May
22
2020
 

We now begin a series of posts, one a fortnight, from a young Irish citizen-journalist and poet recently back from China where he has lived for the past five years. He awaits his return.     I have been back in Ireland for about five weeks. I’m Irish, but I lived in China for about five years, in Shanghai and Suzhou. Suzhou is the capital of Jiangsu. Jiangsu is a province adjacent to Shanghai. Suzhou has ten million people. Shanghai has about twenty-five. No one would tell you that Jiangsu people sound like the Shanghainese, just a hundred kilometers away. They will tell you that Shanghai has its own language. But Shanghai has no province….