LIFE IN HONGKONG

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22131, 10 June 1935, Page 3

LIFE IN HONGKONG

BY MUUIKL LEWIS

FACING THE BLIZZARD HARD TIMES ARRIVE THE CHINESE SUFFER

HONGKONG. Mny 14 To the stranger, the tourist passing through, there is little evidence of depression in Hongkong. It is a scintillating jewel set on the outer rim of the mystery that is China, a radiant fly cast by the fisherman, England, 011 the turgid waters of an Oriental lake, fraught with many possibilities. But stay a week, a month, and the truth is forced upon you from every side. Hongkong has been struck by the depression, later perhaps than other places, bnt 110 less hard. During the past year the colony has become alive to the fact that all is not well. It is at the stage through which New Zealand passed four years ago, discouraged, resentful, refusing to face the necessary readjustment. Where there were once great riches among the first Chinese families, there is now little left. A few are still wealthy, but very few, and even those are feeling the strain of large idle families and enormous estates to keep up. Despairing Scions "And that is the reason," said a Chinese lady to me recently, "why so many of the sons of these well-known people are committing suicide. They have been brought up to expect everything that money can buy, and cannot face the difficulties of life without their luxuries. The older people stay at home and are sad. The younger ones, the sensible ones, having little to spend, are looking to the Western manner of earning their livings." "Nine hundred rooms, and the place is always full. A\c have a stall of 600, said the manager of one of the big hotels, ranked as the finest in the Far East. "But things are not what they used to be in hotelkeeping. Why, even the American millionaires ask the price of everything. No one spends a dollar more than he can help."

The British part of the population gives the impression of having got down to it and not particularly caring. They are all in the same box, just as we in New Zealand were when the depression hit us first. The trouble with the English people here is that they are nearly all 011 salaries paid in English currency, and added to the Government cuts is the devastating state of the exchange. The Americans, too, are living 011 "40 per cent less," going into smaller flats, giving fewer parties. A charming woman whose husband holds a responsible position in connection with another British dependency, told me that their cut brings bis salary to less than half its figure of a year ago. They are still expected to keep up appearances, so the only solution was to take a smaller flat and manage with fewer servants. An Economic Commission

An Economic Commission has been investigating conditions and giving a report 011 behalf of the Hongkong Government. It states that the colony is suffering from world depression, from tariffs and other trade restrictions, from the abnormal decline of Chinese purchasing power, and from China's increasing industrialism. They stress the necessity for a customs agreement with China. But technicalities arc beside the point when individuals are suffering unexpected and what appear totally undeserved discomforts, and it is of personal hardships one hears every day. The reaction to this state of things is most noticeable among the women, who are going through the stage of economising in clothes, the usual feminine interest in which seems almost entirely lacking. It is quite a relief to meet a smartly turned out woman walking in the streets or having tea in one of the big hotel lounges, and the days of the week that bring an ocean liner are specially marked by an influx of pretty frocks and snappy headgear. But as with us, the bad time will pass, and all will be well again. The poverty of the coolie class of the Chinese population is only too apparent, for unemployment is considerable. Although begging is not allowed, quite a lot of it goes 011 well out of sight of the Sikh police. A woman with two little children, one tied to her back, the other toddlinn behind her, leaned against the wall of a silk "shop just below Flower Street and begged gently, pleadingly, pointing to the babies. She seemed too weak to stand upright and was wretchedly clothed, but her face, emaciated though it was, bore evidence of refinement and unusual beauty, and her hands were long and slender. What could her story bo? Sleepers in the Streets

And the street sleepers! Just around the. corner from our flat is a bird shop, and then the fence of a market garden, under which a narrow border of crass protrudes and joins the granite blocks of the sidewalks. Every evening as the night closes down, a woman with two children takes up her position here, a boy of eight or nine lying along the strip of grass with his head in her lap, a baby in her arms. What they eat. whether they ever oat at all, one cannot know, but certain it is they have 110 home and no one appears to take the slightest notice of them. All the way lip the streets of the city the doorsteps are crowded with these homeless waifs. They hitch their rice-mats to the bars of the iron gratings before the doors and roll themselves up inside. Any ledge is a refuge. ,

Seeing New Zealand friends off tn Japan by the Kitana Maru, wo watched a man in a sampan gathering the refuse from the cook's galley in a fishing net—the butterfly variety, on a long handle. His family pottered about their daily work in the filthy boat, the woman at the oar, while the child on her back yelled lustily. Three others of different ages squatting at various ta.sks in the narrow space. One small person stood up for a moment and revealed the briefest garment ever seen, the only one lie wore. It was a sleeveless vest, and it reached slightly above his tummy-button, being more in the nature of a pneumonia jacket than anything else.

Manners and "Movies" One infuriating and surprising thing to a European woman is the fact that here she is regardod by the male population as of very secondary importance in the Scheme of Things Entire. The veriest whipper-snapper of an office clerk will walk into a lift first, and push past her to get out. He will open a door, getting there just ahead of her, and leave it to swing back and catch her a whang if it likes. A very polite student did at least say, "Excoose me I" as he thrust the aged one o; us back from the top step of a tram so that he might descend first. Courtesy tq a woman is so very new a thing,

evidently, that it will take some time to become a generally established habit. It lacks dramatic appeal. All the best English and American films are shown in Hongkong, and their popularity has probably had a great deal to do with the Westernisation of the manners and customs of the young Chinese. In their own theatres they like, evidently, the more lurid typo of social drama, and arc just as interested in an English as in a Chinese plot. It is claimed, however, that (3 per cent of the films shown in the Chinese theatres are made by the Chinese, and in Shanghai there is a very nourishing picture industry. The finer points of suiting the picture to the audience have not yet, apparently, been considered by managements. On a school holiday recently a terrible accident happened during the early afternoon session at a Canton picture house, where white ants had been responsible for undermining the supports to the gallery. A special children's holiday programme was in progress, the theatre packed, when the circle collapsed and many were killed and wounded. The special programme starred a film entitled, "I Did ISot Mean to be Dishonourable to You, Darling." Incidentally, last week, some days after the accident, all the theatres in Canton were inspected by order of the Government, and six more were closed immediately as dangerous to the public. The Chinese work slowly, nut their methods are drastic when they once take action. So many requests came to me from young people before we came up here to ''See how things are and look round for a good job for me," that a resume of the situation as I see it alter six or seven weeks might be generally interesting. . . There may have been times m the good old days when efficient accountants, typists, and so on were few and salaries consequently high, lliose times •have certainly departed. The secretary of one of tlie biggest firms in Hongkong told me the other day that a ago they had wanted a good accountant. He advertised, and received -30 Applications, not one of which was worthy of consideration. In despair he went to the head of one of the colleges, who supplied him with a young Eurasian who met the requirements in every way and is still with them. He is content with a far lower salary than a "foreigner" could live on, he asks for no leave at the end of three years, and his work is thoroughly reliable. During the last six months, my informant told mo, over 20 out-of-work Europeans have applied to him for a job "of any sort," any one of whom he would have been glad to employ at the time the vacancy occurred, they being of a different type entirely from those who had answered his advertisement.

Not only are the times bad. but every year thoroughly capable Eurasians and Chinese are turned out of the schools here in increasing numbers. Their work is satisfactory, and their wages are infinitesimal compared to what Europeans expect. So that is the situation at the moment.

There are exceptions, of course. An Australian girl came up "on spec" a month ago, wanting to see the East, and dropped into one of the plums in the secretary line, vacated by an English girl who was going Home to he married. An Australian business woman holds one of the best paid office jobs here, with a salary running into close on four figures—English currency.