As modern a city as Shanghai is, brooms seemed to be stuck in the Tang dynasty. Bamboo brooms were everywhere. I guess I shouldn’t tease, because the city was very clean. It was explained to me that the reason they use this style of broom is to keep the dust down – the idea isn’t so much to get things perfectly clean as it is to move leaves, rocks, and other things while not kicking up lots of dust. There’s enough stuff in the air without adding a bunch of dust…