Foreign Devils in the Flowery Kingdom

by Carl Crow

  It was probably not until the foreigners began to assert their national preferences in the matter of food that the Chinese realized they did not all come from the same barbarian race. Hollanders were the first white men to attract the attention of the Chinese artists who decorated enamel ware for the export trade with ridiculous figures of yellow-headed men in baggy trousers. As the fortunes of Holland fell, those of England rose, the Englishman replaced the Hollander as the familiar foreign figure. But the Dutch figure had become conventionalized as the proper representative of the fankwei and the artists never bothered to change it.

  The fact that the foreigners ate different kinds of food offered conclusive evidence that they did not come from the same rabbit warren. Different tastes in food was understandable to the Chinese. They all dressed alike and looked alike but in every part of the country they ate different kinds of food prepared in different ways. The Yangtze roughly divides the country between the noodle-eaters of the north and the rice-eaters of the south. To the Chinese this meant a good deal more than a mere geographical division of the country into areas which provided rice and wheat. All of the famous warriors came from the north. The idea that rice-eaters could never be successful military men gave Chiang Kai-shek a handicap from the beginning of his career. He was born in the rice-eating province of Chekiang and old-fashioned Chinese were sure his career would be brought to an end as soon as he ran up against some tough noodle-eaters from the north. The fact that he was able to triumph over that handicap has added greatly to his fame.

  Every foreigner not only had a houseboy who took care of his clothing but a cook whose sole duty it was to go to market and to prepare his family meals. No matter from what part of the world he came and no matter what his mode of life had been, the foreigner had in China more servants and better servants than ever before. To tell the truth, very few of us had known at home what it was to have more than a hired girl or a hired man; and to become a member of a society where everyone had the equivalent of a butler, valet and cook involved an adjustment to new and unaccustomed comforts and convenience.

  It was always interesting to note the way in which the two sexes adjusted themselves to this new situation. Usually the wife, finding that all the details of the household are quite capably cared for by the staff of servants, takes a long vacation which continues throughout her stay in China. The husband, on the other hand, finds that for the first time in his life he has at his command a willing and apparently obedient cook and makes suggestions and gives orders about food to an extent he would never have dared at home. As the wife usually sleeps late, he has a free hand at ordering his own breakfast, and for that reason breakfast is, to most old China Hands, the most interesting and important meal of the day. Even the Frenchmen who live in China look back on the infamous Continental breakfast as an incident of the past and revel in ham, bacon, eggs, waffles, hot cakes, finnan haddie, and salt mackerel with boiled potatoes.

  No matter how good the cook may be, and most of them are potentially very good indeed, there must be a meeting of the minds. This is particularly important in the matter of soft-boiled eggs. With their fine disregard for accurate timing the preparation of a soft-boiled egg presents more difficulties to a Chinese cook than the baking of a pie. The color of the crust will tell him when the pie is done but the soft-boiled egg is inarticulate. The foreigner with orthodox ideas also runs into difficulties for the eggs of China are smaller. If he belongs to that great school of thought which supports the three minute and a half egg, he finds the rule has to be amended. The theory held by most is that a Chinese egg boiled a little more than three minutes approximates the ideal of a three and a half minute egg from other countries. But whether it should be three minutes and ten seconds or three minutes and twenty seconds or at what point in between has been the subject of many arguments and will probably be under discussion long after the Sino-Japanese controversy is settled.

  One American bachelor who devoted a lot of attention to this problem finally arrived at the conclusion that three minutes and fifteen seconds was just the right time, and he adopted a mode of procedure that insured an accuracy almost miraculous in China. Seated at his breakfast table he would strike the table bell as a signal to put the eggs in boiling water and, watch in hand, would strike it again when it was time to take them out.

  This procedure had been an established routine for more than a year when a friend returning from America brought him a dozen California oranges which at that time were rarely seen in Shanghai. The following morning after what seemed a very great delay the boy brought in a plate with an orange, hot, wet and steaming.

  “What in hell did the cook do to that orange?” he shouted.

  The boy dragged in the cook who with a look of injured innocence on his face said:

  “This belong big American orange. I have boil him three half minutes same you talkee proper for big American egg.”

  The American never knew whether the cook was unbelievably stupid or was having a lot of fun at his expense, a doubt that frequently crept into the mind of every foreigner.

  While the married man living in Shanghai learns as much about food as a traveling salesman with a liberal expense account, it is the bachelor who has spent many years in some of the smaller places up country who becomes really an expert for he has to search out food supplies and see that they are prepared in a form that will be edible. Local supplies of meat and vegetables are confined to the articles that most Chinese demand. It is always easy to get bean curd and goat meat but there may not be a bottle of milk or a fresh tomato in a hundred miles. Under the best conditions life in the interior of China was and is lonely for the foreigner and he makes himself as comfortable as possible. The exiled American may not, like the fabled Englishman, dress in lonely state for dinner, but the food on his table will be the best procurable.

