National Palace Museum

Last Wednesday, I visited the National Palace Museum in Taipei. It is THE must-see destination for any art lover. Asianart.com describes the historical treasures residing within the Gugong Bowuguan as:

"The works of art in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, are classified as national treasures; some have been passed down from dynasty to dynasty since the Northern Sung period (960-1127), the era when the foundation of the collection was amassed. The greater part of the Museum's vast collection entered the Palace during the reign of the Ch'ien-lung emperor (reigned 1736-95), and many of the objects, especially those in jade and bronze, are intimately connected with state rituals. Others have served as symbols of sovereign power such as the Emperor's jade seal, which in China is the equivalent of the crown of a European king.

Following the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911 and the eventual expulsion of the last emperor from the Forbidden City in 1924, the Palace Museum opened in Peking in 1925. With the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and the imminent danger of an assault on northern China, the government took measures to safeguard the treasures in the Palace Museum. A large group of the finest objects was carefully placed into wooden crates and shipped south, beginning a 30-year odyssey that took the art over thousands of miles by train, boat, truck, and even hand towed barge, usually under the most adverse wartime conditions. At war's end, the nearly 20,000 crates, which had been divided into several shipments to avoid detection, were reunited in Nanking for a brief period before Chiang Kai-shek moved a selection of them containing more than 600,000 pieces to Taiwan in 1949. It was another 16 years - during which time the collection was stored first in sugar warehouses and then in specially constructed tunnels, before the National Palace Museum, Taipei, opened in 1965 and the public was again able to see this legacy of Chinese civilization."

The centrepieces of the museum collection: Jadeite cabbage & Jasper stewed pork

I was in awe of the thousand-year old treasures and it dawned on me how advanced and sophisticated Chinese civilization really is. The evidence stretches from the early jade pendants of the Zhou Dynasty to the celadon porcelain of the Sung dynasty to the calligraphy of the Qing dynasty.

Which is why I find highly amusing that the centrepiece of the prized collection is a cabbage and a hunk of stewed pork! At the end of the day, everything still revolves around food. How very Chinese! Now, I know where my love of food really comes from - my genes :-)

Taiwan Treats

I've just spent a whole week in Taipei and discovered a very important fact - Taiwanese food is the best and Taiwanese people are the BEST-est! Every night, I was feted and feasted by my Taipei colleagues and we had such a good time. A BIG thank you to Reco and Jackie for their wonderful hospitality.

Fantastic feast at Hao Ji Restaurant in downtown Taipei

On Monday night, Reco introduced me to John, her husband-to-be who turned out to be a handsome 183cm funnyman. We went to Hao Ji Restaurant, which specialises in Taiwanese food. We had prawn noodles, steamed prawns, fried fish roe, 3-cup chicken, fish-roe omelette and vegetable & lamb soup. It was unbelievably good...my mouth is watering just blogging about it. But the company was even better than the food. We chatted about everything from their wedding preparations to our hometowns to office gossip. Reco and John are a lovely couple and they deserve every happiness in the future...CONGRATULATIONS!

Aunty Jo Jo with her Taiwanese friends - John, Reco, Jessica & Jackie

On the second night, the HR girls took me out for another traditional meal. This time, it was a ginger duck soup cooked over an old-fashioned charcoal stove. It was accompanied by loads of mee suah (noodles), cabbage, mushrooms, and some other indescribable ingredients :-) All of it delicious!

But the real treat showed up after dinner - a gorgeous little boy named Daniel - who is Jackie's son. All the adults were squealing with joy and vying for his attention. And as you can see from the photos - Aunty Jo Jo won. Thanks to her invincible "incey-wincey-spider" trick!

Aunty Jo Jo - the crade snatcher - strikes again!

One World One Dream

How lucky can a girl get? This is the second time I'm living in a country that's hosting the Olympic Games: Sydney in 2000 and Beijing in 2008.

OK...ok... so I'm actually living in Shanghai but who cares? Everyone who has Chinese genes can be rightly proud of the host country. Zhongguo jia you! (loosely translated as C'mon China!)

So, let's put aside our political views & economic woes and just enjoy the spirit of the games, remembering the famous words of Baron Pierre de Coubertin: L'important n'est pas de gagner, mais de participer. (The important thing is not to win, but to take part.)

Church in Pudong

I discovered a Protestant church in Pudong today, and its just across the road from my apartment! It's quite embarrassing that I've not noticed it before.

The Abdundant Grace International Fellowship (AGIF) is based in 455 Hongfeng Lu, Jinqiao and it serves the expatriate community in Pudong. The English service for foreign passport holders is at 3pm, while the Mandarin service is at 8:30am.

Walking into the church, I couldn't help noticing how large and packed it was. It's interesting to see how church services in China are always crowded. I was also very encouraged to hear that there are 10 Protestant congregations in Pudong, with numbers of over 1000 people each...praise God!

There was an Order of Service with a combination of hymns and modern worship songs. An interesting segment took place halfway when the pastor gathered all the children at the pulpit and taught them a song and a short text. I've never seen that before. I was also very blessed by an English pastor who preached on "Unity and Maturity" with the text taken from Ephesians 12 v 1 - 16. We were reminded of the need to love others, teach the Word and become more like Jesus. As always - very simple to hear, very hard to live up to. It's good that we live by Grace.

Two Tales of One City

It's a rainy Sunday morning in Shanghai, and I've had to abandon plans to wander around the colourful, crowded, humid streets of Puxi and stay home in Pudong instead, to enjoy the air-conditioned comforts of a home. And I began to wonder:

Why does Puxi feel so different compared to Pudong?

While it's fun to wonder around the lively atmosperic streets of Puxi, would I really want to live there permanently?

Some of my younger colleagues love the wide open spaces and orderly streets of modern Pudong, and why not?

Many lament the loss of old shikumen (stone terrace houses) as the city modernises, and I understand their frustrations. After all, my beloved Bukit Bintang Girls' School, a beautiful century-old colonial building is now a spanking new shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur. Many developing cities often sacrifice the historical values and aesthetics at the altar of commercial development.

Romantic idealism aside however, I also identify with the aspirations of many local Chinese who want to better their lives and living conditions. After all, many of these old structures are dark, damp, musty and often not very hygienic. Why wouldn't they aspire to live in a modern apartment with electricity, running water, wireless broadband and a swimming pool? Every parent works to better the lives of their children and next generation. It's the energy that fuels evolution.

Old Shanghai alley house vs. Modern apartments in Pudong

As with all things however, there is a need for balance. In our rush to modernisation, we must not lose our cultural identities and links to our roots. So, let's build our comfortable new condominiums, but let's also conserve areas of historical value so that we won't forget the sacrifice of the generations past.

After all wasn't it Sir Isaac Newton who said, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants".