The City of Sin

The Cheong-sam and High Heels

In Shanghai, more than anywhere else at the time, exposure to foreigners and the textile industry boom meant that there was an intense interest in fashions. Many foreign women brought notions of fashionable attire to their local tailors and caused an interest in the new Western styles among the local Chinese. Soon the familiar qipao was being worn over Western trousers with Western shoes, and many Chinese men affected the foreigner’s taste in hats.

After the influx of White Russians, many Chinese women were exposed for the first time to the concept of the high heeled shoe, as worn by the Russian women refugees. Seeing the line it gave to their legs, and seeing how enamoured the local men – Chinese and otherwise – were of them, the Shanghainese women took to wearing them with gusto. To enhance the effect, they took the traditional qipao and re-made it in sumptuous brocade, with a revealing slit up one or both sides to show off their long legs. This design became known as the cheong-sam and with its invention the ‘Shanghai Lady’ was born.

‘Shanghai Ladies’

“Me no worry

Me no care

Me going to marry a millionaire

And if he die

Me no cry

Me going to get another guy.”

-1940s popular song refrain

This term became synonymous throughout the Jazz Age for prostitutes and world-weary women of negotiable virtue. It was a more ambiguous term than the previously common epithet ‘sing-song girl’ and therefore had more currency with the younger crowd that monopolised the nightclubs between the Wars. The smoking girl with the shingled hair, dressed in a cheong-sam and high heeled shoes was as likely to be a prostitute as not, just as she was as likely to be White Russian as not.

The Chinese movie industry picked up on this trend and extended it hugely, although initially they were unwilling for their actresses to cut their hair too short. The stories they screened were mostly sentimental and indulgent, ending in the usual return to traditional values, but not before indulging in a wholesale exposure of the ‘corrupt and fallen lifestyles’ of their heroines. As always, media recognition and product endorsements followed for such queens of the silver screen as the tragic Ruan Lingyu and others of her ilk. Posters proliferated, usually with a green-tinged background, and today these command high prices as collectible ephemera.

The impact that this state of affairs had on the prostitution rackets was immense and, largely, positive. Women began to see themselves as rulers of their own fates and to rise out of the shackles of the previous eras. A version of emancipation took place where women took more control of their situations and demanded more equal shares of their earnings – the crime was no less organised, but women had a stronger role within it

Opium dens and ‘Frenchtown’

“...They can continue their opium dealings just so long as the concession benefits – very materially – and is spared much of the trouble to which foreign authorities in China are so often heirs.”

-The British Consul-general, 1930

Because the French outsourced administration of their area to the French Governors in Indochina, and because their police force was largely composed of Chinese gangsters under the control of Huang Jinrong, the policing of the French Concession was hugely corrupt. All opium dens and brothels within the quarter had to be registered with the police force and they had to pay a substantial cut of their profits to the French; this cut was not sufficient to deter these operations from continuing their activities. In fact, the French lived large off illegal earnings and turned a blind eye to it all.

The presence of ‘squeeze’ in all of the dealings in Frenchtown, meant that Huang Jinrong profited enormously as the Chief of Police and this allowed him to build the Great World Amusement Centre on the borders of the French Concession to further garner funds from the unwary. This complex offered ice-skating, dancing and movies to the punters, not to mention restaurants, nightclubs, bars, theatres and ... opium dens!

Missionaries and their role

By the 1930s, Shanghai was a dead issue for the missionary community. Nothing could be done; nothing would be done. The only option was to head out West and ensure that nothing like this ever happened again. The Catholics and some Bible societies were happy to stay in Shanghai and promote what they had already begun: cathedrals and Bible publishing houses could always count on monetary support despite the lack of local faith.

Missionary work became heavily polarised: at one level, the foreign communities supported missionary work as ‘a good thing’ and ‘something to offset the Heathen Chinee’; largely though, they disliked missionaries, who embarrassed them in front of the Shanghainese. Much effort was spent to speed them safely on their way out to the far reaches of Western China.

Many travellers throughout China would not have survived without the aid of missionaries along their routes; very few of them ever praise these dedicated souls for their spiritual works.

The White Russian Invasion

With the completion of the Russian Revolution, the Tsarist forces fled Russia and escaped overland to China. This was a gruelling voyage across Mongolia and the Central Asian deserts and while many died, many also survived. Some of the ‘White Russians’ as they were known, established bases in the Tsaidam or the oases of the Takla Makan and planned to build Mongol- or Turki-backed armies with which to reconquer their homeland; others bowed to the inevitable and fled to Shanghai.

The main problem for the Russians was their stateless condition: they were disowned by the USSR and they were largely unwanted by the Chinese. In Shanghai, they fell between the cracks of the administration and could only be prosecuted by Chinese law. They weren’t alone however: refugee Jews from Russia also fell into this category, as did the Germans and the Japanese.

Many White Russians were not interested in a long-term residency: most Russians left Shanghai as soon as they could arrange transport on a ship, either to Europe, America or Australia. Most pawned what few possessions they had carried with them from Russia or used gold roubles in the exchange. For others though, it wasn’t so easy.

Many of the White Russian refugees were Cossacks or soldiers, who had no skills other than their military prowess and further, had had no time to get their wealth together before fleeing the motherland. Consequently they arrived in Shanghai with little more than the clothes on their backs. Many entered into the ranks of the local gangsters, who had a ready vacancy for battle-hardened men of tall stature; others signed on as labourers and ended up little better than the coolies alongside of which they slaved. Many of these former patriots drowned their meagre earnings in vodka or the cheaper local hooch and ended up living on the streets.

The tall, blonde Russian women were similarly beset. Without a means of earning their fare from Shanghai, many became taxi-dancers and afterwards prostitutes, usually of the meanest variety, taking a backseat to the highly organised sing-song girls. Many Chinese customers were intrigued and sought the services of these women; however the foreign communities were appalled.

The White Man Loses Face

This had a number of major ramifications: firstly, all levels of Chinese society became acutely aware that within the communities of the white man, there were ranks of acceptability, just as in their own society; further, without money or a means to earn it, the white devils were no better off than themselves. In fact the Chinese, more than as a result of any conflict or war in the past, gained parity with the foreigners. Chinese merchants and madams purchased White Russian services and treated their employees abominably, just because they could.

The Foreign Communities rallied: for years, moneys had been set aside to buy passage for white men who had ‘gone native’, to send them home with a minimum of fuss; this money was now used to ferry as many of the Russians as possible out of the city. For those left – and there were still many – positions were found for them in the police forces and, in the case of the women, hospitals. For the Russians in the French Concession, this placed them squarely in Chinese hands and exposed them to the high levels of corruption stemming from the opium trade; for women, most went back to work as prostitutes because the pay was better.

The damage was done: in the Jazz Age, all Shanghai citizens would be on equal footing.