SHANGHAI MUD FLAT

Evening Star, Issue 22514, 5 December 1936, Page 5

SHANGHAI MUD FLAT

• China’s attitude toward; out-of-dopr recreation has long been summed up, in most Occidental eyes, by the tale of the old. mandarin who watched the foreigners running about in the hot sun after a tennis ball only ;to remark: “ But why do that when they could hire coolies to do it for them very cheaply?’’ But China has changed vastly, taking keenly to modern sports and incidentally developing a desire for recreation spots for the general public. That is the reason. Kaochiao Beach -has now, come into being near Shanghai—an allChinese development under forbidding natural conditions. . -

Shanghai is built on a mud flat on the Whangpoo River, near, the mouth of the Yangtse. The whole surrounding country is mud, and flat, and piled up by the Yangtse’s centuries of sedimentcarrying. ■ _ Under these discouraging circumstances the city government of Greater, Shanghai is, nevertheless, doggedly plowing ahead at the task of providing some sort of outdoor recreative facilities of the sort wanted by New, China, and Kaochiao Beach is part of the answer.To get to Kaochiao one first boards a city government ferry on the Whangpoo—a spotless modern motor vessel,well equipped, and with excellent service. A ride of about an hour down the Whangpoo puts one at a small town on .the far side of the river, where one boards an American motor . bus for a 20-minute ride across what is in effect a sort of peninsula, with the Whangpoo at one side, the last' part Of the Yangtse at its end, and the ocean on the other side.

Thus one comes to Kaochiao Beach— > a place built from nothing in particular,but now very attractive with-a group of fresh new buildings, specially sodded green grass, rows of tents and huts,- and a beach from which the stones are being plucked daily, and where red marker buoys and other; fixtures make for l pleasure and safety. The water is; a bit' muddy, it is true, hut that is one of the things which can’t be helped. There was a marked lack -of sand to begin with, and that is worth special mention. The city authorities did not -want to ask people to bathe from a mud beach, so-they sent to distant Ningpo and imported sand—a . process which is still going on, and probably. ; must continue indefinitely.