a weirdo in china, pt. 6: superposition

On Tuesday, I wanted to go to the Shanghai Museum, a wonderland of cultural and historical artifacts.

It looks like this.

But I was not able to go! It turns out that if you give 1.4 billion people free admission to a really nice museum, then the lines get kind of long. I wasn't prepared to give up three hours, so I wandered around until I found the real prize, the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, tucked away in an adorable little garden off of People's Square.

The museum itself was...not what I was expecting! Its interior was wholly devoted to a set of exhibits meant to create the impression of living through a video game. It ranged from the lamely bizarre (a group of artsy films inspired by Toy Story where toys move around if you stare at them long enough) to the awesome bizarre, like so:

The main exhibit was a journey into madness, a story about the end of the world, fighting to save the last living plants, failing, being killed, and having your brain transferred into a digital consciousness, ushering in a quantum superage. It was very intense.

In the end, death was a release.

After the museum, we found a Japanese restaurant in a fancy mall, and I got to eat OKONOMIYAKI!!!!!

I went home and promptly passed out. Then dinner was KOREAN BARBEQUE!!! I guess I wasn't really in the mood for Chinese food that day.

I wish I had more deep and soulful thoughts on the nature of daily life in China. The only thing I can share is that, at least as far as Shanghai goes, eating seems to be peoples' #1 form of entertainment. There doesn't seem to be that much else going on, but food is everywhere and fanatically indulged in. The food culture is pretty intimidating, given that it's dangerous for the untried to eat things of questionable hygiene (such as most FRUITS, VEGETABLES, and MEATS). You never know how long something's been sitting out, or what it may have been sprayed with to keep it going.

I can't even drink the water from my hotel tap.

So what does that leave the rest of us? Those without Chinese stomachs or linguistic ability? I can't say I'm really sure. How can I possibly have explored all the great sights in a city of 24 million people in less than a week? When I ask people, they just shrug and tell me to wait for Beijing. Shanghai is cool, and it moves fast, but there's something to be said for thinking ahead, investing in a future you can't quite imagine, and that doesn't seem to be in the nature of this place. There is now, and there is next, and there is nothing else worth thinking about.