In old days, much of life was lived in public, from socializing to bathing and cooking. Photo by Gao Erqiang/Shanghai Star

Families usually gathered at home to avoid the cold outside. Adults smoked and chatted or played poker. For a long time, when I read about family happiness, I always visualized a picture of a small house, grey smoke and some vague figures puffing on pipes and sipping tea.

But children still liked to stay outside despite the freezing cold giving almost every kid a runny nose. Sometimes, when we were aimlessly running along the lanes, the cold air would carry a light sweetness and everybody would let out a big cheer — the old man selling baked sweet potatoes was coming. The baked sweet potatoes, which everybody knew was the best snack in winter, would lie in a big iron bucket. The heat from the potatoes would made your hands warm. To eat, you would have to peel off the dirty skin, the red and golden potato flesh steaming in the cold air. A big bite would be hard to swallow as it was so hot, but its sweetness seduced you to eat quickly.

Beside the old man’s huge sweet potato bucket, there would be an old woman with a small oven boiling tea eggs. The smell of eggs stewed with tea leaves and various spices posed a dilemma: which one to choose? As most of the children's parents' salary was 20 yuan, no one's pocket could go deep enough for both.