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Title: The gateway to China
pictures of Shanghai
Author: Mary Ninde Gamewell
Release date: January 26, 2026 [eBook #77783]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1916
Credits: Alan, deaurider and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GATEWAY TO CHINA ***
THE GATEWAY TO CHINA
[Illustration: MR. BAO ON LEFT, ONE OF THE THREE FOUNDERS OF THE
COMMERCIAL PRESS, WITH OTHER MEMBERS OF THE STAFF
(See chapter “_A Wizard Publishing House_”)]
THE
GATEWAY TO CHINA
PICTURES OF SHANGHAI
BY
MARY NINDE GAMEWELL
Author of “We Two Alone in Europe”
_ILLUSTRATED_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
Copyright, 1916, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 17 N. Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
TO MY HUSBAND
PREFACE
Shanghai is a little world, where all China in miniature may be studied
at close range. Thither drift Chinese from every province in the
country, who for the most part in the new environment follow their
age-long customs and cherish their inherited traditions. But the city
is also remarkable for its rapid and constant changes. A member of
a local book-firm declared not long since, “We have never tried to
publish a guide to Shanghai because in six months it would be out of
date.” To an Occidental the chief fascination of this busy metropolis
lies in the curious commingling of things old and new, practices
ancient and modern, which meet one at every turn. More strikingly
than any other city in the Far East, Shanghai represents the Orient
in transition. To catch and portray some of these shifting scenes,
the following “Pictures” have been drawn, with the hope that they
may stimulate interest in China and awaken a new love and admiration
for the Chinese people. It need hardly be explained that no attempt
has been made at a complete study of the subjects described. This
is particularly true of the last chapter, where several phases of
missionary activity have been touched upon by way of illustration,
while societies and organizations doing an equally valuable work have
not been mentioned. The history of the Christian Literature Society,
for example, reads like a romance and it is a well-established fact
that its books had much to do in shaping the radical policy of the late
Emperor Kuang Hsü and the liberals of that period, which eventuated
in the dawn of progress and a New China. To all friends, Chinese and
foreign, whose suggestions and criticisms have helped make possible
this little book, warmest thanks are extended.
M. N. G.
METHODIST EPISCOPAL MISSION,
SHANGHAI, CHINA.
CONTENTS
I. EVOLUTION OF A CITY 13
II. CIVIC FEATURES 20
III. STREET RAMBLES 42
IV. THE LURE OF THE SHOPS 57
V. HOUSEKEEPING PROBLEMS 73
VI. SOMETHING ABOUT VEHICLES 91
VII. A PEEP INTO THE SCHOOLROOM 106
VIII. A WIZARD PUBLISHING HOUSE 127
IX. THE CHINESE CITY 140
X. CUSTOMS OLD AND NEW 155
XI. A TYPICAL SHANGHAI WEDDING 172
XII. FOREIGN PHILANTHROPIES 185
XIII. CHINESE SUCCESSES IN SOCIAL SERVICE 199
XIV. THE ROMANCE AND PATHOS OF THE
MILLS 217
XV. A PAGE FROM THE STORY OF PROTESTANT
MISSIONS 234
ILLUSTRATIONS
Mr. Bao on Left, One of the Three Founders
of the Commercial Press, with Other Members
of the Staff _Title_
Chinese Policemen Drawn up for Inspection 20
Some Shops on Nanking Road 58
High, Black Rickshas Outside the Foreign Settlement 92
Advertising Singer Sewing Machine Products 106
Miss Zee’s New School Building. Kindergarten
in the Rear 120
Chinese Composing Room 128
The Original Willow Pattern Tea House 140
A Modern Chevalier and His Happy Family 156
The Coffin in a Funeral Procession 160
School Girls in Gymnasium Drill 168
Rescued Child Just Brought to the Children’s
Refuge--Old Men at the Home of the Little
Sisters of the Poor 186
Rescued Kidnapped Children as They Were
Photographed for Advertisement in the
Chinese Daily Newspapers 200
On the Way to the Mill 218
Chinese Boy Scouts 234
Corner Stone of Boys’ Building, Y. M. C. A. 244
I
EVOLUTION OF A CITY
From time immemorial the Yangtsekiang has deposited at its mouth
quantities of silt borne downward from the far West on its mighty
yellow tide. Little by little, water gave place to mud flats, and
mud flats to green fields. On this alluvium a handful of fisher-folk
settled a thousand or so years ago, and from their straggling village
gradually evolved the Shanghai of today. Shanghai means “Mart on the
Sea,” but the city is now sixty miles inland. The Whangpoo River, a
branch of the Yangtse, that flows past it, has during the past fifty
years narrowed one-third, and only by constant dredging is the channel
kept open.
For many years the obscure fishing-station gave no promise of its
future greatness; but all things come to them that wait, and Shanghai’s
prosperity began when an official in charge of shipping and customs
was stationed there in 1075. Five hundred years later, the place had
blossomed out into a kind of Oriental Athens, celebrated for its
musicians, poets, prose writers, and statesmen. It gave birth, also, to
women of repute, praised far and wide as models of virtue and filial
piety. The city, like human beings, had its vicissitudes. Again and
again, it was infested by Chinese and Japanese pirates, swept by
typhoons, inundated by torrential rains. Although in the latitude of
Savannah, Georgia, one piercingly cold winter it was almost buried
under snow, the river covered with ice, and men and animals frozen to
death.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century Shanghai’s population was
estimated at over half a million, and her star was in the ascendant.
A forest of masts from a thousand quaint junks, each gaily painted to
represent a fish, with staring eyes--for how, say Chinese mariners, can
a ship see where to go without eyes?--thronged the anchorage. Shanghai
was the busy seaport for the central provinces reached by the Yangtse
and for points up and down the coast. Long before ever a foreigner
settled within her borders her commercial possibilities had been
largely realized and her position as “Queen of the Sea” assured.
In 1842 occurred the great epoch in her history, when with four other
cities she was forced by Great Britain to throw open her gates as a
treaty port. The first Occidentals to reside within the city were
the British Consul and his suite. The most pressing business that
confronted the resident British was to secure land for a permanent
foreign settlement. They soon discovered that it was one thing to
select the site but quite another to get it. The territory chosen
lay to the north and west of the Chinese City and for the most part
consisted of cultivated fields, dotted here and yonder with a village,
and always and everywhere graves, rising in pyramidal grass-grown
mounds. As usual, the chief difficulty was over the graves, which the
purchasers agreed should remain undisturbed. When finally the British
were in complete possession of the land, they decided the struggle had
been even more severe and nerve-racking than the capture of the City.
The French followed close on the heels of the British, demanding from
the Chinese a concession of their own, something that the Americans a
little later, with less friction and noise, simply quietly appropriated.
In 1848, five years after the opening of the Settlement, it is recorded
that the foreign population numbered over one hundred, including a
few women. How imagination takes wings to itself and pictures the
conditions under which the community lived at that time! There were no
hill resorts to flee to for a refreshing breeze in summer, no electric
fans to temper the heat, no ice-cooled drinks, no screens to shut out
the flies and mosquitoes. A stroll on the street was robbed of its
pleasure by lack of sanitation, and a ramble even in the near suburbs
almost unendurable because of the excrement used on the fields as a
fertilizer. Cholera, plague, and other Oriental diseases waxed rampant,
and in the first foreign cemetery many a tiny mound watered with
tears wrung from aching hearts, told an eloquent story of young lives
sacrificed to make possible the Shanghai of to-day.
An outstanding event in the history of Shanghai was the investment of
the city in the early 60’s by the T’aiping rebels, those fanatical
hordes that for fourteen years kept the country in a ferment, and
well-nigh overthrew the Manchu dynasty. As the excited rebels advanced
from the west the populace around fled before them to Shanghai. In
the original Land Regulations drawn up by the foreigners Chinese were
forbidden to reside in the Settlement. The panic-stricken refugees,
however, could not be restrained. They camped first on the outskirts,
but soon afterward pushed in and overran the Settlement without let
or hindrance. Shacks were built to house them. They went up by the
hundreds, like mushrooms, in a night, and real estate speculators
reaped a rich harvest, for often the refugees were people of wealth and
paid handsome rentals. Many of these same speculators, who, carried
away by their good fortune, continued to build at a mad rate, suffered
heavy losses, and some even bankruptcy, when at the close of the
Rebellion the crowds began emptying out as fast as they had poured in.
One reason for the wholesale exodus of the Chinese was their dislike
of the sanitary regulations at that time in force in the Settlement,
and they were in great fear lest the foreigners might gain sufficient
control over the Chinese officials to put the same hated rules into
operation in the interior cities. Though so many refugees returned
to their homes just as soon as it was safe to do so, large numbers
remained, enjoying the protection offered them in the Settlement.
Efforts were made from time to time to eject them, but without avail,
while others gradually drifted into this desirable haven. Thus began
what Shanghai has ever since continued to be, an asylum for the lawless
from all parts of China. The class of respectable unfortunates is also
numerous. A Chinese “Who’s Who” for Shanghai, if accurately compiled,
would astonish the reader with its list of half-forgotten, erstwhile
famous personages, deposed officials, bankrupt aristocrats, antiquated
scholars, men who figured prominently in the affairs of the world,
but, having lost “face,” favor, and fortune, find the cosmopolitan
metropolis a safe retreat in which to end their days.
“First things” always possess a peculiar interest, and of these
Shanghai can lay claim to her full share. The first railroad ever laid
in China ran between Shanghai and the forts at Woosung, twelve miles
distant, where the Whangpoo River joins the Yangtse. The two men sent
out to survey the line had a hard time of it and one of them was nearly
killed by the infuriated people, who declared he should not desecrate
the graves of their ancestors that lay in the path of the proposed
road. This line was completed in 1876, but it was destined to a short
existence. The stealing of window-glass and the blue silk window
curtains by Chinese passengers, unable to comprehend their utility
except as a means to fill their pockets with coveted cash, was a small
matter. The road roused the deep-seated resentment of all classes,
and from the first was doomed. The grand finalé came when a group of
Shanghai officials perfunctorily inspected the entire line from their
sedan-chairs, scorning to stoop to the indignity of riding on the
train, and gravely pronounced it a menace. Soon after this the rails
were tom up and it was long before others were laid in their places.
But the world moved even under the reign of the Manchus, and before
their sun had set the shriek of the locomotive was heard many times
every day between Shanghai and Woosung, while in the “most pro-foreign
city in the world” sedan-chairs are almost as great a novelty as trains
were formerly.
It seems strange that it should have been during the stressful period
of the T’aiping Rebellion that one of the greatest boons China ever
fell heir to was conferred on the distracted nation. That was the
inauguration in Shanghai of the Imperial Maritime Customs, called
by one writer “the most telling Western leaven ever introduced into
China.” The story of the Customs service under the Chinese is one long,
tiresome record of failure, graft, and loss, and it was not till 1854,
when the management was assumed by foreigners, whose probity became at
once the wonder and delight of the natives, that a change was effected.
Guided through half a century by the master hand of Sir Robert Hart,
to whom must also be given much of the credit of the National Chinese
Postal System established during his incumbency, the work has gone on
growing steadily and yielding an increasing revenue. It is eminently
fitting that a statue of Sir Robert in characteristic pose, should
recently have been unveiled in the Bund Park close by the Custom House.
Shanghai has not yet reached the zenith of her prosperity. The Customs
receipts last year were larger than ever before. Twenty and more
vessels bound for as many different ports often leave her docks in a
single day. Never was there as much building in progress, especially of
Chinese houses. The Western traveller who looks out upon the wide Bund,
flanked by handsome foreign buildings, with automobiles and carriages
speeding to and fro, almost wonders whether he is not arriving at a
European capital instead of a city in China. The native population
has grown to over a million. Of the twenty-one thousand resident
foreigners, including Japanese and East Indians, about five thousand
are British and fifteen hundred Americans. The city is a political
theatre where plots are hatched and reforms initiated. It is the
national headquarters of missionary work, the chief seat of commerce,
the home of progress, in short the nerve-centre of China whose
influence reaches out to the remotest corners of the land. Shanghai
faces problems and dangers peculiar to the Orient, but her future is
bright with the promise of boundless development.
II
CIVIC FEATURES
“The quaintest little republic in the world” is what Shanghai is often
called. Certainly there is no city like it in China. Within its present
limits are peoples from many countries, eighteen having consular
representation, and all living, in the main, amicably together under a
polyglot governing body whose members are elected by popular vote. The
working out of the present system of autonomy was a difficult task. The
city fathers long ago fought their way through more than one bitter
controversy, for there were many minds as well as many nationalities.
The Land and Municipal Regulations now in use are practically the
same as those adopted back in 1869. Ten years after Shanghai became a
treaty port the French withdrew from the union and set up a government
of their own. The others formed themselves into the “International
Settlement,” latterly known as the “Model Settlement.” Truth compels
the admission, however, that it is not in all respects as worthy a
“model” as its wellwishers would like to see it. Still it has admirable
features, and as self-respecting a metropolis as Hongkong was urged by
one of her citizens in a recent appeal to wake up and emulate the
example of stirring, progressive Shanghai.
[Illustration: CHINESE POLICEMEN DRAWN UP FOR INSPECTION]
The centre around which everything political revolves is the Municipal
Council. The consuls of the International Settlement each spring call
a meeting of the rate-payers or electors. Any foreigner who owns or
rents property of a fixed value possesses the right of franchise.
The rate-payers elect the members of the Municipal Council, and that
done they retire from the public gaze till the following year, unless
convened for special business. The Council holds weekly sessions. Its
nine members are unsalaried business men. Chinese are not eligible to
membership, but Japanese are, though as a matter of fact there never
had been a Japanese member, greatly to this people’s displeasure, until
a year ago, when one succeeded in getting elected. Judicial authority
is vested in the consuls. Each consul arbitrates for his own nationals
except in the cases of the three countries having fully organized law
courts with resident judges. These are England, America, and Germany.
The English court was established years ago; the American held its
first session in 1907. The Chinese are extremely sore on the subject
of extraterritoriality. That it does not exist in Japan only adds to
their grief and mortification. Since the New Law Codes have been framed
the nation is more insistent than ever that this thorn in its flesh
shall be removed and foreign courts abolished. But the new laws are
not widely operative, and until the old methods of bribery and torture
are forever relegated to the past the Treaty Powers will continue to
claim exclusive rights over their subjects, and the subjects to demand
protection.
A unique institution peculiar to Shanghai, indeed, as some one has
called it, “the most unique institution ever dedicated to justice,” is
the Mixed Court. In the early days, when Chinese were made prisoners in
the International Settlement, they were turned over to the Chinese City
officials for trial and punishment, but justice was rare, and cruel or
unduly lenient treatment the rule. To protect the Chinese, and insure
fair dealing in those cases in which foreigners were involved, as well
as to try the cases of foreigners having no consular representation,
the Mixed Court was established in 1865. It has not proved a wholly
satisfactory solution of the difficulty, for the law in force is the
Chinese law, and the foreign assessor, an Englishman, American, or
German, according to the day of the week, who occupies a seat on the
judicial bench beside the Chinese judge, ranks as little more than a
figurehead, acting merely in an advisory capacity. Practically though,
it must be said, and this is particularly true since 1911, he is coming
to be the real power behind the throne, and to exercise pretty much of
a controlling influence. At the time of the revolution the management
of the Mixed Court passed from the hands of the Chinese to the control
of the Municipal Council. The change was effected quietly, so that
while the Chinese were well aware of what was going on they could
appear not to know, and thus save their “face.” If only “face” can be
preserved facts are of small moment.
A morning spent in visiting the Mixed Court is to most people an
experience of absorbing interest, as it throws innumerable side-lights
on Chinese life and character. At half-past nine each morning, the
hour of opening court, the foreign assessor and the Chinese judge
walk in and take their seats, each flanked by his interpreters and
clerks of solemn mein. The witnesses, Chinese and foreign, assemble on
opposite sides of the room, the prisoners, most of them poor forlorn
specimens of humanity, file into the docket closely guarded by Sikh
and Chinese policemen, with an English sergeant-at-arms on duty near
by, while in the hall, around the door and pressing as far inside as
they dare, gathers the curious, motley crowd of onlookers, many of them
relatives and friends of the prisoners, but stolidly immobile during
all the proceedings. Is there another place in the world where such a
variety of cases is heard as at the Shanghai Mixed Court, cases civil
and criminal, tragic, pathetic and comic? Some are intricate enough to
tax the wisdom of a Solomon, and some are simple as a child’s play. An
old couple appeared one morning to petition for a divorce. Their faces
wore such a kindly expression, they seemed so at peace with mankind in
general and each other in particular, that the judge was puzzled. “Have
you quarreled?” he asked. “Oh, no.” “Don’t you live happily together?”
“We are most happy and that is why we are here,” hastily explained
the old woman. Then the whole story was poured out. An evil omen had
convinced them that in the future they would quarrel frightfully,
separate, and die apart of broken hearts, so in order to avert such
a calamity they had determined to take time by the forelock and part
company while they were still good friends. A few words of advice and
assurance set matters all right, and it was not long before the aged
lovers, for that is what they really were, passed smilingly out of the
courtroom, hand in hand, to return to their humble home. No executions
take place in the Settlement. Prisoners sentenced to capital punishment
are handed over to the Chinese authorities, and here again “face” is
considered, for while the death sentence has actually been passed the
court in the Chinese City is allowed to assume that it has not, and
proceed as if the prisoner was condemned on its own initiative.
The building occupied by the Mixed Court is bounded on the right by
the Woman’s Prison and on the left by the Debtor’s Prison. Under the
Chinese regime discipline was practically nil and affairs were left
largely to run themselves. Inmates of the Debtor’s Prison might smoke
opium and gamble to their heart’s content, provided they could get the
money, while dancing-girls furnished them entertainment. In the woman’s
prison conditions were even worse. The top floor was set apart as a
rendezvous for the young children of the prisoners, wretched, neglected
little ones, exposed to every kind of evil influence. Their mothers
in the cells below did pretty much as they liked. One of their tricks
was to thrust their hands between the iron rods at the windows, and
tear away by main force the corrugated iron screen so that they could
chatter noisily with the people in the street below, and by letting
down a string draw up food or anything else their friends were minded
to tie on the end. The wardresses (the only man about the place is the
gatekeeper) were deceitful, faithless, open to bribes, in fact little
better than the women behind the bars.
But marked changes have taken place during the past few years. As soon
as the foreign municipality assumed control, a prerogative by the way
likely any time to revert to the Chinese, who are considerably nettled
over their loss of authority, the young children were removed from
their pernicious environment and placed in a Home under the care of a
Christian woman. The Municipal Council supports this Home. The whole
staff of wardresses was dismissed and their places filled by others who
were strictly watched till their faithfulness was proved. The filthy
building underwent a thorough cleaning, repainting, and calcimining.
Baths, laundries, and doctors’ examining rooms were added to the plant
and the prisoners required to exercise an hour daily in the sunny,
cement-paved court, which has resulted in a marked improvement in the
health record. The chief lack now is industrial work for the women,
who have absolutely no employment except scrubbing the corridors and
washing their own clothes. The sole break in the dull monotony of their
lives comes when the gentle, sweet-faced missionary from the Door of
Hope visits the prison with her Chinese Bible woman, going from cell
to cell to sing, read, and pray. Four women are confined in a cell,
which is fairly well lighted and sufficiently large. The Chinese beds
are entirely devoid of bedding even in the coldest weather, the padded
garments of the prisoners being expected to suffice. Nursing babies up
to four or five months old are allowed to stay with their mothers. Most
of the women are convicted for kidnapping, and the sentences do not
extend at the longest beyond eight or ten years.
The Debtor’s Prison is officially known as the “House of Detention.”
Its prisoners are not chained, may walk about freely, smoke, play
games provided they are not games of chance, and at certain hours
each day are allowed to see their friends in a small room at one
side. On a winter’s day, when the windows and door of this room are
shut, the contracted space packed with people, and the air heavy
enough with tobacco smoke to cut with a knife, it is almost as much
as a foreigner’s life is worth to take even a hasty peep inside. The
prisoners provide their own bedding and food, with the exception of
rice, and on the whole appear to enjoy themselves and to be in no hurry
for their release, though some have hidden away quite enough money to
pay their debt if they cared to, and others have relatives or friends
who could easily pay it for them. Recently two men were set at liberty
by the court on the presumption that they were really unable to meet
their obligation, one after seven years’ imprisonment and the other
five. The Municipal jail for men is several miles away, in a more
open part of the city. Its massive, gray brick walls shut in between
eleven and twelve hundred prisoners, all of them Chinese, for foreign
prisoners are lodged temporarily in small prisons connected with
their consulates, or, when the consulate has no prison, in the British
jail. The discipline and upkeep of the jail are about perfect. The
superintendent is a Christian who arranges for regular Sunday services
for the prisoners, the Young Men’s Christian Association having general
charge.
Industrial work of various kinds, including tailoring, mat weaving, and
carpentering, is carried forward on a large scale, and a considerable
amount of the city’s road-paving and repairing is done by the
prisoners. Short terms in jail are rather welcomed than otherwise
by many of the men, for they mean to them shelter, good food, warm
blankets, and a chance to learn a trade under the most favourable
conditions. Indeed, it has come to pass that many habitual offenders
are in the habit of flocking to Shanghai as soon as the cold weather
sets in with the express purpose of putting up at the jail for the
winter. A specific instance occurred a while ago when a Chinese walked
into one of the police stations and cheerfully announced that he wanted
to be arrested. “My belong velly bad man,” he said, “velly bad man.”
Not being able to give any special reason why he should be arrested
at that particular time, he was told to go about his business. But
he insisted. He was “velly bad,” and wanted to be arrested, and it
was with a look of pained surprise that he made his way out of the
station. As he walked down the street, thinking with dismay of the cold
weather ahead, a happy inspiration struck him. He went in search of
a policeman, and having found one, proceeded to beat him. He did his
work thoroughly, was quickly arrested by another policeman, and taken
to the nearest police station, beaming with satisfaction. The problem
of his winter’s lodging had been solved. A moot question for some time
past has been the advisability of reviving the practice of flogging
with the bamboo. Many officials, Chinese as well as foreign, contend
that this punishment as formerly administered by the Mixed Court, was
thoroughly humane, and that as it has real terror for the Chinese
nothing begins to be so effective in preventing crime, which has of
late been greatly on the increase.
Formerly there was no Reformatory, and young boys convicted of no
worse crime than petty stealing were often confined in the same
cell with hardened criminals. It was the present superintendent who
agitated the need of a separate building for the boys under sixteen,
and finally a great three-story warehouse was purchased and fitted up
for this purpose by the Municipal Council. Some of the lads are as
young as nine. “The longer I live in China and the more I see of its
poverty-stricken multitudes the less I blame any one for stealing,”
exclaimed a Y.M.C.A. visitor at the Reformatory. The boys do industrial
work in the morning and in the afternoon study, drill, and play. The
fire drill is fine, but the military drill is the boys’ delight. Those
best trained take turns in acting as drill-master. They give the orders
in English and the company responds with a vim. Insubordination is
punished by obliging the offender to scrub the wooden floors with sand,
sometimes for a whole day. They are kept beautifully white. “You should
see the kitchen!” said a frequent caller to a new comer. “It is so
clean you could eat off the floor!” Several Christian Chinese business
men in Shanghai have an understanding with the superintendent that they
will receive a limited number of boys sent out from the reformatory,
give them employment and a chance to begin life anew.
One of the first things that impressed itself on the early foreign
settlers in Shanghai was the need of an adequate police force. In the
beginning it was limited to a handful of Chinese watchmen under the
joint jurisdiction of the Chinese and foreigners. An amusing story
of those days is that the police were in the habit of lining up for
inspection in their own nondescript garments, but wearing foreign
military caps and carrying in place of rifles closed Chinese umbrellas
of oiled paper! Now the city is well guarded by 230 English policemen,
450 Sikh Indians, and over a thousand Chinese. The picturesque red
turbans of the Sikhs are conspicuous everywhere. These men are harsh
but efficient preservers of the peace. The Chinese are afraid of them.
There is one especially tall Sikh of whom his foreign superior says,
“He is the only man that I am absolutely certain will carry out my
orders in my absence as if I were present.” One of his duties is to
punish Chinese police delinquents by putting them through a severe
physical drill half an hour long in summer and an hour in winter. “It
looks easy enough,” a foreign lady remarked, as she watched the men,
“Why, I exercise harder than that when I play tennis.” “Oh no, you
don’t bring into action every muscle in this way,” smiled the head
officer. “These men are glad enough to lie down and rest after their
stunt is finished. I had one man that fainted, but he was abnormal.”
What makes this punishment especially objectionable to the Chinese is
that it is administered by a Sikh. If an English officer were over them
it would not hurt half so much. The work of a policeman attracts the
Chinese and there is never any lack of recruits. The course of training
lasts three months. Scientific wrestling appeals to the novice strongly
and he soon acquires real skill. The officers have a unique method of
putting a stop to fighting among the men. The combatants are given
boxing gloves, forbidden to bite or kick, two favorite forms of attack
with them, and then made to fight until they are thoroughly tired out.
One such experience usually works a cure for all time.
Chinese barracks are clean and severely plain. “We carry on a constant
warfare against bedbugs,” says the foreign sergeant. “I do not allow
a hook or nail in the walls, except the bracket back of each bed for
holding the rifle, and that I wouldn’t permit up again, for vermin hide
in the corners.” Every Saturday the planks on which the men sleep are
scrubbed with sand and water. The sand soon works into the pores of
the wood where bugs are apt to lodge, so it acts both as a cleanser
and an insect preventive. When a man goes home to spend a day, as he
is sometimes allowed to do, the barracks on his return must undergo
a special cleaning, for he is sure to bring back a fresh relay of
bugs. The past year an innovation has been introduced in furnishing
the Chinese police with rifles, a convincing proof of their general
faithfulness and the trust reposed in them. They are not permitted to
take the rifles to their homes, but when going off duty leave them at
the police stations.
The Sikh recruiting station is on the same grounds with the Chinese
but in a separate yard. The chief embarrassment in connection with the
Sikhs is their food. They are East Indians and can not eat what the
Chinese do. Caste rules are inflexible and time must be given them
to prepare food in their own way no matter how greatly the staff is
inconvenienced. The Sikhs are stern disciplinarians, but in character
no more dependable than most of the Chinese, nor in some cases as much
so. A Sikh watchman patrolling an outlying district rang one evening
the doorbell of a foreigner’s house. “It is raining,” he remarked
blandly. “Can I have a chair and sit on your veranda?” It was observed
afterward that he frequently camped on the veranda when it was _not_
raining. The Sikhs are not required to learn Chinese, but they are
encouraged to do so by being promoted and given higher salaries when
they can speak it. Chinese is demanded of European policemen. They of
course constitute the backbone of the staff. The Municipal Department
supports a hospital, one of the cleanest and best in the city, for
Chinese policemen; it is also used for prisoners from the Municipal
Jail. Women prisoners when sick are sent to a woman’s mission hospital.
In case of riot or other emergency Shanghai would not need to rely
wholly on the police force, for it has a dependable Volunteer Corps,
at present 1,300 strong. As long ago as 1853 the Volunteer Corps was
organized, and ever since the T’aiping Rebellion, when the members
rendered such valiant service, there has been occasion time and again
to turn to them for help. Their most recent laurels were won during
the Rebellion in the summer of 1913, when Shanghai was the centre of
the war zone. To watch the Corps at drill or on parade, so many sturdy
young men among the older ones in the ranks, gives foreign residents
an exhilarating sense of security, and warms their hearts with a glow
of honest pride in their defenders. Among the many nationalities
represented in the Volunteer Corps is a strong Chinese contingent,
and it causes a still further quickening of the pulse to learn from
the commanding officer that whenever the Chinese Volunteers have been
called into action their efficiency and loyalty have been in the
highest degree commendable. During the past year a Volunteer Motor Car
Company was added to the force. It started with eighteen private cars
and men to run them, but in case of need practically all the private as
well as public cars in the city would be placed at the disposal of the
Volunteers.
The Shanghai Fire Department dates back to 1866. The three chief
officers are employees of the Municipal Council, but all the members
of the four companies are volunteers. There are three fire stations
and three watch towers, besides a one-thousand-gallon fire float
moored at one of the jetties on the Bund. Three motor vehicles are
in use and the purpose is to abolish horses as rapidly as possible.
In a cosmopolitan city like Shanghai, where all sorts of buildings
crowd upon one another in the densely populated districts, fires are
constantly breaking out, but the Fire Brigade handles them so well that
destructive ones are rare.
“Why is it your letters always come to me with a two-cent United
States stamp on them?” wrote a bright American club woman to a friend
in Shanghai. Her perplexity is not surprising, since even certain
government departments in Washington have been known to send to
Shanghai franked envelopes bearing five-cent stamps. The independence
of the “Little Republic,” albeit on Chinese soil, is emphasized by its
having six foreign postoffices--British, American, German, French,
Russian, and Japanese. Three countries--Great Britain, America, and
Germany--have legalized the domestic rate of postage to and from
Shanghai. But home letters forwarded from Shanghai to interior points
require the usual foreign postage of five cents, and parcels from
abroad sent inland must be rewrapped, restamped, and go through the
Chinese postoffice.[1]
[1] As these pages go to press arrangements are being made for an
International Parcel Post.
It is a pity that China failed to improve her flood-tide of opportunity
in 1878, when she was formally invited to join the International Postal
Union, in the hope that it would encourage her to establish a national
postoffice. But with a short-sighted policy she declined to do so, and
it was not till September 1st, 1914, that this privilege was finally
embraced. Though for years a national postoffice was urged upon the
people and often seemed about to materialize through the efforts of
progressive statesmen like Li Hung Chang, yet it did not really make
its appearance till 1896. Up to that time mail was distributed from
local stations under local control, and as means of rapid transit
were very few, much of it was delivered by couriers. There are still
many courier routes in the interior where railroads and steamers do
not penetrate, but the couriers, often on foot, sometimes on mule or
horseback, waste no time in getting over the ground, not infrequently
travelling between eighty and ninety miles a day, and this in spite of
unspeakably bad roads, to say nothing of brigands, floods, and a few
other minor difficulties! Shanghai is the largest distributing centre
in China, and in the substantial red brick Chinese postoffice, just
across the road from the British postoffice, an enormous business is
carried on. All heads of departments are foreigners. Periodically the
Chinese voice a protest, declaring that as the Chinese staff has now
received sufficient training, it is prepared to fill unaided the most
responsible positions. But sagacious Chinese politicians are loth to
release the foreigners, realizing that a change at the present time
would inevitably entail a grave risk. It is rather interesting that the
newest and handsomest postoffice building in Shanghai is the Japanese.
There are no foreign postmen except Japanese. Chinese postmen in neat
green livery cover their route on bicycles. There are six deliveries a
day in the business districts and three and four in the residential.
One family was so disturbed by the postman bringing mail at ten o’clock
or later at night, and insistently ringing the door-bell until it
was answered, that they requested him to defer delivering the late
mail until morning, but he continued to call whenever he had letters,
evidently impressed that the postoffice rules were inflexible and must
no more be broken than the laws of the Medes and Persians.
Probably the most interesting of any branch of the foreign Municipal
government is the Health Department. Eighteen years ago when the doctor
in charge settled in Shanghai and started a campaign against disease,
he was not building on another man’s foundation, for nothing like it
had ever been attempted. A member of the staff has aptly called the
Municipal laboratory “the brain of the department.” It is certainly
kept busy in a thousand ways. People from all over China, for one
thing, turn to it for the Pasteur treatment. But its chief work centres
about plague prevention. Plague is the bane of the Orient, and plague,
it was discovered in 1908, is transmitted to human beings through fleas
that carry the poison from infected rats. Then to prevent plague,
rats must be exterminated, no easy matter in a city like Shanghai.
The campaign began in this way. The city was divided into districts,
the districts into sub-districts and sub-districts into blocks, and
a map made of the whole. A raid on rats followed. Every one caught,
dead or alive, was taken to the laboratory and an examination made.
