East Goes West

by Younghill Kang

  Everybody had constantly before him the standard of shrewdness, shrewdness for profit as measured in dollars and cents. A petty limiting atmosphere lay upon all one’s thoughts and acts from the moment one entered Boshnack Brothers’ store. If in honest indignation I went to discuss with Miss Stein those teakwood stands, she would whisper, “Sh! Come a little later. Mr. Boshnack is right up there looking down. I want to do things like that when Mr. Boshnack isn’t looking.” Then I would look high up at the great balcony running all around the store, and there sure enough would be big stout Mr. Boshnack, looking down on the clerks and the customers, and to me, for all his Benjamin Franklin spirit, he was almost like a great spider in the midst of his web.

  If Miss Stein seemed to me dumb, it must be said that the men in Boshnack’s seemed even dumber. Of course, I had more opportunity to observe the men. But it must be true—men feel restriction of freedom even more than women do. And these were sorry examples. In Quaker House Hotel—there was a Boshnack men’s club. Not all the men in Boshnack’s could belong. So it was something like a college fraternity. The ordinary salesmen were debarred; but nearly everybody else was there, and it made so many that the dues—one dollar a year—were enough to pay for the rent of a grand room. The hotel was very glad to have the club on its premises, in one of its best rooms, for that way, many people were seen coming in and going out, smoking cigars, loafing around, laughing and having a good time, and they made the hotel appear popular. The clubroom was very luxurious with plenty of lamps and comfortable chairs, and rich thick carpet. There were chess and checkers, cards and poker chips. Sometimes forty would gather in this room, sometimes two . . . sometimes one was there all night entirely alone, and at such times I really enjoyed membership.

  When the clubroom was filled up, there was a good deal of talk. Five per cent was on business management; 70 per cent was on sex; 25 per cent was about Rudy Vallee, Gene Tunney, Jack Dempsey, and Babe Ruth. The main recreation and great hobby was the talk on sex. Most were poor struggling family men whose lives were in the inescapable rut, but in them was seen nostalgic longing to be as free as George Jum; and the easiest way to sneak out of bondage was by way of some illicit sexuality. There were two around whom the rest generally gathered for the laughs and talk. Daugherty, the man who hired and fired, a tall fair man with well-slicked hair, slightly bald, clothes very neat as men in his profession have to have, but beyond them no distinction at all. And MacMann, a big fat fellow, entirely bald, who had been working for Boshnack Brothers twenty-five years. MacMann had several grandsons, and a Baptist missionary daughter working in China, but among “the boys” you would never know about MacMann’s background. Daugherty and MacMann got together over the checkerboard, and while the game was in progress, they wouldn’t say much, no more than, “Well, is there time for another game?” But when there wasn’t time, they would talk.

  “Well, how do you find nigger gals, Daugherty?” the fat man would ask Daugherty. And others then would look around, snicker, and come to listen.

  “A-aaaaaa! Can’t stand niggers.”

  “What! Not even to sleep with?”

  “A-aaaaaa! Nauseate me.”

  “Why, nigger girls are just as good as any others!”

  “A-aaaaaa! I’d lose my virility.”

  “Fact!” interposed another man. “Lot of that depends on the looks of the woman you sleep with.”

  “Rot!” from MacMann. “Pretty faces don’t mean a thing . . . nor pretty clothes neither. A woman’s a woman. If face don’t strike you, cover it up with a bath towel. Let me tell you, nigger girls are the best, in my experience.”

  MacMann asked Daugherty then, had he virility, and the fastidious Daugherty boasted that as for white women, he could use twenty-five in a night. MacMann wheezed and exploded with red laughter. “Aw, come off. You’re just kidding. I tried that. After three or four I was through. I had to kick them all out.”

  So conversation went. Once it was started, others would chime in and keep it up. All evening they could make talk like this, seven nights a week. They brought out many heroic deeds with prostitutes and near-prostitutes. A popular brand of story was that which dealt with someone’s efforts to get with a loose woman in a respectable boardinghouse, how many times he tiptoed out in his stocking feet, how many times he had to turn and run back. Once these men got started, like bad boys, it was a contest to see who could be most unashamed in talk. One made the boast he could go through every love motion in a car, without taking off his hat or removing his lighted cigar. Another, by recounting details of a seduction he had carried out, made the Plastic Age seem purely academic. And yet I suppose all were fairly decent average American citizens. But they had no superiority, neither in virtue nor vices, neither in talk nor reserve. Always the license they took was of the most petty kind, cautious, shrewd, timid and secret, as this kind of rebellion was. Here in the escapist mood to which Boshnack Brothers’ Men’s Club was devoted, wives, too, dropped from their place of grim importance. As the burden and the reward of secure jobs in Boshnack Brothers—the link to duty and badge of the treadmill chain—they became subject for snickering talk like any other woman. One clean-cut young fellow, rather good-looking in the Arrow-collar style but with nothing behind, took everybody into the joke by telling how his bride raised the hotel by screaming on their wedding night.

  This, then, was the atmosphere. This was the substitute for what the romantic George called Mystery. I guess they were not as barbaric as he was. But for a man not to be talking as they were was to be out of place in Boshnack Brothers’ Men’s Club. Campbell, assistant-buyer in the chinaware department, tried to draw me out. Whenever he could, he would talk with me before others to make them laugh. He used to lecture me on how to swear. But he was a very well-meaning, rather earnest fellow. I began to express myself once on the department store business. Horrible, isn’t it? I said. He couldn’t believe that I meant it. What! No good in building up a big department store business like Boshnack’s? Campbell could not see good in anything else! He thought I was crazy. “Yes,” I said gloomily wlth sincere dogmatism, “it costs too much in soul-destroying energy. A store is worse than a factory. The aim is always money, things, sales . . . never life, never creation of anything. It turns away from life. It makes humanity into just a stuff-handling machine.”

  That got under Campbell’s skin. I had assailed his loyalties. Boshnack Brothers’, he argued, was for the good of man actually. It didn’t matter to him, he said, that he wasn’t a Boshnack. If you didn’t have capital yourself, then work for him who has. And why—why—for ages to come, this monument would last, made by the initiative and brains of Boshnacks, to be handed on down to more Boshnacks and their sons. (Campbell was a sincerely loyal employee, like many there. . . .) What! Boshnack not public-spirited, not humanitarian? Look at those endowment funds for keeping up historical houses in Philadelphia (Boshnack’s most recent publicity stunt). Look at the gifts to charity every year. Didn’t I know that if any other department store gave $1000, Mr. Boshnack made out his check for $10,000?

  George wrote, congratulating me on having so good a job. He said he was glad I had the guts to go into big business, and he, too, wished he could get out of housework and place himself with a firm like mine where a man could climb. I wondered if George was right and I was wrong. Well, this must be the lesson I must learn, of American life. This is American life, I said stubbornly. All day long the moving multitudes of humanity, with busy legs, constantly darting false smiles to cover their depressed facial expression, the worn-out machine bodies turning round in the aisles of unmoving glass and china sets, slowly figuring with shaking hands—haste and moving too many heavy things made them so—now over the tally they go, recording 50 cents. Chasing after the dumb aisle man to O.K. a charge account, a C.O.D. sale . . . two eyes to look at the customer, two hands to count the change . . . then to make a sale check, to carry the goods to the packing room,
then to run with the legs’ tottering strength after a new customer, for fear of losing that sale to another salesman (there is a half per cent commission on that sale), at last the dead-tired body moving from the cloakroom to breathe the air—the street air, the dusty, respectable, stale air of staid Philadelphia. But where were all the enchantment and romance, the glorious vision, which I had seen in my dreams of America as a boy?

  2

  I met Miss Churchill through Mr. and Mrs. Winters, with whom I had attended classes in a Boston graduate school. I always thought of Miss Churchill as very old. She was a tall, gentle lady, slightly stooped, with a head of luxuriant iron-gray hair very simply arranged, and she always wore black sweeping skirts, and knitted shawls around her shoulders. Very plain and hearty she was in all she said and did. Whatever formality she had was that which was natural to the heart and never put on from the outside. Her companion, Mrs. Hopkins, an old friend of Miss Churchill’s, was a thin, fragile little woman as delicate as an old silver spoon. Because her chin came out slightly and her nose turned up, she gave the impression of being a saucy talker, more so than she was. Everything in that cool dark house seemed thin, antique and old-fashioned. The furniture was early American, very plain but polished and rubbed soberly by time. The chairs were substantial, esthetic, too, in their simplicity, but they were not chairs to lounge in, but to sit straight in, thoughtful and prim. Miss Churchill was active in the Friends’ Society in Philadelphia, which supported relief work in Belgium, also famine sufferers in China and Armenia, and which raised scholarship funds for Japanese scholars in America in order to console them for the exclusion laws. She was a Free Quaker, quite free, and somewhat of a rebel in her way. A niece of hers had married a well-known Japanese some years before, which had created a scandal in the family. Miss Churchill, both before and after the marriage, had always given her encouragement and sympathy to the young couple. In a beautiful old Philadelphia house on Clinton Street, which had been in her family for a long time, she used to entertain in a quiet way all kinds of people, particularly young people and many of them from foreign lands, such as India, Japan, or China.

  At first I went to Miss Churchill’s only as one of many, with the Winters, or with the Hindu student Senzar, or the Japanese Miyamori. Miyamori had been specially selected on a scholarship given by the Friends’ Society. But he was already a mature man—thirty-eight or forty, with home ties firmly established in Japan. He had the rosiest, most uncritical view of American civilization of any Oriental I have ever seen. He frankly envied me as a more or less permanent exile, and advised me never to go home, since all was primitive and barbaric hell back there. Tall buildings, subways, autos, universal sanitation, great department stores like Boshnack Brothers, these seemed like Utopia to Miyamori. He was a small, dainty man with a tiny moustache. He seemed like a feather, very childlike and ungrown. And he had a habit of writing bad poetry to all his American friends and signing his name “Very respectably.” He was invited by Miss Churchill less and less. As for the Hindu Senzar, I well remember the time he, too, was eliminated.

  It was at a dinner party given for some English actors. Miss Churchill had a young girl art student living with her that winter, by name, Miss Laura James. She was a tall, slender, frail girl of English ancestry, two generations back. Laura had abundant fair hair covering her ears and caressing her cheeks, and done in a large knot behind. Her face was very thin and rather long, her large eyes were of a slaty dark blue, and she had full, wistful lips which pursed themselves sometimes as if in a small, and lonely contemplation. I considered her very attractive, and whenever I looked at her, I thought of a certain poem by Rossetti called “The Blessed Damosel.” Laura had an uncle who was a successful actor, and I believe the guests that night were friends of his. Anyway, they were a young English couple, very refined and superior. The Winters were there, and Senzar and I, so it was quite a large dinner party, of international blend.

  Senzar was an Indo-Oxford product, and was now in America studying engineering. Of course, he was a fanatic patriot, but his words were so much in the clouds, you could not make out whether he intended to go back to India or not. So long as he kept silent, Senzar looked handsome, poetic and sad. And at first he kept silent, rolling around the splendid melancholy of his great dark eyes, so silent that everybody was sympathetic, thinking him shy. But with Senzar it was not shyness. His idea of conversation was the firebrand, elemental attack, mortal combat. On any subject he was ready to die. He was just looking around for an opponent. I do not know if English domination has made Hindus that way—I suppose so—for most of them are ready to go off at a moment’s notice. Anyhow, Hindus and Far-Easterners did not get along well together in Boston schools. It is thought by some Orientals that Hindus lack humor and proportion. What Hindus think of other Orientals, I do not know. But Senzar soon fastened on me as his opponent. Suddenly he began questioning me about my college.

  “Well,” he laughed shortly, “I wouldn’t come to America for an undergraduate education, not if you paid me. For I must have the best!”

  “Man, you ought to have come to America before this, then!”

  “America hasn’t anything. Oxford has everything.”

  “America certainly is best for engineering and physics, which is your line,” I argued.

  “No,” he contradicted flatly. “I am the best-trained of anybody in my line. America for practice. Oxford for theory. Oxford is best for engineering, best for physics, best for electricity, best for medicine, best for dentistry, best for mechanics, best for everything. Oxford, where I went, is best for all. Anybody who goes to an American university isn’t educated. That’s what I mean.”