  The food to be found in any Standard Oil mess is always superior. The Socony bachelors in the interior spend a great deal of time and thought in training their cooks and in experimenting with the possibilities of concocting edible dishes out of strange Chinese ingredients. If I were to have my choice of the person with whom I would want to spend the rest of my life on a desert island, I would unhesitatingly choose a Standard Oil man who had spent some years in the interior of China. I am sure that if there was anything edible on the place he would find it and that between us we would devise some way of cooking it.

  It is on houseboat trips - especially those which start a day or two before Christmas and last over the New Year - that the foreign devil feasts in a way that would arouse the envy of both the glutton and the epicure. While there are some modern houseboats which resemble miniature yachts the old-fashioned orthodox houseboat was nothing more than a flat-bottomed boat pulled through creeks and canals by the coolies or “yulohed” by means of the one or more peculiar oars swiveled to the end or side of the boat. My wife and I have traveled hundreds of miles on boats so small that there was barely room for the Scottie pup, and on others that housed a half-dozen of us and had a couple of extra bunks for friends who might decide to spend the night. Whether the boat was large or small there was always plenty of food.

  One of the joys of houseboating lies in the fact that it is not a trip but an expedition which must be outfitted as carefully as that of an explorer. I doubt very much if Admiral Byrd ever had any more fun making preparations for his South Pole expeditions than we houseboaters enjoyed when preparing to go up country for ten days. And it was always something of an exploration trip as well, for it is the ambition of every houseboater to push the nose of his homely craft into some new creek and find a new spot of beauty with which his houseboating cronies are unfamiliar.

  All food supplies are taken along and for a trip which will embrace both the Christmas and New Year holidays this involves some careful planning. Liberal allowances have to be made for hearty appetites. The cool fresh air of the country soon drives the Shanghai soot from one’s lungs and the long hikes over the hills do mo
re than any tonic could do. Since houseboating in China was originated by the English the houseboat menus follow the good old British tradition of solid meat dishes and plenty of it. A roast ham is usually the first thing bought. A huge beefsteak and kidney pie is baked; and whenever I had anything to say about it, a beefsteak and kidney pudding as well, for the pie never lasts as long as you think it will - and I personally prefer the pudding. A side of bacon is provided to accompany the fresh eggs that can be bought through the countryside. Kippered herrings for breakfast are a necessity and are bought by the dozen, though I don’t recall a time when we didn’t run out of them before the trip was over. As it is impossible to get any safe drinking water in the country, many bottles of water and other liquids are provided.

  But the memorable delicacy of the houseboat holiday is one that is provided on the trip itself if your friends who carry shotguns are able to bag any of the game which is plentiful in all parts of China. In anticipation of this the cook always brings along the biggest iron pot he can find. When a wild goose or duck, a pheasant, pigeon, or partridge, or one of the tiny mouse deer is brought down, it is cleaned and all or part of it chucked in the pot which is kept at a constant simmer. Selections from each day’s bag are added, the bones which have floated to the top thrown out, and more water poured in. At the end of the second day this communal pot, cooked without a recipe and without any fixed ingredients, is ready for the hungry. All they need to enjoy it is a spoon and a bowl and a slice of bread. That is the famous “game pot” of the China Coast, and until you have tasted it you have missed one of the world’s great dishes.

  I don’t know that any excuse or explanation is needed for the enjoyment of good food. But it is easy to find both explanations and excuses for the interest in food displayed by practically all foreign residents of China. The most important of these lies in the fact that while extraordinary good food is to be enjoyed it is not, as in America, to be got merely by paying the price for it. There are now a very large number of good restaurants in Shanghai: British, American, Spanish, Italian, French, Danish, Dutch, where the national dishes of each of these countries are fittingly represented. They normally serve the great floating population - the large number of officers of the merchant marine, the visitors from the outports, commercial travelers and tourists.

  The Shanghailander dines at home. The variety of the menu depends upon the purchases made by the cook, on his early morning visits to the market where the everyday meats and vegetables are bought and carried home in his basket. And it would be everyday food if the cook were left to use his own initiative and not constantly prodded with suggestions. The markets merely provide a place where the gardeners, the chicken farmers, and the butchers can set up stalls and sell their produce. If one wants oysters he must remember that the boat from Dairen arrives every Thursday and that its entire cargo of oysters is usually sold out in an hour or two. The same is true of the weekly shipment of fresh fish from Japan except for whale meat and squid brought in in large quantities for the use of the local Japanese population. There were times when we could get the giant crabs from Vladivostok, other times when clams from Ningpo and prawns from Chefoo were on the market. The demand was always greater than the supply and the arrival of each shipment was an event of importance.

  The lack of cold storage made all local fruits as well as fish, seasonal, and while we could not enjoy them during certain months of the year, our relish was all the keener when it was possible to get them. We had imported apples, oranges, and bananas all the year round, but these were forgotten in the spring when the first mangoes arrived and were cheerfully bought at outrageous prices. There were many who like myself ate mangoes every day until all that were left were the shriveled remnants of the last crop. The pumelo which was the grandfather of the grapefruit lasted a little longer. Then came the strawberry season which was also all too short, to be followed by lichees, and the delicious big Chinese persimmon which I tried unsuccessfully to grow in Massachusetts. About Christmas we forgot all about the imported American oranges for then the Szechuen oranges which came into the market were so far superior. Peaches from Hangchow, pears from Chefoo, grapes from Tsingtao - all these were to be had at the appropriate season but only by the vigilant. In Shanghai the appearance of the first strawberries on the market was an event important enough to justify a telephone call to my wife, and possibly a special trip to the market. Here I see strawberries under my nose every time I go to Great Barrington, and I find I have very little interest in them. Cold storage and modern marketing methods have robbed us of the enjoyment to be found in seasonal delicacies because they have obliterated the seasons.

