The San Francisco Telephone Directory has a section devoted to Chinatown, in which the names of Chinese subscribers are printed in both English and Chinese characters. Thus, if I wish to telephone to Boo Gay, Are Too, Chew Chu & Co., Doo Kee, Fat Hoo, the Gee How Tong, Gum Hoo, Hang Far Low, Jew Bark, Joke Key, King Gum, Shee Duck Co., Tin Hop & Co., To To Bete Shy, Too Too Guey, Wee Chun, Wing On & Co., Yet Bun Hung, Yet Ho, Yet You, or Yue Hock, all of whom I find in the directory—if I wish to telephone to them, I can look them up in English and call "China 148," or whatever the number may be. But if a Chinaman who cannot read English wishes to call, he calls by name only, which makes it necessary for operators to remember not merely the name and number of each Chinese subscriber, but to speak English and Chinese—including the nine Chinese provincial dialects.
The operators are, of course, Chinese girls, and the exchange, which has over a thousand subscribers, representing about a tenth of the population of the Chinese district, is under the management of Mr. Loo Kum Shu, who was born in California and educated at the University of California. His assistant, Mr. Chin Sing, is also a native of the State, and is a graduate of the San Francisco public schools.
For a "soulless corporation" the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company has shown a good deal of imagination in constructing and equipping its Chinatown exchange. The building with its gaily decorated pagoda roof and balconies, makes a colorful spot in the center of Chinatown. Inside it is elaborately frescoed with dragons and other Chinese designs, while the woodwork is of ebony and gold. The switchboard is carved and is set in a shrine, and this fascinating incongruity, with the operators, all dressed in the richly colored silk costumes of their ancient civilization, poking in plugs, pulling them out, chattering now in English, now in Chinese, teaches one that anachronism may, under some conditions, be altogether charming.
One rumor concerning San Francisco restaurants appealed to my sinful literary imaginings. I had heard that these establishments resembled those of Paris, not only in cuisine, but because, as in Paris, the proprietors did not deem it necessary to stipulate that private dining-rooms should never be occupied save by parties of more than two.
Of one of these restaurants, in particular, I had been told the most amazing tales: A taxi would drive into the building by a sort of tunnel; great doors would close instantly behind it; it would run onto a large elevator and be taken bodily to some floor above, where the occupants would alight practically at the door of their clandestine meeting-place—an exquisite little apartment, decorated like the boudoir of some royal favorite. If it were indeed true that such a picturesquely shocking place existed, I intended—entirely in the interest of my readers, you will understand—to see it; and honesty forces me to add that I hoped, with journalistic immorality, that it did exist.
One night I went there. True, the conditions were somewhat prosaic. It was quite late; my companion and I were tired, but we were near the end of our stay in San Francisco, and I insisted upon his accompanying me to the mysterious café, although he protested violently—not on moral grounds, but because he is sufficiently sophisticated to know that there is no subject upon which exaggeration gives itself carte blanche as it does when describing gilded vice.
The taxi did drive in through a kind of tunnel—a place suggesting coal wagons—but there were no massive, silent doors to close behind it. Passing into an inner court, which was like an empty garage, it stopped beside a little door.
"Where is the elevator?" I asked the taxi driver.
"In there," he answered, indicating the door.