  The others had been listening attentively to this, with sly glances of amusement and surprise.

  “Ha ha! You think you’re educated. You don’t know how to talk English!” laughed Senzar. “You say it this way—I say it that. Ha ha!” And he drew comparisons between my American and his English accent. “Then, Americans are not sound,” Senzar kept on, and the Americans and the English began to get very uncomfortable. He was unconsciously parodying the English-felt superiority of the English university man. This in itself was painful to that young English couple, both university people, who were there with open minds and much good will toward America. With coolness and irony, the English actor, who was an Oxford man, tried to take Senzar down. He said good words for American ways, even American speech, and criticized his own country, tolerantly and semi-humorously. Suddenly Senzar writhed and turned on him.

  “Why do you speak these lies? Englishmen are hypocrites. Englishmen despise all others but themselves. They are the most conceited and boastful race. They despise Americans even more than Hindus. I know, for I have heard them speak. But the English don’t speak this before Americans. Liars, crooks, hypocrites, devils! O what people you English are.”

  This was making it worse and worse. Miss Churchill was flushing. As hostess, she was in a bad jam.

  “Aren’t you wording it a little bit strong, Mr. Senzar?” hinted Miss Churchill, nervously twisting her hands.

  “Strong?” demanded Senzar incredulously.

  “Naturally your national views blind—”

  “Blind? Not a bit of it. It is you who are blind. I know all about England and the English. You don’t!” he stated rudely and emphatically. “I have lived among them, visited in their homes. All my life I went to English schools. I went to an English school in India. Even there in four months I could learn what it takes English boys four years to learn—for I am more intelligent than English boys. Even the English see it. I am a genius.” Senzar’s face trembled like dark flowing water. His dark eyes glittered hard and bright with hate, as he looked around him with a haughty challenge. “That is why they try to win me to their side (hypocrites!). In England they treat me better than they treat Americans. They do not like to own it, but before Indian genius they are uneasy. They do not understand my
vitality. I was five years in Oxford. (Naturally I have learned all there is to learn. Nothing to get from their education anyway. Only mechanical things.) So you think you know the English? No! This cold-blooded, thieving, wooden, two-faced race? Oh, no!”

  Those polite people were just gasping. No Japanese and Chinese with their countries at war would have made such a scene at a party. It wasn’t over yet. Senzar gave a leap. His lithe body sprang into the chair directly in front of the English actor. Miss Churchill shivered. He shook his fist wildly. “Soon we will drive you English out. When we get guns, we will shoot. We are not afraid of death. We despise it. Because we do not believe in it. I know I am immortal!” Senzar slapped his chest. “That is my Indian teaching. I do not learn that in any English school. We rebel, you see, without guns. Girl students stand up to be shot down. You shoot us, hundreds, thousands, when we shoot one Englishman. We do not care. You English are afraid, with guns. We are not afraid, without guns. If you were in India you could not sleep for thinking about this. In India, every Englishman wears a bulletproof vest under his clothes. He is afraid for his life. We face bullets with bared breast. We are the unquenchable fire in India. It is you English who will die, for you believe in death!”

  Mrs. Hopkins tried to talk about the theatre. He waved his hand for silence. He went straight on, like a crazy man, telling what shameful things the English did in India. Senzar had forgotten me. This Englishman as it happened was wholly in sympathy with home rule. But Senzar did not wait to find that out. I jumped back into the fray. I interrupted Senzar to tell what the Japanese did in Korea. “You Hindus are better off under the English than we are under the Japanese.” He shook his head, waved me aside. But I would not be waved aside. Since he contradicted everybody now who opened his mouth, I kept on. I deflected his words and his wrath toward me. Not without enjoyment, too, I sought to stem that lava which Miss Churchill felt to be such a social catastrophe. Westerners do not talk with the whole body and heart as Asians do. It was furious debate. We were talking on different subjects, but our words clashed in a battle of the elements. It was a stirring evening. But I got Senzar back at last to be my opponent again, away from the Englishman. When Senzar left—he never stayed late, because he got up every morning according to some Hindu ritual to greet the dawn with study—I was almost decorated for merit by the exhausted Westerners.