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