Tianlin Village
(Sept 1999 - June 2000)
Tianlin Village was not a village in a countryside. It is a residential district mostly for workers located southwest of Shanghai, in the Xuhui district. Altogether there are five villages with an area of about 2 km 2. With some exception (4 high buildings in the No 4 Village), all houses are 6 storeys without lifts. This residential area was built in the 70's and looked very old and outdated. I once lived there when I was working at ALSTOM and I know the house situation. When coming back from Beijing and Hangzhou, I still want to live close to my old living apartment, so that I can easily go by the house where I have spent my three months with my ex-wife. I am still remembering her.
 
Another factor to relocate to Tianlin is that my friend lived nearby. He was and is now my closest friend. His name: Zheng Xintu, a Volkswagen planer.
 
Although a working class district, Tianlin is at the border area of city center and the outskirts, therefore this are is busy with traffic and trade. The narrow, highly traffic Tianlin road which links the Chaoxi Bei Lu and Guilin Lu became the traffic hub of the area. Often it is impossible to get through the road and drivers have to go around to get away of the jam.
 
Shanghai as China's no 1 metropolis names its roads with province and county names. In this part of the city, roads are named after counties in the Xinjiang Autonomous region, and Tianlin is one of the counties of Xinjiang.
 
About 1 km west is Shanghai's first hi-tech zone, where 3M, Air Liquide, Raychem and a number of other, electronics-dominated industries are producing the latest standards chips, printers, PCBs, cables, laser devices for the world market at very low labor cost. These are mainly assembly lines, no serious research and development forces are formed among those labor-intensive workshops.
 
In between are retail or reseller shops in the computer and electronics.
 
Historically Tianlin is a traditional manufacturing and research base for electronics, instrumental and control equipment. The no 711 Research Institute, the Shanghai Solar Energy Institute where my classmates were working in these two institutes. Some C&I factories are the dominating producers for C&I of various applications incl. power plants. Foxboro and GE have also built their production lines there, just across the residential district.
 
There are also several universities, such as the Huadong Education University along the Guilin road and the Shanghai Finance Institute at the Chaobao road.
 
Over the years, Tianjin has been developed into a conference and exhibition attraction too. The China Guangdao Bank group has built one luxurious residential compound and a hotel like apartment building. On its 1st floor is a large exhibition area. opposite the complex is another new residential space developed by the famous Wan Real Estates.
 
Within the residential area, restaurants, hotels, shops, barbershop of all kinds and all levels are sporadically found. This is an area mingled with life, technology and commerce, a place best fit for observation of a society.
 
Here I was once again settled down, the 3rd time in the same place since 1996. But this time, alone, jobless, in a 15 m2 big ground floor room, without enough sun light but enough of moisture. A room cost me 900 a month. Not cheap though.
 

Before moving my luggage I have first traveled from Hangzhou to Shanghai to find a lodging for myself. Originally I wanted to relocate myself to Pudong, and I spent a night there in an humble, 30 yuan/night guest house. I found the room unsatisfactory and then I turned to Tianlin where I also spent two nights at 30 yuan each. There I could feel the voice and laugh when I was still staying in a small apartment with my ex-wife, and there I felt a little secure than a totally unknown area.

My two brothers accompanied me to Shanghai at the evening. When we arrived in Shanghai, it was 8:30 pm and I could even not provide a dinner for them - one my own brother, and one brother-in-law, all older than me. After they left me alone, I felt extremely hopeless. It was the first time I felt so despaired.

 
The room they left me was rented to me by a local couple, of my age. They have went to Australia earlier and could have saved quite some money to buy another apartment nearby. They have a boy but I didn't have time entertaining him. They told me that they have lived there eight years before they could own their own house now. I can hardly imagine how three people can stay in such a little cave - dark, moister and hopeless to me. I was very sympathy to them and I thought I wouldn't stay for 8 months - actually I lived there for 8 months exactly.
 
There was an air-con which was a window-type, When you turned it on it made terrible noise. I never used it because I don't like air-con at all. A small refrigerator and a telephone line were all the facilities they could provide. The kitchen was part of the corridor leading from the door to the window. There was scarcely space for putting a table for dinner. Ironically this was the only room where I received the most guests - my colleagues from universities, and my cousin. There I have hold two meetings with them to discuss about cooperation's and future. And now I think it is a very absurd matter.
 
Life in Shanghai is not too difficult if you could earn enough for you. You can buy everything within 10 minutes walking distance - fresh vegetables, bread, fish, meat, newspaper, clothes, and banks. There was a small library where I often went to read newspaper, and supermarkets are mushrooming along the main avenue and over all corners of the area - for some smaller shops of course. There was also a bookstore where I have also bought my IT books. In one word, as long as you have enough money, life in Shanghai is no worse than in the heaven.
 
As to me, my life just started.