Taikang Lu (link is to a stranger's blog, which is as accurate a description as I've seen) is a street in Old Town Shanghai that shows what happens when the old Chinese neighborhood (shikumen) and the new international money intersect. It is still very much a residential neighborhood, but some of the residents have subleased their homes to trendy (expensive) cafes, bars, and boutiques. We've since learned that the residents living above the ground floor, a little bit peeved about missing out on the huge income from the subleases and a lot peeved about all the laowai wandering through their neighborhood, have started taking out their frustrations on the expat patrons. We didn't see any fights that day, but a friend of a friend actually relocated her shop from the area after too many run-ins with angry citizens.
But before we learned all that, we had a very nice morning touring some of the galleries on a double date with Betsy, our friends Helene and Josh, and their son Jackson. John and Jackson's sister Eleanor were at home with our ayi, which was really best for everyone involved, as four year olds and pretentious art galleries don't usually mix well. We had pleasant weather that day, and there were lots of people wandering through the lanes -- and lots of locals hanging their laundry and washing their dishes in the alley. While we were having lunch, a family stopped us and asked if we were Aggies -- the parents moved here from Houston the same time we did, the older daughter had just graduated, and the younger daughter is class of 2011. That was a lot of fun, especially since Helene and Josh are Aggies, too. (Sea Aggies, though.)
Here are some pictures from Taikang Lu:
The other thing that we did either Thursday or Friday was go down to the South Bund Fabric Market to order some shirts for Tommy. This is one of the top ten tourist/expat things to do in Shanghai -- getting custom-made clothes for a tiny price. I've had several things made (a dress, a coat, a shirt, a table runner) but this was going to be Tommy's first purchase. He has long wanted some short-sleeve, button-down shirts that fit well and didn't make him look like a 1970's NASA engineer. We picked one of the hundreds of shirt tailors in the place, picked out some fabric, paid our deposit, and went on our way.
Outside the market, we wandered back into a neighborhood unlike anything we had seen in our sanitized area of Pudong. We didn't stay long -- not that we felt unwelcome or uncomfortable, but there wasn't much for us to do besides look and be looked at.
Next up: a lazy Saturday at the compound. I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat with anticipation.
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