A black-headed pin was stuck in the map over the spot where each
plague-infected rat was found. A red headed pin on the map indicated
a human death from plague. In this way it was soon learned what parts
of the city were specially invaded by the pests. To kill the rats,
however, amounted to little, for others soon appeared to take their
places. Something more radical needed to be done. After the Municipal
Council had passed rules calling for the rat-proofing of houses, a
more difficult task confronted the officers of the Health Department
in getting the rules enforced. They were needed badly enough for
foreign houses, but were drawn up especially for Chinese dwellings
where often four and five families are crowded like sardines into one
small building. At first the Chinese strenuously opposed and ridiculed
the rules but later came to regard them more favorably. The people
are terrorized at the outbreak of plague, and when a few years ago
Shanghai was threatened with a bad epidemic, they were ready for the
time being to submit to anything that promised to stamp it out and
prevent another visitation. The rules demand that there shall be no
open space underneath the ground floor, and by laying three inches of
tar chips on six inches of concrete, it is impossible for rats to enter
the house from below. The health officers also urge upon householders,
although not included in the rules, that walls be made solid and the
upper story left without a ceiling, showing simply the bare rafters.
Many old houses as well as new ones are treated in this way. Sometimes
a whole block of old houses is rat-proofed at one time. While the work
goes on the people turn out of their homes and camp in the street in
front of them, cooking their meals over little charcoal fires, and
squatting patiently about till they can go back. But education is a
slow process and opposition still continues. The ideal worked toward
is the one already reached in Manila and held up as an example, “_No
hollow spaces whatever accessible to rats._” With the most careful
economy it costs the Health Department two cents to catch each rat,
yet whenever notified by a foreign or Chinese tenant it is prepared to
send its employees with traps to rid the premises. Stationary garbage
receptacles of concrete, with spring lids, that are fire and rat proof,
have been placed in large numbers all over the city. Several times a
day they are emptied through an opening below and the contents carried
off in municipal carts. The receptacles are liked by the Chinese, who
seldom now throw their garbage on the ground.
[Illustration: DISTRIBUTION OF PLAGUE 1914]
The danger from contagious diseases is not so easily controlled. There
is no law requiring small-pox, cholera, or even plague patients to go
to the Chinese Isolation Hospital. Moral suasion is the only influence
that can be brought to bear on them, and it is not always sufficiently
powerful. But a vigorous campaign in the interest of the prevention
of disease is continually in progress. Every month, and every day of
the month, printed circulars are scattered broadcast. They are written
in both English and Chinese, and relate to sanitation, hygiene, the
danger of promiscuous spitting, of flies and mosquitoes, the need of
removing stagnant water and rat-proofing houses. In the autumn and
winter notices are posted on electric light and telephone poles calling
the attention of passers-by to free vaccination for Chinese at any
one of the sixteen branch offices of the health department. Health
lectures are given weekly at the health offices, and not only that
but heed is paid to the old proverb: “If the hill will not come to
Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.” Although the lectures, which
are of a popular character, usually draw a large, attentive crowd,
trained Chinese employees lecture in schools, tea-shops, and other
places where the people are wont to gather. They carry around a dinner
bell which they ring to attract an audience, and they soon have it.
When the lectures first began the people did not understand their
intent, and they aroused almost fierce opposition. But the Chief of the
Department, a physician of great tact and urbanity, sent invitations
to some of the leading business men and officials to meet him at a
specified time and place when he addressed them in person explaining
the character of his campaign. After that there was no further trouble.
A large force of coolies is employed to fight mosquitoes. They work in
pairs in districts assigned to them. Their duty is to gather up old
tins, bottles, and broken crockery, warn residents against leaving
about their premises tubs, empty flower-pots, and other vessels capable
of holding rain-water, obliterating shallow pools and slushy places
by means of scratch drains or filling them up with house ashes, and
sprinkling kerosene oil on stagnant water that can not be drawn off.
The coolies are inspired to faithfulness by frequent and unannounced
inspection of their work.
Among the many business houses regularly inspected by the Health
Department are dairies, laundries, tea, fruit, and meat shops,
restaurants and bakeries. Licenses prohibit in tea-shops the hawking of
fresh food stuffs on the premises; dairies, bakeries, and laundries
must be calcimined twice a year, no one shall sleep or eat in them, nor
may they be attached to a dwelling-house. In bakeries the spraying of
fluid from the mouth on the products of the bakery is prohibited, and
in laundries the same rule applies to the sprinkling of clothes. In
dairies workers are required to keep their clothes clean and wash their
hands before milking. Always and everywhere spitting is forbidden and
also the employment of persons with communicable diseases. To suppose
that these rules are carried out to the letter, would be altogether too
much to expect of human nature. That they act as a powerful deterrent
is certainly true. The foreign dairies are the best, but one Chinese
dairy enjoys the enviable reputation of never having been either fined
or cautioned. The Municipal Slaughter House is kept strictly sanitary
and cattle and carcasses are examined daily. Good meat is stamped with
the words “Killed Municipal Slaughter House.” Inferior meat but free
from disease is marked “2nd Quality.” No meat for foreign consumption
is allowed to be brought into the Settlement unless it bears the
Municipal stamp.
Tuberculosis is the Chinaman’s Nemesis, and too often pursues him from
the cradle to the grave. It is also frightfully common among the poor
Eurasians who herd together under lamentable conditions. The only
remedy for this prevailing malady seems to be to educate, educate,
educate, and that is being done as thoroughly and effectively as
possible. The Society of King’s Daughters recently did a fine thing.
They planned a Tuberculosis Exhibit, which was held for a week or more
in an empty down town store. Much of the exhibit was loaned and set
up by the Young Men’s Christian Association that is itself carrying
on a telling campaign against China’s “White Scourge.” Maps, charts,
pictures, devices of all kinds for arresting the attention and teaching
a lesson, were arranged attractively, but two things in particular
produced a profound impression. One was a bell that every thirty-seven
seconds clanged ominously. Over it hung a placard announcing in Chinese
and English that every time the bell tolled some poor victim in China
died of tuberculosis. The other design was more conspicuously placed
in one of the large show windows and always attracted a crowd of
absorbed, silent Chinese. The sight that held them spell-bound was a
perfect model of a Chinese house, out of which stepped a Chinaman, who,
after walking a few steps, fell into a Chinese coffin that instantly
disappeared in the earth. This happened every eight seconds and each
drop of the coffin represented a death from tuberculosis somewhere in
the world.
Before 1898 there was practically no Health Department and no health
campaign. If progress at times seems slow, one has only to look back
to realize what a marvellous change for the better has been wrought in
a decade and a half. Perhaps more to the Health Department than to any
other branch of the Municipal Government Shanghai owes its right to be
called “The Model Settlement.” The group of Central Municipal Buildings
covering an entire square in the heart of the city forms one of the
finest plants of the kind to be found in the Far East.
III
STREET RAMBLES
“I have lived in China nearly twenty-five years, yet I never go on
the street without seeing something new and interesting,” exclaimed a
vivacious little missionary doctor to a group of fresh arrivals. Her
remark was made about Peking, but the outdoor life in Shanghai has its
own unique charm.
To begin with, in the International Settlement there are no “streets”
at all, so called; only roads. Some of the byways, to be sure, too
narrow and short to be dignified as roads, go by the name of “lane,”
and the city boasts a “Broadway,” or, to be exact, “Broadway Road.” It
is unnecessary to explain that this lies in the district originally
ceded to the Americans. The Shanghai Broadway makes no pretense of
emulating in appearance or importance its western prototype, though
quite a brisk trade is carried on in the modest shops near its lower
end.
The first permanent foreign settlement was along the Bund, beginning
with the site occupied by the British consular offices and residence.
The splendid Bund, bounded on one side by sightly bank and club,
steamboat and insurance buildings, and on the other by the Whangpoo
River, is the city’s pride and glory. It is hard to realize that this
wide, white road, humming with life and swept by costly automobiles,
was once nothing but a well-trodden tow-path bordering a marsh. Away
to the south, across what until recently was an ill-smelling creek but
is now being rapidly metamorphosed into a handsome boulevard, begins
the French Bund, with its wharves and warehouses, and where it ends the
Chinese Bund starts.
The characteristic feature of the Chinese Bund is its boat population.
For more than half a mile little boats called sampans, protected
by a low arched covering of bamboo mats, line the shore and extend
well out into the river. Each tiny sampan swarms with life as if it
were an ant-hill. The occupants are permanent householders and their
habitations are anchored. Many of them were originally famine refugees
from the north. Most of the men earn a living as wharf coolies. The
wives add a little to the income by gathering rags to make into shoe
soles and by patching and darning old garments for coolies without
families who pay a few cash in return. Planks set on stakes serve as
footpaths to connect the boats with the shore, and little toddlers run
about on the narrowest of them at will, yet rarely tumble into the
water or soft mud below. Births, marriages, and funerals lend variety
to the life of the boat people. Two or three empty coffins usually
stand about on the wharf ready for an emergency, and are meanwhile
useful as benches, especially for the women when they sew.
The International Bund on its water side is unobstructed with
buildings, except at the Customs jetty, and is laid out in grass plots
which gradually widen near the Garden Bridge into the Public Gardens.
This charming little park in the heart of the city, with its lawns,
flowers, shade trees, and a band-stand where the celebrated Municipal
Band plays in summer, is a favorite resting place for weary pedestrians
and a rendezvous for parents and nurses with young children. Chinese
are not admitted to the Gardens, except nurses with foreign children,
unless dressed in foreign clothes or accompanied by a foreigner. This
is to keep the grounds from being overrun by the coolie class. The
Customs jetty has witnessed many a stirring scene. Trim launches carry
outgoing passengers twelve miles down the river to the anchored ocean
liners beyond the “bar” and bring them up the river on arrival. Its
sheltering roof has caught the echo of sobs and laughter, tremulous
good-byes and joyous welcomes.
The river at this point is half a mile wide and presents an animated
picture. Every variety of craft floats on its waters, from the busy
sampan to the light-draught coasting vessel or man-of-war. Whether
seen beneath the radiance of the noonday sun, or under a starlit sky,
reflecting myriads of twinkling lights, it is a never-failing delight
to resident and visitor alike.
The most picturesque, as well as the leading business street in
Shanghai is Nanking Road, or as the Chinese call it, “The Great Horse
Road.” “Great,” however qualifies “Road” and not “Horse,” for while
numerous horses travel over it, most of them are the small swift-footed
Mongolian ponies, whose clattering little hoofs are heard early and
late. Indeed the name “Great Horse Road” strikes one as rather out of
date in these days of the ever-present automobile, of which there are
already more than eight hundred in Shanghai. Nanking Road starts at
the Bund with the Palace Hotel, and following the windings of a former
creek, ends at the race course. For a short distance west of the Bund
it is given up mainly to foreign stores, the largest and finest in
the city. Then the street widens and becomes an avenue of high grade
Chinese shops, many of them with the national flag afloat and all
displaying aloft the characteristic vertical signboard in black and
gold. The vista in either direction on a bright day is quite dazzling,
and especially at night when the avenue from end to end is ablaze with
electric lights. Then crowds of Chinese going to and from the theatres
and tea-houses, or simply out for a stroll, jostle each other on the
sidewalks and pour over into the road, where they narrowly escape being
knocked down by rapidly moving vehicles. Conspicuous everywhere are
the Chinese “Women of the Street,” or rather the girls and children,
for nearly all are pitifully young. Bedecked and bejeweled, they stand
sometimes in the bright glare, but oftener within the shadow of a
closed doorway, or at the entrance to a lane, usually in groups under
the care of an older woman who acts as “business agent.” A notable hour
on Nanking Road is between five and six on Saturday afternoon, when it
seems as if the whole city turns out to loaf or saunter in quest of
pleasure. A babel of shrill voices rings in the ear, mingled with the
shouts of ricsha coolies and the tooting of motor cars. It is a gay,
panoramic scene, such as could hardly be duplicated anywhere else in
China.
A Britisher in Shanghai once made the remark, “There are two things
an Englishman must have, a king and a race-course.” The Shanghai
race-course, with the Public Recreation Grounds adjoining, covers about
sixty-six acres in a part of the city where property is valued the
highest. The land was bought up years ago. So much open space in that
locality could scarcely be secured to-day at any price.
Bubbling Well Road is a synonym for the patrician quarter of Shanghai.
It is a continuation of Nanking Road and takes its name from the
effervescent pool enclosed by a low cement wall at its terminus. Near
by Bubbling Well is the foreign cemetery, a shady, restful spot. Every
thirtieth of May the Americans gather within its gates for a national
memorial service. They represent all creeds and callings, merchant and
missionary, tourist and adventurer, aliens on a distant shore, drawn
together by a common love for a common flag. The American corps of
the Shanghai Volunteers and the “Regulars” from the American cruisers
anchored in the river, march up from the Bund with bugle and fife and
salute in front of the flower-strewn mounds. A few of these graves date
back more than sixty years.
Some of the handsomest residences on Bubbling Well Road are owned by
wealthy Chinese. Pleasant afternoons and evenings automobiles by the
score flash up and down this wide, smoothly-paved road and on to the
delightful suburbs beyond, many of them crowded to overflowing with
merry-making Chinese, women as well as men.
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.
[Illustration: SOME SHOPS ON NANKING ROAD]
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.
[Illustration: Tang, a Pawn Shop.]
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.
While the patience of the Dunlaps was sorely taxed during this period
of waiting, they could not help being deeply impressed with the
unfailing good nature and courtesy of the firm, always regretful, ever
ready for another trial, though the money loss was their own.
Some of their work, too, was really a pronounced success, as in the
case of the sectional bookcases which they patterned after one loaned
them by Mr. Dunlap. When the two were set up side by side in the
library it was next to impossible to tell them apart.
The absolute confidence of the Chinese in the honour of foreigners was
often remarked on in the family. Not for five months after work began
and until several hundred dollars’ worth of goods had been delivered
was any money asked for or expected. A dishonest person might easily
have slipped out of town and left furniture and debt behind him.
One noon, during the period of house-settling, when Mr. Dunlap returned
from his office, he was surprised to see a bevy of men at work sodding
the lawn, a matter he had not yet had time to consider. He was still
more astonished when he learned that this was being done for him by the
company of whom he rented his house. There was nothing personal about
it. All the company’s property was being treated in the same way. But
sod, it seems, could not easily be carried off, while lighting fixtures
might!
The Dunlaps did not find it necessary to go to the florist’s in search
of plants to beautify the grounds, for street vendors brought them
to their door. From the very morning they moved in these men fairly
haunted the place. They carried the plants in round, slightly convex
baskets, suspended by ropes from a bamboo pole slung across one
shoulder. Every time Mrs. Dunlap appeared in sight there they were, an
eager, smiling group of them, holding out their flowers and begging
her to buy in their best _pidgin_ English. Mrs. Dunlap always shook
her head saying, “By and by. Not now. I am too busy.” But one bright
day, when the house-wife was unusually occupied with work indoors,
an enterprising fellow actually took it upon himself to border the
entire garden, and it was a good large one, with handsome plants of
many varieties, and ended by placing on the veranda four mammoth
potted palms. The effect was charming. Of course Mrs. Dunlap might
have ordered the plants taken out of the ground, but what woman would?
Instead she gladly paid a little less than the price asked, which was
about six dollars. Afterward a neighbour told her that had she happened
to have any second-hand clothing to offer the man, he would willingly
have taken it in place of money. “Each year I replenish my garden with
flowers in that way,” concluded the friend.
The day the Dunlaps ate their first meal in their new home was a very
happy one, but before that time two important matters had been attended
to by Mr. Dunlap. These were putting in a first-class filter, and
covering the floors of the store-room and pantry with zinc which was
allowed to turn up around the walls for a foot and a half in order
to guard against the encroachments of ubiquitous Shanghai rats. The
Berkefeld filter is generally used in Shanghai and is supposed to
preclude the necessity of boiling the drinking water. But as every one
knows, the “candle” must be carefully washed in boiling water once a
week, and as Mrs. Dunlap soon found she could not trust a servant to do
this, who might or might not have the water really boiling, or handle
the candle without breaking, she attended to it herself.
Among her first callers were the “runners” from several Chinese grocery
stores. The nearest secured her patronage. Each morning his man came to
receive the day’s orders, and before noon the groceries were delivered
in a neat box-tricycle. In addition a daily visit to the market was
made by the cook, for the grocery stores in Shanghai carry neither
meat nor fresh vegetables. “Just think, we no longer have to depend
on tinned butter and milk!” exclaimed Mrs. Dunlap delightedly to her
husband soon after their removal to the coast city, as her eyes turned
with satisfaction to the neat pat of fresh Australian butter on her
pretty Welsh butter dish. The dairies, the best being the European, are
carefully inspected by the Municipal Health Department and deliver milk
in sealed bottles to insure not being tampered with on the way from
the dairy to their destination. Notwithstanding this, never a drop of
milk or cream was used on the Dunlaps’ table that had not been scalded.
Neither was lettuce indulged in, not even that grown in private
gardens, nor any other uncooked vegetable. In view of the ravages of
Oriental dysentery and kindred diseases, the family agreed that it
was wise to obey the injunctions of foreign doctors and take no risks.
Fresh fruit from which the skin could be removed was eaten freely
in season, but was dipped in boiling water, or underwent a thorough
washing in filtered water before it was set on the table. Strawberries
were subjected to a special cleansing process under Mrs. Dunlap’s
personal supervision. Placed in a colander, boiling water was poured
over them three times, and lastly a solution of permanganate. Later on
in her experience Mrs. Dunlap learned of a better and easier way of
disinfecting the fruit, and that was to plunge it for an instant into
boiling syrup, by which the flavor of the berry was retained and its
appearance but little altered. Even after every reasonable precaution
had been taken in the matter of food, the Dunlaps were made aware that
through the carelessness of servants, and in other ways, they were
constantly running serious risks. However, they concluded to do the
best they could and then not worry.
Another early caller to put in an appearance was the public laundryman.
Shanghai houses are not built with the idea of doing washing at
home, except perhaps a few of the small pieces. So it is sent out,
and as to just what kind of places, one may possibly be happier
not to inquire into too diligently. The public laundries in the
International Settlement, it is true, are subject to inspection by
the Health Department, but questionable habits are liable to continue
notwithstanding. Take, for instance, a Chinese washerman’s manner
of sprinkling clothes, which is to fill his mouth with water, then
squirt it out through his closed teeth. It is bad enough when the spray
falls on hosiery and underwear, but handkerchiefs, napkins--well, Mrs.
Dunlap soon found that it was not well under such circumstances to give
reins to her imagination. She certainly had no fault to find with the
pricelist, paying barely one cent and a half apiece for everything,
from a face cloth to the most elaborate white dress. As a rule the
clothes were exquisitely laundered, even though the method employed did
cause rapid deterioration.
Although the process of setting their house in order was a most
tedious one, at last Mr. and Mrs. Dunlap had progressed far enough to
be comfortable and feel that they could turn their attention to other
and more important matters. At first they were a little disturbed by
having to look at the back courts of their neighbours’ houses across
the street instead of onto their well-trimmed lawns, for it is usual
in Shanghai to build so that all houses may face the south, from which
the breeze comes. Then too, Mrs. Dunlap’s soul was somewhat tried by
the lines of washing, innumerable as the sands on the sea-shore, hung
out to dry on the vacant lots stretching away to the south. But it
was at least a more agreeable sight than the coffins lying scattered
about on the ground just beyond her east windows, left there, perhaps
by perfect strangers to the Chinese landowner, to await a convenient
time of burial. A little farther away, Mr. Dunlap passed every morning,
in going to his office, a lot which evidently was a favorite spot for
depositing the dead. Fresh coffins appeared each morning, most of them
tiny ones. Often the baby was not given a coffin at all, but tied in
a grass mat which was thrown carelessly on the ground. The bodies are
supposed to be gathered up and carted away daily. One seems gradually
to get hardened in China to things grown too familiar. The Dunlaps used
often to marvel that their surroundings, depressing though they were,
did not affect them more.
Mrs. Dunlap’s daily routine began each morning after breakfast by
“taking accounts” with the cook. The cook in China does the marketing,
and he also gets his commission or “squeeze” as it is popularly called.
That is, he buys a pound and half of meat and brings in a bill for
two, or he charges his mistress a few coppers more a pound than he has
paid. This squeezing business is perfectly understood by both parties,
and providing it does not exceed certain bounds, nothing is said about
it. Market prices are quoted each morning in one of the Shanghai
dailies, and by consulting this and making an occasional visit herself
to market, Mrs. Dunlap kept informed as to about what she ought to
pay. Whenever the cook began to take undue advantage of her, she did
not accuse him of it directly, but a conversation something like the
following would ensue: “Ta Shih-fu (Great Assistant), you are paying
too much for meat.” “Yes, so I told the butcher, but he won’t take
less.” “Then go somewhere else.” Or, “One hundred and four eggs are too
many to use in two days for our small family.” “It certainly is a great
many but I had to put eighteen into a cake.” “You must use fewer.” “I
will try.” Now Mrs. Dunlap knew, and the cook knew that she knew, that
he had paid a moderate price for the meat and was charging her for
eggs which he never bought or had disposed of himself. But through this
indirect method of dealing with him, by no means original with her,
she gained her end and saved the face of the Great Assistant. Had he
suffered “loss of face” probably nothing would have been said by him
at the time, but later he might have appeared before his mistress to
announce sorrowfully that his uncle or great-aunt had just died and
he must leave at once. Perhaps next day he would be found comfortably
installed in a neighbouring kitchen. Occasionally a young housekeeper,
new to China, undertakes to do her own marketing and even to dispense
with a cook altogether. But after a few days, or at the most a few
weeks, she usually gives up the trial she made so hopefully, realizing
that as conditions are in China it is next to impossible for a foreign
woman to do her own housework.
Following the taking of accounts came giving out “stores” for the day.
Housekeepers differ. Some keep nothing under lock and key. Others deal
out what is needed in minutest measure, a cupful of rice, a half cup of
sugar. Mrs. Dunlap found it expedient to follow a middle course, not
putting temptation in the cook’s way by giving him free access to the
stores, but at the same time showing that he was trusted by letting him
have a fairly liberal quantity at a time. If the supplies disappeared
too rapidly she dealt with him after the ordinary indirect fashion.
Frequently she and her neighbors helped one another by “comparing
notes.” “How long does a fifty pound bag of flour last you?” “How many
pounds of sugar do you average in a week?”
Mrs. Dunlap’s cook was an artist in his way. When the spirit moved
him he sent his cakes, pies, and puddings to the table ornamented in
a style that would do justice to a Fifth Avenue caterer. One day,
however, he gave the family a surprise. A cake was served for dinner
that had a most peculiar flavor. “I told the cook to use lemon filling,
but there is no taste of lemon about this,” declared Mrs. Dunlap,
critically sampling a bit of the cake. “No, and there _is_ a strong
taste of onion,” said her husband. “Oh, impossible! But yes, there
really is!” The cook was called in. “What did you make the filling of?”
questioned Mrs. Dunlap. “Onions,” was the prompt reply. “Onions! Why, I
told you to use lemon.” “No, the lady said onions, and I am an obedient
cook. I always do just as the lady bids.” Then suddenly it dawned on
the crest-fallen mistress that she _had_ ordered onion, the Chinese
word for that pungent vegetable and for lemon being somewhat alike. But
this was not quite as bad as the experiment of a friend’s cook, who,
with no malice whatever, but the best of intentions, flavored the soup
with kerosene oil, and on another occasion poured a liberal quantity
of hair oil into the pudding. As to cleanliness or rather the lack of
that admirable virtue in the moral make-up of many otherwise desirable
chefs, without question the least said the better. But when a cook is
discovered washing his waistcoat in the dishpan, or polishing the stove
with a fine tea-towel, if a summary dismissal ensues, can any one blame
the sorely-tried house-wife? Many a merry half hour the ladies of the
neighbourhood spend over their teacups sharing experiences both amusing
and tragic. The longer Mrs. Dunlap lived in China the more she realized
that while the “servant problem” in the Orient is not solved, as many
in Western lands seem to think it is, yet the excellencies of Chinese
servants are many and pronounced. These are more noticeably away from
the coast cities, and were more general before the recent revolution,
and even before 1900, but the sterling good qualities of the better
servants are still worthy of the highest praise. Where will more
devoted, faithful service be found? Were the children sick at night,
or was Mr. Dunlap leaving the city by a midnight boat or an early
train, the servants were on duty, eager and willing without a word of
complaint.
One time the Dunlaps arrived home from a journey at midnight to find a
hot supper awaiting them. It had been ready since seven o’clock when
the family was expected, but by some occult process known only to the
cook, the food had been kept from burning or drying up during the
intervening hours. The men were blinking and heavy-eyed, but absolutely
good-natured.
It was a never failing comfort to Mrs. Dunlap to be able to announce
the arrival of unexpected guests to the servants without the shadow
of a fear of any unpleasantness. Indeed, the larger the number, the
happier was the cook, for the more he had to buy the bigger his
“squeeze.” Still a great amount of extra work was often involved,
which was always taken as a matter of course. The “boy” delighted to
decorate the dining table, and if left to his own devices a favorite
diversion was to write on the tablecloth, with colored rice and flower
petals, characters meaning love, happiness, long life, and peace.
But it was when the Dunlaps gave their house-warming that the servants’
virtues shone the brightest. To save time, the small cakes, toothsome
and delicate, were bought at a foreign bakery. To save money, though
there are caterers in Shanghai, the ice-cream was made at home.
Freezers were borrowed from neighbors, and late in the afternoon a
busy scene was enacted in the little courtyard. The cook had called in
coolies from the street, and “boys” from the houses around, and all
were soon grinding away as if for dear life. Ice can always be had in
Shanghai. The Dunlaps often observed with interest that whenever the
neighboring ponds were encrusted with ice, even half an inch thick,
the Chinese cut it carefully away and stored it in nearby sheds. This
broken ice sells for much less than the foreign artificial ice, which
however comes in cakes and is much better. Mrs. Dunlap ventured to ask
the cook if the cream would keep till a late hour. With a lordly wave
of the hand the Great Assistant replied, “Leave that to me, Lady. Leave
that to me.” And she knew she could.
Meanwhile the boy had been given the responsibility in the dining-room.
Mrs. Dunlap laid on the table extra silver. “Here are so many forks,
so many spoons,” she explained. “Strange men will be in the kitchen
this evening. The silver is in your care.” That was all, and she never
gave it another thought. Had a piece been missing, it would shortly
have been returned. How, and from where, who knows? The secret service
system of Chinese servants is a mystery to foreigners.
That night before going upstairs Mrs. Dunlap was respectfully requested
to look at the silver, washed and neatly piled on the sideboard. The
tired boy would not sleep until she had inspected it and declared it
all right.
VI
SOMETHING ABOUT VEHICLES
Let them be named decently and in order. First and foremost is the
wheelbarrow. It does not take this rank because of its superior size,
elegance, or even usefulness, but on account of its antiquity. To be
sure, it can not lay claim to antedating the sedan-chair, but the
dignified and exclusive sedan-chair has practically dropped out of
Shanghai street life and hence will not be considered. The wheelbarrow
on the contrary, instead of being relegated to the interior or less
modern towns, creakily holds its own, and is not to be downed. Nor does
any one want it to be, useful vehicle that it is, unless perchance some
nervous invalids, or weary sleepers, whose morning rest is disturbed
by the rising crescendo of the rasping, tormenting, unconquerable
nuisance. The creak could be stopped with a few drops of oil--the
easiest matter in the world, but the coolie loves that creak--he would
not part with it for anything. It means business. It is the evidence
of work being accomplished. Without it he would feel lost. Every
wheelbarrow, the Chinese say, has its individual creak. People too
far off to be recognized are identified in this way. “Friend Wong is
coming,” says a man to his neighbor, “I hear his creak.” A Chinese
wheelbarrow has this advantage over its foreign compeers, that instead
of a small wheel at the end, it has a large one in the center. To be
sure, the wheel rising up divides the wheelbarrow into halves, but
makes it much easier to carry the weight. A stout woven rope band
fastened to the handle-bars and passing back across the coolie’s
shoulders helps greatly to steady the load.
The Shanghai wheelbarrow is mostly used for freight, but because of its
cheapness it is a favourite passenger vehicle with a certain class of
Chinese, especially the women and children going to and from the mills.
Often eight or ten crowd on, sitting sideways with their feet hanging
down. Once eleven women and girls were seen on one, pushed along
by a single coolie. A coolie ordinarily is able to manage anywhere
from six hundred to a thousand pounds. He carries everything, from
building-stone to goose feathers. When the cargo is heavy the poor
fellow staggers like a drunken man, moving from side to side to balance
his load. His veins stand out like whipcords and the perspiration pours
off from him in streams. To keep from being blinded by it in summer he
frequently has to wear a band forming artificial eyebrows across his
forehead to catch and hold the water. All the time, breathless as he
is, he usually keeps up his singing cry, partly from force of habit
and partly to warn people that he is coming and to clear the road. But
street-cars can’t turn out of the way, and some other vehicles won’t,
so occasionally the coolie gets caught in a trap, the wheelbarrow
loses its balance, and over it goes. With certain kinds of cargo no
damage is done and the only inconvenience is the delay and extra
lifting, but if the load is rice bags which burst open, or breakable
merchandise, the coolie faces a bad situation. He earns, as a rule, a
fair living wage for a poor man, but there is no surplus to cover the
cost of accidents.
[Illustration: HIGH, BLACK RICKSHAS OUTSIDE THE FOREIGN SETTLEMENT]
Wheelbarrow coolies, though, are said to live longer and fare better
than most ricsha coolies. This latter class is very shortlived as a
rule. Their working years do not ordinarily extend beyond three, five,
or at the most ten. One Shanghai ricsha coolie declared he had pulled a
ricsha for twenty-four years, but this, if true, was most exceptional.
At the present time there are between nine and ten thousand public
ricshas in Shanghai, but probably a shifting population during the
year of many times that number of coolies. Some one who has studied
the subject estimates that the entire coolie population of Shanghai,
including all classes, reaches as high as four hundred thousand. The
average earnings of a ricsha coolie are seven coppers, about three or
four cents, a day, and from this pittance he must support a family, and
that too in a city noted over China for high cost of living. No wonder
a doctor in charge of a mission hospital where many sick coolies are
sent recently reported, “A large number of the cases brought in are in
a state of collapse due to malnutrition and the bad hygienic conditions
of their life superadded to the strenuous spasmodic strain they
undergo.” Heart trouble and China’s inveterate foe, tuberculosis, carry
off the majority. Perspiring freely, even in winter, after a hard run,
then waiting, it may be an hour, for another “fare,” in the penetrating
wind or chilling rain, with no extra covering for their thinly clad
bodies, the coolies are in a condition to succumb readily to disease.
Married men live in colonies in the outskirts of the city, in little
straw or bamboo huts, for which they pay a rental of from fifteen to
twenty cents a month. In cold weather the whole family crawls inside to
keep warm, where the air is heavy with tobacco smoke and the fumes from
the little charcoal fire over which the rice is cooking. Many a baby
contracts eye disease that later leads to blindness. Unmarried ricsha
coolies sleep wherever they can find shelter, ordinarily in the cheap
tea-houses, often as many as fifty herding together in one small room.
The conditions in these places beggar description.
The coolies do not own their ricshas. They are the property of
companies, some foreign, others Chinese, each owning anywhere from
fifty to seven or eight hundred, while two large companies have in
stock a thousand and twelve hundred, respectively. One of these
companies manufactures its own ricshas, turning out a hundred a
month. Women are employed to make the cushions for the back and seat.
