Last Days in Shanghai IV: The last of the early morning pictures

Last ones I promise although I'm sad to be coming to the end of this little series (of course there's at least a hundred more...)

I always loved these posts with the streets spray painted on them. Chinese characters look cool.

This is a seductive old bicycle cart.

This guy was nice. He really loved his bird. He could speak Chinese that bird.

Bamboo birdcages are gorgeous.

Fresh soybeans

A great way to travel after hours of walking in the sun.

Fin.

Last Days in Shanghai II

Most of these are from a jaunt in an old, well preserved neighborhood I discovered in the French Concession area of Shanghai. I love that area. Also, these pictures do not betray the searing heat and humidity of that day, thankfully because that would be as unpleasant as my sweat drenched self traipsing around with two cameras in July.

Nothing dangerous about these power boxes.

 

Like doors, old mailboxes are endlessly photogenic.

I did a Kel El on this picture.

See...a door and mailboxes.

An advertisement for the "dentist". Don't go to a dentist with a painted sign attached with old wire. Serious.

More Kel El-ling it.

This is where bok choy comes from.

Most people run from the camera but this guy wanted me to take a picture. He's one in a billion.

Hilarious, random Chinese cowboy flour (I think) bag. I'm glad it's a registered trade mark.

Last Days in Shanghai I: On Film

One thing you need to know about China: you'll never be able to get up earlier than the elderly Chinese people. You just can't do it. There are too many and they're always going to beat you to the punch. Before I left, I wanted to get up early early and take pictures of the city before all the people & cars hit the streets. I got out by 5:30 a.m. and took pictures for about 4 hours. It was great. Wish I would have done that once a month. I took several hundred pictures...more are coming soon. These are highlights from my Seagull camera...

I would not have gotten this shot without a really nice lady who told me to walk into this courtyard.

Now that's a Shanghai chic.

I don't know if I should, but I adore this picture and how ephemeral all the clothes are.

I went to an old park in the former Jewish corner. An elderly man hijacked me and took me to meet his friends. It was great. This is his friend and more on the other old man in a future post.

This man looks like a muppet to me. A really nice one. He was in his 80s (I think), was an engineer, and spoke Russian.

Old apartment building across the street from the park.

The egg and rice seller's signs.

Taken on a different day...my friend Vivigan on her awesome powder blue faux Vespa.

Just like my town in Mississippi, there are chickens running around the streets.

Strange Smells at the Clinic

The first evening I was in China back in the summer of 2002, I thought I was going to vomit. The smells almost did me and I'm not one to be easily nauseated. Luckily, I got over it–the smell of stinky tofu (literally fried moldy tofu) on the streets, fermented mildew from clothes that didn't dry fast enough in my "hotel", and I couldn't even recognize some of the other smells. Now many of these scents have become familiar thought I still can't identify all of them...

Yet sometimes there is a smell that is quite distinct–a smell that reminds me of the stairwell near my freshman dorm where the guy down the hallway would light up his contraband...yes, the smell is marijuana. And quite often when I pass the little medical clinic down the street (the one with the steady stream of weathered and hunched elderly Chinese people), I smell that same scent of hash. I asked my co-workers, and it doesn't seem that medical marijuana is available here so I have only one conclusion–the old folks are illegally getting high at the "clinic". (Actually, I have another conclusion, but this one is far more interesting.)

I tell you...do not underestimate the elderly Chinese.

Chinese People

I've been working on the elusive skill of taking Chinese people's pictures. It's so unfortunate that they shrink from the lens because they are so photogenic, interesting and beautiful whether young or weathered.

Taken with my box camera. She asked a customer, "why is she taking pictures of me." "Maybe it's her hobby," he said.

Also with my box camera. I thought this girl was lovely. She had a nice personality too. Didn't really mind the camera...although she thought it was weird I was taking pictures of the steamed dumplings she was selling.

A man looking walking through the wet market.

This guy was one of many who thought it was hilarious that I was taking pictures of the wet market, but he let me take his picture. I think he's eating a sunflower seed.

Does this guy scare you as much as he scares me? He's lookin' for you. He's gonna find you.

Behind My Apartment & Beyond

There are/were a bunch of laofangzis (old houses) behind my apartment. Last year I took an hour or two and walked around taking pictures (during which time I got shoved by an old lady and stopped two children from playing with a dirty syringe in the ruins of an old building). The light broke through the crowds a few weeks ago on an otherwise dreary day so I went out there again taking photos.

Much has changed. An entire block of the condemned buildings that were there last year are gone completely while others are still waiting for the bulldozers even as people still live in them. Here I've got a couple of photos from that little walk as well as some freebies from the People's Square area.

 Not a great picture, I know, but can you believe someone is receiving organic milk while all around them is rubble? I didn't even know you could get organic milk delivered here. 

 I think the guy inside the window caught me but...Ha! with my telephoto lens I got you awesome looking elderly man. Chinese old people are so photogenic.

 This picture and the next one are the same just with two different looks. This sugar cane had so much texture and there's a fascinating character or something written on that one in gold. 

It looks very fanciful but I imagine it's the name of whoever grew it.

 I have a compulsion to take pictures of old doors. Just can't help myself.

 Moving out of the old neighborhood to somewhere near People's Square...These guys are named Tweedle Dee & Tweelde Dum but they dress up like Thing One & Thing Two for Halloween.

 Big old metal Chinese doors. Forbidding and photogenic. The emperor is hidden in there somewhere. Do not tell Bernardo Bertolucci

 

I should look up what this says...

The first buds of the cherry blossoms. I love how this turned out. 

It looks like the vine is going to grow right out of the picture.

A Short Trip Down Duolun Lu

My friend Lo and I went to Dulun Lu  (lu = street in Chinese) a few weeks ago. It's an old street in Hongkou District. It's semi-preserved with the Old Shanghai feel complete with neat old antique shops, a cafe or two, and street food. It was very gray but I got a few shots.

First one of the arched entrances to Duolun:

A close up of a statue. I feel like this doesn't look like anything, but I like it anyway.

I blurred the background lots to try to mask the stupid car in the background.
Ancient streets should not have cars.

 This guy made sculptures of people...we declined but they look kind of cool and
I love the artist's face in the background.

 

Rarrr.

A  cool old Catholic church that melded Chinese and Western architecture really well. 

Didn't get to go inside but it was one of purty.

 I didn't really bump up the colors on this but they were awfully vivid. I think it was the extreme overcast of the day. The teenager at this fruit stand was very cheeky.

 I'm a sucker for ironwork.

 

There was an awesome antique shop there with lots of cool, unaffordable dusty things from old Shanghai. It was really dark though so I didn't get much besides this neat typewriter.

I took a few pictures in some of the old alleyways behind Duolun as the light was quickly fading. If only I had the fortitude to bring my tripod with me everywhere I go...