I always wondered about the business models behind the tiny stores aligning the streets in Shanghai’s old neighborhood.

Most of these stores are literally holds in the wall, probably three meters wide, six meters deep. Some of them has the space above the two-meter mark built up as sleeping area. The fancier ones has glass window fronts with doors, the less fancy ones, like the ones near my apartment, has the whole interior open to the street, while the sidewalk becomes the extension of the stores.

Of the stores aligning my block of the street, three of them are fruit stands. One of them sells a variety of fruits all year around, which makes a lot of sense; another sells only watermellon - it is easy to tell because there is nothing but a pile of watermellon in it this summer; the third one sells only one kind of fruit too, but it changes. It was Wuxi peach for a while, then the peach was replaced by watermellon, now it is selling grapes.

Two stores are hardware stores. They seem to sell the same stuff, which are everything you can think of needed in a household. Mouse trap, mosquito net, paint, concrete power, wires. They’d refer to each other if one of them don’t have what you need, in the rare cases. However, neiter of them sells the filters for air conditioners though. I had to go to the air conditioner reparing shop between them for that. That shop however, don’t have filters to sell either. They don’t look like they are selling anything as all. As far as I can tell, every time I pass by, there are nothing but four young guys playing cards.

Other than fruit stands and hardware stores, we’ve got a man’s shoe stand selling old-fashioned leather shoes, a Kiti specialty store selling pencils, bags, and other little girly things with the Kitti face on, a clothing store selling clothes styled from 1980s, a store making wraths for dead people, a DVD store that sells pirated as well as non-pirated version of DVD movies, a specialty food store selling flavored cooked duck neck. Two stores right across from each other are copy-and-printing shops. Old computer, old copier and old printer. I’ve never seen customers in the store. When i used them, it would almost be a big deal. The lady inside would insist doing the photocopies for me, but left thick folding marks on my documents while unfolding them.

The largest and the most successful store on the block is the bicycle shop right outside our gate. Hundreds of bicycles aligned tidily in the space three or four times bigger than the regular store width. The bicycles include both old-fashioned Chinese brand such as Flying Pigeon and Revolution, but also mountain bikes and city bikes with foreigh brands such as Giant. The backwalls are filled with big advertisement posters with bright colors and modern logans. A lot of times one would see someone get their bicycle fixed, or have a new bicycle assembled. An old guy and a young lad around twenty keep the store. Both of them can play guitars. At times when the business is quiet, they’d play with the guitar. The young one has an electric guitar.

Selling or not selling, store owners hold a life. They don’t really close the store, many stores open till late, store keepers’ personal life just spread when meal times come. Late afternoon, vegetables and meats are being washed, peered and chopped. Usually one or two woman would be there preparing, and the rest people, guys and children would sit around on the sidewalk and watch. I watch them too on my way to the farmer’s market. The dishes they prepared always look so delicious, and they always seem to know what is the best vegetable of the day. So on the days I buy and cook, I watch and see what they are cooking, then i try to buy and make the same thing.

After dinner, when we take our after-dinner walk, their dinner was done a while ago, but people are still sitting around the folding table on the sidewalk, sometimes with the leftover dishes still on it. The TV stacked in a corner are always on. Rarely anyone would focus on it though. Of course the world cup is an exception.

There used to be a hot spicy noodle place at the corner of the next block. A few months ago, that block was totally torn down and now it is under construction for the No. 10 line subway station. Our side of the block, may escape the torning down. But across the street, construction stairs started to be set up.

(To be continued)

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