Shanghai (64 page)

“I have friends who …?”

“Are unemployed like you and can write stories?”

“Yes. But let's leave the unemployed part out, because if you hire them then they won't be unemployed, will they?”

“But can they write stories about courtesans?”

“Sure. Yes.”

“For wine they'll write stories?”

“Wine and a little food should be enough for a story.”

By midnight Charles Soon had the first story for the first edition of Shanghai's newest magazine,
Chronicles from the Flower World
. He bought the scholar another bottle of wine and gave him a few small coins. The drunken scholar was pleased. He had a bottle of wine to warm him through the cold night ahead, and he had finally made some money in Shanghai. Charles was pleased. He had the beginnings of an enterprise that could make him enough money to get out of the poverty of missionary work.

The scholar took the bottle from the table and rose.

“Tomorrow, here, at the same hour,” Charles said, “and for each writer friend you bring I will give you ten percent of what I pay them.”

The scholar tried to calculate that but he was too drunk to make the figures align themselves, so he stuck out his hand and Charles shook it—like two old friends.

“What's your name?” Charles asked.

“Tzu Rong Zi” the writer replied.

They shook hands a second time and slapped each other on the back.

But before they parted they argued. The poet was outraged that Charles wanted to name the magazine
Chronicles from the Flower World
. The scholar was adamant that the only true name would be
The Cunt-Faced Loonicles
. But he was too drunk to really argue so he clutched his bottle to his chest and headed toward the door, chanting “The Cunt-Faced Loonicles” several times before he looked skyward and said to the gods of poetry, “It even scans.”

* * *

THE FIRST PRINTING of
Chronicles from the Flower World
cost Charles the watch that Captain Malachi had given him, but the run sold out within a day. Charles immediately took ninety percent of his profits and bought a second, and then a third, and then a fourth printing of the magazine. With the other ten percent he commissioned twenty stories from Tzu Rong Zi and the two scholars he brought to work. Charles locked them in a room he had rented with three of the coins from his benefactor's pouch. He provided six bottles of wine and would not let them leave until they had completed seven stories apiece.

The second, third, and fourth runs of the first edition of
Chronicles from the Flower World
had already sold out by the time the second issue of the magazine was in the kiosks, stores, and tea houses. The second issue sold out in a day, and fights were reported on several street corners as people jostled to get a copy.

Charles still had six coins left from his benefactor and had made enough money to buy back Captain Malachi's watch—although it annoyed him that it cost him twice as much to buy back the watch as he had made selling it. But it was a good lesson—one he never forgot.

Charles sent a one-line resignation letter to the Bishop of the Southern Methodist Missionary League and signed it “Charles Soong.” Adding a
g
to the end of his family name made it sound more Chinese. Charles had big plans—dynastic plans—and Chinese dynasties all ended with the letter
g
: Ming, Ching, Soon(g).

Charles rented four rooms at the very foot of Bubbling Spring Road and ensconced Tzu Rong Zi and his writing staff—now six strong—there. He had them supplied with all the food and drink they wanted so long as they each produced two stories a day—and not a word less.

After the seventh issue of
Chronicles from the Flower World
he bought out the chubby Japanese printer, then took him on as a partner. Two months later they were putting out three different magazines every week, each detailing the exploits of the women of the Flower World.

Charles bought a large house in the French Concession and began the long, protracted process of finding a wife—beginning with finding a matchmaker.

While the process proceeded, Charles continued to add to his empire. He translated and then printed
extracts from the Bible and sold them at tremendous profit to the various Evangelical societies in Shanghai. Then he had several English language classics translated and printed. These sold briskly. But his real money and his central concern was the Flower World. At the beginning of his third year he hit upon an ingenious idea: Flower World contests, to name the best courtesan. To ensure fairness the winner was selected on the basis of the number of people who sent in their votes to his publications. The contests were run twice a year, and whole issues were devoted to each of the contestants. Circulation soared, and there was demand for his weekly magazines from Nanking and Canton and Beijing—and even San Francisco. Letters poured in extolling the virtues of various courtesans.

