In the morning vendors would call out, selling hand-wrapped wontons in the alley. Sometimes our grandfather would take us to the eatery at the door of the alley for tasty hand-pulled noodles for breakfast. The noodle master made balls of dough on an aluminum table and stretched his arms repeatedly until the balls became countless thin noodles.

The stairs in the house were curved and the old wood creaked as you trod on them. I carried my small bicycle up and down the stairs and the elderly man living on the first floor always gave me a hand. His granddaughter was what in those days was called an air hostess, which was rare and a source of pride back then.

On the day the beautiful air hostess married a Caucasian, a long black Lincoln car stopped at the entrance of the alley. Both the Caucasian and the luxury car attracted crowds as both were rare in those days.

I loved to sit on the balcony and squat down to watch the ants. I placed small pieces of fruit on the ground and would watch as a giant ant led the rest of the ants to pick up food and the small ones would form a troop and carry the food two by two to their holes.

Of course, Shanghai was a lot smaller in those days, before urban expansion. People bought breakfast at one end of the alley and went to the barber shop at the other end in the afternoon. It seemed that in this very small universe anything you could possibly want was there for the taking.