Shanghai

Shanghai is beautiful and overwhelming – a raucous, streetwise strumpet dressed in Dior with the soul of Fagin. At night the city wears garlands of lights as the people pour onto the streets to enjoy the relative cool of the evening. Yesterday was 38 degrees. Huge screens (40 ft x 70 feet) imbedded in the tall glass skyscrapers show ads at night. The noise is constant from traffic, construction and voices. A visual, aural and olfactory Disneyland. Absolutely amazing. It’s all too much to grasp and a wee bit terrifying. The boy in the pictures above snags tourists and brings them to shops. He was a really nice kid. When we went to a bookstore, he began reading the books. Literally fell on them and began trying to absorb as much as possible. So, we asked him to pick out one for himself - an English dictionary that he guarded the rest of the afternoon from his friends who wanted to read it too.