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Carpetblog Recommends: Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Center

It would be easy to conclude that we liked nothing about China. This is untrue. There were two things we liked very much about Shanghai because they satisfied our desire to think about modern history and look at, and perhaps purchase, pretty textiles. See? We are easy to please!

 Shanghai vexes because there appears to have been a concerted effort to ensure that nothing older than 20 years exists in the entire city. This is understandable. Shanghai is China's financial center and its desire to distance itself from China's Communist past (and present! They're still there!) is not surprising. But man, it makes for a boring city.

Thank Allah for Mr. Pei Ming Yang! He has spent the last 20 years saving China's propaganda posters from the recycling bin. He created the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Centre to display his collection, which holds thousands of wonderful examples of the form from the late '40s to the late '80s which is, to our mind, the most fascinating era of Chinese history. He lamented how hard it is to interest Chinese in this art form and how he thinks it's undervalued (not to us!).

He's organized his collection chronologically so the evolving trends in message, style and media are obvious. For example, the posters from the early 60's, the era of the great leap forward, the famine and assorted natural disasters, were printed on poor quality paper, with low quality ink. The posters from the mid-50's show the distinct influence of Soviet Constructivism but by the 70's, artists had rejected the style in accordance with the Chinese government's protest of "Soviet revisionism." Some styles, such as the woodcut, are uniquely Chinese and it made us wonder to what degree Chinese styles influenced Soviet posters, since we used to own a Soviet-era poster that is reminiscent of the Chinese woodblock style. The posters from the Cultural Revolution in the late 60's feature Mao prominently and show themes like relocation of students to the countryside and rejection of US imperialism. It's almost like he's preserved a slice of Chinese history and is storing it in the basement until someone starts to care again. He may be waiting awhile but Mr. Yang seemed to be a patient man.

Mr. Yang also has a very rare collection of Dazibao, or big character posters, from the Cultural Revolution. These are hand-painted wall posters displaying large Chinese characters but weren't designed to last a long time. He explained that the ones in the collection had been displayed at universities and denounced teachers or other students for being reactionaries. Being attacked in a big-character poster was enough to end one's career.  A student during the Cultural Revolution, he had hung photos of the posters at his university and recalled what it was like to stand in front of them, reading denunciations of his fellow students and professors. Fascinating, you might think, and you would be correct!

Of course we bought some. We really wanted one from his collection from the late '60s and written in Uighur (the Turkic language spoken by the minority Uighur people of Western China) but it was one of a kind. He also had some for sale written in Tibetan, but they weren't in great shape. We settled on two.

The only thing we love more than propaganda posters are textiles. We found some of those, too, at the small shop Brocade County in the Jing'an district which sadly has no website. The very kind owner, Liu Xiao Lan, chatted with us for quite awhile about her small but good-quality collection of textiles from tribal areas of southwest China. Most of the examples she had were hand-embroidered pieces from Guang Xi province. Since so much in China is low-quality rip-offs sold by hucksters, it was refreshing to look at legitimate tribal pieces and talk to someone who agrees with us that textiles are like books that, if you know how to read them, you can learn about history and culture and the way different cultures interact with each other and exchange ideas.

We bought an embroidered piece that had been part of a bed cover. Xiao Lan told us these types of things simply are not made any more so the piece was probably 50-60 years old. It came from the Jin Xi area of Guang Xi province which is near the border with Vietnam, and was made the by the Zhuang Zu tribal group.

Had we known so many excellent textiles could be found in Southeast Asia, we might have started paying more attention to the region a long time ago.

Great Moments in World Cup Coverage on Carpetblog

This post, more than any other, drives traffic to this blog, except maybe this one, at least before we took one of the photos down. This blogging is so hard to figure out!

Fu 1088: So Very Chinese

Let's just put this out there: We don't like China. We didn't like it when we were here seven years ago with the Producer and we don't like it any more now. In fact, having visited Shanghai for the first time, we may even like it less. It's plastic, animated and nothing is older than 20 years.

Can you imagine being in a major city in what was, in your lifetime, the biggest, most powerful Communist nation in the world, and getting absolutely no sense that anything you see existed prior to 1990? Some people think that's cool, and we get that, but we don't like it. Also, Chinese are pushy, rude and loud. There are enough of them that this generalization -- even if it applies to a minority -- can be true for a mind-boggling number of people. We know why this is, but it annoys the fuck right out of us. Have you been on East Nanjing Road? What a fucking nightmare.

Anyway! We sought the best possible Chinese meal we could get and honed in, via several recommendations, to Fu 1088. According to lots of sources, it is definitely the best Shanghaise food, probably the best restaurant in the city and among the best restaurants in the country. It's located in a concession-era mansion, reservations are mandatory and there is a minimum tab. This certainly created certain preconceptions in our mind of what to expect. Our credit card was ready.

