Tag: mahjong

Behind the screen windows of Shanghai’s alleys

Post author By ~mimo~
Post date April 21, 2013
6 Comments on Behind the screen windows of Shanghai’s alleys

behind the window screens of Shanghai's alleys — behind the window screens of Shanghai’s alleys

Shanghainese women, famous for their strong personalities and their control of the household including their men have become a stereotype in China. The wife in Shanghai is known to make her husband hand in his whole salary at the end of the month and to only give him back a small portion as pocket-money as she sees fit. He also has a strict curfew for coming home at night and he is expected to perform certain household duties on top of his daily job. I took a sneak peek at some of these lovely ladies’ mahjong gambling activities in the afternoon behind a dusty window screen in one of the alleys of the old city, and strength is certainly a quality they emanate.

Tags alley, asia, black and white, china, cigarette, city, gambling, game, husband, life, mahjong, mimo khair, old, photography, power, salary, shanghai, shanghainese, smoking, society, square, street, strength, tradition, urban, women

Photography

Day Two Hundred Twenty One, August 31, 2011

Post author By ~mimo~
Post date September 1, 2011
6 Comments on Day Two Hundred Twenty One, August 31, 2011

Walking around the streets and alleys of Shanghai, I love to meet old people, the ones that represent the China that I had read about before moving here, the China of movies, of books and historical documentaries. And these people are still there, walking with their fans, with their tiny previously bound feet, with their age old traditions and they drift on the shores of the huge sea of modernism that is taking over China. And I wonder, how long will there be tai chi in the streets, mahjong in the parks, pajamas worn in the city, bird cages filling the park, crickets in tiny cages for good luck… when will all this start to become a thing of the past giving room to the ipod carrying new generation?

I feel so lucky to be witness to some of it that still lives on in the very few…