Shattered China Dream

The Shanghai Club at No. 3 the Bund was the most exclusive club in the city. Since 1864, only upper-class Englishmen had been allowed to enter its doors. The three-story red-brick building was one of the most conspicuous in the architectural landscape of the Bund in Shanghai at that time. It had the great honor of hosting United States President Ulysses Grant when he visited Shanghai in 1879, nearly two years after his presidential tenure had expired. Similarly, when the Duke of Connaught, the brother of King Edward VII, visited Shanghai with his wife, Princess Louise Margaret, and unveiled the statue of Sir Harry Parkes in 1890, the Englishmen in Shanghai hosted a dinner party in honor of their guests in the Shanghai Club.

At the beginning of 1909 the original building was torn down and rebuilt with reinforced concrete in a neo-classical design. The new club was a massive building, clad in white marble. There was a triple entrance in front of the club, a short flight of stairs on each side leading to the main hall. The entrance staircase used imported, white Sicilian marble. The hall was surrounded by a colonnade of twin columns that would not have looked out of place in London's club scene. The gallery around it served the purpose of a corridor leading to the dining rooms, card room, billiard room, etc. The left side of the first floor was well known for its ‘Long Bar’. It was an unpolished, mahogany, L-shaped bar that measured 110.7 feet along the front and 30 feet along the return. It was famous for being the world’s longest bar at that time. There, the taipans (big bosses) and griffins (junior officers and clerks) stood in precisely prescribed positions according to their rank and importance in the community. The places up front near the window were always retained for the most powerful, important elders in the community, while the newest, greenest griffins could linger only in the places down in the shadows at the far end.

(1) The bar in Shanghai Club was the longest one in the world at that time.

The large banqueting hall was on the second floor, which extended across the entire width of the front, and there were small balconies to each window. Some other dining rooms, a reading room, and another billiard room were on the second floor. The third and fourth floors contained 40 bedrooms arranged for resident members and visitors. The top floor held a big kitchen and residential quarters for staff members.

The building’s elevators were all made by S.M.S. Lifts Co. from Northampton and imported from the U.K. Several elevators could reach to the bedrooms on the third and fourth floors and the kitchen on the fifth floor at the back. At the right hand side of the hall in the front, all the floors were linked by twin-close elevators. They went up and down through the middle of the curving marble staircase. No expense was spared in making the club an elegant but comfortable refuge for its privileged members.

On January 6, 1910, the Bund was sealed off between Canton Road and Rue du Yang King Pang. A guard of honor, composed of armed Sikh policemen, had taken its place, the town band was in attendance, and later a detachment of sailors arrived from H.M.S. Flora. As the crowd of members assembled, the road in front of the Shanghai Club was throbbing with people. Members and guests were all waiting on tiptoe for the arrival of the senior member, Sir Pelham Warren, the British Consul General. When he appeared in his brougham, escorted by a detachment of Sikh troops, and inserted the key in the door of the magnificent new building, crowds of people who were gathering in the street burst into thunderous applause.

Certainly, it was one of the most extravagant clubs in Shanghai at that time. According to the club’s strict membership rules, only those Englishmen who had been resident in Shanghai for at least two years could apply for membership. Of course, they also had to belong to the upper class, own their own property, and be able to afford 125 silver dollars for the admission fee and nine silver dollars for the monthly membership dues. On the club’s members’ list were many famous Englishmen in Shanghai at that time: the Inspector General of Chinese Customs, the British Consul General and other diplomats at the consulate, directors of the Shanghai Municipal Council and the London Mission, taipans and senior employees from Jardine, Matheson & Co., the Peninsula & Oriental Steam Navigation Co., the Indo-China Steam Navigation Co., the Butterfield & Swire Co., the Shanghai Electric Construction Co., the Shanghai Gas Co., the Shanghai Waterworks Co., the Shanghai Hong Kong Bank Corporation, the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, the Asiatic Petroleum Co., and the Lester Estate. There were also the editors of the North China Daily News and the owners of many companies exporting pigments, pharmaceuticals and chemicals, such as the Brunner Mond & Co., the Caldbeck Macgregor & Co., the Dunlop Rubber Co., the British Cigarette Co. Ltd, etc. At that time, even if an Englishman had been resident in Shanghai, if he did not have enough money or did not belong to the upper class, he was not eligible for membership of the Shanghai Club.

The club kept the traditions of the Victorian era, and its exquisite decoration was full of typical English sentiment aimed at the tastes of British gentlemen.

The bar always offered a wide range of original products, which had been imported by the box load from all over the world, such as whiskey and red tea from England, coffee from Columbia, beers from Germany, vodka from Russia, wine, brandy and champagne from France, and Havana cigars from Cuba. Besides that, the bar in the Shanghai Club was famous for mixing the best cocktails in the city.

The spacious dining rooms of the club were all lit with rock crystal pendant lamps and there was a dark gray carpet. The members were able to choose from an à la carte menu, German sausage and ham, Russian caviar, and French foie gras, and to savor mellow Bordeaux wine just imported from France. Then, they would leisurely enjoy their authentic Western lunches or dinners with their family and friends in the elegant and quiet surroundings.

Waiters polished the sprung floor of the dance hall all year round. The French windows of the dance hall were hung with dark, purplish-red velvet curtains, adding to the luxury. The best bands in the city were always invited to play dance music for them. In the holidays, especially at Christmas time, while the dance music was playing, couples gracefully and tastefully danced on the dance floor. No one could have imagined that such a comfortable, tender, romantic scene was being acted out in Shanghai, China.

The porter turned many visitors away with the apology: Excuse me, sir, you can’t come in here; you are not a member.

It was true, to be able to go into this Gothic building was a symbol of a person’s social position. People said at that time, Shanghai is a paradise for foreign adventurers. For the British upper class in Shanghai, the Shanghai Club was their paradise within a paradise.

On important festivals and normal days alike, club members went there to enjoy themselves and relax. They casually played bridge in the card room, sat on the chairs in front of the longest bar in the world to enjoy a cocktail or a cup of Colombian coffee, played billiards in its two billiard rooms, bowled in the basement bowling alley, smoked a Havana cigar or chatted in the hall. They could also sit in the leather armchairs in the reading room to read any of several English language newspapers, such as the North China Daily News, the China Press, the Shanghai Mercury, the China Gazette, the Sport and Gossip, or the Shanghai Times, all of which were published in Shanghai. Alternatively there were many ‘foreign’ newspapers and magazines, such as the Edinburgh Review, The Times, Era, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Wall Street Journal, La Temp, and the Revue des Deux Mondes, which had been brought in from Hong Kong, Bombay, London, Paris, and New York.

To be a member of the Shanghai Club was the perennial dream of many Englishmen in Shanghai. Only the members had access to the many luxurious pleasures there and could flaunt their high status. And only in the club, in subdued English voices, could they temporarily forget the undercurrents of crisis that were emerging prior to the war in Europe, temporarily forget the problems of their businesses, and temporarily forget their homesickness being so far from their homeland. They could pretend that they were in a gentlemen’s club in London. The Shanghai Club served as a symbol of the luxurious life, and bore witness to the affluence of the city and the privileged position of those upper-class foreigners who lived there.

My grandpa, Charles Pellew, was the No. 1 Clerk of the Shanghai Club at that time.

(2) The Shanghai Club (the building on the left with the awning) on the Bund where my grandpa, Charles Pellew, worked for nearly 25 years.

It was late in the afternoon of Christmas Eve 1911 in Shanghai. The weather was cold, and a chilly wind whistled through the plane trees on both sides of the streets, scattering the leaves. It would soon be snowing, according to the weather forecast of the Zikawei meteorological observatory. Due to the proximity to the end of the year and the cold weather, just a few Chinese people were on the streets, hurrying home in their scarves and cotton caps. A few rickshaws were waiting on the corners of the streets, the rickshaw-pullers huddling against the cold and keeping a lookout for anyone who might need their service. Occasionally a car sped by on the street, leaving a trail of white smoke.

That year, in Europe, countries faced a situation of political chaos and economic depression before the First World War. However, at the same time, China was experiencing the demise of its feudal kingdom, and was facing a period of great change. The 1911 revolution drove the Emperor Hsuan Tung of the Ching Dynasty from power. Although the Chinese people had already cut their pigtails, they were still accustomed to celebrating their traditional Chinese New Year, which had been a tradition for thousands of years. Christmas was a festival for foreigners only and it was strange and meaningless to them. Since the Revolutionary Army had recovered Shanghai on November 3rd, several five-colored national flags were hanging on both sides of the main streets. Many people in Shanghai, both Chinese and foreign, took a wait-and-see attitude to closely watch how the situation might develop in China. Only a few people shopped in the stores, even though big colorful hoardings with ‘Buy one, and take two’, or ‘Selling off goods at reduced prices’ hung in front. Some of the assistants in the stores were yawning again and again.

In contrast with this sad air outside, inside the Shanghai Club was already brilliantly illuminated, and the jolly festival atmosphere was permeating all over the building. All the staff were carrying out their final preparations for the Christmas Eve celebration. A Christmas tree, more than five meters tall, was erected in the center of the hall and colored glass balls were hung on the tree, all of which had been brought in from London a few months previously.

The huge twin columns on both sides of the hall were luxurious. Above, the banisters of the second floor were decorated with red silk bows and colorful balloons from one side to the other. They were all bright under the illumination of the lamps. It was about 5:30 pm, the band members had arranged to have their dinner in a small dining room on the second floor, because later, when all the members and guests arrived, they would not have any free time. The waiters, wearing neat white uniforms with black bow ties, bustled vigorously in and out.

By Christmas Eve 1911, my grandpa had worked in the Shanghai Club for more than 20 years and he knew precisely how to prepare the Christmas Eve celebrations. He had started his preparations more than a week before. Depending on the number of members and guests who would attend the celebration, he had to arrange the tables and chairs, calculate and take out the relevant number of boxes of wine and champagne, plates, wineglasses, knives and forks, and he also had to know how many roast turkeys and Christmas puddings were needed to be prepared in advance. He knew the precise moment when he would have to invite the British Consul General and the president of the club to make their speech, when he had to order the waiters to bring the various dishes and when he had to instruct the band to start their music. Even though in accordance with his orders the staff had to prepare everything perfectly, from car parking to the perfumes in the toilets, he still preferred to personally inspect everything once again when it was ready. He knew that no mistakes could be allowed, because the members and guests there were the most important Englishmen in Shanghai.

Having been in the club for so long, he knew almost all of the old and new club members who were either diplomatic personnel, or the directors or senior staff of important British companies in Shanghai; many of them were even his good friends. Since mid-afternoon of that Christmas Eve, as the members and guests had arrived successively, my grandpa had been continuously greeting and hobnobbing with them.

Hello Charles! Merry Christmas! How wonderful the decorations are! said John, the director of the China Navigation Co. Ltd.

Hello John! Merry Christmas! Enjoy yourself tonight! my grandpa replied with a smile.

Hello Charlie! Merry Christmas! I have been looking for you. said Henry, the editor of the North China Daily News. He was also my grandpa’s good friend.

Hello Henry! Merry Christmas! It is always an honor for me to be able to do something for you.

Could you please let me know your opinion of the new revolutionary authorities? Will they change their attitude to foreigners in China? I have to prepare an end-of-year report on the subject for my newspaper.

Great changes had taken place in China since the revolution of October 10, 1911 in Wuchang, which had finished 270 years of the feudal rule by the Ching Dynasty in China. Seventeen of the 24 provinces had declared independence and cut ties with the Ching Dynasty, but without doubt the Chinese Emperor would not be willing to step down from the stage of history. China was at a crossroads and no one knew exactly what course the future of China would follow.

