Shang Hi, Everyone!

Shanghai Alley #1, originally uploaded by bloompy.

I still cannot believe that I am finally in China! I am at last in the land of my ancestors.

Pudong airport did not try to be beautiful; functionally, however, it served its purpose of ushering visitors into Shanghai and sending travelers out of China. My arrival gate was quite a long way to the immigration area, but once I arrived there, the passport check was a breeze; no questions asked. After grabbing my luggage, I went through customs, then got out to the welcoming zone filled with people who were picking up their friends and relatives. Once I went out of the airport and into the open air, four men approached me and aggressively steered my cart to go to their taxis. I barked at them and took hold of my cart. One of them cursed at me, so I decided to go back inside to ask for assistance. I wanted to know how much it would cost if I were to use a non-metered taxi, but the staff at the counter decided to escort me. With him, no one approached us. I was delivered to a legitimate taxi and off I went to Puxi, the "real" Shanghai, across the Huang Pu River. The ride would be about 40-60 minutes, costing about 150-200 Yuan, depending on the traffic.

The weather was beautiful: sunny and cool. My friend did say that travelling to China at the end of November and around the beginning of December would provide me with beautiful days like this one. Inside the taxi, I felt a draft (wind) from my right side, which at first I thought to be a hidden AC vent, but it turned out the door to my right had a hole and the air I felt was from the outside. I did not mind it because inside the taxi it was a bit warm. Along the way to Puxi, I saw many high-rise residential complex. Each complex had somewhere between 10 to 30 buildings, and each complex only employed a single design that was repeated many times. I have never seen so many housing complexes, but then again, I am now in the most populated country in the world.

The appearance of each complex varied from one complex to another: there were some that appeared very luxurious and some that looked dilapidated. They were all interspersed: there was not really one segment that was a poor area, and another that was glitzy; instead, I saw a few expensive-looking high rise buildings neighboring a seemingly mid-level priced housing, followed by a poor, run-down one, and then continued with a number of high priced buildings again; very interesting, indeed. The only common denominator was the airing of the tenants' laundry in the balconies. Even the ones that did not have balconies would put up their clothes-line by the window for maximum solar exposure.

Once we crossed a bridge whose named I never learned, I started seeing the familiar skyscrapers of Shanghai: the Oriental Pearl tower, the JW Marriott hotel (looking like one of the towers from the Lord of the Ring's second installment), the Jinmao Tower (the tallest structure in the city), the Four Seasons hotel, the JC Mandarin hotel, and some more. Once we got off the highway and into the surface street, suddenly I felt as if I were in Jakarta, Indonesia. The malls and the hotels had that typical Asian glitz, with each of them having shiny and glossy tiles, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, and a grand entrance.

***

I wanted to go to the Bund on my first night here. I thought that with not too many people around at such late hours I could shoot some pictures, but the concierge told me that after 10pm, the lights that made the Bund a glorious spectacle would be turned off. So, instead, I just walked around my hotel, trying to scope the area. I ate at a restaurant that had many stalls on the sidewalk. It was called Bi Feng Tang. I ordered the neck pork (I have never had this before), vinegared chicken feet and shrimp dumpling (har-kau.) I ordered the dumplings to be safe, just in case the first two were not good. Turned out the first two were great, and the dumpling was just so-so.

Having lived for almost a year in Tokyo, it is rather a relief to be in a city like Shanghai, where the prices are very inexpensive. After the late dinner, I walked on the street of my hotel, passing different cafés and restaurants. Sometimes the chilly night and the overhanging streetcar's cables made me feel as if I were in Berlin; and sometimes certain small shops in the area reminded me of Paris. There were many beggars, mostly women in their 50s; and they were very aggressive in pursuing people. Because of it, I felt as if I were in Jakarta, but I kept reminding myself that I was in Shanghai! A recent Asian Wall Street Journal article actually talked in length about the industry of begging that had been developing in China, where conmen employed the tactic of using disabled or deformed children.

I look forward to exploring this city that has been called the Paris of the East, and the Whore of the Orient.

