Foreign Devils in the Flowery Kingdom

by Carl Crow

  The foreign population of the larger places such as Shanghai, Hankow and Tientsin was fairly static for it was here that the executive officers of the big companies lived, as well as the many proprietors of their own concerns. But in the little outports men were constantly being shifted about and all the clubs had their ups and downs. At Ningpo, as in most of the other older clubs, there was an unwritten rule against the admission of such outdoor employees as tide waiters and wharfingers, but one summer when several of the members were on home leave it was found that there were not enough members left in the port to make up the usual bridge games. The club to which the outdoor workers belonged had also suffered a temporary decline in membership. There was never any suggestion that the two clubs amalgamate and the problem of making up bridge games was solved in a typically China Coast manner. The Ningpo Club extended privileges to the men it would not elect to membership. They were allowed to use the club without the payment of dues and everyone was happy.

  There was only a handful of foreigners in Canton before they built some small boats and organized yacht races, much to the confusion of the Chinese officials who couldn’t see any fun in a boat race not accompanied by the beating of drums like the dragon-boat races held once a year. Foreigners had barely settled in Shanghai before they laid out a track and established horse racing on what was then the edge of the settlement. The city built up around the original plot and another piece of land was bought large enough for a mile and a quarter track. The city built around that but it still remains there. Business men on their way to offices stop to watch the ponies being exercised or to play nine holes of golf on the course around the track. In the summer the first tee of the golf course has to be moved because it interferes with the grounds where Americans have been playing baseball for more than three quarters of a century. A long second shot on the first hole is likely to put the ball out of bounds in the field where Englishmen have been playing cricket even longer than that.

  I believe the Shanghai Baseball Club is older than any similar organization in America for it was in existence before Lincoln was elected president. When it was first organized there were not enough Americans to form two teams so British cricketers obligingly learned to play baseball and Americans returned the courtesy by learning to play cricket. The cricket players challenged the baseball players to a match at their own game and won. The baseball players challenged the cricketers to a return match at their game and won. But as each community was large enough to be self-sufficient in sports the Americans went back to baseball and the Britishers to cricket. There are always a few British spectators at the baseball games but I never heard of an American attending a cricket match.

  Sports were organized along hong lines; and jockeys, golfers, bowlers, cricketers and oarsmen competed for the glory of the hong just as college athletes compete for the glory of the Alma Mater. Many sporting contests are still conducted along those lines. Aside from the match for the national championship of China the most hotly contested golf fixture is the “hong foursomes” in which the best players in the Standard Oil Company meet the best players on the staffs of other British and American concerns. One of the classic sports fixtures is the annual steeplechase between the stables of Jardine, Matheson & Co. and Butterfield & Swire, the jockeys being the “gentlemen riders” employees of these two famous old British companies. In more prosperous days the principal race was for a wager of 5000 guineas jointly subscribed by the employees of the two firms. To put the race in its proper financial and social perspective it may be said that it was much like an annual race in New York with the stables and riders of the Morgans competing with the stables and riders of the Du Ponts.

  As soon as there were enough foreigners to put on plays an amateur dramatic society was organized and there has never been a break in its productions. The first society produced plays in English but as other nationals came other languages were used. Amateur plays not only in English but in French, German, Portuguese, Russian and Yiddish are produced every season. When the movies came there were some pessimists who thought the day of amateur theatricals was ended. Another generation of pessimists were of the same opinion when the talkies made their appearance and we got good films before they appeared in New York. But Shanghai foreigners enjoyed producing plays and had plenty of time to work with them and we always went to see how our friends looked in their make-up. A few years ago there were half a dozen amateur dramatic societies and some exceptionally good productions.

  With greater leisure than at home and with the necessity of amusing themselves, the social amenities were highly developed. Offices closed at five o’clock and the usual dinner hour was eight or eight-thirty. The late dinner hour was established by the early British residents who held fast to the British institution of afternoon tea and the Americans generally adopted the same custom. In the early days before so many country clubs were organized, this was the period given over to calls which one made in cumbersome one-horse carriages. Sometimes one arrived to find that his host was out and the unwritten rule was that the No. 1 boy should ask the caller to come in and offer a cup of tea or a drink. The Chinese are naturally a very hospitable people and no houseboy ever overlooked this pleasant little courtesy. But sometimes he went too far. I came home one afternoon to be told by my boy that “two friends have chow plenty whisky.” He was quite right about the quantity they “chowed” for there was very little left of what had been a full bottle of Scotch. There were several friends I justifiably suspected but after they had established satisfactory alibis it developed that two British sailors had rung the bell of my flat by mistake. What a story they must have had to tell their shipmates about the glories of life in Shanghai!

  The bottle of whisky the sailors drank cost very little. In fact nothing cost very much in that prewar period in China. Mongolian ponies were brought down from the plains of the north and in their shaggy and unbroken state sold for such a small price that every bank clerk kept his own pony which he entered in the races. Instead of being the sport of kings racing was as cheap and democratic as golf until Sir Victor Sassoon descended on Shanghai with his millions and ensured the victory of his own stables by buying all the good ponies.

  Dozens of clubs connected with some sporting or athletic event flourished; clubs devoted to baseball, cricket, lawn bowls, bowling, billiards, golf, polo, hockey, rowing, swimming, etc. But the most important of all the Shanghai organizations was the Race Club which sponsored the big semiannual race meet. It lasted a week and was held every spring and autumn, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. The races took the place of the Easter Fashion parade of other lands for the ladies either had entire new outfits or they didn’t attend. In the sailing-ship days and until long after the sailing ships had disappeared all the foreign offices closed at noon on race days and the only days of the week when full office hours were observed were on Thursdays and Fridays. In spite of the increasing competition many of the old British hongs never abandoned this old custom of half holidays during race week.

  There were few clubs which did not hold sweeps on the races and in many of them the commission provided a substantial part of the club revenue. The largest prizes were distributed by the Shanghai Race Club and the commission from the sale of thousands of tickets was so large that the club was able to make the largest single contribution to a long list of local charities. After each race meeting the question of who had won the first prize of $250,000 had to be settled before we got back to our regular routine of work. The details of how and when and where and why the lucky ticket was bought engrossed the interest of all during the Thursday that followed Wednesday’s championship race. “One-Armed” Sutton bought the last ticket in a book that was on sale in Moukden and with rare luck pyramided the prize into a couple of million in a few years and then lost it all even more rapidly. The Chinese servants in a German household divided the prize between them and kept on at their old jobs. A houseboy who worked for an American said the winning ticket belonged
to him and not to his master and there was a nasty law suit about it. Every race meet was commemorated by dozens of stories of luck - good or bad.

  There were few Chinese or foreigners who did not have a share in the sweeps. Well-to-do punters might invest $500 or $1000 in books of tickets. Chinese would form syndicates with a dozen or more subscribing a total capital of $10. Many were particular about the numerals on the tickets they bought and would go to no end of trouble and resort to bribery to get favorite terminals. Some could from memory tell you the winning numbers over several seasons of racing. There was a widespread belief that low numbers were unlucky and so the sale of tickets started off slowly, and then gathered momentum.

  All of us waited for the fateful Wednesday to bring us fortune, many in the vain belief that perseverance will win and that after many years of buying tickets that didn’t win the law of averages would come to a sense of its responsibilities. Chinese always believed they would win until the last number was drawn and the last race run.

  One day just before the racing season a Chinese friend called on me for advice about the arrangements of what promised to be an especially fine dinner party. Almost every one I knew was on the invitation list and the menu was of the caviar and champagne type. The best orchestra in town was tentatively engaged. In fact all of the arrangements and the invitations themselves were tentative though the dinner was planned down to the most minute detail, including the kind of floral decorations and the brand of champagne to be served. The prospective host had bought ten sweep tickets and the party was dependent on his winning the first prize. Everyone who was invited was given a list of the numbers so that he could watch the result of the race and know whether the party was on or off. The good wishes of the dozens of us who would have eaten his caviar and consumed his champagne did not avail against the decree of fate and there was no party.

  Gambling on the horse races was a seasonal diversion but the introduction of greyhound racing made it possible to play the dogs several times every week. All of us went to the dog races when they were started just to see what they were like. After that most of us only made a visit to the dog tracks, a part of the routine of showing visitors the sights of the city. But there were others who never missed a dog race when they could help it and the dog tracks paid regular dividends besides providing a few second-rate scandals. The followers of the dogs were just as keen as the pony racing enthusiasts over points and the newspapers published daily tips.

  One old lady of my acquaintance came to the conclusion that there were certain semiannual periods in the life of every lady dog when she will run faster than at any other time because of the fact that she is so ardently pursued and that placing a bet on her at this period was likely to result in a win. By careful study of all the lady dogs in the kennels she had worked out a chart which enabled her to place her bets in a way that was almost uniformly profitable. She never allowed the chart out of her possession but she would occasionally give a friend a very useful tip.

  Jai alai was brought in to add to the opportunities for gambling and flourished in the French concession. For a people who are supposed to be as slow moving and lethargic as the Chinese the fastest game on earth had a strange fascination. It was not, however, any faster than a cricket fight for a cricket of the Joe Lewis class can disembowel an adversary with great dispatch. The Basque players added a new note to the life of the community and their demands supported a really good Spanish restaurant.

  Catering to the Shanghai gamblers proved such a profitable business that all kinds of enterprises were started. One man had the brilliant idea of importing race horses and professional jockeys from Australia and starting trotting races. All racing in China had been with amateur jockeys and this proposal to make it professional big-money sport was not looked on with favor by the old-timers. But the promoter did manage to sell a lot of shares and brought up a shipload of horses and jockeys. That was about as far as the project ever got. The promoter ran out of money and the Shanghai Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had to take care of a lot of half-starved horses.

