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.