One day last week my language class was moved up earlier in the day, so I took advantage of the free afternoon to run some errands and get me some culture. Mmm, culture, tasty!
I went to check out the newly-free Shanghai Museum. I'd heard good things about it, and was not disappointed. It was large enough that I didn't make it through the whole place on this go-round, but I might go back when they have a new exhibit in. The standing collection includes pieces of Chinese sculpture, paintings, calligraphy, pottery, porcelain, currencies, furniture, and minority arts from roughly the last 3000 years. There's a lot to see.
My favorite section was the minority traditional arts collection, particularly the native dress exhibit. This getup (left) was cool.
This one (right) was not.
C'mon now, what's up with that? This little pin was affixed next to the first two plaques of the exhibit, but nowhere else. As far as I could tell, there was no correlation with the represented minority (i.e., other pieces of that same ethnicity's clothing weren't similarly marked). I can only guess that it's not an official designation, but then how did someone get inside the sealed case to put it there? Hmph. All I could think of was the little naked kids on my washing machine.
I also checked out the Ming & Qing-dynasty furniture rooms, and skipped pottery, but made it through most of porcelain (I hit my fill around the mid-Qing era; one can only take so much of bowls and glaze without there being a donut involved). I only breezed through coins and currency, but I did take in a bit about these pieces (left). They're not weapons, but really old currency. They're called sword coins, and were popular along the Silk Route (i.e., from Central China west to Turkey). I'm just sayin', talk about putting a hole in your pocket; that's some vicious change.
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