  The Chinese government finally got into the gambling business itself with the establishment of the National State Lottery. Once a month the drums were spun, the numbers drawn in the presence of thousands of excited spectators and the results announced over the loud-speakers and radio. The lottery was so popular that sales of club sweeps fell off and many charities which had been supported by the Shanghai Race Club had to curtail their operations. There was no more gambling than before but the profits went to the Chinese government to help build airplanes against the Japanese attack that the Generalissimo knew was coming.

  The casual visitor to Shanghai might assume that the foreign devil spent most of his time either gambling or hanging over the club bars, but he would be wrong. If the casual visitor rose at daybreak on any fine morning he would find hundreds of horsemen on the bridle paths which surrounded the city. Later in the day he would find many at the golf courses, at tennis or badminton. In the late summer afternoons the swimming pools would be crowded and in the evenings there would be as many foreigners at the numerous bowling alleys as at the dog races or at jai alai. Indeed among the foreign devils at almost every port, sports were as universal as on an American college campus. Among my many American friends and acquaintances I cannot recall one who did not swim, golf, bowl, ride, hike or take some other form of regular physical exercise. The same British doctors who advised diluting the water of the Whangpoo with some form of alcohol were insistent that the white men in the Orient must take regular exercise if he wanted to keep his health.

  With leisure and cheap labor the foreign devil has opportunity to pursue any hobby or sport and in Shanghai will be found every possible classification from stamp collectors to big game hunters. The latter have to go to Korea or Siberia but in the low hills and reed-covered marshes of the Lower Yangtze there are countless opportunities to bag pheasant, snipe, mouse deer and even wild pig. The hunters are probably the most ardent sportsmen of the lot. On holidays they are the first to leave, town and the last to come back. There was one famous editor of the North China Daily News who always seized on the long holiday period of China New Year to rush upcountry in a houseboat and it was always problematical when he would get back. On the day the holiday began there was an announcement that the paper would suspend publication for the holidays but no indication as to when publication would be resumed. That would depend on how good the hunting was.

  XXII

  Hands across the sea

  “A good drum does not require hard beating.”

  We americans are the stoutest advocates of the idea that delegations which go about the world visiting first one country and then the other are performing a useful function by creating an atmosphere of good will and breaking down national prejudices. Having been for many years on what might be called the receiving end of missions of that sort I am a little skeptical of their utility. I know from practical experience that we Americans who lived in Shanghai always dreaded the arrival of a tourist ship or an official delegation of any sort and there was more gusto to our farewells than to our greetings. For a good many decades the China Coast was spared these visits for the place was so remote and the hotels so bad that there were few visitors except those who had some business to attend to.

  With the improvement in travel service and hotels tourists came in greater numbers after the World War. We made the acquaintance of an entirely new variety of foreign devil - old or middle-aged men who had retired or were taking a long leave of absence from their offices and were out to see the world. It is too bad that Americans don’t travel until they are too old for contact with strange people to do them very much good for their ideas are already fixed. They point with pride to the homeland and view with alarm anything that differs in the least degree from what they believe to be the established order of things. It is probably for this reason that most tourists have a morbid curiosity about sordid things. When I was living in T
okyo nine out of ten of the tourists I met wanted first of all to see the Yoshiwara, which in the final analysis is nothing but a glorified red-light district. In Yokohama they wanted to see “No. 9” which is just an ordinary house of prostitutes with nothing glorified about it. Respectable church-going women were just as keen as their husbands about seeing places of this sort. They were always keenly disappointed when told there was nothing of that sort to see in Shanghai. But there may have been. Travelers who spent a week or so in what was my home town for years have told me things about the night life of the place that I never dreamed of.

  There are American tourists of many types but they all have certain general characteristics, none of which make them particularly welcome visitors, except to the shop-keepers who charge them fantastic prices. They take it for granted that they should be entertained by local residents. They look on us as lonely exiles who should be overjoyed to meet one so recently from the homeland who can talk about politics and baseball and other matters in which the old China Hand usually has not the remotest interest. Very seldom does it occur to one of them that, while he may be on a holiday, his fellow countrymen in a strange Oriental port may have a job of work to do. Not once, but dozens of times, a couple have called at my office with letters of introduction from some one I did not know at all, or just because some one they had met on a ship had said nice things about me. A radio commentator who had read a book I had written once remarked to his audience that if any of them ever visited Shanghai they must be sure to look me up - and quite a number of them did. I haven’t yet met the commentator who issued this blanket invitation but even the sound of his voice irritates me. Over a period of years I have taken time to entertain dozens of these visitors, show them the sights and buy them drinks, and I recall but two who ever wrote me later to thank me for my hospitality.