By Amy T.Y. Lai

1. After the ship got detained for two days somewhere off the foggy port, I found myself strapped several stories above one of the busiest districts of Shanghai, and saw for the first time how the old and the new were juxtaposed, and how the rich and the poor were proximal to and overlapped each other. Luncheon at the Suzhou Creek Art Centre turned out to be a déjà vu experience, owing to the images of the city retrieved not only from my Chinese dreams, but also from countless writers like Wang Anyi and Wei Hui. (Photo taken out of the window of the Suzhou Creek Kitchen.)

2. Yet the old somehow got mingled with the new too. At the Shikumen Open House Museum of Xintiandi (a.k.a. New Heaven and Earth), I walked from room to room, overwhelmed by a nostalgia constructed and artificial, that nonetheless urged me to imagine what the life of a woman was like in early twentieth-century Shanghai. It was the age of foreign concessions – an age so remote, yet so peculiarly intimate to the one in which we are living, owing to efforts of the nation to resurrect the glamorous and infamous period for the sake of progress.

3. The fact that one was far from the ship and the source of seasickness did not stop the vertigo …. That was how you feel when you get reflective and lose track of time past and present. (Both this and the previous photo were taken at the Open House Museum of Xintiandi.)

4. Such dizziness nonetheless made me all the more eager to see the world and to expect every new stop along our voyage. One evening, while we were back on the ship having a meeting, we found the sunset so stunning that we decided to take a break and celebrate – some went to the bar for champagne, while others rushed to the cabins for their cameras. I should have gone to the deck for an even clearer picture of the redness that seemed almost magical. Yet it had not yet dawned on me that every sunset was different and it would be worth the effort to snap a picture of every single one. (Photo taken at the window of the staff lounge.)

5. I often sat alone at night, musing on the day when the party came to an end. I sought refuge in art, trying desperately to capture the moment in writing; failing to do that, I turned to the sea. People came and went away: as light faded and shadows flitted past, I found peace gazing at the horizon, and expected the steady rocking of the ship to lull me to sleep. (Photo taken on the aft deck on one of the last days of the whole voyage.)

_____