Chapter XV: A Page From the Story of Protestant (2)

In the French Concession, the avenue formerly called “Paul Brunat,” after the first French Consul, but since the outbreak of the war changed to Avenue Joffre, vies with Bubbling Well Road in the elegance of its residences, which some prefer because of their more varied style of architecture. Being a newer thoroughfare, this avenue lacks in a measure the abundant shade trees and fine old gardens which are among the chief attractions of Bubbling Well Road. It is frequently pointed out to strangers as one of the few long roads in Shanghai which is also a straight one, running most of its entire length of between two and three miles with scarcely a jog.

The “tenderloin” district centres about Nanking and Foochow Roads. The latter is a narrow street with nothing at first sight to arrest the attention, but men shake their heads at the mention of it and women avoid it if possible. Its mark of distinction is the number and character of its tea-houses. They are entered directly from the street. A wide staircase leads to the restaurant which occupies the second story, the ground floor being used for business. Along the front of the building and on the side as well, if it happens to be on a corner, runs a narrow veranda, a much-sought-for gathering place in mild weather, where idlers can chat and sip their tea or wine while enjoying a view of all that is going on in the street below. The tea-houses, often richly furnished with carved black-wood from the south, are practically deserted till the latter part of the afternoon, when a few loungers make their appearance. But it is at night that the crowds pour in. Then the tables fill up, Chinese musicians rend the air with what to foreign ears seems a riot of discord and by nine or ten o’clock everything is in full swing. In and out among the square tables, filling the brilliantly lighted rooms, trail slowly little processions of young girls. Nearly all are pretty and very young. Clad in silk or satin, adorned with jewelry, their faces unnatural with paint and powder, they follow the lead of the woman in charge of each group. She stops often to draw attention ingratiatingly to her charges and expatiate on their good points. When one is chosen she leaves her to her fate and passes on to dispose of others. Multitudes of victims, innocent of any voluntary wrong, having been sold into this slavery when too young to resist and not uncommonly in babyhood, are kept up hour after hour in the close atmosphere of the tea-room awaiting the pleasure of their prospective seducers. Out on the street, by ricsha and on foot, women continue to hurry to the tea-houses with their living merchandise, and still they keep arriving till the night is far advanced and business at a stand-still.

Opposite the Public Gardens, where Soochow Creek empties into the river, stand three consulates in close proximity, with their nation’s flag floating in the breeze from the flagpole. They represent Japan, America, and Germany, other Consulates occupying roomy mansions on Bubbling Well Road. The new Russian Consulate that is being built next to the German will soon be completed and add considerably to the sightliness of the river front. Across the street on the corner of Broadway stands the Astor House, the oldest hostelry in Shanghai. This district, once a part of the American Concession and now known as “Hongkew,” does not bear a very fair reputation, though some of the best families still reside within its boundaries. But nothing can be said in disparagement of Hongkew Market, by far the largest and best in the city. Housekeepers on Bubbling Well Road, miles distant, have been known on occasion to send their cooks to the Hongkew market and bewail the fact that they could not go every day. What Covent Garden Market is to London this market is to Shanghai. The saying, that one of the quickest ways of getting acquainted with a city is to visit its markets, is singularly applicable here. An hour or two spent in the early morning walking, or edging one’s way through the noisy square where all nationalities congregate, is worth an entire guide-book of ordinary information. The market covers a whole block, has cement floors and wooden pillars holding up the tiled roof, running water for keeping fresh the fish and vegetables, clean stalls, and very decent people in charge of them. The women are not as numerous as the men but they manage to make their presence felt, and discuss prices and provender in shrill voices that rise above the din and tumult of the multitudes. Vendors without stalls line the sidewalks, squatting close by their baskets, and between sales sip tea or gulp down hot rice and bean curd with well-worn chop-sticks. The money-changers’ tables, protected by a strong net-work of wire, dot the place here and there, for “small money” is always a necessity, the big heavy coppers and “cash” being most in evidence.

Yangtsepoo Road, meaning Poplar-Tree-Shore Road, is a continuation of Broadway, and as it is chiefly a street of mills, stands rather low in the social scale. It runs parallel with the river and should have been a residential avenue, the most beautiful in Shanghai, but somehow the mills got there first and then there was no help for it, although the fresh breezes and fine outlook are lost on the tired mill hands shut up behind brick walls from dawn to dawn.

