The River Banks

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There was a river somewhere in Shanghai that we were walking by, and we realized that the banks were made of thick concrete walls that you could totally walk on or sit on if you wanted to climb badly enough.  It wasn’t really much of a climb – about two feet up from a sturdy staircase railing – definitely not the kind of protection they would put up if they really didn’t want you on the banks.  Plus there were absolutely no signs posted at all.  So we crossed to the other side of the river and sat on the banks.  The concrete was cold, but the sun was out right now and if we faced toward it, it was warm.

Catie and I just enjoyed the view of the river.  We said ni hao to the people passing by.  Many of them looked surprised.  Some of them said hello to us after we said ni hao.  One girl had a piano bag.  A middle aged man was looking at us a lot back and forth and tripped a little bit on his way up the stairs.  One guy climbed right on up in between us, and I thought he was going to push me and I told Catie to hold on tight and I held on tight too.  He walked away the second he got up there, down the river, towards the sun.  We talked about our families and our relationships with our parents.  I think we talked about a few other things too, and at some point she said “Tell me a story!”  I don’t know what the best story from my life is, so I told her the Mike Birbiglia story that I like so much about the time he got in a car crash.  I seriously teared up at the end.  She didn’t.  I’m way more emo than I should be.

 

A homeless man who didn’t speak much English at all came up to us and put his hand out for money.  Catie still had her bag of candy, and was going to offer him a piece, but ended up just giving him the whole bag.  He seemed surprised that she gave it to him that easily and even seemed happy and smiling while she did it.  He smiled at her and his eyes kind of shined.  He took a few steps away.  He turned back and smiled again, and through a tiny bit of a laugh he said “Thank you.”

 

Before we decided to leave, we took one last look down the river.  We said, “Appreciate!  Appreciate!!”