Henry considered my grandpa to be a reliable source whenever he needed to provide some deep analysis of the Chinese political situation. My grandpa was considered to be a person who knew much more about Chinese culture than other foreigners in Shanghai, because he had been born and had grown up there.

After my grandpa had given him a brief explanation, he was unprepared for the barrage of further questions from Henry: Have you read today’s newspaper, Charlie? Dr. Sun Yat-sen will arrive in Shanghai tomorrow. Do you think he might be elected as the president of the new authorities? What will his next step be? Do you think Yuan Shih-kai will support the Republic? Do you think there is any possibility that the Emperor of the Ching Dynasty might stage a comeback? Do you understand the importance of all this, Charlie? It will have a very strong influence on the business of these foreign companies here and the will of their further investment in China.

My grandpa still had much to do, so he told Henry, I am sorry, friend. I am busy right now. Could we find a time after today’s Christmas celebration? Then we can discuss these things in more detail.

Of course, I am sorry to have troubled you. Will tomorrow be all right? Could I come and see you about ten o’clock tomorrow morning?

All right. Enjoy yourself tonight.

See you.

A family combining the West and the East in China. My grandparents and my aunts (from left to right: Margaret, Grace and Sophie) in Shanghai around 1900.

While my grandpa moved around in the club, he always greeted members and stopped for a brief chat. When he was crossing the hall and heard someone call his name behind him, he turned round and found William was at the door of the billiard room, Hello, Charles. Merry Christmas! I haven’t seen you for a long time. Are your wife and daughters all well?

Hello, William. They are quite well, thank you. It is nice to see you again. Merry Christmas!

William was a senior manager at Caldbeck Macgregor & Co. He had been transferred back to England about two years previously and had just returned to Shanghai for a few days. When he’d gone back to England in 1909 the foundations for the building of the Shanghai Club had just been laid and now, when he returned to Shanghai, there was a magnificent new Shanghai Club building towering to welcome him.

The design of the building is perfect, isn’t it?

Sure, my grandpa answered.

It is a pity that Mr. Tarrant could not see it himself.

Yes, it really is a pity.

Mr. Tarrant, a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and a famous architectural designer, designed the new Shanghai Club building in England, but sadly died soon after the board of directors decided to adopt his design from 17 sets of potential plans. Mr. A. G. Bray replaced him and, at a cost of 450,000 taels of silver, he completed this, the first building constructed of cement in Shanghai. It became one of the most splendid spectacles at the Bund of Shanghai in the early twentieth century.

The club members and guests arrived one after another, and my grandpa was kept busy hobnobbing with these, the richest and most important Englishmen in Shanghai. However, each time he walked from the dining room to the hall, he couldn’t help gazing a little while at the entrance to the club. He took the elevator upstairs again, where he found one of the tablecloths was not smooth enough, so he asked a waiter to change it immediately. Not long after, he went downstairs to the bar, where he asked the head waiter of the bar to prepare a cup of coffee for him. When he raised his cup, he turned his head to look at the entrance again.

At that time his wife, my grandma, was in a hospital in the French concession of Shanghai. Their baby was one week overdue. Even though his good British friend Dr. Clean had agreed to deliver the baby, and two maidservants were allowed to stay in the hospital to look after his wife, my grandpa was still very much worried about that. More than an hour had passed since his rickshaw puller, Ah Cheng, had been sent to get information for the third time that day. At any other time of the year, my grandpa could have asked for a few days off and could have stayed in the hospital to be with his wife, or at least he could have asked Ah Cheng to ferry him to the hospital to have a quick visit. But today was Christmas Eve and all day important members and guests had been arriving and the celebrations would begin soon. As the No. 1 clerk he took personal responsibility for the celebrations and there was much to do in the club. So it was out of the question, even if he just wanted to leave for a little while.

He left his coffee almost untouched, as his mind was on other things. He went to his office where he fell to his knees and prayed. He gave thanks to God for sending him another child and requested our Father in heaven to take care of his wife. It did not matter whether the coming baby was a son or a daughter, even though they had five daughters already.

Ah Cheng ran back, sweating profusely because he was running rapidly. He passed a note written by Dr. Clean to my grandpa. Dr. Clean said in the note that he had just made another examination of my grandma and he felt that the baby was not imminent. The doctor asked my grandpa to relax because everything was going well at the hospital. Relieved, my grandpa gave Ah Cheng a pat on the back. He asked a waiter to tell the cook to prepare dinner for Ah Cheng and bring it to the waiters’ rest room.

Tell the cook to fry two more eggs for him! he added, as the waiter ran off to the kitchen.

The Christmas Eve celebration was a great success. Almost all of the upper-class Englishmen in Shanghai had assembled together in the banqueting hall that evening. It was only at the Shanghai Club that they would accept such a high level of enjoyment. That night, as they sat at the long tables covered with fine white tablecloths without any creases, drinking toast after toast and tasting their roasted turkeys and other delicious dishes, the band played Christmas songs one after another and mixed with some merry classic music. Most of the time, the Englishmen tended to be overcautious and serious, but on Christmas Eve they allowed themselves to be moderately indulgent and to enjoy happiness and peace in their hearts. After dinner the ladies and gentlemen danced in the dance hall, which they enjoyed very much. Many Englishmen were talking, drinking, laughing and shouting, until the hands of the clock hanging on the banqueting hall wall indicated that midnight would be coming soon.

My grandpa gave a signal with his eyes to his assistant, then many champagne bottles were uncorked and sent out sweet sounds of ‘ping’ and ‘pong’ one after another. After a while all the waiters brought champagne on silver trays to each member and guest and golden French champagne bubbled merrily in the champagne glasses. Just at that moment, the band started to play the British national anthem, God Save the King, and everyone’s morale was high. They all stood up and raised their champagne glasses, and loud shouting and singing followed the music.

