Shanghai’s lanes are wonderful and I love wandering around them. Last time I went for an evening stroll I took my camera but not my tripod. This time I didn’t make that mistake. It’s cumbersome but it makes it worthwhile when you get some good shots.
I went to XinTianTi metro stop on line 10 and walked along Fuxing Lu. There were a lot of little lanes between Fuxing Lu and Hefei Lu and this is where I found some really friendly people. I didn’t expect them to be as friendly as in Nanjing but they were great (mostly) and willing to chat and stand for me to take photos.
The first people I met were two men who lived in the same lane. One was standing outside his front door watching the world go by and the other was feeding his pigeons. I went to have a look at the pigeons and he showed me inside his kitchen where he was breeding them. In the kitchen cabinets he had made nests. The place was a festering mess, bird shit everywhere. His neighbour was bit more hygenic and was happy to stand outside his door while I took some photos.
Then I came across what I thought was a flower shop. There was a man and woman and a younger man whi turned out to be their son. The woman told me that it was a flower shop but that her mother had recently died and the neighbours had brough all the flowers. She was 89 years old.
After that I came across the most wonderful house. You entered it via a wooden door into a courtyard. The courtyard was open to the elements and it went up two floors with wooden lattice-work balcony going all the way around. All the walls had shutters which were carved wood and there were a couple of families there cooking in the communal kitchen and their sitting rooms opening into the courtyard. Everyone seemed to very happy living amongst each other.
The man was proud of his birds. He had half a dozen, one of which he was patricular proud. It was a minor bird and he took the cover off its cage to show me and then made it repeat after his “welcome” in Chinese. The bird also said “thank you” (in Chinese).
These people were extraordinarily friendly and after I took some pictures of them I said I would go back next week and take them some prints. They were very excited and asked me to take some more photos.
