Langston Hughes in Shanghai, 1933
Posted: February 4th, 2017 | No Comments »The poet, playwright, memoirist and activist Langston Hughes was born this week in 1902. In 1933 he spent three weeks in Shanghai – wandered the city, met some poets, took in the Canidrome Ballroom and recalled his arrival in the city in his memoir I Wonder as I Wander…
I reached the international city of Shanghai in July, with the sun beating down on the Bund, the harbor full of Chinese junks, foreign liners and
warships from all over the world. It was hot as blazes. I didn’t know a soul in the city. But hardly had I climbed into a rickshaw than I saw riding in another along the Bund a Negro who looked exactly like a Harlemite. I stood up in my rickshaw and yelled, “Hey, man!†He stood up in his rickshaw and yelled, “What ya sayin’?†We passed each other in the crowded street and I never saw him again.
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