PEOPLE have a good time in Shanghai, often because they have more time in which to enjoy themselves than they would have elsewhere, more often because the number of friends that people have comilig through, or staying for a short time gets them into the habit of entertaining and being entertained, but most of all because it isapparently a part of the Shanghai psychology to have as good a time as possible as often as possible. Even the missionaries get around, we understand.

Principle among the methods of diversion seems to be the good old pastime of stepping out. This is done by getting into the glad rags, taking on a few quick ones, going to your favorite evening spot, then somewhere else, and so on, and so on, (see our section on night life) until you wind up at either Del Monte's or the Venus. Then home. bed, milk of magnesia, and late to the office.

Newcomers to Shanghai, upon seeing the magnificent Race Course often got the idea that this forms one of the town's more exciting diversions. Unfortunately, this is not true. Racing in Shanghai is, in the words of our houseboy, no use. The system of betting is, in the first place, all wrong according to the standards of people who enjoy betting horses elsewhere. In the second place, there are no horses in Shanghai -- at least, not race horses. There are a number of animals who might possibly get by in the pony class at a Children's Gymkhana elsewhere, but no horses to inspire a bet five on the nose to win. The horse business, in Shanghai, is in the hands of gentlemen riders, most of whom are at least gentlemen. Some of them ride very well, indeed. A race meet however has the atmosphere of an English fox hunt, and nobody much is interested in an English fox hunt except the hunter and the fox.

Hai Alai, which takes place continuously out in a splendid new auditorium in Frenchtown is interesting, has many followers and is as good a way to lose your shirt as we know of. You can lay a bet here just as easily as you could get converted at the Methodist Mission. Hai Alai is an old Basque game, and tho town is filled with Basquards who have been imported to lend the local game an authentic touch.

Dog racing occurs regularly at the Canidrome, also in Frenchtown. Whippets chase each other around the track after a phoney rabbit and a good time is had by all. Betting is on the pari-mutuel system, the club getting fifteen per cent of the take. Betting tickets are bought in two dollar and five dollar denominations. This is as wacky a way to lose your money as we know of.

For those who like to gamble, the State Lottery offers a slower if no surer means to the big money. A ticket costs ten dollars, a share (one tenth part of a ticket) sets you back a dollar. The big prize is 250,000 dollars but there is a complicated system of less important prizes and ones impression upon reading the list of awards is that everyone in China should receive some kind of prize. We have never known anyone who won a pretzel in this lottery, however.

chits, good and otherwise

The feminine writer of an extremely entertaining book entitled "Audacious Angles on China" states that "in Shanghai, a person may enter practically any restaurant or cafe and merely inscribe his name and address on a slip of paper" in settlement of the account. Either this learned lady was in Shanghai prior to the depression or we'd like to get a list of the cabarets and cafes that she visited for future reference. In the hallowed past, we are told that this condition prevailed, and that it was an unusual thing for a foreigner to carry actual cash with him. That some personal chits (China side for I0U) had all of the validity with persons who knew the signer of the chit or his reputation, of cash itself, and that such were passed from hand to hand like banknotes. This sounds like something out of Paul Bunyan to us, but be that as it may, as Allot harriet used to say, chits are off the gold standard today. Many chits are signed, this is true, and some of them are even collected, but the Golden Era for the man who says "Thank God, thats paid!" as he does an autograph for the table-boy, is definitely over. Nowadays, cash gets amiable benevolance, a check gets a wintry smile and a chit gets Oriental malevolance.

The lady writer goes on to say (regarding the chit) that they "have no way of checking up on it, nor does they attempt to do so" simply filing it away. Well, our only thought in regard to this is that she should see the wordy research conferences that go on outside while the chit signer is drawing on his gloves and getting ready to go. Corrugated foreheads peer from behind curtains or screens and everyone down to the cigarette boy Is included upon an extemporaneously organized Board of Inquiry into the subject's affluence.

Theoretically, the means of collecting these chits is by sending what is commonly known and humorously referred to as a "shroff" to the residence of the chitter in the hope of getting the money. To read from a shroff's report of results sheet, one would gather that the foreign population of Shanghai had suddenly and precipitously departed to escape a second uprising of Boxers. "Out of Town", "Out of Town" with an occasional variation offered by some straight-forward soul in a hopeful "Call around next week." To the average schroff, a payment of about one tenth of the amount involved is victory and is regarded by the debtor as a magnanimous concession. Chits are made of very heavy paper in China these days. They have to stand a lot of wear.

In other countries, the problem is how to get money. The same problem is complicated in China with the additional one of how to count it when you get it. In the first place, there is "'big money" and "small money." All that a foreigner knows about these two species during his first six months in the East is that he is supposed to raise an awful racket when he gets his change in small money. Technically, small money is a silver coinage in twenty cent denominations worth somewhat less than the more standard twenty cent coin. Actually, it is one of the many ways that the coolie and small shopkeeper has of confounding the foreigner, for no one, even many of those long here, are absolutely sure of its ratio to the more orthodox "big money" and always feel that they are being cheated out of something. And probably are. This (the learned paragraph on finance) gives us the opportunity to explain why there is little chance for hostilities between Japan and China. It seems that the whole matter can be traced to the Japanese yen for the Chinese tael. With these few remarks we conclude our treatment of finance in the Far East.

seen
On
the
streets

shops

THE two most commonly seen commercial establishments on a Shanghai street are the pawn shop and the medicine shop. Both are always large and impressive structures. The pawn shops always have a large single character on the outside wall, this character sometimes covering as much as two hundred square feet and being two stories high. Pawn shops are everywhere, the reason being that the lower class Chinese continuously keep some of their jewelry or gems in hock. Instead of putting valuables into pawn in times of financial duress, they reverse the procedure and take them out during periods of affluence. The reason for the redundance of the Chinese pawn shop can thus be seen. The cause for frequency of the Medicine Shop is probably brought about by the prevalence of disease of all kinds amongst the people. These shops are also large and ornate and often have some sort of a sculptured group above the doorway, in which the central figure is invariably a man with a long white beard. Inside, in the rather shadowy interior, are to be discerned casks, wood boxes and urns in large quantities. Animal remains and herbs from all over the world are brought to these places, ground, pulverized and otherwise prepared. Amazing prices are asked and paid for these potions. For instance, the pulverized tip of a deer's horn, used to prolong life, brings a hundred dollars a copy. Lately, hospital cars, painted white and fitted out as clinics by the Settlement and Frenchtown authorities, are giving serious competition to the medicine shops. They drop anchor anywhere in the street and dispense treatment and relief to the sick at little or no cost.