One of the best known streets in the city and one of the longest, although it lays claim to no other distinction, is Szechuen Road. It starts at the Chinese city, changing at Soochow Creek to North Szechuen Road, then to North Szechuen Road Extension, and pursues its devious way northward far beyond Hongkew Public Park, which by the way is not in Hongkew at all. This park of forty-five acres is the largest in Shanghai, and a genuine godsend to foreigners remaining in the city during the summer. Those living in the neighbourhood seek it in the early morning and late afternoon for golf and tennis, securing the exercise so necessary to health in this Eastern climate, and from far and near people resort there in the evening to rest and listen to the band play. Along its northern end, outside the limits of the International Settlement, Szechuen Road winds back and forth like a corkscrew. Some say it follows an old buffalo path, but most agree that the road’s meanderings are due to the unwillingness of the original Chinese property owners to sell their land, since to do so might affect their “good luck.” Perhaps some old graves blocked the way, and albeit no one living cherished any sentiment regarding them, still they must not be removed for fear of offending the spirits of the dead. Or possibly the terrible dragon inhabiting the nether regions in this vicinity would resent an innovation like a paved road above his domains, and naturally it would never do to arouse his ire. Hence the road-builders were obliged to let the street follow the line it could and not the one of their preference. Apropos of the superstitious fear aroused in the minds of the common people by the building operations of foreigners, the case of the Methodist chapel in the French Concession is a good illustration. When this mission church was erected many years ago, the Chinese in the neighbourhood were thrown into a state of great consternation. What would their outraged tutelary deities say and do now? How could they escape the afflictions that unquestionably would be visited upon them by the evil spirits hovering about the foreign worship house? But necessity is the mother of invention, and the terrified residents at last hit upon a happy ruse to deceive the inimical spirits which seemed to be efficacious. Any one visiting that corner to-day may see on the roof of the house just across the road from the chapel two bottles with long necks pointing toward it. The bottles represent cannon which, as the most stupid spirit may guess, are likely to belch forth fire and destruction the moment that so much as a threatening glance is cast that way!

Many of the most travelled thoroughfares in Shanghai are inconveniently narrow, and in addition have scarcely any sidewalk, so that it is necessary for pedestrians to use the road. Yet the early settlers who laid out the Foreign Settlement almost quarrelled among themselves over what seemed to some an altogether unnecessary width of twenty-five feet allowed for the streets. As for sidewalks they were apparently not taken into consideration at all. The Municipal Council has now decreed that whenever a building that abuts on the street is torn down, the new one, at whatever sacrifice, must be put back several feet. This law, which is strictly enforced, is gradually working a vast improvement in the appearance and comfort of the city. All the Shanghai streets inside the foreign settlements are paved. A large number of them are macadamized, though it has been found that in the purely Chinese districts, chip paving on a bed of concrete and tar is more suitable and economical. Road repairing is constantly going on, for as the soil is alluvial, the innumerable heavy wheelbarrows and trucks cause rapid deterioration. Several of the streets, notably the Bund and Nanking Road, have received what promises to be a permanent paving, consisting of wood and lithofelt blocks on a foundation of concrete. If the public funds were sufficient to treat all the streets in the same way it would be a boon to the city and a matter of rejoicing to the populace.

It is surprising how muddy and disagreeable the streets become after only a few hours’ rain, while actual floods in the low-lying sections accompany a downpour, and this in spite of the excellent sewers. It is equally interesting to note how quickly the streets dry. Almost as soon as the rain stops the water-sprinkler is out laying the dust. The Municipal street sweepers are always busy. They wear for uniform a bright red cotton jacket showing below it their faded blue trousers, and a wide-brimmed straw hat with a broad red cotton band, both band and jacket stamped with three large letters, S.M.C. (Shanghai Municipal Council). Each one is furnished with a bamboo dustpan and a small reed broom with which he ploddingly sweeps up the detritus. This débris is not wasted. Indeed in China scarcely anything is thrown away, and besides, there is no place to throw it, since all the ground is sown with crops. The Foreign Municipality utilizes the street sweepings either for fertilization or in raising low land. And right here the creeks which intersect Shanghai prove their usefulness, for the refuse is dumped from zinc-lined carts onto native boats and poled along at little expense to the place where it is needed. Shanghai could hardly do without its tidal creeks, offensive as they often are when the tide is out.

Shanghai is nothing if not a city of contrasts. Right among the elegant homes, club-houses, and private hotels on exclusive Bubbling Well Road squat the insignificant shops of “the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker.” In front of its fashionable gardens pass fantastic idol processions, displaying as one of their prominent devices mammoth paper dragons, of variegated colours, whose opening and closing jaws and writhing scaly bodies, manipulated with cunning art by men carrying them, are gruesomely realistic. In the busiest section of Nanking Road an inconspicuous passageway leads a few yards back to a grimy Buddhist temple that seems as far apart from the hurrying crowds and bustle of street traffic outside as if it were on another planet. An occasional worshiper slips in to bow before the blackened altar, where red wax candles drip grease and incense wafers are forever smouldering. In a side room, gloomy as the entrance to Dante’s Inferno, are seated tiers of black idols streaked with gilding and paint. They are a repulsive sight and one turns with relief to the living shaven-headed priests in dull grey gowns lolling about the court.

The most modernized Shanghai thoroughfares sometimes witness quaint scenes. The following was described by an eye-witness: An old Chinese woman, with all her winter padding on, tried to cross a down-town street through the maze of traffic. Ten yards or so from the pavement an electric tram car caught her full in the chest and propelled her neatly on to the further track, where another car caught her in the back. The second car pushed her staggering under the feet of a ricsha coolie drawing a Chinese cook home from market with a load of vegetables, a ham and two live ducks. By the time the old lady had disentangled a flapping duck from her elaborate headdress and the coolie had wiped the ham clean with his dirty sleeve, all the traffic of motor-cars, wheelbarrows, and broughams had been held up, and it took some minutes more of hard work to get the innocent cause of the trouble safely back to the spot from which she started.