Nobody realized that snow had been falling, feathering down for some time and outside the windows the whole world had turned white.

Until the last guest left the Shanghai Club, my grandpa had to go on supervising his staff. Then he sat in his rickshaw and Ah Cheng pulled the rickshaw over the snow and ran past the British Consulate at No. 33 the Bund, turned left there into Soochow Road South and reached the Szechuan Road Bridge. He went across the bridge and into Szechuan Road North, he reached my grandpa’s home at the International Settlement very late that night.

His wife and two maidservants were in the hospital and the children were all asleep. A servant was waiting for him even though he was dead tired. The two linked three-story houses seemed so silent. Before my grandpa went to bed, he prayed again to implore Almighty God for mercy, to take care of his wife in hospital and the baby who would be born any time now. When he was in bed, he took out his bible and opened it. His eye fell on a verse in Matthew, Chapter 7: For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. After reading that, my grandpa felt calmer and he fell asleep.

Ah Cheng got up early the next morning. He did not wake anyone else at home, but went alone to the hospital to get information. Not very much later he ran back. While he was entering the lane, almost everyone, even those at the far end of the lane, heard him shouting: It’s a boy! It’s a boy! The servants woke my grandpa up and congratulated him; a son had been born to him on Christmas Day. The children were woken and great happiness permeated throughout the whole house. My grandpa gave every servant a red envelope with some money inside as a Christmas present. He offered Ah Cheng the opportunity to take a rest, but the loyal rickshaw puller declined and offered to take my grandpa to the hospital right away. The other servants made breakfast for my grandpa and the children and then they helped him to put on his overcoat and sit in the rickshaw. Ah Cheng fetched a thick woolen blanket to cover my grandpa’s knees and started to pull the rickshaw and run toward the hospital.

It was early morning on Christmas Day 1911. The snow of the previous night had stopped; the weather was cold, with an icy wind still whistling from the north. White snow sat on the streets, sidewalks, branches and roofs on both sides of the streets. It was very early and there was no one in the street. My grandpa sat in the rickshaw and closed his eyes. He gave thanks from his heart to Almighty God for such a precious Christmas gift.

Ah Cheng deposited my grandpa at the hospital entrance; stepping down from his rickshaw, my grandpa ran quickly into the ward. There he saw my grandma lying in a bed near the window. She looked a little tired but happiness and satisfaction showed on her face.

My grandpa sat in the armchair close to the bed. He placed under my grandma’s pillows several packets of the English chocolates which she liked the best, wrapped in colorful tinfoil, and then held my grandma’s hands. She said in a low voice: Thank God! and told my grandpa that she had arranged to receive baptism.

My grandpa stared at her, surprised. His wife had been a devout Buddhist for a long time. So far, they had had five daughters but as a traditional Chinese woman, she had been longing for a son since they were expecting their first child. My grandma had promised her husband when their fourth child was a daughter, if Jesus Christ would give them a son, she would become a Christian. When my grandpa recollected his wife’s oath, his face burst into a smile; he knew that his wife would like to perform her promise now.

A French nurse, with golden hair and blue eyes, wearing a white dress with a frilled apron, brought out the boy in light blue swaddling clothes, and handed him to my grandma’s maidservant, Ah Lan. Then she carefully held the baby in her arms, and walked toward my grandpa. She held up the baby and showed him to my grandpa. This was the first time my grandpa had seen his son. He stretched his hands to embrace his son in his arms, then lowered his head and gently kissed the baby’s rosy cheeks.

My father was a lovely boy with plump cheeks. My grandpa was overjoyed.

Sir, what is the name of your baby boy? Ah Lan asked with curiosity.

Name? Of course . . . my grandpa smiled. Yes, he had been keeping a special name for his son for a long time. Since they had had their first child, my grandpa had selected that name and kept it in his mind for the occasion when the child might be a boy. However, he never imagined that he would have five daughters over a period of 20 years and that the selected name would not be needed for such a long time. His father had not only given him an English name, Charles, but also a Chinese name, Fee Chun. This was an approximate pronunciation in Shanghai dialect for Fleetwood John, a name taken by the 4th Viscount Exmouth and his descendants from the Pellew family. In the strict sense, Fleetwood John in the Shanghai dialect could be pronounced as these three syllables: Fee Woo Chun. However, according to the Chinese naming system, the name should have only one or two syllables. So the two syllables Fee Chun were chosen from Fee Woo Chun.

Actually, like his Chinese mother and younger sister, my grandpa used to dissatisfy his father. His father had told them he would return to China before his leaving; so no one expected that he would not return, but would leave them deserted in China alone. When they were young, they suffered much discrimination from Chinese people because, since the Opium War of 1840, China had consistently been defeated in its wars with foreign countries. As the descendants of foreigners they became guilty in the eyes of most Chinese people, and they were even in some danger when, on occasion, the Chinese excluded anyone foreign or tried to kill foreigners, such as during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900.

Although his mother refused to say anything about their British family and always dressed them like Chinese people, their Eurasian faces gave away their secret. When my grandpa grew up, he asked his British friends to find his father and any relatives in the Pellew family. He found unexpectedly that many prominent Royal Navy admirals and officers came from this celebrated family: Edward Pellew was the First Viscount Exmouth and Vice Admiral of the United Kingdom and Admiral of the Red Squadron of His Majesty’s Fleet, he was also the Commander-in-Chief of the East India Station from 1804 to 1808. Fleetwood Pellew, Admiral of the Blue Squadron in the Royal Navy, was the Commander-in-Chief of the China Station from 1853 to 1854. Pownoll W. Pellew, Royal Navy Captain, was based in China and received the China Medal 1856-1860. Israel Pellew, who was appointed a full-time Admiral of the Royal Navy in 1830, was at one time Captain of the Conqueror, the fourth ship in the van or weather column under Nelson’s command in the famous Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. When he and his officers and men on the Conqueror saw the famous flag message ‘England expects that every man will do his duty’ signaled by the Victory, Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson’s flagship, everyone’s emotions ran high and their courage was unrivaled. They all dashed forward, regardless of their personal safety, toward the enemy naval vessels and during this fierce battle, the Bucentaure, the flagship of Villeneuve (who was the Commander-in-Chief of the combined French and Spanish Fleets) was forced to surrender. Admiral Villeneuve offered his sword to the Conqueror's captain of marines, who had been sent aboard by Captain Israel Pellew to receive his sword.

