Shanghai is a city I can never get close to.

Shanghai is a city I can never get close to.

I have been in Shanghai for seven years.

"Going to Shanghai" will always be like what happened yesterday-even though I have spent almost the whole twenties here.

when I was 22 years old in 28 and took all my luggage to Shanghai, I only knew one classmate in the whole city.

its glitz and modernity were deeply shocked when I first saw it many years ago.

-It was an evening when I was driving to the Bund. As a passenger, I saw the neon lights on both sides of Yan 'an Elevated Road flashing bit by bit, and the dotted lights gradually connected into large tracts, spreading all the time, stretching to the winding distance, and the distant lights were even more magnificent-you can't help but be attracted by it, and you are eager to speed up and drive to the brightest place ...

If you describe Shanghai,

the first time I approached her, I had doubts about myself. I'm a wet behind the ears, and I doubt whether I have the qualifications close to her: talent, taste, posture, temperament, ... all kinds of dimensions, so I have to reassess myself.

Looking at my clothes, I am so inconspicuous;

Looking at my resume, I am so penniless;

Looking at my solitary residence, it is so old that I don't know when I can rush to the distant and proud future.

when I live alone, it's like "digging a hole". With inexhaustible strength, I just want to quickly dig the hole and dig it to the center of the city.

I have never had the so-called "bitterness and loneliness of living alone". Instead, I feel that freedom has finally shown its proper way-a one-bedroom Shanghai husband's room, a bed, a desk, a wardrobe, a TV, a sofa, the most basic configuration, I always travel like a person and live in a standard room in a hotel.

Sleep as long as you want on weekends, and watch as many movies as you want on weekdays. If a friend comes, mop the floor so that a group of people can fall asleep and chat.

When night comes, people sitting on the bed watching TV speak Shanghainese, and I learn it sentence by sentence. Sometimes you forget to turn off the remote control, and when you wake up, it's the news at seven or eight.

when I'm not sick, I'm strong and I don't feel the pain of being left unattended.

By cleaning, paying the electricity, water and coal, settling the rent with the landlord, I make new friends bit by bit.

but there are some inconveniences. Things in the refrigerator are often broken. Once you go to the supermarket or food market on a whim, the extra food will be shelved and moldy if you can't eat it. -So I hoarded a lot of canned food, such as olives, Laoganma, beef sauce, sand tea sauce, sesame sauce, ... Any lazy time that is difficult to manage, I can take out a bottle of sauce, noodles or porridge.

The earliest road to live is called Maotai Road. It's quite long, long and fine. When I get off work at 5 o'clock, I will walk through one block after another with nothing to do.

I took a lot of photos along the way, but there was no iPhone at that time. The mobile phone with low pixel presents very thick particles and the appearance of a long clothes rack sticking out of the road, which always stays in my mind.

-every night, I am also the one who hangs the washed clothes out of the street; Hear the sound of "Nong Hao" and "Goodbye" on the facade downstairs, and appreciate the street life in this city. When the night comes, if I haven't fallen asleep, the trucks passing by Maotai Road will shake my home a few times. So I am never afraid to go out at night, because there will be no real peace in this city, it is noisy 24 hours a day.

Strangely enough, even if I shared a room with someone two years later, I still seem to live alone. Loneliness tastes no different.

I moved to an older house. That winter, there was a large family of mice who liked to stay at home. -I couldn't find the reason for my neglect of cleaning. Later, I found out that the walnuts brought by my parents had been left in the cupboard. I forgot to eat them and attracted mice.

But the story is not as romantic as WaltDisney and Mickey. I am a person who is particularly afraid of mice. I was scared for a few days and didn't dare to go to the living room. The youngest mouse family slept in my 2-odd high-heeled shoes (the best pair at that time)-it was fragrant and sweet, but I was full of fear.

and the older the house, the more patience is needed. Like the aging organs of the human body, the water pipes in the house are often clogged with blood clots-the water heaters in winter can't produce water, either hot or cold. It always takes a lot of courage to take a bath on a wet and cold night.

when I think about it, "one's life" is finally a little sour.

but fortunately, I am not a picky person. Not paying attention to food is also suitable for "wandering people".