There is a law prohibiting beggars from invading the Foreign Settlement, but the law is lax and beggars--the maimed, the halt, and the blind--are all too numerous. Parents often mutilate their young children or twist their little bodies out of shape by confining them in a deep earthen vessel, intended to hold water, in order to make them successful beggars. Yet the blind eyes can many times see, and the poverty-stricken frequently have stowed away snug little sums of money, quite sufficient to keep them in comfort the rest of their lives. Begging in Shanghai is a profession, like any other, and there are beggars’ guilds and beggars’ camps where the tribes congregate. To watch them about five or six at night, trooping home to their mat sheds, with the day’s earnings securely stowed away on their dirty persons, is something to be remembered. Formerly there was a Beggar King, a regal sort of personage in spite of his rags, who with a band of associates made laws, adjudged cases, etc., but of late years the organization has been less complete. Foreigners as a rule do not make a practice of dispensing charity on the street. A certain benevolently minded individual, however, on arriving in Shanghai decided that it was his duty never to refuse to give alms. It soon fell out in consequence that he scarcely dared venture away from his own dooryard, and life became a burden until he had wrought a complete change in his habits.

The majority of the Chinese people in the Foreign Settlement live in lanes that lead off at right angles from the highways. Only fifteen or twenty feet wide, they are not open to vehicle traffic, being paved with cement, and are squalid or measurably clean according to the locality and the community inhabiting them. The houses are almost precisely alike, except that some have two living rooms, one above the other, and some have four, with several very small ones at the back. In front is a tiny open court shut in by a cement wall reaching to the second story. Through a wide double door in this wall, which wall, while it protects, also keeps out light and air, the house is entered. The long line of connecting tiled roofs terminates at each end in the graceful, upturned gables the Chinese love so well. Crude handpainting and handcarved woodwork usually decorate the poorest of Chinese houses. The rental averages about fifteen dollars a month. Looking down one of these long alley-ways, that resemble good-sized cracks in the main thoroughfares, the effect is decidedly sombre, for the grey outside walls conceal the house fronts and the little courts, often made homelike and attractive with palms and flowering plants. It is the human element that saves from utter ugliness these populous alleys, which throb with life, but generally such a restless, high-pitched, uncontrolled life, that the better class of Chinese complain of the noise, and most foreigners would find them impossible places of residence.

IV

THE LURE OF THE SHOPS

Once upon a time an American missionary came to China with ten pairs of boots, enough to last till the period of furlough. As he was going into the interior it was doubtless a wise provision, although leather deteriorates rapidly during the “rainy season.” Until quite recently, foreigners living away from the coast depended for goods of foreign manufacture altogether on the home market. Now they are more and more sending to Shanghai for supplies, and people in Shanghai seldom send abroad for anything. A lover of London once remarked enthusiastically, “It is a storehouse of treasures, for what it does not possess in the original it has in casts.” So one may say of Shanghai, “What it doesn’t import it copies.” And the Chinese are wonderful adepts at copying. Take a woman’s tailor, for instance. Show him a picture in a fashion book (many of them subscribe themselves for fashion books), and he will evolve something, which if not an exact reproduction, comes incredibly near it. Shanghai has four foreign department stores, all on Nanking Road, and all under English management. They are especially popular with the women. Then there are numerous lesser lights, of various nationalities, most of them located on or near Nanking Road, though Broadway has its share. An Anglo-American Walkover shoe store is a boon, especially to resident Yankees. Several Parisian shops display behind plate glass, the latest designs in gowns, hats and fine lingerie. A German drug store enjoys the reputation of being the only place in town where Parke, Davis & Co.’s drugs can be bought, while an English chemist’s shop is much frequented in summer for its ice-cream sodas, a recent innovation in Shanghai. Bianchi’s ice-cream is famous, and so are Sullivan’s home-made candies. At many a counter may be purchased Huyler’s and Cadbury’s chocolates, so carefully packed that they are not a whit the worse for their journey across the briny deep. Two piano stores do a lucrative business keeping pianos in tune, and selling, besides Steinways, Chickerings, and other makes, instruments made in their factories with special reference to withstanding the climate of China. The East Indian and Japanese shops always attract, except when the Japanese are boycotted by the Chinese because of strained relations. Some Japanese began recently to fold their tents, like the Arab, and prepare to creep quietly away, when confidence was partially restored and trade revived.

Living in Shanghai is proverbially high, yet it is chiefly so in comparison with other parts of China. The market is good the year around; many competent judges assert it is the best in the world. Chinese mutton and beef sell for eight or nine cents a pound. Pork and veal are a trifle more. Game is plentiful. Eggs rarely go above ten cents a dozen. They are considerably smaller though than hen’s eggs at home. Fish, as might be expected, is abundant. A small variety of oyster, that makes excellent stew, is sold in bulk, and a large oyster in the shell, measuring often several inches across and weighing over a pound, brings ten or twelve coppers apiece, about six cents. Nearly every variety of fruit and vegetable known to the Western market, and many kinds peculiar to the Orient, are found here. Bamboo sprouts and water chestnuts are favorites with most foreigners as well as the Chinese. Grapefruit is imported from San Francisco, but is generally not so well liked as the native pumelo, which it resembles. Mangoes are shipped from the Philippines, and from Japan, Australia, and America come apples, much superior to those grown in China. On the other hand Chinese oranges, and particularly the loose-skinned, Mandarin oranges, are delicious. The fruit most common in the autumn is the golden-red persimmon. Cheap and luscious, without a suggestion of pucker except when under-ripe, the tempting piles, that seem to have caught and held the sunshine, are without a rival during their season. All canned and bottled goods--vegetables, fruits, pickles, olives, syrups, extracts--being imported, are expensive, but as they are more or less in the line of luxuries most of them may be dispensed with if necessary.

