Home owner, house father

I had never met a resident in the longtang (弄堂) who owned all three floors of his shikumen (石库门).

The structure is traditionally narrow – the door opened into a tiny flight of stairs that led to a large living room and a small bedroom, followed by a small kitchen and an equally small shower/toilet on the third floor that was recently installed. Many residents in longtangs do not have their own toilets.

Yet for all the space the gentleman had, one could not help but notice all the clutter.

It was everywhere. Boxes, books, soft toys, clothes, appliances and more bits and bobs were crammed into every crevice that mapped the living room into a topography of an even larger mess. Abashed, he apologized for the state of the room.

He worked at the shipyard and lived with his college graduate daughter who stared blankly at me as I spoke with her father at length. His wife had passed on a while ago due to diabetes. I did not probe. The man cooked and cleaned when he can and at the moment, was taking care of his unemployed daughter who had a slight cold from the winter chill.

January 2009

The remaining days

He laughed when I asked how long he and his wife were living in this house.

“She’s not my wife. She’s my mother-in-law.”

It was only after a closer look, I realized that he was indeed younger than her even though both had a shock of white hair. He was probably in his 60s and comfortably retired. In the afternoon I spent with him and his neighbors, and for the following two weekends, he would read, cook, nap, patch old clothes or shoes, and sometimes just relax on his chair and stare at his surroundings as it were being demolished.

He was a soldier, I assumed with the Red Army, and was originally from Beijing. He landed in Shanghai after “jie fang” or Liberation, which is the term most Chinese people use to refer to 1949 after the victory of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

His mother-in-law was born and bred in Shanghai, looking like she was sliding into her late 80s. She didn’t speak much Mandarin, only Shanghainese, or was very coherent for the matter. So our conversation was a little rudimentary, like two kinds of foul quacking and crowing to each other. But she was incredibly kind and even insisted I stay for some steamed corn.

I’ve been overwhelmingly touched by some people that I’ve been photographing. It takes a bit of time to penetrate the curiosity, sometimes hostility but after a few probing questions, they tend to open up a little. With a touch of warmth and familiarity, they can be generous with what little they had on hand, and unfailingly, with parental concern that was second nature. Are you cold? Are you hungry? Are you married?

I returned recently to give him this photo as a farewell gift. He was very pleased as was I, and insisted on giving me money, which I simply could not accept.

“I didn’ think you would actually give me a photo! You kept your word,” he exclaimed.

Eyeing his portrait, he sighed, “You don’t get much of that nowadays.”

October 2009

大展鸿图: Achieving excellence

The room was neat with its distinctly light turquoise-colored walls and dark wooden furniture.

It took a while to decipher the characters on the poster but it means 大展鸿图 (da zhan hong tu), “make your outlook brighter” or “achieve excellence”. With a soaring eagle over romantically painted mountains, it reminded me of motivational posters which had inspiring quotes like: “Perfection: To improve is to change; tobe perfect is to improve often (Churchill)”. It seemed like appropriate inspiration for one living in Shanghai. The city’s pace remains unrelenting and can be ruthless for the under-motivated and under-achieving.

With the demolition of the surrounding houses, the family of two (mother and son) now have an open lawn filled with smashed bricks, which allows sun to pour into the main hall of the house. Now that a cold snap has enveloped Shanghai, it also means the house will be colder without the insulation of the community of alley houses.

November 2009