Shanghai City Tour Part 2

After the museum, we went to a pearl gallery, where I got to learn about the industry in Shanghai. I got a little lecture over this tank of oysters about the various pearl colors and how there isn't just one pearl in the oysters, but usually quite a number. The store guide had me guess how many were in one, and I guessed wrong, of course. I think there were like ten pearls in it, but none of them were good. She gave me two small ones to keep as a souvenir. I don't really know what to do with them now.



Next I had to guess which string of pearls out of three was fake, and I guessed right this time, but probably only out of luck. She showed me how to identify real pearls: if you rub them together, they will grind each other down a bit and produce dust, whereas plastic won't change. I did not get a free string of pearls for guessing right this time.

I looked around and ended up buying a couple nice looking pearl pendant necklaces for myself and my mother for not a lot of money. The saleslady was trying to get me to buy four and get one free, and in retrospect, I probably should have gone for it, given they were only $15 apiece, but I had already spent so much money getting to Shanghai that I felt buying a lot of souvenirs would be a bad idea.

After the pearls we went to a silk factory and gallery, where I saw the process of silk production.

Here are the little silkworm cocoons that they use for silk strands:


Ropes of silk strands:


More cocoons:


Silk work life cycle? Hard to see.


Machine:


You probably can't see the tiny strands, but the machine is unwinding them from the cocoons:


I got practical demonstrations on how the silk is stretched into thin layers for reasons I don't remember.




And another demonstration on a larger scale, for use in quilts and comforters. The silk comforters are only silk on the inside, apparently, with cotton covers. The silk is good for temperature control--warm in winter, cool in summer.


Finally, I got to look around the gallery. I considered getting silk sheets, since they were as low as $65, but I have so much stuff to bring home from Korea that I'm trying to reduce the amount of big things I buy. Plus I won't have my own bed for years to come, and I don't want to be traveling with a set of sheets all over the world.

Here are a couple bedding examples (much pricier than sheets):





The rest of the gallery was a lot of scarves, handkerchiefs, ties, and clothing. I was trying on some traditional dresses for a while, but had some trouble. The Large size was a bit too small, then the XL size fit on me, but I wouldn't be able to sit down in it. The saleslady found me a dress in XXL (here, my tour guide reminded me kindly that these are Chinese sizes, so it's really not that big), but there seemed to be a missing link between XL and XXL. The last dress was like a muumuu on me, and these are supposed to be form-fitting, so it was pretty unacceptable. I considered buying it anyway and taking it to the tailor, but only for about a half second. Considering it's silk and the amount of work that would have to be done on it to make it fit me, the tailor would probably cost more than the dress.

I ended up with a nice silk bag, which soon after I got it back to Korea, fell apart on the inside nylon lining and I've had to resew it twice. It was only $15, though, a good deal.