Unexpected Landscapes of Shanghai

Guanyin at the Temple of the Jade Buddha

The metro headed north where we emerged to a kind of Bronx meets Fritz Lang's Metropolis, where glass skyscrapers tapered to heaven bound filaments, while bulldozers munched on huge blocks of rubble and laundry hung on billboards, trees, over public parking lots, anywhere but the unaccommodating smooth glass surfaces.

Arhats

We visited the Temple of the Jade Buddha, and had one of these ample vegetarian lunches, to which habitués bring take-away containers and rapidly stow most of the meal, and the restaurant staff is more than happy to provide plastic bags. Then we took directions from a young entrepreneur who spoke French as he addressed us from his scooter, and found a taxi for the contemporary art galleries of Moganshan lu: Gallery Shangh'art, BizArt, Eastlink, ArtSea Studio & Gallery, Art Scene Warehouse and U Gallery.

Repetitive motifs brand these contemporary paintings like any of Shanghai's products, but nowhere else had we seen such mocking irony and pop vulgarity, housed in cool, clear spaces abstracted from the heartbreak outside. 

(Outside a lone man was destroying a house brick by brick, blow by blow. A couple stood in front of their half destroyed house, looking confused in the rubble. A man wandered around a half destroyed house, dazed. I was taking photos and someone stopped to regard me with the look of a powerful man, then began taking photos himself.) 

One artist painted everyone with pacifiers in their mouths---Mao Tse Tung was the only character in scene after scene without a baby pacifier. Other painters featured the erotic (notably lacking in most of Chinese society), the grotesque, or world leaders wearing gas masks as the world burns.

Also unexpected: The Jewish Refugee Museum

Sephardic Jews like the wealthy Sassoons from Iraq had settled in Shanghai and made their mark from the 19th century on. Later, as world events precipitated the exodus of European Jews, and country after country refused them asylum, Shanghai became a surprisingly hospitable refuge. Among blocks of rubble and construction and other nondescript buildings is the beautifully restored old synagogue which comprises the Jewish Refugee Museum.

A group of Israelis were beginning a tour, led by a Chinese girl. At first she seemed Jewish. When she stated, "This is our synagogue" a ripple of emotion swelled among the Israelis: "our" synagogue! (It turned out this was just a government job for her. But she'd done her research.) The Jews had been able to land in Shanghai because of Dr. Ho, the Chinese Consul to Vienna, who had taken a personal decision to issue them visas. One can only speculate, considering the Shanghai of the 1930's in the throes of Communists fighting Nationalists and Europeans squatting precariously, why Shanghai took this unique life-saving measure. (One also speculates fruitlessly what exactly happened to all those Jews once Mao took the helm.) Shanghai's occupation in the 40's was by the Japanese and not the Germans. The Japanese chose to defy German orders concerning the Final Solution, because they counted Jewish business acumen as an important resource. The Israeli translator embellished this a bit, praising the business AND INTELLECTUAL acumen of the Jews, and the group nodded gravely. Our guide nodded gravely too, as if she understood Hebrew. Thirty thousand Jews survived in the Shanghai ghetto under the Japanese. As in so many places we have visited, the narratives surrounding Jewish lives are the most intact, the most clearly articulated. 

After the warm, moist Israeli crowd departed, Jacques and I stayed and studied the exhibits, which told of so many near-tragedies, saved by Dr. Ho. An exhibit quoted a poem he wrote:

The gifts heaven bestows are not by chance.

The convictions of heroes not lightly formed.

Today I summoned all spirit and strength.

Urging my steed forward ten thousand miles.

A worshipper at the vegetarian restaurant of the Jade Buddha

We were joined briefly by a woman from Westchester (How long have you been here? What did you buy? How much did you spend?) 

Then I sat in the clean, bright air of the courtyard, where even the cleaning ladies of the museum treated me as if I were a mourner visiting my ancestors' graves. A perfect refuge from Shanghai.