【Gouqi Island, Shanghai & Suzhou Tour】1. Meiling’s Plane Trees Beside New Social Media Hotspots

📍 Shanghai · 👁 5330 reads · ❤️ 34 likes

Introduction: Mother Earth nurtures countless mountains and rivers, bizarre peaks and unusual lakes; generation after generation, people have added their own touches, polishing the face of scenic beauty with the passage of time. This trip to Gouqi Island, Shanghai and Suzhou let me feel the pulse of nature’s way and human history.

October 26, 2020. I flew to Shanghai Hongqiao Airport around noon (this is my second time in Shanghai; the first was five years ago, for the wisteria blooms, this time for Gouqi Island). The airport is enormous; I was like Granny Liu stepping into the Grand View Garden, unable to find the meeting spot for the guide. Because I had no checked luggage, I accidentally went straight out of the terminal. Realizing something was wrong, I called the guide. He told me to come back inside and take the elevator down. At last, near the baggage claim exit, I met him.

The itinerary was tightly packed. That afternoon, we visited three newly emergent social-media-hot spots.

Shanghai Xingfu Jihui (Happiness Collection) is one of the city’s new internet-famous bookstores. The road outside is lined with a type of tree whose leaves were just beginning to turn yellow in the autumn. The guide said they were “French plane trees”, though they do not originate from France but from Yunnan. It was one of the five things Chiang Kai-shek did out of love for Soong Mei-ling. That year, Soong Mei-ling said she liked plane trees, so he had people buy 20,000 saplings from Yunnan and plant them all over Nanjing. Each and every plane tree stood for Chiang Kai-shek’s unwavering devotion. Afterwards, Shanghai and other cities followed suit and planted the so-called French plane trees. This story is very touching; I never expected old Chiang to have such a romantic streak. Hence the saying: love someone, gift a city; love a tree, fill Nanjing with it.

Xingfuli was originally the Shanghai Rubber Research Institute. It was later transformed by designer Huang Quan into Xingfuli (Happiness Lane), and Xingfu Jihui was also his design. As a social-media landmark, it attracts hordes of young artists and trendsetters.

Xingfu Jihui has three floors, not strictly separated but with a “mezzanine” design. Functionally it is divided into five zones: books, clothing, creative products, coffee and light meals, and events.

The ground floor sells branded clothes. The window and door areas are designed as a café, where you can sit and have a coffee after a wander – and dropping by just for coffee is more than welcome. The second floor features a long row of desks displaying a large number of foreign magazines on fashion, culture and cuisine, prominently placed right at the entrance.

That is the famous bookstore. Besides magazines, the second floor also exhibits art books and creative products. Next to the bookshelves there are steps with cushions; you can grab a book and sit down casually. No one will chase you out even if you stay until closing time, and the setting is perfect for snapping an artsy photo.

At heart it is a bookstore, but it’s different from a traditional one, as the name suggests – Jihui means a collection. Situated right in Xingfuli, it also hints at happiness. How clever! It brings together books, clothing, shoes, accessories, drinks and pastries – a true collection of happiness. The shop has two floors, creatively designed, very modern, stylish yet graceful. I really enjoyed the ambience. However, compared to the Goliath Bookstore in Harbin, it falls far short.

Columbia Park is a mysterious area, never opened to the public after 1949. Originally a foreign lane called the Columbia Country Club, it was built in 1924 by the American Consulate as a leisure, recreation and social venue for British and American expats in Shanghai. The buildings have kept their character for over 70 years; in the slanting sunlight, you can almost smell the history of a bygone era.

Its most famous feature is a resort-like, Moroccan-inspired Tiffany-blue pool, which instantly transports you to Morocco. The mosaic tiles and azure water make nearly any shot look like a fashion magazine spread. Many celebrities reportedly drop by for pictures!

