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