corridors flanked by brick walls? Irresistible.

And next, Shanghai says hello to all Harry Potter fans. (Hi!) Welcome to the Chinese gateway to the English Ministry of Magic. This is floo powder by water.

Trust me, a day is far from enough to truly take in the French Concession, and our return on our last day proved just that. Through the kind reminder of a classmate, we dropped by Tianzifang, which, if you ask me, is just out to give Xintiandi some friendly rivalry.

But whereas Xintiandi is dressed to tackle the Oscars red carpet, Tianzifang is headed for a simple family dinner. The neighborhood's storied history is punctuated by its near-demolition and subsequent salvaging through no less than the hands of its own residents. Read about that, but suffice to say, this arts and crafts labyrinth is the product of pure love of home. 

So forget the Jinmao Mansion and the Shanghai World Financial Center, Nanjing Road and The Bund, Shanghai Aquarium and whatnot museum. Get a coffee, a newspaper, a friend. There's lots of that here.

Here in the French Concession, where Shanghai feels most foreign, the authenticity runs high. Au Revoir!

PREVIOUS: China 2013 Part VI: Suzhou in Slices
NEXT: China 2013 Part VIII: At Cannon Bay

China 2013 Part VI: Suzhou in Slices

Suzhou is a conundrum. It's what you're offered when a city gets trapped in the black hole straddling the past and present. It's a teenager facing for the first time the inevitability of hair in weird places. It's a half-eaten cake on a half-broken plate teetering on the edge of the dining table at twilight. You can say it's a second-rate, trying-hard copycat of its ultramodern neighbor Shanghai, but that would just be too unkind.

This is China's garden city - all 69 of which are designated National Heritage Sites, and eight as UNESCO Heritage Sites. This is also the Venice of the East, with its canals and prominent old city moat and the many boats plying its waters. This is the sister city of Kiev and Antananarivo, Rotorua and Riga, which is to say, a confusing juxtaposition of stone bridges and glass-and-concrete offices.

These are: (a) ducks; (b) geese; (c) swans; (d) ostriches.

At the train station, tour group operators abound like vultures hovering above a field of carcass. But they are not scammers. They would most likely be, if they were in the Philippines. But again, they are not. They happen to be legitimate local operators, and the problem they pose isn't so much about dependability as it is about quality.

The train station facade of this relatively minor Chinese city can put any Philippine airport's to shame.

Signing up for a tour means having all your transportation problems solved. So are your entrance fees to destinations of your choice - which means you have to choose carefully, which means doing your research. Our first stop was Ding Yuan - Calm Garden - which, our guide claimed, is the largest of Suzhou's so-called classical gardens; that title belongs to the Humble Administrator's Garden, according to online sources. Also, this isn't one of the eight UNESCO gardens, and that was a total blow to the heart. Still, this is a place of overflowing beauty.

From another perspective, it's justifiable to claim that Suzhou's actually built out of its gardens, this almost insane addiction over rock sculptures and fountains, moats and canals, ponds and lagoons, temples and pagodas and endless stretches of corridors and foliage-laden walkways. Take this outcrop of bamboo, for example:

Or how about this oriental imitation of a gondola, which we took alongside two elderly visitors smoking what could only be the most noxious-smelling cigarettes:

Next stop was a boat ride around the old city moat, and it was here that we fully appreciated the complexities of joining a local tour group. The guide was very much alive and stuffed with everything we tourists needed to know about the boat ride and the sites and pieces of culture along the route. In Mandarin, of course. 

Amazing, though - and quite commendable, too - that the Chinese know their history. Everyone was quite game in answering the guide's questions concerning this site or that dead person, highlighting what can only be their educational system's emphasis on history.

Our third major attraction was the Hanshan ("Cold Mountain") Temple, a Buddhist haunt that's probably billowing with joss stick and candle smoke on busy days. The Tang poet Zhang Ji wrote about hearing the temple bells in his poem "A Night Mooring by Maple Bridge."

  

We also went to the local silk and jade museums, which were totally not worth going. The silk museum is supposedly a worthier place, but actually, it's just plain rich-tourist bait. Both museums, really. It was fun looking at the demonstration of the properties of silk fabric and the preserved models of silkworms in various life stages while they lasted. Below: Fancy bedroom stuff for the beneficiaries of China's recent rise in the economic sphere.

