Jiadong & Qibao

This weekend, we took a group trip to see an ancient Confucius temple and some water gardens in the Jiadong area of Shanghai (this is a huge city - it took us 40 minutes on the highway to get there). The temple, one of many in China, was built in the 13th century and was the place students would pray to Confucius for academic help. In ancient China, to move up the social ladder and become a government official, students had to write an "8 legged essay" based on the topic the emperor chose for the year. Students came to the temple to pray for Confucius' help, and after the tests were taken the top three scholars in the area had their names engraved in a temple stone to be revered forever. Not a bad deal. The imperial examination system was used in China until 1906, but today parents still bring their children to the temple to pray before taking their college entrance examination (a 3 day test here! - the number 1 scholars in each area are invited to attend Beijing University).
Nearby the temple was an old garden and a pagoda. Fortunately, I was able to climb to the top (this is one of the only ones in China that let you go inside). It was a really tight squeeze near the top, and I was surprised to see Dr. Desai (my retired thermo teacher) pass me on his way down (after all the students were complaining). Looking down on the town from the pagoda reminded me of town in the final sequence in Mission Impossible 3. Have a look at the rest of the photos in the gallery.


Next we visited the nearby town of Qibao (pronounced Cheapo - and it certaintly was). Since I had skipped breakfast, my SJTU tour guides for the day, Kiki and Toto, informed me that this town was famous for its snacks - perfect! I like getting food from the street vendors more than restaurants anyway. Kiki was eager to make me try all of her "favorite" foods (each one seemed to have this distinction). My guides were so sweet and accomodating and insisted on buying me all of my snacks. I tried some crab dumplings, freshly made dragon's beard candy, a "real" dumpling filled with sesame, an octopus ball, some kind of iced tea, fried tofu (smells really bad), and good old chicken on a stick. Good thing I was full before she tried to make me eat her other favorite - pig's nose! After our walk around town, we all gathered to have a traditional dinner (don't know what they were thinking).

I had a chance to talk with Kiki for a little and asked her what she thought about having all kinds of censorship around (I couldn't find a CHINA Lonely planet among every other country in the local bookstore, and the Economist issue about China didn't seem to make it here). She said that no one really minds because the people have always been controlled by someone (the emperor for x dynasties). I'm not sure if everyone feels that way, but I can say that you will not be worried after reading the newspaper.
I also found out why I have seen so many people diving through garbage cans to find plastic bottles - they can earn 1 RMB (12 cents) for every 10 they return. I had been wondering about all the severly deformed (face burned off, hands mangled) beggars I'd seen too. She told me that many times people will hurt the baby in some way to make more people feel bad for them and give them money. It's a really sad sight to see a baby on the subway with a burned face. Shanghai is an amazing city, but China still has a long way to go.


I think that's it for now ladies and gents. Congrats to Ally with 2 goals in her WPIAL championship win! I'm planning on taking a trip to the town of Hangzhou this weekend. It's about 2 hours away and is next to a huge lake with lots of outdoor activities. I hope my guidebook gets here soon. We have our first 3040 test tomorrow, so I'd better start putting the study in study abroad.