I don't feel too embarrassed to have sauce with rice congee or steamed stuffed buns for three meals a day. Even in the whole year of renting a second house, I like to go downstairs and eat a bowl of Changsha rice noodles. Friends in Hunan always say that it is not authentic at first glance, but I think it is full and delicious.

But every time when the Chinese New Year is coming, my parents come and squeeze into a small house with me, and my mother packs me a refrigerator, jiaozi. I felt that I finally had a "taste".

that rare taste became common after a few years. After living a family life, looking back at a few years of living alone seems to be playing Naoko Takagi's "Going to Tokyo alone" and "Living alone for the fifth year". Once I reread it on the subway, I cried unexpectedly.

when you live alone, you never feel "it's different now" when you go to the city alone-but when you look back, scenes make people cry, and I don't know why.

I have worked and lived with Shanghainese, and even I can't define whether my children are Shanghainese, although it is written in her household registration book.

I learned Shanghainese, starting with the simplest word "goodbye", which even became the best language I learned. My proficiency in it is far higher than that in English, Cantonese and Korean.

but recently, I gave up using it. If it is not necessary, I choose to use Mandarin.

over the years, it's hard to describe whether you like or dislike Shanghai-that probably means "I don't like it very much"-but since I don't like it very much, why live here?

maybe because, be ready to go at any time.

during my years at work, I was always full of doubts about myself. Although I abide by my duties and discipline myself, my performance in the workplace is acceptable and my future seems bright. But I always feel that this is not right.

I have a small dream, not to get a position in the company, but to be excited for a whole year at the newsstand at the intersection of the company to see the manuscript I wrote at the weekend become the type in the magazine.

But there are too few times like that. Most of the time, I'm just a blogger who writes about what happens every day, how ordinary and insignificant.

I was depressed once. Is this it? Is life going to sit down in the office like this?

when I was pregnant, I squeezed into the crack of the subway every day with a big belly, always thinking that there are tens of millions of people in this city who, like me, have very small dreams, but live such a mediocre life day after day. We hurried into the office building from the zebra crossing, not knowing where to go or where to come from.

Before I arrived in Shanghai, I thought "urban white-collar workers" was a shining term, but after I really held this status, I just felt that my life was blank, and Fight Club was being staged every day.

what is even more puzzling is that we lost our place in the city. When people ask about your hometown, it's just a polite greeting. What people really care about is what you have in Shanghai, not your past.

So once this year, I wrote "Why Shengxiao Mo" in Zhihu's advertising column, which really made me feel ashamed-when I looked at the glamour in the movie after 7 years, I always felt that all this was untrue, maybe I was wasting my time.

Every year, I have to apply for something called a "residence permit", which proves that I still have a little status in this city, but I can't really become a "Shanghainese".

compared with my parents' worries about household registration, I don't care about the status that seems to be rewarded.

-this city will never be very cordial. It is like a lantern hanging high, flashing light, but the light is not bright enough. You have to go forward by its light, but you can never hold the lamp.

Although more and more people live here, not many people say, "I'm from Shanghai".

We always keep a certain distance from it.

But strangely, when you go to a new place, people will naturally say, Oh, you are from Shanghai.

when I first came to work in Shanghai, I attended an English course for foreign teachers. A group of people are chatting in English in a coffee shop. Foreigners ask where you are from. One word is used a lot: Shanghai.

suppose I live here with my daughter all my life, and I may not use this word either. -This is really a bit strange.

and NewYorker is NewYorker.

Cantonese is also an expression of people in a certain place in China, but this word covers a wide range. It not only refers to Cantonese people, but also includes Hong Kong people, Macao people, and even all people with Cantonese blood flowing overseas.

but "Shanghai" is only a part of people. A native of Shanghai.

maybe I should stop discussing the meaning of words.

What I want to say is that this city will always have a sense of alienation. If you like it, it is a world where loneliness has its own, and everyone has a proper sense of proportion. If you don't like it, it is indifferent and has no affection.