In my opinion, however, the best part of our day came after the tour. With our train still three hours away and the sun far from setting, we asked to be dropped off at the northern end of Pingjiang ("Peaceful River") Road. Once the main artery coursing through the old city, this charming street that runs parallel its own canal is now representative of a bygone era, bustling with pedestrians, cafes and restaurants, bookshops and clothing stores and vendors selling a myriad of delights.

Restaurants get away with the old-school/new-school game.

Bookstores sell interesting notebooks while making a statement.

This is where med students would study in Pingjiang Road.

This was when we realized that the gondola-like rides only ply the smaller canals - this road's, for example. They don't come cheap, though.

Another highlight of walking down this strip was ogling at the prenuptial photoshoots. And, ehem, photographing the engaged couples. Or making epal, in Filipino conyo parlance.     

Finally, this is what one says goodbye to at night, at the train station, looking west.

And so, farewell, fine water town. Know that once, two Filipino medical students trampled upon your fresh earth for a day and became superstars to your tour guides and a bunch of local tourists - the pair of Filipinos "for whom we have to slow down our Mandarin a bit," as tour guide with the ginormous fur coat placed it.

PREVIOUS: China 2013 Part V: The Most Epic Bicycle Ride in the World
NEXT: China 2013 Part VII: In Shanghai, A Piece of Paris

How to Get Your Driver's License at the Iloilo City LTO

LTO stands for Land Transportation Office.

1. Office hours begin at 8, but consider arriving at 7:30 because professional and non-professional licenses are issued only twice a day (arrive at 12:30 for the afternoon session). Why this is so used to puzzle me until yesterday, when I realized after I'd gone home at twelve-freakin'-thirty that this office is so efficient and careful, they can only process around twelve non-professional licenses in a morning. 

2. Submit your forms to the customer service representative. Here, he's blessed with a morbidly protuberant beer belly, I feared he'd succumb to a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm any second. He's also a joker, but he's not as funny as he thinks (really).

3. The forms should include a drug test taken from one of the "authorized" testing centers located beside the office. Pay around P300 and see if you're dumb enough to have used meth or  smoked weed in the very-near-past and not taken into consideration pharmacokinetics. 

4. The forms should also include a medical examination, again, from one of their "authorized" centers. Pay around P150 for an incorrect Snellen's exam, and to have your blood pressure taken by an overtly flirtatious nurse.

5. After submitting your forms, wait for one hour because the cashier wants to open at 9:00 instead of her 8:00 call time.

6. You will be called to have your photo and signature taken.

7. Time for the written examination! Get a reviewer, or if you're lucky (?), a lecturer will be present to sputter inanities. Tip: Take the Tagalog version of the exam because the questions are word-for-word in the reviewer that is actually a compilation of the exam questions (and there are only a hundred). Tip: If your memory is terrible, you will likely flunk this test. If your Filipino is terrible and your English, barely passable, you will also likely flunk this test. Oh, and have I mentioned that the Tagalog reviewer is also available online?

8. Assuming you passed the test, it's now time for the practical driving exam! If you drive the ubiquitous automobile, you will be asked to drive for a minute. In first gear. Inside a subdivision where neither person nor animal will be present to provide distraction. In other words, imagine it's the first day of driving lessons! Then pay P250 for this "practical exam."

9. If you're a motorcycle person, just sit back and relax. But also, state your intention to drive autos in the future. That way, you get to pay P200 for the motorcycle restriction AND P250 for the auto restriction.

10. After the practical exam, do not immediately get off the car. The examiner will collect your payments IN the car, without official receipt.

11. Go back to the office and pay up. That's gonna be around P420 for everything sans the practical exam. 

  

12. You will be called to have your photo and signature taken--again. Because, oops! They somehow screwed up and "your name does not match with the picture" (whatever that means).   

13. Time to get your license--but wait, there's more! It's the first Friday of the month, which means the holy, incorruptible LTO wants to celebrate mass, presumably to cleanse the souls of blabbermouths like me. If you're non-Catholic, this is your once-in-a-lifetime chance to observe how Catholics do it. 

14. The mass has ended. Here is your license. Go forth and celebrate!

15. You can, of course, skip everything and just bribe them officers with money (P500 for customer service, P500 for each examiner, P500 for the cashier... something like that), especially if you have a contact, which, as we all know, has always been all the rage in this country. As they say, it's more fun to get your license in the Philippines, especially in Iloilo City's LTO! Mabuhay!

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From where I was during the first half of the week: