I am attempting to write a profile on a local blind busker for Talk. Maggie and I hunted for them last night for hours but only found two which sucked because usually I see at least four or five if I'm walking around for that long. I think our mistake was that we went to People's Square which is the busiest metro station in Shanghai and thus has the most security kicking people out who obstruct traffic. Things aren't going very well for the article because the buskers are almost all from out of town and speak poor Mandarin but rich dialect so she can't understand what they're saying. We did interview one couple, usual suspects with the woman leading the blind man around by the arm but the longer we spoke, the greater the crowd was that gathered to wonder why the hell we were talking to these two, and the more apparent it became that the guy wasn't actually blind... he had his hat pulled way down below his eyes but kept lifting his head for "no reason" (to look at me). They're from Anhui Province which is a little west of here but wouldn't give their name or anything really all that interesting. I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this because of the language problems and everyone being so suspicious and Maggie thinking I'm crazy for wanting to do it in the first place.
This is what it looks like when you hit the Great Firewall. And you think, "Gee, that's funny, I was just on that website [wikipedia, livejournal, lotsofnoise, gmail, flickr] yesterday, where could it have gone...! If it's something which has become sensitive in the last two days, then it's just a completely blank page that comes up really quickly and you feel guilty for even googling or baiduing it.
Near where I live on Back Wanhangdu Lu:
Shanghai steamed dumplings mmmmm this is pretty modern and heavy duty, most of them are a little smaller and just wood like you see underneath:
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