The setting? Unbelievable, to an extent. Each table is in a separate room of the mansion. It appears that nothing has been changed since the 1930's. And by this we mean the stunning wood floors haven't been refinished, there's still the hand-forged iron window frames, the cherry wainscotting gleams, some floors are beautiful tile and the wallpaper, fixtures and furniture are all original (for better or for worse...). In Shanghai, it is remarkable that this still exists and is worthy of admiration.

But we have to say, some maintenance might be in order? Perhaps refinishing -- or maybe covering with a nice cloth! -- the gouges and water stains in the antique oak dining table? Perhaps patching the chunks of wallpaper removed by diners' chairs? We don't know! We are not restaurant designers. Just a thought. (You can see the gouged wallpaper in the background of the photo).

So you're dining in your little room (Alone! Because that's how you roll) and it sounds like your big fat Chinese family is shrieking at one another outside the door. We must assume these were serving and cook staff, but we'll keep an open mind that it might be other diners, in their rooms with the doors shut. Either is plausible. Outside the original beveled glass windows framed in hand-forged iron, horns honk incessantly on the busy thoroughfare. You never forget where you are: a giant, nasty Chinese city.

The wine list consists of one bottle of white Australian Chardonnay, typically available for less than $10 in the US, and nothing by the glass (Seriously? Who drinks a bottle of wine by herself at dinner?). The red list was a little longer, but mostly mainstream Australian exports at huge mark-ups. There were one or two bottles of French red for several hundred dollars. Nothing in-between and not, by any stretch, a wine list. And we were ready to go for it. Disappointing.

The service, when it wasn't shrieking outside the door, could be described as "slightly better than fast food." No input into the menu or wine list, very little English (though this is not a deal killer, in our book), menu and unused plates left on the table, hurried and not confident, except when it came to pointing out the tip should be in cash.

So what about the food? We'll admit we ordered badly. But Shanghaiese food has lots of "sweet" in it and we aren't big fans of meat and sweet so that limited our options. We know we should have ordered pork or fish. The tuna and mango appetizer was delicious as was the fried bean curd with mushroom. We would have eaten a million of them. But the bean curd sheet with river shrimp and greens was bland (as bean curd can be!) and the pumpkin creme dessert with vanilla ice cream was nothing special.

Here's the thing, though. If you remove the crappy, overpriced Australian wine, the bill for two appetizers, a main and a dessert was $25 and in my view, "worth it," if only to see the inside of this building. It would have been worth it to spend $35 and get a better main. So, do with that what you will.

We ask this; How can you have this amazing setting with quite delicious and well-presented food at reasonable prices and have it be so mediocre in terms of service and general ambiance yet still have this reputation? We don't know, but we can't give this place a whole-hearted recommendation. Maybe if you lower your expectations, which is a very Turkish thing to do.

Fu 1088 is in Shanghai, 375 Zhenning Road, in Jingan.

Istanbul/Taipei Food Exchange

One of the advantages of being a famous blogger is you get to meet up with other famous bloggers who come through your city and who give you good tips for eating in their home cities for free -- the kind of tips that are often readily available on their own blogs! Searching can be hard so that's nice!

We breakfasted with Robyn and Dave of the splendid Eating Asia last week at Van Kahvaltı, which has declined in quality substantially over the last year or so but still serves up a pretty good bal kaymak. We've scrolled through Van breakfast, passed into and out of Diyabakır breakfast and are now big fans of Crete breakfast, but that's fodder for another post we'll probably never get around to writing. Can't say enough good about the fried cheese at Kale, but Anthony Bourdain was all over that place like a cheap suit, so it seems redundant to mention.

Since we were headed to Taipei, Robyn passed along her favorite place for beef noodles, for which the city is noted, in the back streets behind the train station. We found it because we had a printout of her blog with the guy's picture and we recognized him straightaway, wearing what appeared to be the exact same outfit.

Holy shit, these noodles were delicious. Go read her post because she writes well about food and her husband, Dave, takes gorgeous photos. Both will save us the time and effort from having to describe it. But you know how Vietnamese Pho can be sort of lame and brothy and full of chewy tendon? Those Taiwanese will have none of that. The beef was, uh, beefy and the broth was full of chilis and ginger and you could add even more deliciousness from the nameless containers on the table if you wanted, which we did. The noodles were like eels!

In less than 24 hours, we have eaten at least two dozen pork dumplings and a kilo of litchis. We're a bit disappointed in Taipei's famed night markets, though, which seem like little more than midways for Taiwanese teenagers. We were hoping for more congealed pig blood and less Hello Kitty, but maybe this is the new Asia.

In exchange for this bounty, we sent Eating Asia off to Çercis Murat in Mardin, Crete Breakfast and the Beşiktaş Kaykmakcı, which has, without question, the best kaymak in the world. We also told her to just look at Istanbul Eats, which, even more than this seldom-updated blog, is the must-read for all Istanbul visits (In a misguided attempt to be more web 2.0, we took down all our links and got a complaint only from IE, so we feel obligated to show some link love. Plus, they pretty much rule and deserve to be included in any discussion of eating in Istanbul.)