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Memoirs of Old Shanghai by Anatole Maher & Tani Maher

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Memoirs of Old Shanghai by Anatole Maher & Tani Maher Vol. 32. No. 1 A Publication of UMA, Inc Apr - Jun 2009 Editor: Daniel Gomes, 4394 N. Sweetbriar Ct, Concord, Ca 94521 E-Mail: [email protected] Memoirs of Old Shanghai By Anatole Maher & Tani Maher Old Shanghai History During the high-flying, war-torn epoch of Old Shanghai, into a cocktail of languages, culture and people, I (Anatole Maher) was born on July 9, 1923. In a small house on Albury Lane, a Chinese midwife assisted in the routine business of birth while Amah, one of our two Chinese maids, yelled out at my siblings in her pidgin’ English, telling them to stay bottom side until Tiffin was ready. On my father’s side, I can trace my family back to northern Portugal in the 18 th century to a certain Guilherme Maher. Oddly enough, my family name should have been Lourenco and not Maher. Guilherme’s only child Paula Gomes Maher married Jose Lourenco. Since Paula was an only child, some suspect that Jose adopted her last name to prevent the Maher line from dying out. My mother Tani Yokomiso left her family in Japan and arrived in Shanghai via Harbin and Vladivostok, where she had been employed as domestic help in a Russian household. When my parents married, my mother abandoned her Japanese Shinto religion and adopted Catholicism, my father’s religion. In 1923, our family lived in Hongkew, in the northeast section of Shanghai. Originally, Hongkew was part of the American Settlement, but when I was born it was incorporated into the International Settlement. Our house lay north of the Suzhou Creek, a natural boundary within the International Settlement. Many Macanese families lived in the Hongkew area. Suzhou Creek 1930’s (Dan Gomes Collection) UMA NEWS BULLETIN – Summer Issue 2009 Page 1 of 36 Memoirs of old Shanghai In the Shanghai of the 1930s, out of three and a half million inhabitants, approximately 36,000 were foreigners. A small portion, you might think, but this minority played a very influential role in the city. Foreigners dominated commerce, business and culture. They controlled a large part of city affairs. Clubs such as the Ciro and Venus abounded, where elegantly dressed dance girls whisked away patrons while encouraging large purchases of champagne. Those with limited budgets frequented Blood Alley, popular with Shanghai’s many servicemen who could pick up exotic gals in dives such as the Monk’s Brass Rail or George’s Bar. Western style buildings, such as the Astor House, Palace Hotel and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Building were spread throughout the city. Then there was the Race Course and a night out at the Cathay Hotel for a tea dance. There were social events at one of the many clubs such as the Deutscher Garten Klub, the Lusitano Club or the Cercle Sportif Francais. Some spent their free time attending cricket games before breaking for high tea with scones. Golf was also popular. Americans could tee-off at the Columbia Country Club. The British and other westerners preferred meeting at the more exclusive Shanghai Club. The British had a long history in China. During the heyday of the British Empire in the 19 th Century and through its East India Trading Company, the English became the world’s leading traffickers of opium. The company had a charter to import opium from Afghanistan and India to China and in return send silk, tea and other Chinese products back to the United Kingdom. The drugs had a dire effect on Chinese society. Although the British were the main traffickers of opium, it was, ironically, illegal in England. Eventually, the Chinese government followed the English lead and also made opium consumption illegal, but many local officials were bribed to ignore the trade. Eventually the Chinese government fought back , bringing it into a head-on confrontation with British merchants. This dispute combined with a disagreement over sovereignty regarding prisoners and trade issues in general resulted in the First Opium War in 1839. The Chinese lost the First Opium War and signed the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, which stated that the British were exempt from Chinese law and forced the Chinese to cede Hong Kong to the British and ports in Canton, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Linbou and Shanghai to foreign powers. The Treaty of Nanking in 1842 required the Chinese to provide housing for the British merchants and their families in the five port cities. Imperialistic nations moved in to profit. In 1856 another battle occurred where the French allied themselves with the British and China was forced to amend the treaty, giving all countries that dealt with China the same status as the British. In 1860, the Chinese