Emily Hahn - Hong Kong Holiday

EMILY HAHN

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Emily Hahn

The Manners of Marie

I NOTICED this morning that I was still being careful with the tooth powder, covering the brush gingerly. Now that I am in Hong Kong, within calling distance of at least three shops where I can buy any amount of tooth powder, this seems rather silly, but habits die hard and I have just spent a year in Chungking. Thinking it over, I realize that in many similar ways I show the effects of that year in Szechwan Province. I still get a feeling of surprised pleasure when I summon a cab and ride at ease to my destination, instead of toiling wearily on foot for hours along rocky mountain trails. I still jump up at night in a cold sweat whenever a boat or a train whistles; sometimes I find myself half dressed in the dark and planning to rush for the further, safer dugout before I remember that I am not in Chungking and that the whistle is not an alarm. That sort of thing is to be expected, I suppose, but other things happen to people in beleaguered cities which would surprise you. Take Maries lapse from virtue, for instance.

There were, in my time, from fifteen to twenty foreign women in Chungking. They were strange and interesting specimens, all of them, but Marie was especially noteworthy because she was so invincibly, unquenchably, unbelievably pretty. The standard of beauty in such a place is low, because most European women who go to Szechwan interest themselves perforce in other things than sexual allure, and Marie was always a shock to newcomers. They always said the same thing to her, and we grew to expect it and to giggle hysterically when they said it You? Here? My God, why? This is no place for a white woman!

Actually Marie thrived in Chungking. Some women didnt. What got most of them down was the air raids and the consequent mental anguish. But as they pined and grew thin and sallow and careless of cold cream and hair gloss, Marie waxed in health and beauty. She was young and vigorous; she would walk miles for a tennis game, a dance, or a permanent wave. She found a village with a barbershop that had a permanent-wave machine; it was, I think, the most tremendous feat anyone ever accomplished in Chungking. We others greeted her news without much enthusiasm; I, for one, could not face with equanimity the prospect of being tied up to one of those torture gadgets when the air-raid alarm hooted. But Marie was an awfully nice girl. I have never met a more charming girl. She has such pretty manners, I often said. One can forgive her being so young and pretty, her manners are so good.

Everyone agreed with me. There wasnt a woman in the foreign colony at Chungking who had a word to say against Marie. This unusual state of affairs was due in part to the strain under which we lived, which left us no time for pettinesses and jealousy. During my year there I can remember no catty remarks, no crimes passionnels; we loved each other and were all ladies and gentlemenuntil my last day there.

Now, it is exceedingly difficult for anyone who has not lived in Chungking to understand what life can be like when you just cant buy things. It was uncomfortable to a degree; the lack of things amounted to an obsession with most of us. Other people, far more eloquent than I, have written of the horrors of life in a city where beer cost thirty-five Mex. dollars a bottle and whisky was two hundred. Others have written feelingly of the gravel in the rice and the rotten meat. Some have even dwelt on the horrors of the air raids. But nobody, so far as I know, has thought of mentioning the shortage of womens clothes.

Many of us arrived in Chungking from Hong Kong by plane, and we were allowed to bring thirty kilograms of luggage, no more. Thirty kilograms is not much. It is about sixty-six pounds. After a few months we grew adept at begging or tricking newcomers into bringing things for us, but it wasnt easy. When our clothes wore out and our shoes fell to pieces, we bought grass linen and made dresses and we wore Chinese sandals. We also inherited the clothes of the women who went away. That was an unwritten law throughout the colony. A woman going away was surrounded and swamped by shrieking maenads who tried on her shoes and her dresses and gave hysterical thanks for every scrap that came their way.

Well, the day was in sight when I was to leave Chungking. It was the end of August and the weather was hotter than any we had had before. The bright-blue sky had given the Japanese inspiration, and for two days running, incendiary bombs had rained down on the scarred, pale ruins. From the hill across the river we watched the resultant fires and when, after twenty-four hours, the last glare died down we were looking at a strange and desert land.

I could hardly believe I was really going away. The idea of living anywhere else dazed me. I felt as if all I knew in the world was that hilltop among other hills, overlooking a skeleton city. But it was true; my permission to leave had been acquired from the garrison commander, I had been vaccinated and inoculated, my passport had its visa for Hong Kong. A kindly Briton named Hanbury had allotted the attic room of his house to female refugees, and it was there that I dragged out my suitcase and began to pack.

It didnt take long. My nightgown and underwear I set aside to give away, according to custom. My hairbrush I kept. My powder would be given awayI added it to the nightgown and other thingsas well as a tiny phial of perfume which some Croesus had brought me from Hanoi. How delighted I had been with that perfume! But I could buy more in Hong Kong, and the girls would be delighted in their turn.