Crossing Over

There’s a lot to say at the moment, a lot to blog—the end of the last academic year, the summer, my return to Shanghai. But perhaps, most compelling and most relevant is our move across the river, from Pudong to Puxi, from suburbia to city hub of civilization. Despite the pollution, and the chest infection I picked up somewhere between Thailand, China, Sri Lanka and London, I can breathe again. I can breathe.

I have a penchant for the dramatic, I am aware. But living five minutes from school in the hub of wide lanes and chain restaurants began to grate. Halfway through the year, the din became a roar and I knew the upcoming academic year needed to be different.

In mid-July, between various Asian travels, we moved. Our mover, a stocky Chinese man of few words, downed a Chinese Red Bull in two gulps and immediately proceeded to strap boxes, bags, bookshelves to his back and grunt them up a flight of stairs. In less than 10 minutes, the accumulated belongings of a year lay ready to unpack into our new home.

We now live in a block of low-rise flats with real, live Chinese neighbours—the kind who cook in communal kitchens and hang their laundry outside and water potted plants at 5am. The Chinese grannies downstairs sit and shell beans at 10am in the courtyard that resembles a scene out of someone’s stereotype of communism.  But the grannies smile and reply to our ‘ni haos’ so all seems friendly.

The flat itself is newly refurbished. Our landlady has a penchant for tat in the form of fake fruit, plastic flowers and clinical school looking clocks. But I can’t complain—our 50 metre box has one good sized bedroom, a living room (with piano), a kitchen with two hobs (!) and a bathroom. The bathroom may measure roughly 2 square metres and the sink is in the shower but it’s ours, for the year, at least.

By coincidence, my favourite bar, a dimly lit speakeasy run by an amiable, bearded American, is just down my street. By another great coincidence my friends are, literally, just around the corner.

Today, I’m staring down the barrel of the first teacher-training week of term, sitting in a café that I walked to, down a street in my former French Concession neighbourhood, shaded by leafy trees.  It may be the two large coffees but I’m giddy.

On the flight back from London, I dreaded setting foot in China again. I dreaded the hassle, the language barrier and the alien culture I don’t quite understand. But it appears, that in crossing over, I’ve walked towards the light.  And the angels of urban have clothed me in the blankets of heaven—good coffee, anonymity, variety.