Several of the companies provide the men with uniforms. Generally it
is only a coat, while the wearer’s ragged trousers show more ragged in
contrast. In a single instance the clothes are washed every twenty-four
hours in the company’s laundry and returned clean to the coolies. The
Municipal Council has decreed that in the International Settlement
ricsha coolies must be decently clad, but the rule is not strictly
enforced. On the back of ricshas belonging to Chinese companies is
written in Chinese the company’s name, which is generally rather poetic
not to say moral in tone, such as “Able to Fly Co.,” “Everlasting
Remembrance,” “Steadfast Righteousness.” One company’s ricshas exhibit
above the license plate a small metal locomotive, highly suggestive
of incomparable speed. A rubber-tired ricsha costs, when new, fifty
or sixty dollars, and its rental per day is from thirty-five to forty
cents. A coolie hiring a ricsha, after using it a few hours, or half
a day, sublets it, and that man in turn often rents it to another, so
that in the course of twenty-four hours, it is likely to pass through
two, three, or perhaps four hands, consequently the number of ricsha
coolies is naturally far in excess of the ricshas. Passengers pay
either according to the time the ricsha is used, the regular tariff
being twenty cents an hour (but if the poor fellow gets eight or ten
cents he does well), or by the trip, say five cents for a run of a mile
or a mile and a half. At night the coolie expects a trifle more, as he
has to spend a cent to buy the candle that lights his paper lantern or
tiny lamp. These are the prices for foreigners. Chinese as a rule give
less. Ricshas are of two kinds, the high black ones and the low brown
style. All the latter are furnished with rubber tires. Most of the
high ones formerly were without them, and as they could be rented more
cheaply in consequence, were much used by the poorer Chinese, but of
late the Municipal Council has succeeded in banishing all such ricshas
from the Settlement. Most of the worn-out ricshas are apparently
bought up for use in the Chinese district, as it abounds in a multitude
of rickety, ramshackle vehicles, probably purchased for a mere song.
Many of them are pulled by young boys, scarcely more than children.
Ricsha coolies running in the International Settlement must have a
license from the Municipal Council. If they are to travel beyond the
limits of the Settlement they require in addition a French and a
Chinese license. The license, in the form of a tin plate, is slipped
into a groove at the back of the ricsha. It is furnished to the coolies
by the companies owning the ricshas who pay into the city treasury a
dollar a month for each one. The coolie loses his license if he commits
a misdemeanor. Often for a very slight one, like blocking the road,
generally in his eagerness to secure a passenger, he has his license
taken from him by a Sikh policeman. Then the poor fellow is sorely
troubled, for he can do no business without his license, and it is
sometimes several days, or weeks, before it is restored, on the payment
of a fine of forty cents. Once a month the ricshas in the Settlement
must have their licenses renewed and be officially inspected.
At the examining station opposite the Honkew Market, between three
and four hundred gather every day. An English policeman is in charge.
One by one the ricshas are brought before him, while he and a Chinese
assistant shake, pull, and pound them to see if they are in good
condition. If any part shows signs of weakness it is wrenched off, the
license withheld, and the ricsha sent back to the company that owns
it for repairs. The companies are represented on these occasions by
Chinese foremen. Occasionally the foreman is a forewoman. A regular
habitué is an old wizened creature, with bound feet and half blind, but
as the foreign officer aptly describes her, “Keen as a razor when it
comes to looking after the fifty ricshas placed in her care.” Accidents
to ricshas are not infrequent on the crowded streets of Shanghai. The
marvel is that they do not occur oftener. Nearly all coolies run with
their heads down and their minds,--well, who can tell where a coolie’s
mind may be wandering? It is doubtless dormant most of the time.
Nearly all coolies come from the lowest stratum of society, and having
nothing else to give in exchange for bread, or rather rice, sell their
strength. The literal interpretation of the word “coolie” is “The man
who sells his strength.”
The ricsha coolie’s movements are erratic and impulsive. He seldom
reasons. There are foreigners who will not risk their life in a ricsha
and hair-breadth escapes occur nearly every day. An American lady
was riding on one of the narrow, congested streets, when suddenly
her coolie attempted to dash across the road between two electric
cars approaching from opposite directions. He succeeded in clearing
the track himself but the cars closed on the ricsha, crushing it to
splinters. The woman with great presence of mind saved herself by
grasping the front railing of one of the cars and holding to it until
she could be drawn up. Another remarkable escape was that of a mother
who, with her young baby, was riding on one of the quiet streets
supposed to be perfectly safe. The coolie saw a man approaching on a
bicycle, zigzaged several times in front of him, then utterly losing
his nerve and wits, he dropped the shafts and ran away. The sudden stop
and downward movement of the ricsha threw the baby out of its mother’s
arms. The little thing fell, face down, on the hard macadamized road,
and lay so still the mother feared the child was dead, but it proved to
be only stunned, and except for some bad bruises, the next day seemed
none the worse for its fall.
The ordinary wear and tear of ricshas is made good by the owners, but
damages due to accidents are often charged to the coolie, at least in
part. The amount for which he is responsible depends on the company.
One large firm exacts two and three dollars for a tire. These prices
are ruinous for the coolie, who is obliged to borrow the money to pay
the fine, and money lenders demand exorbitant rates of interest. The
coolie who is unable to pay his debt has no recourse but to run away,
commit suicide, or go to the Debtor’s Prison. In the latter case,
unless he has more fortunate friends or relatives who come to his
rescue he is likely to remain a prisoner indefinitely.
It is interesting to see how quickly a fresh arrival from the West
accustoms himself to ricsha riding. At first he is apt to inveigh
against man-drawn vehicles, or if he gets into a ricsha, to sit
lightly on the seat, with perhaps one foot hanging out at the side,
with the idea of helping the coolie along, but presently he abandons
himself to the enjoyment of the little, easy-running carriage, or
as one enthusiastic woman described it “a grown-up’s perambulator,”
and almost ceases to think of the puller as a human being. But let
him stand on the Bund some day in the late afternoon and watch the
stream of ricshas hurrying by. There is scarcely a coolie whose
face is not drawn as if with pain, and many are actually contorted.
Although a ricsha coolie’s life is far from a bed of roses, in his
own happy-go-lucky way he does manage to get some pleasure out of it.
One of the ricsha companies, with benevolent intentions, undertook to
furnish free hot tea to its men at the company’s headquarters, but the
plan didn’t work, for the reason that the coolies preferred to buy
their own tea at a tea-house. Wretched as is the low-class tea-house,
it is the coolies’ favorite gathering place, where, surrounded by their
cronies, they can gossip, smoke, and gamble till necessity drives them
forth to work again.
The coolies who come to the city in winter from farms and return to
them in the spring, may be called gentlemen of means compared with the
others. A very few, the number is almost negligible, are able to make
ricsha pulling a paying business, as in the case of the man who gave
up the position of “boy” at six dollars a month in a private family to
become a ricsha coolie, because he said he could make more money.
Many articles are lost in the ricshas. A passenger gets out and hurries
away, forgetting his bundle or umbrella, and unless he has thought to
look at the number on the ricsha, that is the last he ever sees of it.
Not always though. The narrow margin on which the poor coolie exists
from day to day makes the exceptionally honest one stand out in all
the brighter light. An elderly gentleman, carrying a very valuable
package, left his ricsha with the package in it and went into a store.
His business detained him some time and he finally returned home in a
street car, entirely forgetting he had a ricsha waiting for him. After
a considerable time the coolie, who had not observed the gentleman go
away, went into the shop to look for him. A clerk said he had gone.
Then was the coolie’s opportunity to run off with his prize. But no,
in a moment he had brought in the package and laid it on the counter,
asking anxiously how he could get it to the owner. As the gentleman
was a regular customer at the shop, the clerk agreed to send it to his
residence. That coolie not only received no reward for his honesty,
since he slipped back into the crowd and it was impossible to identify
him, but he lost time and fare as well. Another case was that of a lady
who, in stepping from her ricsha, dropped a five dollar bill, which
was discovered by the coolie after she had gone. Not being sure which
house the lady had entered the coolie went from one to another until
he found the owner of the money, to whom he restored it. It sometimes
happens that dishonesty crops up where it is not looked for, and an
unprincipled passenger, sad to relate, sometimes a foreigner, after
using a ricsha for several hours, eludes his coolie and escapes the
payment of fare by going into a shop or house and disappearing out
another door.
The ricsha is not indigenous to China. It was introduced from Japan
as many as fifty years ago and promises to be seen on the streets of
Shanghai for some time to come in spite of the increasing popularity of
more modern conveyances.
There is a Christian mission for the ricsha coolies. It was started
four years ago by a Scotch business man on whose heart had been
laid the spiritual needs of this neglected class. At two centres in
thickly-populated coolie districts week-day and Sunday meetings are
held in rented Chinese houses, besides Sunday-schools and day-schools
for the children of the ricsha coolies and a weekly religious meeting
for women. A native evangelist visits the men in their homes and in
the tea-shops they are wont to frequent, a Bible woman goes among
the women, hot rice and beds are given to the really destitute in
cold weather, and the sick are sent to the hospital. At the special
Christmas services held one year each coolie was presented with a
cheap towel, to his great delight. But let it not be imagined that the
coolie’s satisfaction was due to the fact that he could now remove a
few layers of dirt from his hands and face. That consideration, if it
entered his mind at all, was wholly secondary. The chief use of the
towel was to wipe the sweat from his brow when running, so that he
could see more clearly. The coolies’ incredulous amazement that any
one should care for them was most touching. At first when they flocked
to the Hall they would say to the evangelist, “Is this for _us_?” and
at the close of the meeting, “We never heard anything like it!” There
have been a number of very bright conversions among them. The work is
supported by voluntary contributions, the coolies themselves, out of
their extreme poverty, giving generously. The ambition of some is to
raise enough money to build a church! It is a noble purpose but leagues
beyond the possibilities of their meagre resources.
Tramcars began running in the International Settlement in Shanghai
in 1907. Six years later they were introduced on Chinese territory.
No street in the Chinese city being wide enough for a car to pass
through it, the intention is to surround the city with a track in
place of the old moat, and it will not be long before the circle is
complete. The cars are divided into two unequal sections, the larger
one for third-class passengers and the smaller for first-class. Some
foreigners travel third-class and many Chinese first-class. On one
line in the Settlement, owing to the rude treatment accorded them in
the third-class compartment by Chinese men, Chinese women are allowed
to travel first-class for a third-class fare. Two notices stand out
conspicuously in third-class cars. One prohibits spitting and is put
up by the Municipal Health Department to guard against tuberculosis.
The other warns passengers not to enter or leave while the cars are
in motion. The warning is emphasized by a coloured picture of a man
who has fallen in jumping off a car and is lying on the ground with
the blood flowing from his wounds. Still, every year some Chinese are
killed and many more injured in attempting, in their ignorance of
physical laws, to imitate what they see foreigners do. Yet accidents
do not deter them from using the cars, and during the busy hours of
the day they fairly swarm into them. Nearly all the cars carry a
trailer, and except for a few seats in front reserved for first-class
passengers, that too is crowded with Chinese. Fares are rated according
to the distance traveled. Both motorman and conductor are Chinese,
and the latter understands just enough English to collect fares. But
if a stranger in the city asks in English for general information
he will rarely succeed in making himself understood. Railless cars,
brought over from England, were introduced on one road in the autumn
of 1914, but proved too heavy for the paving and were prohibited after
a week or two. The following spring, the road foundation having been
strengthened, a second trial of the cars was made, and this time with
pronounced success. They soon became very popular. Underground and
elevated cars have not yet made their appearance in Shanghai, but the
son of one of its most prominent Chinese citizens has been spending
some time in Paris learning to fly, so on his return in the near future
almost anything may be expected to develop in this progressive corner
of the Orient.
Shanghai being one of the greatest shipping ports in the Far East,
quantities of merchandise are handled daily. Besides wheelbarrows,
and coolies who carry loads suspended by ropes from poles resting on
their shoulders, men-drawn carts are constantly in requisition. Coolies
take the place of horses and mules as beasts of burden. It is true
that the foreign hotels and many foreign firms have their wagons and
vans, nowadays they are oftener motor cars, but these vehicles of
Western manufacture are far outnumbered by native hand-pulled carts.
The carts are of the simplest design, several oblong planks nailed
together and set on two wheels. Most of the loads have to be tied on
with ropes, and no account is taken of weight. The coolies’ muscle
is not spared. Three, four, or more coolies are stationed in front
of the cart to pull, with often several at the back to push. Stout
ropes fifteen or twenty feet long are fastened by one end to the cart
and knotted at the other. Each coolie takes a rope, passes it over
his shoulder, changing occasionally for relief from one to the other,
and grasps the knot with both hands. If the load is extremely heavy,
such as iron rods or building stone, the pullers even on level ground
are obliged to stop frequently to rest and recover breath. But it is
when crossing the arched bridges over Soochow Creek that the tug of
war comes. The forward coolies bend almost double, while those at the
rear push with might and main till their faces are congested and it
seems as if they must burst every blood-vessel in their bodies. But
perhaps the cart does not yield an inch. After a moment’s rest another
effort is made. This time the coolies at the back grasp the wheels and
at last succeed in turning them ever so little, while slowly, very,
very slowly the cart is drawn up the incline. When the highest point
of the bridge is reached, unless the road in front is clear, there
is another pause. Then the coolies who have been pushing, pull back,
assisted by some of the others, while the forward coolies rush ahead in
the liveliest manner to keep from being hit by the cart. It impresses
foreigners as a cruel way of getting work done and draws painfully
on their sympathies, but if a sudden change were made to horse power,
the carters would doubtless be the first ones to raise a hue and cry
against it.
VII
A PEEP INTO THE SCHOOLROOM
“How many schools for the Chinese, not counting missionary schools, are
there in Shanghai?” The question was asked of a Y.M.C.A. secretary, who
with others had just completed a canvass of the city with reference to
its educational facilities. “It is not possible to tell exactly,” he
replied, puckering his brow. “As nearly as we could find out, there
are at least five hundred, probably more. Of course that list does not
include the schools for girls. Miss Blank can tell you about them.” The
Chairman of the Committee on the Investigation of Girls’ Schools was
interviewed. She brought out her maps, charts, and reports, and spread
them on the table. “It was such a difficult search,” she explained.
“We discovered between thirty and forty boarding schools alone, but it
is almost certain that does not include all. Some of them were hidden
away in the queerest places.” “What a difference in the number of
schools for girls compared with those for boys!” exclaimed her visitor.
“Oh, well, you must remember we made no effort to tabulate the little
day-schools. They seemed to be legion and met us at every turn.” The
large majority of the schools enumerated were established after 1900,
and very many sprang up at the time of the revolution in 1911, or
quickly following it.
[Illustration: ADVERTISING SINGER SEWING MACHINE PRODUCTS]
From these statistics it might appear that the education of the
children of Shanghai was fairly well provided for, but with no
compulsory system, thousands that are employed in mills and factories,
bound out as apprentices, thrust forth to beg or allowed to loaf, never
cross the threshold of a schoolroom.
The Municipality of the International Settlement supports four large
public schools for Chinese boys (there are none for girls), the ground
in each instance having been donated by philanthropic Chinese, and
the native residents in the Settlement, who form the bulk of the
population, paying their share of the taxes on the buildings.
One of the handsomest buildings in the French Concession is a public
school for Chinese boys.
Private schools, or as they are termed “Gentry Schools,” are very
popular with the Chinese. In Shanghai this class far outnumbers all
others, and it is moreover an interesting fact that of the schools
under government control very many were started by an individual or
group of individuals as private enterprises. China is a nation that
reverences learning above all else. Not a scrap of paper that has
written or printed on it even a single “character” is willingly allowed
to be blown about carelessly or trampled under foot. These precious
bits, soiled and torn though they may be, are laboriously picked up
by men or boys armed with tongs or pin-pointed sticks, who travel to
and fro through the streets in search of them. The well-to-do hire
proxies to perform this meritorious work. The paper is carried to the
public ovens, where it is burned, and the ashes afterward thrown out
in the river. The belief is millenniums old that heaven vouchsafes
special blessings to those who show due regard for the sacred symbols
of knowledge. It follows then quite naturally that to open and maintain
a school ranks with the Chinese among the highest forms of service one
can render to mankind.
Since Western education has been introduced, many of China’s best
young men have dedicated their lives and fortunes to popularizing it.
Among the numerous examples that could be cited in Shanghai alone, the
Akademio Utopia is one. Four years ago a group of ten zealous young men
started a school in a small rented building. They had little capital,
but each one agreed to devote twenty per cent of his income to meeting
the running expenses. Several who had studied abroad gave also of their
time and taught one or more classes. The principal was a graduate of
Cornell University and the first Chinese student from that institution
to be elected to Phi Beta Kappa. The current expenses were soon met,
or nearly so, by the fees of the students, whose number quickly ran up
to over a hundred, but when it became necessary to build, the young
promoters again put their hands in their pockets, and out of their
modest earnings gave most liberally. The principal’s father offered him
financial help but in a spirit of manly independence he refused it,
preferring to depend on his own and the school’s resources. The fine
new building is finished and in use, though plain benches take the
place of desks which will be added later, together with other needed
furnishings, as the debt is gradually paid off.
In the plebeian district of the Settlement, on a street little
frequented by foreigners, is a boarding and day-school attended by five
hundred and fifty boys. Unlike the former school, this one started
full-fledged the year of the Boxer Rebellion, which witnessed the
birth of so many new enterprises. The plant consists of three brick
buildings, the middle one surmounted by a stately clock tower, and
all connected by covered passageways. The main building is divided
from front to back into parallel sections, with open courts between,
though joined on the upper story by bridges. In this way good light
and air are secured for each of the forty-six rooms. There is a
laboratory, a science class-room with seats in amphitheatre style, a
library containing both Chinese and English books, a hall dedicated
to Confucius whose walls are hung with scrolls inscribed with
quotations from the writings of the Sage and where the students gather
semi-annually for worship, and finally a reception-room, having as its
chief ornament a portrait of the founder of the school. The founder
began life as a poor boatman. By careful saving of his earnings he was
by and by able to open a small metal-ware shop. Possessed of great
business sagacity, he rose step by step, gradually amassing wealth,
until he became a millionaire. Though he never learned to read and
write, this self-made man had ideals and gave liberally for the free
education of the poor. When he was past sixty he conceived the idea of
founding a school as the best and most lasting memorial of himself he
could leave to the city. The plans were made and the building begun,
though the philanthropist did not live to see it completed. A statue is
soon to be erected in his honour by a company of Shanghai merchants.
The founder’s sons built a beautiful little memorial temple to their
father on the school area between the playground and the out-of-doors
gymnasium, and thither they resort at stated intervals to prostrate
themselves before the ancestral tablets, as the students do in front of
the philanthropist’s portrait in the reception hall. But they have no
love for learning and take no interest whatever in the school, which
goes to prove that not all the conservatives lived in the past century
nor that all of the progressives are confined to the new. The fees are
kept low, board and tuition for the entire school year of ten months
and a half costing less than twenty-four dollars. Fifty of the boys are
charity pupils. English and French are taught, the latter by a graduate
of the school, and there is a small industrial department. The course
of study extends through eleven years and carries the student up to
about the third year in a home High School.
Close to the South Gate of the Chinese City, or where the South Gate
formerly stood, is a plain red brick building called in English “The
Shanghai High School.” The interior arrangement could not be simpler,
a hall running through the middle, which is also a dining-room for
the boarders, and class-rooms opening off from it on either side.
Above are dormitories. In this building and three smaller ones on
the grounds, five hundred boys, half of them boarders, whose ages
average sixteen, are receiving a thorough education. A foreign educator
remarked when visiting the school, “This shows what excellent work
the Chinese can do with a very modest equipment, which, after all,
answers in every way to their actual needs.” The story of this school
is worth repeating. Thirteen years ago four progressive brothers banded
together to help educate the youth of Shanghai. Not having sufficient
money to purchase a suitable site and erect a building, they fitted up
the family residence for a school, supporting it largely with their
own funds. Three of the brothers are successful business men, and the
fourth became the principal. He is a graduate of St. John’s University
of the Protestant Episcopal Mission in Shanghai, a man in his early
prime, of scholarly tastes and habits. Hardly had the doors of the
school been opened when ninety boys flocked to it, and the number
increased so rapidly that within a year or two it became necessary
to look for more commodious quarters. The school in the meantime had
received recognition from the local government and was given an annual
grant-in-aid. The Chinese Municipality donated some of the public
land for a site for the new plant, and in 1909 the present edifice
was completed. Thirty teachers are employed, three of them being
foreigners, and women. Speaking one day of the qualifications of his
foreign teachers, reference was made by a friend to the fact that one
of them had graduated with honour from the University of Edinburgh.
“Yes,” said the principal smilingly, “I consider myself fortunate in
securing her, but I always seek the very best for my school, for it is
my purpose to maintain the highest standard.” And that he does maintain
it was proved when several of his students on examination entered St.
John’s University unconditioned, the first time a school under Chinese
management had attained such distinction.
Four years after the brothers started their venture, their three
sisters launched a school for girls. This school, like the other, had
a small beginning, but from the first was a pronounced success. Later,
its promotors were also given public land on which to build, and what
is more, bricks from the city wall, at that time in process of being
torn down, were donated for building material. Can the imagination
conjure up anything more strange and romantic than a part of the old
storied walls metamorphosed into a school for Chinese girls? How the
city fathers who planned those walls, to say nothing of Confucius
himself, whose prophetic eye caught no vision of a liberally educated
womanhood, would have shrunk in horror from such unseemly desecration!
The sisters are all married, one being a widow, and with their families
live in neat apartments in the rear of the school. They are well-to-do,
and teach for love’s sake rather than for the money there is in it.
Indeed, the school has not yet become self-supporting. One teacher is
principal, another supervises the classes in embroidery, and the third
manages the business. The one hundred and thirty bright-faced pupils,
besides the common branches, are taught music, drawing, painting, and
plain sewing. They receive regular instruction in physical training
from a young Chinese woman who had her own education in Boston. The
school has been honoured with medals from several expositions to which
specimens of beautiful embroidery and drawings have been sent.
Fifty years ago a baby girl destined for an unusual career was born
in one of the patrician Chinese homes in Shanghai. She was reared in
luxury and given the meagre education at home usually accorded by
indulgent parents to girls in her position. Allowed by choice to remain
unmarried, she eventually allied herself with a society of austere
Buddhist religionists known as “vegetarians.” Years rolled by, till the
girl, grown to womanhood, had passed her thirty-ninth birthday. She had
long observed that her father was a liberal-minded man, and that his
benefactions were frequently in aid of schools for girls, which were
gradually becoming common. “If my father is interested in the education
of girls,” she reasoned within herself, “why should I not open a school
and he help _me_?” But when she mentioned the plan to her father he
frowned upon it harshly, and her stepmother was even more violent in
her opposition. Education might be condoned in others, but no daughter
of theirs needed more than she had, and much less should she aspire to
be a medium for encouraging it. Moreover, the father realized the young
woman’s marked ability, and had plans of his own respecting the help
she would by and by render him in the management of his estate. The
more she was opposed, however, the stronger grew her purpose, until
finally the controversy led to her being practically disinherited and
driven from the parental roof. She had a little money with which she
managed to open a small school, and then sold her jewels to keep it
running. That was twelve years ago. Twice she has moved, the last time,
in the spring of 1914, to a handsome new building she erected herself
largely with the portion of her inheritance she was able to secure when
her father died. There was a notable “opening” to which many Chinese
guests and a few favored foreigners were invited. On the wall of the
Assembly Room hung a large portrait of the principal’s father, for the
flower of filial piety rarely dies in China, no matter how rough the
winds that blow upon it. Chinese flags were draped over the platform
and fluttered from pillar to post. In the side rooms the industrial
work of the girls was on exhibition and a fine collation set forth.
The building and grounds of this school are always kept neat and
attractive, and no matter what hour of the day the unexpected visitor
arrives, he is sure to find dormitories and hall, and even dining-room,
kitchen, and laundry worthy of the closest inspection. The kindergarten
building is slightly separated from the main one, and it would be hard
to find anywhere a more perfect model of its kind. Mothers’ Meetings
are held from time to time when practicable. Matters relating to the
child’s moral, mental, and physical well-being are frankly discussed.
“Commencement Day” is observed with great éclat. Last year, four
“sweet girl graduates” sat on the platform, all dressed alike, in white
Chinese silk made in Chinese style, white slippers with foreign heels,
and tiny blue ribbon bows at the neck, and bands of narrow blue ribbon
around their hair. The class colours were blue and white, and behind
the girls hung their class banner, bearing on a white ground their
motto “Excelsior” in blue letters. Each graduate had prepared an essay
in English, but only one was read, “The Influence and Responsibility
of the Young Women of China.” In thought and language it would have
done credit to a school-girl in any land. The others wrote on, “The
Need of Compulsory Education,” “The Evils of the Cigarette Habit,” and
“The Advantages of an Education in China Over That Received Abroad.”
Songs, piano solos, duets, and eight-handed pieces, recitations in
French and English, and an eloquent address on “The Value of Education
for Women,” by the Chinese Commissioner of Foreign Affairs, completed
the programme, which throughout was of an exceptionally high order.
Then came the closing scene as a delightful climax. Dr. Wu Ting Fang,
former Minister to the United States, presented to each graduate a
diploma tied with ribbon in approved Western style, which he received
from the hand of the principal. It was hard to realize that the little
woman standing beside Dr. Wu, so modest and retiring, in simple, dark
Chinese dress, her hair combed straight back from her face in old-time
Chinese fashion, was the promoter and controlling spirit of this most
successful up-to-date school. She speaks no English and prefers to
keep in the background as much as possible, yet hers is an unusual
personality. Though not a professing Christian she is a believer in
heart and is quite a regular attendant at a Protestant Episcopal
Mission Church.
Another popular school for girls is known generally as the “Suffragette
School.” Like so many others, its existence began at the close of the
recent revolution, and grew out of it. The exigencies of the revolution
brought women into the public arena as they had never thought of
figuring before. A few who had studied medicine went to the front as
doctors and many more as Red Cross nurses. A large number acted as
spies, secreted refugees, carried ammunition to the soldiers, and
sacrificed property and life itself for their country. From various
quarters there gathered in Shanghai a hundred or so school-girls, most
of them runaways, fired with an all-consuming if misguided desire to
aid their country, who donned uniforms, shouldered arms, drilled,
and begged to be allowed to march at once to the firing-line, which
fortunately for them they were not permitted to do. They were known as
the “Amazons.” All these events, however, so stirred the patriotism
of the women of Shanghai that a numerous company banded together to
raise money for the revolution, which they did very successfully. When
the fighting ceased, instead of disbanding they formed themselves
into a permanent organization under the name of “The Chinese Woman’s
Co-operative Association.” Its purpose was to protect the interests
of women in general, and in particular to gain for them the right of
suffrage.
The society is still in existence, though greatly modified in tone and
reduced in numbers by the elimination of the most rabid and troublesome
spirits. Occasional meetings are held and men are frequently invited
to address them, a woman occupying the chair. The principal work done
by this Association since the revolution has been the founding and
fostering of the Suffragette School, with the idea of inculcating
advanced ideas in the minds of the young. At first the teachers, all
of them women, worked without salary, and turned with disdain from men
and marriage. While the curriculum includes Western studies, particular
emphasis is laid on Chinese subjects, especially the writing of Chinese
characters, which the pupils do exceedingly well. They are encouraged
to make their clothes of Chinese cloth, use Chinese furnishings
in their homes and preserve the old-time customs and the old-time
beliefs; in short, to be Chinese to the backbone and independent of the
foreigners’ supplies and the foreigners’ religion.
The school has prospered better numerically than financially. An
interested missionary was talking one day about the school to Miss C.,
a recent graduate of Wellesley College and a relative of the principal.
“You say the school is poor?” “Not poor in the quality of work done,
but, O yes, very poor in money.” “What is the reason of that?” “Well,
it hasn’t financial supporters. You see, right after the revolution
so many women were enthusiastic about suffrage. But they are not now
in the same way, and they don’t take as much interest in keeping up
the school.” “What do you think makes them less interested in the
question of suffrage?” “They don’t believe the time has come in China
to push it. Other things they feel are at present more important and
necessary.” “What is your personal opinion?” The bright eyes of the
young woman rested an instant thoughtfully on her questioner, then came
the decided reply, “I am sure we are not ready to vote yet, and it is a
mistake to divert our thoughts from greater needs by thinking of it and
working for it.”
More and more as the New Learning is crowding out the old-time
impractical methods, the desire grows to relate the work of the
schools to the life of the people. Hitherto industrial training has
received little attention in China, but the Republic has been gradually
awakening to its importance, so that to-day schools of this kind are
the ones that appeal most strongly to the popular mind and receive the
readiest support from governmental and private sources. In Shanghai,
commercial and industrial schools, or schools that have added these
departments to their curricula, are constantly on the increase.
The World’s Chinese Students’ Federation, with headquarters at
Shanghai, is carrying on both day and evening schools which are largely
attended. The teachers give their services free and are young men
of independent means, or those who are able and willing to devote a
portion of their time to this work. The principal is only twenty-one, a
graduate of the Young Men’s Christian Association school and unusually
gifted.
The leading institution in Shanghai under Chinese auspices is the
Government Institute of Technology. As in the case of so many other
educational enterprises, this one received its initial impulse from
an individual, a man high in government employ. It began in 1897 as a
Normal School, then added Preparatory and Grammar School departments,
and finally, under the skillful leadership of Dr. John C. Ferguson,
developed into Nanyang College, still later adding courses in civil
and electrical engineering, and changing its name to “The Government
School of Technology.” The handsome buildings in the midst of spacious
well-kept grounds, the complete equipment, fine corps of teachers,
eight of whom are Americans, the standard of work maintained, and the
character of the large student body, all combine to make this a school
Shanghai may well be proud of. A few of the best students are sent each
year to Europe and America for a period of practical training.
The Mining and Railway College is not so large nor so old an
institution, but in its way quite as remarkable. Its founder, who is
also its president, is a young man in his early thirties, with a finely
chiselled, scholarly face and gracious manner. When travelling abroad
after finishing his education at Queen’s College in Hongkong, he became
convinced that what China required more than almost anything else was
trained engineers. So four years ago (many things happened in Shanghai
four years ago), unaided, he started this school, giving himself and
his money without reserve to the work. Already the students number
two hundred and sixty, as promising a body of young men as one would
wish to see. They come from nearly every province in the country and a
few from Java. Five of the fifteen teachers have studied abroad, but
only one is a foreigner, a Belgian who teaches mining and mineralogy.
The entering students are put at once into English classes and it is
remarkable what they accomplish in a single year. A specialty is made
of chirography, “for,” says the president, “unless the boys learn to
form their letters carefully, they will not draw well, and as engineers
they must do that.”
The School of Medicine and of Engineering, carried on by the Germans
for Chinese students, is unique in its way. An eminent physicist in
Shanghai has said that in his opinion it is the greatest institution
in China. The school, its two departments being entirely distinct, is
not missionary nor even philanthropic in character. This is simply a
business enterprise fostered by the German government for business
purposes. They give the best training in return for what, to the
Chinese, are heavy fees, in order that these men may be prepared later
to work in their employ. The teaching force is of the highest grade and
the scientific equipment as perfect as the means provided can make it.
[Illustration: MISS ZEE’S NEW SCHOOL BUILDING. KINDERGARTEN IN THE REAR]
Perhaps of all the schools in Shanghai, the little day-schools
appeal to one most because of their unfailing human interest and the
possibilities stored up in them. They are of every kind and degree of
excellence, or badness, according to the way they are looked at. On
the whole, most of them seem to be doing good and even the poorest
keep the children off the street. Often there are amusing features. In
the Chinese city, on a signboard over a doorway appears the rather
unusual announcement, “English taught from A. to L.” Just what is done
with the remaining letters of the alphabet is not explained. On a
side street the passerby reads again in large English letters, “Daily
Progressive School.” In two poorly lighted, none too clean rooms of an
old Chinese house, thirty or forty children bend over their roughly
made desks, studying aloud in vociferous tones. The head teacher quiets
them while he greets the chance visitor and points with pride to his
foreign textbooks in geography and English. He too has ideals, and
when reference is made to the name of the school, answers, “Yes, that
is what I want to make it, ‘Daily Progressive.’” He adds that he has
started two branches of his “Daily Progressive School” in other parts
of Shanghai. Then comes the unexpected question, “Are you a Christian?”
“I am a Christian,” naming the mission school where he received his
education.
