Joe and I checked into a hostel that night and then went to eat in the upstairs of this tiny real Chinese place. We had rice, with potatoes and vegetables, and a meat patty like a Milanesa and just as good. Bones littered the floor, a nationalist war movie was on TV. We shared a couple 22 oz. bottles of 3% Tsingdao beer. (You've got to check the percentage of alcohol on the beers here or you'll end up with some 3% or 2% crap.) It was quite a nice first night in China.
Next morning we went to Shanghai's old town. I'm enamored with labyrinthine alley ways and there are some striking ones here. It seemed to be the only livable, human-scale place in Shanghai. Some of them had grape arbors and other plants growing. How can you not fall in love with a green labyrinth like the one pictured to the right?
We went to the antiques market. I got a pocket watch, and Joe got some Chinese Tin Tin books. Then we saw the most amazing thing. Everyone started running down a certain street, and yelling. We followed them and witnessed a crowd of people surrounding a man with a torn shirt and an anguished face. A couple of people in the center of the crowd were twisting his arm behind his back and making him kneel. People were yelling, "thief." It was a public prosecution and punishment, a Kangaroo court, of a lawbreaker on the part of the shopkeepers of the neighborhood. My inner voyeur wanted to stand and watch more of this but Joe got disgusted and said, "Let's get out of here."
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