She Squints

When I stay in Shanghai, I am usually domiciled off a few blocks from the People’s Square, not far from Xin Zha Road Subway Station on Line Number One.  I am usually alone in my serviced apartment room, working away on lesson plans when the sun goes down and it is time to start considering dinner.  One more article and then I’ll go.  A phone call.  An email response. 

By eight o’clock or so, I begin to get strict on myself.  Get your ass out there and get some dinner or all the reasonable places will be closed.    When I first started coming here I revelled in the hunt, for the perfect place.  One can walk up to the Suzhou Creek and walk along in either direction.  But there ain’t much.  The places over by Nanjing Road are open late and see a lot of traffic, but they are generally small, neon lit affairs that aren’t very pleasant nor are they particularly memorable. 

Then there are banquet affairs up in towers that seem off putting in their unimpressive pomp.  What I want is a small establishment that is clean, has, chairs, and napkins and most importantly consistently good food at a reasonable price.  And though if I were the health inspector I could visit two hundred places that cook and serve food within a ten-minute walk of where I stay, I’m repulsed by most of them.  By eight o’clock on a busy night, there’s no will to discover a new eatery. 

So I know where I am going this evening.  But I walk over a different way along Xinzha Road itself.  To the left is an old collection of pre-revolutionary dwellings.  To the right are a series of modern new towers.  Neither side suggests much of anything worth considering for dinner.  When I get to the station I take a left and head up Xinchang Road.  Fifty meters up on the right are the stairs down to the little place I have in mind.  There are always about twenty people dining.  They are almost always Shanghainese and most people are smoking.  There are always one or two tables available. 

The same sour faced woman who is always there takes me to a small table.  I gesture to a larger one.  She frowns, as she always does.  I say something to connect, like “long time, no see.”  She squints. It’s not fair, as I’m expecting to see her.  I know she is from Anhui, and doesn’t really speak Shanghainese. I walk over to the boss, a middle-aged lady with a bowl cut, smoking by the stairs.  I ask if the foreigner can sit at the big table, in Shanghainese.  She says my Shanghainese is good.  I answer in Shanghainese that I can’t speak Shanghainse and she likes this.  Of course you can have the big table to yourself. 

The routine has registered some familiarity with the sour-faced waitress.  “You don’t have the xiaolongbaozi, as always, right?”  “Right.  Sold out a while ago.”  “I’ll take the fishlike pork, sautéed eggplant, the bean leaf with garlic and a bottle of Tsingdao.  Cold.”  She nods, almost smiles and heads off.  Up above I can see the feet of people walking by on the street.  I begin to read a short story by Lao She called “An Old, Established Name” from the 1930’s about the plight of the hoary, old Fortune Silk Store and I consider the lady under the stairs and the unique predicament the business owner who is Chinese.   One line grabs me and I write it down:

“Xin Dezhi’s mouth hung so far open in dismay that his face began to look like a dumpling that had spit apart while boiling.”