The Chinese have a tendancy to departmentalize their merchandising districts. For instance, on Foochow Road for several blocks above Hunnan Road, nothing is found but book and stationary stores, card printers and chop makers. At Canton Road below Hupien, there is a district of men's clothiers, further north on Hupien Road, a rash of men's tailors, en Kiukiang between Honan and Fokien, practically nothing but jewelers and valuable Objets d'art (Chinese style-no appeal for foreigners) and probably most interesting to foreigners, there is, on Canton Road, for several blocks east of Kwangse, a colony of stores selling nothing but the wierd if colorful gowns, wigs, false beards. swords and other paraphanalia of the Chinese Theater.

Shanghai streets are to be heard (and smelt) as well as seen. A continual hubbub is a concommittant of the general scene, with riksha pulleys constantly shouting their high-pitched warning to the slow-moving, noisy conversations ever in progress, and the calls of the foot peddlers. Every street rooms to have it's music, (or what passes for music in China), whether it comes from the thoroughly unmusical bands that Chinese merchants hire to play from windows above their stores to advertise sales or from the shrill radio music com mg frorn Chinese broadcasting stations. Every type of street merchant has an individual sound peculiar to his business. Key grinders and knife sharpeners attach to their paraphanalia a collection of metal strips which jangle as the grinder walks. Sidewalk restaurant keepers bang away on a section of hollow bamboo. Sellers of musical instruments perform upon their own instruments as they walk along and other ped~ers of various kinds evolve noise from everything from gongs to whistles.

One of the commonest type of business place is the small-time bank, or "change shop." These are small establishments, one or more to the block, which lend small sums to local merchants upon personal guarantee, no collateral necessary. They also do a business in changing money, charging three coppers for the transaction. Behind the barred counters of these establishments, the money changer and what is apparently the total male complement of his family can be seen, lounging in bored opulance. Cigarette shops in China also sell joss sticks, paper taels (to he burned in the temples) and various other accoutrements of the religion rackett.

Provision stores are frequent and odorous. Butcher shops may be picked out from the position of the butcher, who operates on his subjects from a throne high above the heads of the customers. This is apparently another piece of Chinese cunning intended to outsmart people who say "Why, that's all bone!" Rice stores sell rice and other cereals alone, dipping them out in scoopfuls from bins sunk in the counters. On Foochow Road, there is a particularly attractive shop specializing in the sale of duck gizzards, with hundreds-thousands of duck gizzards hanging in the windows, from the ceilings, to the walls. Nice thought.

One of the things most striking to foreigners is the apparent over supply of employees. Every shop has about three times the number of clerks that one would find in any other country, most of them apparently having little else to do than to look blank. The idea seems to be that anyone who has had the fortune to rise in the world to the position of owning a shop or other establishment is also on the spot insofar as his brothers, cousins, nephews and other relatives are concerned. He is rather obligated to give them some kind of employment whether he wants to or not. Which explains why so many Chinese are content to remain coolies.

The second hand clothing stores are perhaps the noisiest types of store in Shanghai. The salesmen stand in front of the shops holding the clothing at arms length and reciting their virtues in a high pitched sing song voice. With two dozen salesmen going into their act at the same time, something resembling a cock-eyed version of a Gregorian chant results, which is something very choice in screwness.

Every block seems to have three or four coolie restaurants. Cooking and eating takes place in one big room entirely Open to the street on one side to permit the smoke and fumes and customers to get out. The food is about the same, day by day, and the baking is done in a large earthenware jug. The fire is in the bottom, the oven at the top, a hole in the side and at the top providing the draught. One of the cooks fans air into the hole at the side to increase the oven heat. Coolies love to eat and do so every time they get a little money ahead, which accounts for the prevalence of these restaurants. Ricksha coolies drop off at some restaurant between fares to spend a large portion of the last money earned upon a bowl of noodles or a freshly baked f'vai wu.

merchants on the move

Street merchants are as common so Englishmen in London. Most of them don't seem to do much btisi'iess but they apparently get a lot of exercize. There are those who sell peeled sugar-cane (ready for gnawing) and these are probably most common. There are others who deal in watermelon seeds, sunflower seeds, peeled carrots, cakes, candies, shoe strings, ear cleaners, and all other commodities. There are sidewalk restauranteurs, who carry food, stove, dishes and all suspended from a bamboo pole over the shoulders and are able, at any time, to stop and give you a full course dinner, if you desire it, say on the corner of Nanking Road and the Bund.

There are traveling seamstresses who perch on your doorstep and takes the holes out of your socks and shoemakers whose shoulder borne load includes all the leather and tools necessary to repair or even make a pair of shoes for you.

other sidewalk phenonena

Even in the coldest weather sidewalk business is popular in Shanghai. This is probobly because the Chinese will stop to watch anything. If one bends over to fix a shoe lace, he will straighten up to find himself the center of a staring crowd.

Street altercations gather mobs. A traffic mix-up interests one but the police who nonchalantly show up only after all participants exhaust their capacity for abuse.

The Silik policeman is perhaps one of the most interesting spectacles of the Shanghai streets. Tall and impressive, turbaned and bearded, they carry out their duties with irrefutable authority and yet with a philosophically humorous understanding of what its all about. A Chinese policeman inviolant argument with a coolie who has violated a street ordinance. Suddenly a Sihk policemen approaches, indomitably, like the Juggernaut down Calcutta streets, his white teeth flashing in an amused smile, grasps the coolie firmly by the ear, leads him out of the laughing crowd to a spot further down the street, where a well-directed motion of the boot puts an end to the situation.

Coolies sharing heavy burdens add to the general street din with their cries of Ho-Ha-Ho, each taking his turn in alternating the cry. An occasional wedding or funeral adds a little color to the general scene.

With rickshas coming and going in every direction, and following no set procedure in traffic, and people, after the Chinese fashion, walking in the streets more often than on the sidewalks, which are apparently for the use of small vendors and merchants, a Chinese street scene is one of chaos and turmoil.

Ricshas are of two varieties, private and public. The public ones bear two license plates, one with their license number and another bearing a scale of rates. The public ricksha is somewhat higher and less comfortable and is certainly plenty more dirt while the private ricksha is usually lower, much more carefully painted one polished and in the winter is equipped with a lap robe. Private families of means sometimes have very ornate rickshas with copper plated running boards, fancy upho!stery, and as the greatest novelty of all, clean pullers. Ricsha coolies are perhaps the most conscientious chiselers on earth. Worldly and quick to capitalize on any situation, they will, with bland face, make the most outrageous demands and moan all over the place if their demands are not satisfied.

The Chinese bargain in advance with them. Picture of a Chinese woman engaging a ricksha. She makes known her destination, looking the other way as if she were not greatly interested in going to that spot, and might change her mind if the price were not right. Coolie sets a price that he knows he doesn't stand a chance of getting. Woman commences to loftily walk away. Coolie follows loudly citing reasons why his riesha is the best ricsha in China. Woman ignores him commencing to call (not very loudly) for another ricsha. Coolie comes down in his price muttering meanwhile about lady's stinginess. Lady still doesn't know he's there. About the time that all the other ricshas within ten blocks are charging up at the top of their lungs, coolie is down to his rock-bottom price and the lady climbs into the seat with studied magnificence, Fadeout, lady and ricsha coolie happily tooling along towards the horizon.

Sidewalk stands are frequent. Outside of the usual purveyors of foods, sweets, sugar-cane and small personal articles, there are upon the pavements representatives of the arts. Letter writers are common. each behind his table and willing to offer his services to the first illiterate who comes along wanting to write to his cousin in Soochow. Somewhat similar in appearance are the fortune tellers who will permit' those curious about the future to choose a rolled up scroll from a number of these in a box, and interpret that scroll for them in terms of asttology, psycho-analysis or what have you.

An interesting street-sight to the newcomer is sometimes found on Bubbling Well Road at Mohawk Road. There, fronting the stables are two stone gods that are regarded by stable boys and Chinese riders as being "good joss" and one often sees in passing quantities of lotzoh or punk sticks burning, placed there by devotees to both gods and horses in the hope that their particular nag will nose in first. Amahs with "sidewalk girls" in tow do the same thing as a prelude to the night's work.

Booksellers are also plentiful displaying numbers of books against somebody else's wall, most of them being volunes popular with the grandfathers and great grand-fathers of the people who shuffle by in front of them. Dealers in art plaster the walls with lurid lithographs of girls reclining (rather uncomfortably it seems to Western eyes though most of them seem to be smiling bravely), girls in aviator's helmets, girls about to take a bath, apparently, and just girls.

Foreigners sometimes wonder at the sight of a Chinese with what are apparently circular black pieces of court plaster on either aide of the eyes on the lower temple. Those, ladies and gentlemen, are the China-side substitute for lisperin Those are headache eradicators. Another curiosity is the outer clothing of young infants which is always a brilliant scarlet. Still another common sight are the mourning shoes of the male, white and very similar to the footwear in which the unChinese play tennis.

A common sight is a person in the throes of some sort of fit, badly hurt or ill lying on the pavement with a circle of apathetic persons about him. Such a person will never be assisted by anyone in the crowd that gathers around him or her for it is a Chinese belief that to do so renders one responsible for that person from then on and for his soul in case he dies.

The Chinese street scene is a colorful one, diverse, swift moving and capable of producing any kind of n situation. Hoarse shouts and shrill cries, staccato sounds from bamboo section drums, the wail of native violin or flute, the blare of an unbelievably lousy advertising band aael the constant monotonous obligatto of human voices. People of almost every type, in every stage of opulance or poverty, health or wretchedness, race, color and breed. Beggers, monks in flowing black robes, coolies grunting under loads that a union stevedore would split into three, sihks stalking proudly through the Chinese in overcoats usually three sizes two small for them and followed by their women in grotesque but colorful flowing robes, modern Chinese in Kollege Kut Klothing who avoid the mud puddles very carefully and give a cold stare to their gowned countrymen, carefully primped girls strutting along as disdainfully as if it were a world ful of coolios, old-regime ladies tottering uncomfortably along on bound feet, baffled female American tourists from Dunkett's Falls, Iowa, who are SIMPLY NOT going to eat anything or drink any water until they get back to the hotel, clutching their guide-books, kodaks and sometimes their noses, Japanese women in colorful kimonas and obis teetering along on wooden slippers and thinking, every time they are jostled by a Chinese, "Well, it won't be long now......" People - all kinds, the color and tang and spice of China is not in it's temples nor in it's lotus strewn gardens but in its crowded streets.

nymphs de pave

No small part of the noctural street scene in Shanghai is contributed by the ladies whose commodity is love, cash and carry.

Thibet Road between Avenue Eddie the Seventh and Nanking Road is practically infested with these charming ladies from the earliest sign of twilight until three and four in the morning. From one A.M. on, the region around Kiukiang Road and on over to Peking Road from Nanking Road is the hunting ground of the damsels and hunting ground it is. The weak of resistance are the prey of sometimes two and three of the gals who work in a concerted onslaught, grasping the victim firmly by the clothing and doing their best to work him into a doorway or other place where they can compromise him to the extent that he loses face if he doesn't accede.

Each girl is accompanied by an amah, who recites her protege's charms, virtues and accomplishments and otherwise negotiates with the clients. Meanwhile, the girl stands by and looks bored.