There is a canning factory in Shanghai, opened in 1907 by a Cantonese company. One would expect it to be Cantonese, for the southerners are the most wide-awake people in China. Besides making a variety of crackers, the factory turns out quantities of tinned foods. Among them are bamboo sprouts, shrimps’ eggs, spiced roast pork, chicken with chestnuts, frogs’ legs, native and foreign fruits, soups, and what appeals particularly to the palate of foreigners, the delicious candied ginger, for which Canton has a world-wide reputation.

Drugs are costly, and constantly needed articles, such as picture wire, and hooks, are for some reason absurdly highpriced.

“Sam Joe” on Broadway claims to be the leading Chinese grocer in the city. He is certainly one of the best known. Like other grocers he keeps no fresh vegetables and no fresh fruits except apples and lemons. His place is clean and inviting, and presided over by numerous clerks of low and high degree. Any one of these middle-aged men, of dignified mien and scholarly cast of countenance, will kindly deign to take an order, discuss the merit of goods, and even point them out if within sight. But when a piece of cheese is to be wrapped up, or a bottle taken down from the shelf, he waves his long-finger-nailed hand in a lordly manner to an underling, who hastens to perform the menial service. Sam Joe used to own an automobile, with “Sam Joe, Shanghai’s leading grocer,” prominent in large gilt letters on its back. It was a familiar object for some time on the streets, but its upkeep proved too great an expense, so the firm has reverted to the ordinary delivery wagon and horse. Still, a horse-drawn wagon is extraordinary enough in this city of man labor, and Sam Joe’s outfit is in advance of most Chinese grocers, who content themselves with box carts propelled by tricycles.

On a bright morning nothing is more delightful than a leisurely stroll up and down Nanking Road for a study of the shops. Some are shut in behind a door and show windows, like foreign stores, and others after the manner of the general run of Chinese shops have the entire front open to the street. Occasionally, in addition to the regular street crossings, a slit between the buildings leads to a narrow lane or alley, without sidewalks, long, narrow, and fearsome, yet possessing a compelling fascination for the wanderer. The Nanking Road shops are almost uniformly two stories high, with frequently a tall, fancy cornice giving the effect of a third. The most striking are the large silver shops. The façades of several stand out boldly, ornamented with coloured stucco in relief. One is resplendent with a gorgeous peacock of heroic size and spreading tail. Another shows two mythical figures disporting themselves on either side of a huge vase of flowers of wondrous hues, while a third, more recently built of plain brick, is dotted over with electric bulbs. On gala occasions, these shops, as well as others able to afford it, are lighted up at night with elaborate electrical designs, making Nanking Road the most brilliantly illuminated street in the city. In addition, it is customary at the time of an opening or anniversary to decorate the entire façade with gay-coloured cotton cloth or silk that is twisted, puffed, puckered, and curled into rosettes and other fantastic designs. Often a light bamboo scaffolding is erected in front of the shop and the trimmings attached to it instead of to the walls. When the sun fades the decorations they are taken down, re-dyed, and put in place again. Close against the show windows of the unforeignized silver shops are glass shelves ranged one above another and loaded with silver. Many of the pieces are massive and richly embossed, Buddhas, vases, jewelry cases, tea-sets, besides less ornate small pieces such as wine cups and bonbon dishes, all of native design and manufacture. Inside the shop the foreigner meets with a surprise, for there are no show cases, and no sign of silver is visible except away at the back where a glimmer can be discerned behind a glass door protected by a wooden or wire lattice. Panel mirrors and carved blackwood chairs at the sides give a drawing-room effect which is enhanced by the leisurely manner in which the numerous clerks move about or lean idly upon the counter, as if their main purpose in life was to pose as useless adjuncts of the firm employing them. Yet in reality a paying business is carried on from day to day, though it may be conducted quietly and unostentatiously over tea-cups and with true Oriental deliberation.

The favorite meat in China is pork, popularly known as the “Great Meat.” From the number of shops where cured hams are sold, often nothing at all but ham lining the walls and suspended from the ceiling, it would seem as if the people’s whole diet consisted of pork. The pork shops on Nanking Road are very clean. Sometimes one side of a shop is devoted to hams and the other to ducks and sweetmeats. Roast ducks are sold everywhere in Shanghai. The turned-back neck of the duck forms a loop by which the fowl is attached to a hook fastened to a bamboo rod several feet long, and this is hung in the front of the shop in full gaze of the passerby, where no intervening window dims the allurements of the savory delicacy. It surely does look good enough to eat, glossy, of a rich reddish brown colour, and done to a turn in the oven of a Chinese chef. Back a few steps from the street, in a dimly lighted room, the curious stranger, if tactfully polite, may witness the preparation of the fowl for the market. On one side of the contracted space are live ducks, in a pen, while near by the cook’s assistant is busily plucking dead ones. They are roasted on top of a Chinese stove under a huge iron basin, and then comes the painting, the grand finale in the process. A small quantity of red vegetable matter is added to sesame oil, and with this mixture the cook carefully smears the fowl, using a reed brush. The coating soon hardens like varnish when the duck is exposed to the air, and besides giving it an appetising appearance, keeps the flesh impervious to the dust from the road.

