Sometimes we reach our limits in this regulated country but it makes us stronger; when for instance the post and the internet don’t quite work, or when we are being constantly stared at.

Back to nicer facts: we only stayed in Shanghai very briefly and visited two glass museums and an enormous installation by Nikolas Weinstein in a hotel lobby. Our first stop was Liuli glass museum, founded by Loretta Yang and Chang Yi, where there are currently two exhibitions running. There is an exhibition by French glass artist Antoine Leperlier on the second floor of the museum. About 15 clear glass cubes each contain a small ceramic piece in the centre which is encased in coloured glass. On the third floor the work of Loretta Yang and Chang Yi is shown, strongly relating to the image of Buddha. Anna Zheng who works in the museum guided us through these two beautiful exhibitions and took great care to explain everything to us.

The Shanghai Museum of glass and the installation of Nikolas Weinstein in the Intercontinental Hotel however, were slightly disappointing. The set-up of the museum is very pompous but the collection is relatively small. The installation didn’t seem to fit in the big space of the hotel and wasn’t well presented. 

On Thursday we left the city of 23 million and on a fast train headed towards the former German colony Qingdao. Upon arrival we were looking out for the youth hostel and were invited to join a tea ceremony on the pavement. The people were full of praise for the excellent water supply system in Qingdao, which had been built by the Germans.

After a few relaxing days, we went on a day trip to Boshan today. According to the locals this is still one of the most active glass regions, with the only glass temple in China. We visited a glass design studio, a glass factory, the Renli glass museum and the glass temple, all of which was shown to us by the two young owners of the glass design studio. As we were walking into the courtyard of the factory, we couldn’t believe our eyes. A mountain of discarded ‘Dale Chihuly style’ pieces were laid out before us, everything that didn’t meet the quality standard of a good copy. But there was more to come! As we rounded the corner, there were both men and women frantically busy with pipes. The work benches looked very wobbly and unstable and the pipes and some of the other tools were out of proportion. About 30 people were at work producing pieces which in our opinion were copies of Dale Chihuly’s work along with other American glass pieces, which were simply piled on top of each other in the cooling chamber. A treat at the end of our stay and well worth the visit, was the museum which houses a collection of products from Boshan.

We found the combination of the glass temple and the traditional glass making techniques mixed with the European ones, very interesting and at times surprisingly amusing.