On a warm evening hundreds of these girls are out, filling the street, giggling and wise-cracking at the appearance or demeanor of the male passers-by, horse-playing with each other like high school children while amab keeps a wary eye for customers and police. Sometimes the law puts in an appearance. Then all of the girls, like some startled colony of pygmies at the approach of giant. take to their heels in a wild rush for doorways and basements and the midnight street is left to the sardonically smiling ricsha coolhes. who smile because they know that the only advantage they have that their trade is not unlawful

the
fleshpots

night life in shanghai

As has been said, night life in Shanghai owes much of its spontaniety and natural atmosphere to the fact that it is as much the year-in-and-out residents as the visitors who do the reveling at the town's night spots. People who never go for anything worse than a sundae at Schmidt's Sugar Bowl of a Saturday evening at home in Keokuk, regard themselves as stay-at-homes in Shanghai if they don't step out a couple of times a week.

The Chinese are also inveterate whoopee-makers. They love to get out and around and be seen at the smart places. However, excepting at the Chinese cabarets, they are received with not exactly the utmost in cordiality. in view of the fact that they practically never go in for hard liquor in a big way, sometimes spending an entire evening nursing a glass of tea. This sort of business, of course, gives the cash register no exercise. The Chinese pay their chits when presented, however, which is something.

Naturally, there are many phases to the night life of the town, many ways for many kind of people.

If the general atmosphere of Shanghai seems to have a somewhat carmine hue, think nothing of it. So continuously and continually is the job of "painting the town red" done, that it's bound to show somehow.

Technically, there are but three ways of making whoopee in Shanghai. Number one is by sending the boy out for three quarts and some ice, and telephoning Clara and Dick to come over and lift a few. This is known as "going to town while remaining at home," and is the least expensive. Then there's the business of gathering the clan and making the spots, St. Georges, Del Montes, etc. and is known is some quarters as "going to the dogs." Can be expensive. And last, there are those who incase themselves in silk and white linen and sally forth to places of the cover charge type, the only real difference between this and the last class being that it takes them longer and more money to feel their liquor. This is known, (by the people in the second class) as "going highbrow" and can be extremely expensive financially, coming under the heading of "major appropriations."

As a night life town, Shanghai is different from New York and other cosmopolitan centers in that it is the natives as well as the visitors who do the night revelling. Although at the time of the writing of this book, night entertainment business has been poor in Shanghai, the town's residents have supported their night clubs quite strongly.

Amongst the leading spots are the Tower, atop the very gilt-edge Cathay Hotel, the Sky Terrace, atop the Park Hotel, the Paramount Ballroom and the Cathay's ballroom which is purely a smart place to dine and dance but doesnt remain open late. The Little Club, long the most famous of Shanghai's smart night clubs recently folded up rather ingloriously after an attempt to operate on somewhat different lines than employed during its hey-day.

The Tower, under the able management of the ambilinguistic Freddy Kaufmann is one of the most popular spots. Singer, pianist, intimate atmosphere, and so forth. The Sky Terrace is notable principally for the fine view of the racecourse and of the electrically sensational Shanghai horrizon. In other ways, it is exactly the sort of a night spot one might find in Paris London or New York. Good entertainment, genteel so roundings. The Paramount is unique in being one of the largest class good time spots in town and offers a very deluxe product in the way of entertainment, atmosphere, and so on.

dime a dance, china style

The Chinese love to dance. And do it very well. Surprisingly strange in a people whose national music sounds like tormented tom cats, is a sense of rythm that makes them excellent dancers, both men and women. And so, the cabaret business, distinct froni the cafe and night club business, flourishes. And especially, Chinese cabarets, which are institutions quite unique.

The typical Chinese cabaret, large and spacious, it is usually decorated to the most remote corner, with perhaps a half a dozen incongruous and clashing types and styles of Western ornamentation fighting for honors. The orchestra, invariably Filipino, pumpmg away at a-tune-a-minute rate continuously between the hours of eight and two, three or four o'clock, rather lackadaisically esconced on the bandstand. Whitecoated table-boys by the score, about twice as many as necessary, since they work only for their tips and chow. The guests, mostly male, very blase, apparantly quite unaware of the dancings girls, or "woo niuhs" who sit but an arms-length away from them, noisily eating watermelon seeds, a dish of which are placed on each table by the management as a gratuitous gift. And last but most important, the woo niuhs, slim, nonchalant and self-possessed and self-sufficient to the nth degree, cuddling their miniature hot water bottles if it is winter time, and acting for all the world as if they were really just waiting for a street car and no amount of dance tickets could tempt them onto the floor.

The proper and recognized procedure seems to call for extremely snooty behavior on the part of the dancing girl until some stage of intimacy is reached. This means after about the tenth dance and is intended to give the general idea that she has plenty of business and did'nt really need you at all. Girls in the better class dance places will not accept less than three or four dance tickets, and if offered a smaller amount will tear them up in the face of the giver. The idea is that if a client dances but once or so and passes on, the girl's charm, dancing ability or something is impuned. She lose "face" with her colleagues and contrives to pass some of that loss of face on to the guest in the above mentioned fashion.

Dancing girls are notoriously temperamental and their relations with the management are much the same as those between a prima donna and an opera impressano. Arguments over treatment, fancied slights and such trifles as the placing of their chairs, etc are always arising and popular girls have to be handled with extreme unction as they will quit on the drop of a watermelon seed.

The woo niuhs sit on the edge of the ballroom floor in seats the arms of which has been bored to hold a glass, kept filled with tea. Service to the dancing ladies also includes a boy (in the winter time) who is kept busy keeping the hot water bottles of the woo niuhs filled.

The price of dance tickets varies from three for a dollar at the best places to eight, ten and even fifteen at some of the dives. The girls receive on an average, about one half of the price paid for the ticket, and some of them, with gifts from their custoniers make what is an enormous salary for China and for a women. Two very popular sisters dancing at one of the town's best spots are credited with making a monthly salary of better than a twelve hundred Shanghai dollars between them.

