The hardest thing to get in Shanghai is silence and solitude, yet there’s this strip nearby our apartment that does provide these things — a patch of land that city developers had no use for. The first time I came here and entered, suddenly something felt weird until I realized it was the absence of city noise. No honking scooters, people yelling, spitting, no trucks and their clanking cargo as they hit a bump in the road. I know some people have a maximum time they can be on their own, but I have a minimum time I need to be alone. And in a busy city like Shanghai, where every pavement you meet people, and offices are noisy and full, I’m sometimes so deprived of that.
On sunny days I walk here, carrying Hasse, and we look at the trees and birds and fishermen. And through her I’m learning to look at the world in all its wonder again.