(3) Edward Pellew was the First Viscount Exmouth and Vice Admiral of the United Kingdom.

And now, finally, after 20 years, my grandpa could give this marvelous name, Edward, to his son. In the Pellew family, many parents chose this name for their sons, because Admiral Edward Pellew was the most remarkable member of the family, due to his brilliant achievements in the wars, for which the title of Viscount Exmouth had been conferred on him. They expected their sons to be like Edward: to be outstanding, respectable and honorable men. My grandpa included. Additionally, he considered that since they lived in China it would be better to add a Chinese name as well, as he himself had. He had prepared this for his son already. Edward in the Shanghai dialect could be pronounced as these three syllables: Ei Te Woh. However, still keeping to the custom of the Chinese naming system, he chose the two syllables Ei and Woh from Ei Te Woh. The name of Ei-Woh in Chinese means ‘Love China’. Obviously, he really expected that my father would not forget the country where he was born and would come to love that country as he grew up.

Although my grandpa was pleased with himself for finding a Chinese name which had both a workable pronunciation and a relevant meaning, he probably did not consider much that in China those two Chinese syllables, Ei (Love) and Woh (China, flowers), were usually chosen for female names. Thus my father had on the one hand an English name used by the outstanding Royal Navy admiral of the Pellew family, and on the other hand a Chinese girl’s name!

Chapter 2. The Historian in our Family

My grandpa had a sister, Henrietta Pellew, who was only one year younger than him. My grandpa, Charles Pellew, had received a Western education in the Lowrie Institute in Shanghai, a school founded in 1860 by a missionary, John Farnham, from the U.S.A. His sister was lucky to be able to get a Western education in school too. She studied at the Mary Farnham Girls’ School, which was founded in the South Gate area of Shanghai by the aforementioned John Farnham’s wife, Mary, in 1861. Both Dr. and Mrs. Farnham had been sent to China by the American Presbyterian Mission. At that time Chinese girls were not allowed to go to school owing to the folk traditions, influenced by a conservative feudal society spanning several thousand years. Missionaries and Christian women arriving in China discovered this unfair discrimination and helped Chinese girls by setting up some schools for them. In the beginning, besides the Mary Farnham Girls’ School, there were only four other schools for girls in all of China: one in Ningpo, one in Canton, and two in Shanghai. Of these two, one had been founded in 1850 by Mrs. Eliza J. Bridgman of the American Congregational Mission and the other, a little later, by Miss Catherine E. Jones of the American Episcopal Mission. Less than two years after Mrs. Farnham founded her school, she was asked to take in the pupils from the other two schools after Mrs. Bridgman left China following the death of her husband and Miss Jones returned home, seriously ill. The Mary Farnham Girls’ School was, for many years after that, the only school for girls in Shanghai.

(4) Dr. John Farnham.

When Henrietta had finished her studies, unlike most Chinese girls, she had not only gained much useful knowledge but she could also speak both English and Chinese fluently. It was said that she married Mr. James Ollerdessen, who was a Dane and the owner of a Danish shipping company in China. They had a daughter, Lulu, who was born on October 21, 1891 in Shanghai. Unfortunately Mr. James Ollerdessen died at the age of only 26, when he met with a serious marine accident in December 1892. At that time their son Jimmy (James H. Ollerdessen) was still in his mother’s womb (he was born on February 15, 1893). As James’s wife and beneficiary, Henrietta received a large amount of money from the insurance company and she accepted my grandpa’s advice to buy some land and build seven houses as an investment. While the houses were under construction, she found that there were many additional pressures on the budget. She looked to my grandpa for help and borrowed an amount of money from him. She promised to give him one of her seven houses as payment for her debt. In this way, she owned six houses on Wanglo Road and my grandpa owned one, located in quite an elegant and quiet area of Shanghai. Henrietta and her family occupied one of her six houses and the rest were all rented out to rich foreigners in Shanghai, some from Scandinavia, and some from the U.S.A. With the rent as her income, Henrietta and her children could live a quite comfortable life in Shanghai at that time. My grandpa had his splendid salary from the Shanghai Club, and the rent from his house enabled him to do some charitable work.

After five daughters in a row, finally my grandparents had a son and it goes without saying that their hearts were filled with joy. According to Chinese custom, my grandparents had a fine celebration when their son reached a month old, which is known in China as ‘one full moon’, and later a celebration for his completion of 100 days.

Time flew. December of 1912 arrived and my father, who had grown into a lovely plump baby, was almost one year old. My grandparents wanted another fine celebration and my grandpa reserved two tables at the Shanghai Classic Hotel in the old town, for members of his own and his sister’s family. The restaurant had been established in 1875, and was famous for its traditional Shanghai-style appetizing cuisine.

However my grandpa’s sister Henrietta told him that, although she appreciated Shanghai cuisine, her children were not very fond of Chinese food because, even though the dishes were all delicious, they complained of too much oil and salt. She offered my grandpa what seemed a sensible alternative: she would ask her own cooks to prepare a lunch comprising both alternatives—Western-style food and Chinese food—so they could all enjoy the tasty meal.