Sometimes a little day-school is hidden away in the back room of a
rambling old house, or in an inner apartment of a Buddhist temple,
where the unsophisticated easily loses himself amid its labyrinthine
windings. During the stormy iconoclastic days of the revolution,
temples and ancestral halls were turned over wholesale by the
provisional government to be used as schools, and though many have
reverted to their original purposes, others, like Li Hung Chang’s
Temple in Shanghai, are still kept as seats of learning. This memorial
to the great statesman, built by public funds, was taken possession of
five years ago by the trustees of Fuh-tan College, and now the bronze
statue of the famous Li from its pedestal in the garden looks down each
day on three hundred and fifty students hurrying to and fro through
the numberless courts and passageways. Commencement exercises are held
in the Hall of Ancestral Worship, where, on a raised platform against
an ornate background, sits the Chinese President, an alumnus of Yale,
surrounded by his faculty, all in collegiate cap and gown, making one
of the curious anomalies common in these days of transition.
From the Provincial Normal School, located in the Chinese city, thirty
young men graduated last year and more than five hundred have gone
out from its doors during the eleven years since it was opened. Such
is the demand for teachers that long before the school-year closes
every member of the graduating class has been spoken for. The alumni
are scattered far and wide over the country. Near the Normal School
is a large practice school of four hundred pupils. The students of
the Normal School are taught music, clay-modelling, wood-carving,
painting, drawing. They are ardent patriots and keenly resent any real
or supposed indignity offered to their native land. Sometimes they
express their patriotism in original ways, as they did not long ago,
when feeling ran high because of the unreasonable demands made on
China by Japan. The boys’ sleeping and study rooms open onto courts in
the rambling structure, or rather a series of Chinese buildings which
constitute the school plant. These rooms were cleared out and each one
made the scene of some pictorial or material representation of the
current political issue. Many of the exhibits were exceedingly clever,
a few were most amusing, but all were strikingly illustrative of the
animus of the student body and showed the kind of teachers that are
being sent forth over China to instill their principles into the minds
of the rising generation.
It is significant of the spirit of the times that a young man in
Shanghai a few months ago went to his father and begged to be given
his portion of the family gambling money. With it he opened a school
which has now one hundred and fifty pupils. The secretary of the
Provincial Educational Association, recently back from an extended tour
in America, requested a resident missionary to give him lessons in
English. He was so impressed with the excellence of the American system
that he decided to introduce the same methods into his own schools as
rapidly as possible, and wanted a better knowledge of English that he
might be qualified to select text-books and arrange courses of study.
Last summer for the first time the Shanghai prefect fixed a uniform
vacation period for the elementary schools extending through five
weeks, from July 22d to August 25th. In sending out the notice the
prefect added a clause to the effect that during two weeks of the
vacation three hours a day must be spent by the pupils in reviewing
their lessons.
There are two flourishing Japanese schools in Shanghai. One is a large
public school that is growing so rapidly a new building has been added
to the group which suffices for six or seven hundred pupils. Boys
and girls of all ages are accommodated under the same roof, but with
the exception of the very little children in the kindergarten, they
occupy separate rooms and have their recess at different hours. They
make a pretty sight in their gay coloured garments flitting about in
the sunshine like radiant butterflies during play hours, or pouring
joyously out on the street at the close of school, some going off in
ricshas accompanied by nurses, more on foot, while a lot of youngsters
scramble onto the street cars, clutching their coppers in dirty little
paws, each one carrying a school bag or books tied up in a square of
cloth, and a little lunch box, while on every urchin’s head rests a
smart military cap.
The other school is a Japanese College with nearly three hundred
students, strong of body, alert in mind, picked men all of them.
They are sent from Japan by their respective prefectures to study
in Shanghai for three years, every expense being met. The course
includes commerce, engineering, and agriculture. During the fourteen
years since the school opened, eight hundred have graduated, seventy
receiving certificates last June. At the end of the second year’s work,
seventy or eighty of the most promising students at the expense of
the school, are sent far and wide over China to study the country and
its condition, agricultural, mining, social, political. “When the men
graduate from the college they return to Japan, do they not?” was asked
of the president. “Oh, no,” came the emphatic reply, “they are expected
to stay in China and help the Chinese develop their resources.”
A group of schools in Shanghai which are not for the study of books,
but, in their line, of great value, the public generally knows little
about. These are the six Singer Sewing-Machine Schools for women and
girls. The Singer Sewing-Machine made its advent in China a decade ago,
and thus far it is without a rival. It “took” almost at once with the
Chinese and is now found everywhere, even in the most unlooked for and
absurdly out-of-the-way places. In 1910 Singer Sewing-Machine schools
were started in Shanghai. At first they met with small success. Those
for men were a signal failure and soon closed their doors. The few who
ventured to enter the schools for women and girls had to be paid for
coming, but the old conservatism seemed to die out with the revolution.
The leading school now numbers fifty pupils. The period of training
covers three, six, or twelve months according to the kind of work taken
up, whether plain tailoring or fancy embroidery. The pupils come from
widely scattered districts and it is the intention when they return
to their village or town that they shall open a school of their own,
and in this way introduce the machines throughout the country. There
are already more than four hundred selling stations in China, each in
charge of a Chinese agent. The machines are sold on the installment
plan. “We consider ourselves missionaries in our way,” said the foreign
representative of the company in Shanghai, “for is it not a charity to
lighten the labour of these poor hard-working people by selling them
our sewing-machines on easy terms?” The Singer Company subscribes
liberally to all benevolences, and during the revolution, and the
rebellion the following year, it loaned its machines free of charge
to organizations engaged in making garments for the destitute. One
effective way it has of advertising is to send men about the streets
of Shanghai dressed fantastically in clothes made in its shops, while
offering for sale small articles carried in portable show-cases.
VIII
A WIZARD PUBLISHING HOUSE
“The pen is mightier than the sword” has through the centuries been a
working axiom in China, for soldiers stood at the foot of the social
ladder, while scholars sat proudly on the top rung. Recent experiences,
it is true, have somewhat altered the views of the people, though
not reversed them. But the accompanying adage, “The printed page
is mightier than the sword,” has not seemed to acquire popularity,
despite the fact that printing from movable type was discovered in old
China long before Gutenberg saw the light of day. Indeed, the “Peking
Gazette,” whose lineal descendant still flourishes in the Capital,
claims the honour of being the first newspaper ever published. It was
printed from wooden blocks, some of which are still in existence, no
one knows just how long ago, though tradition makes it as many as a
thousand years. But for centuries the art was little used and even as
late as the Chino-Japanese war in 1894 news travelled so slowly that
people living only seventy-five miles from the coast had not even
heard there was a war. Now, Shanghai alone, which is far in advance of
other cities in this respect, publishes more than thirty newspapers
and periodicals, twelve of them being dailies. Many of the sheets
are illustrated, and as a proof that they are thoroughly abreast of
the times, advertisements of well known patent medicines are given a
prominent place!
With the dawn of China’s “New Day,” and the increasing thirst for
Western learning, an insistent cry was heard, not alone for newspapers,
but for books, books, and plenty of them. Then to meet the need arose
the Commercial Press. The story of the rapid growth and development of
this great publishing house reads like a tale from the Arabian Nights.
The idea was born in the minds of three young, wide-awake Chinese,
all practical printers, and all of them Christians, the product of a
Presbyterian Mission School in Shanghai. Work began in 1897 in a modest
way with two small printing presses. The shop was a Chinese house
in an alley off one of the main roads. These quarters were speedily
outgrown, and after two moves the plant was finally lodged permanently
in a group of fine brick buildings covering eight acres in the northern
end of the city. To-day sixty modern presses, the very best to be had,
are annually, in round figures, using up twenty-five thousand reams
of foreign paper and thirty-four hundred reams of Chinese paper, the
bulk of which is turned into school books and scattered far and wide
over the land, from Manchuria to Thibet. The year after the revolution,
although new machinery was bought, additional workmen taken on as fast
as they could be found, and the presses kept running night and day, the
enormous demand for books could not be met.
[Illustration: CHINESE COMPOSING ROOM]
From the first, the policy of the Commercial Press has been never
to print any books that are antagonistic to the Christian religion,
and to this purpose it has faithfully adhered. Indeed, the twenty or
more heads of departments are either Christians or in sympathy with
Christianity.
The rules of this house governing the treatment of employees may
not sound unusual to Western ears, but studied in comparison with
conditions as they have been in China, and still are for the most part,
their true worth is keenly realized. The Commercial Press employs about
fourteen hundred men and four hundred women. Several of the boys are
deaf mutes from a missionary institution in the north, and a number
are from the Shanghai Reformatory, taken on by the company to give
them a fresh start in life, with a hostel built especially for their
accommodation. Most of the women work in the bindery, though they are
found here and there throughout the establishment and some of the
lighter machinery is operated by them. One is a forewoman and a few
bright girls are studying to be bookkeepers. None are admitted under
fourteen years of age, while the majority are much older. An innovation
has lately been introduced, permitting women to work in the same
room with men, although at different tables. It has proved a perfect
success. All hands attend strictly to business and the new arrangement
has distinct advantages over the old, as, in giving employees better
light and air, since the rooms can be kept larger. The hours of labour
are from 7:30 to 12 and from 1 to 5:30 o’clock. The bell rings for
the women to leave five minutes before the men. “Ladies first, you
see,” a member of the staff laughingly remarked to a visitor. When
a woman expects to become a mother she is given two months off with
full pay and five dollars in addition to meet extra expenses. Sundays
are holidays. About one-eighth of the force are Christians and two
Protestant churches are located in the neighborhood of the Works,
which many of them attend. Wages are excellent with the addition of
a bonus for special merit. There is a reserve fund for the benefit
of the families of the deceased, and old, retired employees. Profit
sharing is a part of the system and the head men in each department are
shareholders in the company.
A small hospital with accommodation for a score of patients, and with
an immaculate dispensary and operating room, is another feature of
this remarkable establishment. An attendant is always present, and a
Chinese foreign-trained doctor visits the hospital every morning. The
clinic is open to outsiders as well as employees and their families.
All pay a fee of three Chinese coppers, about one cent, as it has
been found necessary to charge something to keep the place from being
overrun. Near the Commercial Press the management has built a number
of small but comfortable houses, and these are rented, at a nominal
rate, to employees who care to occupy them. A school is maintained for
the children of employees, and a night-school and reading-room for
apprentices. A kindergarten, for which the Commercial Press furnishes
the premises and the Presbyterian Mission Press the teachers, is also
close by. None of these schools are free, as parents are able to
pay a little tuition and feel more self-respecting to do so. A tea
garden, made attractive with shrubs, flowers, and seats scattered
about on the well-kept lawn, furnishes a delightful resting-place for
the clerks when off duty. The fire brigade is a most important factor
in the concern. It is composed of twenty-six men, all employees, and
is kept at a high grade of efficiency by frequent drills. A stone’s
throw from the main building is the fire station, fitted up with bright
hose wagons, ladders, buckets, torches for carrying safety oil lamps
of brass, besides complete uniforms for the men, the burnished brass
helmets being their special pride. The brigade stands ready to respond
to a limited number of outside calls.
Visitors to the press works are always cordially welcomed, and
courteously shown over the establishment by a competent guide, whenever
possible a member of the staff. So extensive is the plant it usually
requires several hours for even a cursory tour of inspection. Two of
the buildings are used for the printing plant and foundry, one for the
Chinese bindery, another is reserved for the editorial department,
Chinese and English, two are warehouses, one is a carpentry shop, and
one, a long low building somewhat apart from the others, is devoted to
photography and its various branches. The rooms are airy, clean, and
cheerful, in marked contrast to most of the workshops in China. Each is
connected by telephone with the main office, and light tracks are laid
for carrying merchandise to and fro. Electric motors supply the motive
power, while both gas and electricity are used for lighting purposes.
Most of the printing presses are from England and America. Those for
finer work, including the immense wonder-working machines in the colour
printing department, are of German manufacture. The Commercial Press
was the first firm to introduce three-colour printing into China. One
is tempted to linger long beside these marvellous presses. As the blue,
yellow, red, each in its turn, is added so quickly and easily to the
maps, charts, pictures, and kindergarten scrolls, the visitor is almost
persuaded that he is viewing an exhibition of the cunning art of a
magician, rather than the automatic movements of an insensate piece of
machinery. Here is laid before the eyes a gay picture of the landing
of Columbus for a history of America in Chinese, and yonder an equally
charming one of the child Raleigh for a history of England. Much is
made of illustrations in the school books published by the Commercial
Press. Their ethical readers for little folks are fascinating
productions. Each page is a coloured picture, which teaches its own
lesson. Children are represented on their way to school, saluting the
teacher, reciting their lessons, giving alms to the poor, caring for
the aged, the young, sick, and blind, dusting and sweeping the rooms,
washing, brushing, mending, and folding clothes, brushing their teeth,
eating, playing. Houses are pictured as clean and sanitary, living as
wholesome and pure. Especial emphasis is placed on proper manners and
morals, teaching sadly needed to-day in China, when there is such an
alarming tendency to abandon all that was really admirable under the
old régime, and adopt in an exaggerated form all that is bad from the
West. In the First Year Primary books practically no reading matter
is introduced, only a few Chinese characters to explain the text. The
little ones scan them attentively, absorbing knowledge without being
conscious of the fact. How different is this from the old way, when
children were shut all day long in dark, close rooms, shouting aloud
unmeaning phrases from the Chinese classics, while the teacher dozed in
his chair!
The newest addition to the plant is the installation of three “off-set”
presses, the first in the Far East. An expert came out from America
with them to set them up and instruct the Chinese workmen in their use.
They are often kept busy through the twenty-four hours in turning out
bonds and bank-notes by the millions for the Government.
Too much praise can not be given to the work of the editorial
department. The entire second floor and part of the third of a quiet,
three-story building is devoted to it. At long, unpainted wooden
tables, littered with books and papers, sit the hundred and fifty
scholars, bending over their work. Above four thousand original books
have already gone out from their busy workshop, besides countless
others that have been translated and edited. Eight monthly magazines
are published by the editorial staff, a general one, an educational,
a political, student’s, child’s, short story, a woman’s magazine, and
one entitled “The English Student,” of which twenty thousand copies
are issued monthly. The newest publication is a magazine called “The
English Weekly.” The aim of the last two is to help Chinese students in
the study of English. The Woman’s Magazine is one of the most popular.
A bright girl who has studied in America was speaking about it one
day to a group of foreign friends. “Just think,” she said, “the last
number contains recipes for cooking eggs in twelve different ways.” “Is
that so unusual?” asked an interested listener. “Why, they were not
for making foreign dishes, but cooking Chinese food! I never before
heard of a printed Chinese food recipe. If Chinese women begin to learn
about food values it will mean everything in their lives.” The Woman’s
Magazine started its life two years ago with a man as editor-in-chief.
This fall a young woman will take over that position. She is a recent
graduate of Wellesley College and married to a Harvard alumnus. Modest
and lovable, she graciously answered the questions of her foreign
callers. “Yes,” she admitted, with a little apologetic laugh, “I am
going to try to edit the magazine.” “There will be assistant editors
of course?” “Oh, yes.” “Women?” “No, I believe they are all men.” This
young wife is a beautiful housekeeper, and it is safe to assume her
home and family will not be neglected on account of the outside work
she is about to take up. Indeed, it is worthy of comment that no one is
more pleased about it than the young husband himself.
An interesting fact in connection with the editorial department of the
Commercial Press is that most Western books are translated through the
medium of the Japanese language, instead of directly from the English.
This is because the present system of education in China is based on
that of Japan, and scientific terms are more easily adapted from the
Japanese. But Chinese students returning from abroad are strong in
their feeling that this second-hand method of acquiring knowledge must
soon give way to the more direct.
Glancing about the editorial room with its scores of hard-working men,
pouring out the best that is in them for the uplift and enlightenment
of their country, it is impossible not to feel a strange stirring of
the heart, and one is also thrilled when looking through the warehouses
where room after room is filled with books stacked to the ceiling or
packed in boxes to be shipped away. Some of the largest orders come
from the most distant provinces. The aim of the publishing house is not
to issue many handsome, expensive books, but to flood the land with
cheap editions that shall be within the reach of all.
Tiptoeing out of the editorial department, the visitor passes on
to the English and Chinese composing rooms, which present a very
different scene. There is a sort of mystery about Chinese type. That a
“character” made up of a score or more of tiny individual strokes can
be reproduced perfectly in a clean-cut piece of lead, seems nothing
short of marvellous. Chinese type-setting is exceedingly complex. The
cases are set on slanting frames, placed to form a triangle, within
which stands the compositor. About six thousand characters are in
ordinary use and a font of type weighs fifteen hundred pounds. An
American woman is chief proof-reader for English text, assisted by a
Portuguese and many Chinese. Behind the printing department is the
foundry. Type-casting is a specialty and is done on a large scale.
Indeed the market for a long time was so generally supplied from the
Commercial Press that their sizes became the standard for all China.
The matrices, kept in a fire-proof safe, are among the Company’s most
valuable assets. A few modern automatic type-casters from Chicago
are used, but they are far outnumbered by the old-style, hand-worked
machines. The type cast from the old-style machines must be assorted,
trimmed, and polished, all of which is done by women. “We are not
always keen in making use of the latest machines,” explains the staff,
“since labour is so cheap in China, and it is a blessing to the poor
people to give work to as many as possible.”
Nearly all of the smaller machinery used in the Commercial Press Works
is made in their own foundry and carpentry shop, besides physical,
physiological, and chemical apparatus for schools, tools for industrial
work, and small reed organs. The job-printing department is strictly
up to date and large returns are realized from it. Recently one of the
heads of the company made a trip around the world in order to study the
best and latest processes of printing. The two hundred copies of the
English edition of “China’s Young Men,” the organ of the Young Men’s
Christian Association, are sent out monthly from this press.
No expense has been spared to make the equipment of the
photo-engraving department as perfect as possible. It is provided with
arc lamps and an acid-blasting etching machine, so that orders can be
quickly filled irrespective of the weather. A fine photographic gallery
is annexed whose chief furnishing is a new camera bought in London
and making the fifth in use. The lens is able to produce pictures 32
× 43 inches, and with a single exception is the largest in the world.
The camera rests upon a handcar, which runs back and forth over a
small track. For some years, one-fourth of the company’s stock was
held by Japanese, but at the beginning of 1914 this was bought back,
so that now the concern is wholly Chinese. This consummation of a
long-anticipated hope was celebrated with great rejoicing.
Several miles away from the works, on one of the busiest streets in a
Chinese section of the International Settlement, stands the business
house of the Commercial Press. The four-story building of reinforced
concrete, ornamented with iron pillars, is quite new, having been built
only six years ago at a cost of twenty thousand dollars. The fine show
windows at once attract attention. Those on the right of the entrance
are reserved for Chinese books and the ones on the left for English.
Among the latter, besides standard works in literature, fiction,
biography, and travel, are seen titles like the following: “Ready Made
Speeches,” “Cooking,” “How the People Rule,” “Our Sick and How to Take
Care of Them,” “Poultry and Profit,” “All about Railways,” “Railway
Conquest of the World,” and a series under the general head, “Common
Commodities of Commerce,” including tea, coffee, sugar, iron, oil,
rubber. The sales rooms are on the ground floor. But many things are
found there besides books and the usual appurtenances of a bookstore.
In the apartments at the rear, in glass cases, are displayed samples
of the many kinds of school apparatus manufactured at the works, also
a large collection of stuffed birds from different countries, various
forms of insect and animal life preserved in alcohol, besides what is
of exceeding value to Chinese students, studies in rice, cotton, the
silkworm, and other products, showing the progressive changes and best
methods of their development and the uses to which they are and may be
put. For the accommodation of customers who wish to look over the books
at their leisure, numerous benches are scattered conveniently about,
and the pleasant little reading room is always well patronized.
The second and third stories are mainly devoted to offices, while a
good part of the fourth is reserved for the dining-hall. According
to the usual custom in China, the two hundred employees have their
board furnished them as a part of their pay, and all who receive
under ten dollars a month are given lodging as well, though not in
the same building. A roof garden, where the clerks may gather for the
noon rest, or enjoy the cool evening breezes in hot weather, is one
of the attractions of the place. Perhaps the two most useful adjuncts
are the elevator, which carries both freight and passengers, and the
electric cash register and delivery system, the only one in China. The
Commercial Press has over forty branch offices in China, the large
branch in Peking being employed chiefly with work for the government.
It has besides more than a thousand selling agencies in other countries
where the Chinese have settled, and is the largest publishing house in
the Orient.
IX
THE CHINESE CITY
Many visitors to this busy port hurry on to richer fields of conquest
with never a glimpse of the Chinese City, and some doubtless do not
even know there is such a place. Yet not the International Settlement,
nor the French Concession, but the Chinese City is the real Shanghai.
The city is the nucleus north and south of whose storm-beaten walls
the foreign settlements sprang up and without which they would not
have been. The coming of the foreigner is of recent date, for few men
from the West saw the spot, and certainly not one resided there till
after Shanghai was opened as a treaty port in 1842. The city itself,
though in the heyday of youth, compared with many other cities in
China, still counts its age by centuries that creep close on to a
millennium. The walls were not built until 1555, a year after the city
had been sacked, burned to the ground, and left a howling wilderness
by Japanese raiders. Gone now are the old walls, since the revolution,
and the creaking gates that swung back and forth night and morning so
many years on their rusty hinges, or if a vestige is left it is fast
disappearing under the blows of pick-ax and hammer. But no, that is
a mistake, for a halt has just been called in the work of demolition.
The Chinese Town Council it is reported, is a house divided against
itself, and some of its members strongly advocate the rebuilding of the
walls for the sake of protection. A compromise has been effected by
voting to allow the walls to remain down but letting the gates stand,
or what is left of them, to serve as triumphal arches.
[Illustration: THE ORIGINAL WILLOW PATTERN TEA HOUSE]
Of course it is better that the old walls should go, more sanitary
and more modern. The ill-smelling moat has been covered on the north
and west by a splendid boulevard ninety feet wide. Trolley lines will
by and by encircle the whole city, as they now run along two sides.
Many of the streets in the outer circumference of the city are being
widened, while those in the heart of it are receiving some attention,
though improvement is difficult on account of property interests.
Ramshackle rat-infested hovels, here, there, and yonder, have vanished
from sight, and new tea-houses, and shops, glistening with fresh
paint, are taking their places. Public nuisances are being attacked.
A well-to-do family reports that since the pestilential creek back
of their house has been filled in, their property has advanced in
value hundreds of dollars. Street refuse is swept up and carried away
each day. Meat is inspected. Pipes have been laid and running water
introduced, so that one no longer hears the monotonous cry of the water
carriers trotting along with a pole across their shoulders from which
were suspended the overflowing buckets spilling water at every step.
Electric lights have largely superseded little smoky kerosene lamps, or
still more primitive pottery or tin lamps with a tiny wick swimming in
vegetable oil.
All this is just as it should be. The improvements are highly commended
by every one, and yet, inconsistent beings that we are, why is it that
with our rejoicing over the changes, our hearts likewise experience
a pang of regret? What is there about things old and quaint, albeit
noisome and repulsive, that things brand new somehow do not possess for
us? So with the passing of the old walls and a modicum of the old dirt,
a certain indefinable charm has slipped away too, never to return.
Nevertheless the Chinese City continues to exist, although since the
walls are down its boundaries are not so clearly defined, and enough
of the ancient landmarks remain in the way of foul-smelling alleys,
streets of gay shops, beggars and crowds, to satisfy most lovers of the
haunting allurements of the Orient.
The city is approximately three miles in circumference. There is no map
of it beyond the merest outline, and neither a Murray nor a Baedeker to
facilitate a tramp through its labyrinthian byways. But the stranger
crossing its boundaries is not left coldly to his own devices, for
the instant he appears in sight he is met by a chattering company of
self-constituted guides. If perchance their services are declined, they
still manage unobtrusively to shadow the Innocent Abroad and entice him
to shops that are almost certain to loosen his purse-strings and where
they propose to secure a fat commission on the purchases made.
The shops in the Chinese City are the originals of the replicas in
the Settlement, only that being the originals they are more bizarre
and delightful. Like birds of a feather, shops doing the same kind of
work, or selling the same kind of articles, are apt to flock together.
For example, most of the furniture shops handling the beautiful red and
black wood from the southern province of Kwangtung are found near the
north gate, also the shops selling exquisitely carved ivory. Elsewhere
are grouped the silversmiths, the jewelers with tempting displays of
jade, amber, pearls, and precious stones, cloth and silk merchants,
shoe and cap makers, dealers whose specialty is all kinds of fans;
brass, pewter, and china shops, makers of coffins from the costly red
and teak woods to the less expensive pine and ash--but the amazing
variety of the shops is fairly bewildering and defies enumeration!
There are no department stores in the city. Each tradesman confines
himself strictly to his own line of goods. Not for his life would he
dare encroach on the rights and privileges of another, for every trade
has its guild which sees to it that the interests of its members are
protected. Many of the guilds are wealthy and powerful, politically
as well as commercially, like the silk merchants’ and silversmiths’
guilds. They have their guild houses, all more or less elaborately
fitted up with rooms for conferences and feasts, and attached to them
are rows of long low buildings divided into small chambers, where,
upon the payment of a rental, the coffins of deceased members may be
deposited until a convenient time for burial.
Certain shops sell nothing but funeral trappings, but instead of
presenting a sombre appearance they are among the gayest in the
city. Hung aloft to show off to the best advantage are elaborately
embroidered crimson satin coverings for the coffin, and around on the
shelves or under glass cases is apparel for the dead, very richly
embroidered robes, slippers, and headgear, this latter in the shape
of mitres and helmets, of remarkable design and ornamentation. There
are also priests’ robes and white cotton raiment and sackcloth for the
mourners. Other shops carry only the paper furnishings that are an
essential part of a funeral ceremony. When the spirit of the deceased
leaves the body and passes to the spirit world, according to Chinese
superstition he requires for his comfort the same conveniences to which
he was accustomed in life. Hence the dutiful elder son, in proportion
to his financial ability, and often far beyond it, for Chinese funerals
are fearfully costly, sees that his honoured parent is provided with
them. The articles are made of coloured paper, the larger ones over
a light framework of bamboo, and include every conceivable object,
from a sedan chair to a teacup. These images are borne in the funeral
procession through the streets and burned at the grave, the smoke
being supposed to waft them through ether to the waiting spirit.
They are such exact facsimiles of the real thing, especially in the
case of small articles like vases, jewelry boxes, braziers, lamps,
clocks, basins, that it is hard to believe they are false. One of the
best imitations ever produced in a Shanghai city shop was that of
a fur-lined Mandarin coat, so perfect in every detail as almost to
deceive the Chinese themselves.
A shopkeeper who always attracts custom is the portrait painter. He
is an important personage and does business behind closed doors--that
is, his shop is not open to the street as most are; but has a front
partition with a door and show window. On the window is pasted a
collection of small pictures of human heads cut from newspapers and
magazines. Inside the shop quantities more are stored away. When a
widow, it may be, wishes a likeness of her consort who left no pictured
memorial behind him, or a youth perhaps craves a reminder of the
grand-uncle he never saw, they find their way to one of these portrait
shops. The shopkeeper spreads out before them an array of pictures, and
after careful study a selection is made of a particular portrait which
either bears some imaginary resemblance to the dear departed, or is
what the sorrowing relatives would choose to have him look like. The
shopkeeper then paints the head in life size and adds a body clothed
in whatever style of garments may be mutually decided on. The finished
portrait is finally hung on the wall of the family dwelling and pointed
to with pride and affection as the face of the deceased ancestor.
Drug shops are many and are invested with an air of quiet exclusiveness
and semi-professionalism, which suffers but a slight declension when
in hot weather the clerks, after the manner of most shopkeepers,
divest themselves of their non-essential upper garments and pass the
day stripped to the waist. Upon the shelves of the shop stand rows and
rows of large pewter cannisters and blue and white china jars, innocent
enough to look at and yet designed to arouse the curiosity of the
beholder as to the nature and character of their contents. Below are
quantities of drawers containing dried roots, herbs, bones, seaweed,
chalk, things indescribable and inscrutable, drawn from the air above,
the earth beneath, and the waters under the earth. In addition to drugs
the shop frequently keeps on exhibition some special attractions,
such as glass jars with snakes preserved in alcohol, dried alligator
skins, corals and geological specimens. In filling prescriptions
china bottles, coloured pasteboard boxes and squares of white paper
are used. Sometimes a score or more of the paper squares are placed
on the counter at once, and from the different drawers an interesting
assortment of medicines is laid on them. Here is dried orange peel,
said to be an unfailing remedy for loss of appetite, a yellow berry
that removes phlegm, a dried beetle that in a solution of water makes
the best kind of eyewash. The silkworm taken from the cocoon when eaten
with rice greatly assists digestion, and so does a flat bug that from
its appearance might be great-grandfather to the bedbug. The ladybug,
or what resembles one, is a sure cure for liver complaint, and another
insect if rubbed on wounds quickly heals them. Also in certain troubles
it has been found that a little of the alcohol in which a serpent
is preserved, if taken internally, proves particularly efficacious.
On the wall at the back of the shop is painted a picture of the god
of medicine, at whose shrine tapers are kept burning. Chinese shops
carrying foreign drugs, some of them excellent shops, too, are not
uncommon in the Settlement but are seldom to be seen in the Chinese
City.
The dentist, like his confreres in other countries, is ever in demand.
Occasionally an aspiring, prosperous fellow is discovered doing
business in a shop where the patient may balance himself on a stool,
though still in full view of the curious street crowd, and tilting his
head back, have the offending molar extracted without further ado. But
ordinarily the professional outfit is limited to a small wooden table
and what it will hold, set out in the street. Back of the weather-worn
stand lounges the dentist, soiled and uncouth, keeping guard over his
stock in trade, bottles of ointments, salves, a pair of forceps and
other nondescript instruments, a few sets of teeth under a dust-covered
glass case, and last but not least, piles of decayed teeth successfully
extracted from tortured victims and kept as decoys to attract
patronage. There are travelling dentists whose shop is a wheelbarrow
which carries the dental equipment, with the inevitable pile of teeth
conspicuous in the centre. They move from point to point, in inclement
weather under cover of a mammoth coloured umbrella, and sound a gong to
draw the ever-ready crowd.
More common still are the peripatetic restaurants. The outfit of the
manager of the Liliputian establishment is a model of convenience
and compactness. A simple bamboo frame, easily borne by one man even
with all the appurtenances, is divided into two sections. On one side
in a pocket rests a clay stove, with a place underneath for holding
the wood. On the other is a series of drawers of various sizes, in
which the dough, sugar, and spices are kept. A little kneading board
pulls out from a slit between the drawers, and on it the baker deftly
fashions his cakes and meat pies, frying them in vegetable oil in
a shallow iron basin, or if they are to be baked, plastering them
against the inner sides of the clay stove above the fire. Despite the
dirt, dust, and flies, even the ultra fastidious can not deny that the
finished product is decidedly appetizing.
Not a foot of valuable land in the Chinese City is wasted on sidewalks.
Hence everybody and everything is right on the street, and the very
narrow passages are badly congested. Rickety jinricshas, a few sedan
chairs which are fast disappearing from Shanghai, burden-bearers and
pedestrians hurry continually to and fro, shouting in shrill falsetto
tones to one another to clear the way and running in imminent danger of
colliding with the unwary and trampling on children. Yet not all the
streets are mere alleyways. A few, but it must be admitted a very few,
are wide enough to allow a carriage to pass through with comparative
ease, and they seem in comparison like boulevards. Then there are
others along which a carriage can manage to creep providing the driver
is skillful and the people hug the sides of the roads or retire
precipitately into the shops out of harm’s way, but this is too risky a
venture to be indulged in often and is seldom permitted by the police.
Once in a while it happens that a carriage gets wedged into a tight
place where it can neither move forward, back out nor even find room to
turn at right angles into a cross street. The only thing then is to
unhitch the horse, lead him out, pull the carriage back, and finally
lifting it up bodily, turn it around and harness the horse to it again.
