A TOPSY-TURVEY PLACE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19762, 13 April 1926, Page 5

A TOPSY-TURVEY PLACE.

SHANGHAI TO-DAY. Most of us know that Shanghai, is onn of the original treaty ports opened to foreign trade in 1843, and that it has a native quarter and various foreign quarters, but not one man in a thousand knows the truth about that great city. Many of its American and European residents have no knowledge of Chinese affairs and no interest in them. They are in Shanghai merely to make money, and have no wish to come in contact with Chinese people. Some of them despise-the natives. The name “Shanghai” really denotes not one city, but an entire group of cities. The original Shanghai is a Chinese city, partly walled, and more than avu years old.. The latest census gives the Chinese population as 827, bu-, and foreigners as 21,567. The British number 6500, and the Americans 3500. The area set aside for foreign residence was intended as a place where French, and Americans could live after their own fashion free from all annoyances of Chinese ruje. But during the Taiping reign of terror the foreign settlement was freely opened to all Chinese in a spirit of genuine hospitality. The result has in many ways been extraordinary. The foreign banks hold piles of loot committed to their care by all the scalawags of China, and as the investors are anxious merely about the safety of their money some of the banks charge them for storage instead of paying interest on their deposits. Shanghai is truly a topsy-turvy place. Mr Harry A. Franck, in his "Roving 'ihrougn Southern China” (London; T, Fisher Unwin (Ltd.); Melbourne: Robertson and Mullens (Ltd.), has given us a vivid, realistic picture of the country where he spent a varied, interesting, instructive year. It was his object to diverge from the beaten track, and get to know the people as they lived their daily lives, but he was so impressed with the novelties and anomalies of Shanghai that he could not resist the temptation to give us a racy and informing chapter entitled Shanghai by the Back Door.” . He found it very uninteresting on nrst acquaintance. It has the same dismal rail road yards, dingy stations, noisy train cars, honking automobiles as any second-class American city. The modern buildings are all of the standard type with which we are familiar, and the normal European or American business man lives much Lie same as if he were in his own country, ihe offices, the clubs, the hurry hour in the evening m tram car or motor, the round of golf or set of tennis, or riding exercise, the dinner in the home style, the newspapers and the theatres make up the day s doings. There is little intercourse between the various national groups of foreigners. Each man conforms to type, has his groom, caddy and tennis ball chaser, and any deviation from what is the rule is frowned upon as eccentricity. . With the western mind dominating ideas and ideals the business man from Britain or America scorns Lie thought of knowing his clients or learning their language. He leaves it to his Chinese comprador to be the go-between. The missionary toils and sweats to acquire the Chinese language, but the merchant thinks he has done well if he acquires “pidgin English.” One result is that the comprador often gets richer than Ins'employer, and another that the business man leaves China with a narrower view than when he entered it. He goes home to pose as an authority on China, whereas his entire knoivledge of it- scarcely goes beyond the contents of a bill of lading. There are, of course, some radiant exceptions, but many foreign business men and their children who have spent most of their lives in Shanghai have never really been in China, “have never set foot }n 4he Chinese city just across the street from tlie foreign settlement.” They cannot say yes or no in the Shanghai dialect, much less in real Chinese. Ihe Shanghai ‘American School teaches no Chinese, forbids its pupils to speak Chinese, and has no place in its curriculum tothe history, arts, or classics of mankind s oldest civilisation. But the most startling feature of Shanghai is that the foreign settlement is a city of refuge for the Chinese. When the buccaneering rascals of some native province find things getting 100 hot for them, they have merely to flee to the nearest foreign concession to be safe from enraged pursuers, although Chinese juns-dietic-i begins just across the street from their new home. Here, with their illgotten plunder, they may settle down to a luxurious old age or proceed to finance a new and daring conspiracy. The injustice is obvious. An official with a place of safety close to hand loses a powerful incentive to honest administration. A governor who was dismissed upon demand of the diplomatic body for conniving at crime calmly moved into a foreign concession and settled down to jive on his spoils among the vo’-y people who demanded ho should be punished. Quite Gilbertian! The Chinese in these settlements have no voice in public affairs, and their only complaint seem to be that they are excluded from the municipal parks, for which they are taxed. They walk outside the ■nigh meshed fences and watch the foregners inside, and envy the destitute Russians and drunken beachcombers massing through the gates, which are barred against Chinese. There is a reason. To let everyone in would quickly turn the parks into garbage heaps, for the masses have simple ideas about sanitation. The 14 nationalities in Shanghai which are not subject to Chinese law have their regular consular courts, to which their respective citizens may be tried by their own laws. In the mixed court there are two British and two American assessors and any of the other favoured nations may send as assessor. Its jurisdiction extends over all foreigners within the international settlement. A Chinese magistrate, appointed by the consular body, si s at the other end of the mixed court bench, and has equal authority with the assessor for the day. There is an average of a capital crime a month, and no court of appeal. As one of the assessors put it; “We have the first and last guess.” Ninety-three thousand criminal cases passed through the mixed court in one year lately. Shanghai is not quite a model city, A missionary told Mr Franck that if God lets Shanghai endure He owes an apology to Sodosm and Gomorrah. - It would be doing injustice to the ’author to leave the impression that he was concerned chiefly with Shanghai, That great city absorbs only 24 pages out of a bulky volume running to 649 pages full of kegn observation and shrewd judgments. The traveller off the beaten track saw tribes rarely mentioned in popular works, and provides 171 photographs taken by himself, as well as a map showing his route. There is no aspect of Chinese life which escapes his keen eye, He saw no great evidence of a general anti-foreign feeling in China, but reports the testimony of old missionaries that they feel it in subtle wavs, such as the decrease in politeness. He thinks overpopulation is visibly China’s greatest curse to-day. In Shanghai the European refuses to adopt Chinese customs; in the interior of China many foreigners get China-itis, ns : ng repetitions and shouting and changing their minds while they talk. Outside of Shanghai. “ China is a sea that salts everything that flows into it.”