Night in Shanghai

For Ben and Luke

I reached the international city of Shanghai in July, with the sun beating down on the Bund, the harbor full of Chinese junks, foreign liners and warships from all over the world. It was hot as blazes. I didn’t know a soul in the city. But hardly had I climbed into a rickshaw than I saw riding in another along the Bund a Negro who looked exactly like a Harlemite. I stood up in my rickshaw and yelled, “Hey, man!”

He stood up in his rickshaw and yelled, “What ya sayin’?” We passed each other in the crowded street, and I never saw him again.

– Langston Hughes, I Wonder as I Wander

一寸光阴一寸金

寸金难买寸光阴

An inch of time is worth an inch of gold

An inch of gold cannot buy an inch of time

– Chinese adage