THREE-DIMENSIONALITY Every turn you make, every step you take, however fast or slow you travel , you cannot fail to notice that Shanghai, despite being flat, is a highly three-dimensional city. When you take a taxi at night, you climb up and over and down so many bridges, flyovers and junctions, some as high as a ten-storey building. [ + ]
THREE-DIMENSIONALITY
Every turn you make, every step you take, however fast or slow you travel , you cannot fail to notice that Shanghai, despite being flat, is a highly three-dimensional city. When you take a taxi at night, you climb up and over and down so many bridges, flyovers and junctions, some as high as a ten-storey building. All the buildings display a cross-section of their living innards to the outside world. The light flooding in and shining out of their windows exposes the lives of their occupants to the random passengers of a car, just for an instant. I, sitting in the back of the taxi, get a glimpse of these lives, and it is then up to me to either abandon these memories or imagine the possible lives that these people lead.
[ - ]SEVEN – GHOST MONTH – GHOST DAY Seven is one of the few numbers that is as lucky in the West as it is in the East. In Chinese culture, all annual rituals are determined in accordance with the moon. [ + ]
SEVEN – GHOST MONTH – GHOST DAY
Seven is one of the few numbers that is as lucky in the West as it is in the East. In Chinese culture, all annual rituals are determined in accordance with the moon. In Chinese, as in Latin-based languages, the moon is female; it is the yin ; and it is the moon that determines the propitious day for every Chinese ritual. Accordingly, the seventh month in the lunar calendar belongs to the ghosts, and so it is known as the “Ghost Month”; (鬼月) and the fifteenth day of this month is the “Ghost Day”. On this day, the deceased, emerging from the lower realms, are believed to visit the living. As an important Buddhist and Taoist festival, many rituals are performed in order to ease the pain of the deceased, by transmuting and absolving their suffering; to achieve this, their appetite should be satisfied and prayers should be said.
[ - ]CIGARETTES Being a smoker in Shanghai is fun. You’re allowed to smoke almost everywhere, and the best part is being able to smoke in the taxi back home. [ + ]
CIGARETTES
Being a smoker in Shanghai is fun. You’re allowed to smoke almost everywhere, and the best part is being able to smoke in the taxi back home.
This custom is comparable to the traditions surrounding food.
In particular, it is bad manners to eat everything on your plate, as this signifies that you are still hungry and consequently want and need more food in order to be satisfied. The plates on the table will be endlessly refilled, until you finally give up your Western ways and leave some food to be thrown away.
With cigarettes, it’s kind of the same: sometimes you will still be smoking a cigarette and your Chinese friend will offer you another one. In this case, you should simply put out the one in your mouth and take the new one your friend is offering; later, it will be your turn to do the same.
And, believe it or not, it is actually normal to eat while smoking.
In a taxi, sometimes you can simply ask the taxi driver if he wants a cigarette, and hey presto, there you are in a mobile living room or smoking lounge.
Not accepting cigarettes is like not accepting food: it’s not good manners. However, they will accept a refusal, if you are truly a non-smoker. Just make sure they understand that it’s not an unfriendly gesture, but simply because… well… you’ll need a good excuse for this one! Personally, I don’t know of one…
COLD MEAT 1 China is a country where the boundaries between rural and urban are theoretical borders: borders that have become imaginary over time, in the sense that there is neither a true end nor a true beginning to the city and the country, with no starting point and no projected end. These borders are marked only by the points of embarkation and disembarkation where hundreds and thousands of humans pass each day, leaving their families and/or their previous existences, leaving behind the city where they grew up, as it is time to go back to the mother tree – as the Chinese say, “Though a tree grows a thousand feet high, the leaves must fall down and return to its roots”. [ + ]
COLD MEAT 1
China is a country where the boundaries between rural and urban are theoretical borders: borders that have become imaginary over time, in the sense that there is neither a true end nor a true beginning to the city and the country, with no starting point and no projected end. These borders are marked only by the points of embarkation and disembarkation where hundreds and thousands of humans pass each day, leaving their families and/or their previous existences, leaving behind the city where they grew up, as it is time to go back to the mother tree – as the Chinese say, “Though a tree grows a thousand feet high, the leaves must fall down and return to its roots”. They are leaving without knowing for how long, some with their whole family, others on their own. Leaving in order to accomplish their dreams, or the dreams of their family, or leaving to follow in others’ footsteps, in order to give another generation the opportunity to dream. Leaving to see those who were left behind, leaving to help their family at harvest time, leaving to sweep their ancestors’ tombs and to preserve traditions such as filial piety. Coming back to take care of a grandchild, coming back to work, coming back to re-form a family unit, coming back to study and become THE ONE. Coming back to discover, to become attached; coming back to keep promises and to make dreams come true. Each of these individual stories comes together in one place: Shanghai Railway Station.
[ - ]COLD MEAT 2 It was a sunny morning, but I seemed to be suffering from stomach problems. I still don’t know if it was because of the excitement, or because of the extravaganza of a dinner I had last night with my Chinese friends. [ + ]
COLD MEAT 2
It was a sunny morning, but I seemed to be suffering from stomach problems. I still don’t know if it was because of the excitement, or because of the extravaganza of a dinner I had last night with my Chinese friends.
I arrived at the piazza in front of Shanghai Railway Station: a huge, bare piazza. I turned my head to the left, and there was a clock; I looked further to the left still, and there was a huge electronic billboard, displaying everything from advertisements for watches to the weather, as well as the departures and arrivals of trains. The rest… was just people – people everywhere – and a selection of their belongings.
I thought I might need water and something to eat for the road. I decided, for the first time in my life, to buy a Coke. My dad always said that in case of stomach troubles, the best solution was to drink some Coke and relax; cola is even good for repairing cars. In the store, I found the Coca-Cola; however, finding something to eat was proving more difficult than I thought. I just couldn’t find something I was able to, or wanted to, eat. In most cases, this was because I simply couldn’t understand what was inside the plastic wrappers containing edible material.
ANCESTORS 1 In the past – and in rural China today still – the most important item to be acquired, and an essential item at that, was the coffin. The coffin is intended to be the home of the body, whose soul is not completely detached but rather in the perpetual afterlife. [ + ]
ANCESTORS 1
In the past – and in rural China today still – the most important item to be acquired, and an essential item at that, was the coffin.
The coffin is intended to be the home of the body, whose soul is not completely detached but rather in the perpetual afterlife.
The afterlife is the life in which one remains forever, in the spiritual world. There is therefore no absolute detachment of the deceased from his or her family. After one’s death, a transformation will occur – usually within one to three days, sometimes longer, depending on the tradition – as a result of which one becomes an ancestor. As an ancestor, a person’s social continuity is ensured, even after biological death.
The coffin would be placed in the ground, and on top of it the ancestor’s treasures and cherished items, and then it would be covered by earth, creating a little mound, a tumulus . Around the tumulus, the tomb takes on the form of a womb, as death marks one’s birth into the afterlife. In addition, it can be seen as a kind of “alpha” sign, symbolizing that the end is the beginning.
It is said that the higher the grass grows on top of the tumulus, the greater the fortune of the ancestor in the eternity of the other world.