The morals of the class are about the same as respectable women everywhere, that is adamantly negative most of the time, charmingly complaisant upon occasion. One outstanding feature of dancing girl character, however, is the complete dignity and composure displayed at all times even among the charmers in the worst Hongkew dives, and the absence of all vulgarity or coarseness from their conduct. No matter which of the many rather gaudy sins available in Shanghai a woo niuh chooses to commit, you can be sure she will do it gracefully, with dignity, her head in the air.

There are also many Russian, Japanese and Korean dancing girls in Shanghai. Strangely, there are no American, British or other foreign hostesses. Places having such varied groups to choose from proudly advertise their "International Hostesses" and invariably draw a heavy business from young Chinese males.

some night spots..

Heading the better Chinese cabarets in Shanghai are the Majestic on Bubbling Well Road across from the race course, the Ambassador on Avenue Edward VII, the Casanova (all Russian hostesses) on the same street, with the well known Tom King at the helm, Santa Anna's, on Love Lane, and the two popular Bubbling Well resorts, the Vienna Gardens and the Metropole Gardens. The latter we believe, would give anyone interested in the subject, the best possible birds-eye view of what a high class Chinese cabaret is like.

Operated by "Jimmy," who keeps the restaurant mentioned elsewhere in these pages, is the St. Georges Cabaret on the Route Doumer in the French Concession. Though the premises of this cabaret are decidedly archaic and unattractive, the attendance is quite large.

Del Monte's, one of the latest closing spots in Shanghai is quite famous. It has quite an assortment of Russian, Hungarian and other assorted varieties of dancing girl, all of whom "double in bass", that is, dance for the customers individually as units in a floor show as well as dance with them for tickets. Known for years as a place to go when all of the other places had closed, Del Monte's is visited by all classes and types of people. It's most noteworthy distinction, perhaps, is a modified form of the old time honky-tonk atmosphere which perrists despite the fact that the bouncers and other officials of the place have been buttoned into soup and fish outfits.

anything can
happen at the venus

Possibly the best known and most colorful spot in Shanghai is the Venus Cafe. Located just inside of Chinese territory in Hongkew it is not subject to the early closing laws prevalent in the Settlement and opens its doors to nocturnal strays until the cold gray dawn filters down from the filthy rooftops abutting Jukong Alley. Owned by an agressive American named Levy, it has since it's existence attracted specimens from every stratum of Shanghai night life so that its purlieus resemble, on any night, the office of a movie casting director about to make a picture on the Far East.

A trip to the Venus is worth the sleep lost and is part of anyone's education. Getting out of your taxi at the juncture of North Szechuan Road and Jukong Alley, you are faced with the problem of getting to the garishly lit doors of the Venus without being blackmailed into contributing to the weal of some dozen beggers who apparently base their importunities upon the fact that as you are headed for a good time, common decency demands that you supply their demands. Chief amongst these gentry is a tall cadaverous Russian youth with a meager coat, collar up, clutched together with a palsied hand. A white face, staring eyes with a wordless appeal and mute, pinched lips complete the act. This lad had us in a state of incipient meloncholia for months until we saw him, during Russian Easter, in very changed raiment, toddling a beauteous blonde into a sukiyaki parlor on the Avenue Joffre.

The first thing encountered upon entering the entrance of the Venus is a sign which reads "No More Chits Accepted." Then another succinct memorandum "Out of Bounds To British Troops." (The whole Hongkew area is out of bounds to American Troops). However it is distinctly "in bounds" to Japanese troops.

The cafe itself is not extraordinary in appearance. The usual conglommeration of artistic effects, the garish lighting effects (China is probobly the only place in the world where Neon lighting is used for interior illumination), and the routine force of dancing girls. The dancing girls at the Venus perhaps deserve a little more than the ordinary treatment in this volume. In the first place, these lasses are entirely in sympathy with the slogan of a large American manufacturer of paint "Save The Surface And You Save All." Some of them bear startling resemblences to the Benda masks so popular a few years ago while others, more subdued, just look as if they had used the lipstick in the wrong places. Dresses here are of the going-to-town variety where decolletage is concerned. More than half of the girls at the Venus are Japanese. There are a number of Chinese, Korean and a few Russian girls but the Japanese gals seem to do all of the business.

Entirely more interesting than the employees of the place, are the patrons. Sailors on the lurch, brokers and proper business men hoping that their number ones aren't likely to hear of the trip to the Venus, their number ones hoping that none of the employees see them, dinner coated parties slumming and raggedy-rear parties high-lifing, newspapermen, musicians, butchers, bakers and sometimes a candlestickmaker or so.

The Venus begins to come to life at about three when some of the other spots begin to close. Four kinds of people go there. The people who don't go to Del Montes, the people who want to sin conspicuously, the people who want to sin inconspicuously and those who have that happy alcoholic feeling, and want to keep it. Musicians from the other night clubs show up for the same reason that busmen are said to go for a busride on the day off. The dancing girls make their boy-friends takes them there because it gives them an uppity feeling to relax and play before the working dancing girls in the place, and also to chat with their colleagues and discuss the day's business. Then, in addition to the high toned foreign visitors, there is the usual background of petty gangsters, dance hall play boys, American marines in civilian clothing, and assorted drunks. The Venus is popular with the Japanese too and girls in the Nipponese kimona and obi are quite a common sight, creating a somewhat refreshingly colorful contrast to the tawdry magnificence of the place.

From three until towards five, a carnival atmosphere abounds. Everyone gets nut and dances, excepting sometimes the formally clad ones from the drawing rooms, who stare glassily out upon the antics of Boatswain's Mate 3rd. Cl. Whitey Jones, who has forty dance tickets in his pocket and is going to town with Sizouki San in a great big way.

As the party begins to grow less hectic, as the prosaic yield to yawns and the ladies yield to importunities, the waiters are to be found sneaking off the unused table covers, the music becomes slightly less danceable, and the dancing girls who are not engaged frankly curl up in their chairs, wrap their coats about them, and abandoning their earlier graceful poses keep their date with the sandman. Not permitted to go home until the last note is played, they make the best of it.