If you have someone you like in this city, it is not difficult to meet them. There are rail links everywhere, although there is time to cross the geographical distance of the city. But if you don't want to see someone, even if you are next door, five meters or ten meters away, you can never see them.

You can meet someone you haven't seen for a long time in a crowded street one day. You can also pretend that you can't see people around you every day.

Even good friends can't meet frequently. Once a month is already a high frequency. And most people with ordinary relationships don't necessarily see it once a year. It's hard to imagine that we live in one place and never have time to meet.

this is the magic of Shanghai.

I like Shanghai very much, probably when the phoenix tree sprouts in spring, when the wind blows away the hot air in summer, when the rain wobbles in autumn, and when the prosperity in winter never fades at night.

I like its four distinct seasons, certain humidity and temperature, neither too cold nor too hot.

changing seasons reminds people that time is moving forward, and you don't have nothing. You still have jackets and shirts, vests and short skirts, down and scarves ... You are rushing to say goodbye to the past while changing your clothes.

Farewells can be quick. Many friends come to meet in a hurry. You say goodbye at the subway entrance. Maybe you won't see each other for many years.

But the parting of the subway station is so ordinary, just like a summer night in a small town, when people shook their cattail leaf fans and met in the street, they thought they would meet tomorrow.

I cherish meeting everyone. It is precisely because in this city with a sense of distance that it is not easy for people to meet.

But there are too many people passing by, and people look no different.

So I remembered a special story. Every day, people told "fantastic"-even me.

But these bizarre stories are not enough to resist mediocrity. When we walk into the crowd with a little success, we still seem to be walking into an ocean where colors can't be distinguished, and all coral reefs only twinkle at the bottom of the sea.

In 215, after leaving my family and workplace that I was used to for six years, I quickly adapted to my new life.

work alone and take care of yourself alone.

I don't have to deal with many people every day, and I don't have family to accompany me for dinner.

Everything is back to the way it was when I first came to Shanghai.

I have been writing at home alone for a long time, and I am grateful for the indifference of the city.

Because for others, life is no different; I have more time to concentrate.

if I want to meet my friends, I can just clean up and go out, and I can still walk into a noisy little bar and listen to the strange stories that have happened this season.

But once I was listening to an African singing jazz in a bar, and he asked me where I came from, but I instinctively said: Nowhere.

I was at home one night, so I lay in bed and sang Beatles for two hours. When I sang the song "NowhereMan", I was even more worried.

-loneliness has its own world.

I used to want to go to many places and draw a map with forks like a collector.

I still want to ...

But I realize that I can't go to so many places, and I can't see so many mountains and cities outside the city.

During the six years I worked, what I did most was:

Every long afternoon, I got up from my office chair, walked to the stairs alone, and looked at the opposite building-every day the sun shone on it differently, with different lights and different shadows.

there is nothing new in the sun for me and the building.

it looks the same.

but we are all changing. Now, writing and accompanying my daughter to grow up have really made me feel the power of time.

She lives in my hometown and I live in her city.

once we meet and talk on the phone, we can tell each other about the changes.

I always hope that every time I see her, I can tell her that

mom has grown up like you.

this city has the power of running water.

Some people were washed, polished, struggled and lost their direction;

We were in it, holding hands and being pushed forward by it.

My daughter is a native of Shanghai, but as a stranger, I always feel that there is a natural distance between us.

nevertheless, she is my closest relative in this city.

I don't know whether I will leave Shanghai forever one day, and whether I will care about it.

when I came in the past, I said to myself, let it be.

Now that I'm still here, I still tell myself that I feel at ease.

I appreciate the ordinary story it gave me, and I also try to understand its thoughtlessness and indifference.

as PaulGraham said in Citizenship, every CitiesandAmbition.

maybe Shanghai has already given it to me.

Splendid Picture Biography

Tell yourself

Different cities have different scenery

Different people have different ways of living

I have been in this city for six years,

I have been watching him go around with feasts

but I can't see my original self more and more

Maybe it's time

to draw up a picture book for myself that records the years without trace <