Then he is shown a joss house, in back of the Chinatown post office, and he is told about the maze of secret tunnels which are supposed to connect most of the buildings in the area, for use during tong wars, opium or Prohibition raids.
The modern generation of American-born Chinese never smelled, let alone smoked, opium, and few of the old-timers remain. Occasionally you can spot one, a bent, wizened, broken and prematurely old fellow who stands out like a barn alongside his non-indulging brethren, who have the Chinese gift of seldom showing their age.
Concubinage is permitted under Chinese law, and some of the older, wealthier Chinese own an extra wife or two, or even a slave-girl brought over from the old country. But these are things you can't prove, and anyway, it's done uptown by the white folk, but under a different name.
Even in these days of sulfas and vitamins, most Chinese still believe in herb therapy. Maybe they're not so wrong. Many important drugs in the modern pharmacopoeia were discovered in Cathay, centuries ago—ephedrine is but one.
Chinatown herb dealers also sell concoctions guaranteed as love potions, aphrodisiacs and virility nostrums. Perhaps there's something to their formulae. The population of China is 450,000,000.
New Yorkers eat more Chinese food per capita than any other occidentals; more Chinese food is sold here than that of any other foreign origin.
Favorite is chow mein, with chop suey a poor second. Neither of these glutinous creations is indigenous. Both are American inventions. The Chinese themselves, and those who know good food, never eat either mongrel dish. You are spotted as a neophyte if you order them.
The authentic Chinese menu contains hundreds of exotic items, made of everything from eels to birds'-nests. If you want to play safe and not show your ignorance call for mo gu gai pan, which is a distant cousin to chicken fricassee.
Though Chinese men drink considerable potent spirits, women of the race seldom, if ever, imbibe. They say it makes their faces red—and it does. Their men discourage them from drinking, but white wolves, aware of the effect of champagne on slant-eyed dolls, try to load them with it, often with encouraging results.