An Eight-Yuan Lunch: Midday at the Community Canteen Old Neighbors Call Their Living Room
On Wenxi Road in Shanghai's Pengpu New Village, the senior community canteen is in its seventh year. Chef Yan, 62, pounds each pork cutlet forty-five times before it hits the wok; Gu Baogen, 80 and widowed, takes his window seat at 11:15 sharp; by 10:30 a row of folding stools already waits by the door. Eight yuan buys one meat, two vegetables, soup and all the rice you can eat — old neighbors eat here, celebrate birthdays here, and are remembered here by name and by what they cannot eat. It has become their living room.
