A Totally Impractical Guide to Living in Shanghai

Once upon a time, I used to keep  paper journals where I wrote down everything I saw and thought. I spent long afternoons in pubs and cafes across Europe and Africa, nursing rationed cups of tea and writing down the minutiae of my twenty year old life. I have a box full of those journals stored unceremoniously in a cardboard box up in my parents’ crawl space.

I haven’t even looked at them in over a decade. I kind of cringe at the thought. Judging by the quality of the writing in my high school notebooks found this past summer when I was back home cleaning out my old room, some things are better left unread. I’ve toned down the hyperbole over the years. I think. I hope.

Sorry, this is one of the only photos of myself from that era that is actually in digital format. Look, Hungarian wine!

Those journals recorded all the ways in which my hopeful heart was broken (so many ways, my god!), the endless nature of overnight bus rides and the long slog to find affordable accommodation (dorm beds, sofas, floors, benches), the tedium of pretty much living off bread and cheese for weeks on end, the chronic bronchial infections from living in damp, crappy hostels, the minutiae of daily life, down to the last cup of tea and the doings of people whose names I have long since forgotten.  (more…)