Nothing captivates more than the bake shops where cooking is done close to the street. Chinese stoves are simplicity itself, a bed of charcoal on a foundation of brick or cement, and an iron grating through which the ashes fall to the floor. Large but shallow iron basins are placed over the red hot coals, and in them are fried or boiled all sorts of remarkable viands. It is a common saying that the best cooks in the world are the French and the Chinese, and it is easy to believe it. The way in which many a common fellow will roll and knead his dough, fashion it into some extraordinary shape with a dexterous flip and twist, then fry it to exactly the right shade of brown, and all without an instant’s thought or effort, proves him to be in his own line an artist of no mean order.

Customers young and old frequent the shop, sometimes carrying bowls of their own which they get filled with nutritious food for a few coppers and take home to furnish, it may be, a meal for an entire family. Perhaps a woman drops into the shop with a nest of wooden trays. She says something to the shopkeeper, who begins laying into them wonderful little cakes, sticking into each one a wee cluster of artificial flowers. This choice collection of dainties is to form part of a wedding feast. The year round, at certain hours of the day, but especially in the early morning, women and children, provided with kettles, wend their way to the restaurants to buy hot water for tea. Hot water is cheaper than fuel, and besides to buy it saves trouble.

Chinese candy shops never want for trade. Those on Nanking Road are much patronized by foreigners, for some kinds of Chinese candy fairly melt in the mouth. The only drawback to a full enjoyment of it is the realization that too often instead of being protected under glass it has lain for hours on an open counter exposed to dust, flies, and dirty hands.

Fine teas from Hangchow, put up in pretty coloured paper boxes, are seen in the windows of tea shops, and beside them other fancy boxes containing small dried flowers. One or more dried rosebuds placed in a cup of tea impart a delicate flavor to the beverage and are said by the Chinese to aid digestion. They, however, are a luxury indulged in only by the well-to-do epicure, but this class is numerous.

Silk shops are pre-eminently the most popular shops in Shanghai as silk is the commodity for which it is most celebrated. Many silk shops are found on the “Great Horse Road,” the largest and showiest being in a three-story building well down toward the Bund. But the two of special repute and reliability do a thriving business a block south of the busy thoroughfare. No goods are displayed in their windows as is the case with those on Nanking Road. The more conspicuous one has behind each sheet of plate glass a single potted plant on a stand. The other, across the road, disdains to indulge in even that much decoration. Its windows are the small, old-fashioned kind that fold in like blinds with little panes of glass, and up and down over each one stretch protecting iron bars. The reputation of the aristocratic house of “Laou Kai Fook” is too well established to need the help of advertisements. While neighbouring firms may boast of a business career of a few decades, this one points back proudly three quarters of a century to the date of its founding. Though nothing on the exterior of the shop attracts the eye, there is an abundance within to draw on the purse-strings. Laou Kai Fook’s clerks are gravely dignified but wide-awake. It was not one of them but an employee in a lesser shop who, when a would-be purchaser indicated a piece of silk in a showcase that she wished to see, after making a feeble and abortive effort to unlock the case, turned his long finger-nails out, remarking unconcernedly, “It won’t open,” and let the customer walk away. The shelves lining the walls of the silk shops from top to bottom are heaped with rolls of silk wrapped in light brown paper, the rolls lying crosswise on the shelves. From each roll depends a white paper tag marked with Chinese characters, and these tags, seen on every side, produce a curious effect but give to the uninitiated no clue to the wealth they represent. Some of the finest silks, with the paper coverings removed, are kept in showcases to decoy the unwary.

The clerks in these stores, as in fact in most of the shops, are to all appearances greatly in excess of the number required. While some are kept busy, many seem to be paid merely to lounge about and tread on each other’s toes. They are keenly sensitive to the superiority of their high calling and will brook no slights apparent or unintentional. An American lady, new to China, was being waited on one day by a very youthful clerk and in the course of conversation innocently addressed him as “boy,” the usual form of address among the servant class. Instantly the young man drew himself up proudly and corrected her with grave displeasure, “I am not a ‘boy,’ I am Mr. Smith.” Two characteristics of the Shanghai silk shops of the better class are especially appreciated by foreign women. First, prices are fixed and uniform; no time need be wasted in bargaining. Second, if a sample needs to be matched the danger of failure is small. When roll after roll has been laid on the counter and the sample placed against them without success the clerk will be certain to observe politely, “We can dye a piece for you.” “How long will it take?” “Only three days if the sun shines. How many yards do you want?” “Four.” “We don’t usually dye less than ten yards, but we will dye four for you if you wish to have us.” In most cases the silk proves to be entirely satisfactory and no extra charge is made for the dyeing.

