The wind in Shanghai

I don't think I can ever fully articulate the kind of connection that I have with Shanghai. It is as if it made a slit in the skin between my ribs, slid in there, and is now living comfortably with the rest of my viscera. Once in a while, when it is afraid that I would forget its existence, it prods at my insides, jostling them, so as to stir up the old dust.

My memories of Shanghai have haunted me in so many different ways that I am starting to lose count. They have appeared in the form of my favorite streets, in a palpable tingle of the memory of a hug, in the image of someone's brown and orange gloves, in the glistening grains of fried rice nestled within a styrofoam box, and most recently, the chilly wind of the Shanghai night.

- I would be standing on the main passage in wanda facing guoding lu, flanked on one side by burger king and the other by that shop that sold the leather belts and shoes. Behind me, the glass protrusion that signaled an escalator down into the mall. Always, it is night and there is a chill. The tone of the night feels like autumn, but I'm sure it is spring. Sometimes I'm standing with G, and it is the night M texted me about getting into Med school. I remember that night, there was something heady in the air. Other times, I am just standing there alone, looking out into guoding lu. The wind, it always blows.

Shanghai- Nostalgia

I can't explain the kind of longing and nostalgia I feel towards the life I left back in Shanghai.

Kevin and a couple of others have mentioned that it was the people that made Shanghai so great to live in. I agree partially. To me, Shanghai was amazing simply because it was Shanghai. It was my home.

Shanghai was a place that had practically anything and everything I needed. When I wanted to, I could hang out at Helen's, smoke some shisha, drink some hot cocoa and just chill. In Shanghai I had the experience of owning an apartment... the very first apartment I had ever owned in my life and boy, did I love it. I still fantasize about my room, the dark wood furniture, my bed adjacent to that glorious window seat of mine. The cats, their warm furry bodies rubbing up against me. I miss riding my bike to the wet market after class, picking up some amazing mushrooms and broccoli (getting cheated by the mushroom lady :D) perhaps being tempted into purchasing a cup of lemon yoghurt from Coco's on the way down wudong lu. Back home I could go back to my own kitchen, cook something up on the stove and eat it on the dining table or in the living room with the spectacular L shaped blue woven couch.

At night if I was hungry, the awesome street food vendors would be just a walk down the street. Those warm people that I grew to recognise and that I never got to say goodbye to. Kimchi fried rice was always just a phone call away, and they will come, even at 2 in the morning. I miss Korean street where I always got my hair cut by a slightly patronising, korean, transparent apron wearing hottie. Dahao massage... the place where aches go to die. Best of all food places was Lawson's, right outside my apartment complex. There I could get fan tuans and an endless supply of drinks and cup noodles.

On the weekends if I fancied it, I could go clubbing in some of the best clubs, complete without a cover charge. I could chill at the balcony of bar rogue and just gaze at the twinkling lights of the bund. Maybe I could go bowling at hongkou stadium or sing some KTV till 6am at wanda. On sunday, I will wake up just in time for church. Take 537 down to renming guangchang and change to line 1. It was always amazing, walking to church... past those black iron wrought gates. Church was so beautiful, the stained glass windows with spectacular shadows created by the branches of the wutong tree behind it. The warm orange walls, dark brown pews and rusted green windows. Church had a smell of peace.

That was my life in Shanghai. My life that I shared with friends and my bike. Shanghai was a place I first learnt to be alone, to be okay with being alone. I grew up there, grew into a young adult, I made mistakes, fell in love, fell out of love and just lived. It breaks my heart to think that I can never go back to that. I can never relive my life in Shanghai. What I had there, I'll never have again.

Application issues

Got my academic referee! PTL!

The possibility of a different sort of life

Today a good friend of mine reminded me about a pair of high school sweethearts I used to hang out with.

He said that when someone asked the female counterpart about what she wanted to do later in life, she said... "Marry Male counterpart". Such an amazingly secure life they both have. They are currently in university studying to be professionals, assured of financial comfort and emotional success.

It made me reflect on my situation. I'm in Shanghai, my future uncertain and uncomfortable. My poverty has resulted in 1 or 2 meals a day (Bread and cheese for several meals when I really am broke). My future destination is riding on whether or not I get a scholarship from Hong Kong. It’s a scary life. I have about 3 continents between my guy and I. Uncertain professional life, uncertain love life, and a distant idea of home. But … I chose this life. I don’t think I can be fulfilled by anything less than this.

I worry about losing my youth, my talent, my potential. I worry that my brain isn't getting the stimulus it needs.

Its human to dream of different possibilities, I guess that's why I like the Parallel Universe Theory so much.

Strangers

I looked around me and I realized that I was surrounded by strangers. People that I barely know, people that I cannot depend on. Its a strange feeling being around strangers all the time. Its like a slow displacement... a gradual fading away. I feel like I have exchanged my roots for something that is starting to seem unworthy. I always thought I was made for greater things, made to see the world. What is the reality of being out in the world? Uncertainty, doubt, strangers, foreign landscapes. How long can I live like this? Can I bear to look yet another stranger in the eye?

Shanghai

Whenever I start every semester in Fudan, a cloak of numbness settles over me. Tight, almost suffocating. I cease the ability to feel for anything that lies outside my closed shanghai world.

Friendships, love, kinship. I stop caring, I stop talking. In their place a thin base of anxiety, desperation and self pity sets in. Here, I'm constantly trying to keep up, to keep everything at bay.

People ask if I like Shanghai. What am I supposed to say? Its my everything when I'm here. I cannot but love it yet for all that it is, I loathe it.