Even though the world is ending, the mundane can still be enjoyed with you.
This piece is inspired by my favourite song ever, Quruli’s 「琥珀色の街、上海蟹の朝」
It is actually my second time drawing something inspired by this song. I don’t know man but there is something about it that keeps pulling me back.
The whole song feels liminal. It is hip-hop, kind of, but not in a straightforward, conventional way. There are the synths, the snare, the keyboard arrangement, those vaguely Chinese spoken bits at the beginning, the Chinese-inspired motifs. Somehow it almagamates together into this strange nostalgic glow.
Not nostalgia for something I actually remember. More like… borrowed nostalgia. Prosthetic nostalgia. A 90s memory I never had. A city pop fantasy that is not really based on the silhouette of an actual concrete jungle, but on a dream of one. Something reality-shaped, but not quite real.
It feels like a city at the edge of something. Maybe the end of the world. Maybe the morning after. Maybe that tiny in-between moment before everything tips one way or the other.
And then there’s the crab.
I used to wonder why Shanghai crab. Why that image? Why that specific food for the song? Am I making this into a blue curtain moment for myself?
Then one day I saw a YouTube comment in Japanese that said something like:
They say that crab makes people go quiet, but I think true happiness is having someone you want to eat it with, someone you’re comfortable being silent with.
Just as the great literary figure Sōseki Natsume supposedly translated ‘I love you’ as ‘The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?’, maybe Quruli translated it as ‘I want to eat Shanghai crab with you.’
What beautiful lyrics.
And that hit me so hard because eating crab is messy. It’s awkward. It’s not elegant at all. You cannot really perform grace when you are desperately cracking shells and getting your hands dirty and trying to extract tiny bits of meat like your life depends on it.
It’s funny. It is kind of ugly. It is very real.
To eat crab with someone, you have to be comfortable enough to drop the act a little. You have to let yourself be seen in a way that is not polished or romantic in the usual sense. No dramatic confession. No perfect lighting. Just two people sitting across from each other, making a mess, going quiet, and still feeling close. Maybe that is why it feels so intimate, almost obscene.
For the setting, I wanted a kopitiam / hawker centre (Singaporeans and Malaysians will be very familiar with) because I love how alive these places feel. The colours are loud. The tables are orange. The drinks are too sweet and condensation too much due to the sweltering heat. There is perpetual steam, grease, noise, clashing signage, plastic cups, random aunties and uncles, and five different smells happening at once.
I also like the idea of placing this almost end-of-the-world tenderness somewhere so ordinary. Somewhere familiar. Somewhere you could actually sit down, order food, wipe your hands with tissue, and continue existing for a while.
Btw I have not drawn original artwork / OCs in such a long time, but these two have been living in my head pretty clearly. I actually have a whole setup for them already, so maybe I will draw more in the coming days if work permits
For now, they’re just here.
Eating crab together at the edge of the world.
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