Shanghai, May Day holiday

Qingdao, P.R. China
05.07.2007

Shanghai was packed on the May day holiday. Below is a photo of a streetscene that I took because I could not move through all of the people.


The above two photos are of cricket fighters picking out champion insects. Cricket fighting is still a time-honed pastime……and a reason to gamble! The Chinese like their gambling. So I was walking around the market and could not help but to notice all of these guys who were intensely studying and discussing crickets. They were feeling their legs for strength, checking out how far they could jump, and just about anything else that would show the vitality of the little buggers. I have yet to witness a real cricket fight, but from the looks of how intensely these fellers were selecting their champions it is probably a pretty intense event.
Shanghai backstreet vegtable vendor.

One thing about Shanghai that I liked, and perhaps one of the only things that I actually liked, were the little alleys and byways that run inbetween the post-industrial highrises. They are still made of wood, on the ground, and poor. Which makes me realize how odd it is that probably close to a billion people in China live in the sky. High high up in highrises is where the people of the worlds most populated country live. It is really disconcerting to walk amongst the endless sprawl of sky homes. It just doesn’t sit too well with the human insticts.