![]() Sometimes a middle-aged woman appears on a balcony, yelling in Cantonese at someone in her family to return for dinner. All its balconies are covered with laundry and flowers such as roses, chrysanthemums, lilies and hibiscus - Cantonese people like flowers and arrange them well, often in window boxes that decorate the streets and houses, bringing a little gentle beauty to the cityscape. Across the alley is another identical apartment block. I could have lived in the more modern Tianhe District like most of my friends but I like the narrow cobblestone alley in front of the building, where old people gather in the late afternoons under a spreading banyan tree to play mahjong or sing Cantonese opera. I know her apartment building, like other shabby two- to three-storey buildings in the neighbourhood, will be torn down and replaced by another high-rise in less than a year. The landlord wants me to sign a one-year lease, but I have only agreed to a six-month term. Mine is on the top but the view is blocked by a forest of half-built commercial high-rises. The greyish building, stuccoed, slanting slightly to the right, is a conversion from a single-family house owned by a grocery store proprietor - now the landlord - and has six units. After my marriage ends I move to a one-bedroom apartment five blocks from the university where I studied twelve years ago. ![]()
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