Monday, September 29, 2014

Drawer # 5.4: Tian Ai Lu or Sweet Love Street








He-Whom-I'm-Trailing and I, we live off of Sweet Love St. 


Despite the maniacal buses that are its main traffic, Sweet Love Street is really a very Sweet Street. Unlike the average Shanghai street, lined with London plane trees, Sweet Love Street is lined with super tall super straight cedars. And while it's true that Sweet Love Street is made up mostly of walls separating the street from the adjacent living lanes, the walls are adorned with marble plaques inscribed with the love quotes of Pushkin & Goethe & Tagore. There are typos in the inscriptions.... Poor Yeats "loved the sorrow of your chang in gface" and some dubious choices... "whereso'er I am, below or else above you..." but still, you can't help but feel the sweetness as you walk back from the local Starbucks, hand-in-hand, on another lovely Sunday afternoon along Sweet Love Street. 

But maybe the sweetest thing about Sweet Love Street is the postbox at the end of the street. Local lore has it is that should you post a letter to your love from that Sweet Love Street postbox, it will get postmarked with a heart stamp. Fact checking online, it sounds a little more complicated: you have to go to the guard house of a lane several blocks away where the guard will stamp it for you...or maybe it's at the p.o. in the park but then only for "special anniversaries." Like love, I guess, a little complicated...

Be that as it may. Today, it's seven years since He-Whom-I'm-Trailing & I got hitched so I've pulled out the drawer whose theme is wedding favors. We end up with piles of them whether we go to weddings or not. They are always cheap & tacky & therefore, somewhat irresistible to me & so a few just had to end up in the cabinet. And Double Happiness cigarettes: always a must at weddings...

And finally, that little red rectangle of traditional wedding fabric, it's a flip book. From our very own wedding, the dress rehearsal for our first dance, which looked a little something like this:




Post done, I'm off to Sweet Love Street. After all these years, I'm going to test that mailbox...if my love note does indeed come back to my love with a love stamp, I'll add it as a Curiosity!


Drawer #5.4  From top 1. Two Googley-Eyed Cow packets containing chocolate 2.Double Happiness brand cigarettes, double happiness matches & Elephant matches with a Made in China image on the liner beneath 3. Sequin-covered heart wedding favors 4. Flipbook of artist's wedding dance with traditional wedding fabric patterned cover. Photo credit full drawer: Bruno David; all others: me.

For related drawers, check out Drawer 3.2 & Drawer 5.6.

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