{"id":47,"date":"2026-05-01T21:14:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T13:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.surgeonbay.com\/?p=47"},"modified":"2026-05-02T10:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T02:15:10","slug":"laomendong-night-may-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.surgeonbay.com\/?p=47","title":{"rendered":"Laomendong at Night: A May Day Stroll Through Nanjing&#8217;s Old Quarter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s something about Laomendong at night during the May Day holiday that&#8217;s hard to put into words \u2014 but I&#8217;ll try anyway.<\/p>\n<p>Near the entrance, I spotted a scene that stopped me. A young woman in a flowing <em>hanfu<\/em> \u2014 the traditional Chinese dress \u2014 was standing under a cascading wall of pink roses. The contrast was perfect: ancient costume against old brick walls, a phone camera in her companion&#8217;s hand capturing something that felt both timeless and completely modern. It&#8217;s a clich\u00e9 of Laomendong at this point \u2014 <em>hanfu<\/em> photos under the rose trellises \u2014 but seeing it in person, it still works. The roses are real, the enthusiasm is genuine, and for that split second, it&#8217;s beautiful.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.surgeonbay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/laomendong_1.jpg\" alt=\"Hanfu visitors under rose bushes at Laomendong\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;\" \/><figcaption>Hanfu under the roses \u2014 a timeless scene at Laomendong<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I turned onto Santiaoying \u2014 one of the oldest lanes in the area. This is where the lanterns are. Not the commercial LED kind, but the traditional hexagonal paper lanterns strung overhead in neat rows, glowing in warm reds and golds. The effect is transportive; for a moment you&#8217;re not in 2026 but in some earlier century when this lane was a bustling market street during festival season. The lanterns bobbed slightly in the evening breeze, casting shifting shadows on the grey brick walls.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.surgeonbay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/laomendong_4.jpg\" alt=\"Lanterns on Santiaoying Street\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;\" \/><figcaption>Traditional lanterns along Santiaoying<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Two theaters anchor the cultural life of Laomendong now. The first is <strong>Deyunshe<\/strong> \u2014 the famous <em>xiangsheng<\/em> (cross-talk comedy) troupe founded by Guo Degang. Its Nanjing branch sits in a beautifully restored Qing building, its entrance illuminated with a simple, tasteful sign. On holiday nights, the show is almost always sold out, and you can hear muffled laughter and applause from the street outside. It&#8217;s become a destination in itself \u2014 people come to Laomendong specifically for the Deyunshe show, then wander the alleys before or after.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.surgeonbay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/laomendong_5-1.jpg\" alt=\"Deyunshe at Laomendong\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;\" \/><figcaption>Deyunshe \u2014 the temple of cross-talk comedy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A few blocks away, the <strong>Mahua FunAge<\/strong> theater (<em>Kaixin Mahua<\/em>) offers a different flavor \u2014 modern sketch comedy and stage plays, fast-paced and irreverent. Where Deyunshe is tradition, Mahua is contemporary. The coexistence of the two, within walking distance of each other, says something about what Laomendong has become: a place where old and new don&#8217;t just coexist but thrive side by side.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.surgeonbay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/laomendong_6.jpg\" alt=\"Mahua FunAge theater at Laomendong\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;\" \/><figcaption>Kaixin Mahua \u2014 modern comedy meets ancient alleyways<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It&#8217;s not a museum. It&#8217;s a neighborhood that figured out how to stay alive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Six photos, one warm holiday evening \u2014 wandering the lantern-lit alleys of Laomendong in Nanjing during the May Day holiday, from hanfu under the roses to livestreamers on cobblestones, from Deyunshe to Kaixin Mahua.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-47","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tourism-and-local-travel","tag-supermicro"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.surgeonbay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.surgeonbay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.surgeonbay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.surgeonbay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.surgeonbay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.surgeonbay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50,"href":"https:\/\/blog.surgeonbay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions\/50"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.surgeonbay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.surgeonbay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.surgeonbay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}