Not all the city is laid out in streets, for there are some open places
and even flourishing vegetable gardens which quite suggest the country.
That this is possible in so densely populated an area seems a marvel,
and where and how the people are all hidden away is a puzzle. In the
poorer sections, with the closing down of night they vanish as if by
magic, except in hot weather when many camp on the streets, and in the
morning the crowds swarm forth as mysteriously, like rats from their
holes.
The best known and most popular breathing spot in the city is that
about the lake or pond, in whose centre on a small island rises
the far-famed Willow Ware Tea-House, for the identical tea-house
pictured on the much sought for willow-ware porcelain is located in
the Chinese City. This to the average globe-trotter is the city’s
chief attraction, but alas, never was the saying “Distance lends
enchantment” more truly applicable, for while the pictures of the old
tea-house are undeniably charming, with its graceful upturned gables
and the zigzag bridges leading to it, made zigzag to ward off evil
spirits who are said to travel in straight lines, yet seen near at
hand how quickly the enchantment is dispelled! Filth, rottenness, and
roistering are the main present-day characteristics of this tea-house
of fair renown. Instead of reflecting the blue sky above, the water is
covered with a thick vegetable scum, green and unwholesome. The shores
around are made lively with a colony of small vendors whose wares are
set on tables or spread out over the ground. They evidently reap a
paying harvest from the sale of scrolls, pottery, towels, sheepskin
coats, toys, and all manner of cheap foreign knickknacks which are
much sought after by the people. Switches of long, jet black hair,
especially plentiful since queues went out of fashion, are given places
of prominence. Many doubtless are sent abroad to add beauty to the
coiffures of dames of high degree.
The business of the man who deals in rags must flourish like the green
bay tree judging from the number engaged in it. What a sight is a
rag-man’s shop, rags, rags everywhere, stuffed in baskets and bags,
hanging from the walls, covering the floor in huge piebald bundles and
mounds, germ-infected, poisonous, alive with vermin, gathered up and
brought in from heaven knows where! Yet every day women and children
spend long hours industriously picking them over and making them up
into mops and the soles of Chinese shoes, for which they find a ready
sale.
Shanghai once boasted a supremely great citizen. He lived back in the
sixteenth century, a veritable Chinese Maecenas. Besides being a man
of letters and encouraging Western learning, he rose to the highest
position in the empire, as Premier and Chancellor of the Privy Council.
His name will be of little consequence to the outside world, but it
is Siu Kuang-ki, should any one care to know it. He was converted to
Christianity under the Jesuit Fathers, and lived a pure, consistent,
devoted life, dying so poor in spite of large emoluments that his
funeral expenses had to be paid from the public treasury. He built in
the Chinese City the first Christian church ever seen in these parts.
During the exigencies of later years it was converted into a temple
sacred to the god of war, but was afterward redeemed and restored to
its original use. This church is still standing, a striking edifice
back a little from the noisy street, with a typical Chinese roof, and
below it on the front outside wall, a beautiful gilded cross.
The present war god’s temple is near the temple of Confucius, with its
grass-grown court and deserted halls. Once a year, in the early dawn,
the military governor of Shanghai and the city officials enter the
sanctuary dedicated to the god of war and conduct a weird pageant-like
ceremony in honour of two local military heroes. The tutelary deities
of the Chinese City, black and repelling, occupy a large centrally
located temple more frequented by worshippers than any other. The roomy
outer court, like the temple court in Jerusalem, is given up to buying
and selling, also to eating and drinking, gambling and fortune-telling,
and there is no busier, noisier mart in all the city.
The local official in the Chinese City is called the “Chih-hsien,”
or District Magistrate, and is appointed from Peking. His official
residence styled the Yamen, is a common, ordinary building, approached
through several untidy courts lined with the low one-story quarters of
the Yamen retainers and petty officials. Every day, in three small,
bare rooms of the Yamen, court is held, the Chinese judges in their
professional gowns looking distinctly out of keeping with their
surroundings. To the left and back of the Yamen is the City Prison and
adjoining it a much smaller one for women. Stories are afloat regarding
the unsanitary condition of the prison and the treatment of prisoners
that cause one to cringe and dread an investigation, but whatever may
have been the state of affairs under the old régime, and the prison
manager is frank to confess that things were very different ten years
ago, there is now little to criticise and a great deal to commend. The
grey brick buildings are in thoroughly good repair, the cells of the
four hundred men and the fifty women prisoners, clean and fairly well
lighted and ventilated, though, as the manager himself will hasten to
tell the visitor, too crowded for health. A few carefully tended plants
are growing in the centre of each of the courts, a praiseworthy effort
to introduce a touch of the æsthetic. Industrial work on a considerable
scale is carried on in the men’s prison, though the grant of money from
the government is too small to keep all at work. Wooden and rattan
furniture, towels, mats, shoes, and clothing are made. A very little
industrial work is given the women in the way of cutting out and making
garments, but from lack of funds to supply workrooms and material, most
of the poor creatures are forced to pass their days in idleness. The
wardens of the women’s prison are women. The discipline is excellent,
yet not severe, the prisoners look well fed and well cared for, and the
men especially, happy and contented. Provision is made to send sick
prisoners to a Chinese hospital, where they receive the best of care.
The Yamen, disappointing as it is in appearance, yet witnesses some
stirring scenes, as when, not long ago, a quantity of opium and
opium-smoking utensils were burned on the open ground in front of it in
the presence of an interested throng of spectators. Not an opium den or
shop exists in the Chinese City. Long ago they were effectually closed
by order of the government.
The city is well policed. There has been a wonderful shaking up of the
dry bones in that department in recent years, particularly since the
revolution. The Chief of Police is chosen on the recommendation of the
local military governor by the provincial governor at Nanking, but the
Chief of the Fire Department is the choice of the people, and affairs
of the department are wholly under their control. All the seven hundred
members of the Fire Brigade are volunteers and serve without pay. Of
late the brigade has attained a high grade of efficiency, and in the
engine stations scattered over the city may be seen a very creditable
equipment of modern machinery including some small motor cars. They
must of necessity be small in order to get through the narrow streets.
At the central station between the east and south gates stands a
splendid tower supporting a bell weighing 6,000 lbs. which sounds
the fire alarm not only in the city itself, but in the surrounding
territory included in the Chinese municipality. This tower is the work
of Shanghai’s engineering genius Nicholas Tzu, who patterned it after a
small model of the Eiffel tower, but with changes that adapted it more
perfectly to its present use. At a recent large fire in the city, the
chiefs of the International and French Fire Brigades were present and
looked on, but their assistance was not asked for nor was it needed,
though the Chinese firemen were obliged to fight valiantly for three
hours before they got control of the flames.
That the Chinese City is taking on thoroughly up-to-date airs will
be generally conceded when it is known that strikes are becoming
rather general. The latest one to break out was in the Dyers’ Union.
The masses of the people in China dress in blue cotton. Indeed, so
universally is it worn, that it might almost be called the national
dress, consequently the business of dyeing is one of the most common
and the Dyers’ Union is very strong. Since a Presidential mandate had
gone forth that every labor union must be approved by the police,
and as in this case the police interfered to put down the strike, it
failed of its object. But a strike last winter was more successful. The
women working in a silk filature mill within the Chinese precincts,
though outside the Chinese City, were roused to fury by a reduction in
their wages. Early one morning ninety or a hundred of them gathered at
the mill gate and made such a clamour, pounding and shouting as only
enraged Chinese women can, that the authorities, realizing that after
all right was on the side of the strikers, were glad to effect a speedy
and satisfactory compromise.
X
CUSTOMS OLD AND NEW
A student in a mission school for girls received an invitation from
a young gentleman of her acquaintance to accompany him on a certain
evening to a place of amusement. The note fell into the hands of the
missionary in charge who sought an interview with the man. “It is
against the rules of the school for our girls to go out unchaperoned,”
she told him, “besides why do you make such a request? You know it is
not Chinese custom.” “Ha, ha,” laughed the youth derisively, “perhaps
it was not formerly, but now that we have a Republic we can do
_anything_.”
Great changes and grave dangers accompanied the birth of the republic,
and nowhere are they as apparent as in Shanghai. Old things are passing
away and the new order is not yet firmly established. Young women are
particularly sensitive to the changed conditions. In their eagerness
to imitate the ways of the West, the real meaning of which many do
not fully understand, liberty and license are often confused. But the
girls must not be judged too harshly, for while some are unblushingly
bold, others are like imprisoned birds who, suddenly finding the cage
door ajar, pant to try their wings in the open. It is scarcely to be
wondered at if sometimes they fly too far afield and drop back weary
and bruised. The better class of students who have studied abroad
are helping to set matters right. They show how it is possible for
friends of both sexes to meet on the tramcars, on the street, or in one
another’s homes and chat together naturally and yet modestly. It was
with great gusto that a young matron who had never been out of China
but associated freely with those who had, told of a picnic enjoyed by
the mixed choir of the Chinese church to which she belonged. “We went
down the river in a launch, taking our supper with us.” “Wasn’t it hard
to carry Chinese food in baskets?” “Oh, we had foreign food--cake and
sandwiches. I made some peanut sandwiches and every one seemed to like
them.” “Were the picnickers all married people?” “No, some were not,”
was the laughing reply. A Wellesley graduate who had been absent eight
years from her Shanghai home was asked on her return what impressed
her most. “The way my sister-in-law goes about the streets alone and
even shops in the big stores.” “Wouldn’t she have done that before you
went to America?” “I should say not! But now she doesn’t seem to think
anything of it.” “How about your mother, does she go out too?” “No,
mother prefers to follow the old customs, but she makes no objection to
what we do.”
[Illustration: A MODERN CHEVALIER AND HIS HAPPY FAMILY]
It is easy enough to view the social changes with fear and trembling
and many of them are bad enough in their trend to justify any amount of
anxiety, but there is a bright side and perhaps in deprecating the
evil it has been too often overlooked. Nothing is more commendable than
the loving comradeship that is growing up between husband and wife.
This might be expected among students who have lived abroad and are
used to foreign ways, but it is by no means confined to that class.
“You have a pretty home,” commented a foreign friend to a bride of a
year. Her husband was the editor of a popular Chinese daily and neither
of them had ever been away from their native land. The bride beamed
with pleasure. “Your lace curtains are hung so tastefully,” continued
the caller. “Wasn’t it hard to show your servant how to do it?” “My
husband and I hung them. We worked evenings after he came home from
the office,” replied the blushing little wife. A few months later,
when an expectant mother, she displayed with shy satisfaction, an
exquisitely dainty layette, each tiny garment made with her own hands
after a foreign pattern. “What a fine baby!” exclaimed another friend
to the jubilant parents of their firstborn. “It is a boy, isn’t it?”
“No, a girl,” corrected the father, gazing with fond pride into the
tiny face of the rosy mite, “but she cries a good deal. I was up with
her for three or four hours last night and had to walk with her most of
the time to keep her from disturbing my wife.” “I was very glad to see
your wife at my party on Friday,” remarked an American lady to a busy
Chinese secretary. “Yes, I got off early from the office and went home
to take care of the children so she could go. I wouldn’t have had her
miss that pleasure for anything. My Margaret is such a good wife.”
When charming little Mrs. F. sailed for America to see a brother
graduate at the University of California her husband was at the jetty
looking after the baggage, and went with her on the launch down
the river to where the ocean liner was anchored. Dr. Wu Ting Fang,
ex-Minister to the United States and one of Shanghai’s best known
citizens, meeting Dr. F. soon afterward, twitted him facetiously: “Oho,
it used to be the custom in China for the husband to go away and the
wife to stay at home with the family, and now it seems to be just the
other way and the wife goes while the husband stays at home.” Dr. F.,
who, with the help of his mother and sister, was caring for his three
little ones in Mrs. F.’s absence, laughed goodnaturedly and explained
that it was he who had urged this trip on his wife. Once when this same
husband was presiding at a formal banquet, it was noticed by those near
him that in the midst of the festivities he quietly left his place and
passed down to the other end of the long table. Mrs. F., detained it
may be by putting the children to bed, had just come in, and Dr. F.,
not too engrossed in conversation to be watching for his wife, rose
to draw out her chair and seat her in it with all the gallantry of a
chevalier. The afternoon Mr. and Mrs. C. gave their “tea,” the young
husband greeted the incoming guests at the door, while his wife, clad
in soft white Chinese silk with a wreath of tiny pink rosebuds nestling
against her black hair, presided over the tea-table with all the ease
and grace of a society belle, and withal a sweet modesty which every
society belle does not possess.
Perhaps these incidents, trifling in themselves, will possess small
significance for the reader who has never lived in China, but to those
who have they are encouraging signs that the leaven is working which
of a certainty will by and by raise women all over the land from
the position of mere chattels whose chief business is the bearing
of children to be the equals and companions of their husbands. Dr.
Arthur H. Smith, an authority in things Chinese, said recently in
conversation, “I believe that the reorganization of the life of women
in China is the most important sociological and educational event of
modern times.”
Bound feet are becoming less and less the fashion in Shanghai. The
increasing spread of physical training in all the schools is a great
aid in favour of anti-footbinding, for the popular exercises can not
well be taken on tiny feet. A medium course at present much in vogue is
neither to let the feet alone nor bind them tightly, but by the use of
comparatively loose bandages to prevent their growing too large. The
little bound feet of old, common enough still in the interior, are in
Shanghai generally looked upon with shame by the younger generation,
who if they are so unfortunate as to own them, try to conceal their
crippled members underneath long skirts or by wearing large shoes. It
is not the women alone who frown upon bound feet. In many instances
their husbands are equally opposed to them, men who a few years
ago would have spurned a woman not swaying uncertainly on her much
admired “Chinese Lilies.” A native teacher, supposed to be of the “old
school,” was telling his foreign pupil of the recent death of his
wife. “She fell down when crossing our courtyard and never regained
consciousness.” “That was remarkable,” was the surprised answer. “How
did she happen to fall?” “It was her small feet that did it. She lost
her balance. But her feet were bound before I married her, or they
never would have been bound.” “Then you disapprove of the custom and
probably do not intend to bind the feet of your little daughters?”
The man’s voice rose to an indignant pitch and with a vehemence quite
unusual for a Chinese he ejaculated, “_I shall not!_”
Young men back from years of study in America or Europe, and there are
many such in Shanghai, wear foreign clothes and look well in them. Some
indeed are quite dudish in their attire. Many older men of the upper
class on state occasions array themselves in dress suits and high hats,
but in private life they ordinarily lay aside the torturing starched
shirt and choking collar and resume their loose, comfortable Chinese
garments. Women students on returning to China usually drop back at
once into native dress, wherein they show their good sense, for besides
the comfort of this style, nothing becomes them quite so well. Some
years ago two girls from the interior arrived in Shanghai on their way
to study medicine in America. They were told that in order to attract
less attention on shipboard it would be well at once to adopt foreign
dress, so they did, corsets and all. The older one’s description of her
sensations is most amusing. “I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t eat. The
food had no room to go down. I never felt so miserable.” “What did
you do?” “I took the corsets off.” “How long had you worn them?” Mary
held up a little forefinger, as she announced solemnly, “Just one awful
day.”
[Illustration: THE COFFIN IN A FUNERAL PROCESSION]
The ultra-stylish dress of the “fast set” among young women in Shanghai
is tight trousers, short tight jacket with short tight sleeves, and
very high collars. To Western eyes this is neither pretty nor modest,
and Chinese from the interior look upon it askance. Instead of bare
heads, girls in winter are coming to wear, not hats, except those
who have adopted foreign dress, but worsted caps, usually trimmed
with coloured ribbon or artificial flowers. There is a shop on a busy
street, called “Love Your Country Shop,” which deals largely in these
fancy articles. Foreign shoes are also gradually taking the place of
the cloth-soled, satin-topped Chinese shoes, and it is a wise change if
women are to go much abroad in this city of heavy and frequent rains.
The old-time wedding procession is no longer an every day sight in the
International Settlement, though happily for lovers of the antique,
still common about the Chinese City. Carriages have to a large extent
superseded the gorgeous sedan chairs, draped with embroidered crimson
satin, and pale pink silk the orthodox crimson satin wedding gown.
Veils are much worn too, and occasionally a very up-to-date bride is
decked out in a gown of white silk or satin made in the most extreme
Western fashion. More often, however, there is a painfully inartistic
combination of Chinese and foreign styles. Little Miss Y. invited her
foreign friends to inspect her trousseau shortly before her marriage.
Garment after garment, evolved from heavy brocaded satin, sheeny silks,
and gauzy web-like stuffs, was unfolded before admiring eyes. Finally
the grand climax was reached when the wedding gown was brought in. The
marvelous embroidery on the delicate pink silk evoked “Ohs” and “Ahs”
of rapture, accompanied by exclamations such as “A perfect dream,” “I
never saw anything so beautiful!” But when a common pink net veil,
cheap white imitation flowers and coarse white cotton gloves bought at
a foreign department store and plainly regarded as the crowning touches
to the outfit were laid beside the exquisite Chinese gown, there were
inward groans from the disappointed visitors. Miss Y. wore on the third
finger of her left hand a heavy ring set with diamonds and pearls. On
her wedding day she would have her band of gold like a Western bride.
“You are very fond of the gentleman, of course,” some one asked her.
The bright eyes dropped quickly as the low answer came back, “I have
seen him only once.” “Were you alone?” “No, my aunt was in the room.”
Plainly then, notwithstanding her foreign finery, this was not one of
the so-called present day “liberty girls.”
The case of Miss W. was quite different. She and her fiancé had met
and fallen in love in the good old-fashioned way. They were married
by the bride’s father, an Episcopal clergyman, who, being tall and
well-favoured, made a rather imposing figure in his priestly robe.
After he had walked in and taken his place inside the chancel, a church
warden to the strains of Lohengrin’s Wedding March ushered up the
aisle with due ceremony the groom and best man. That done, they were
left standing for fully ten minutes. The wedding march was played
and re-played, the party at the altar shifted and turned while the
audience craned their necks till they were sore in an effort to catch a
glimpse of the incoming bride. What was the matter? Was she sick? Was
she panic-stricken? Had an accident befallen the wedding dress? None
of these calamities had overtaken the girl, who was dressed and ready
to follow her fiancé into the church. But ancient marriage customs in
China prescribe that a bride must be sent for again and again by the
groom before, with tears and great reluctance, she is at last persuaded
to leave her home. Although this was a modern wedding, it would not do
to disregard wholly the time-honoured practice, hence a proper interval
was allowed to elapse before the bride made her appearance. During the
ceremony outbursts of laughter several times proceeded from the Chinese
guests, many of whom had evidently never witnessed a Christian wedding
and to whom the plighting of the troth and other passages were highly
amusing. The bridal couple was not in the least disturbed by these
demonstrations any more than when the warden from time to time stepped
forward and taking one or the other by the arm, turned them around,
or jerked them into proper position. Soon after the conclusion of the
ceremony the bride retired and removed her veil, which was doubtless an
uncomfortable if stylish appurtenance of which she was very glad to be
rid.
Sometimes embarrassing situations are created because the young people
are attracted to modern ways while their forbears much prefer the
old. This happened recently when a law student just back from America
married the girl to whom he had been betrothed before he left home.
The bride wore a white satin gown with slit hobble skirt and fish-tail
train, veil, kid gloves, slippers, and carried a shower bouquet. All
was as modern as it was possible to have it, but at the last moment
the groom was thrown into a state of great perturbation because of the
refusal of his parents and their old-fashioned friends to attend the
wedding. In his desire to have every arrangement conform to Western
ideas he had omitted to send conveyances for his relatives, according
to immemorial Chinese custom, and they were so incensed by the omission
they refused to stir from their homes, although abundantly able to hire
carriages or sedan-chairs as they might prefer. At the last moment,
with the greatest difficulty, a sufficient number of vehicles was found
and hurried off to bring the families to the wedding, but so offended
were they that it required the utmost persuasion to induce them to come.
A Shanghai bride not long ago was taken to task by her friends for
daring to show a glad countenance. “Don’t you know it is a bride’s duty
to be sad and cry? Instead of that you look really happy,” they cried.
“I _am_ happy, and why shouldn’t I look so?” she replied with fervour.
But the high-water mark of self-assertion was reached when a Shanghai
maid, the daughter of wealthy parents, declared that her acceptance of
her suitor depended on whether he was willing to shave off his beard,
to which demand he promptly and meekly acceded. Truly the order of
things changeth in old China!
Shanghai has something of which no other city in China can boast, and
that is a Nuptial Hall. Contracting parties who wish a modern wedding
but have not homes suited for it may rent this building. It contains
a guest hall, banquet room, and bed chambers, all nicely furnished.
Here the newly wedded pair can remain if they choose, for a few days of
their honeymoon or arrange for automobile or carriage to take them away
at once.
Occasionally a clash occurs between customs past and present which
results in tragedy. A while ago a youth and maiden, both teaching in a
government school in Shanghai, fell deeply in love. The girl’s father
heard of it but objected to his daughter’s marrying because she was the
mainstay of the family, and he argued that filial duty required her to
continue their support although perfectly competent to shoulder the
burden himself. Taking her one day in a small boat to the middle of a
deep stream near their home, he demanded of the girl that she give up
her lover. When she loyally clung to him her inhuman parent threw her
overboard and let her drown before his eyes. A few years ago a deed
like this would have attracted little attention. “The girl belonged
to her father and it is nobody’s business what he did to her,” would
have been the popular verdict. But it is not so in Shanghai to-day. The
papers were full of the awful crime, the broken-hearted lover carried
the case to the Chinese Court, and so great a stir was made that no one
will dare to repeat such an act, at least openly.
It can not be said that Shanghai has progressed beyond the stage
of polygamy. Under the old régime, for a man to take one or many
“secondary wives,” as they were called, was a well-nigh universal
practice, but it has died out among the younger, educated classes
and before long will be forever relegated to the past in the treaty
ports. The women themselves are rising up in defence of one another.
An interesting instance is that of a man who left a young wife of
six months in Shanghai and disappeared for several years. When he
came back, bringing a new wife with him, he repudiated the first. Her
condition was very pitiful. Being at last turned out on the street by
her husband’s relatives after the death of her child, she went to learn
tailoring in a Singer Sewing Machine shop. It was at this juncture
that the Chinese Woman’s Co-operative Association, composed of some of
the leading women in Shanghai, espoused her cause. They distributed
broadcast a circular which read: “The legitimate wife of ---- is too
poor to engage a lawyer. We therefore ask those who sympathize with
her to come to her assistance and see that she has justice, otherwise
our two hundred million sisters will ever remain under the yoke of the
other sex.” This resulted in the case being carried into the court and
a fine imposed on the offender of eighty days’ imprisonment, pitifully
inadequate yet a move in the right direction, and a victory for the
band of progressive women.
Funeral ceremonies are undergoing a radical change in Shanghai though
not so rapidly as marriage customs. Ancient observances are still held
sacred by the majority, and through the streets trail the old-time
funeral processions. Some are pathetic in their simplicity, a cheap
unadorned coffin swinging from bamboo poles resting on the shoulders
of coolies striding rapidly forward followed by a few mourners on
wheelbarrows or in ricshas. Others are the long processions of the
well-to-do, grotesquely spectacular. First come coolies in a straggling
irregular line holding aloft tawdry banners and lanterns, after them
priests, bands (often two, a Chinese and a foreign string band), paper
images to be burned at the vault and trays of cooked food to be left
there, the sedan-chair of the deceased and the carriage he may or may
not have owned, quite empty save for a crayon portrait of him standing
upright on the seat in the midst of wreaths of flowers and palm leaves,
and finally the catafalque concealed under a crimson satin cover and
surmounted by an imitation crane which is believed to carry heavenward
the released spirit. Behind the coffin, borne by perspiring, hired
coolies, the very lowest down in the social scale, for only such can be
induced to act as pall-bearers, walk the adult sons as chief mourners.
They are robed in white cotton with a strip of sackcloth as a head band
or a sackcloth helmet. A sheet, spread out to form the three sides of a
square and carried by coolies, furnishes a screen inside of which the
men march. Following them in carriages are the widow, the daughters,
and other relatives and friends. Even this is a strange mixture of old
and present day usages, for formerly there were no carriages, no brass
band, and above all no palm leaves, which in a non-Christian funeral
are of course devoid of religious significance. Between the wholly
modern funeral and one of this description there are varying degrees of
transition. Often a hearse is used whose blackness is hidden under a
wealth of bright blossoms covering sides as well as top, so that it has
more the appearance of a gala trap than a conveyance for the dead. The
Chinese have an inherent objection to sombre effects at a funeral, the
mourners wearing white and the draperies being of the brightest colours.
A curious incident occurred recently which is a striking illustration
of the way in which old and new customs may be said to elbow one
another in their struggle for supremacy. A tired foreigner trying to
sleep was disturbed by a persistent clatter of metal instruments and
medley of voices close by. Finally in desperation he got up and looked
out on the street, determined to locate the noise and if possible put
a stop to it. It was summer weather and through the open windows of
a neighbouring Chinese house he found himself the half unconscious
observer of a strange scene. On the bed lay an old woman, evidently
very sick, while a Chinese doctor and several assistants were running
about the room with Chinese rattles and whistles, frightening away the
evil spirit that had caused the malady. At last he was chased to the
court below, where a pause was made, and the impudent intruder politely
asked what his wishes might be. Replying that he desired to visit a
neighbouring village he was told he could go, whereupon the relieved
family shut and bolted the outer door after paying the doctor a fat fee
for his services. This all took place under the very shadow of a group
of the most up-to-date Municipal hospitals in Shanghai.
[Illustration: SCHOOL GIRLS IN GYMNASIUM DRILL]
One of the hopeful signs of these later days in China is the changing
attitude of the people toward physical exercise, for it means better
health and better morals for the nation. Not long ago, really only a
very few years, round shoulders were by every one highly commended,
in the women as indicating modesty and in the men scholarly habits.
A girl who held herself erect, with well developed chest, would have
been set down at once as bold and forward, and not only that, but any
kind of physical exertion was regarded by the upper classes, young
and old alike, as coolie’s work and quite beneath their dignity. Some
Chinese girls were watching a game of tennis for the first time,
when one turned to her companion with a puzzled expression and the
remark, “Can’t they get coolies to do that work for them?” Several
Englishmen living in the western part of the city were in the habit
of rising early every morning for a tramp in the country. The Chinese
in the neighbourhood who saw them start out day after day were told
the men walked for the pleasure of it, but they shook their heads
incredulously, “We know they mean to worship at some secret shrine, for
no one in his senses would work so hard if he didn’t have to” A couple
of foreigners were crossing Garden Bridge when a troop of Chinese
youths went rushing past with foot-balls tucked under their arms. Said
the gentleman laughingly to his companion, “You wouldn’t have seen that
a short time ago in Shanghai.” “Why? Because the boys were not playing
ball?” “Yes, and neither would they have done such an unmannerly thing
as to run. Just now they were so interested in the coming ball game
they forgot all about appearances.”
In the spring of 1915 Shanghai witnessed a unique spectacle, something
that will go down in history, and deservedly, as one of the great
events in the life of the city. It was the Second Far Eastern Olympiad,
the first having been held the year before in Manila. The Municipal
Council turned over Shanghai’s finest park for the games, and the
Young Men’s Christian Association fitted it up with the necessary
accessories. No one who was there will ever forget that week. Many
foreigners were present, but they were almost lost among the crowds of
Chinese, for this was a distinctly Chinese celebration, just as it was
meant to be. The élite Chinese turned out as well as the common people,
men and women, young and old. Wide-eyed and tense, they watched their
countrymen contest with crack players from Japan and the Philippines,
and cheered tremendously when again and again the Chinese “won out.” It
was good to look upon these lusty youths, who instead of cultivating
long finger nails and cramping their chests after the manner of the
old-time Chinese scholars, were clad in gymnasium tights, vaulting,
running, swimming, batting, while their sires and grandsires forgot
themselves and their traditions so far as to urge them on with shouts
of approval.
Shortly afterward, under the auspices of the Young Women’s Christian
Association, several hundred girls from mission and private schools
gave a physical exhibition of their own. This was not open to the
public, guests being admitted by ticket and only a few gentlemen
invited. Some of the girls wore modified gymnasium suits, but most
appeared in their ordinary school clothes. It was all-important that
the conservatives should not be shocked, who were none too friendly
to the idea of physical training for their daughters. Mothers,
grandmothers, and aunts, their prejudice partly overcome by their
curiosity, sat around in crowds on the borders of the grassy campus
viewing the exercises, first with indifference, then interest, and at
last, genuine enthusiasm. The leader was a young Chinese woman who
received her training in Boston. These two events marked a new era in
the physical development of Young China and the ravages of tuberculosis
have received a check, while good, hard, honest work is understood, by
athletes at least, as something not to be shunned as a disgrace.
XI
A TYPICAL SHANGHAI WEDDING
It was the day before the wedding. Downstairs in the home of the fiancé
all was bustle and excitement. The marriage dowry, that for weeks had
been collecting, was being made ready to carry over to the house of the
groom’s father. Articles large and small, useful, and ornamental were
scattered everywhere.
First, and most important of all, there was the trousseau. Each suit
consisted of three pieces--trousers, skirt, and jacket--made of the
same material. They were carefully folded and piled one on top of
another in the regulation bridal trunks, which are moderate sized
wooden boxes covered with glossy red or brown oilcloth. Though the
family was greatly rushed, still as relatives and friends dropped in
to watch the proceedings and offer congratulations, the more elaborate
costumes were taken out with ill-concealed pride and held up for
inspection. And they were worth seeing! Silks, brocaded satins, crêpes,
gauzes, ranging in colour from the palest hues of pink, green, blue,
and violet, down to rich crimson, dark grey, brown, and even black, lay
together in bewildering profusion. Some were delicate as sea-foam,
others handsome but quiet, while the splendidly embroidered ones might
well have rejoiced the heart of a princess. The jewels were arranged to
show off to the best advantage in numerous small glass-covered cases.
They presented a dazzling array--bracelets, rings, buckles, necklaces,
hair ornaments. Diamonds, rubies, pearls, sapphires, shone resplendent,
but jade was the principal stone.
The bride’s wardrobe, however, though of absorbing interest, was
only one portion of her dowry. The rest of the outfit blocked the
way in every direction. The usual sets of graded wooden tubs, pails,
and chests with conspicuous brass locks occupied the entire side of
one room. These were painted either a rich red or brown and highly
polished. On the other side of the room the most conspicuous object was
a couch or divan weighed down under a huge pile of quilts. No Chinese
girl goes to her husband’s home without a collection of bed-coverings.
Though differing greatly in number and elegance, always they are of
bright colours and folded lengthwise with exquisite neatness. In this
case most of the quilts were of the costliest materials, flowered
silks, figured satins, with a few gay prints and soft cashmeres for
summer use.
In an adjoining apartment was a set of bedroom furniture in carved
teakwood, wardrobe, table, chairs, and washstand. The ornate brass bed
was of foreign make. The silk curtains and silver ornaments with which
it was later to be hung, were temporarily reposing in one of the many
chests. Embossed silver teasets of Chinese pattern, silver and ivory
chopsticks, foreign glass finger bowls, gaudy native silver wine cups,
bonbon dishes, jewelry cases, hand-painted scrolls, silk banners, later
to be converted into gowns for the bride, these were but a few of the
riches lavished on the girl sitting apart in an upper chamber, shy,
half afraid, wholly expectant.
The list of attractions on this great occasion would be incomplete
were mention not made of the trays of edibles, fruits, fancy cakes,
and confections of marvellous variety, intended as a gift from the
bride’s parents to the family of the groom. On the evening of the
wedding day the groom’s parents will return the compliment by sending
to the bride’s home a sumptuous repast consisting of cakes, fruit,
cooked fowls, fish, and one, possibly three or four, roasted pigs.
After roasting the pig is coated over with sesame oil, which hardens
when exposed to the air and imparts an appetizing gloss to the skin.
The animal is carried through the streets by coolies in a red tray
suspended from poles, to the admiration of all onlookers and the
despair of the hungry. On arriving at its destination, the upper part
of the head, and the tail, with a thin slice of meat attached to it,
are cut away and returned to the donors. This is done to insure the
uninterrupted bliss of the young couple, since the head and tail of the
pig represent the beginning and end of happiness in the lives of the
newly wed.
