Kids from rich parents spend their weekends doing extra classes, like maths and English and public speaking, while kids from poorer parents spend their weekends watching videos in the store or restaurant while their parents work. All-day. It’s the same all over the world. Poor people spend more time behind the television, less time with friends, and eat less healthily. It’s sad on a really deep level. Poor people aren’t poor because they make bad decisions. They are poor because they don’t get the same amount of chances.
Set an alarm to 05:00, take a taxi to the train station, get onto the train, switch in Hangzhou, and get off in Tonglu (桐庐), take another taxi — to arrive 4 hours and 330 kilometers away from home. For a hike. Maybe it’s crazy, but the alternative is to stay home. You’ll have plenty […]
We’re in Qibao (七宝古镇) — an old water town swallowed by the city of Shanghai, now turned into a tourist attraction. In the center stands a moon bridge, surrounded by heavily renovated buildings that now house shops selling fridge magnets or bites such as tangyuan, scallion pancakes, red bean cake, and parts of pork or […]
If you squint your eyes, you can still see a busy little street here. The shops on Wangxin Road (王新街店铺) near Gaoqiao (高桥) in Pudong, were built in the late Qing Dynasty but now face an uncertain future. They’re not labeled for demolition (the character 拆 isn’t shown), but there are many tags of landlords […]
On Xiaohongshu, I searched for village names in the area where we live on Xiaoshongshu and found an old decaying house from the Qing Dynasty that caught my eye — just seven kilometers away! The uploader mentioned that the building — named the Gulu Guandi Temple (顾路关帝庙) — was built in 1910, to be used […]