LIFE IN SHANGHAI

Inangahua Times, Volume VII, Issue 1035, 13 January 1882, Page 2

LIFE IN SHANGHAI.

♦ The " Vagabond," who is contributing an interesting series of articles on China to the " Australasian,' thus describes the scene on the Bubbling Wells road, a kind of Rotten Row in the suburbs of Shanghai — "From five to seven o'clock in the summer evenings this road is one of the sights of the world. Hundreds of vehicles pass up and down. Broughams, barouches, phaetons, dogcarts buggies, children in miniature pony carriages — reminding one of the Bois-~-otker children taking their first lesson in equitation, men riding in the orthodox English fashion. But the majority are driving, and there are no ladies on horseback. Lawn tennis is almost too much exertion in the East for the fair sex They perfer at five o'clock to put on their warpaint— figuratively speaking — and 101 l back in a brougham and pair, 4dmtfed also, of course, by all, and all especial objects of interest to the Chinese women, who are taking their evening drive on the road. Numbers of open carriages are filled with singing girls and their amahs — female servants, who act as duennas. These girls, of whom one hears so much, are painted and enamelled, their hair plastered down and every endeavour apparently exerted to give their faces a fiat and expressionless appearance. And I must confess that, from our point of view, their efforts are rewarded with success. But this is a Chinaman's type of beauty — the fiat-faced woman famifar to us on porecelain ware and pictures. The more inane-looking these girls (someof whom would-otherwisebe really pretty) the greater their beauty. Their drek«e?ms simple* enough. ~A China^ man with only &ro visible germents always of the same sack like pattern has not much chance of putting on style, but their uncovered heads are often adorned with strings of pearls of great price. The young Chinese who come to spend their amusement and go mad about these girls, and lavish as vast sums on them as the golden youth of the French capital did no Nana and her friends of the theatres. So a singing girl often accumulates a large 1 respectability and sanctity. But to achieve this she must be absurdly ugly, and have a voice like a screach-owl. There are many other Chinese women driving about, often family groups, and in these the children have an eager, inquiring look which it is delightful to see, as ah evidence of a joint human nature with this strange people." '