From 0 to 100?

Odd but true. Some Japanese food labels carry the description of "Ages 0 to 100." Very interesting, indeed. One label was found on a bottle of salad dressing. It makes me think: are people over 100 years of age being advised not to consume any of these dressings because it may be too oily, too sour, or too salty? For crying out loud, they reach their centennial already. Let them have whatever they want! Or are they saying that babies right after birth could technically be bottle-fed with milk with a dash of vinegary dressing?

Almost Greek to Me

Since my travels to Europe in the 70s I have visited many public squares: in small towns and in big cities; during the fall, winter, spring, and summer; at dawn and near dusk, day and night. In my subsequent travels −after learning about the Greek agora and the Roman forum during college− I tried to recreate the feeling of being in that ancient marketplace, in that old public square. Did anybody ever stand and think that the very spot she or he stood on would one day be a subject of a study? What went on the mind of the people as they walked among the architectures that dwarfed them? In Nashville, Tennessee, stood the only standing replica of the Parthenon of Athens. While I was in college, many times I would visit the park where the monument stood and walked around the structure, but the feeling I was searching for eluded me.

Then today it happened in what I thought was the unlikeliest place in the world: the Ebisu Garden Place, one of the many contemporary temples to the gods and goddesses of commercialism. I have been to this shopping and dining complex cum brewery (the Yebisu Beer) many times, but today, because of the gorgeous mid-Fall weather of sunny and cool, I decided to walk aimlessly, in and out of and around the different buildings in the area. After three hours in the area, I walked on the ground level of a building with a tall ceiling. The portico was devoid of any Greek element: no Doric, Ionic or Corinthian columns; instead, it was simply rectangular columns that lined the sides of the building, supporting the overhanging roof.

The angle of the sun cast a shadow of the adjacent structure onto the wall of this building. Suddenly I felt as if I were circling a classical edifice in the ancient time. It was a weird feeling, because I thought such a reaction would only be available to me in the West, while touring similar structures. Here in the East, specifically in Japan, I thought I would be overcome by a site-specific sensation, such as: the Shinto shrines, the Buddhist temples or the Zen gardens. How foolish of me to be so narrow-minded. An exhilarating experience it was not; nonetheless, it was a gratifying feeling. At the time of the revelation, I was not thinking about the people in the future; instead, I was soaking in the moment of what I thought would be a walk among the giants in the ancient times, and oddly enough, that made my Sunday for me.

Soy Sauce Made from Human Hair

I did not know this, but today I was sent a link to an article that talked about how the Chinese and the Japanese used human hair for the production of soy-sauce. Further, the article said that the amino acid that was present in human hair provided an alternative to soy beans in giving soy sauce its flavor. What makes it dangerous is that the chemicals used to extract these amino acids are carcinogenic. While the Japanese used this method during the World War II because of soybean shortage (because of food shortages, soybean was consumed as soybean, instead of being used to make soy sauce), they stop the practice some time ago. The Japanese put a ban on the production of soy sauce from anything other than organic proteins. The Chinese soy sauce manufacturer, on the other hand, saw the use of human hair as a cheaper alternative to using real soybeans. For full view of the article, click the heading on this blog, or go to http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/waiwai/index.html

Setting Back the Clock of Equal Rights

Maybe it is the trend these days to set back the clock of progress. The United States' stance on environmental issues seem to unravel decades of the move forward. Now, the Japanese government is tinkering with Article 24 of their Constitution, which guarantees the equal rights for all in terms of marriage and family. This past June, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party proposed revisions that would strengthen the family and community values at the cost of equal rights.

The following is an Op/Ed article from Asahi Weekly/Asahi Shimbun of the International Herald Tribune, dated November 11, 2004. You can click the title of this particular blog if you would like to go to the site itself. If the link is broken, worry not; the article has been published in its entirety down below:

BACKLASH: Revisionist thinking
By MIEKO TAKENOBU,The Asahi Shimbun

Women's groups have banded together to fight proposed changes to the Constitution that target their equal rights.