  Among the characteristics of the foreign devil was an ability to keep sober under conditions that, to the outside observer, made that fact appear well-nigh incredible. It may as well be admitted that the foreigner on the China Coast drank a great deal. In no place in China in the early days was there any water that could be used for cooking or drinking. In Shanghai the muddy Whangpoo was settled by the use of alum and no amount of filtering or boiling would completely remove the alum taste. An infusion of whisky or gin not only made the water palatable but was thought by many of the doctors of that period to be efficacious in the destruction of germs. The same doctors thought malaria came from excretions from the soil and induced the municipal council to prohibit the laying of drains during the summer months. They were probably wrong about the efficacy of whisky and gin but their opinions were honest and they had many followers. To this day no one drinks water that has not been filtered and either boiled or distilled and how flat, tasteless and unsatisfying it is as a drink. And as no one can be sure that the water has been properly filtered and boiled it is generally looked on as a dangerous drink. In the course of years whisky may cause hardening of the arteries but it will not bring on an attack of typhoid. Wine and spirits of all kinds were always abundant on the China Coast for their importation did not have to await the development of cold storage. With a small import duty and no excise or license fees to pay, prices were cheaper than any other place in the world. Conditions are different now but a quarter of a century ago liquor was so cheap that there was an elaborately stocked sideboard in almost every home.

  Thomas Cook, the pioneer travel agent, came to Shanghai in the early days of the settlement and was so shocked by the drinking habits of the foreigners that he spent all his time while in the port distributing tracts about the evils of hard drink. The temperance movement never languished for lack of human material. There was always at least one local resident who viewed the habits of his fellow townsmen with alarm. In 1911 it was Consul General Wilder who tried to get every young American to sign the pledge on his arrival. One Sunday the consul general fell in a faint while on his way home from church. A fellow parishioner rushed into a nearby bar and brought out a glass of brandy. Just as the stricken man was about to open his lips he closed them tight and whispered, “That’s whisky. Take it away, I’d rather die than have a drop of alcohol pass my lips.”

  He was one of the very few foreigners who was so allergic to alcohol. The foreign devil drank, but in so far as that is possible, he drank wisely. The “double thrill” cocktails I see advertised in this morning’s New York Times, the hasty gulping of drinks in order to down as many as possible before catching the subway, were not for him. Scotch was the favorite drink and when mixed with a liberal amount of soda or plain water it had an alcoholic content about equal to that of beer. Drinks were consumed in leisurely fashion and the question of who was likely to win the annual golf championship or how much money a Chinese general had received to call off his troops might be pretty thoroughly threshed out before the second round was ordered. There were probably few places in the world where the per-capita consumption of alcoholic drinks was greater than at the Shanghai Club during the tiffin hour nor few places that presented a more perfect picture of decorous conviviality.

  The American Club was not quite so decorous for we will be noisy and boisterous -
drinks or no drinks. It was not only the loud talk but the rattle of dice that made it a noisy place. As a means of encouraging though not enforcing a “no treat” custom, members of the American Club always shook for drinks. After a man had had one drink, whether he had lost and paid for the round or had won and enjoyed a free drink, his obligations were washed out. He was free to stay or go just as he liked.

  Dice shaking for drinks was sternly forbidden at the Shanghai Club. The truth of the matter is that during the intermittent periods of prosperity the bar at the Shanghai Club - “the longest bar in the world” - was so crowded that those who had their elbows on the bar had to pass drinks back to those who were standing in the rear. There the treating system found its most luxurious growth. One was supposed to make a mental note of who had bought him a drink and return the favor at the earliest opportunity. The English were very meticulous not only about remembering their own obligations but those who were obligated to them. If a man didn’t keep up his own end he was likely to get a bad reputation. When luck went against them and they were short of money some did get bad reputations but they also got a lot of free drinks.

  Most of the drunks were visitors. The only time the American Club became a bedlam was when the officers of the American Marines arrived and took advantage of their privilege as visitors to the club. But they were not the only newcomers who had to learn from experience the soundness of the advice:

  Meantime, my friend, it would be no sin

  To mix more water with your gin.

  I recall one very famous star of Hollywood and Broadway who came to Shanghai with a troupe of performers to give one of our very infrequent homeside shows. We all bought tickets and a packed house waited long for the show to open. It finally opened but didn’t last long. The famous star had forgotten his lines. The pretty little ingenue staggered slightly as she entered. That was one time the show did not go on for the very good reason that the troupe had lingered too long at the Astor House bar. The curtain was rung down and the promoter of the enterprise sadly returned us our money.