Henrietta employed two cooks at that time: one cook, Lao Wu, was good at preparing Western food, and another cook, Lao Sung, was expert in making Chinese food. Lao Wu had worked for many years for the family of an English manager sent by William Forbes Co. to work in Shanghai. The manager was a member of the Shanghai Club and, after a short time, he and his wife became my grandpa’s good friends. My great aunt Henrietta had taken on the cook Lao Wu more than five years previously when the manager and his family had been sent to work in Hong Kong by order of his company. My great aunt and her children all appreciated the delicious meals Lao Wu prepared for them. Just like my grandpa, his sister Henrietta had half British blood from her British father and half Chinese blood from her Chinese mother. She was quite happy with Western-style cuisine, but she had a special liking for Chinese cuisine and she took on Lao Sung from a declining Chinese official family, and he would prepare only Chinese food for her.

Henrietta was half British, and her husband James Ollerdessen was Danish, so their children, Lulu and Jimmy, both had the appearance of Westerners. Not long after the death of her first husband, Henrietta married a Norwegian, Mr. Fredrick S. Andersen, in Shanghai. Their daughter, Mabel, who also looked European, was born in 1897. They lived a Western way of life in Shanghai, eating Western food every day and studying at the Thomas Hanbury School for Boys and the Thomas Hanbury School for Girls, which had been taken over by the Municipal Council and converted into the public schools for foreign children. Like many foreigners living in Shanghai at that time, they had a sense of superiority over the Chinese. My great aunt’s children enjoyed their bourgeois life and avoided mentioning anything about their Chinese ancestry. They lived in a big, three-story house and had seven servants in total. There were the two cooks, together with Ah Lan, my great aunt’s personal maid, Ah Ma, a middle-aged female housekeeper, Ah Hsiang, the woman in charge of washing the clothes and dishes, Hsiao Ti (little boy) employed for a short time to do some odd jobs from polishing shoes to cutting the grass in the garden, and also a private driver, Lao Chou.

My grandpa had two linked three-story houses in the Szechuan Road North at that time, not far from his sister. The famous Beulah Chapel, belonging to the U.S. Christian and Missionary Alliance, was halfway between their houses. Besides preaching the gospel to those local English-speaking Chinese and Japanese people in the Beulah Chapel, with a group of native Chinese young evangelists in Shanghai, Pastor and Mrs. Woodberry had a street chapel open every day, usually filled with people to hear the gospel. Pastor and Mrs. Woodberry were first sent to open up wasteland in Tientsin, China in 1895. In the course of only five years, their work had acquired almost marvelous success. The entire class of students that graduated from the Medical College in 1900 had all received baptism. Unfortunately, they lost their eldest son Roy there; he fell through a hole in the frozen river while he was skating in the New Year of 1896. Due to the Chinese Boxer Rebellion, while Christians were killed and persecuted in the northern part of China in 1900, their Beulah Church in Tientsin was completely destroyed, forcing them to move to Shanghai. There they had established a new Beulah Chapel (built in 1899) in Szechuan Road North; one of the earliest Christian churches with spiritual strength in China. Pastor John Woodberry used to be a wealthy businessman in Muskegon, Michigan. He owned three hardware stores and one flour and feed store. One day, when he was age 40, he heard the call from the Lord on High and said to his wife: Katie, I must give up business, and preach the gospel. They sold their profitable businesses, gave up their beautiful house and their comfortable and affluent life and moved with their children to China. Like most missionaries coming to spread the gospel in China at that period, they had to bear hardship and lead a frugal life.

Pastor John Woodberry and his wife Katherine Woodberry.

Before my father was born, my two aunts, Sophie and Margaret, were sent to Japan by their parents to study in the Tokyo Women's Higher Normal School. After they had finished their studies there, they returned to Shanghai. My Aunt Margaret was hired by the Woodberrys to teach English grammar and music in the Beulah Academy. Every Sunday morning my grandpa rose early and went to the church to listen to Pastor Woodberry’s preaching, which drew a variety of Christians. He was proud of the fact that when they sang hymns together, his second daughter, Margaret, played the organ, while one of the pastor’s daughters, Ethel or Ora, played the piano. Everyone who went to their church loved and respected the pastor and his family. In order to bring the Gospel to Chinese people, they had given up their affluent life in the U.S.A. and come to China to enjoy their poor life, as happily as if it were malt sugar.

The Beulah Academy, established by missionaries, could not pay my Aunt Margaret a high salary, nevertheless she was happy to offer her services to the school. Sometimes she worked late and was invited to dinner with the pastor’s family, where she often heard Mrs. Woodberry complaining loudly that her daughters had peeled the potatoes too thick. My grandpa earned a decent salary from the Shanghai Club and also received a handsome rent for his house in Wanglo Road each month. So every Sunday he put some money inside an envelope to give to the pastor in the hope that it would improve his family’s life. The missionary, however, accepted this contribution with his left hand and with his right hand rationed it out among the poor people in his church congregation. Thus they were still living in poverty and often could not afford to buy butter and used Chinese fermented bean curd instead.

My great aunt and my grandpa had chosen December 23rd for the great celebration because it was a Sunday, only two days before the day my father reached the age of one year. My grandpa and his family would arrive at his sister’s house for lunch after church where they all worshiped in the morning.

When the big day arrived, grandma held my father in her arms as they stepped out of the chapel. My grandpa helped them to sit in their rickshaw, which was waiting outside, and then he held up their youngest daughter, Winnie, and cautiously put her to sit beside his wife. Ah Cheng pulled the rickshaw to take them to my great aunt’s house.

