Sunday, May 18, 2014

SHANGHAI PAVILION--Preserved from the 2010 Expo

May 10, 2014, Daring, the graduate student who volunteered to guide me to the China Pavilion showed up and we were off to find the No. 8 metro to Pudong.   We caught the no.10 just outside of campus and hurtled east to a place where we transferred to 8.

Yes, it was raining!


The China Pavilion has become one of the iconic images of the city.   It's twelve stories are magnificent.  We walk in to a dark hallway and await an elevator, whose doors silently open, and the group that has gathered in the hallway fills the elevator.   

The operator closes the door and we stand silent with almost no sensation of movement.  Moments later the door opens and we enter what turns out to be the top floor of the Pavilion.

We start our tour with the grandest exhibit in the building.  There is a famous scroll that shows life in the countryside along a river, which takes us to a town where people work, dine, gamble, and live. As we follow the river through the town, we see the gate and on the other side apparently merchants who have traveled the silk road, for they are approaching the gate on camels.

The entry to the exhibit tells about the scroll and shows us a reproduction: Along the River during the Qing Ming Festival.  



The exhibit itself is a virtual reproduction of the scroll, where all the inanimate characters come to life and move through the roads, where the people in the town are working, fight, talking.  And then night falls, and we see lights come on in the houses and businesses, and we can watch people going about their private affairs.  At the same time, at the bottom, a stream of real water ripples through the exhibit.   Then morning comes, and life during the day resumes.

It's a spectacular exhibit.






The rest of the building is full of a variety of art. 








The piece behind me, which, I am unfortunately blocking, is called The Knot.  It definitely felt like a political statement.





I asked Daring about the characters in the painting: "This means happy events!" The painting is a Chinese traditional cotton quilt and its owner hang it out in the sunny day. In China, every time people get married, the parents will prepare new cotton quilts printed this Chinese characters for the new couple, which gives blessings to them "







This is Daring, my guide for the day..  Daring is the English name she gave to herself  because she wants to be brave and have courage. Her Chinese name is Wang Danli. 

We close our visit with this sculpture.   My father-in-law used to say, "Many hands make light work," or something to that effect.

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