This is the only remaining pool in Shanghai still built to imperial-sized measurements. It was originally the outdoor pool of a naval club. The Spanish-style architecture on either side and the arches echo the pool, making you feel a little disoriented. Around the pool, numerous hip restaurants have opened. Enjoying a meal while admiring and photographing the view from every angle must be wonderful, but we had no time to savor it, only snapping a few hurried photos.

This Baroque-style complex was formerly the “Shanghai Institute of Biological Products” (“Shang Sheng Suo” for short), never open to outsiders until now. Its mystery is finally unveiled.

Some historical records on the wall.

In the park there is a row of gates that “change color”. Depending on where you stand and the angle, the colors appear different – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet – the whole rainbow.

Sun Ke’s Former Residence

Sun Ke was the son of Sun Yat-sen. This small Western-style house was designed by László Hudec, blending Spanish, Baroque, Italian Renaissance and other styles.

Sinan Open Air Museum

In the Sinan Mansions, shaded by plane trees, there is a museum without walls, without glass cases, without fences, without admission tickets, and without a one-meter barrier. Created in 2016, it is an open-air museum inside Sinan Mansions that is always open, never closes, and yet is renewed every day – a century-old human-history museum.

Here, everything you can imagine – and even what you can’t – could be an exhibit. Compared with exhibits in traditional museums, which are alienated by cold glass and blocked by rigid railings, inspiring reverence, the open-air museum emphasizes approaching, entering and experiencing the exhibits. All are vivid and natural, less solemn, more intimate. Here, perhaps an accidental step may land on an exhibit under your feet.

The Sinan Open Air Museum boasts an extraordinary display space, bringing together detached garden villas, semi-detached garden villas, terraced houses, colonnaded buildings, new-style lane houses and modern apartments – a concentration of Shanghai’s modern residential architecture. Many buildings record precious history; the familiar story of Mei Lanfang “growing a beard to show his integrity” happened here. At No. 533 Fuxing Middle Road once lived a brilliant scholar who, at 27, graduated from Yale University with a master’s degree in physics and chemistry. At 44, he entered politics, serving as Finance Minister of the Nationalist Government. Kong Xiangxi contributed to currency reform, the peaceful resolution of the Xi’an Incident, and fundraising for the war against Japan. Besides old villas, exhibits include street lamps, ancient trees, red-brick paths and cobblestone walls. Each exhibit has a shield-shaped sign on its outer wall printed with a QR code. By scanning with your phone, you can listen to audio introductions recorded by “ordinary people”. However, we had no time to listen, missing a wonderful learning opportunity.

Here you find former homes of cultural luminaries, dense foliage of plane trees quietly growing, and cobblestone walls that seem still to breathe… History is not under glass but in each person’s perception and ongoing creation.

It’s linked to many famous figures – names we all know: Zhou Enlai, Mei Lanfang, Liu Yazi, Li Liejun, Cheng Qian, Xue Dubi, Zeng Pu, and more.

There is also the “Sinan Open Air Museum · Time Alley”, linking past and future.

A “Time Alley” sits in the northern part of Sinan Mansions, connecting Fuxing Middle Road to the north and the main internal street of Sinan Mansions to the south. It is a 2-3 meter wide alley about 30 meters long. In this narrow linear tunnel, past, present and future are woven together. Here, 26 two-way mirrors form a mirrored array closely lined on both walls. History is a prism that refracts multicolored light. The gold mirrored stainless steel, set against a black background, interacts with visitors. Those walking through seem to walk among 26 overlapping reflections of themselves, as if journeying through history alongside countless versions of “me” from different times. History and the present engage in a warm, deep dialogue. In Time Alley there are Feng Yuxiang, Mei Lanfang, Zhang Xueliang… and also the us of today.

Exhibits of this entire open-air museum are sometimes buildings, sometimes the people in the buildings, or perhaps street lamps, old trees, cobblestone walls – all holding little-known stories, bearing weighty historical deposits. In this museum without glass cases or fences, people are both viewers and creators of history. The past has not gone far; the future has already arrived.

