2 posts tagged with "Shanghai"

That sidewalk, it's kind of interesting. Right on that old street near my place, next to an old wall covered in greasy ivy. At first, nobody paid it any mind. People just hugged the wall or walked on the curb, tiptoeing around bikes. Later, some busybody measured it and announced, "Hey, this thing's only ten centimeters wide." Ten centimeters, comrades, what does that even mean? It means my size 42 worn-out leather shoes, the ones I've worn for years until the soles are almost gone, couldn't even fit sideways. Placed vertically, you'd have to twist your ankle at a bizarre angle.

Old Fang, that's what people called him, though he didn't feel quite that old. It was just that his back was a little stooped, like a carrying pole long bent under the weight of life. He had drifted like a speck of dust for decades in this enormous, roaring city—Shanghai. The city was a forest of steel, waterfalls of glass, a phantasmagorical river of neon lights. And Old Fang was merely a shadow huddled in the cramped lanes of the old city quarters, a whole world away from the grand narratives of glamour and success.