A glimpse of Shanghai’s culture

I knew autumn had finally come to Shanghai when a large leaf hit me in the face as I was walking down the road last week.

I say ‘finally’ because this summer, lasting 157 days, was the longest (and hottest) since records began, which explains the humid heat that continued until last Monday. Then a cold spell passed through, so sudden that it felled five of the seven writers taking part in this residency, but in our defence, we have been a busy lot these last two months.

At the end of September, as guests of the Shanghai Daily, we travelled to Wujiang to take part in a televised panel discussion on the theme of “Hometown” — a challenging concept for a bunch of rootless writers — and to visit the old water town of Tongli.