Homework is an unending journey
The entire country is in a perpetual state of self-improvement so as to reach the next level of the socio-economic ladder. Since time immemorial, each generation worked to…
longtang
A negotiation in bread
The jolly baker was a fixture at the market where teaming masses of human bodies bumped and jostled their way around. He always had a smile on his…
Recounting childhood memories
This past weekend, I met with Terence Lloren who runs “Growing up with Shanghai”, a project series of sound walks with young Shanghainese who grew up in the city in…
Hello, goodbye, again and again
“You missed them. They left two weeks ago for their hometown in Jiangsu.” The neighbor shivered a little in her shapeless coat while stirring a pot of boiling…
A balloon a day…
A neighborhood market can sometimes be like the beating heart where all arteries lead to, the arteries being the longtangs or alley houses that surround it. There is…
Home owner, house father
I had never met a resident in the longtang (弄堂) who owned all three floors of his shikumen (石库门). The structure is traditionally narrow – the door opened into…
Carom precision
The balmy autumn afternoons seem so far away now that the cruel mistress that is winter taunts us with a wet chill that seeps into bones and dulls…
Les poissons
Best heard with Les poissons. It was an open street of poultry and seafood massacre, and a very busy day for everyone at the market. The word glee…
The promise of a leather jacket
Who doesn’t want to look as handsome as James Dean, decked out in a dangerous looking leather jacket with a fur collar? The salesmen were not ethnically Chinese,…
And then they were gone
I’ve lost them. I was away for 3 weeks and returned to a shell that left nary a sign of its past existence. Only 3 weeks ago, I…