Bonus Post

Here are two little extras for my avid readers. One is the description of a school trip taken on May 27th, not to be taken all that seriously. The other is some photos from my ( second! ) trip to Yangzhou, to where my friend took me last weekend and let me stay with the family at their home. We had some great fun, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Since I've gotten the question quite a bit recently: I'll be leaving Shanghai on Monday the 18th, and I'll be back to Heidelberg sometime within that week.

The school trip:
On an early morning in May, the sun already glaring down on us and setting the tone for a glorious day, our group of a dozen Confucius Institute Scholarship students set out for a forenoon of fun and adventure.
Following a one-hour bus ride, introduction round and gift trinkets included, we arrived at the first ( and foremost ) of our destinations: The Shikumen rice wine factory. Not only were we provided a tour of their Huangjiu museum und manufacturing facilities but we also had the opportunity to sample the company's fine products, and generously we did.
With this little treat sweetening our day, we went on to our second stop, scenic Fengjing oldtown, one of Shanghai's famed suburban recreational districts. As our tour guide pointed out us, Fengjing is famous beyond its borders for its quirky dialect as well as its exceedingly bright inhabitants. Nested among the living quarters and little shops that make up the traditional Chinese canal town are the two pearls of Fengjing; One is the domain of Ding Cong, nationwide known cartoonist and greatest son of Fengjing. His personal domicile and workshop are open to the public, his works on display. The inclined visitor can also take a tour of Ding Cong's personal slaughterhouse which provided him with his daily fix of pickled pork knuckle, a local specialty, which he required to be served with his every meal. The other is the renowned Museum of Mao Badges, an impressive collection of thousands of metal badges illustrating episodes of the life and doings of the Great Chairman. While curated with meticulous care and attention to detail, the original intended use and meaning of the badges did not become clear to this student. As a fun extra for the kids, presumably, the museum's courtyard featured a decomissioned howitzer gun as well as jet fighter plane flown by Mao Zedong himself.
After a typical Chinese famer's lunch, which included all-Chinese favorites such as chicken feet, bony fish and cold slices of the abovementioned pickled pork knuckle, we moved on to the highlight of our trip: the “Chinese Farmers' Paintings Village”, which offers a glimpse into the work of Chinese farmers-turned-painters, and gives the esteemed visitor a chance to familiarize himself with their colorful, often almost childlike joyful works depicting scenes of everyday village life and similar sujets encountered by the farmer-turned-painter. Our group was shown a variety of works by the different masters, all with their distinct yet inter-connected styles. No purchases were made.
This concluded our little excursion and most of our group seized the opportunity during the two-hour-trip home ( Shanghai late afternoon traffic-induced travel time multiplier: 2 ) to sleep of the last effects of the morning's rice wine degustation.

Dennis J. Roehner for SJTU/SIE
2012-06-09


The weekend vacation: