Old Sailor

These old buildings in Heqing town caught my attention so I biked down this dead end alley. To my surprise an old man came out the next-door grain shop and spoke to me in broken English . He had sailed the world while in the navy from 1973-1987.
He then took me to the inner courtyard which is now being used as a warehouse. It once belonged to the Wu family (character was still on the steel door) but he fled to Taiwan in 1949. When I asked if Wu was a big landlord at one time, the man replied that he was a 流氓 (gangster).