We’re in TaiKoo Li QianTan (前滩太古里), a brand new, high-end shopping mall near the Huangpu River in Pudong.

It’s a beautiful complex with four levels, viewing bridges, walls of white steel and vertical gardens (the first I’ve seen that actually look like on an architectural drawing), and paths of bright bricks alternating with patches of fresh grass. The mall houses shops from Rolex, Louis Vuitton, Dior — basically all the top-end luxury brands of the world. Tiffany & Co has a facade with glass diamonds, while Beast (野兽派) uses an incredible combination of wood with art-deco jade.

The architecture is only triumphed by the people walking here. They’re a beautiful combination of fine skin, expensive haircuts, and branded clothing — moving the perfumed air with their post-gym bodies.

It’s enough to make me feel like a real outsider (外地人); not just poor but lacking culture. But after some time, I do start to notice that nobody is allowed to walk on the grass (I want to lie down with Hasse, let her crawl on it). And I notice that people — also here — when they carry a book to a coffee store, still cannot get themselves to read a page, as they cannot leave their phone,  busy scrolling on social media.

Perhaps what I see is, for a brief moment, a cartoonish version of wealth. I’m not sure if people here are any happier than the people outside of the outer ring, such as Tangzhen (唐镇), Chuansha (川沙), and Heqing (合庆), even if an afternoon of luxury spending here would cost a year of their earnings. But maybe none of that matters. I’m with family, and that’s all the wealth I need. Or maybe that’s just a poor man rationalising where he’s landed. Either way, I’m happy with my fate.