It was no light contract to get such a generous marriage dowry conveyed
safely from one home to the other. Early in the morning preparations
began, yet by three in the afternoon the procession had not started.
People were flying to and fro. Coolie bearers with long bamboo poles
stood around in every one’s way, talking in loud shrill tones. In a
side room sat a scholarly mandarin writing Chinese characters on slips
of red paper. These were pasted vertically across each chest beside
the lock and served the double purpose of announcing the name of the
bride and adding to the safety of the contents of the chest in transit,
since it could not be opened without tearing the paper. The quilts
were fastened securely to the couch on which they lay by an ornamental
network of red cord. Smaller articles, placed on box-shaped trays, were
in like manner made secure from pilfering fingers. Red paper cards, red
ribbon and flowers figured prominently as decorations. As one by one
the pieces were made ready they were taken to the street and fastened
by ropes to the coolies’ carrying poles. When the long procession was
complete and awaiting the order to start, a gayer scene could scarcely
be imagined. The bride’s entire dowry, excepting her trousseau, was in
full view of curious eyes, that all spectators along the route might
be duly impressed with the family wealth. Leading off were two closed
carriages (a short time ago they would have been sedan chairs), in each
of which sat in state two gentlemen “go-betweens,” whose particular
mission at this time was to convey the cases containing the jewels to
the home of the groom. But alas for human pride and ambition! Just at
the critical moment, when the coachman had whipped the horses into
action, the coolies raised the poles to their shoulders, and a tremor
undulated down the whole line--a few drops of rain fell. Then such a
scurrying of feet ensued as servants rushed into the house for pieces
of oiled cloth to protect perishable treasures! So it was with eclipsed
glory that the parade eventually started on its way, to the vast
disappointment of all concerned.
On the day of the wedding the centre of interest was transferred from
the bride’s home to that of the groom. He lived in a three-story
mansion, becoming the rank of his father, who was a high official
holding a responsible government position. At the gate of the compound,
or grounds, were stationed several Chinese policemen whose chief
business was to keep the motley crowd outside from encroaching on the
premises. But either they were unequal to their task, or what is more
likely, condoned the intrusion of the ragamuffins, for more and more
of the nondescript element drifted past the sentinels, till the yard
in front was well filled. The arched gateway and main entrance to the
dwelling were decorated with flowers and greens, while along the wide
veranda was suspended a row of mammoth lanterns, gorgeous with crimson
silk trimmings and tassels. At one end of the veranda hung strings of
firecrackers, yards and yards in length, lending an added splash of
colour to the picture. The house was built around the four sides of a
glass-covered court, with galleries on the second and third stories
from which the rooms opened. Two bands were stationed in the court,
one Chinese and the other Filipino, the latter a contingent from the
Municipal Band of the International Settlement. The contrast between
them was ludicrous. The Filipinos in fresh uniforms with shining
instruments sat erect before their leader and played with spirit. The
ten or a dozen Chinese were of all ages, their rags showing beneath
faded red jackets and in their hands a collection of indescribable
instruments on which from time to time they blew, pounded and pulled,
to the evident enjoyment of all the guests but the few suffering
foreigners present. Beyond the court was the reception hall. As it
was entirely open in front, its magnificence caught and held the gaze
immediately on entering the front door. The walls were ablaze with
crimson satin banners, while crimson satin covered the chairs and
tables, every piece of it, like the banners, elegantly embroidered.
Wedding decorations are rented for the occasion as it would cost a
small fortune to buy them. The ground floor was mainly given up to the
men, who sat around in the ante-rooms, in social groups, sipping tea
and wine, and smoking.
Upstairs the women of the family held court. As guests arrived they
were conducted at once to the bridal chamber, a large bright room,
decked out with the furniture and bric-a-brac sent over the day before
from the bride’s home. The bed was the most striking object, for the
white silken curtains were carefully hung, though almost hidden under a
glittering assortment of quaint and rare ornaments in wrought silver,
nearly all of them possessing some symbolical meaning. The carved
teakwood table covered with a heavy white satin spread embroidered in
peach blossoms, stood in the centre of the room. So many gifts had been
sent by friends to swell the marriage dowry, that the bridal chamber
and room back of it could scarcely contain them all. Frequently next
to an exquisite bit of ivory or jade would repose a cheap glass vase
or china matchbox that looked as if it might have come from a ten-cent
store in America. In an adjoining apartment stood a table set in
foreign style. The table-cloth was a strip of coarse cotton sheeting,
and on it were placed fancy china dishes heaped with all manner of
cakes, fruit, and confections. Even such accessories as knives and
forks, and tiny napkins embroidered around the edge in deep blue were
not lacking. In the centre was a spreading floral piece of remarkable
design. To beguile the time while waiting for the coming of the bride,
guests were invited to partake of the refreshments, which they did
freely.
The hours passed slowly by. One o’clock had been named in the
invitations as the time of the wedding, but three struck and no bride.
Four o’clock rolled around and still no signs of her. Indeed, not a
Chinese guest expected her, for had the bride made her appearance
promptly, she would have been committing a shocking and unpardonable
breach of etiquette. Several times, according to custom, the bridegroom
had sent his messengers to bring her, but without avail. The bridegroom
must go himself. At last, late in the afternoon, the word passed
around, amid a wild flurry of excitement, that he was about to set out.
He left in a closed carriage drawn by a span of horses with coachman
and footman. His two little sisters, flower-girls, in white foreign
dresses, pink sashes and hair ribbons, followed in another carriage.
The foreign band went too, on foot, while the Chinese musicians
exerted themselves with commendable energy to keep up the flagging
spirits of the waiting guests.
The minutes dragged heavily till an hour had gone by. During the
interval there were occasional breaks in the monotony. Coolies hurried
in with belated wedding gifts, women servants of the bride arrived
bearing additional jewel cases, and finally three men walked in,
importantly. Two wore Chinese dress, the third one foreign clothes of
the best modern cut. It was whispered around that he had come all the
way from Peking to act as chief functionary at the ceremony. Presently
the bridegroom’s carriage rolled into the compound. The excitement then
rose to a tremendous pitch and every one who was not already crowding
forward rushed to the entrance and the front verandas. Soon the glad
shout arose on every side: “The bride is coming! The bride is coming!”
First in through the gateway marched the Filipinos playing a stirring
air. Close behind was the carriage of the flower girls, and then came
the bride, riding alone. Her carriage on top had the appearance of
a flower garden with its elaborate rainbow-coloured trimmings. The
horses’ harness too was gaily decorated. But the poor animals were
badly frightened when a match was set to the firecrackers and boom
after boom rent the air. They reared and pranced, and though a footman
held tightly to each bridle, it seemed for a moment or two as if the
carriage with its precious burden would not succeed in getting safely
inside the gate. By this time the policemen had abandoned all effort to
control the street mob, and they poured into the compound, a gaping
throng, in strange contrast to their brilliant surroundings.
The little flower girls, carrying beautiful floral baskets, had
tripped lightly to the ground, when an intimate woman friend of the
bride’s family stepped forward to open the coach door for the bride.
Not a glimpse had been had of her, for the blinds were closely drawn.
Very slowly she dismounted as custom required, but had the poor child
wished ever so much to hurry, she would have been too seriously
hampered by her attire to do so. Delicate satin slippers encased her
small though unbound feet. Her gown was of old rose satin, stiff with
embroidery. Over her little shapely hands were drawn loose-fitting
cotton gloves. Necklaces without number, of extraordinary design,
nearly hid the waist of her dress in front, while quantities of gold
and jade bracelets encircled her slender wrists. But the most amazing
creation of all was the bride’s headgear. It was the time-honoured
helmet, worn for centuries back in these parts by Chinese brides, but
seldom seen nowadays in Shanghai. Studded with brilliants and coloured
glass, and encircled with strings of bangles that fell around and
almost concealed the girl’s face, the weight must have been enough
to bow down, without any effort to appear modest, the head that had
to sustain it. But, O, ye shades of a stereotyped past, what is this
grand climax to the bride’s dress which now rivets the attention of the
astonished beholder! Can it be? yes, it certainly is--a modern wedding
veil of white net, gathered above the helmet in a tuft-like bunch and
falling around the bride to her feet in billowy folds! The towering
crown wavered uncertainly, as, guided by her chaperon, the girl moved
deliberately toward the house.
Just inside the door she was joined by the groom in a well fitting
Tuxedo, but looking about as ill at ease as a man can. Keeping a good
elbow’s distance apart, the bridal couple, followed, not preceded, by
the flower girls and after them the groom’s relatives, walked across
the court and on into the reception hall, where a girl was vigorously
pounding out Mendelssohn’s Wedding March on a clanging piano. They
stopped a few feet in front of an oblong table behind which stood the
three men who had preceded the groom to the house. The bride and groom
bowed low to each of the three dignitaries, beginning with the one in
the centre, who was the little man in foreign clothes. This gentleman
picked up a document written over with Chinese characters, and holding
it in his two hands, read from it in a loud voice. After that he handed
a ring to the groom, who placed it on the third finger of the left hand
of the bride, over her cotton glove. This act was accompanied by formal
bows from one party to the other. The bride then received a ring from
her chaperon and timidly slipped it on the left hand little finger
of the groom. More bowing ensued. At this juncture some little girls
came forward, and facing the bride and groom, sang very sweetly, in
English, “Jesus Bids us Shine,” a feature of the ceremony introduced
by a Chinese Christian friend with the consent of the non-Christian
families. At the conclusion of this number, bowing became the order
of the programme. It took the place of the friendly congratulations
offered to bridal couples in the West The bride and groom first saluted
each other, then the gentlemen who officiated, afterward the parents of
the groom, kneeling before them with their heads to the floor, in token
of filial respect, and lastly the brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts,
cousins, and friends generally. Each group was saluted three times,
and bowed three times in return. Those older and higher in rank stood
above the couple, but in the case of children the order was reversed.
The last to be greeted was an aunt of the bride, the only member of her
household that custom allowed to be present. This ceremony was very
formal and occupied considerable time. While it lasted the chaperon was
kept busy, since it was her duty to turn the bride around, and push her
head forward at the proper time to bow.
When all was at last over, strains from Mendelssohn were again struck
up, the bride attempted to slip her hand in her husband’s arm, which
in his embarrassment he allowed to hang limply by his side, and
surrounded by a chattering, pushing crowd, the bridal pair ascended
the uncarpeted stairs, soiled with the dust from many feet, and found
their way to the bridal chamber. As the newly married always do, they
sat for several minutes together on the edge of the bed, then the
bridegroom made his escape to the rooms below, where, constraint cast
aside, he entered heartily into the enjoyment of the hour. But no
such good fortune awaited the bride. Her ordeal had just begun. She
rose to her feet while her girl friends pressed close about her for
the usual bantering. “Aren’t you stupid!” “What a hideous gown!” “How
ridiculously you behave!” “Whoever saw such an ugly bride!” During
this tirade not a muscle of the bride’s face quivered, and the lowered
eyes were never once raised. But perspiration stood in beads on her
forehead and the soft round cheeks were flushed and feverish, for the
thoughtless, teasing crowd shut out the air, and besides, not a morsel
of food or a drop of liquid had passed her lips that day.
Seven o’clock brought a respite, for at that hour the wedding feast was
declared ready, and the bride escorted by her chaperon returned to the
reception hall where the tables were spread. One table was reserved
especially for her, and there she was placed in solitary state facing
the entire roomful of guests. Not so the groom, who occupied a side
table in the midst of a group of friends. The bride’s wedding veil
had been removed, but the helmet remained, having assumed meanwhile
a somewhat tipsy air, as if the head underneath was too weary to
hold it steady or in the merry-making it had been jarred out of its
equilibrium. But no hand offered to adjust it, and least of all could
the girl herself do so. She sat immovable, her eyes downcast, her face
as impassive as a Buddha’s. Dish after dish of tempting Chinese food
was put before her, to be taken away untouched. While others all over
the room were eating and chattering happily, she continued mute and
alone. A break came when the wine was served. Lifting one of the little
silver wine cups in both hands the groom passed it to the chief guest,
who received it in his two hands, and after taking a sip returned the
cup to the groom. He presented it likewise to each of the principal
guests, and last of all to his bride amid an outburst of merriment from
the interested spectators. It was then the bride’s turn. Whatever may
have been her inner feelings, she betrayed no sign of emotion as she
stepped calmly from one to another with the cup and ended by placing
it in the hands of the groom, while the guests cheered and laughed
uproariously.
With this ceremony the feast broke up but not the wedding festivities.
They continued unabated till early morning. During the evening, four of
the bride’s brothers came in, but they did not seek her out. The men,
including the groom, stayed below to carouse and gamble. Upstairs the
young friends of the bride gathered around her once more and prepared
for a wild frolic. First, according to custom, they demanded a gift,
whereupon one of her woman servants distributed boxes of Chinese
confections among them, prepared for this purpose. After that she was
put through a series of ridiculous performances for the amusement of
her persecutors, such as crawling, hopping, skipping, crowing. When
at last dawn streaked the sky and the house lights went out with the
departing guests, is it a wonder that the exhausted little bride of
eighteen sank down on the nearest couch and cried herself to sleep?
XII
FOREIGN PHILANTHROPIES
A bishop visiting in Shanghai said he should sometime like to write a
book on the “cries” of China. It would make interesting reading. The
cries are many and diverse. Most coolies, for example, whether on land
or water, work to the accompaniment of a rhythmical chant, and though
the poor fellows, carrying heavy burdens, fairly gasp in their effort
to continue the vocal exercise while under the strain of physical
exertion, they seem unable to proceed without it.
In the early days, when foreigners first settled in Shanghai, it is
related that house servants, as they carried food to and from the
table, indulged in the usual monotonous sing-song till the distracted
diners peremptorily put a stop to the habit.
But of all the cries known to China, the most pitiful is the cry of the
children, the sharp insistent wail of suffering childhood that ascends
night and day all over this great land. Had Mrs. Browning visited the
Far East she would surely have been impelled to pen another noble poem
on the “Cry of the Children” whose pathos would have pierced the heart
of the world. Many people believe slavery in China is a thing of the
past, as a multitude imagine foot-binding is no longer practised. It is
true that edicts from time to time have gone forth abolishing slavery,
but they have not been enforced and old customs die hard. The most that
can be said is that this hydra-headed monster no longer stalks abroad
as openly and unchallenged as formerly, though that the evil exists no
one who knows conditions can for a moment deny.
Out from the centre of the noisy city, where the fields are green and
the air pure and fresh, stands a substantial red brick building. The
presiding genius is a sweet-faced, motherly woman in the garb of a
Protestant Episcopal deaconess. “Is this the Slave Girls’ Refuge?” asks
the visitor. “It is the Children’s Refuge.” Then, with a deprecatory
smile, “We are leaving the word ‘slave’ out now because we want to do
all we can to help the children forget their sad past.” The house is
plain, not a dollar wasted on ornamentation, and filled to overflowing.
Built to accommodate seventy-five, last year a hundred and fifty-six
were crowded into it. Little cots line the upper verandas, and the
superintendent’s bedroom is turned into a day nursery for the smallest
tots. “You surely ought to have one spot you could call your very own,”
exclaims the half indignant visitor. “I should find it restful and
pleasant, but with my big family I can’t manage it,” and the ever ready
smile again illumines the kind face.
[Illustration: RESCUED CHILD JUST BROUGHT TO THE CHILDREN’S REFUGE]
[Illustration: OLD MEN AT THE HOME OF THE LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR]
This work, which is undenominational, was started by a band of
Christian women after the upheaval of 1900, although the present
building was not occupied till ten years later. Now, in so short a
time, it has been outgrown, and the need for an addition is imperative.
The children range in age from three to twenty, for some have been in
the Home a long time and developed into useful assistants. Most of the
little ones are rescued by the police, who take them to the Municipal
Mixed Court, and from there they are turned over to the Refuge. And
what eventually becomes of these waifs? A few are returned to parents
from whom they have been stolen, others are adopted by families or
mission schools, while a large number die, too weakened because of ill
treatment to resist disease. Occasionally there is a simple wedding at
the Refuge and a girl goes out from it to a home of her own. Shanghai
is a great slave market. Children are sent and brought here from all
over China, kidnappers having a large hand in the shameful trade.
Parents frequently sell their own offspring, for there are many mouths
to feed and rice is often very, very scarce. Only girls are slaves.
They become the property, body, mind, and soul, of their owners, who
may do with them as they like. Their pitiful little life stories are
almost too harrowing to repeat. A baby of five had its flesh pinched
with red-hot irons, another of six was tied to a post for days without
food, having had hot needles run under her nails. One was three times
buried alive. A mite three years old, nearly dead from neglect and
starvation, weighed only ten pounds when brought to the Refuge. A
doctor counted on the body of a bleeding child two hundred and forty
cuts, burns, and bruises. One was brought in with an arm twisted out
of shape and an eyelid nearly torn away. A little slave, after repeated
beatings that almost crushed the life out of her, was thrown by her
mistress on an ash-heap to die. When rescued and sent to the Refuge her
mind seemed clouded. She took scarcely any notice of her surroundings,
but if any one approached her the poor child shrieked in terror. “You
are going to kill me! I know you are going to kill me!” “A few weeks
later,” said the superintendent, tears filling her eyes as she told
the story, “the little thing was following me around everywhere,
repeating softly to herself, ‘Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me.’” How
the superintendent with her great warm heart mothers her flock! The
more marred, feeble, and wretched they are the more her love surrounds
them. And it is most wonderful how these little bruised, neglected
plants, blossom out under her tender care. Until recently she was the
only foreigner in charge of the work. While so many others flit away
in the fierce heat of summer for a breath of cool air, this faithful
worker remains, season after season, at her post. “I can not leave the
children,” she will urge. But she asks no one’s commiseration, for a
happier heart is not to be found in China.
There is a shelter called “The Home for Waifs and Strays” at quite
the opposite side of Shanghai. It gathers in a somewhat different
class of children, not many slaves, but outcasts, down to new-born
infants picked up on the street by the police. Many of the children are
mentally deficient and some suffer from incurable diseases. A devoted
Christian woman is at the head of the Home, which receives its support
from the Municipal Council, by whom the work was inaugurated several
years ago.
A new building has just been completed close to the Children’s Refuge,
which so long stood entirely alone in the midst of cultivated fields.
It is the home of the School for Blind Boys. No charity is more
appealing in a country where diseased eyes, leading to partial or
total blindness, are so fearfully common. The school opened its doors
only three years ago in a rented house, yet the mental development of
the boys has been most remarkable. There is certain to arise soon an
insistent demand for blind teachers for the blind, and the purpose of
the school is to give their boys a general education which will qualify
them for that work. It also has a growing industrial department, and
the Blind School, like the Children’s Refuge, is in part supported by
the sale of its products. The plan is later to establish on the same
site a similar school for girls.
One of the best known institutions in Shanghai is the Door of Hope.
As the name implies it is intended to succor girls bound by a slavery
the most cruel of all. No other city in the country contains as many
brothels as Shanghai. It is often called the Sodom of China, and is
known to many of the native Christians away from the coast only as
the Far Country of the Prodigal Son. Sadly enough, the presence of
degenerate foreigners is largely responsible for the sin laid at the
gates of the gay metropolis.
It is safe to say that the majority of Chinese girls found in houses of
ill-fame are there through no fault of their own. Kidnappers dispose
in this way of many of the children they have stolen. Often parents,
particularly in famine times, sell their little daughters, choosing in
their ignorance such a fate for them rather than to see them die of
starvation.
The “Receiving Home” is in an alley-way just off Nanking Road, which
is the Piccadilly of Shanghai. Several years ago a few philanthropic
and influential Chinese gentlemen succeeded in securing from the
International Municipality the passage of a law whereby a notice was
placed in each brothel telling of the Receiving Home and how to reach
it. Another law was passed at the same time prohibiting brothels from
accepting girls under fourteen. Both of these statutes have gradually
been allowed to become dead letters, and little or no attention is now
paid to them. A rescued girl stays in the Receiving Home only over
night, or until her case is brought up in the Mixed Court and she is
committed to the Door of Hope. This building is in the outskirts of the
city, far removed from the crowded, dangerous district with which the
girls have grown too familiar. For obvious reasons, although all are
under the same roof, it has been found wise to separate the first-year
girls from those of the second year. This charity is supported by
grants from the Municipal Council together with voluntary gifts and the
sale of industrial work. The Door of Hope dolls are famed far and wide.
The little wooden heads, beautifully carved, are the only parts of the
dolls not made by the girls. Shanghai firms gladly donate in abundance
bright-coloured scraps of silk, satin, and cotton cloth. The dolls
are dressed to represent all grades and classes of society, and a set,
consisting of sixteen, is of real value educationally.
The first-year girls spend the morning in study and the afternoon in
work. They begin by learning to make their own clothes, cloth shoes
and all, then when the tailor’s trade has been thoroughly mastered,
they are set to dressing dolls. For this work a slight compensation is
given which acts as a spur and encouragement. The second-year girls
are busy all day at their embroidery frames with a little schooling
in the evening. They receive regular pay and are expected in the main
to clothe themselves. The embroidery is exquisitely fine and dainty
and there is a constant call for it, both in and out of Shanghai,
especially from prospective brides and mothers. In the long, cheerful
work-room, lined on both sides with windows, the sixty or more girls
of the second year gather each morning at eight o’clock for prayers.
Half an hour later, the embroidery frames are laid out on small tables,
and materials unrolled to the accompaniment of happy chatter. When all
is in readiness to begin, a sudden hush falls on the room, as some one
points to the text for the day on a Scripture calendar hanging on the
wall. This is repeated in concert, followed by a brief prayer from one
of the girls. It is a sweet custom and seems to give just the right
start to the day. The calendar is compiled annually by a Chinese woman
living in Shanghai.
It is not necessary to ask if the girls are happy. Their bright,
contented faces show that. Few are inherently bad. Only once in a long
while some one tires of the quiet routine and revolts or runs away.
But it is natural that they should crave change and the sight of a face
from the outside world is eagerly welcomed. Noticing this, a foreign
lady living in the neighbourhood once asked the girls in relays to her
home for afternoon tea. The day the first-year girls were present, one
of them, pointing to the piano, turned to the missionary in charge with
the question, “What is that black box?” It was explained to her that
it was a musical instrument, and when later it was played upon, the
delight of the girls was unbounded. An American visitor was so touched
by the incident that she secured for the Door of Hope the gift of a
splendid victrola which, being a thing of beauty, is likewise sure to
prove a joy forever.
Most of those who enter the Door of Hope, after a few months or a
year, become earnest Christians, and sooner or later are married to
Christian men. In China it is considered no disgrace to marry a fallen
girl, provided she has changed her way of living. One girl who was
recently married to a minister made such a favourable impression on her
husband’s friend that he went to the Home begging that he be given a
wife just like her. “But how are these poor girls for whom often a very
large sum of money has been paid, rescued from their owners?” asks the
puzzled caller. Ah, it is here that a ray of light streams through the
darkness. There is a law in China, yes, and a very old law too, that no
woman can be made to lead a life of shame against her will. If she has
a chance to express herself in court, she may choose the better way,
and no one is allowed to oppose her. The difficulty is to escape from
bondage and secure the chance to voice a protest. Besides, many are too
young to speak for themselves, like the baby of three, who the other
day was carried to a brothel in the arms of her own father and offered
for sale. The keepers prefer to buy very young children, as they cost
little and can be used as singing girls during their early years.
Five miles out from Shanghai, in a pleasant farming district, is the
children’s branch of the Door of Hope. In this beautiful protected
spot, a hundred and sixty little ones, snatched from the horrible pit
in which they had been thrown, live happily together. With the blessed
forgetfulness of childhood, the past soon fades into indistinctness,
till it is well-nigh effaced from their memory. The cottage system is
in vogue, and the big family is divided up into groups of about twenty.
Each cottage has its house-mother, one of the older, trusted girls from
the City Home, and all are under the care of two devoted foreigners.
The hours are filled with house-work, studies, simple industries,
gardening, play. If a girl shows special aptitude, she is sent in time
to a mission school, where the curriculum is broader and better adapted
to her largest development. As soon as the children are old enough,
they are trained in evangelistic work, such as teaching in Ragged
Sunday-Schools and holding village prayer meetings. Practically every
one ripens into a genuine little Christian.
Two of the most striking philanthropies in Shanghai are conducted by
the Roman Catholics. If there is a class of society that draws on
one’s sympathies even more than friendless children, it is friendless
old people, since their capacity for conscious suffering is greater.
A most admirable characteristic of the Chinese is their usually kind
treatment of the aged. Filial piety shines its brightest in poverty
stricken homes, where real sacrifice is required to provide for the
parents, who are often much better able to care for themselves than
their children are for them. But very many are left alone in the world
without food or shelter, or money to buy a coffin in which they would
so gladly lie down and die.
The Catholic Home for indigent old people is popularly known by the
name given to the Sisters of Charity in charge of it, “The Little
Sisters of the Poor.” The capacious three-story building shelters a
hundred and fifty old men and as many old women, which is all it will
hold. But as fast as any die others are ready to take their places,
for there is always a long waiting list. The only conditions of
admission to the Home are that the applicant must be over sixty and
wholly without means of support. Most of those taken in are seventy or
more. One might easily imagine that a place like this, which gathers
under its roof so many old people, whose lives for the most part
have been spent in the midst of poverty and filth, and with never an
idea of cleanly habits, would be anything but inviting. Yet it is a
sort of Eden, not a speck of dirt on the well-scrubbed floors, not a
bad or even a close smell in the big airy rooms, not a spot on the
white bed curtains and pretty patch-work coverlids made by the old
people from the scraps sent in from the shops. And as for the inmates
enjoying themselves, why the faces of the dear old souls fairly radiate
happiness! They are allowed tobacco and plenty of tea and chatter like
magpies over their pipes and cups. In order not to make life under the
new conditions terrifying for them, a weekly bath is not insisted on,
but clean, neatly mended garments are donned every Sunday morning. When
sick, the simple-minded folk are attended by old-fashioned Chinese
medicine men, instead of foreign trained doctors whose new-fangled
ways the patients would spurn. All who are able to work have regular
duties, spinning, laundering, tailoring, nursing. The women’s quarters
are on one side of the building, and the men’s on the other, with the
chapel between them. “Yes,” says the Sister Superior, stopping a moment
as she passes in front of the altar to kneel and make the sign of the
Cross, “the chapel is in the centre, so you see it is God who divides
and God who unites us.” Several of the Sisters are Chinese, and one
round-faced novitiate works in the kitchen, where the shining brass
and copper vessels call to mind “Father Lawrence” and his immaculate
domain. No Chinese girl can enter as an “aspirant” to the privileges of
sisterhood, unless she belongs to the third generation of Christians.
Shanghai’s great show-place is the Catholic institution at Siccawei, a
suburban village named after the Jesuit missionaries’ patron saint. No
one coming to the city willingly leaves without seeing it, certainly
not if the visitor is a woman. For the laces and embroideries made
under the direction of the French Sisters are the very quintessence of
artistic loveliness, and the salesroom is seldom empty.
More than fifty years ago, at the close of the T’aiping Rebellion,
the Jesuits, after many persecutions and vicissitudes, returned to
Shanghai, from whence they had fled, and settled at Siccawei. There
they began a small work, which has steadily grown till it has reached
almost gigantic proportions. Clustered about the Cathedral, glaringly
modern and capacious, whose tall spires are a landmark in all the
country round, are the old church, a men’s college and theological
seminary, observatory, museum, orphanages, schools, and industrial
plants. The women’s and girls’ buildings are on one side of a tidal
creek, and those of the men and boys on the other. Asked some question
by a stranger about the boys’ work, the Sister addressed replied in a
tone of finality, “I can’t tell you. I know no more about what is going
on over there than you do.” Each Sister is assigned her own duties
for which she is responsible, and gives herself to them exclusively.
There are fifty Sisters, more than two-thirds of whom are Chinese. The
spirituelle expression seen sometimes on the faces of these Chinese
recluses, is most remarkable. The foreign Sisters are all French. No
one can doubt their devotion. They take no vacation; they never go home
on furlough. Several have been at their posts over forty years.
It is a large household the Sisters have under their care, averaging
in number seventeen hundred, but the work is so divided and runs
with such systematic regularity that there is no suggestion of
friction or confusion. First in order come the foundlings. Each day,
tiny, new-born babes are brought into the Home, or often left at the
gate in the darkness of the night. None are turned away. They are
washed, dressed, laid in clean little cribs, and as soon as possible
baptised with a Christian name in the chapel on the premises. Many
are so frail when they enter, that a few brief hours or days end
their troubled existence. Next are the day-schools of various grades
for Catholic children, the large orphanage, and the boarding-school
for non-Christian or pagan children, as the Sisters call them, with
playground, dormitories, dining and school rooms entirely separate
from the others. In a secluded corner of the grounds live the sixty
unfortunates, who are either blind, crippled, or mentally deficient.
Their chief occupation is spinning cotton by the aid of crude spinning
wheels, something the dullest are found capable of learning to do.
But it is through its industrial department that Siccawei is best
known to the general public. Hundreds of women are employed in making
lace and embroidery, most of them having been reared in the Home,
and married from it to Catholic husbands whose earning capacity
is insufficient for the family needs. A day nursery and school is
maintained for the babies and young children of the employees. The work
rooms are of enormous size and well lighted. In the centre of each
one, on a raised platform, sits a Sister, overlooking the women. The
proceeds from the sale of work are very large.
The industrial plant for the men and boys, on the other side of
the creek, is even more elaborate. It includes many departments,
wood-carving, carpentry, shoemaking, work in iron and brass,
glass-blowing, painting in oils and water colours, and a printing
establishment. The genial Father in charge of the wood-carving and
carpentering, is in his line a genius. Some of the work turned out
under his supervision is wonderfully beautiful, and ranks among the
finest specimens of Chinese art sent to the Panama Exposition. The
youngest apprentices, lads of ten or twelve, begin their industrial
training by making little coffins for the foundlings across the way.
“Yes,” Father B. is in the habit of remarking, pointing to the boys
with a smile, “they start in life where others leave off.” The Siccawei
Mission is self-perpetuating within the limits of its own constituency.
Growth comes through the ever inflowing stream of helpless humanity.
But no effort is put forth, either by the missionaries or Chinese
communicants, to reach the unevangelized masses. Formerly this work was
subsidized from France, but it now depends for support wholly on the
sale of its industries and voluntary contributions.
All Shanghai philanthropies from time to time receive liberal donations
from the Chinese themselves, many of whom understand and genuinely
appreciate what is being done for their people. The recent founding of
the Society of Organized Charities (Protestant) has aided greatly in
carrying on systematic work in behalf of the deserving poor.
XIII
CHINESE SUCCESSES IN SOCIAL SERVICE
Several years ago a company of lepers numbering about forty, living
in one of the southern provinces of China, were driven from their
miserable shacks and burned alive. When the official by whose order
the atrocious deed was committed was called to account for it, he
excused himself by saying that since the lepers were public nuisances,
mere cumberers of the ground, he decided that the sooner they were
out of the way the better. Such was his idea of social service and
he represents a class in China who regard calamities like famine,
flood, and pestilence as heaven-sent blessings to relieve the land
of its superfluous population. But to the educated youth, touched by
the spirit of a common brotherhood, and to the better elements of an
earlier generation the incident just related is as abhorrent as it can
possibly be to a Westerner.