Outside in Jukong Alley, its cold and gray and dismal. The beggers droop dismally along the walls, ready to spring into whining activity at the outward swing of the Venus door. The fat old Russian wench fondles the Shirley Temple photographs that are her excuse for begging. The little alley which a few hours before was picturesque and atmospheric becomes sordid and ugly. Dawn has checked in at the Venus.

the primrose path, de luxe

Much has been written about Sing Song house. If one, however, cherishes romantic illusions that these famed versions of the mundaine seraglios of other lands are wildly lurid rendezvous where one can give the fleshpots an awful workout and help ones self to an armful of beautiful Sin, amidst scenes of Oriental volupte, one is distinctly wrong.

Strangely enough, decorum, "good form" and the observance of what to Westerners is a very stiff and stilted ettiquette, are the keynotes of the activities between the class a ghee niu, or Sing Song girl, and her customer or customers. In other words, raised eyebrows and extreme coldness would be accorded the woukl-be sinner who sailed into one of the very elite establishments on Swatow Road sailed his hat onto the rack, slapped the amab on her posterior, and greted the assembleil niuh with a cosy "Hello Toots". The procedure is somewhat different.

In the first place, a Sing Song house is about the only establishment of its kind that very emphatically discourages foreign clients. Possibly because other Chinese males, with the secret distaste felt by them for sharing intimate occasions in Western company, or perhaps because the egotism of the sufficiency is distasteful to the pathalogically sensitive egotism of the Sing Song girl.

Painted generously, scented extravagantly and arrayed in attractive if rather extreme versions of the prevailing Chinese mode, the ghee niu is borne by her ricsha coolie to the scene of her professional activities, shortly after the shades of evening have fallen. Most of her engagements are made by appointment and she entertains her guests in various ways; by singing, by reciting, playing upon Chinese musical instruments or participating in card, finger or mah jong games. Finger games are very popular, possibly because they give onlookers a chance to vicariously enjoy the game. by kibitzing, wise-cracking and howling uproariously at every play. Two people play, each thrusting one hand out with any or all of the five fingers upraised. Alternately, each player calls out a number from one to ten with each thrust. If the total of fingers upraised from the hands of both players equals the number called, the person who has called the number wins the bet. Good clean fun, considering everything.

how to kill a lonely evening in shanghai

Request For A Sing Song Girl.

Mr. Chang. Sing Pao requests that Miss Ling Shing come to the Mei Yuen Cafe, Room No. 1, address Ping Voag street, corner of Foochow Road to serve wine and entertain.

Do not delay.

Facsimile and illustration of Sing Song Girl request. Restaurants keep these forms on hand at all times, Male customers fill in the proper data, the chit is sent, and a lonely evening turned into some thing to write home about.

In Sing Song houses of the best class, the customer and not the girl, is the wooer. In fact, the granting of her favors is entirelv up to the ghee niu herself, and for a man to woo a lady for many moons and finally wind up with the air for his pains, is not unusual. In any case, many visits are required before any comparative degree of intimacy is attained. And of course, during these visits, much wine and tea is consumed, much food eaten, and many games of cards played (at twenty-four dollars a game to the house) so the management is not concerned as to the when or the if of the damsel's surrender.

Another departure from the conventienal is the business method employed by such places. which is distinctly not on a cash and carry basis as elsewhere in the world. The display of money is considered decidedly vulgar. Statements for the services of the house and the ghee niu are sent to a customers office or home at regular intervals, and adjusted by the seragho's regular shroff, or bill collector. Obligations of this sort are regarded by Chinese somewhat in the manner that Westerners regard gambling debts, as being debts of honor, requiring payment before all other matters. Gentlemen about to go bankrupt invariably settle their sing-song debts before declaring their insolvency. However, failure to pay does occur and sing song houses sue and collect, not only in Chinese courts but in the courts of the International Settlement, presided over by decorous foreigners who must gravely hand down decisions in favor of these high class bordellos.

No stigma, normal or social, attaches to the Sing Song house habitue. In fact some of the town's elitest big shots with large domestic establishments of their own, make these places their regular nocturnal headquarters, and give parties inthem for their friends. One of the advantages in this system, of course, is that if your dinner partner bores you, you can make an exchange.

Entertainment is not cheap. An evening's dalliance will cost in the neighborhood of sixty or seventy dollars Shanghai currency, at a minimum, and can run as high as several hundred dollars easily. The financial standing of the clientele can be judged from the sight each evening of lines of large, expensive cars in this district, their chauffeurs lounging in groups discussing, probably, the morals, disposition, virility and amorous proclivities of their dallying masters.

Most of the Sing Song girls are very young, between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one or two, although girls with exceptional personality and physical attractiveness have worked at an older age. Unlike their Japanese colleagues of the same profession, there is no excess of gray matter hidden away beneath the jewelled black ringlets of the nius. The majority of them fall very easily into the category of beautiful and dumb.

Lovemaking between the Sing Song girls and their swains takes a very strange form. Not until the very final intimacies does any form of spoken endearment occur. The first part of the courtship is spent in an exchange of bantering derision, and lavishly imaginative comments upon the capabilities and shortcomings of the other party.

There are, of course, different grades of establishments. In some of the less exclusive establishments, Western civilization and culture has exerted it's influence, with the result that the inmates are treated with less consideration and the clients expect more action in less time. Occidental efficiency and the speed-tip system will soon have these century old establishments on a modern basis, or something.

Chinese may, and do often attempt to refute the fact that the Sing Song institution is prostitution in it's most genteel form. They hope to give a virtuous, platonic and aesthetic tone to a custom that so many high in public and business life suhscribe to. But the fact remains that all of the musicmaking, card-playing and other forms of bought flirtation are but the means to an end without which the entire affair would lose it's significance, and he looked upon as so much lost time and money.

jukong and blood alleys

Two choice spots are Jukong Alley and Blood Alley, each at opposite extremes of the town, at either side of the Settlement.

