May Day in China

Greetings again from Shanghai, as life here settles down after the three-day May Day (May 1st) holiday.  Here (and in other parts of the world including Europe) it's Labor Day or Workers' Day, and more special in countries like China whose founding story is centered on workers, peasants, and social change.

We weren't sure what to expect by way of celebrations.  There were some special events here and there, and according to the news about 50 million people here took advantage of the three-day break to travel and visit family or friends.  But we spent most of the time where people were gathering, particularly local parks.  In the photo above we see children in Fuxing Park, the French-style park (in its rose gardens and parks and fountains) established when this part of Shanghai was part of the "French Concession."  But the concession is also where some of the key organizers of the Chinese Communist Party held their early discussions, and where the first Party Congress would be held in 1921.  This is why the large statue above the kids shows Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the two key theorists and authors of the Communist Manifesto in the mid-1800's.

In spite of May Day's origins, we saw no political events or parades.  For the most part, everyone was enjoying the extra day off by gathering in the parks and downtown to sing, dance, visit, and (on the main shopping street) to wander and browse.

Singing and dancing groups sometimes have musicians, but others use sound equipment and microphones to fill the space with rhythm and voice.  Songs seem to often be old favorites, often popular with older people in the groups.  Few involved seemed under 40.

Crowds on Nanjing Walking Street, about ten blocks long between People's Square and the Bund (on the river along Shanghai's old European concession buildings) seemed to be where the young folks were, and a number of families with kids, as well as older people.  And the crowds there were more mixed: we were perhaps the only non-Chinese at Fuxing Park, but downtown crowds included folks from a variety of other places than China.  It's where Shanghai gets its reputation for being the most cosmopolitan Chinese city (along with Hong Kong, but that was still part of Great Britain until 1997).

A weather note: by later afternoon on the walking street, a torrential rainstorm hit--several inches in an hour.  We're in a "sub-tropical monsoon clime zone," and late spring and early summer seems to be the time when a Big Rain may blow in.  It was wild and exciting and drenching (but not dangerous), and the street cleared as everyone ran into the nearest store to huddle until things passed.  The wind was strong enough to blow rain into the open doors.  We waited with about a hundred others in a diamond store, where the staff were doing their best to suddenly host so many wet "customers"!

We did decide to visit the old house in the French Concession where the first Communist Party Congress was held in 1921 (in the photo at left, we see the recreation of the vote by the dozen or so leaders of the movement at that time, who are voting to adopt the party platform for the new political movement--they are creating it rather than only leading it).  Mao is depicted by the figure above the white teacups.

The movement grew out of the social and political turmoil after the collapse of the last Chinese dynasty in 1911.  The nationalist movement (the Kuomintang) sought to free China from the remaining areas of European occupation, while the emerging communist movement sought to remake Chinese society from "feudalist" to "socialist."  The two movements sometimes overlapped, but China was in a state of conflict between the two until the final victory of the communist movement in 1949.  (The nationalists eventually became established in what is now Taiwan--one reason China is opposed to recognizing Taiwan as a separate country.)

Inside the museum was also a life-size portrait (in stone statues) of those recognized as the founders of the movement.  The exhibits were crowded, perhaps more so because of the holiday.  A young man (college age?) asked me what brought me to the museum--Barbara and I were the only "Europeans" exploring the rooms, and he was surprised to see someone like us there.

I told him I took courses on China way back in the 1960's in college, and found the story of China important and interesting, and we chatted a bit more.  I forgot to mention that I'm old enough to have been a little boy in 1949, or that when my family (then in Oakland) visited Chinatown in San Francisco in the 1950's one might hear of the tensions between local residents who sympathized with the new government and those who still identified with the nationalists.  And that I sometimes was puzzled to see just a few older Chinese women "walking funny," whom I later learned were among the few left whose feet had been "bound" when they were little girls (a custom that had been dying out even before the revolution, but whose end was also part of the changes the new government was promising for women).

At left is a photo (not mine) from the Shikumen House Museum--just down the block from the First Party Congress museum.  "Shikumen" houses were two-story red brick homes built side to side (kind of like "brownstones" in the U.S.), which were once solid, even elegant housing in parts of Shanghai, especially the French Concession.  Many houses had deteriorated in the 20th century and torn down for modern buildings, and few Shikumen districts have been preserved.  But several square blocks have been restored for historic purposes, and also in recognition of their interest to tourists.

I'll conclude with the photo at right, of one of the several Tai Chi groups we have seen learning and working out, most often on weekends.  This is one of the activities (in addition to shopping) where we most often see young and old together.  In this group there's a Tai Chi master, a handsome older man with white hair (60's?) who moves with grace, strength, and sometimes speed (when I watched, he sometimes changed the placing of his arms and hands so quickly I didn't see them moving--only reappear!).

Until the next entry!  Bruce