Even though it was December, that day was as mild as spring with warm sunshine, and my great aunt greeted them at the gate. She took my father from his mother’s bosom and kissed the little boy on his cheeks and said: Oh, Edward, let aunt see . . . Wow, what a lovely boy you are! Oh my god! Have you seen how heavy he is now? My grandma sent their rickshaw puller, Ah Chen, to pick up her husband and their other daughters from the Beulah Chapel. When they entered the house my grandma saw the servants busily spreading a white tablecloth on a big table in the dining room. Only Mabel, my great aunt’s youngest daughter, was at home. My great aunt Henrietta told my grandma that her two other children, Lulu and Jimmy, would be back soon for lunch. Not long after, Ah Cheng arrived with the rickshaw bringing my grandpa, his third daughter Grace and fourth daughter Jossie. Grace told them that her sister Margaret had to stay at the chapel for some additional tasks and thus could not come for lunch, but she would come in the afternoon when she had finished her tasks. Bobby, my great aunt’s German shepherd dog, ran back and forth around the guests excitedly.

After the children arrived, the house soon livened up. Mabel was 15 years old and she took her three younger cousins to her room and took her dolls out from a big box and many other toys, which she gave to them to play with. Not long after, Lulu came back with two of her good friends, Susan and Helen, all turned out in their finest clothes. They were in their twenties and were bright and young. Having been greeted, they went to Lulu’s room, closed the door and were chatting inside, sometimes bursting into hearty, tinkling laughter. The two cooks were busy preparing a variety of appetizing Chinese and European dishes. Everywhere servants were busy with preparation. The chime clock hanging on the dining room wall struck 12 but Jimmy had still not come back, which caused my great aunt to periodically glance at her watch in worry.

Where has Jimmy gone this morning? my grandpa asked.

Young master went with Harry to ride their horses this morning, one of the servants answered.

My grandpa knew Harry was Jimmy’s cousin. His father, Henry Ollerdessen, was chairman of the Stock Exchange in Shanghai and known as ‘Honest Henry’ and Harry’s mother, Louisa, was the eldest daughter of the Cooke family. Her father, Colonel Cooke, had come after General Fredrick Townsend Ward of the Ever Victory Army, to fight against the Taiping Rebels. They successfully beat off the attacks of the Taiping Rebels against Shanghai and when Ward died, the Chinese paid him the honor of burying him in the Confucian Cemetery at Ningpo, where they had erected a great mausoleum and placed monuments depicting scenes of his victories.

Harry owned two Mongolian ponies which possessed many merits: brave and fierce, they had great endurance and quick understanding. Recently Jimmy had become infatuated with riding and visited his cousin’s house almost every day to ride. At that time to ride and own a horse was a symbol of one’s status among the foreigners in Shanghai.

My great aunt complained, Jimmy is begging me to buy him a hunter these days. He says he wants to hunt with his cousin and other friends, but I think it is too dangerous.

My grandpa said: Sister, don’t worry! To be a gentleman, he has to know how to ride a horse. Oh, his birthday will be in February so I would like to buy him a pony as a birthday present. Please don’t let him know about this; I would like to give him a surprise.

As they spoke Jimmy returned, covered in mud. While he cleaned up and changed, my great aunt asked the guests to be seated around the table in the big dining room.

The servants brought the dishes from the kitchen and put them on the table one by one. When Jimmy arrived with his clean shirt and sweater, he sat beside Lulu and opposite her friends Susan and Helen, chatting about everything from the weather to the newly-established republic in China while they ate the Western food which Lao Wu had prepared.

Soon after, their topic turned to the Opium War and the Boxer Indemnity. My great aunt heard this and turned to them and said, Well, children, why don’t you ask your uncle Charles? He is the historian in our family; and an expert on modern Chinese history.

The four young people turned their heads to my grandpa and Jimmy said, Please, Uncle, tell me something about the Opium War and the Boxer Indemnity; our teacher has asked us to prepare a paper by the end of next week.

Oh, yes! We are also interested in this theme. Could you please tell us something about it? Lulu and her two friends said.

Don’t be in such a hurry. I think your uncle could talk for three days and three nights about that. Allow him to enjoy these delicious dishes first; the duck, butterfish, shrimps and beef steak are all fresh. Lao Wu and Lao Sung went off to buy them early this morning. Today is such a nice day. I suggest you all go to the garden to enjoy the warm sunshine and your uncle will talk about these historical affairs after lunch, my great aunt Henrietta said. The young people were relieved and continued to enjoy the delicious dishes and French red wine.

The lunch lasted more than one hour and after they had all finished dessert, my great aunt Henrietta ordered coffee. Jimmy and Lulu had put a cane chair between two big oak trees in the garden and Hsiao Ti moved a small coffee table to the side of it. The young people sat there waiting. Eventually my grandpa went to sit in the cane chair and Hsiao Ti brought him a cup of coffee. He took the coffee cup up and smelled it. Mmm . . . what nice coffee this is! He took a sip of coffee, and then began to expound the history.

Actually, the relationship between Great Britain and China really dates back to the 18th century . . . He put the coffee cup down on a small table beside his chair and tried to continue his explanation.

Wait a minute please, Uncle. Let me get a pen and my notebook, so that I can write down the dates and names for my paper. I won’t be a minute. Jimmy quickly ran to his room and soon returned with a fountain pen and a yellow-covered notebook in his hands. When Jimmy sat down, my grandpa started his explanation again.

At the beginning of the 16th century, Portuguese sailors brought Chinese tea to Europe and it was a valuable product at that time. It was only sold in pharmacies, with a small steelyard-like device for weighing it. Gradually the British developed a habit of drinking tea until it became a necessity in their daily life. Large amounts of tea entered the English market from China. British traders tried to export their products to China in exchange for Chinese tea, but the Chinese Emperor held the view that their celestial empire was plentiful in products and there was nothing they needed to import. In this way countless British ships came to Canton bringing only silver dollars from Spain or Mexico and returning to England fully loaded with Chinese tea. The one-sided business between the two countries meant that Great Britain built up an immense amount of debt. The British traders later discovered that the export of cotton and opium to China had never been prohibited by Chinese officials. They also quickly discovered that they could make only a little profit from cotton trading because of the heavy transport costs. Opium trading, however, could bring them huge profits, as a great number of Chinese people smoked opium at that time and the domestic opium crop could not satisfy the strong demand. In the event, British traders discovered that they could ship tons of opium into China from India, especially when they entered into agreements with people of imperial lineage and Chinese bureaucrats. Even though Emperor Chia Ching of the Ching Dynasty decreed a prohibition on opium, the British traders heavily bribed the Chinese officials in order to keep the opium traffic flowing, to their mutual advantage.

