Tag: China

“No soliciting.”

These words, written in black Chinese characters on a rusting white sign hung at each gate into my new community — a traditional Long Tang — read more like a dare than a warning. The one guard station, at the southern gate, stood empty more than half the time. The other two gates never locked, even though each one had a rusty red loop that could have easily held a lock of some kind — but it never did. Nothing about the setup suggested security, or even the attempt to stop solicitors. It might as well been a prison with all of its doors open, with a sign hanging at the door that said “no escaping.”

John and I escaped here, to Luwan District, after post-midnight garbage runs disturbed our sleep night after night. The nighttime here lay as dark and still as the streets, with their garage-door-like storefronts shuttered tight, the only sound a stray taxi here or a drunkard hobbling there. It was the night we hoped for, after a wrenching departure from our old apartment. “It’s very quiet here,” the real estate agent assured John with nodding confidence. For once, the agent was right.

But he forgot to tell John about one thing — the days and, especially, the daytime peddlers, crooning their wares as they bicycled in and out of the lanes of our community. Continue reading “Chapter 68: The Soliciting Shanghai Peddlers”