On the night of Chinese New Year's Eve, when the snow was flying and the north wind was fierce, on the Tibet Road, the Great World had been extended to the area of the Republic of China Road in the French Concession, and there were about 5,000 people begging for fish, which was only a small part of the beggars district in Shanghai. --Peng Amu, Showa 5th year
The streets of Shanghai in the Republic of China
Peng Amu was Japanese, as he described during his inspection of Shanghai in 1930. On a cold Chinese New Year's Eve night, on a few streets, there were more than five thousand beggars standing, and this scene was also very spectacular. So, what is the scale of the beggars in Shanghai, the Republic of China?
Since the end of the Qing Dynasty, there have been more and more beggars due to social unrest caused by wars and natural disasters. Shanghai, a bustling metropolis, naturally has a large number of beggars. At that time, the "beggar gangs" in various parts of China, small counties and towns were basically a gang per city, and there were not too many people under the jurisdiction of the beggar leader. Larger counties may have two or three gangs of beggars, each dividing their territory and not interfering with each other.
Shanghai is different, in 1932 statistics, Shanghai beggars are about 25,000 people. How exaggerated is this number? In 1915, the official population of Shanghai was 2006573 (the data source is from Zou Yiren's "Research on the Population Change of Old Shanghai"), saying that the streets are full of beggars, is it not an exaggeration?
The biggest feature of Shanghai is that there are many foreign populations, and beggars are naturally available from all over the world. Chinese heavy local relations, even if you become a beggar, you have to huddle together to keep warm. Therefore, during the Republic of China, Shanghai had six major gangs: the Fengyang Gang, the Huaiyin Gang, the Shandong Gang, the Jiangbei Gang, the Zhejiang Gang and the Local Gang.
The six gangs each divided their territory, and each gang had a beggar head who was responsible for managing the beggars under them. Of course, because of the mixed fish and dragons on the beach, the relationship is very chaotic, and there are also some small beggar organizations. What is even more exaggerated is that in the early years of the Republic of China, there were many foreign beggars living on the streets of Shanghai.
In 1929, the "Declaration" reported that when the cold winter season came, many ragged Russian beggars ran to the old boats in the Pidgin docks of the French Concession to escape the wind and rain. One day, a Russian beggar slept on top of a steamship's boiler, and when he fell asleep, he rolled over and fell into the stove and fell unable to move.
The income of beggars in Shanghai varies greatly.
Republic of China beggars
Do you think beggars must be living a hard life? Among the beggars in Shanghai, there are really some people who have a very good life. First of all, the leaders of the various beggar gangs, by oppressing their beggars and collecting monthly money from street shops, are higher than the average low-level citizen.
In addition, there are some beggars, who are not poor in themselves, and who regard begging as a job. In the Shanghai Archives, it is recorded that in 1941, the Salvation Army rescued the beggar, and in a shelter, it was found that a female beggar's tattered clothes were hidden in $30 in cash. The other beggar was even more exaggerated, he was a landlord who even had a house in the French Concession.
There are also some beggars, farmers near Shanghai, who gather a group of people to go to the city to beg every year after the autumn harvest. Because there were still some charitable organizations in Shanghai at that time, they would give porridge and arrange accommodation for some beggars in winter, so these farmers did not worry about starving to death. Once it was spring of the following year, they packed up the rolls and went home to farm. It is said that some of these people can speak the truth and earn a sum of money to go home.
There are also some clever beggars who have worked hard to learn several dialects, heard what passers-by say, and quickly pretended to be in distress with their fellow villagers, and the chances of getting money were greater. There are even beggars who have learned part of English and Japanese and specialize in begging foreigners. Some beggars who do not speak foreign languages specifically look for someone to write their miserable situation in English and Chinese on a piece of paper and beg in the bustling road.
It is recorded in the "Qing Barnyard Bills" that at the end of the Qing Dynasty, someone passed by a girls' school in the concession and saw five beggars sitting on the ground drinking wine, with cigarettes in their hands. In front of them, chicken, ham and tofu were placed, and there were cooking utensils next to them, and it was obvious that the meat had just been made, not the cold soup from begging. People begging in the concessions sometimes earned a silver dollar a day, and smoking and drinking were not a problem.
Who are these beggars? It is difficult to have a clear answer to this, but some beggars do have some real skills. For example, many beggars were carpenters, blacksmiths, masons, and shoemakers, and had some professional skills. There are also beggars who have read books. In 1939, the North China Daily reported that the French Concession had investigated the situation of 1,000 beggars and found that a quarter of them had received primary education and a quarter had received secondary education. What is even more exaggerated is that among these thousand beggars, there are also female college students who have graduated from famous universities in Nanjing.
It should be known that the illiteracy rate during the Republic of China period was as high as 90%. A large percentage of the very few literate people only attend private schools or primary schools for a few years and know only a few words. And educated women are even more pitiful. Looking at the education level of the 1,000 beggars above, do you think it is exaggerated?
So why can such a person become a beggar? Quite simply, the population of Shanghai in the Republic of China is growing very fast and the unemployment rate is very high. From 1930 to 1936, the number of unemployed and unemployed in Shanghai reached 600,000 to 700,000, accounting for one-fifth of Shanghai's total population. Therefore, the real Shanghai is not so much spent and drunk, most of the low-level people are struggling, and the slightest accident may become a beggar.
A few beggars make a lot of money, and most beggars are miserable.
"Lawsuit" with children
There were a huge number of beggars in Shanghai, and with the outbreak of war and bandits, more people poured into the big city. Therefore, most beggars cannot live a good life, and it is good to be able to eat. In order to be able to earn more, beggars will also choose different ways of begging.
