The main character of Vadim Chekunov's novel “Shanghai” teaches Russian at one of the Shanghai universities. What remains in the Russian past are: the explosion at Kashirka, after which the hero made the final decision to leave Russia, his beloved and hateful ex-wife and the entire Russian culture as a whole, the appeals to which the novel is filled with. He is a Russian “angry writer” of the beginning of the new century, “ angry." He is not satisfied with the new world of Russian reality, because there is nothing worthwhile and sincere here, everything is disgusting and false to varying degrees. The hero is uncommunicative, withdrawn, petty, suspicious, aggressive when hungover and pathologically deceitful from early childhood; Along with this, he can be cheeky, infantile, sentimental and prone to mental exhibitionism. Such a romantic bastard. And suddenly, by an unexpected gift from heaven, love comes into the life of the bastard for a young Chinese girl, in a dress of red silk, with wasps, flowers and dragons embroidered in gold. Love, which is as beautiful as life and inevitable as death... The theme of death - future, inevitable - is constantly present in the text, starting from the explosion on the Kashirskoye Highway and ending with the terrible earthquake in Sichuan. From Shanghai travel notes, the author created a confessional novel about life and love of a little Russian person abroad.