Shanghai Dreams

So far this week, I've had two very vivid & moving dreams featuring Shanghai scenery.

Dream #1 (Nightmare)
It is a typical dreary winter's night in Shanghai. I'm walking home along YuYuan Road from Jing'an Temple. It is really cold. There's ice/slush garnering the lesser used portions of the footpath & street. It is very late in the evening. I'm rugged up and moving as fast as the conditions allow. I'm walking along the road beside the gutter of the street as there's too much mud & puddles making walking on the footpath difficult.

No one is out, except me. An older Chinese man on a scooter sidles up beside me as I walk. He looks at me. I look at him.

He then says to me in English, "You're a statistical anomaly here".

He then pulls out a hand-gun and shoots me in the back. He scooters on off.

I fall bleeding. I lie there in the slush, yelling for help. No one comes.

Dream #2
I'm in a marketplace - I think it was a wet-market. There's an older Shanghainese guy there trying to sell me something at a really stupid inflated price. I object. I tell him that he's cheating me. Our 'discussion' soon degenerates into one of those classic Shanghai marketplace arguments replete with finger poking, nasty looks, and high volume yelling and swearing.

I had enough. I told him lets take it outside. He agrees.

I then teach him how to play Knuckles. We end up having fun, and our argument is resolved.

Now, we are new best friends.

Dream#1 kept up for hours earlier this week. I was pretty shaken. Dream#2 made me feel a lot happier, but still was a little disturbing as I hate playing Knuckles!