Here’s a place I visited before: West Gate (西门) in Shanghai’s Jiading district (嘉定). Two years ago, I walked fifty meters from here, oblivious to this once-lively alley.

It’s something-something about ‘you can’t step in the same river twice’. As you live in Shanghai and learn the language, you grow less reliant on Google or TripAdvisor, and then start to use Dianping (大众点评) — first by looking at the pictures, then by reading comments. Now I check Xiaohongshu (小红书) for interesting spots, or have them recommended to me. (The last step is what, history books?)

On Xiaohongshu, this place was compared to downtown’s Changle Road (长乐路), which is being boarded up and being renovated (or: partly being demolished). In Jiading, there’s this one: 西大街 (West Street), almost a kilometer in length. Nobody lives here anymore — cats and birds rule the place, and sometimes a scooter or shirtless man passes. Houses have graffiti tags on them. Some will be spared, most not. It’s a serene little alley with overgrown trees — where you can imagine how life once was, or perhaps my mind is playing tricks on me in the 35°C degrees heat. I can’t stop modernization. All I can do is come and take a picture. I might come back a third time.