Cheryl Chen

Last week I was on a side street in Nakameguro, the one that smells like roasted sweet potato after six. The new café had improved the photograph more than the block. That is usually the piece. I grew up in Singapore, in a flat where the corridor light never quite matched the brochure, then spent a year in Taipei and another in a Neukölln sublet that faced a courtyard and a very punctual bin lorry. An index floats. A week does not.

Off the page I walk: Tokyo when the desk is there, Singapore when it is not. I sketch doorways I will not publish. I cook too much for one person and eat it over two days. Do not ask me for a top ten. I will tell you about the stairwell, the second bus, and whether the grocer is still open when you get home.

A ranking of cities is a claim about someone's Tuesday. The walk from the station. The month the heating fails in a Berlin winter you were told was mild. The rent that looked fine until you counted the transfers. You should leave able to like a street and still price the week. Pretty and livable are neighbours. They are not the same person. I keep a notebook of streets, not of scores.