It would be a real pity if you visit Shanghai without taking a walk in its alleyways. In the afternoons, before the people come back from school or work, if you randomly roam away from Shanghai’s major commercial streets and enter into a narrow one, you will immediately see a broad entrance under some parasol trees and the header of the entrance with something written on it. Sometimes it says 1902 below the arcade. Inside there are several rows of townhouses of 2 or 3 stories. The small balconies side by side are filled with warm sunshine. The glass windows deep inside reflect the passing cars in the street. Here, you are in a Shanghai alley.

Painting of Shanghai Alley by Chen Xidan

Half of the residential areas in Shanghai are in such alleys and the majority of the Shanghainese live in the different variants of the alleys.

Almost always there is a small convenience store at the entrance of an alley. In such an incredibly small store, all kinds of daily necessity items are shelved in a wonderfully orderly manner, from kids’ snacks, ladies’ needle kits, postal stamps to any daily necessity items one may suddenly need, you will find it here. People often come out to the store in their “homie” clothes and footwear. You can see women, wearing colorful pajamas, come to buy a pack of snack food. Their toes grip the red flip-flops whose heels are already worn down. Such scenes cannot be more ordinary to the people living in the alleys. The store keeper is usually watchful and warm-hearted. His radio is always turned on. Listening to the radio all day long, he also wants to have some real people listen to him talking. Since he has seen so many people walking back and forth in the street, or coming in and out of the alley, as long as he has some imagination, he tends to be a very street smart guy.

Until you step into a Shanghai alley, you won’t really understand the life in Shanghai, the life that is hidden behind Shanghai’s bustling commercial streets, its glittering neon lights, and its flamboyant lifestyle. The Shanghainese cherish their image very much and always keep a sleek look in the shops, restaurants, bars, and parks. However, they look totally different in the alleys.Light music is peacefully playing and the aroma of the chicken soup escapes from the backdoor of the shared kitchen. Where the sun reaches, the residents living at the bottom pull the hemp ropes, and hang out all the quilts and sheets of the entire family. The sweet smell from the freshly washed cloths permeates the alley. If you look more closely at those colorful clothes fluttering in the air, you will recognize those are the most fashionable style of the year. You also see there is a young lady bending at the sink by the backdoor. Wearing an old shrunken woolen sweater, she is washing her waterfall like hair with a shampoo called Siphone. In the sun, hot steam rises from her wet hair. There is also a shoe repairman sitting at the entrance of the alley. He is making a tatpat sound while hitting the tiny heel of a lady’s stiletto, trying to patch it with a piece of new leather. A sleek woman sitting astride on a stool is waiting with a bare foot. They complain in unison on the poor quality of the shoes today and berate the dishonest manufacturers.

The elderly of the alley are chatting where the sun reaches. Old women are usually more reticent, whereas most old men like to accost strangers. Their favorite thing is to talk about their “salad” days.

There is always a serene and earthly atmosphere in the alleys and you can tell how the Shanghainese treasure this special atmosphere. This is the “living” color of their life. Since the 19th century, along with the birth of the first Shanghai alley named “Xing Ren Li” located near the Bund, it is neither the too flamboyant nor the too conservative Shanghainese life philosophy that emphasizes harmony and pragmatism, yet stays cool with the transient fashion.

In the mid of the 19th century, because of the rebellion of the Small Swords Society in the Chinese section of the city, many people fled to the foreign concessions. In order to make a profit from these Chinese refugees, the foreigners in the concessions copied the workers’ residences in London’s industrial areas and built 800 houses in rows. These are the precursors of the Shanghai alleys in the concessions. The real alley life began at the moment when Mayipa built Xing Ren Li in 1872.

Shanghai is a big metropolis, like the table of a chef at a restaurant with all kinds of tastes. The city was carved up by foreigners; one part became the French concession, one part became the British one and one part was reserved for the Chinese. In the suburban industrial areas, there are places developed for the residences of the workers in the factories. Although these divisions all belong to the past, they have been left in the minds of the Shanghainese. People living in different parts of Shanghai are classified into different classes, and they are not necessarily friendly to each other. They tend to alienate each other and rarely socialize. Shanghai, such a remarkable place, sometimes makes you feel that there are many small nations within it. Just like in Europe, it seems all people are the same at first glance, but when you look at them closely, you will see the seriousness of the German, the romance of the French and austereness of the Poles. People living in different parts of Shanghai also look differently. That is why even those who grew up in Shanghai and have lived in it for several decades still don’t dare to claim that they know Shanghai very well, because all they know is only one small part of Shanghai.

From the early wood houses for the refugees, to the Shikumen houses and the new style alley houses, all of them, are like blood vessel spread across Shanghai in the over 9,000 alleys, yet they all share a similar atmosphere to some degree.

These are the places where the middle class of Shanghai live. They, being the majority of the society, lead a well-off life, but are not really wealthy; they have sleek looking appearances, but without splendor; they are economical, pragmatic, prudent, never indulging themselves in excessive entertainment or luxury. They are hard working and enjoy the well-to-do life. They are progressive, expecting a better life year by year, but also very realistic, and never imagine the impossible. They are living contentedly in their own small world, but whenever they see an opportunity, they will grasp it and strive to succeed. They are not innocent people, but neither are they bad ones.

Despair is never seen in the Shanghai Alleys. Home-made dried vegetables, the recently bought soybeans are baking in the sun on the tiny balconies; in the shades below the window of the small north room, hangs the salted pork that is made of the best pork, which is peppered and covered with oil paper in case of rain. The oil paper rustles in the wind. On the windowsill, resilient succulents are planted in broken washbasins. Even during the most turbulent upheavals, the life in the alleys still goes smoothly at its own pace. This is the philosophy of the seniors, compromising, worldly, sticking to the conventional norms and values and staying lukewarm. They never impose their own opinions on the other people. All they focus on is their own conforming life.

Tianzifang (田子坊)

In the evening, many aromas permeate from the open backdoors when all the families are cooking. People are coming back. The country-looking girls are busy going in and out the backdoors. These are the rush hours for those hourly maids. Country girls gain weight very easily after they arrive in Shanghai, because there are more choices of food in Shanghai, and therefore they often look chubbier than the local girls. They quietly, but efficiently work in the shared kitchen by the backdoor. Today’s maids don’t gossip as much as they used to, but neither do they know as much about how to serve the Shanghainese properly. So the sophisticated work is left to the mistress themselves, such as slicing the boiled pork, preparing the sauce for the big hairy crabs, and heating the Shaoxin yellow wine. The mistress puts everything in a big tray and brings it to their room.

After you visit a Shanghai alley, you probably will see more things then when you go to other places in Shanghai, because alleys are the most real and open space in Shanghai. People live a real life in the alleys. Even the Shanghai sophisticates wear the homie outfits and never mind fetching the mails in slippers.