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" Like most Shanghai residents who had lived through such sweeping historical changes, they regarded the Communist Party as unapproachable, and saw themselves as people left over from a previous era. Moreover, living in the heart of society, caught up in the swirl of everyday life, they barely had a chance to develop a coherent opinion of themselves, let alone grand concepts like "the nation" or "political power." They are not to be faulted for their narrow frame of reference, because a large city is like a huge machine that turns according to the principles dictated by its own structure; only its tiniest components have a human texture, and it is these tiny components that people hold on to, otherwise they would fall into the vacuum of abstraction. "
― Wang Anyi , The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai
