Exploring culture and shopping in Shanghai - Part 2 of 2

Then out of the garden we went, back to the Old Town shops. Here I had an opportunity to purchase a couple more souvenirs. For my friend, Rick, with his interest in politics, I bought a copy of the little red book, “Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung” for the equivalent of a few dollars. At one time, this book was a required possession of members of the Communist Party of China. I wasn’t quite through shopping, though. In Hawaii, I had come to love Chinese confections, and although there were stores selling a wide variety of confections, the choices were so overwhelming that I decided to move on. Eventually, I found myself wandering by a shelf in another shop that held various chess boards with Chinese figure pieces. I was reminded that I had talked with Rick about buying a chess set for our entertainment, and so I stopped to pause and look. Next thing I knew, a nice lady was kindly talking me in to buying the small set that caught my attention. I was at the end of my stay in China and had spent most of my yuan and did not have enough yuan for the price that she had given me. But she kept asking how low of a price I would accept, although at the same time saying in effect that the price would have to be reasonable, as if to say an extremely low price would be an insult. I eventually got out my VISA check card, and the price that showed up on my bank statement was $24.80. At this time, I was satisfied with the souvenirs I had purchased for this trip. I had my Great Wall t-shirt, a little raft as a reminder of the wandering ways on the Lijiang River, and a chess board that would provide hours of entertainment, plus a couple of things to take home to others back home.

After lunch, we stopped at a silk rug factory, and saw how the rugs are painstakingly made from raw materials in to a finished product. At the end of the factory tour, we were offered the opportunity of purchasing rugs at the furniture store. A small rug takes many hours to make and costs a few hundred dollars. The cost of large rugs was in to the thousands of dollars. The rugs were beautiful to behold, but I would not be doing any shopping here. Rodney did pick up a brochure to take home, though, as he thought he might be interested in a rug at a future time.

Our next stop was the Shanghai Museum. This museum houses one of the finest art collections in China. Rodney and I explored the museum together, but the exhibits did not seem to hold our interest much. After all, we had seen so much already. The art was something beautiful to behold, but our minds were quite full with what we had already experienced on our journey through China.

At the end of the day was our farewell banquet, a celebration of the journey we had just accomplished...