Back in Black

This morning I was on my way to work and was only a few shops down from our house when I came across a sizeable crowd gathered around a ladder on the footpath and an ambulance. And in the middle,

Traffic cop

Crisp white gloves and a pristine uniform. Shoo would-be jaywalkers back to the sidewalk, chastise dinking bike riders, chase a double-decker bus down the street. It’s just another afternoon for traffic cop. Traffic cops and traffic ‘assistants’ have been a

Ode to Spring

We now seem to have moved well and truly into summer. Electrical storms are beginning and heavy downpours followed by intense, oppressive heat make me feel as though I’m living in a giant greenhouse. But before I move on with

Compound curiosities

We live in an older style, traditional Chinese compound. Or lilong as they are called in Shanghai. It is basically several rows of red brick apartments coming off a central alley, three or so stories high, with skinny little alleys

Romance and wackiness in Harbin

So the first post on sketch-of-shanghai is to be, in my typically irreverent fashion, not about Shanghai at all but a city in the north of China, Harbin. Harbin is a city I had wanted to visit for awhile. I