signed the Treaty of Tianjin putting an end to the Second Opium War , opening up additional ports to foreigners in China. In 1854, the Shanghai Municipal Council was created to manage the many foreign settlements in the city of Shanghai. In 1862, the British Concession and the American Settlement joined to form the International Settlement, which was in the North and East of the city. A small area in Pudong, mostly farm land was also included in the International Settlement. The Municipal Council originally consisted of one German (before World War I), two Americans, and six British members who administered the Settlement. Later, the Japanese and Chinese also became members, bringing the total number of administrators to 14. These members were elected annually by foreigners who were property-owning taxpayers in the Settlement. In effect, the Municipal Council was a foreign political authority on Chinese soil and didn’t consider itself subject to Chinese law. This increased nationalism and resentment on the part of the Chinese simmered for decades until it exploded in the 20 th Century. UMA NEWS BULLETIN – Summer Issue 2009 Page 2 of 36 Memoirs of old Shanghai To the south and west of where I lived, the French had established their own concession and had a separate government. Europeans, American and foreigners, referred to as Shanghailanders, often lived in the International Settlement but if they were especially well off, they preferred the more exclusive French Concession. Back in the 16 th Century, the Portuguese had established a settlement in Macau and it’s no surprise that many of them moved to the Chinese mainland. Many Jews also moved to Shanghai. Starting in the mid-1800s, mostly Sephardic Jews immigrated to the city. The most well known of these were the Sassoon, Hardoon, and Kadoorie families, who established very successful enterprises in Shanghai. The Sassoons were somewhat relevant to the Mahers since my father worked at a Sassoon company. In the 20 th Century after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, many Russians sought refuge in Shanghai for the simple reason that, unlike most cities, Shanghai didn’t require visas or police certificates for immigrants. Because of this liberal immigration policy, during World War II many Jewish refugees from Europe, barred from entering other countries, also flocked to Shanghai to escape the Nazis. Shanghai became know as the “ City of Refuge” for welcoming everyone. Unlike the French Concession which had tree-lined streets, our neighborhood in Hongkew seemed more like a concrete jungle of buildings and asphalt roads. Few trees line the roads so there was scant shade for our modest two-story brick row house. In the summer, the roads sizzled under the blistering sun. When it was unbearably hot, the asphalt seemed as if it would melt. Air-conditioning didn’t exist yet. Even flush toilets were considered a luxury. We didn’t have them in our house on 2 Albury Lane. Every day, a small Chinese man arrived to remove the “night soil” buckets. After he wobbled out of the door, he would attach the buckets on each end of a wooden pole and walk to a horse-drawn carriage, which we called the “honey cart” . UMA NEWS BULLETIN – Summer Issue 2009 Page 3 of 36 Memoirs of old Shanghai As I recall, this human waste was used as agricultural fertilizer. Unsanitary, you may think and so did we. That’s why we never ate salad or raw vegetables at home. All our vegetables were washed very well. A drop or two of what looked like iodine as some sort of disinfectant was added to the water. As an additional precaution, the vegetables were always cooked. Only when I’d started my secondary education did I see, much less eat raw salad.. We had no front yard. A few steps led to the front door that was in a recess from the building line, sheltered by the veranda above it. Beyond a small entrance, we had a straight staircase, above which a fairly large skylight provided illumination for the stairway and corridor. On cloudy days, it was very dark because our house, sandwiched between two other houses, only had windows in the front and back. The other end of the lane led to an alley, which was at the rear of the houses of Peitaiho Lane, where we lived after 1932. Across houses number one to six was a long, low building. These were the barracks for the British troops from Sudan. Many people of mixed race lived on our lane. A British family, the Lawrence, lived in number seven. The Lawrence boys served in the forces in Europe and one returned after World War II. Behind our house was a cobblestone street where all the inhabitants were Chinese. (Editor’s Notes: Memoirs: From Old Shanghai to the New World written by Tani Maher takes the reader on Anatole Maher’s personal voyage from Shanghai to Brazil and finally to the United States.
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