Night Shanghai

1

MY FIRST MEMORY was sitting on my grandma's lap while she was knitting. The chair that rocked us slowly, the smell of rice being cooked in the air, and my two little braids that she had just made before this that I played with in my tiny three year-old hands.

But this memory would not be completed without its most essential part: the song.

It was 1989 in Shanghai, and within this advancing city that headed toward modernness and the future, was a neighborhood called Xujiahui. It was filled with malls, highly sought out schools, and living in the newly built neighborhoods was expensive due to the convenience of the area. But within that, on the side of this bright and shining place, the spots people barely noticed, were the poorer part of it. Older and smaller buildings, less eye-catching, quieter, and what remained of the older generation.

The small three floored red bricked apartment contained my home that I lived with my grandma, which I will remember and think about over all the years of my life after I move out.

My first memory, and many memories to come later, were made here. In this tiny home, cuddly and warm, markings on walls that had my childhood drawings and scribbles my grandma could not bring herself to paint over. It was here that I always come to think about when I felt scared, sad, or anything that troubled me. I always come back here.

Back to the song.

The radio had many stations, but whenever it hit the evening at around 5pm, this song came up.

~夜上海，夜上海，你是不夜城～

My grandma hummed the tune, and young me followed her. She tilted her head down at me and put her knit down, the warmest smile embraced me.

"韩雨叶 (Han YuYe) ah, listen here." She sat me up on her lap, and her gaze met with mine ever so gently. "No matter what happens in life, you'll always be okay and live on, you hear me? No matter what."

I couldn't understand, and I suppose she didn't exactly expect me to. The song played on, and she started to hum it again. I did too, not understanding what happened, but joyful of the tune that played out of the magic box.

I eventually got hungry and didn't want to sit on the rocking chair with her anymore. I cried and demanded food. Grandma got up, telling me everything would be alright and food was coming.

Perhaps it was from looking into this memory more than I should have over the years that I subconsciously made this part up, or maybe it did happen. But before young me decided to make her get up, my grandma was staring at the apartment door, as if someone had left from it not too long ago. Or maybe, she was waiting for someone to come back.