Women's groups are roaring back at proposed constitutional revisions that target their equal rights.

At issue is Article 24 of the Constitution, which guarantees equal rights for men and women in terms of marriage and family. In June, a group in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party issued a draft document that proposed rewriting the article to focus on the family--especially obligations to support the family--and community values.

A nationwide network of 12 women's groups has formed to resist the changes. At a news conference held Oct. 29 in Tokyo, women in the network spoke out on the issue.

``Should we return to the days before Article 24 when decisions about women's educational advancement, work and marriage were all made by the male head of the household?'' one participant asked.

Another said, ``Any weakening of Article 24, which defines equality within the home, would endanger the domestic violence prevention law, the Basic Law for a Gender-equal Society as well as the insurance program for elderly care.''

Participants included octogenarian Mutsuko Miki, widow of former Prime Minister Takeo Miki, as well as women in their 30s such as Hisako Motoyama, an organizer with nongovernmental organizations.

As written now, Article 24 states: ``Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes, and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as a basis.

``With regard to choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce and other matters pertaining to marriage and the family, laws shall be enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity and the essential equality of the sexes.''

The proposed revision by the LDP group changes the focus of the article. A draft, posted on the Internet, proposed as a new ``public duty'' an obligation to support the family. The draft also said ``(Article 24) should be reviewed from the standpoint of stressing family and community values.''

LDP members who helped compile the draft say they are surprised at the strong negative reaction. Lower House member Kyoko Nishikawa said the proposal did not mean a return to the traditional Japanese family where the patriarch ruled with an iron fist.

``I think a Constitution that does not have any reference to the home is wrong,'' Nishikawa said. ``It is necessary to place importance on the home as the foundation. I personally think what should be included is a clause like `the home is the basic unit of society.' ''

Another member of the team, Yoshitaka Sakurada, said the negative reaction was due to a misunderstanding.

`Should we return to the days ... when decisions ... were all made by the male head of the household?'

PARTICIPANT Nationwide women's group network

``It will not do if under civil law a homemaker who cared for elderly parents did not receive an inheritance matching her contribution because of the provisions for equal division of inheritance,'' Sakurada said. ``The fact that the family is important should be included in the Constitution as a means of confirming that principle. We are not thinking about reviewing the clause about the equality of the sexes.''

However, Hiroshi Nakasatomi, an associate professor of constitutional law at Fukushima University, sees a direct relationship between the focus on the family in the LDP proposal and a review of the clause for equality of the sexes.

The LDP proposal points out that the family and community were destroyed after World War II due to egotism. In order to rebuild family and community values, the LDP proposal includes the provision for ``an obligation for supporting the family'' as well as a new provision for ``protecting the family as the duty of the nation.''

According to Nakasatomi, the unstated precondition of the proposal is that women would be expected to handle the obligation for supporting the family. As a result, a review of the equality of the sexes would come into play because the need would arise for a division of roles according to gender in terms of supporting the family.

One LDP member who is opposed to revising Article 24 is Upper House member Yoichi Masuzoe.

``The objective of constitutional revision is to adjust the Constitution to changes in society, but the proposal on Article 24 moves in the opposite direction,'' Masuzoe said. He added that the proposal to revise Article 24 was a political attempt to appeal to conservative voters.

``Since the LDP cannot attract the undecided voter, it tends to depend on the conservative support base from which it can ensure it receives votes,'' Masuzoe said.

Another woman who was surprised by the LDP proposal was movie director Tomoko Fujiwara. She finished a documentary this fall about Beate Sirota Gordon, the American woman credited as the creator of Article 24.

``Having lived in Japan for a decade from the time she was five, Gordon proposed Article 24 based on her knowledge of the real status of women,'' Fujiwara said. ``I wanted to show through the movie that her idea had taken root in Japan.''

Screenings of ``A Gift from Beate'' are planned in conjunction with efforts to protect Article 24. The film is scheduled to open in Japan next spring.(IHT/Asahi: November 11,2004)