Shanghai Daze Dog Night

As celestial events go, a full solar eclipse ranks as one of the most miraculous, most awesome and maybe - at times in history and in some places on the planet still - most fearsome. This July, from along a thin strip of southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim islands, appeared the longest solar eclipse of nearly the next half millennium. One of the best places from which to view this event was Shanghai -- geographically, though not necessarily meteorically speaking.

It rains in Shanghai in the summer. It rains. Buckets.

When I woke in the morning around 6am, the sun was visible in the sky but dark ominous cloud loomed behind it. Rather than curse my stupidity for leaving Jingzhou, where the weather was clear and lovely but a day early, I decided to pray. By my figuring, God's almighty and thus shouldn't offhandedly dismiss a prayer to see such a great event as a full, 10-minute solar eclipse. A once in a life time thing.. right? So, I didn't even ask Him for the full deal. "Just a gilpse, please. That's all I ask." Thinking my humility might be rewarded with, maybe, some magnanimity...

The Hua Ting Towers had become a home, if I had any place to call "home" in China, as I spent more nights there than any other place (about two weeks in all). I headed for the now familiar 5-star breakfast buffet and entered the massive dining room (to my mind, mini replica UN cafeteria) filled with squeaking tourists and businessmen from all corners of the planet, sucking noodles, slurping coffee, smoking cigarettes, and guffawing loudly. I swear the hostesses conspired against me daily, because I inevitably found myself cornered by several Japanese and some Chinese, all with (traditional breakfasts) large bowls of noodles before them; wet noodles that need to be hoisted heavily with chopsticks into the mouth and then vacuumed in the rest of the way, broth to follow later with much lapping noises.

Oh, give me a quite cafe corner or breakfast nook with a coffee and a pastry or one egg over easy on toast. I cannot bear breakfast-included buffets... especially ones with wet noodles.

In any case, after a breakfast of whatever I decided I could hold down that day (yogurt? Juice and a piece of fruit or cereal? The places that cater to Westerners, God bless them), my friend Grace and I went out, into the encroaching gloom, toward the stadium park across the street to find a place to view the eclipse.

In the week or so leading up to the great solar event, the Chinese government (news) had really broadcast information to the people, from what I could tell. Not understanding (really) or reading the People's Language (Mandarin), I rely on my ability to interpret pictures. From the photos of solar eclipses I saw on front pages it seemed to me, well... the word was out. My friends started counseling: "Be sure to watch the eastern horizon around 8:45am!! The darkest minutes will be at 9:40!"

In Shanghai, people sported the latest fashion, a short lived style: solar eclipse viewing glasses. Thick, heavy, square-shaped, grandpa lenses. Seeing these perched on peoples heads (not to mention the pair gripped in my own sweaty palm) only made the pain of those darkening clouds more acute. The weather worsened as the hour approached.

As Grace and I neared the park where still hopeful crowds amassed, the Man upstairs answered my prayers and gave me what I would later cherish as my one and only glimpse of the solar eclipse: The clouds parted to reveal the first quarter of the Earth's shadow as it began its half hour long march to cloak the Sun. Just a sliver of a shadow but enough for distinction. A glorious sight. Then clouds rolled back over. And, eventually, dark gray, sheet-like rain consumed the scene.

Around the park the punky looking, smoking Shanghainese, downtrodden, damp-looking families, half interested loudmouthed Aussies, frazzled local photographers, one lanky, croissant-munching and very focused photo-snapping blond guy and various other Shanghainese moved under a building overhang. But no one left the park. Everyone meant to witness this event.

Gray light turned to dark yellow. Yellow turned to dark gray. Then we simply slipped into night. The temperature dropped maybe 5-10 degrees Celsius. And at the peak of the eclipse, we stayed in dark, cold rain for ten minutes, motorcycle alarms going off as people shuffled around, unnaturally loud laughter, camera flashes blinking everywhere, loud, excited conversations replaced subdued disappointed tones, security guards closing around crowds, and streets and building lights blinking on everywhere.

For ten minutes one July morning in Shanghai, it was night.

And then the reverse process began. Black faded to darkness and then yellow and then gray and we began slipping into a rainy, dull morning again.

Later I talked to my friends in Jingzhou and they told me they could see the stars at the full eclipse. One said he could die tomorrow he felt so overwhelmed by the beauty. I haven't looked at the photos they sent yet... But I am I grateful for my glimpse of the mid morning night.

(photo courtsey Frank Zhou)