Blood Alley, known to the genteel as the Rue Chao Pau San, is probably a sailor's idea of heave". At night, this gentle area is a blaze of light, a blare of color and can he heard - almost felt - all the way down to the Bund. There are fifteen cabarets, starting with the Fantasio-very select to the Ritz, which is also very nice, too. The street is filled with the animal life indigenous to such surroundings, taxi-hustlers, procurers, beggers, Russians willing-to-reveal-the-night-life, ricsha coolies, massage house steerers, stolid Annamite policemen and optimistic sharpshooters of every stripe and hue. Sailors, marines and occasional civilians of every nationality wander, teeter and finally stagger from place to place, pausing only now and then to punch each other on the nose as the occasion demands. Apparently assault only becomes a violation of French law when bones are broken, or maybe nothing counts on Blood Alley as long as both parties keep their fingers crossed, because few people get arrested there.

Just the other side of the Settlement gate, and in the Chinese late-closing area, is Jukong Alley, scene of the Venus Cabaret, already described. Here are probably the greatest collection of honky-tonk cafes ever assembled on one street. Most of them are Russian, some are Japanese, all of them something extra special in what the Well Dressed Man is avoiding this season. That is, outside of the Venus, and an especially choice resort, called the Red Rose, quite popular with the Russians.

Here at the Red Rose, where Russian Gypsy music and singing gets a big play, they have an act which bids fair to be the best act in town. A woman (very enbonpoint) creaks out onto the floor to sing a painfully operatic number. In the midst of the number, a man can be perceived stealing out of the kitchen. He pauses behind a post, hurls a coin out onto the floor, and whips back into the kitchen. The coin is a decoy. People are supposed to follow suit and drown out the song with the music of falling silver. But no one ever does. Sometimes the stooge from the kitchen tries again. Nothing ever happens. One of life's minor tragedies but very fascinating after the fourth or fifth visit to the Red Rose. You get to waiting for the man to steal out of the kitchen.

there
are
also
some
chinese
in shanghai

quaint people really

To most foreigners there are but two kinds of Chinese, the clean and the the dirty. However, the situation is more complex than that. There are Chinese who like foreigners and those who do not and are very much in the majority. There are Chinese who are very, very Western, modern and sophisticated in their activities and outlook and other Chinese who condemn them seriously for being so. Then there are the "returned students," so earnestly and garrulously interested in the promotion of Occidental-Oriental goodwill, with committees and associations and other impedimenta, that its rather painful. And of course, there are always the coolies who, if somewhat filthy and noisome, are at least without inhibitions or complexes.

The younger Chinese are split into two groups. One is an eutrasmart, very sports-clothsy, country-clubular set with all of the nuances of Long Island and Mayfair behaviorism, which is something that Freud really missed. The other group, in greater majority, are seriously following a back-to-China movement, which means a reversion from the foreign influence of the past thirty years and a return to real Chinese, customs, dress, manners, philosophy, intellectualism and conduct of life. Which gives them the edge on the ultra moderns.

In any case, the better class Chinese of both camps go in for social life in a great big plentiful way. Teas, balls, dances, garden parties and benefits till it hurts. And Chinese women are assisted in their adoration of the social amenities by the fact that male Chinese don't mind getting into the soup-and-fish-in fact they like to-and the result is that even the most ordinary of Chinese acairs are good copy for the rotogravure section. In the past, parties of mixed foreigners and Chinese were quite common, but there has been a tendency toward the inclusion of less foreign guests more recently. Possibly the failure of Western nations to intercede in Far Eastern crises the way they did in bygone times may have something to do with the not-so- amiable attitude of the Chinese.

It is considered quite a personal compliment for a foreigner to be invited to a Chinese home for what is known colloquially a "Chinese Chow." We will not go into detail here upon the details of a Chinese dinner, having dealt with it elsewhere in this learned treatise, but we will just mention that it is rather incongruous to come to such a party, sip a cocktail with the assembled guests in Western style and be considerably impressed with the cultured English, informed conversation and evidences of what Occidentals regard as breeding displayed by all hands, and then go into the dining room, and see said persons eating from communal dishes in the center of table, with lavish contributions to the table cloth, sucking in edible fluids with complete abandon, ejecting from their mouths the undesirable, and getting as close to the foodstuffs during the entire performance as their noses will let them. Or maybe its the fault of the chopsticks.

Chinese women are quite lovely and exotic in appearance. Their long, panel gowns fitted to their generally slim bodies, their coifure perpetually perfect in its delightful complication, and invariably small feet in possibly smaller shoes, they unquestionably score insofar as appearance is concerned. For some reason, foreign women are completely unable to wear Chinese clothing with anything approaching the effect achieved by the Chinese, in fact they look pretty terrible in them for the reason that the Occidental curves are in different places. if you follow us. And if you do, you shouldn't. And while on the subject of Chinese women, we want to go on record as exposing the age-old Occidental belief concerning their physiognomy. In the words of a certain United States senator, after his first twenty-four hours in Shanghai, "It aint so!"

Chinese men are of no interest to anyone except themselves. They wear long black gowns, like tea and grow rather obese after forty.

The lower classes, always safe to discuss, offer many and diverse opportunities for comment of various sorts. Males of the working classes can be roughly if vaguely divided into two classes, coolies and boys. We have never been exactly certain as to how to definitely differentiate between certain products of these two classes that seem to merge, but we can best advise you that a "boy", technically speaking, seems to be a washed coolie. Also the word "Boy" spoken in a loud voice, denotes that you want something done that in the United States, you would do yourself. Houseboys, or domestic servants as you will be surprised to learn, are a class to themselves, almost a race to themselves. They know more about you than you know yourself, and think less. They infest the dark regions under the stairs and back of the kitchen and are always going to send out the laundry tomorrow when you expected it back today.

houseboys. and other
necessarv evils

When a househoy gets to the point that he knows about all of the discreditable things about his master and missy, he is made a "number one boy." One of the best qualifications for the post of number one boy is a competance at getting rid of shroffs, or bill collectors. This, coupled with an ability to tactfully awaken and dispose of mislaid inebriates from the night before, before master and missy come down to breakfast, constitutes the repertoire of a perfect number one boy.

Much is said of the efficiency of Number One Boys. In fact, even the least vain of men are apt to boast about their boys, and will recite long boring stories to prove their boy's ability, resourcefulness and intelligence.