Changes are going on continually all over the city. Day by day old buildings, rotten and unsanitary, are disappearing and modern ones rising in their place. It is to be feared that many of the ancient landmarks dear to the antiquarian will soon be gone. Last year an Englishman said to a friend, “I can take you to a street in Shanghai that I believe looks just as it did a thousand years ago.” But in a few weeks he wrote to his friend, “The street is gone. Every old building has been torn down and the rubbish cleared away.” On Nanking Road a handsome block has just been erected by the Chinese on a conspicuous site, bearing the ambitious title of “The New World,” written in gilt Chinese characters on its front. Soon a wealthy Cantonese company is to build a great department store on Nanking Road that in size and elegance promises to outrival all others. It will contain a theatre, restaurant, and tea-room, elevator and roof garden, accessories to which even the most select of the foreign department stores have not aspired.

But Nanking Road does not possess a monopoly in interesting shops. Many of the most fascinating are the very small unpretentious ones on the side streets, for it is there that Chinese life and customs may be studied most intimately. The common people regard with good nature and tolerance the inquisitive stranger and rarely object to his advances. Pawn shops tell their own story and are discovered at almost every turn. They are known by a particular Chinese character painted in black on the white cement of the front wall or on the wooden screen just inside the entrance.

Shanghai would not be Shanghai without its Money Exchange shops. Though perfectly respectable, they do business mostly on the unfashionable side streets. Nanking Road in the main scorns them. They do not lack patronage, for “small money” is necessary to every thrifty body. The Exchange Shops give silver for gold and paper money, and for one of the current silver Mexican dollars, the customer receives one hundred and thirty-eight or so coppers, or eleven dimes and several coppers according to whatever the exchange happens to be on the day in question. Shop bills amounting to less than a dollar can ordinarily be paid in “small money,” and as for car fare, a dollar’s worth of coppers goes much farther than the even hundred contained in a “big dollar.” The Exchange shops make their money by drawing money from the Exchange Banks at a little higher rate of exchange than they allow to their customers. It must be confessed though that the mysteries of Chinese currency are well nigh beyond the power of the ordinary human mind to fathom.

Coffin shops are of necessity very numerous, and have open fronts directly on the street. The shopkeeper performs none of the duties of an undertaker. His sole business is to make and sell coffins. Chinese coffins are extremely large and heavy, and in a foreigner’s eyes ugly even to the point of gruesomeness. The costly ones are made of blackwood and camphor wood and their glossy tops and ends decorated with pictures done in coloured paint and gilt. The shopkeeper’s home is usually at the back of the premises, but the family find it agreeable to pass much of the day in the shop where the unfinished coffins that chance to be left standing about prove convenient in many ways. The wife may perch on one while she eats her bowl of rice, or the master himself drop down on another for his noonday nap, while the children frolic in and out around them like squirrels. But to a Chinese there is nothing objectionable in a coffin. As with the old Shanghai mother, whose son returning from a journey presented her with a coffin as the handsomest and most welcome gift he could offer, so it is generally felt that to have one’s coffin bought and set up in the house ready for use is a most desirable provision. In the meantime it is a convenient article of furniture to have at hand, and no harm is done if while waiting for the hour of decease the coffin is utilized as a clothes press or perhaps as a pantry.

As one passes along the streets, in addition to the sounds most commonly heard, is often added the shrill falsetto of the cheap phonograph. The records usually are Chinese melodies in which the street crowds delight. Any shop wishing to draw attention to itself has only to set up an instrument and start it playing. Phonographs are commonly found in the better class barber shops, where they dispense music to the accompaniment of the strokes of the razor. The character of Chinese barber shops has changed considerably since the revolution of 1911. Before then customers sat on stools and the principal work of the tonsorial artist was shaving the forefront of heads and combing and braiding queues. Now foreign barbers’ chairs have taken the place of stools and the barber gives careful attention to clipping hair in the most approved fashion. There recently appeared outside a hairdresser’s shop the following unique announcement, “Hair done in foreign, Chinese, and civilised style.” Just what the “civilised” style of hairdressing might be in contradistinction to other modes, the interested public has not yet learned. But shopkeepers who aspire to the distinction of English signs above their doorways, frequently meet with serious difficulties in their struggles with a strange tongue. The results are often strikingly original,--for example, “Horeshueing Manufactured Any Kinds of Foreign and China Horeshueing. Price $2.00 each hoersh.” “The towels are weaving up to the different colors to sell.” “House panier and decorator for European and China.” “Mating Shop and House Furnishing.” “Gentleman and Ladys snots and bots.”

The beautiful curio shops on Nanking Road entrance the eye and delight the heart, yet who would compare them for a moment in charm with the quaint old shops on Pig Alley? Pig Alley used to border on the moat around the Chinese city and was in truth an alley. Now the moat has been filled up and its site covered by a broad macadamized road, but the shops that gave it its reputation have not changed in character. The dust of years still clings to them, wrinkled crones continue to sip their tea in the corners, and old men, with skin as yellow as their brasses, smoke contentedly in the sunshine outside. Stacked on the shelves reaching to the ceiling are articles in bronze, brass, and china, some as valueless as old iron, but among the collection, choice bits, rare and ancient, worth almost their weight in gold. It takes time and patience to shop in Pig Alley, for prices must be haggled over, and perhaps several visits made before the coveted treasure is finally secured.

