First stop, a visit to the Children's Palace, an exceptional school including arts and computer skills (little kids writing code!), which, I was told, is open to all requesters -- I was told that there were more slots among the city's 20 such schools than there were people requesting to send their children there. We saw theatre, computer hacking, and dance.
Next was a luncheon banquet at hosted by the Shanghai Overseas agency, brief speeches, and exchange of gifts.
After that, was shopping on Nanjing Road, Shanghai's famous closed-to-traffic retail shopping street. Yes, again, we were taken to retail land, not what one would want, bargains. (although the side streets/alleys offered bargains with a whiff of threat of bodily harm).
Last was dinner with a local family, in our case, the Dings. Three generations living in a small three bed/one and a half bath flat in a post-revolution high-rise. (The daughter, Ivy, a seven year old "one child" (per policy, we were told) sleeps with her grandparents, Daddy Ding's parents.) Ivy was adorable, with a modest command of english and a talented painter and pianist. Daddy Ding works for an American "global realty company", Prologis. Mommy Ding works for HSBC. The Dings own a car in Shanghai (which, Daddy Ding did not mention but our guide, Zoe, previously did: a plate costs about 40,000 yuan -- a not insignificant sum).
Although the Dings were presumably an approved family, so to speak, it was nonetheless a rare experience of street level China, an added bonus, as it were.
And then, the return to the hotel and farewells; we disperse 13 July (except for a couple of families who left the 12th). We ourselves want to be out 0700 for the 0853 to Zhenjiang and a brush with Shayna's origins....
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