Tanghulu

Shanghai on New Year's Eve—streets glowing with red lanterns, alive with music and firecrackers, a tide of voices rising into the cold night air. In the middle of the crowd, she moved slowly, letting the sparks of colour and sound ripple through her. Then she noticed them: children gathered around a street stall, eyes wide, hands reaching eagerly for glossy red fruit. Tanghulu. Their laughter rose above the crowd, sweet as the glazed fruit itself.

Drawn in by their delight, she reached for one of her own. The air was rich with its festive aroma as she took a curious bite. The sugar shell cracked, releasing a taste at once celebratory and new, yet strangely familiar—like coming home to a place you didn't know you had missed.

Just then, fireworks lit the sky. Tanghulu in hand, her eyes mirrored the bursts of colour above. For a breathless instant, she was small again: wide-eyed, dazzled, the world suddenly enormous and new. The mingling scents of melting sugar and drifting smoke etched the moment deep within her, one she knew would return to her again and again.