In the shops of the Foreign Settlement it is estimated that more than twenty thousand boys are employed as apprentices. Their work-day is as long as the shop keeps open, which in many cases is from sixteen to nineteen hours out of the twenty-four. Pay is small or nothing at all, but the boys are given rice and lodging where they work. The large majority have no chance for play or study. They are bound out by their parents or guardians under much the same system as formerly prevailed in England. If badly treated, and little fellows unable to resist are often most cruelly beaten, the apprentice has no redress, and must bear it, run away, or take his own life, which he sometimes does, though usually he stays on, for the spirit of the Chinese is to endure hardship patiently. Not long ago the local Young Men’s Christian Association, through its Boys’ Department, made a valuable survey of the condition of Chinese boys in the Settlement. What added to the interest was the fact that the survey was conducted by boys, which, so far as is known, was the first time this has been done in any country. Volunteers were called for from among the Y.M.C.A. High School students, all Chinese of course, and twelve at once responded, promising to spend their vacation period in doing this work. Others were gradually added to the list, till finally over sixty were at work assisted by a Chinese teacher and several Chinese and foreign secretaries. No reward was held out to them, and their task was not an easy one. They were ridiculed and buffeted, but they kept bravely on, meeting every day at five o’clock to report progress and gather fresh courage over a social cup of tea. The facts and figures collated with so much labour will not be wasted. Definite plans are being laid for the betterment of the boy community, and they have already begun to materialize since the opening of the splendid new Y.M.C.A. building for boys’ work.

V

HOUSEKEEPING PROBLEMS

“Well, my Dear,” said Mr. Dunlap briskly, one bright spring morning, laying down on the breakfast table “The North China Daily News” which he had been intently perusing, “I have here a list of houses advertised for rent. Suppose we start out and look at some of them.” “Just the thing,” assented Mrs. Dunlap eagerly. “You call the ricshas and I’ll be ready in a minute.” “No, we will go in a carriage. It will take us around more quickly and cost no more for the time we are out. Just think,” he added, “of our being able to hire for a whole day a nice victoria and pony, with driver and footman, for less than a dollar and a half! Life in Shanghai certainly has its advantages.” “Don’t let the driver forget his French license,” called Mrs. Dunlap to her husband as he was hurrying away to make arrangements for the carriage. “That’s so. We may want to go into the French Concession.” “Yes, and we’d rather not be held up as the Blanks were.” Then both laughed merrily at the memory of the experience of their friends who went for a joy ride in celebration of their wedding anniversary, but they had hardly left the International Settlement before a policeman stopped the “mafoo,” and because he had no French license made him drive with the pair to a police station to get one and pay the fine of a dollar, rather an inglorious episode. The Dunlaps were gone all day and returned to their stopping place at night well-nigh exhausted. But the next morning they were out early again, this time to hunt up the office of a real estate company and tell the agent they had decided to take one of his houses. “Good, I will put your name right down on the list of applicants. There are only eleven ahead of you.” “Eleven ahead of us!” exclaimed Mrs. Dunlap in astonishment and dismay. “Why, we supposed the houses that were advertised in the paper had not been rented.” “And so they haven’t,” responded the agent cheerfully. “These are only possible tenants. You stand a good chance of getting the place. Last week I rented a house to the fifteenth party in a list of applicants. All the others, for one reason and another, had dropped their names.”

The couple finally secured a house to their liking, quite new and somewhat out from the centre of the city. The rent being agreed on, the agent added, “You will pay six per cent taxes.” “How is that?” queried Mr. Dunlap. “I am not buying the property.” “No, but here in Shanghai the tenant pays the tax on the house, the landlord on the land. You are getting off cheap. If your house were within the limits of the ‘Settlement’ you’d have to pay twelve per cent in taxes.” “Oh, then we are not in the Settlement? Somebody told me the road in front of the house was a Municipal Council road.” “That’s right. It is. A year or so ago the Council, after hard effort, obtained permission to lay that road through Chinese territory. It is a good road, too, isn’t it? A first class macadamized thoroughfare.” “That is most interesting,” agreed the Dunlaps. “But you say the land on which the house itself stands belongs to the Chinese?” “Yes, they refused to sell it, so the best the company could do was to rent it in perpetuity.” Mr. Dunlap turned to his wife with a smile, “Well, if we get into trouble, we can go out and sit in the road.” “Ha, ha, not a bad idea,” chuckled the agent. “But you will be well protected. The Settlement police patrol the road and Chinese police the territory around it. The Chinese have no desire to see foreigners’ houses looted, for this gets them into trouble.”