And so we tell the story of the Number One Boy whose master was very proud of him. Master went state-side to marry his childhood sweetheart, did so, and came back to China. All the way back, he talked his bride silly with yarns about the number one boy. Finally, after some delay and difficulty on the last lap of their trip, they arrived late at night at the young master's home, and turned in.

Next morning, the young busband arose and left for the office leaving his wife to sleep. The number one boy came in, took a look at the situation, went out, and returned with a five dollar bill which he tucked into the sleeping wife. She awoke with a start. "Can go now, Missy" said the omiscient number one. "Masta have gone work."

Chinese life is essentially elemental, being hampered with nothing more complex than the ageold superstitions which are fighting a losing battle with the apathy toward such things that civilization brings. Still the old custom persist.

Chief amongst the current observances of old custom are the funeral and the marriage rites, and even these are gradually under-going a blending with Western custom. Many Chinese girls of ordinary class marry in veil and after Western fashion. same manner as fish, slit up the midle and put on the table whole, where it is then sliced. The meat is firm, white and inclined to be very oily.

A ceremonial dish, served at banquets and formal dinners is wha t'sen which is a steak taken from a monkey.

Field mice, skinned and fried in deep fat, is a very popular dish among the coolie class in this part of the country. At one time the eating of cats was a common custom, but Western influence has partially done away with this, as far as we know. During great famines they have been known, though rarely, to resort to eating babies, hut as they so naively put it, "they don't eat them as rare as the British eat their beef.". . Oh Well!

Taking of food probably ranks second only to the eating of it, and the eating certainly ranks first in the heart of any good Chinese (or bad).

the beggar kingdom

Outside of returned students and business men, the best English spoken in Shanghai by Chinese, is spoken by the begger class. Please understand that these are not ordinary beggers, requiring from the world, in exchange for a plaintive whine, a pittance that will sustain a wretched existence. These high toned mendicants are professionals, masters of their art, specialists in whatever form of argonizing that their art may take.

The beggers guild, an organization that has put begging on a paying basis in Shanghai, is better and more effectively organized than the Standard Oil Company. A prospective member is examined as to his capabilities and rated accordingly. If he has always been a whining begger and the guild comes to the conclusion that his capabilities are of a different hue and he's been wasting his time whining for people when the market is already glutted with whiners, then he is persuaded to change his act. Ragged suits (often very patently ragged) are provided. He or she is encouraged to get good and dirty (excessive coaxing is not necessary) and then with the character created, the scene is laid. Shanghai is plotted out by the guild and beggers are allocated to certain beats with
systematic finesse. And their locale is changed carefuly from time to time. In this way, though there are thousands of beggers, one never sees mobs of them together, as in India, and, on the other hand, no important spot is without it's outstretched palm, or palms. Their rights are carefully protected by the guild and in many other ways they are taken care of. For all of this benevolence, the beggers from their not-too-bad earnings, pay a regular cut to the guild.

Nauseously afflicted and eyeless, maimed or otherwise repulsive medicants are as common as Englishmen with adenoids. Female beg-geresses carrying enormous children well able to walk abound.

Many of the mendicants are good entertainers. Jugglers (after a fashion), are common. Along the wharves, begging acrobats, do very well, especially when cruise ships, packed with tourists, are in. There are also singing beggers (usually women and very poor singers, even for Chinese style) and comic beggers, whose comedy consist for the main part, of grimaces and the effect of grotesque hats.

Most interesting to foreigners are the small girl and boys who beg In the foreigner-infested district about the Cathay Hotel and Bund region. The stock-in-trade of these children, who are between the ages of five and fifteen, is an immense geniality, a keen know-ledge of what will make the foreigners laugh, a remarkable gift for repartee, and all the personality in the world.

The little girl who makes her plea for money on the basis that she has "no mama, no papa, no home, no chow, no whiskey-soda" is famous. This damsel knows her customers, spots them a long way off, and will follow a ricksha for blocks, making the most personal remarks and enquiries, until her victim pays off. Quite definitely interested in the affairs and activities of her clients, she will, if she sees someone that she knows in the company of a women with whom she has never seen the man before, shout out "Whatsa matter, mastah, have got new missy? Where old missy go?"

Foreigners are good customers, usually because they are amused or rendered sympathetic by the stories told. The Chinese are good givers but for a different reason, feeling that it gives them face to give to a begger. Chinese pro- stitutes, dancing and Sing Song girls are legitimate prey for the mendicant class, as they are gener ous givers. Unfortunately for the face of foreigners amongst the Chinese, Russian beggers are comparitively common and are not above soliciting alms from the Chinese themselves.

and in Conclusion-

With this sympathetic critique of the profession which seems happier and more prosperous than any other group in town, Chinese or foreign, we wind up our interpre-tation of the multi-colored and complex Bagdad-on-the Whangpoo known as Shanghai.

One more thing before closing-something that might be termed "the Shanghai ilusion." Many otherwise intelligent people, misled by gaudy fiction on the East and by wacky movies produced by directors whose ideas of China were garnered in midwestern chop suey joints, conceive it to - be an eerie place peopled with sinister Orientals, embittered remittance men slowly going to hell. gin sling in hand, and painted adventuresses casting spells whilst murmuring cynical epigrams (Marlene Deitrich-like). Well, women paint and cast spells in Shanghai (just as they do in Snyder's Falls, Vermont) and men drink and go to hell (and return) and it's rumored about that there are a few Chinese in the town. But as the incipiently-disapponted believers in such yarns find out, all of this is but part of "the Shanghai illusion" and is as phoney as a Hollywood opium joint.

Shanghai is a grand town. Not an atmospheric background for Oriental melodrama, but a grand place to live, to work and to enjoy life.

Many profess to hate the town, and to be waiting eagerly for a chance to depart. Chances came and go and yet they seem to linger on, making excuses for their dalliance.

And when they do go, those who have spent some time here and come to know the place, there comes a feeling of regret as they sail down the river looking back at the Bund for the last time. a feeling that wherever they are going they will always want to come back.

The old town must have something.

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