Philanthropy of a certain kind is not new in China. Almsgiving for the
sake of winning and storing up merit is centuries old. But galling
poverty, the fierce struggle for existence, strange customs and
superstitions, have all contributed to deaden the sensibilities and
quench the naturally kind impulses of the heart. For example, to
care for a man lying sick by the roadside means to the rank and file
that the Good Samaritan brings down on his own head the ill-luck that
followed the poor unfortunate, and to carry him into his house to die
involves not only the obligation of paying for his coffin and burial,
no small matter in China, but of answering to his relatives, if he
has any, for his decease. Not long ago in the Chinese City a humble
dwelling-house took fire and quickly burned to the ground. The family
barely escaped with their lives, a mother with a new-born baby, and
a troop of older children, one of them sick. The father was away,
presumably at work. A missionary passing through the narrow street saw
the poor things huddled together in a forlorn little group and her
heart was stirred with pity. “Why don’t some of you take them home?”
she asked of the crowd looking on. “Her husband is coming, we must wait
for him,” they answered. An hour or two later, on returning, the lady
found the family in the same spot, the woman weak and weary, pressing
her infant to her breast. A cold rain was falling. “If you don’t give
these people shelter I shall take them home with me,” she exclaimed
indignantly to a bystander. “The husband will be here soon, we dare
not interfere,” he said in tones of sharp decision. The next morning,
unbelievable as it seems, the woman and her children were still on the
street, unsheltered and uncared for. At once they were hurried to the
mission hospital and tenderly nursed. Then, and not till then, did the
real truth in the case come out. Had any one befriended these outcasts,
the evil spirit that caused the destruction of their house, would in
anger have entered the home of their benefactor and wrought disaster.
Hence the only safe course, since they had incurred the displeasure
of the gods, was to let them severely alone. Yet to offset this
circumstance is the sweet story, and by no means an isolated case, of
the old Chinese grandmother, who when a little foreign babe was rescued
from drowning, but chilled to the marrow and ready to die, quickly
opened her padded coat, and pressed it to her warm bosom, till it
revived, thus saving its life.
[Illustration: RESCUED KIDNAPPED CHILDREN AS THEY WERE PHOTOGRAPHED FOR
ADVERTISEMENT IN THE CHINESE DAILY NEWSPAPERS]
The recent revolution ushered in many innovations, but nothing that is
destined to result in larger good to China than the practice of social
service as understood in the West. The idea has met with a quick and
enthusiastic response by the Chinese, Christians, and non-Christians
alike, and is already yielding notable results in many places. “Why
should we not do for ourselves what foreigners have so long been doing
for us?” the leaders are asking one another, and hospitals, orphanages,
model prisons, refuges, industrial plants, are rising up here, there,
and yonder, till it is scarcely possible to open a newspaper without
reading of some new project afloat. In progressive Shanghai social
service is fast becoming a slogan. An unusual opportunity is afforded
here of contrasting the old style of philanthropy with the new, and the
study is valuable as well as interesting.
The local Charitable Society that antedates all others has its
headquarters, known as The Hall of United Benevolence, in the Chinese
City. Its exact age is difficult to determine as no one seems to
know. Some say it has as many as three hundred years to its credit. A
managing board of ten men, with offices in a Chinese house of spacious
dimensions, does the business of the Society, which is very wealthy,
owning large tracts of public land. Its chief work is to donate lots
to philanthropic institutions, furnish coffins to paupers, subsidize
various existing charities, and dispense free of charge Chinese
medicines. This Association is held in the highest regard by all
classes of Chinese, and may be called the fountain-head from which most
of the existing charities have sprung.
One of the older philanthropies, started more than fifty years ago, is
the Home for Widows in the Chinese City. It receives widows without
money or relatives to support them, who have determined not to
re-marry, a most praiseworthy resolve according to Chinese standards.
The house-mother, an old woman of seventy, delights to tell that she
has been an inmate of the Home for forty years, and certainly the
bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked dame is as good an advertisement as the
place could have. Widows with young children are allowed to keep their
little ones with them till the girls are betrothed and the boys able
to go out to work. In the meantime they are sent to day-schools in
the city. A family of three hundred is crowded into the rambling old
house, the gift of a former governor, which consists of a series of
small courts shut in by low two-story buildings. Each woman has her
own little room, or perhaps more than one if her family is large. The
premises are fairly neat, but what troops of children swarm around,
noisy and undisciplined, and as a Chinese caller once pointedly
remarked, “How the women must quarrel!” Their salvation evidently lies
in their industrial work, for while food and shelter are given them,
the able-bodied are expected to provide their own and their children’s
clothes. So they spend their days making articles which are sold and
yield a slight revenue, chiefly Chinese shoes, idol money, and clothing.
The Widows’ Home, despite its limitations, commands a degree of genuine
respect, but not so the two Foundlings’ Homes that awaken only pity and
almost fierce resentment. They are meant to do good, yet alas, what a
travesty on the real thing! The institution inside of the Chinese City
is the oldest philanthropy in Shanghai and dates back to 1710. From
the Hall of United Benevolence that fosters it an occasional report
goes forth telling about this work. The reports are written in the
usual florid Chinese style, and after describing at length the virtuous
motives of the founders and supporters, give the rules governing the
organization. For instance the age of each child is registered, a note
made of its appearance and condition, also “of the lines and fashion of
its fingers, five senses and four limbs.” Wet nurses are made to draw
lots for the babies in order to avoid partiality. Close to the street
entrance is a perforated drawer in which the foundling is to be left.
The one who brings the baby must rap on the door with a stick that
hangs beside the drawer to announce its arrival. These and many more
minute directions are recorded with painstaking elaboration.
They read well, but what are the facts? It requires considerable
tact and insistence for a visitor to gain access to the inner rooms
of the Home, where the real life of the babies is dragged out. Two
or three of the well-favoured will be brought in the arms of nurses
to an outer court, but when permission is asked to go inside there
is evident reluctance and many excuses are offered. Sometimes the
only sure open sesame is the official card of the City Magistrate.
Apparently no cruelty is practiced, but it is the gross ignorance and
negligence of the caretakers that makes so pitiable the brief life of
the babies, for most of them die after a few weeks or months. Each wet
nurse is given the charge of two foundlings. The nurses may remain at
the Home or if they prefer take the little ones to their own home, in
which case they receive somewhat larger pay. If a sufficient number
of wet nurses can not be secured, the foundlings, irrespective of
age, whether a few days or several months old, are fed on rice water
sweetened with coarse brown sugar. Scarcely any reach the Home in a
normal condition. Diseased, weak, bruised, one coming with a terrible
gash in its neck given with intent to kill, the death-knell of the puny
things is generally sounded before birth. The rooms where they are
kept are small, and as a rule almost devoid of light and air. In one
of the Homes even through the heat of a Shanghai summer the babies not
only sleep in stifling rooms but on beds surrounded by closely-woven
cloth curtains. In the other Home they lie the long day through in
bamboo cribs, their little bodies eaten with flies and poisoned with
mosquitoes. The chorus of feeble wails that constantly arises pierces
the visitor’s heart, as does the sight of the tiny skeleton-like limbs.
With scarcely an exception the fifty babies in each of the Homes, and
the far larger number that are put out to nurse, are girls. Just one
thought comes as a slight comfort, that wretched as is the condition of
the children they are certainly quite as well, or even perhaps better
off, than they would be in their own homes. No wonder physicians in
China say the mortality among children reaches as high as seventy or
eighty per cent.
In happy contrast to these Homes, is the Hospice of St. Joseph, which
has gathered into its safe shelter nearly eleven hundred of Shanghai’s
sick and poverty-stricken Chinese. But the story is too good not
to be told from the beginning. Four years ago two Christian men,
members of the Catholic Church, determined to found a philanthropic
institution. One holds several highly responsible offices in the
Chinese Municipality. The other is a successful business man. Many of
the tramcars in the International Settlement, and all of those under
Chinese control, were turned out from his foundry. His snug steamers
ply the waters of the upper Yangtse as far as Chungking, conquerors at
last, after many futile efforts, over the difficulties presented by
the dangerous rapids. He subscribes for American journals on mechanics
which he studies diligently through an interpreter, and after absorbing
ideas gleaned from them, invents and adapts machinery for use in China.
It is his desire to see Chinese farmers follow improved methods of
agriculture, and to encourage them he occasionally presents a village
with a modern threshing machine made in his foundry. His Sundays are
frequently spent in evangelistic work in the country, and busy man that
he is, he makes it a practice as often as possible to leave his work
and go to the Arsenal to pray with condemned prisoners before they die.
Recently the President honoured him with a medal rarely bestowed, and
all who know him, Protestant and Catholic alike, pronounce him a “rare
character.”
The land for the Hospice was donated by the Charitable Society of the
Hall of United Benevolences, and the Chinese Municipality gave bricks
(those bricks seem to multiply miraculously!) from the old city wall
for building material. The colony includes a men’s hospital, a women’s
hospital, a home for boys, a refuge for girls, an asylum for the
blind, a chapel, dispensaries, kitchens, quarters for the insane, for
opium patients, and prisoners from the jail in the Chinese City. These
buildings are already completed and others are projected. While the
two founders direct the business affairs of the institution, they have
given the care of it to twelve Sisters of Charity, four of whom are
Europeans and the rest Chinese.
The upkeep of such a great establishment, under the conditions that
exist in China, is no small matter, but the next to impossible has been
achieved and the management is well-nigh beyond criticism. The long,
light airy wards, with every cot filled, are visited each morning by
a foreign-trained Chinese physician, who donates his services. On the
second floor of the men’s hospital is a beautiful white-tiled operating
room, with all the latest equipment. There are industries, indoors or
out, for those able to work. Children study half a day. Incurables and
old people without support are kept on for life, but the strong and
middle-aged are sent away from the institution as soon as they are well
to make room for others. It is a joy in this land, where the insane
have been so long neglected and maltreated, to find a retreat prepared
for them where they receive the kindest consideration. The consequence
is that many after a few months go home cured. Every cement-lined cell
is protected in front by iron bars, so that the door can be left wide
open, admitting light and air. A door at the back of each cell opens
into a narrow corridor which leads to bathrooms with large earthen
tubs and running water. Several of the cells are neatly padded to
accommodate violent patients. This place and the prisoners’ wards next
to it, as clean and wholesome as heart could wish, are in charge of a
Christian young man of tried character.
In addition to the Hospice, its two large-hearted founders have built,
on a much frequented street, a three-story Evangelistic Hall. Said the
elder one, “We want it to be a place where any passerby and especially
strangers in the city, can stop a while and discuss the Christian
doctrine.” There is a day school for boys in connection with it.
Out in the neighbourhood of the old pagoda, set in the midst of
blooming peach orchards, is a large orphanage for both boys and girls.
This also is a Christian institution, but Protestant, and was started
eleven years ago by a group of men, several of whom had studied in
mission schools. The boys and girls are in separate though connecting
compounds, and a happier, merrier lot of young folks it would be
hard to find. Much is made of Bible Study, and industrial work among
the boys is strongly emphasized. The sale of their rattan furniture,
painted scrolls, cloth and hot-house flowers, especially at the time
of their annual chrysanthemum show, goes a long way toward meeting the
current expenses of the work.
On the same road as the orphanage, but nearer town, is “The Shanghai
Home for Poor Children.” This is not Christian, but it is one of
the most interesting and best conducted institutions in the city. A
few influential business men are its promoters, Chinese with high
ideals and broad vision. There are in the Home about twenty girls
and a hundred boys, many of them waifs picked up on the streets by
the directors themselves. A peculiarity of this institution is that
the children do not use beds but sleep on the floor in great breezy
dormitories where there can be no question of well-inflated lungs. The
school has a famous orchestra, and a picture that catches the eye at
once, on the wall of the reception room, represents the band members,
girls as well as boys, sitting with their instruments in their hands on
the platform in the main hall. This Home is characterized by two unique
features, one, that the old-time Chinese boxing and fencing are taught
in the fine out-of-doors gymnasium, and the other, the prominence
given to agriculture and horticulture as school branches. Indeed this
seems to be the only school in Shanghai where agriculture is a study,
with opportunity for practical work in the ample grounds around the
institution. In connection with this charity it is worth recording
that of the ten members on the Board of Directors five are women.
However, they have not advanced quite far enough to join with the men
in committee meetings but hold separate sessions. Or possibly it is the
men, poor benighted creatures, who are to blame!
It is impossible to lay too much emphasis on the value of industrial
schools, and social service can be turned into no more beneficent
channels than in starting and maintaining such schools. Until very
recently industrial training was wholly neglected in China. Even now,
if a Chinese educator is asked, “Are there any industrial schools in
Shanghai?” he will answer, “None,” and yet there are at least two and
one more soon to be opened. But these, it seems, are not classed as
schools, since they admit only poor boys unable to pay tuition, and
because the study of books is made secondary. The best industrial
school was opened four years ago. Work is carried on in a single
large building that is not divided into rooms, but from whose centre
apartments branch off in different directions like the spokes of a
wheel, all well supplied with windows, thus insuring plenty of fresh
air and good ventilation even in the hottest weather. “How many boys
have you?” was asked of the head teacher. “One hundred, and I wish I
had room for five hundred!” came the reply with surprising earnestness.
The boys range in age from very little fellows to lads of sixteen
and eighteen. There are industries enough to suit the bent of each
one. They include carpet-weaving, wicker work, soap-making, pottery,
portrait painting, the manufacture of kindergarten toys, clothing made
on sewing machines, and stockings on knitting machines. The boys work
during the day and study in the evening. Their pride is in their brass
band and they earn quite a bit of money for the school by playing at
weddings and funerals. The third of an acre covered by the school plant
was originally a cemetery, and how characteristic it is of China, that
in order to secure the land one hundred and thirty-nine graves had to
be removed!
One of the commonest crimes in Shanghai is kidnapping. Chinese
children, if they are healthy and attractive, need to be carefully
guarded. Most of the kidnappers are women, and the nefarious business
is so lucrative that a large number are engaged in it. Kidnappers grow
bold as well as wily, picking up children at play on the street, or off
on errands, and even beguiling or snatching them away from their very
doors. Both boys and girls are stolen, though boys are greater prizes,
being always in demand as apprentices and adopted sons in families that
have not been blessed with an heir, for the master of a house who has
no son to burn incense before his ancestral tablet after his death, and
to worship at his grave, is of all men most miserable. Still, pretty
little girls are always easily disposed of, either in brothels or in
private homes as slaves or future daughters-in-law.
Several years ago about thirty public-spirited Chinese gentlemen in
Shanghai formed themselves into an Anti-Kidnapping Society and set
to work in earnest to combat this evil. They hired skilled Chinese
detectives to meet out-going and in-coming coast and river steamers
and arrest all suspicious characters. Cunning as the kidnappers are,
again and again they prove no match for the quickwitted detectives,
who succeed in rescuing many children. The poor little victims are
frequently concealed in baskets of clothing, or hidden away in boxes
that ostensibly contain fruit or merchandise. Sometimes two or three
will be found crouching together in a single box with only the tiniest
holes for admitting air. The very young children are usually drugged,
and older ones frightened into silence by the most terrible threats.
Five miles out from Shanghai, convenient to the railroad yet in the
midst of open country, has stood for years a large Buddhist temple.
At the time of the revolution, when so many of the temples in China
were abandoned, and put to other uses, this one was leased by the
Anti-Kidnapping Society as a Home for rescued children. Stripped of its
idols and incense burners, the smoke-blackened walls white-washed, the
priests ejected, the old place that so long echoed the mumbled prayers
of heathen devotees now resounds with the happy voices of between two
and three hundred children. The girls, who are considerably in the
minority, occupy the courts in the rear, large and pleasant however,
and the boys those in front. The Worship Hall of the temple has been
converted into a school and assembly room for the boys. Every day in
the Chinese newspapers of Shanghai the Home is advertised, with a
description and photographs of the children most recently rescued. In
this way hundreds have been identified by their parents and returned
to them. Unclaimed children are kept in the Home, being taught some
kind of industrial work until they are able to go out and care for
themselves. Ethics is a branch of the school curriculum, but the
children are at liberty to accept whatever religious belief they will.
The Chinese gentry in Shanghai maintain several free dispensaries.
The largest of these, fronting on a crowded street, has in Chinese
characters over one door the motto, “Loving to Save,” and above another
“Heaven Bestows Perfect Happiness.” This charity is said to be half a
century old and the building itself bears evidence of having endured
that long. Every second day the dispensary is open, when patients
by the hundred visit it. The dozen or so Chinese trained doctors in
attendance are divided into two classes, those treating internal
diseases and the others dealing with external troubles. They are
separated like sheep from goats, sitting each at his own table, under
covered corridors on opposite sides of a court. In the rear of the
dispensary is a large workshop where coffins are made and given to the
poor.
Seven years ago, when plague raged, an isolation hospital was opened
by a well-known Chinese philanthropist in the outskirts of the city.
He succeeded in buying the house of a wealthy Chinaman, whose several
wives and numerous offspring actually performed the unprecedented
feat, for Chinese, of vacating the premises in two days. Wards have
since been added to the main building, so that the hospital will
now accommodate about a hundred. Through the efforts of this same
philanthropist, aided by a distinguished foreigner, Dr. Timothy
Richard, the China Branch of the Red Cross Society was established
in 1904 with headquarters in Shanghai. Three Red Cross hospitals
are operated in widely separated districts of the city, two of them
intended to be used exclusively for cholera patients during the cholera
season. One of these had its opening some months ago when the hospital
was visited by many influential Chinese and a few foreign guests.
Nothing could have illustrated more clearly the progress the people are
making in the science of social service. The building is a thoroughly
renovated old-fashioned Chinese mansion, with courts and rooms
innumerable and the usual lovely carved woodwork, mural decorations
and tiny squares of translucent glass set in quaint wooden screens,
though most of these had been replaced by good-sized modern windows.
The most fastidious Westerner could not have asked for cleaner wards,
arranged for the various classes of patients, whiter examining and
operating rooms for both men and women, or a more complete equipment,
though the whole was on a somewhat diminutive scale. The question, it
is true, would occasionally intrude itself, “How will this place look
a month from now?” but it was followed by the reflection “What began
best, can’t end worst,” and that a committee capable of initiating such
a work could be trusted to supervise its upkeep. The corps of young
men nurses wore a neat uniform of white with blue trimmings. The women
nurses,--well, to be frank, there were none. “It is so difficult to
find women nurses,” explained one of the doctors. “We must have them
of course or we can’t open the women’s department.” The keen interest
of the Chinese themselves in the hospital, evidenced by the numbers
present and their painstaking inspection, was one of the most hopeful
signs. An elderly gentleman, of a singularly refined and benevolent
countenance, had come all the way from Nanking, half a day’s journey,
to study the plant with a view to starting something similar in his own
city.
Time fails to tell of the fine modern hospital of the little Chinese
woman doctor who received her training at a mission medical school in
Canton, and about whom a whole chapter could be written. Unselfish
to a fault, serving devotedly under the Red Cross Society during the
revolution, pouring her money and her life out in kindred charities, no
personal sacrifice is too great for the betterment of her people whose
spiritual as well as physical needs lie as a burden on her heart.
A minor charity but one by no means to be despised is that of
furnishing on the street in summer free drinks, not of intoxicants,
but of tea. The tea is poured hot into earthen jars which stand inside
small booths. Beside the jar is a bamboo dipper, and any passerby may
stop and quench his thirst. The tea stations are scattered at frequent
intervals throughout the foreign settlements as well as the Chinese
City, and are an inestimable boon, particularly to the hard-working
coolies.
Another charity that well illustrates the poverty of China is the
conservation of waste rice. Rice is China’s staff of life. The servant
calls his master to eat not by saying “Dinner is ready,” but “Rice is
ready.” To waste rice is a sin; to save it, meritorious. As junks laden
with rice from the country around are poled down the river and creeks
to Shanghai, a few handfuls of the precious grain inevitably sift out
from the bags onto the bank. This is picked up by benevolently minded
persons, along with the mud in which it has fallen, and afterward
laboriously separated and washed. Some hundreds of pounds in the course
of a year are collected in this way and distributed to the poor. A
number of local Chinese guilds during the coldest winter weather, are
in the habit of feeding daily large numbers of the suffering poor, who
line up at specified hours for their allotted portion; also generous
sums of money are contributed annually by the Chinese and sent to the
districts devastated by flood and famine to relieve the destitute.
Perhaps the most significant event of the last year in Shanghai was
the organization by young Chinese women of a Social Service League.
The leaders are Christians, who in a tactful but persistent way, are
sure to make their influence felt. Already as a beginning five free
day-schools for the poor, with a total attendance of several hundred,
have been started and others are expected to open soon. A Sunday School
taught by volunteer workers is held in connection with each day-school.
It is the plan to dot the city with these charity schools, which
divide the day between the study of the Chinese language and manual
training. The whole financial burden is met by the League members and
their interested friends, while a few, ladies of high position, who
heretofore have led self-centred lives, are giving several hours a week
to teaching. The movement is attracting wide attention.
XIV
THE ROMANCE AND PATHOS OF THE MILLS
It was the close of a cold December afternoon, and a raw penetrating
wind was blowing. In the mill district out Yangtsepoo way the road was
alive with people. Women and little children, with a sprinkling of men,
were hurrying along the dusky highway on foot and in wheelbarrows,
for it was nearing six o’clock, the hour of the night shift. In front
of one of the great cotton mills a crowd of shivering humanity had
gathered waiting for the Sikh policemen to throw open the gates. Faces
were blue and pinched, shoulders bent, and hands drawn up for warmth
inside the padded cotton sleeves. Nearby, within a shallow niche in the
brick wall stood a small, solemn-faced boy, perhaps seven years old. He
looked like a young sentinel, straight as a ramrod, arms stretched down
close to his body. When asked what he was doing he replied briefly,
“Keeping warm,” and tried to hug a little closer the sheltering wall.
Poor laddie, the whistle would soon blow calling him on duty to work
without intermission amid pounding machinery and dizzily whirling
spindles, until the welcome signal set him free at six o’clock in the
morning.
The story of cotton-growing in China is not a very old one. It began
only a few hundred years back, some say in the eleventh, others in
the thirteenth century, when the first cotton seeds were brought here
from Chinese Turkestan. Strangely enough, it was a woman who gave the
cultivation of cotton its initial impulse, for not until Lady Hwang,
public-spirited and enterprising, took it upon herself to distribute
cotton seeds among the farmers of the Yangtse Valley, was the plant
grown to any extent. This valley is to-day the most flourishing cotton
producing district in the country. Ninety per cent of China’s millions
dress in cotton, a coarse, strong cloth, dyed blue. But what did the
people wear in the long ago before the cotton plant had ever been heard
of? Did peasant as well as prince array himself in silk and fine linen?
What we do know is that the introduction of cotton was strenuously
opposed by the silk and hemp growers. It is a curious fact that as
early as 500 A.D. reference is found in Chinese books to “cotton
robes,” though they were evidently regarded as rarities and were
doubtless brought into the country by travellers, or as tribute for the
august ruler of the Flowery Kingdom.
[Illustration: ON THE WAY TO THE MILL]
India gave China her first spinning wheel, and this same crude wheel,
scarcely improved upon at all, is still seen, not only in the interior,
but in many a home in and around metropolitan Shanghai. Multitudes
of families too, as in the olden days, run their own simple hand
loom. Time-honoured customs die slowly in China, but the southern
provinces are the least conservative, and Canton is one of the most
progressive of cities. So we are not surprised to find that about
1870 a Cantonese company started a factory for spinning cotton by
steam-operated machinery. When all was in readiness would the farmers
trust their cotton to this wizard concern? Not a man of them! It
was their firm conviction that by some occult process their dearly
grown product would vanish from sight never to reappear. Thus the
enterprise launched so hopefully was doomed to failure. Twenty years
later, however, the experiment was tried again, and this time with
success. Foreign capital too was attracted to the venture, and at the
close of the Chino-Japanese war, when the new treaty gave assurance of
protection, a number of foreign-owned mills were built. At first they
were operated without profit if not at a positive loss. This was mainly
due to the fact that on account of the sudden and greatly increased
number of spindles the supply of cotton was not equal to the demand,
which caused a rise in price. That is no longer true, and dividends
now are often very large. Cotton, to a greater or less extent, is
grown in every province in China, but the quality is inferior and the
staple short. This is not because of an unfavourable soil and climate,
especially in the lower central provinces, but is wholly due to the
carelessness and ignorance of the farmers. They cultivate the farms in
a haphazard fashion, or strictly speaking, pay no attention whatever to
cultivation, allowing nature to run riot at her own sweet will. There
is no reason why, with the introduction of scientific methods in seed
selection and planting, China in a few years should not see a complete
transformation in the character of her crops. Foreigners are planning
to start an experimental farm in the neighbourhood of Shanghai, and
hope each year to induce a few farmers from the interior to spend
several months working on it and receiving practical instruction. It is
estimated that within the last ten years the acreage devoted to cotton
growing in China has increased one hundred per cent.
Great as has been this advance, the end is not yet, and cotton fields
will continue to multiply. “But where is the land to come from?” some
one asks. “China’s millions must be fed, and surely the rice and wheat
fields can not be sacrificed.” No, but the acres once aflame with the
now prohibited poppy will be available, and then there are the burial
lands. The amount of ground taken up by the mammoth mound-shaped and
horse-shoe graves is enormous, but little by little it is yielding
to the encroachments of Western civilization. At a recent medical
conference in Shanghai, one of China’s most brilliant foreign-trained
doctors, for sanitary and economic reasons dared advocate cremation,
or at least confining the sepulchres of the dead to the hillsides
and other untillable spots. Half of China’s cotton crop is exported
annually to Japan. On the other hand she imports quantities of cotton
from America. Foreign countries send many kinds of cotton cloth to
China, where it is most popular, particularly the cotton prints. While
Japan’s goods flood China’s markets, the Japanese markets are closed
to the finished product from China. Yet it should be easily possible
in the near future for China to supply her own needs, growing the best
quality of cotton, and opening cotton mills all over the country.
This would relieve the congested agricultural districts and furnish
employment to many idle hands.
What the cotton industry in China requires above everything else is the
fostering care of the government. Until this is given there will be
little advance in either quality or quantity of production. The most
the central government has done thus far has been to give its tardy
recognition to “The Cotton Anti-Adulteration Association” of Shanghai,
and to place the testing of cotton against adulteration under a
Commissioner of the Customs, which has led to most beneficial results.
It is a pity that thus far the Chinese-owned mills have declined to
join the Association. The greatest handicap to the native industry
is heavy taxation. In Japan the raw material is imported and the
finished product exported free of duty. In China not only is no such
encouragement given, but internal taxes are levied as well, so that the
farmer must pay to send his cotton down the river to the manufacturer,
the manufacturer to return it in yarn and cloth to the merchant, and
the merchant to pass it on to the country buyer.
At present China has approximately forty cotton mills, nearly
two-thirds of which are in and around Shanghai. Three in the city
are owned and operated by the Japanese, several are the property of
European companies, but the majority belong to the Chinese. The oldest
cotton mill, started more than twenty-five years ago in Shanghai,
was financed by China’s great statesman, Li Hung Chang. It is still
running under Chinese management, though the original buildings were
burned a few years ago. This mill is one of the largest, having sixty
thousand spindles. The assistant superintendent is a bright young man
who recently graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, where he
specialized in sociology. He brings to his work high ideals which he
hopes gradually to see realized. The next oldest mill is also Chinese.
Its owner, Mr. C. C. Nieh, an unusual man, recently returned from a
five months’ tour in the United States, where he made a careful and
critical study of cotton growing and cotton mills. It is his purpose
as quickly as possible to bring his mill up to the highest grade of
efficiency. Indeed his American manager reports that his chief is
anxious to advance more rapidly than the operatives can be trained
to follow, and describes him as a “delightful man to work for.” The
largest mill in Shanghai is under British management. It operates
seventy thousand spindles and employs between five and six thousand
hands. One of the newest mills, that represents the very latest thought
in building and equipment, belongs to the Japanese. The brick walls
are lined with cement, the floors are reinforced concrete, while the
saw-tooth roofs, with glass on one side, admit an abundance of light.
The machinery, the best made in England, is operated by electricity,
all of the other mills in Shanghai, except Mr. Nieh’s, using steam. A
peculiarity of this mill is that the majority of the employees are men
and boys, female help being almost exclusively found in the other mills.
A few years ago the Japanese mill owners in Shanghai did a good thing
for themselves and for the Chinese in sending to Japan a hundred
Chinese men and women to take a course of nine months’ instruction in
the mills. Since their return, these trained workers have been used to
teach the raw Chinese mill hands in Japanese employ.
Wages in all the mills are about the same, and are good, as pay goes
in China. Children receive from eleven to fifteen cents a day, women
from fifteen to thirty-five according to their skill, and men fifteen
to twenty dollars a month. This is reckoned in Mexican currency, which
would yield less than one-half that amount in American money. Some of
the mill people come from farms in the suburbs and are in comfortable
circumstances. One or two members of a family may work in the mill, not
so much from necessity as to be able to add a little to the general
income. But others, and these far outnumber the more fortunate class,
are the poorest of the poor, often unable to pay the “cash” or two
required to ride in a wheelbarrow between the mill and their home
which is frequently miles distant. A single instance may be given. A
young girl supports a widowed mother and little brothers and sisters
on two dollars and a half a month. She starts to the mill each morning
at four o’clock, as it takes her two hours to walk there, and when
her day’s work is over, at six in the evening, she is two hours more
walking home. Many a time when the moon is shining the child mistakes
its bright light for dawn and sets out at three or earlier. The walk
is not so bad in pleasant weather, lonely only until she joins crowds
of other mill folk moving in the same direction. But what of the chill
days in winter, with a bleak wind blowing, rain falling, and roads
treacherously slippery with mud? It is hardest for the women who have
bound feet, women too poor to pay for a seat on a wheelbarrow with
five or six others. Yonder comes a group uncertainly picking their way
along in the blinding mist. One poor soul at last reaches the gate of
the mill and drops all in a heap on the cold wet ground to wait for the
blowing of the whistle. “Have you come far?” is asked of her pityingly.
Half fearfully, half defiantly, as if braced for a reprimand, she
struggles to her feet and answers, “From Honkew,” a distance of nearly
three miles. A fleeting smile is by and by coaxed into her pale face,
but she is tired, so very tired, and a long twelve hours of unremittent
labour lies before her. Let us hope she is one who works at a loom, for
then she can have a seat on a narrow bench. The women and children who
watch the spindles must stand the long night through.
The employees carry their lunch in a small round basket, all of uniform
size. The basket is half filled with cold boiled rice, and set in the
midst of it is sure to be a little bowl containing a few mouthfuls
of bean curd, salt fish or some other simple relish. Before eating,
the food is warmed by pouring boiling water into the basket and
allowing the water to filter through the rice and out at the bottom.
Hot water is also furnished in the mills for tea. In the new Japanese
mill tea itself is given the hands. “Not the best kind,” says the
superintendent, “but nevertheless, tea.” This mill has rough dining
halls for its employees, and allows a half hour at noon and the same
at midnight for eating. Another mill gives fifteen minutes at noon
and at midnight. An Englishwoman living in the neighbourhood says she
always awakens at night when the great engines stop their throbbing and
thinks with tender pity of the wan-faced women and wide-eyed little
children toiling across the way while she rests in her comfortable
bed. In most of the mills no intermission whatever is granted for rest
or food, and the people eat whenever they are hungriest, snatching a
morsel now and then as they tend their looms or watch their reels and
spindles. Formerly mothers brought their nursing babies to the mills,
and laid them at their feet while they worked, but this is no longer
permitted in the large mills. Some relative, it may be a grandmother,
carries the little one to the mother to nurse twice a day, in the
middle of the morning and again in the afternoon. Mothers who work at
night often draw from the breast before they leave home sufficient milk
to last the baby until they return in the morning.
All of the mills run their spinning department through the twenty-four
hours, but weaving can not be done as well at night, so the looms shut
down. One mill makes its day fourteen hours long. “And these little
children must stand and work all those hours?” asked a visitor of the
manager. “Yes,” and with a slight shrug of the shoulder, “rather hard
on them, isn’t it?” “But then you know how it is in the Chinese shops,”
he added, “they keep their apprentices at work often eighteen and
twenty hours on a stretch.”
The best mills no longer employ very young children, that is tots
of five and six. This is not so much in the interest of the children
as because the little ones are found to be more of a hindrance than
a help. But parents try to smuggle them in past the keen-eyed Sikh
policemen at the gate, who are kept busy at the times of shift driving
them out.