As soon as the Dunlaps began moving into their new domicile, they found themselves greatly inconvenienced by the lack of closets, shelves, hooks, and drawers. The house in fact was a mere shell, with roof and walls and little else. However, there was running water, hot and cold, and this is a luxury rarely found outside of Shanghai. Indeed in the older parts of the Settlement hot water for baths is still bought at nearby shops and brought to the home in big wooden buckets suspended from carrying poles on the backs of coolies. Though the wires were laid for electric lights, there were no fixtures. This was an oversight on the part of the contractor that must be rectified at once, so Mr. Dunlap sought another interview with the agent. “We shall be glad to have the fixtures put in as soon as possible,” he urged, “as we are depending for light on two or three small kerosene lamps.” “But we don’t furnish such things.” “What?” “I mean they don’t go with the house.” “So I must buy them?” “Assuredly.” “Well, well, whoever heard of such a thing? But how about the stationary wash-basin for the bathroom, and the draining board for the kitchen, and the--,” “If you have them you get them yourself.” “You see it is like this,” continued the agent goodnaturedly, “Shanghai is very cosmopolitan, and all sorts of people settle here. Some tenants, when vacating a house, have been known to steal the locks off the doors, the chandeliers from the ceiling, and occasionally a stationary bathtub is cut loose and carried away in the dead of the night. Oh no, you wouldn’t do it,” smiling at Mr. Dunlap’s incredulous stare, “but such things happen oftener than you would think.” It was plain then to the Dunlaps that they must begin to furnish their house from the bottom up, or perhaps, to speak more accurately, from the top down. Therefore, their first business was to buy lumber, hire carpenters, and set them to work making pantry shelves, and supplying a few other immediate necessities. Soon the little back court resounded with the noise of hammer and saw.

It was somewhat exasperating to the head of the house, who longed to expedite matters, to have the workmen stroll in about nine o’clock in the morning, or possibly not come at all, leave promptly at five, and spend anywhere from one to two hours and more in the enjoyment of the noon siesta. But scolding was of little avail. Shanghai workmen, particularly since the revolution of 1911 have assumed an easy, independent air all their own and must be borne with as patiently as may be.

The next matter to which the family gave their attention was the buying of furniture. Friends advised them to get it at auction. As the population of Shanghai is a constantly shifting one, auction sales are a common incident of the city’s life. Homes are being broken up every day and parties moving out, perhaps after only a few months’ residence. The easiest, and really the most profitable method of disposing of household effects, which often are practically new, is by auction. Auction sales are very popular with all classes of society and usually draw an eager crowd, but the Dunlaps picked up only a few things in this way, for they found too much time was consumed in the process. Then they were referred to Peking Road. Now Peking Road at its eastern end, where it approaches the Bund, is a very high-toned, aristocratic street, but away toward the west its character changes, and instead of substantial brick office and apartment buildings, the road is lined on both sides with Chinese junk shops. Yet according to the dictionary definition of “junk,” that is not exactly the right word to apply to them either, for far more than mere junk is exposed to the gaze of the curious beholder in the wide open shop fronts, in the dark places at the rear, and in the dusty, musty, low-ceilinged rooms above approached by a ladder-like stairway. “Old Curiosity Shop” might appropriately be written over each one. Most of the goods have been bought up at auction and bear the marks of age in a greater or less degree, though some are new, but it is not the commonplace new things that attract the eye of the average foreigner, who is apt to exclaim at first glance, “What a lot of old trash!” Worming his way in gingerly fashion among the piled up closely-stacked stuff, the reward comes once and again in the discovery of a rare piece of old mahogany or teakwood, or a quaint hit of China or glass, which may be bought at a ridiculously low price. Of course, if the “find” is an article of furniture, some risk is run in carrying it home, and the very fastidious may eschew it altogether, but a good airing and repeated cleansing with disinfectants and soap and hot water, and if necessary, scraping and repolishing, generally render it perfectly harmless.

However, a foreign house can not be furnished throughout from the shops on Peking Road, so after investing in a few small articles like coal buckets and shovels and tongs, Mr. and Mrs. Dunlap finally and firmly resolved to waste no more valuable time hunting for bargains, but to have all their furniture made to order. This sounds very luxurious and a bit extravagant. On the contrary it was the most economical thing that they could do, for they did not order from one of the high-priced English department stores on Nanking Road, but from a Chinese shop on a side street with an entrance and show windows that might have been passed many times without attracting the least notice. The place however had been highly recommended and the work in the end proved quite satisfactory. Mark the words “in the end,” for they are spoken advisedly, since the grand consummation did not occur till more than a year from the time the first order was given. Inside, the shop was found to be much more of an establishment than appeared from the street. It carried a considerable stock of ready-made furniture, but it was from the pictures in the firm’s imported books that the Dunlaps chose their models, then selected their wood, and finally, after considerable haranguing, came to an agreement on prices. Subsequently calls without number were made at the shop by Mr. and Mrs. Dunlap in a vain endeavour to hurry up the work. Sometimes they came upon the elderly head of the firm and his clerks eating their forenoon meal at a table near the centre of the showroom, for according to the usual custom, the clerks were boarded on the premises. But the entrance of a customer in no wise embarrassed them and he was always waited on with the politest attention. One by one the pieces ordered were brought to the house on a hand truck or wheelbarrow, some of the lighter articles being suspended from a carrying pole borne by coolies. After remaining a day or two, back they went, with few exceptions! Either the hat-rack was too short, or the clothes-press shelves were too long, or the bureau drawers wouldn’t open, or the locks didn’t fit. Always something was “_ch’a pu to_,” just a little wrong, a favorite expression in China which is used to excuse a multitude of faults. One much-doctored upholstered chair was carried to and fro so many times it had finally to be partially re-covered. But the dining table fared the worst. Once it fell off the cart in transit and was broken. Because the wood was not well seasoned, it kept splitting across the top and teetering disconcertingly on uneven legs. Four tables were made in succession before a satisfactory one was produced.