This article focuses on Asian ghosts lingering in apartments in cities and explains them in three themes, including how they exist in contiguous community, how they relate to loneliness and isolation, and how they act as a representation of failure of macro goals. The author uses typical examples from different regions. The saying ‘we are the ghosts’ constantly occurs in the article. Besides talking about ghosts themselves, we, the human beings, are also the ‘living ghosts’, living in the ‘coffin-like’ apartments isolatedly and undertaking the burden due to some macro reasons like financial issues.
I feel the same for what author presents about loneliness. In apartments people live such a close distance to each other, but everyone is still distant to one another. Even though we can now easily find someone to talk to online, some people may still find themselves ‘internally paralysis’. “We” are lonely like ghosts, roaming in the society with regrets and confusion.
I am also impressed by the author’s way of focusing on apartment as a carrier due to its dense and transient feature. But at the same time, I am also wondering how other places in cities present ‘ghosts’. For instance, there are many horror stories happened in school. School is a place with crowds of people, typically the students. Are the ghosts there and the ghosts in apartments the same? Students are varying every year, and they haven’t been into the society. Would they hold more regrets so that they are more likely to roam the world?
Wang You
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