It was raining through the night, but now it had stopped a few men were arriving at the stream that, through the little park on the outskirts, passed them. Jun waved towards the trees, pavilions and the autumn leaves that carpeted the grass, telling me everything looked better when the sun was shining.
The stream broadened as we walked alongside until it flowed into the Yangtse river, where flat-bottomed barges carried their cargo west towards Shanghai or eastwards to Nanjing and other cities beyond. Through the mist, we could see the bridge spanning more than a kilometre across the river to Nantong, until just over a decade ago the longest in the world.
Past an abandoned anchor, we stepped on to a narrow pier, its flagstones broken and crooked with a loudspeaker strapped to a pole halfway along telling us that the water was dangerous, not to swim there and to turn back now. Taking no notice, we tiptoed to the end of the pier, from where Jun pointed out the old ferry port left redundant by the bridge to Nantong and the island that gave the best sunset view.
They gave my father a plot to build a house and some money, but not enough to cover the cost of building it
“I have to get out of this place,” he said.
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Since we met a few months ago in a barbershop in Shanghai, Jun and I kept in touch from time to time on WeChat and when I was nearby this week, he suggested I visit him in his hometown. A personal fitness trainer, he had lost most of his clients when many foreigners fled the city during Covid and now in his mid-40s, had to move back to Changshu to live with his parents.
They had been farmers for generations and Jun grew up on the land in a modest house his father built, with no neighbours nearby. But 14 years ago the government built a road across their land and told them to move into a residential quarter in the town.
“They gave my father a plot to build a house and some money, but not enough to cover the cost of building it,” Jun said.
They also retained a plot of farming land where his father, now 76, continues to grow “sweet potatoes, carrots, all kinds of beans, everything”. Jun’s mother, who is 75, works every day as a cleaner in an indoor market where she earns RMB2,000 (€262) a month, supplementing her old-age pension of RMB1,300 (€170) a month.
While they ate, a woman in a three-quarter length, brown, Crombie-style coat with a yellow scarf walked up and down with a microphone in one hand and a portable speaker
They were not happy to move off the land and they are so close to the neighbours’ houses now that they can’t avoid looking into each other’s windows. But the neighbourhood has become a community, bound together by rituals and social obligations exemplified by a funeral that was in progress while I was there.
The entire neighbourhood was invited to take part in three days of mourning including three meals each day served by caterers in a tent outside the home of the deceased, who was 92. It was so cold that everyone had their coats on as they ate their meals perched on red plastic stools around circular tables.
While they ate, a woman in a three-quarter length, brown, Crombie-style coat with a yellow scarf walked up and down with a microphone in one hand and a portable speaker. She delivered encomiums to the deceased, interspersed with mournful songs from various genres.
“It’s terrible, like karaoke,” Jun said.
“It’s much better the way you do it, just the family there, all wearing black suits looking sad.”
I told him that Irish funerals were not quite like that but agreed they were almost austere in comparison to his neighbour’s, which cost RMB200,000 (€26,250). There was a similar spread a month ago when another neighbour died at the age of 83, survived by his father who is a spry 103.
Jun said his mother is happy to have him at home because she likes seeing him every day and he helps out, keeping the house clean and cooking for his parents when they come home from work. But his father spends much of his time complaining, not so much about Jun as about his older sister, who is also living at home.
Jun’s parents keep separate bank accounts and his mother pays for the electricity and water while his father covers the gas bill
“Every family has its problems. We have my sister,” he said.
After 17 unhappy years of marriage, she divorced her husband 10 years ago and took custody of their daughter, who is now at university in Suzhou. But she did not seek any financial support from her husband, something that riles her father to this day and which he throws back at her every time they argue.
Jun’s parents keep separate bank accounts and his mother pays for the electricity and water while his father covers the gas bill. They never turn on the heating and although Jun, accustomed to the comforts of Shanghai, feels the cold, he prefers to shiver in his room at night.
“I’ll try to move back to Shanghai next year and get some kind of job there,” he said.
“It’s not good for me to be here and it’s not good for my parents. They have their own life here but I have none, no friends, nothing.”