The courtesan contests were, in fact, the very first democratic exercises in the Middle Kingdom—and Charles knew it—as did the Manchu rulers in Beijing, who were not amused. But the courtesans responded enthusiastically to what was for them completely free publicity. Many of the winners garnered fine marriages to wealthy men. The magazines would cover the marriages and the babies and the fights—and often the courtesans' return to the Flower World. By 1897 Charles Soon(g)—lowly Boston busboy; studious seminary student; ignored missionary—had become one of Shanghai's wealthiest Chinese men, and an ardent opponent of the Manchu Dynasty.

* * *

JIANG CAREFULLY WATCHED Charles Soong's growth and remarked aloud, “Now here's a Man with a Book … a Man with a Book who needs a wife.”

December 1897

Jiang knew that the time to choose between her daughters, Yin Bao and Mai Bao, was approaching. Although she felt as strong as a dragon, the last time she had summoned her doctor the old man had lingered over a series of moles on her back. His sharp intakes of breath and little gasps did not bode well for a comfortable or long old age. Jiang was all right with that. She had no desire to live forever, but she had an obligation to supply a daughter to the Ivory Compact, and she was troubled by the options presented to her by her two youngest.

“Sit,” she commanded them.

Yin Bao, the younger of the two, moved with surprising grace and speed, despite her bound feet, and
slid into Jiang's favourite brocade chair, then crossed her almost totally exposed legs. The middle daughter, Mai Bao, shook her head and said simply, “I'll stand, Mother.”

“As you will,” Jiang said as she turned from them and allowed her fingers to stroke the edge of the painted silk hanging beside the window. It was a classic Ming country scene, complete with a frozen highland lake and peasants running to their eel pen. In one corner there was a shocking slash of red across a white ice floe. Although Jiang didn't realize it, the painting portrayed scenes from the day of the First Emperor's death. The events of that day on the Holy Mountain had made their way into the very heart of the culture of the Black-Haired people. But even if Jiang had known, the connection to the Holy Mountain could not have made her more fond of the painting. The painting had been given to her by the man who was Yin Bao's father, perhaps the only man Jiang had ever loved.

She turned and looked out the tall window. There the reflections of her two daughters awaited her, as if caught in the depths of the glass. She studied their images: Yin Bao so round and full of life, Mai Bao so erect and stern, although blessed with great beauty. Both women serviced men, just as she had done for so many years, and yet in completely different ways. The youngest was as modern as Shanghai itself. She never bothered to learn classical dancing or storytelling, or even how to play the arhu. With three simple sentences she had dismissed the entire idea: “Dress-up and playacting is fine if it brings in more customers. But the entertainment we provide is sex, Mother—not ancient frippery. Sex for money, and in my case very good money for very good sex.”

Yin Bao's take was substantial. She slept only with clients who could afford to pay the outrageous prices that she demanded, and she often had more than one customer a night. As well, she was popular in the press, although she refused to enter the Flower Contests run by Charles Soong's magazine. Men now wrote poems to her beauty that were published in the newspapers, and many travelled for days just to catch a glimpse of her. She was better known in Shanghai than the most famous of opera singers, and she paraded in public in an open carriage drawn by two white horses, from which she had been known to shout at other “less worthy” courtesans who blocked her way. In fact it was Yin Bao's use of the phrase “cunt-faced loon” that had in a way launched Charles Soong's publishing career. She dressed in only the most exquisite of clothes and took full advantage, and a secret delight, in playing roles from the novel
The Dream of the Red Chamber
. She loved dressing in the elaborate period costumes that her eldest sister recreated for her. She played many roles from the book for her patrons, including that of Lady Chao, the powerful concubine who is on “good terms” with the nun Miao-yu, a role enacted by her maid for foolish men who thought that one woman could not possibly satisfy their needs. But her most popular role was that of Hsia Chin-kuei, the pretty but treacherous daughter of a royal merchant. Hsia is a shrew. She mistreats the concubine Hsiang-ling and, at one point, plots to poison her, but poisons herself by mistake. Her extraordinary sexual prowess allowed Yin Bao to actually act out her own mistaken poisoning at the exact moment she brought on the clouds and rain for her client.

