China musings...the beginning and middle...

I traveled to China for two weeks, expecting to study with Chinese master artists, and learn something about their pottery and clay-art techniques. It turned out I learned so much more, equally as valuable in terms of it’s affect on my teaching, and my life. When I think about my incredible trip, and all that I saw and learned, the biggest impression, was the people, their friendliness, charm and comfortable nature. The art, the architecture, the food, the landscape, all were so very beautiful and so different from our western culture in many ways. They live quite differently than us, but the people seemed to have hearts of gold and be giving and loving.
We started in Shanghai, where we visited the Shanghai Art Museum and spent a few hours there. This museum has so much to offer that it would be interesting to spend a day or two and really see everything properly. The ceramics collection was case after case of "Ah HA!" and "I have to videotape this too!"…which you can see in the tapes I brought back. Incredible ancient Chinese ceramics collection…and a very cool museum shop too. Prices, we noticed right away, were very cheap, even in classy shops like the Shanghai Museum. While in Shanghai we also shopped in a market, with many shops and stalls and some prices were more expensive than the museum shop, but haggling is normal, which we did with a calculator or a piece of paper to circumvent the language barrier. Two nights was barely a taste of what Shanghai has to offer, what a huge city, we dubbed it city of "buildings on steroids".
Next stop was Jingdezhen, porcelain center of China where we saw a contemporary, working porcelain pottery factory and also visited a living museum showing the ancient techniques and production. We shopped at a pottery market, mostly porcelain, toured a porcelain museum, and visited a master artist’s porcelain studio where we saw demonstrations by three different artists, showing their techniques of painting on unfired porcelain vases. Then each of us chose a vase or piece, to paint on, using their oxides and left them for firing overnight. Delivery was the next day, just before we left the city. We watched them glaze our pieces, for single fire, their normal method of production. We all enjoyed massages during our stay here, I had a wonderful foot massage for four dollars, from a very cute, sweet 20-something Chinese girl.
We took an overnight train to Suzhou, with a cabin sleeper, very fun, and not uncomfortable. Suzhou is a silk area, and known for it’s beautiful gardens. We visited a garden, and had a wonderful tour. We also toured a silk factory, and learned how silk is produced and made into the beautiful things sold in their large shop. The group enjoyed shopping and purchased silk items.