The hiring of women and girls is generally committed to Chinese
forewomen, who are responsible for keeping their full quota at
work. These women are usually shrewd and business-like, with a full
appreciation of the dignity of their position. One recently entered
the first class compartment of a tramcar. She wore the loose blue
gown, apron, and head cloth of the working people and when the Chinese
conductor came by he addressed her gruffly. “Old woman, you belong
in the third class. Get out of here.” “Why should I get out?” she
responded with spirit, “I have money to pay for a seat in the first
class.” The conductor changed his tone and manner at once, recognizing
a dominant personality behind the coarse clothes. “Pardon me, Madame,”
he said and meekly took the proffered coppers. The mills as a rule
give four holidays a month, though they are not always Sundays. Some
employees object to Sunday as a holiday as they say it brings bad luck.
The Chinese for so many centuries have been an agricultural race that
they do not take as kindly to mechanical labour as the Japanese, who
have long had industrial training in the schools and make at first
steadier, more dependable mill hands. Yet these patient, plodding
people, with almost unlimited endurance, are capable of being trained
to do the highest grade of work. The improvement of their material
condition is a crying need. Said the superintendent of one of the
foreign-owned mills: “I have been in this work in Shanghai now for
twenty years, and I hope I may not leave for home till I have seen the
employees in the mills better housed, fed, clothed, and educated. But
employers can not do this until the Chinese government enables them
to compete on better terms than at present with others in the cotton
market.” Mr. Nieh is making practical application of his philanthropic
principles in an effort to divide the twenty-four hours into three
shifts instead of two, and as fast as possible to dispense with child
labour, so that the boys may be free to enter the public school
which is being built on land donated by him near his mill. This same
generous-hearted man, who recently accepted the Christian faith, is
also planning for a girls’ school, a day nursery, and a hospital in the
mill district. Several years ago he and his wife, also a Christian,
threw open their beautiful private garden as a playground for street
children. When remonstrated with by their friends they replied
smilingly, “We feel it is selfish to enjoy it alone.” The recently
organized “Mill Owners Association of Shanghai” it is expected will
pave the way for concerted action in relation to needed reforms.
Although cotton is an exotic in China proper, silk is a native product.
More than four thousand years ago, in the dim, semi-prehistoric days,
China alone of all the countries in the world, understood the art
of sericulture. Again it was a woman to whom she was indebted, for
tradition has it that as early as 2600 B.C. the wife of the great
emperor Hwang-ti experimented with silk-worms and finally discovered
a way of unwinding the silk from the cocoons much in the same manner
that it is done now. This was a precious secret and China guarded it
jealously. But during the fifth century of the Christian era it leaked
out, as secrets often will, and lo, it was a woman who divulged it,
which is not as surprising a happening as might be. It fell out that
the Prince of Khotan in Chinese Turkestan wedded a Chinese princess,
and when the bride was being conducted to her new home, so the story
goes, she managed to carry with her, concealed in her headgear and at
the risk of her life, some seeds of the mulberry plant and eggs of the
silk-worm. Thus sericulture became known in Central Asia and later in
Europe. It is an interesting coincidence that while it was Khotan that
learned the art of silk manufacture from China, it was also Khotan that
furnished China with her first cotton seeds several centuries later. So
the debt was paid back in part.
Though China shared with the rest of the world the secret of
sericulture, yet up to within fifty years she possessed half the
world’s trade in silk. Then Japan outstripped her in the race and now
leads in silk production and export. It is generally admitted that this
would not have happened had the Chinese Government realized the value
of the silk industry sufficiently to foster it, abolish undue taxation,
and introduce scientific methods of sericulture. As it is, under
favouring conditions she may regain what she has lost, for the finest
cocoons are found in China, with a tenacity far beyond that of any
others. While there is not a province where silk-worms are not raised,
broadly speaking two-thirds of the silk produced in China comes from
the Yangtse valley and the country north of it, and the other third
from the south. Filature steam mills are of recent date. During long
centuries it was on crude hand reels that the delicate thread was spun,
and equally crude hand looms wove it into the exquisite fabrics so dear
to the heart of womankind. Even now there are no silk looms in China
run by machinery. All the weaving is done on hand looms. Their familiar
thud, thud is heard everywhere. As the traveller stops to look into one
of the small, smoke-blackened shops, where half a dozen people it may
be are busy with their shuttles, he marvels that textiles so rare and
beautiful can come forth from such an environment. Usually a city is
celebrated for some one kind of silk, or a province perhaps for two or
three hundred varieties.
It was not till 1882 that an unsuccessful attempt was made to start
a steam silk filature mill. Ten years later a few were in operation,
most of them under Chinese management. As in the case of cotton mills,
foreign capital was not invested largely in silk filatures till the
close of the war between China and Japan. By 1901 there were 28 mills
in Shanghai, the number being about the same to-day. The largest mill
in this early period employed 90 men, 630 women and 385 children. It
requires considerably less capital to launch a silk filature mill
than a cotton mill, but it is a more precarious venture. Cocoons must
be ordered at the time the eggs are hatched and put in cold storage,
but it is impossible to foretell what the market will be when they
are delivered nearly a year afterward. It is most desirable that the
filature mills be maintained, as their silk brings two or three times
the price of that spun on hand-looms, and the greater part of the gain
goes in wages to the employees.
Industrial conditions, in some respects, are rather better in the silk
filatures than in the cotton mills. The mills close down at night, not
for humanitarian reasons, however, but because the work can not be done
well after dark. Sundays are usually holidays. In some of the mills
work continues every other Sunday. Fifteen minutes are allowed in the
morning for breakfast and an hour at noon for dinner and rest. In at
least one of the Chinese mills mothers keep their nursing babies with
them, the tiny things lying all day on the floor at the mother’s feet.
They seldom cry. It seems as if they knew by instinct that they must
not. The lesson of patient endurance is learned early in China.
The first work in a silk filature mill is sorting the cocoons, throwing
out the worthless ones, and separating the perfect from the inferior.
This is an easy but monotonous task and is given to women. Slipping
the wound silk off the reels, testing, weighing, and twisting it into
beautiful shapes for shipment requires more skill, and brings somewhat
higher wages. Most of this, too, is woman’s work.
The pathos of a silk filature mill centres in the reeling room. Steam
pipes for supplying boiling water keep it at a high temperature the
year around, while in the fierce heat of July and August, the place,
as one foreign manager expressed it, “is a veritable Gehenna.” Only
when the breeze is not strong enough to break the silken, web-like
threads can the windows be left open. Down the length of the long
apartment sit rows of women, and in front of them, with a wire frame
between, stand rows of little girls. Each child controls a stationary
copper basin half filled with boiling water. It is her business to
soften the cocoons by swashing them around in the water, using a small
reed brush. After the threads are sufficiently loosened, the bunch of
cocoons is handed over to the woman opposite, who also has in front of
her a shallower copper basin filled with boiling water. Dexterously she
picks up a thread from each cocoon and fastens it to the frame. Then
by working a treadle it is spun out and out and finally passes above
and back of her, where it is wound onto the reel, which is enclosed
on three sides by a wooden case to keep it from the dust. Quickly and
deftly the women splice the almost invisible threads when they break,
keeping often as many as six spinning at the same time. When at night
the silk is taken off the reel, any shortness in weight or imperfection
in the thread means a fine for the one who has wound it. Women and
children grow very skilful in keeping their hands out of the water, yet
they are loose-skinned and parboiled, for fingers must of necessity be
continually dipped in. Then, too, the Chinese women overseers, passing
constantly up and down the lines, occasionally punish a child’s
inefficiency, or supposed laziness, by thrusting the little hand into
the bubbling caldron. The hours are long, from five thirty in the
morning to five or six at night, and it is not strange if, as the day
wanes, youthful senses are dulled and energy flags. The children, most
of them, are such slips of girls and some scarcely more than babies.
Faces are blanched by the continuous moist heat, and the little slim
bodies, even in winter, are often wet with perspiration. Robbed of
their birthright of schooling and play, not the youngest among them
knows the sweet luxury of laying her tired head on mother’s breast in
sleep. An American lady living in the vicinity of a silk filature mill
was aroused morning after morning about half past four o’clock by the
shrill cries of a child. One day she slipped out on her veranda to
discover the cause of the trouble, and saw a little girl being dragged
along the ground by one arm to the mill. Frightened perhaps by the
sternness of the overseer, or half sick from the confinement, she was
trying to escape from bondage. But her parents were inexorable, for in
over-populated, underfed China,
“‘Children’ must work and women must weep,
For there’s little to earn and many to keep.”
One European mill has for its manager a kind-hearted Italian, who says
he understands sericulture from A to Z, having learned to care for
silk-worms when a little lad in his native land. He has introduced
several humane features, one of them being stools for the children to
sit on while at work, the only mill in the city that has them. Fines
collected from the employees the management allows him to use in buying
medicine for the sick, coffins for the dead, and in paying for beds in
the hospital. “Do the people ever faint in this great heat?” a visitor
asked. “Oh, yes.” “And drop dead?” “No, they have never done that. If
we see they are getting too bad we send them home in a ricsha.”
None of the silk from the filature mills is kept in China. It is all
exported, most of it to Lyons, France, and to New York. Waste silk,
which is made principally from defective cocoons, is one of the paying
by-products of the industry. The only waste silk filature mill in China
is in Shanghai. The silk it turns out is coarse in quality and does not
keep its lustre but can be utilized in many ways, as for sewing silk,
and in making cords, tassels, Chinese caps, carpets, and portières.
XV
A PAGE FROM THE STORY OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS
Late in the autumn of 1842 as the setting sun was illumining the
western sky, a vessel very different from the surrounding Chinese junks
steamed slowly up the Woosung river toward Shanghai. On board were the
new British Consul and his suite and the Consul’s interpreter, the
Rev. Walter H. Medhurst, D.D. But the missionary had other and more
important business, for with his colleague, William Lockhart, M.D., a
younger man, he came as the first ambassador of the Great King to the
Yangtse valley. Eight years before he had called at this port, when
cruising up and down the coast, and distributed thousands of Testaments
and tracts among the friendly natives. Indeed Dr. Medhurst was already
a veteran of twenty-seven years’ service, while Dr. Lockhart had landed
in Canton in 1839, being the second medical missionary sent to China.
Both men were commissioned by the historic London Missionary Society,
which gave to China its first Protestant Missionary, Robert Morrison,
in 1807.
[Illustration: CHINESE BOY SCOUTS]
While the Consular party was proposing toasts to the greatness
of the Shanghai to be, the missionaries were thinking hopefully and
prayerfully of the task awaiting them in proclaiming the Kingdom of
Christ to this people. For a while, on that memorable day, it was
impossible to see the city because of the intervening masts on the
numberless junks lying at anchor, but presently, as the little steamer
approached the shore, it was found to be thronged with Chinese who had
gathered to watch and ridicule the strange “fire-wheel ship” of the
“foreign devils.”
The following weeks sped quickly by, and before the year closed, a
little chapel and a small hospital had opened their doors inside
the Chinese city. It is easy enough to state the bald fact, but
what mountains of difficulty were climbed, what dangers faced and
discouragements overcome before that much was accomplished, is told
only in part in the sacredly guarded mission records, yellow and worn
with age. Happily, ludicrous episodes were not lacking. Dr. Medhurst
in particular was blessed with a saving sense of humour which eased
many an otherwise hard jolt on the rough road he and his colleague were
obliged to travel.
As time passed other missionaries were sent out from home to reinforce
the pioneers, and women’s voices and children’s sweet laughter made
homelike the mission premises. Then suddenly a war-cloud appeared in
the sky, and almost before its presence was realized, it had burst and
the T’aiping Rebellion was raging in all its fury. Grave dangers now
threatened the little foreign community, officials and merchants as
well as missionaries. It was during this period that a fair-haired,
handsome youth made his appearance in Shanghai, and although not a
member of the London Mission sought a home among their missionaries. He
was Hudson Taylor, destined to become the founder of the China Inland
Mission. The story of his early years in China, as told in his recently
published biography, makes one of the most captivating chapters in
the history of Shanghai. From it we are interested to learn that this
sensitive, shrinking young man did not at first adopt from choice the
Chinese dress and mode of living, afterward a distinguishing mark of
China Inland Missionaries, but because he was driven to it through
scarcity of funds.
The present headquarters of the China Inland Mission are conveniently
located in the down-town district. They include business offices,
a rest house for travelling missionaries, and a chapel where both
Chinese and English services are held, although the Mission, as it has
done from the beginning, confines its actual work to the interior.
The buildings form a square around a spacious, secluded compound
that seems as far apart from the turmoil of the street as if it were
miles distant. In the spring of 1915, at the Jubilee celebration of
the founding of the Mission, tea was served on the beautiful lawn,
and following it a large company of friends gathered in the chapel
to listen to the reading of reports and papers of thrilling interest
relating to the experiences of the past fifty years.
While the T’aiping Rebellion was still in full swing, the London
missionaries performed a courageous act. Having succeeded in purchasing
a large tract of land at some distance from the foreign Settlement
and the Chinese City, they at once effected the transfer of their
work and took possession of the new property. When the British
Consul learned of it he shook his head dubiously, affirming frankly
that if the missionaries were rash enough to risk living in that
exposed place, he could not undertake to furnish them protection. But
unaffrighted they stayed on, and presently a hospital, a chapel, and a
few dwelling houses arose amidst the rice fields. Events proved that
the missionaries builded better than they knew, for the plot that at
first seemed so far away and out of reach of the very people the work
was intended to benefit is now in the heart of one of the most thickly
populated Chinese districts of the International Settlement.
The mission chapel bears the marks of age and is shortly to be torn
down and replaced by a more commodious one, but will the tablets
back of the chancel, to the memory of the brave missionary veterans,
ever seem quite so appropriate on any other walls? At the Christian
Endeavour meeting held in the chapel every Wednesday afternoon may
usually be seen a little white-haired lady of over ninety, the oldest
Chinese Christian in Shanghai and some say in all China. Though
exceedingly deaf, Mrs. Lai Sun’s memory is unimpaired and her mind as
alert as a woman half her age. She delights to see her friends and
entertain them with stories of her romantic life, how in her earlier
years she visited America with her parents, dined at the White House
as the guest of President and Mrs. Grant and was made much of at a time
when Chinese women were a rarity in the Occident. But her favourite
topic is her student days in Miss Aldersey’s school in Ningpo, Miss
Aldersey being not only the first single woman to enter China as a
missionary, in 1843, but the first one to open a school for Chinese
girls. Mrs. Lai Sun is without question the only living pupil of that
far-famed school.
The chapel built so long ago by Dr. Medhurst in the Chinese city is
still standing, sandwiched in between a book shop on one side and
a shop selling funeral supplies on the other. Its years exceed the
allotted age of man, and if bricks could speak, many a tale this pile
could relate of fires and floods, famines and pestilence, riots and
rebellions. While destruction was rife and changes taking place all
around, the little chapel, within whose walls was proclaimed daily
the Evangel of Peace, remained intact as if it possessed a charmed
existence.
It is rather singular that to-day there is not a single hospital
foreign or Chinese, in the populous Chinese City. The small plant
started so long ago by Dr. Medhurst was transferred, in 1861, with the
other activities of the Mission, to the new site, now known as Shantung
Road, where a great medical work is carried on. Accident cases are
especially numerous in the roomy wards, where an empty bed is rarely
seen, and hundreds attend the daily clinic.
In the centre of another crowded district is beautiful St. Elizabeth’s
Hospital of the American Episcopal Mission. This hospital, which is
for women only, receives patients from the Municipal Prison, and when
one looks about the cheerful, sunny wards, it ceases to be a wonder
that the poor creatures often make a feint of illness in order to be
kept on a little longer where they are so happy and comfortable.
One other woman’s hospital is located near the western entrance to
the Chinese City. Thirty-five years ago a large-hearted American,
Margaret Williamson, had a vision of helpless sufferers in China,
and in dying left money for a hospital which bears her name. While
waiting for the building to be completed, the doctor and trained nurse
just out from home opened a dispensary in a small rented house in the
disease-infected Chinese city. They toiled on day after day through all
the unaccustomed heat of July and August. “Some friend ought to have
warned us of the danger of it,” one of them, years afterward, smilingly
told a caller. “How did the Chinese feel about the hospital? Were the
women afraid to go to it?” “Oh, not at all. We were always full. In
fact it was necessary to keep enlarging our borders as fast as we could
get the money.” The sweet face in its frame of snow-white hair broke
into a reminiscent smile, and the listener knew something interesting
was coming. “We used to have most amusing clinic experiences. Patients
many times would persist in taking internally what was meant for
external application. It was necessary to be careful and give nothing
strong enough to do any great harm either way. Then, too, the women
would get so excited and jealous over the medicines. If one patient
received something and another did not, the latter felt unhappy. It did
no good to explain to her that she wasn’t in need of that particular
medicine. She wanted it just the same. I remember one time the doctor
had ordered a large dose of castor oil for a patient. Her companion
saw it and begged for some too. She was so persistent that I finally
asked the doctor if I should give it to her. “Yes, do,” said she. “It
can’t hurt her and the experience may do her good.” The clinics are
very large. On a winter’s afternoon an unexpected visitor found one
young doctor in sole charge, her colleague having been taken sick.
She that day treated two hundred and forty-seven dispensary patients
besides caring for the wards and performing three difficult operations.
“I shall not stay a minute,” declared the caller when the last woman
had departed, “you must rest.” “Oh, do sit down a little while. I need
to get my mind off my work,” urged the doctor. Just then the friend,
noticing the exhausted look on the wan face before her, remarked
impulsively, “I wish I could take you home with me and put you to
bed and give you a little mothering.” “Don’t speak to me like that,”
cried the younger woman almost sharply, while a few hot tears forced
themselves into her eyes. “I shall break down and cry if you do, and I
mustn’t; I mustn’t!” This hospital belongs to that pioneer in the field
of woman’s work for women, The Woman’s Union Missionary Society of
America.
The glory of the Presbyterian Mission is its Press. In 1843, that
year of momentous happenings in the Far East, it was first set up in
Macao, a Portuguese settlement near Canton and of chief interest to
Protestants because on its tropical shores Robert Morrison, the first
Protestant missionary to China, was laid to rest. Soon afterward the
Press was brought north to Ningpo, and in 1860 was moved to Shanghai.
With it came Mr. Gamble, whose name was William and not John, but if
ever a man was “sent of God” to do an all-important work, he was one.
A native of Ireland, from an old Protestant family that had the honour
of giving many ministers to the Presbyterian Church, he migrated to
America in his youth and got his training as a printer in a publishing
house in Philadelphia and later in the Bible House, New York. Mr.
Gamble spent only eleven years in China and nine of them in Shanghai,
but in that brief period he accomplished a monumental work. With a
prophet’s eye he foresaw the future development of the city when few
believed in it and urged the removal of the Press to this metropolitan
centre, influenced “by his desire to plant the Gospel in the heart
of China with the minimum of effort and the maximum of results.” His
energy, industry, and inventive genius gave a great impulse to printing
throughout the country, not only in connection with the mission press
but the secular press as well. This was so universally recognized that
when he died years later in America every one realized the truth of
the eulogy pronounced at his funeral: “For a century to come not a
Bible, Christian or scientific book in China or Japan but will bear the
impress of Mr. Gamble’s hand.”
The Presbyterian Press justly claims to be the oldest in China,
although the London Mission Press, established by Robert Morrison in
Malacca in 1818, was removed to Hongkong, at very nearly the same
time. The Presbyterian Press was the first to introduce movable
Chinese type in China, and for a long time remained the sole source
of supply. During the fifty-seven years since the plant was set up in
Shanghai it has changed homes several times and is now housed in new,
completely equipped quarters which would have delighted the aspiring
soul of William Gamble. A dozen power presses are kept busy from Monday
morning till Saturday night turning out vast quantities of Christian
literature, veritable “Leaves of Healing,” which find their way the
year through to the remotest corners of this needy, sin-cursed land and
whose uplifting influence far outreaches all human reckoning.
Among the Chinese publications which are working a quiet transformation
in the lives of the people are two popular monthly magazines, “The
Woman’s Messenger” and “Happy Childhood.” The very artistic cover of a
recent Christmas number of “Happy Childhood” was designed by one of the
pupils in a Girls’ Baptist Mission Boarding School.
The spiritual interests of the large force of Press employees are
not forgotten. In two chapels Sunday and week-day services are held.
There are day schools and a kindergarten for the children of the men,
the wife of one of the Presbyterian missionaries devoting much of her
time to evangelistic work among the women. Every morning prayers
are conducted by the missionary in charge, attended by most of the
employees, at least half of whom are Christians. Many give touching
and convincing proof of the sincerity of their profession. The case of
Elder Loo is an illustration and refutes the oft-repeated assertion
that no Chinese can handle money without some of it clinging to his
palm. For twenty years all the Press’s money excepting checks passed
through Mr. Loo’s hands. He died one night very suddenly. It was
with considerable anxiety that the foreign manager the next morning
opened the accountant’s safe and examined his books, but they balanced
exactly. In a corner of the safe were found stowed away several bad
dollars that had been palmed off on Mr. Loo, but which he had quietly
made good out of his own meagre funds.
“Where did you receive your education?” The question was asked of a
bright young Chinese matron into whose pretty home a foreign friend had
just been introduced. “In McTyeire School,” came the smiling answer.
This reply, in response to similar inquiries, is given so often in
Shanghai that a newcomer, unfamiliar with local mission work, is sure
soon to ask another question: “What and where, pray, is this famous
institution?” Every resident knows, or nearly every one. Those who do
not are half ashamed to confess it, for to be uninformed about McTyeire
Girls’ School is to be ignorant indeed. Its capacious buildings are
kept full, too full, even though the younger pupils have just been
transferred to rented Chinese houses across the road, the Assembly
Hall converted into dormitories and every available foot of space
utilized to the best advantage.[2] Pleasant recitation rooms open
from either side of the school corridors and a peep inside shows well
organized classes hard at work, in algebra, drawing, physics, sewing,
domestic science. What an immaculate place is the domestic science
kitchen, with snowy tables, muslin window curtains, shining stove, and
artistically arranged enamel pots and pans! No wonder the cooking class
covers itself with laurels. The missionary in charge modestly disclaims
the credit, but adds, “I do mean that my girls shall learn two
important lessons, to keep themselves tidy and to clean up when their
work is done,” items that it would do no harm to emphasize in other
countries than China. The music rooms are upstairs. An invitation to a
musicale is something to rejoice over. Last year one of the graduates
in music gave a recital, all her own, and acquitted herself most
creditably. Two years ago Commencement week opened with Baccalaureate
Sunday, a distinct innovation in the history of Girls’ Schools in
China, but a custom other mission schools are beginning to follow.
[2] Since writing the above a splendid piece of property covering
about fifteen acres, with a three-story brick mansion on it built by
a wealthy deceased Chinese, has been purchased, and the congestion
is relieved now that the High School pupils have removed to the new
quarters.
[Illustration: CORNER STONE OF BOYS’ BUILDING, Y. M. C. A.]
It is doubtful whether any department of work in McTyeire School is
yielding more abundant fruit than the “Annex,” a school for married
women and girls too old or backward to enter the regular classes.
Last term among the many interested pupils was the wife of the
socialist leader of Shanghai, the mother of five young children. The
patriarchal system of family life common in China makes it possible
for a mother to leave her children for lengthy periods, as there are
usually plenty of women relatives ready to assume the care of them in
her absence. Any pupil in the Annex ambitious to pursue a complete
course of study is admitted to the regular school classes as soon as
she can be prepared for them.
Above the mantel in the parlour of the Missionary Home, adjoining the
main building, hangs the portrait of a noble-faced woman. It is Laura
Haygood, the first principal, who “being dead yet speaketh.” She was
sent to China in 1884 by the Woman’s Board of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South, and for eight memorable years prayed and toiled, much of
the time weighed down by great physical weakness. Then came the glad
realization of her cherished hopes in the opening of this girls’ school
named for a bishop of the denomination.
The highest grade of scholarship is the goal, but the building up
of Christian character and training for service have always had
first place. “I want to save my people,” sobbed a girl in a burst of
confidence to her foreign teacher. “As soon as I finish here I mean
to go as a missionary to my native place and teach and try to save
that place.” This is the spirit that prevails among the Christians.
Every week Bible students and teachers go out to hold services for
the street children in the neighbourhood. Last winter evangelistic
meetings were held in the school chapel. “I wish you could see how our
Christian girls work for their unconverted friends,” said one of the
missionaries. “They have their sweetest and holiest times in their own
little prayer-meetings, led by themselves. The passionate earnestness
of their prayers and testimonies would move any heart.”
It was the beautiful month of May and invitations were out for a great
celebration at St. John’s University of the Protestant Episcopal
Mission. Early in the afternoon guests began to arrive, for the
first number on the programme was the military drill, set for two
o’clock, something no one wanted to miss. Promptly at the hour the
students in trim uniforms assembled on the parade-ground and lined
up for inspection. The tactics over, and enthusiastically applauded,
every one hurried to the Assembly Hall to listen to speeches in
English and Chinese, and witness the crowning event of the day,
which was the presentation to the President, Dr. F. L. Hawks Pott,
for the University, of a generous gift of money from the alumni
in commemoration of this twenty-fifth anniversary of Dr. Pott’s
incumbency. An alumni supper followed, and then, as evening shadows
fell, the spacious grounds were transformed into a sort of fairyland
by the soft light from countless Chinese lanterns, hung in graceful
festoons from tree to tree and building to building. Fireworks brought
to a close a notable anniversary that will not soon be forgotten by the
people of Shanghai.
St. John’s University and campus, covering forty-nine acres, is
undeniably the most charmingly picturesque spot in the city. It lies
five miles out from the centre of the town in the suburb of Jessfield.
A more ideal location could not have been found, and the wonder is that
when the larger part of the property was bought as early as 1878, the
bishop who made the purchase had the foresight to choose so well.
Like most great enterprises, the University had a small beginning and
developed gradually, through successive stages. The work really started
back in 1845 with some little day schools for boys, for it must be
remembered that while the London Mission pioneers were the vanguard
of the missionaries to enter Shanghai, they were soon reinforced
from America by the Protestant Episcopalians, the Presbyterians and
the Southern Baptists. The day schools grew into successful boarding
schools, chief among them one for older boys,--seventy youths so poor
that tuition, board, and clothing were furnished them free of charge.
Soon a call came for an English department and it was added. By and by
a few ambitious students begged for college work, and finally, in 1906,
by an act of Congress at Washington, D. C., St. John’s was formally
incorporated as a University and empowered to grant degrees. Her
alumni are now privileged to enter institutions in Europe and America
for post-graduate work without examination, and she has the honour of
sending more students abroad than any other mission college in China.
Including all departments the student body numbers over five hundred,
whose fees make the work in large measure practically self-supporting.
A five-story brick building was opened last year in one of the
busiest sections of the down-town district, not in itself a singular
occurrence, but in this case of unusual purport, for it is the
headquarters of the Chinese Boys’ Branch of the Young Men’s Christian
Association. This is the only building of its kind in the Far East,
and it is certain that nowhere in the world is the kind of work it
stands for more needed than in Shanghai, where the boy problem is one
of the gravest. Figures are often dry reading, but in this connection
a few will tell in a nut-shell a story of remarkable progress. The
Boys’ Branch was started less than three years ago, and now what
does the first report record? Seven hundred members, five hundred in
the schools, three hundred voluntary members of Bible classes, one
hundred regular boarders, two hundred at meals each day, and forty
scouts, the scoutmaster being one of the Chinese secretaries. In the
city are altogether no less than five hundred Chinese scouts. The
organization among the Chinese is quite new but it may be called a
“howling success,” the boys taking to it like ducks to water, and it is
doing much for them in numberless ways. The Y.M.C.A. boy scout, who is
taught reverence toward God, kindness to women, children, the aged, and
animals, truth, honesty, courage, faithfulness without pay, loyalty and
obedience to all in authority, and who stands for clean thought, clean
speech, and clean habits, is bound to grow up into the kind of man
that China has dire need of to-day. The new Boys’ Building is finely
equipped from top to bottom and connects with the local headquarters of
the Y.M.C.A., which fronts on Szechuan Road.
The National offices are likewise in Shanghai but in rented quarters.
An eligible building site has been secured, and as soon as money is
a little less scarce the work of construction will begin. The local
headquarters is a centre of ceaseless activity, with day and evening
schools offering all kinds of practical courses, gymnasium and swimming
classes, athletic and reading clubs, “movies,” lectures, socials, Bible
classes, and evangelistic meetings. A busier hive can not be imagined.
It was the Y.M.C.A. that led in the Mott and Eddy Evangelistic
Campaigns, it has inaugurated a health movement in the interest of
sanitation and the prevention of disease, it has attacked the problem
of social service which it is stressing by every available means,
and it brought to China the Olympic Games with their rejuvenating,
health-giving influences. Through its remarkable scientific lecture
department it is reaching men that could not be approached in any other
way. In short, the Association is a “live wire” and a tremendous force
for good.
The Sunday Service League was organized by the Y.M.C.A. for the
benefit of the large body of students from abroad who so easily slip
their moorings and go adrift on their return to China. There is a
well-attended five o’clock service in English for them on Sunday
afternoons which is often addressed by notable speakers passing
through Shanghai. Excellent music is furnished by the Chinese Glee
Club, composed of both men and women. The Returned Students Club
was a spontaneous outgrowth of the Sunday Service League. It holds
occasional socials during the winter in the parlours of one of the
foreign hotels, where music, conversation, a few simple games, and
light refreshments make a most enjoyable evening. The gentlemen, all
of whom wear foreign clothes, represent almost every profession and
calling. With scarcely an exception the women appear in Chinese dress;
wherein they show their good taste and good sense, for nothing becomes
them half so well. Most of them are happy young wives and mothers,
but there is sure to be a generous sprinkling of unmarried teachers,
specializing it may be in English, music, elocution, physical training,
or kindergarten work, with perhaps a doctor or two, a charming company
in short, such as only Shanghai can bring together.
The Young Women’s Christian Association is a younger organization in
China than the Young Men’s Christian Association, but it is doing on
a somewhat smaller scale the same efficient work. The first secretary
was sent to China in 1903 expressly to labour among the mill hands. It
was later felt, however, that this plan of campaign was too slow, and
that to win the upper and middle classes, make Christian leaders of
them, and then send them out to evangelize the multitudes, would yield
larger and more lasting fruitage. So this is the course being followed
now, and the outcome abundantly proves its wisdom. The consummation of
a long-cherished hope has been realized in the opening of a National
Normal School in Shanghai for Physical Training. The school is under
the direction of a foreign secretary of large experience, assisted by
a Chinese secretary, a graduate of Wellesley College who received her
professional training in Boston. One result of the interest aroused by
the work of the Normal School is the recent organization of a Young
Woman’s Athletic Association, with a charter membership of twenty-six.
Wonderful indeed!
The school classes are always popular, especially with young married
women who have been deprived of early school advantages. Besides
teaching from books there are classes in embroidery, plain sewing,
stenography, and cooking. Chinese girls are delighted to understand a
little about foreign cooking, especially if they are the wives of young
men who have been educated abroad, and it is a proud moment for them
when they are able to serve their husbands with some of the dishes the
latter have learned to relish during their residence in the Occident.
The first class in Scientific Chinese Cooking has just been started,
with a most gratifying show of interest.
The strongest emphasis is laid on student work not only in mission
schools, but as fast as opportunity offers, in private and government
schools as well. Many hundreds are converted and baptized annually
as a result of the evangelistic meetings conducted by the student
secretary. Six summer conferences were held last year with a far
larger attendance, and more encouraging manifestation of genuine
heart-awakening than was ever known before. The force of secretaries
for this vast field numbers in all thirty-three, eight Chinese, three
English, one Australian, one Swedish, and twenty American. The remark
is often heard regarding the staff, “What unusual young women!” And it
is true. Deeply and genuinely spiritual, broadly cultured, resourceful,
of wide vision and keen insight, they are pushing forward with
unwavering devotion a unique and regenerative work in China that but
for them would in large measure be left undone.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.
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