The newspapers caught wind of this astonishing feat and outdid themselves trying to create euphemisms to
describe, within the bounds of decency, the “action” to their breathless readers. The girl took real delight in collecting the coded references in the papers to her auto-erotic asphyxiation and could be heard late into the night regaling the other girls with the latest phrases she'd found in the press.

Both daughters knew that only one of them would be granted the name Jiang, and the new Jiang would become the undisputed owner of the entirety of their mother's three brothels and many opium dens, with the power to deal with all the employees of the establishments, including her other sisters, in any manner that she deemed appropriate. Jiang knew there was no love lost between these two daughters and had no doubt that whoever was passed over in her decision would not long have a place of employment—no matter what provisos she put into her will.

Jiang thought about the responsibility under the Ivory Compact that the new Jiang would have to assume, as she turned from the window to look at her aloof middle daughter, Mai Bao. The girl had classic, long lines in her legs and torso, and her flawless skin was a wonder to behold. She carried herself like the finest of thoroughbreds and had all the haughtiness of those exquisite creatures. Mai Bao enjoyed playing characters from
The Dream of the Red Chamber
as well—although different characters from her younger sister. She loved to portray Hsueh Pao-chai (Precious Virtue), Chia Pao-yu's wife—a devoted daughter and a faithful consort.

The first time Mai Bao played Precious Virtue, Yin Bao slid over to her mother and snarked, “I thought that men came to us to get away from wives like Precious Virtue.”

Jiang smiled and said, “Men come here for many reasons, dear. Remember that.”

To that Yin Bao probed, “Why exactly, Mother, should I remember that?” She smiled the smile that only a young woman in full bloom could smile, then leaned down and kissed her mother full on the mouth. For the first time Jiang noticed that Yin Bao's lips felt just like her father's had all those years ago. Jiang patted her daughter's hands but thought,
Not so fast do you become the queen and enter the Ivory Compact.

Mai Bao also loved playing Shih Hsiang-yun (River Mist), an almost nondescript girl who is little else but pretty and vapid. Her younger sister's response to this performance was terse: “Big sister has a great talent at portraying boringly an extremely boring person. Now we know everything there is to know about someone we really wish hadn't existed. How very clever of her.”

Jiang responded by saying, “What is boring to one man may well be exciting to another.”

“Yes, Mother, but a honeypot is a honeypot to one and all.”

The middle daughter's favourite was playing Yuan-yang, Lady Dowager's personal maid, who refuses Chia Sheh's proposal to be his concubine, and when Lady Dowager dies, she hangs herself in an act of devotion.

Yin Bao's only response to this performance was to mutter, “I could have lived without the opening—although the end, big sister hanging herself, is very satisfying.”

Jiang just stared at her. Was she really so coarse? Could she really leave all the responsibility of the Ivory Compact in this one's hands?

“No comment, Mother, about one man's hanging being another man's sex, or something like that?”

“No, dear. No such comment.”

“Too bad. I would have thought that a man well hung was well worth comment.” The girl's raucous laughter disappointed her mother.

Although the two sisters never spoke of it, both knew what was at stake in being named Jiang upon their mother's passing. Neither daughter knew of the Narwhal Tusk or the responsibilities of being a member of the Chosen Three, but both had watched their mother for many years and understood that Jiang was special. Being Buddhists, the Catholic idea of “being blessed” was foreign to them, but they both knew that their mother was a marvel—one of nature's true gifts.

It was Yin Bao who picked up on the strange relationship between her mother and the Confucian. “Does he prefer boys, Mother?” she asked.