SHANGHAI A CITY OF SCAVENGERS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 2, 25 September 1937, Page 15

SHANGHAI A CITY OF SCAVENGERS

] i Starvation for Sea-Gulls ALL THINGS HAVE VALUE

(JNLIKE THE FOEEIGN YISITOR) who is usually impressed by its modern wharves and docks, a Chinese fiiend of mine who had recently visited Dairen, that modern and prosperous smugglers' cove which is the capital of Japanese Leased Territory of Kwantung, S. Manchuria, noticed things of a human rather than a lnechanical value, writes Carl Crow in "400 Million CustomeM." For instance, he observed that everyone appeared to be clothod in warm garments and €)very labourer was enjoying heaped bowls of food. When someone expfessed the opinion that he had "overdrawn the picture a bit, he adduced one final and convincing bit of evidence. The people of Dairen, he said, were so prosperous that the streets of the city were littcred with cigarette butte and no one bothered to pick them up. No cigarette butts litter the paveinents of the puroly Chinese sections oi Shanghai, By the time a smoker gets through with his cigarette, there is so little of it left that if he took another puff he would burn his lips. Foreign smokers, on the other hand, are more wasteful. Most of them toss a cigarette away when there is a good lialf iuch left, and somclimes even more. In Shanghai^ though, this flotsaru of tho pavement is observed by keen-eyed old men who, with a prong on the end of a stick, pick up tho commercially valuable butts and deposit them in a tin. On rainy days, when the salvage end of his business is a total loss, hc removes the charred euds, shreds the tobacco from the papers, and with this raatefial rolls by hand a lot of readily mirketable cigarettes. In the matter of net income, it is the most profitable cigarette business iu the world, for neither exponso for materials or advertising is involved. Every cent is clcar gain. It also serves the useful purposo of kecffing our streets clean. During tlie Japanese war on Shanghai iu 1933, in the fighting which took place in the Hongkew seetion of tho International Settlement of the city, there was a lavish and apparently useless expenditure of ammunition. Although tliere were no Chinese soldiers in Hongkew, and never have been any, tlie Japanese riflemen and [ macliijie-gunners took sliots at every , moving object. As a result a great many inoffeusive Chinese civilians Avore - kilied and Ihe .sltuighlor of cals wa? (lcn'in«

During this bloody military holiday, As soon as the big merchantman or everyone, including the various muni- gunboat drnps anchor in Shanghai, one cipal departnients, moved out of this or more of the little salvage boats area — all, that is, except the street anchors iu a strategic position to catch cleaning department. The coolies who everything that comes from the garbage swept the streets of Hongkew ignored chute. Brijjsh and American navies the order to come in for duty in a delay the clearing of galleys for a day safer part of the settlement. Instead, or so before arriving in Shanghai to they remained hidden in comparatively accumulate an amazing amount of eafe places, but when thfere was a lull bottles and even food. Members of the in the Japanese target practice, and it crew even save up their old clothing appeared safe to do so, they swarmed to add to the largesse for the human out with their brooms and baskets to gulls of Shanghai. salvage the one rich harvest of their In tte race to tIie big foreigI1 ship) lifetime: the empty brass shells and ^bere ;s foui and abusive language, a other abandoned articles of modern unfair and reckless seamanship^ warfaro. and the crews of the British and Ordinarily there is little of valu» on American gunboats watch these races the streets to salvage. The ordinary witli keen interest and rewax'd the early risors pick up the more important winuer wifcli tho ricllesb prizes of the scraps of paper before the stroet garbage. After tlie garbage chute has cleaners start to work. But a few disgorged what appears to bo u just hours after the "Shaughal war" was and appropriale share, tho winuer is over, and Avhen an army of Shanghai ordered aAA-ay to ligive somebody else a souvenir hunters swarmed inlu the war chanc6, zon^ they didn't find even so niuch as Nothing escapes these aeaveugers. an empty gun clip. The "Shanghai The bottles and tins are readily marketwar'' was, in this respect, probably the tlxe food will fatlen pigs and most tidy war ever fought. chiekens. The harbour of Shanghai is not oniy Every foreign household providee a one of the most important and busiest, rich tsupply of salvage which -is the but one of the cleanest in the world, perquisite of the house coolie. Clothing None of the flotsam and jetsam of other is seldom too old to find a ready saie, harbours, no broken fruit crates, half- but if it is, the garment is reduced to submerged guuny sacks, decayed its component parts. The cloth can then oranges, and odds and ends of lumber be patched together and reconstructed will be found ftoating about. All these to form almost anything from a shirt things are valuable and they are res- to an overeoat. Chipped or cracked cued by the salvage boats which ply buttons can. be marketed. And if there about. They are modest, both in equip- are any dress-making activities going ment and personnel. The boat is flat- on, everyscrap of cloth is saved. If the bottomed and small enough to be cloth eannot bc used in any other way, navigated by a single pair of oars. The eeveral layers of scraps are pasted tocrew invariably consists of the skipper, gether and make very serviceable slioe who is also the owner, his wife and soles. Tho sails of a great many Yangtze sueli children as are too young to be riyer jlinks ar0 coinp-osed of old flom. usefully cmployed ashorc. These folks , , sacks. Old' tins arc melted, producinn rescue l1"4 '•"rbour v\rreckage. ' i,uuul-JJ1o from each a rei'tangular pieee of serTt ' • ailse they do their wmk so .(horoughly that there aro no seagulls Yiecablu liu which, if thero arc enough, ,in Sliaiiffhni. J enn be unt mi the ijinf of »oiir housetj

[apping the individual pieces like shingles. Even bits of broken window paues have a value, as carpentors use broken glass to finish wood work. Our house coolie searches the waste basket every da^y for old manuscript pages I have thrown away. Since oniy one side of tho paper has been written on, ouly half of the usefulness of tho writing paper has been destroyed. "What is left finds a ready salo to students. Stubby ends o£ lead pencils are marketed in the sanie way. He even saves old film negatives, though I can't imagine what use is ever found for them. Shanghai is probably the oniy place in the world where bridge games begin at 9 o'clock in the morning. The wives of foreign business men play bridge inccssantly and relinquish their household taisks to Chinese coolies. The result is the quantity of slightly soiJed playing cards produced here is prodigioua and provides means to pnrchase many an extra piece of pork for the enjoyment of the thrifty house coolie. They also provides the ricksha coolies with unbelievably cheap cards for each card is cut in two pieces, thereby making two packs out of one aud providing a paek which will fit into a Chinese coat pocket. Eveu counlerfeit coins have a value in China. Twenty years ago^ before tho coinage of silver dollars became uxiiform through the opevatiou of a central mint, thero was a large number of provincial miuts each operating with different ideas as to the proper Aveight aud fineness of each dollar piece. There were also quantities of Mexican and old Spanish dollars. Therefore, in any transaction xnvolving the payment or the collection of a quantity of dollars. it tfas neceesary to apecify which dollars were to be used. At one time the Cliineso Government Eailway had posted an official liet setting forth the discount at which various provincial dollaTs would be accepted. At the bottom was the notice: "Counterfeit coins accepted at market rate." We are on a paper or "managed" cnrrcncy basis now. But the fact. that those former pieces were not of pare silvor, or eontained no silver at all, did not destroy their value. It wasn't nece-ssary slvly to pass them off on someone elsn. Wc mcrely toolc them to an cxchange sliop where experts would deteruijnc llieir value earcfully and oivB a fnlr nrire fnr them'. ,