Location location

Beidang Road

Luxuriously fancy, ten miles of grand foreign shopping
Stone-paved wide flat-even road named Petain
Green trees, red walls hangout happy clubs
Dark-green ivy, jade-color shingled gospel houses
Signs turn sideways, horizontal words
People's language ee-ya-sounds, upside-down voice
This Zhina truly is Chinese territory
But could it be that I am in France?

This was the French Quarter's most modern road. Both sides of the street had residential and commercial buildings. All the architecture was in the most fashionable style and Western. Having grown up in a rural area, when I saw it I was so impressed; such a startling contrast to my roots.

Notes:
- most roads were dirt, unpaved, and bumpy
- a gospel house is a church
- signs in China are vertical; horizontal has a double meaning of ruthless (lying vs upright)
- Beidang is a homophone for a French person, a street in the French Concession in Shanghai. It is now called Hengshan Lu.

1985 before mid-autumn festival. My church sister had a dinner party to bid farewell to another sister Yao. I wrote three poems to bid her goodbye.

1.
Mid-autumn upon us, farewell table set
Close sisters sung poems for several years
From now on, this literary altar will see no more generations
Every holiday, I'll think on our friendship multiplied

2. 
Return home, lo, happy to enjoy your family
Ought to sing more in your home and garden
Spring flowers, autumn moon form a pleasant phrase
Far-off, send new poems, a neighborly consolation

3.
Every year we plan to celebrate together
Tonight's moonlight looks rather shy
I was known for my sad emotional goodbyes
Disdain this glass of wine and talk of departure

On mid-autumn festival, Miss Ying, Miss Ming, Miss Jun (my grandma) wrote this together.