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Defining an undefinable intersection
By Liu Sijia |
January 30, 2013, Wednesday
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Print Edition
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OUR world likes to give names. Perhaps it's a bad habit. Maybe it's an inherited trait. The stop between Lujiazui and People's Square is Nanjing Road E. That small tasty bun is a xiaolongbao. And the building shaped like a bottle opener, that's the Shanghai World Financial Center.
Names are beautiful things, so sometimes I wonder what my world would name that intersection between the East and the West. That's where weathered marble buildings sit across from polished glass walls, where plastic Christmas trees and red lanterns coexist on the shelves, where bold peonies are sold next to delicate roses, where mornings begin at 6am to the sound of "Gangnam Style" mixed in with the thrill of an erhu.
Many hours and thoughtful contemplations later (often from the window of a Starbucks), I still don't know. But I do know this: our world likes names; it adores definitions. So do I. But like that intersection, so many meaningful things in life cannot be defined: laughter, passion, pain. But with or without names, with or without definition, they are the things that have defined our lives.
If I had to define this intersection, if I had to give it a name, it would be something like "Shanghai."
Names are beautiful things, so sometimes I wonder what my world would name that intersection between the East and the West. That's where weathered marble buildings sit across from polished glass walls, where plastic Christmas trees and red lanterns coexist on the shelves, where bold peonies are sold next to delicate roses, where mornings begin at 6am to the sound of "Gangnam Style" mixed in with the thrill of an erhu.
Many hours and thoughtful contemplations later (often from the window of a Starbucks), I still don't know. But I do know this: our world likes names; it adores definitions. So do I. But like that intersection, so many meaningful things in life cannot be defined: laughter, passion, pain. But with or without names, with or without definition, they are the things that have defined our lives.
If I had to define this intersection, if I had to give it a name, it would be something like "Shanghai."
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