leather, and tung oil. And silver. Vast quantities of silver. Yes, the Whangpoo might smell of refuse, but it also smelled of money. It was, as the Shanghailanders claimed, a stench one could get used to.
Leo stopped his compulsive pacing and scanned the busy river traffic. Boats of every shape and description jostled and dodged each other in the gray-yellow light of early evening, covering the harbor with a floating quilt of tramp steamers, passenger ships, sampans, and junks. This menagerie of vessels brought cargo to and from the massive freighters anchored close to the mouth of the Yangtze, as only smaller craft could navigate the shallow port. The squat sampans served as water taxis, and also as houseboats for thousands of Chinese. From the shore Leo saw charcoal stoves belching out black smoke, and blue cotton laundry hanging out to dry. Here and there a Chinese toddler played in split pants, attached to a mast by a short leash.
But this evening Leo’s eyes swept over the exotic Chinese vessels without interest. The one boat he ached to see was not yet there. No steam launch from the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company cut through the foamy yellow water toward the sturdy piersthat lined the foreshore of the Bund. It was now seven o’clock. Martha would not arrive tonight.
With a short sigh of frustration, Leo turned on his heel and headed toward Nanking Road, back to the cool shelter of the Palace Hotel bar and the ephemeral comfort of a brandy. He cut a path through the mass of humanity crowding the walkway. The last vestiges of daylight would soon disappear, but the Chinese entrepreneurs who worked the Bund with territorial possessiveness were still active. He passed a wizened old coolie selling hot, succulent pork dumplings, and a round-faced, smiling grandmother peddling bamboo trinkets and jade earrings. A tired pregnant woman dressed in pink silk squatted behind a pile of embroidered slippers for sale. They and dozens like them filled the air with a steady din of enticements, encouragements, boasts, and insults. They called out in Chinese, in Pidgin English, and in broken, bastardized French. Leo ignored them all as they shouted to be heard above the engines, whistles, and horns of the harbor. The noise one had to get used to, or go deaf or crazy. Incessant noise, like the stench of the river, was part of life in Shanghai.
The collapse of the Manchu Dynasty in 1911 left the Chinese empire at the mercy of competing warlords. These ruthless land pirates divided the once mighty kingdom into private fiefdoms, slaughtering those who resisted. But Shanghai remained an island of productivity amid the anarchy. There, under the tender protection of warships flying the flags of the United States, Japan, and half a dozen European countries, the invisible hand of capitalism guided the lives of a million Chinese and fifty thousand foreigners with relentless economic discipline.
Since the 1840s, treaties guaranteeing “extraterritoriality” to the foreign residents living within two geographic districts, the FrenchConcession and the International Settlement, rendered the Shanghailanders subject only to the jurisdiction and laws of their respective countries, as interpreted and executed by the local Shanghai Municipal Council. If an American committed murder in Shanghai, he might be punished. For an economic crime he was virtually untouchable. Most European residents enjoyed the same liberty. Greed and vice were the mainstays of Shanghai commerce, and Shanghai justice was as shallow and corrupt as the waters of the Whangpoo.
Never had there been such a boisterous blend of east and west; never had there been such a clamorous coexistence of the devout and the deviate, the prosperous and the penurious, the opulent and the oppressed. Staggering wealth and stunning poverty existed side by side, each a tribute to the unique world that was Shanghai. It was, as Leo had been told by the crude American James
Leo stopped his compulsive pacing and scanned the busy river traffic. Boats of every shape and description jostled and dodged each other in the gray-yellow light of early evening, covering the harbor with a floating quilt of tramp steamers, passenger ships, sampans, and junks. This menagerie of vessels brought cargo to and from the massive freighters anchored close to the mouth of the Yangtze, as only smaller craft could navigate the shallow port. The squat sampans served as water taxis, and also as houseboats for thousands of Chinese. From the shore Leo saw charcoal stoves belching out black smoke, and blue cotton laundry hanging out to dry. Here and there a Chinese toddler played in split pants, attached to a mast by a short leash.
But this evening Leo’s eyes swept over the exotic Chinese vessels without interest. The one boat he ached to see was not yet there. No steam launch from the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company cut through the foamy yellow water toward the sturdy piersthat lined the foreshore of the Bund. It was now seven o’clock. Martha would not arrive tonight.
With a short sigh of frustration, Leo turned on his heel and headed toward Nanking Road, back to the cool shelter of the Palace Hotel bar and the ephemeral comfort of a brandy. He cut a path through the mass of humanity crowding the walkway. The last vestiges of daylight would soon disappear, but the Chinese entrepreneurs who worked the Bund with territorial possessiveness were still active. He passed a wizened old coolie selling hot, succulent pork dumplings, and a round-faced, smiling grandmother peddling bamboo trinkets and jade earrings. A tired pregnant woman dressed in pink silk squatted behind a pile of embroidered slippers for sale. They and dozens like them filled the air with a steady din of enticements, encouragements, boasts, and insults. They called out in Chinese, in Pidgin English, and in broken, bastardized French. Leo ignored them all as they shouted to be heard above the engines, whistles, and horns of the harbor. The noise one had to get used to, or go deaf or crazy. Incessant noise, like the stench of the river, was part of life in Shanghai.
The collapse of the Manchu Dynasty in 1911 left the Chinese empire at the mercy of competing warlords. These ruthless land pirates divided the once mighty kingdom into private fiefdoms, slaughtering those who resisted. But Shanghai remained an island of productivity amid the anarchy. There, under the tender protection of warships flying the flags of the United States, Japan, and half a dozen European countries, the invisible hand of capitalism guided the lives of a million Chinese and fifty thousand foreigners with relentless economic discipline.
Since the 1840s, treaties guaranteeing “extraterritoriality” to the foreign residents living within two geographic districts, the FrenchConcession and the International Settlement, rendered the Shanghailanders subject only to the jurisdiction and laws of their respective countries, as interpreted and executed by the local Shanghai Municipal Council. If an American committed murder in Shanghai, he might be punished. For an economic crime he was virtually untouchable. Most European residents enjoyed the same liberty. Greed and vice were the mainstays of Shanghai commerce, and Shanghai justice was as shallow and corrupt as the waters of the Whangpoo.
Never had there been such a boisterous blend of east and west; never had there been such a clamorous coexistence of the devout and the deviate, the prosperous and the penurious, the opulent and the oppressed. Staggering wealth and stunning poverty existed side by side, each a tribute to the unique world that was Shanghai. It was, as Leo had been told by the crude American James
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