In the early years of the Republic of China, Wu Yuanshu and Jiang Siyi, two female college students from the Department of Sociology of Shanghai Hujiang University, conducted a social survey of beggars in Shanghai, and they listed more than 20 ways of begging, which was breathtaking. Below we list the most common ones to see how Shanghai beggars beg.
The most common is the "complaint", that is, a white paper or white cloth with a tragic death written on it, and the beggar sits by the sidewalk and spreads it out in front of him. Most of these beggars are well-dressed and not very sloppy, some are female beggars with children, and some are single female beggars. They rarely open their mouths to beg, either bow their heads and cry silently. As for the contents of the white paper, either the parents died and the husband died of illness, and they could only take their children here and pray for help. Or they are from a large family, accidentally exiled here, hoping that well-meaning people will help...
Beggars with cars generally appear in the concession. Most of these beggars are young and middle-aged men, humming small songs on the street all day, and once they see the rickshaw passing, they quickly follow the car and hold up their broken hats to beg customers. If you don't give it to him, he'll be following the car, shouting at his wife and grandmother, begging for a copper plate. Some people are overwhelmed, they give money to send them away, if they insist on not giving, they will give up after a while, and then find the next target.
The beggars pulling the cart were mostly thirteen or fourteen-year-old boys. They gathered in groups of three or five, such as the Erbaidu Bridge, the Tap Water Bridge, the Tianhou Temple Bridge, the Laozha Bridge, and other places, and when they saw the rickshaw driver carrying the guests over, they hurried over to take turns to help and pulled the car over the bridge. After that, they beg customers in the car, who may be rewarded with a little money if they think they have also done their part. These children are organized, they have a backer behind them, and they have to hand in part of the money every day.
Most of the beggars who walk the streets are novices and can't ask for much money.
Female beggars of the Republic of China
Truly experienced beggars either have fixed positions or special means. For example, some beggars specialize in "playing with the green dragon", that is, holding a green snake with a thick small arm in their hands, and asking for money when they see people. If you don't give, he will deliberately take the snake and play around you, and some of the timid ones will either be scared away or give money.
There is also a kind of beggar who is more ruthless, known as "open skylight". They specially use knives or needles to break the head and face, or smash the head in front of people, making it bloody. Whether out of sympathy or fear, people would give him a little money. These beggars can get enough to eat and drink for a few days with a single shot, recover from their injuries after a few days, and then go out to "open the skylight."
Similarly, many blind beggars "top incense burners", that is, use sharp short iron brazes to insert on the head, and light a stick of incense and two thin red candles on the iron braze, which looks like an incense case on the top of the head from a distance. They walked down the street like this, with smoke above their heads, and some pedestrians, moved by compassion, would give away a few copper dollars.
Some beggars are born with disabilities, and the lack of hands and feet can win people's sympathy. However, there are also some beggars who are deliberately disabled. In old Shanghai, there was a kind of child boy known as a "three-legged toad", all of which had disabilities in their hands and feet. Most of them were out-of-town children, some of whom were bought, some of whom were abducted, who were broken and begged on the streets. They can also get some money every day, but they are basically taken away by the leader, which is very pitiful.
There are also some beggars who are not so annoying.
Street juggling
Unlike the beggars listed above, some beggars are pleasing to others by their ability. For example, the "Three Old Rivers and Lakes" is a group of people gathered together, both men and women, begging while selling art. They found a vacant lot, first a set of punches, then top tea bowls, build a mountain, turn over, and sing with a huqin in the middle, and the onlookers were happy to see it and were willing to throw a few dollars.
There is also a kind of "Fengyang Po", mainly a beggar from Fengyang, the average man holds a straw stick, the woman shakes the flower drum in her hand, wears a flower straw hat on her head, hums a small song in her mouth, and sings and dances while singing. After performing for a while, he asked the onlookers for money, shouting in his mouth: "Niangniang, old man, do a good deed!" "Because their singing is really good, people are willing to reward a copper dollar."
There is another kind of beggar, dressed slightly decently, waiting at the door of a large company, theater, hotel, and dance hall, and when he sees a car coming, he immediately goes forward to open the car door, bends down and bows to invite guests to get on or off the car, and reaches out for money by the way. If the boss does not give money, they will deliberately make a few noises, and the big boss who usually comes by car does not care about these small amounts of money.
Near the station and wharf in old Shanghai, there are many customers, and some beggars take the initiative to help people carry bags and goods, and they can also ask for a lot of money.
Beggars shelter
In short, there were many beggars in old Shanghai, and there were naturally more begging methods, and their income gap was also very large. Of course, the government and civil society at that time also tried their best to solve the problem of beggars. For example, since 1922, social groups have begun to rescue beggars, hoping to help them find jobs and not wander the streets.
Since then, all kinds of rescue of beggars have been one after another, and the Shanghai Beggars Art Institute not only gives beggars the opportunity to earn money by labor, but also allows them to learn to read and write every day to improve their cultural literacy. The Shanghai Relief Shelter alone helped more than 2,000 beggars, some of whom did business, some of whom went into factories and some of whom were admitted to aviation kindergartens. But the sheer number of beggars in Shanghai, coupled with the influx of new beggars every year, does not solve the fundamental problem.
In many film and television dramas now, Shanghai in the Republic of China is full of red wine, flowers and wine, and there are few beggars on the street. In fact, this is not in line with history, back to shanghai in that era, most people can not live a good life, the Republic of China is not so beautiful.