The train to Shanghai was almost empty. A few remaining travelers are making their way home, to parents or relatives, to spend the holidays. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In these last days of the year of the dog, the stream of travelers has been more pertinent than any other new year season I’ve spent here. Shanghai Central has been packed with people every morning for weeks. People pulling trolleys, woven bags, stools, boxes, biscuits, dates, drinks and toys. Police, shoulder to shoulder, controlling this massive stream at all station entrances, exits, and platform access gates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bustle at the station is in stark contrast to silence in the city. Downtown, the streets are empty and the shops are closed. If you want to attract customers, you should strike now. But the Chinese new year holidays are sacred. Nobody wants to work. So customers will not even try to show up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Traveling through this season is pleasant. Occasionally, the “old” China shows up. Like in the subway just now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A woman sits in front of me, next to her friend. She is slumped on the bench, cell phone in one hand. She must be exhausted. Her phone produces a screeching sound, as if a soundtrack of 2 steel trays being forcefully scraped against each other is playing on a loop. The noise cuts to the bone! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hear it and others around me must hear it too. But she’s so tired – she’s in a state between sleeping and waking. When we arrive at the next station, I nudge her and ask if the volume can be lowered. She looks up, startled. Her friend yells: \u201cDon’t fall asleep! We have to get out!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They leave silently through two slamming doors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Written on February 1, 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The train to Shanghai was almost empty. A few remaining travelers are making their way home, to parents or relatives, to spend the holidays. In these last days of the year of the dog, the stream of travelers has been more pertinent than any other new year season I’ve spent here. Shanghai Central has been…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orangebooklet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121,"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions\/121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}