[Part II] Beyond The Smalltalk: Back in Shanghai after 5 years

What it's like going back to a place you once called home

In Part I, I shared how I ended up living in Shanghai after graduating Stanford. In Part II, I want to share with you the experience of going back for the first time since I left in early 2020, and all the ways how things had changed.

You know, in most places in this world, not much changes in 5 years. Your favorite restaurants and coffee shops are still around, there is a new building where there was once a construction site, and you can still use the same apps and programs to navigate the city. In China, however, 5 years is a lifetime. A lot can happen during that time window.

You need to know that I knew the city in and out while I lived there. I used to ride my own bicycle everywhere, so I knew every street, every corner, every turn. But when I got to Shanghai last week, I barely recognized the city. It felt like the overall blueprint of the city was still there, but 80% of the stores and places that I knew had vanished. Not only had they vanished, the new stores that had replaced them looked so different, that I started doubting whether those old stores actually even existed (I found myself pulling up old pictures to corroborate whether my favorite coffee shop was really gone or if I was just confused). It felt like everything in the city had received a facelift of sorts. The windows were bigger, the lights were brighter, the writing was more colorful, the messages more striking. Every other store is now a fancy concept store of sorts, with a barista in one corner, influencers in the other.