I never knew that Chinese officials had played a part in the opium business, Jimmy murmured to himself.

"Bribery and corruption were two deep-rooted bad habits crossing the whole of Chinese culture for thousands of years. According to a report from a Chinese official called Wei Yuan, the navy patrol boats in Canton accepted bribes of 36,000 taels of silver each month, for which they privately allowed the importation of smuggled opium. The Chinese Navy Vice-General, Han Chao-ching, even escorted smuggled opium, according to a secret agreement with the British traders. Under this arrangement, from each ten thousand chests of smuggled opium, he took several hundred chests as his kickback. Then he took part of his benefit to bribe those officials at a high level. For this he was later promoted to commanding officer of a garrison of troops!

"The British traders, meanwhile, could even leave their smuggled opium at the Chinese Navy ports in Fukien Province if they could not deliver the opium directly to the Chinese merchants. Of course some money changed hands on this deal.

I also heard of another case where Dr. Karl Gutzlaff from Jardines gave a bribe of 20,000 U.S. dollars to some officials at Chinchow each year, in exchange for which his smuggled opium could enter that port freely. Many high-ranking Chinese officials, including provincial governors, profited from the trade.

Isn’t opium a highly-addictive poison, Uncle Charles? Why would British traders and Chinese officials engage in this business when they knew it would harm for the health of Chinese people? Helen asked.

We know it is a poison now but about 100 years ago opium was considered an excellent medicine which could cure many diseases, such as headache, asthma, bronchitis, coughs, epilepsy, spitting blood, and irregular menstruation. At the same time opium was a legal commodity in the world. Anyway the opium trade was aimed not only at China; it was exported to many other countries at that period and it could be legally bought even in England. Actually, many products contained traces of opium. Have you heard of Balagoli? It’s a sweet with a small amount of opium in it, to make children calm! We can even get it today in the pharmacy.

Please continue your explanation, Uncle Charles, Susan said, anxiously wanting to know more.

"According to the census of the East India Company, there were 4,500 chests of opium, each weighing 60 kilograms, transported into China in 1820. By the year 1838 this had increased to 35,000 chests and caused a huge amount of silver outflow from China. The emperor Tao Kuang was so shocked when he discovered that the silver in the empire treasury had decreased from 70 million to less than ten million in 1838, that he appointed Lin Tse-hsu to be the Imperial Commissioner with the task of prohibiting the importation of opium, and he was sent to Canton. Lin Tse-hsu was not only an innocent Chinese official who knew nothing about the heavy background of the British traders, but also a man with an old-fashioned way of thinking. He never considered trying to solve the problem through some form of negotiation but rushed headlong into fierce action, which led to disastrous consequences. He seized more than 20,000 chests of opium from the British traders and set fire to them all on June 3, 1839 on the sand beach of Humen, Kwangtung Province. The total weight of opium destroyed was 1,188,127 kilos and the big fire and the accompanying smoke went on for 23 days and nights. The British traders were not going to sit back and simply lose their opium, not to mention their handsome profits from the trading. They sought help from their own country and persuaded the British government to send warships to China in June 1840.

"Of course the old-style Chinese weapons and artillery could not compete with the British warships, because their firing range could reach the coast from far away at sea, and easily destroy Chinese forts and their defending troops. The Chinese were overpowered by the technological superiority of the British Royal Navy and suffered continual defeats. Eventually the Chinese were forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking on board the British warship Cornwallis on August 29, 1842. This treaty resulted in:

a)Hong Kong being ceded to Britain

b)The five ports of Canton, Foochow, Ningpo, Amoy and Shanghai being opened to traders

c)‘Extraterritoriality’ being proclaimed, so that the Ching Dynasty had to pay the British 21 million silver dollars in indemnity, which included six million for the opium destroyed by Lin Tse-hsu."

Lulu asked my grandpa: Uncle, if Lin Tse-hsu had negotiated with the British, do you think the Opium War could have been avoided?

Maybe, but I am unable to confirm that they even had such an opportunity. I have been living in China for more than 40 years, so I understand the Chinese well. I know they have many good virtues: they are hardworking and thrifty, but I must honestly admit that they also have many shortcomings. I consider the worst of these to be that they have always been slaves to convention and they lack flexibility.

He took another sip of coffee, before continuing, You cannot imagine how unenlightened the Chinese people are about things which have happened outside China. Since the Chow Dynasty (770-256 B.C.) and the Chin Dynasty (221-206 B.C.), Chinese people have held the view that China is a land of courtesy and propriety, located at the center of the world. The very word ‘China’ in Chinese means ‘the central country’. Up to now, many of them still think that all other countries are small and worthless and that foreign people are all barbarian tribes whose duty is to pay tribute to China. This immutable but supercilious idea has taken root in their hearts. About 330 years ago, an Italian missionary called Matteo Ricci arrived in China and showed the Chinese Emperor and his high-ranking mandarins a world map in the Forbidden City. None of the Chinese people there could believe what they saw. They all ridiculed him for making China so small and not located at the center of the world!

My grandpa went on with his talk: Once, Matteo Ricci said that Chinese people considered that besides theirs, there was no other local king, dynasty or culture that could be boasted of. This ignorance made them more proud; however, once they became aware of the truth, they would feel inferior.

My grandpa paused for a moment and then continued his explanation: "Actually, as far back as 1792, Lord Macartney was sent as the envoy of Great Britain to China by King George III. He attempted, through the celebration of Chinese Emperor Chien Lung’s 80th birthday, to establish a stable