Ni Hao~ Part Five!

June 11th, 2010

I started off today by taking a 20 or so minute walk to a Propaganda Poster Museum, which... is exactly as the name entails! It's a collection of posters from about the 1940's to 1980's China! This turned out to be a REALLY cool museum, since.. it was just so random what some of the themes/images on the posters were!

I was unfortunately unable to get many good photos of the posters, since... I was trying to be a good person and follow the museum's rule of no photography, but... here were some highlights, so, just, please try to VISUALIZE! yeah!

1. A strong, buff looking Chinese man strangling the arm of a pretty puny, grotesque looking general holding a U.S. flag and a pirate skull symbol on his helmet
2. A happy looking Chinese girl with a chubby pig, trying to promote people to grow pigs in order to produce more fertilizer and support Chinese agriculture!
3. An image of black people next to the Washington D.C. Capitol, to support the civil rights movement in the U.S. (i.e., anything to support a group that is against any form of U.S. or white imperialism)
4. Images of women working in agriculture, weaving, studying, and other professional jobs.. with a bigger image of a woman in the center with a bottle of pills - advocating Birth Control.
   
5. And of course, a poster of Mao, Lenin, and Marx standing next to each other...

Anyhow!

What was also fun, was that I bumped into this Canadian guy (from Vancouver) at the museum, who happened to be taking 2 months off from work by travelling around in China! Noon was approaching, so we decided to grab some lunch together, and... he was a pretty nice guy, so we agreed to just roam the streets and find out whatever there was to be found in Shanghai!

We ended up taking the metro to Xintiandi, a part of Shanghai that still has some old, 1920's era buildings (brick style, in the British/French concession style).




For example, we saw this old 1920's era renovated mansion that was uber-nice.




This area of Shanghai also is home to a LOT of reaaaally nice and high-end stores (think Hermes, Louis Vuitton... etc..).







I thought this was funny... I can't believe how unavoidable these types of places have become... my friends (IB? AH? hehe...) would feel at home! [and yes, there ARE Starbucks here as well... groan...]



Still in the neighborhood of Xintiandi is the Site of the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. In other words, Mao and all those other masterminds of Chinese Communism gathered in this building, in secret... beginning China's Revolution. CRAZY!


Anyways! It was a really fun day, and I enjoyed learning not only things about Shanghai, but also about Canadian customs, as well!

Oh, the perks of being in a metropolis that is filled with ex-pats, people who love traveling, discovering new cultures, and sharing life experiences ~ love it. :D