A winter wander down memory lane

A woman hangs chothes in the narrow alley between a typical Shanghai lane house. Photo by Gao Erqiang/Shanghai Star

Later, such tailor-made jackets were quickly replaced by mass-produced down jackets which are light and easy to wash. Shanghai streets thus started to catch the pace of the international fashion world, quickly losing its unique colors.

Sunshine, sunshine

Sunshine was so precious in winter as the city is cold but humid. On sunny Sundays, school children would be taking their only opportunity to have a lie in, when suddenly they would find themselves exposed to the cold air, their quilt flying away. Within seconds the quilt would be hanging in the courtyard to get the most of the sunny rays. Because of the limited space in the lane, diligent women would wake up early and hang hundreds of quilts in the space between the lane houses, which would cut the small space into a labyrinth.

Having lived in the lane their whole life, old people knew where to find a corner to enjoy sunshine among the ocean of quilts and would spend a casual afternoon enjoying the rays until they were woken by the arguments: sometimes it was because one family's wet clothes got another family's quilt damp, or one housewife stretched her quilt into another's territory. The fights were like a storm in a teacup, and would swell until several people were involved, with dozens of neighbors looking on, who would have lots of fun making moral judgements or just watching the show, which often involved colorful language.

Without individual bathrooms, bathing was a big weekly event especially on sunny days when residents went to public bathrooms or big State-owned factories, which all had bathrooms that allowed employees and their family members to enjoy a hot water bath at a very low price. Young women in small groups, with happy expressions and rosy cheeks after a long time spent in the shower, would comb their wet hair on the way home. People today may think this is not decent, but in the days when almost all private life happened in public, including eating, sleeping or family fights, it was not a big deal.