ShangHai, ShangHai.

ShangHai, ShangHai.

If you ask me why I do what I do, I'd tell you it is because what I want, which is because of who I am, and along with other two classic philosophical question of "where am I from" and "where am I going to", which, altogether; is because of who I've met, who I'm with, and who I m looking forward meeting.

One of the few stories I know about Bible says every thing begins with Eve taking an apple in the Garden of Eden. Then desire replaces serenity, human come to earth, and there goes millenniums of love and sin, creation and destruction, prosperity and chaos, and all that interesting people behind it, which condense into a jar of apples. And this rich, fascinating and ever-lasting apple jam jar, for me, is nowhere but Shanghai.

To me, Shanghai is like radiation, it exists everywhere whether u can see it or not, it silently pierces through your skin, it changes it reconstructs your brain on molecular level, one day you are still the same and the next day you talk, walk, dress, and in the end think like them.

Coming to this city bare-handed, for what I thought was the love of my life, which was in the end all-in and all failed, and mostly forgotten by now. This city is like a heavy fog before sunny break, that combines the brightest joy and the most unspeakable sorrow.

We've gone to numurous places, and yes we did; had countless sweet little fights, and yes we did; kissed under the bund's city lights and yes we did, and promised to stay together forever, and no, that we didn't.

When passion dies down to silence, love birds fled the city, what has left in the end, is just me in the flesh, and fortunately, still this city. This seemingly cold and delicate, but at core decent and soft city has a lot more to offer, but back then I didn't know.

I flew away, to escape or to survive, to cure or just to fill the unspeakable void of my soul. Beijing, Shenzhen and Los Angeles, I picked up where I left my career and tried to act those years had never gone by, or even ever existed, and Shanghai was never in my blood, yet when I came back, a sad realization of "escape failed" caught me before I caught my breath.

I guess nothing you can ever possibly erase in life, this is how life works, especially in Shanghai.

I still leave the city, for nobody tangles my heart any more, yet I still come back, for what tangles me now becomes this city and its imprints in me.

Guess it finally worked its magic,

Thus,

For all of the fallen angels in this hallucinatory city,

and all of the piercing beauty glowing in this rosemary gold.

No more, that I could give,

and no less, that I could endure,

my heart sinks helplessly in Shanghai,

For this moment,

And forever.