Wandering around Jin An district (靜安區), I found myself within an area in Shanghai city where my father used to described to me. There were lanes with houses lining at both sides, each house has 3 floors occupied by a family. Here I was actually in a lane where my father used to live.

However, the description only matched the situation more than half a century ago, where Shanghai was then a cosmopolitan with a number of foreign-leased districts. Nowadays, these houses are occupied by at least on family on each ... (more)