Impressions from Shanghai

 By Ben Weyman, Class of 2013

Longhua Cemetery of Martyrs

Whenever I travel abroad, I make it my goal to have as “foreign” an experience as possible.  Thus, based on everything I had studied about Shanghai prior to arriving in China, I fully expected it to be my least favorite city we would visit on this trip. A sprawling cityscape that was losing, or had already lost, its Chinese roots to international influences (my impression of the city before we left) did not seem to have a lot to offer to some of my more adventurous desires. I am very happy to say that that I was wrong about Shanghai.

While foreign influences into the city are quite easy to see, there is so much in Shanghai that we have done that is uniquely “Chinese.” First (and in my opinion most important) is the food.  From the very first dinner, Chinese food has been a treat. That dinner also set a trend for trying foods that could definitely be considered strange back home beginning with what we were told was “spicy fungus” at that first dinner. Among the other foods that I have tried here are sheep intestine, donkey meat, and cuttlefish sushi (along with several other meats for which I still do not have a name). Per our student guides' recommendations, we have also been able to eat at two restaurants that specialize in Northeastern Chinese dishes and dumplings and Northwestern Chinese dishes and noodles.  All the food has been exceptionally good, and I have even been able to figure out the use of chopsticks (at least a little).

Longhua Cemetery of Martyrs

Longhua Cemetery of Martyrs

Longhua Cemetery of Martyrs

As far as our experiences go, two events have especially stuck with me, neither of which was a part of our regular schedule. First, Jon and I took one of our free days with the intention of visiting the Longhua Temple and Pagoda complex. We never made it to the temple, however, as along the way we got sidetracked at what appeared to be a neat-looking park. We discovered that this was actually the Longhua Cemetery of Martyrs, a memorial park dedicated to individuals who died bringing communism to China. This was almost a surreal experience, as many commemorative statues and other structures strongly honored those who died. Also at the park was The Tomb of the Unknown Martyr with an Eternal Flame, and dotting the park were rocks engraved with the writings of some of the revolutionaries who were killed.  These memorials perfectly encapsulated my experience in the park; there was a great peace throughout the area, but it was a very somber peace. It felt like it would be wrong to speak too loudly or laugh too heartily while in the presence of the memorials.  The only other comparable experience I have had was the trip I took to the Dachau Concentration Camp last year; Longhua, however, still managed to capture a peace that could not ever exist there. I had never even heard of this place before my visit, but once I am back home I would like to research the area and find out more about the memorial park and some of the individuals memorialized there. (Apologies for trying to get a little poetic there, but putting the feelings of an area like this into words is very near impossible.)

My other memorable experience on this trip so far is a stark contrast with Longhua.  Adam and I decided to take a trip to an acrobatic show called ERA Intersection of Time, described to me beforehand as the Cirque du Soleil of China.  On the tickets, the producers claimed, “Miss it, and you miss Shanghai.” After both of these proclamations, the show had to do a lot to avoid being a disappointment.

It delivered and then some. 

There were ten or eleven acts, each one more impressive than the last. The characters displayed extreme flexibility, balance, and most of all, courage in order to succeed in their performances. One of the earlier performances involved acrobats jumping and flipping through rings of differing heights. The finale of this act came when one of the performers did a flip through a hoop that could not have been less than ten feet off the ground, right after somersaulting through three hoops that were all at least six feet high. In the final act of the night, easily the most impressive and the most dangerous, motorcycles rode together in a cage shaped like a ball. While the act began with just one motorcycle in the cage (impressive by itself, as he was at several points riding upside down as he completed a loop), by the end of the act there were eight motorcycles riding together, with barely more than a foot of space to spare between them. I still cannot believe the precision that these riders displayed, nor the courage that must have been necessary to even think about doing such a stunt.  Added to the entire performance was a live band playing traditional Chinese music throughout the entire hour and a half, which further enhanced the experience. I can honestly say that anyone who visits Shanghai and does not take a trip to the Shanghai Circus Stadium is really missing out on one of Shanghai’s most impressive displays.

We still have yet to visit Xi’an and Beijing, so I can still hope that these cities will exceed the bar set by Shanghai, but no matter what, I can say that this city has had so much more to offer than I ever imagined.

Ben Weyman, from Alexandria, Ky., is a senior McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville and is currently studying in the People's Republic of China. He is majoring in political science and history.