Journey Into China: Day 8: The Final Day: Time Traveling to meet Mao Zedong. . .

Friday, December 12th

Time is relative.  Einstein helped us to understand that.  My time in Shanghai feels long in how absorbed I have become in the Chinese culture, environment, and cityscape.  It feels very long in how long it’s been since I’ve seen my dear wife.  It feels short in that I’m just settling back in to my Chinese language and my new habits in Shanghai, a city I once dreamt I would call home, and today is my final day.

I today dedicate the morning hours to work, packing, breakfast, and checkout.  At 11 I head out for my final city tour.

While admiring a statue of the victorious Communist soldiers marching into Shanghai, two friendly girls from Suzhou chat me up for a photo.  Like many others, they are quickly curious and impressed that I can communicate in Chinese.  Also like with many others, they then start speaking lots of words very fast, and I quickly lose my way.

I vanish into the bowels of the subway at People’s Park. I ride two stations south to the French Concession, where I emerge into leafy, local, commercial streets.  Woodcarving, tea houses, distinctive eateries: the urban wandering here is rich.  I cut north to a park - a rarity in Shanghai - with a reflecting pool, a security officer, and art installations about clouds and autumn leaves that evoke the Chinese love of clean and pure nature, despite the situation most modern Chinese face.

I backdoor Xintiandi and come upon a free museum.  I like anything free, so I enter to discover that I am in a museum of the history of the founding of the Communist Party.  Indeed, this is the girls school where the Communist leaders first met for a week in the 1920’s to formulate a program.  Much like the Revolutionary Museum in Cuba, this museum emphasizes the role of exploitative imperialist powers (Britain, Japan, America, et. al.) in abusing the Chinese people, and celebrates the Communist Party as the inevitable and necessary liberator of the Chinese from international and domestic manipulation.  

In one room I encounter a wax mannequin recreation of the key meeting where the Party was born; in this interpretation, Mao Zedong stands while everyone else sits, but we know from from history that he was not the central player at these early meetings.  Re-writing history is something the winners of history get to do, and in China the CCP is still winning.  I attempt to snap a picture of the scene, but a female police officer waves me off; I decide not to resist her.

Downstairs I enter the actual space where the meeting took place.  For a moment I imagine myself back into history, some eighty years ago, when Mao and the Russians and the revolutionaries were all together in this tight space, never at that moment realizing what an impact their actions would have.

Back in the street I drift west through Xintiandi and into the French Concession, the part of the city where the French set up shop when they were one of the major European powers living, working, and trading here.  I walk and explore, drinking tea, enjoying the bustling energy of this leafy corner of town.  I stroll through a park where women dance in graceful and synchronized movements while men gamble, smoke, and play cards.  I listen to the Chinese all around me and disappear into the fabric of the city.

Time’s up.  I take the metro back to Majesty Shanghai Plaza, and meet Vivian, Shannon, and Dan for our Metro and Maglev ride to the airport.  The Maglev is especially thrilling, as we achieve a top speed of 440 km/hr!

I’m at the airport, I’m buying gifts for family, I’m boarding the plane, and then I’m sitting here in the darkness, at 9:30 PM in Shanghai and 3:30 AM in Honolulu capturing imperfectly in words all that just happened. . . .