Shanghai Shop

The most wonderful people you often meet by chance.  You aren't looking, and they're just there.

I guess sixty plus years is a long time to recall details of  a casual meeting. But, when I think about the several minutes I spent in that modest shanghai shop, I'm so glad that I can recall it so well.   What the gentleman did in 1945 still seems like last week.

Shanghai was at last no longer several million cowering victims of Imperial Nipponese  conquest. Street intersections were no longer monitored by Japan's soldiers. Now turbaned Indian Sikhs, hired mostly because they were giants who could see over everybody.

Bit by bit, shops were reopening  to masses daring now  to look into them.  What money there was could be circulated openly. As I passed by people, a few actually smiled.

Bored with looking down from the deck of my stop-over railing at the filthy Huang Pu River,  tired of my temporary bunk neighbors as they were of me, and having an entire day to spend my boredom, I went ashore.  At least I could exercise a little.  Downtown Shanghai beat listening to other bored navy guys repeating how bored they were.  By evening mess, I'd at least be tired and maybe hungry.

       

Wandering among the scurrying crowd, every one of them tightly focused on something ten inches beyond their noses,  I found it best to at least pretend to be shopping. If I seemed to be looking into a window, at least people quit brushing into me.

 

Without anything in mind, I paused before a pleasingly arranged curio shop window.  It looked better cared for than others.  It wasn't just  there: it was pleasanter, cleaner, its wares thoughtfully arranged.  Going in seemed natural.

Inside, was jammed with what else?  Curios.  Yet, somehow, it didn't look  so crowded.

My ignorance of curios was (is)  abysmal; but what I could understand was far above the stock junk of nearly every other layout I'd seen over the several days I'd spent in Shanghai. Also, taking time here beat more aimless meandering.

 

Little more than a month had passed since “The Bomb,” had leveled Hiroshima. It was a marvel that this shop could this fine a display in such a little time. The proprietor had to have carefully and cleverly secreted his curios from the Japanese for years, and even then had to have been very lucky.

The sound of a throat cleared turned me toward the back of the shop.  My host was a person you automatically call ' “gentleman.”  His suit was no longer fresh, having little worn spots at the lapels some re-stitching, wonderfully done, but impossible to completely disguise. His shoes were brightly shined, but showing little cracks betraying their age.

I asked, “Do you speak English?''  Foreigners often indicate that they do, and promptly reveal that they don't really. They'll happily fake their way through mutual frustration.  Bargaining with our pet, Tiki, worked better.

Some admit, with embarrassment, that they know “a little.”  That means  lots of hand waving.

This gentleman shook his head slowly, sadly.  He could, he indicated, read a very little English. I relaxed. We would understand each other, slowly, yes, but we would come out the other end okay, both of us.

I decided to take my time.  I liked the place. And, when I pantomimed would he mind if I touched things, he nodded, smiling, touching a few things himself, then stepping back.

One piece jumped at me.  I'd passed it several times without stopping; but, after awhile paused in front of it.  It was a teak boat, a mandarin's pleasure river craft with poles, long, bent rudder, and extra levels for a crew to propel it without troubling the mandarin.

Turning to the gentleman, I pointed at the boat.  He picked his way among doo-dads, lifted it down, and presented it to me.

Close up, this was a masterpiece.  My superb ignorance of this kind of art didn't keep me from recognizing the skill and patience required to form such a beautiful miniature. And I did know a little bit about teak.  I'd grown up with it all around me, because of so many missionary relatives who'd spent their careers in China, India, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines.

It also wasn't too big for me to tote it the many months before a leave and the many thousands of miles back home.  I nodded, handing it back to the gentleman.

“How much?” I asked.  He didn't have to know any English to understand my question – with my palms up and eyebrows raised.

He said something.  It might have been, “Blessings on Japan,” though probably not.  Words wouldn't get us very far.  I'd show him some money.

I dug into my Navy jacket, pulling out a wallet.  Fishing in it, I found some ones, a ten, and a twenty.  These I displayed. The gentleman considered the several bills.  At last he pointed to the ten.

I separated out the ten, but also showed him the twenty again. He smiled, slowly shaking his head.  At least that motion is universal.

He took the boat to a desk where he placed it on a large piece of wrapping paper.  Then he went back to the shelves.  He bent, rummaged, and came up with a paper bag.  He returned, placing it alongside the boat.  He found a bit of twine somewhere, tied the stuff together, presented it to me, and said something with a sweet smile.  He did not have a business card.

Back at the ship, in my quarters, I opened my prize...and got a surprise.

My Chinese gentleman had added almost a dozen pieces of tiny furniture, mats, and trappings to the boat.

Maybe there are not all that many “Shanghai gentlemen” everywhere; but there are some, and I've sure had the good fortune to have met some of them. (In 1950, I asked an auctioneer I knew what value he would place on my boat.  He said he would open the bidding at $200. That's nice to know; but it would take a ton more than that to pry it loose from me today.