The environment is superb, the architecture unbeatable. Every villa, every staircase, every small lane is worth photographing again and again, and you’ll want to quietly soak it all in.

For dinner we ate Shanghainese food. I had the impression that local dishes are sweet, but these were very salty.

Afterwards, we went to see the night view at the City God Temple (Chenghuang Miao).

Noticing Sister Xiaowen from our group taking photos, I went up to chat: “I’m afraid of getting lost; I’ll stick with you guys.” Sister Xiaowen replied, “Sure, sure.” Among women she is one of those rare people with an excellent sense of direction. There’s an old saying in Shanghai: “If you visit Shanghai without seeing the City God Temple, you haven’t really been to Shanghai.” The temple has become an iconic sight. Its origin lies in ancient sacrifices to the moat (huang) and ramparts (cheng), one of the eight gods mentioned in the Zhou Li. Ancient people built cities to protect the inhabitants, so they erected tall walls, gates, towers and moats. That’s the origin of the City God Temple.

With lights dazzling, the old buildings appeared both dreamy and mysterious in the illumination. Perhaps due to the pandemic, there were far fewer visitors. The temple area is filled with specialty shops, restaurants, snack stalls, gardens and more. First, the endless parade of snacks: Shanghai’s City God Temple snacks are incredibly rich, too many to list. Stepping in, you’ll be dazzled: Nanxiang xiaolongbao, char siu bao, grilled skewers, pork chop noodles, three-shred spring rolls, purple rice balls, chessboard cakes, crown-shaped dumplings, fortune fish-ball soup, pea-jelly crystal cakes… Even non-local treats like Changsha stinky tofu and old-style yoghurt have set up shop here. You can eat your fill to your heart’s content.

Shanghai’s City God Temple is famous for all kinds of Shanghai-style snacks. Around the Food Street, it’s practically a kingdom of snacks. The special pastries of Greenwave Restaurant, vegetarian buns of Songyue Lou, eight-treasure rice of Songyun Lou, Nanxiang xiaolongbao (it’s said there’s a long queue all day long just to buy them), Ningbo rice dumplings and fermented rice balls – all are unmissable delicacies for visitors.

Beyond local treats, the temple area brims with distinct flavors from all over. Along the winding old streets, restaurants, diners and food shops appear at every turn. Amid the jostling crowd, freshly steamed buns and crispy pastries are everywhere in hand. All this makes the City God Temple yet another enduring “food paradise” in Shanghai. The array of tempting tastes constantly reinterprets “Old Temple Snacks” and “Shanghai-style dishes”. Those unforgettable delicacies, those familiar names are shared memories for generations of Shanghainese, deeply imprinted on the city. Amid this ancient, tourist-filled historical landmark, its unique charm continues to settle.

There are also long-established shops like Lao Feng Xiang, plus stalls selling silk scarves, clothes, White Rabbit creamy candies, preserved plum sweets and much more. With money you can buy anything.

The night view of the City God Temple is splendid, almost imperial in grandeur. All the illumination seems designed to prove its majesty and elegance.

The Nine-Turn Bridge twists eighteen times, each bend at a different angle – some sharper than a right angle, some gentler. Today, the bridge surface is granite flagstones. Each turning point bears a stone carved with a seasonal flower: January narcissus, February apricot, March peach… until December wintersweet. The first and last stones of the bridge are each carved with a lotus flower. On the section in front of Huxinting Teahouse, a lotus is carved in the middle and clouds are carved at the four corners. In the pool, a white marble statue of a lotus fairy stands gracefully, smiling, awaiting every visitor.

Crossing the Nine-Turn Bridge, both sides are lined with beautifully restored old buildings. Red walls and mud-colored tiles in Taoist style lend an air of timeless elegance to the pavilions and terraces. How delightful it would be to sit in a window-side restaurant by the bridge, order a steamer of xiaolongbao and a bowl of small wontons, and watch the red koi gliding through the lake!

(3685 2020/11/20)