I have heard a great deal of Chinese antagonism to Europeans; I have never witnessed it. Friends have told me of hair-breadth escapes from Chinese mobs, and of loathsomely insulting language to which they have been subjected by the Chinese. My experience has been quite to the contrary. I have traversed the length and breadth of the island of Hong-Kong alone, but for my ’rickshaw coolie. I have gone down into the depths of old Shanghai; and I have stood, one of three Europeans, in the midst of ten thousand Cantonese, and I have received courteous kindness—nothing else. I have had them laugh at me. A woman in Canton crept up to me and felt the strange European texture of my dress; a woman in Shanghai begged a glove from me—giving me a ring in return. I have had presents, unsolicited and unrequited, from almost every class of Chinese. As we passed beneath the big red bridge, a girl leaned over the parapet and threw a bunch of sweet-briar into my lap. In reporting my days in China, I must report unbroken kindness; for no grown woman can be expected to count the fact that, as she sat on the deck of a house-boat, half-a-dozen Chinese urchins called out, “La-le-lung! La-le-lung!” That means a thief, a liar, and something else as complimentary. And one boy called after us, “Fankwai!” which means foreign devil. But the delightful frankness of the small boy is too world-wide to be laid at the door of China; and to me a small boy is the most delicious animal in the wide world; and I can forgive him sins much more grievous than calling me a “foreign devil.”
We didn’t land where we had embarked a few nights before. We kept on down through the entrance to the Soochow creek. There the native houses, with their queerly ventilated walls, clustered in indescribable confusion. The roof of every Chinese building is peaked liked the prow of an ancient ship. I have often wished for leisure to study Chinese architecture, the few theories I have heard about its peculiarities are so interesting.
We forced our way through a multitude of native boats, out into the fresh breezes of the open water,—we were in the river. We made for the harbour.
We were back in Shanghai; our happy holiday was over. I shall always hold Mr. Brown’s memory very blessed; and remember as one of the most pleasant and unique experiences of my life our jaunt in a house-boat through the home of the Wild White Rose.
CHAPTER XIII
AN OPIUM DEN IN SHANGHAI
There are two Shanghais. New Shanghai is under the control of three Western powers. Over one section of it floats the French Tricolour; over another part waves the Stars and Stripes of the United States; above the third flies the Union Jack. The Chinese who live in New Shanghai are more or less Europeanised; they speak “pidgen” English or a quaint burlesque French. They adapt themselves to their pale neighbours—in many ways, I have eaten in Shanghai with a Chinaman who was deft in his use of knife and fork. The opium “joints” of New Shanghai are not typical Chinese opium houses any more than if they were in “China-town” in San Francisco or in Melbourne. They are so modified for the convenience of their European habitués that, at the most, they are but half Mongolian.
In Old Shanghai it is all very different. Drive a few miles—a very few—from the luxurious European Club; leave your carriage when you come to a bamboo bridge it may not cross; pass over that bridge; go through the gate-way of the old city wall; and you are in China!—real China!—old China, where ancient customs hold their own; where nothing changes. You pass through that gate by sufferance. Don’t swagger down those dirty narrow streets. The flag that tops your consulate casts no protecting shadow here.
At night, Old Shanghai is shut to Europeans. But we went there one night, armed with especial permission, and escorted by three white-button mandarins; and, perhaps I ought to add, forbidden by our Consul.