October 2011

I said good night to a client and walked along Nanjing Road, Shanghai’s famed shopping street, where Louis Vuitton and Gap have their flagship stores in China. Glittering lights illuminated the evening skyline as I walked past bustling store after bustling store. Shoppers were in a festive mood, almost as if it were Christmas and the world were not stuck in a global financial crisis, as they toted paper bags brimming with newly bought goodies. The scent of roasting chestnuts wafted to my nose.

As I made my way home, I was stopped by a woman yelling “Hey, handsome!” at me. I paused and looked at her. Her faced was caked with makeup that bunched up on the crags lining her face. Unlike that perky young teenager who had knocked on my hotel room door in Changchun and who easily could have been a cover model for Teen Vogue, this woman would fit better in a morticians’ magazine. The aged woman told me what 100 bucks would get me and smiled a toothless grin. I shuddered and kept walking.

I glanced backward and saw the woman scurrying away to look for her next mark. China has really changed since that night in the dingy, grubby hotel room in Changchun 13 years before.