Legal cases were tried before a Chinese magistrate but presided over by a foreign consular assessor whose power was absolute and whose word was final. The white conquerors were treated with reverence, fear and awe by the average Chinese.

For roughly one hundred years (between 18) westerners were perceived throughout China as superior beings whose wishes transcended even those of their China was governed not by written laws but by the rulings of magistrates appointed by theĮmperor and her citizens traditionally viewed these mandarins as demi-gods. Each concession became an independent city within a city: little enclaves of foreign soil in treaty ports along China's coast line. Foreigners had their own municipal government, police force and Homes of diplomats and business magnates, possess the stately Edwardian grandeur of any fine house by the River Thames at Henley in England or the Gallic splendour of a villa in the Loire valley in France.Įxtraterritoriality meant that within the foreign concessions, all subjects, be they foreign or Chinese, were governed by the laws of the foreigner and were exempt from the laws of China. To this day, amidst the new high-rise buildings, Shanghai's architecture reflects the influence of the foreign traders. At the other end to the east, the Pacific Ocean was only fifty miles away.īritain, France and the United States of America staked out foreign settlements within the city. Strategically situated on the Huangpu River seventeen miles upstream from the mighty Yangtse, the city was linked by boat to the inner western provinces. Gradually it burgeoned into a giant intermediary between China and the rest of the world. It was one of five treaty ports opened up to Britain after the First Opium War in 1842. Shanghai in the late nineteenth century was unlike any other city in China. The pampered baby of the family, eight years younger than my grandfather, Ye Ye, Grand Aunt finally triumphed by rejecting all foodĪnd drink until her feet were, in her words, `rescued and set free'. When China was ruled by the child emperor Kuang Hsu, who lived far away up north in the Forbidden City. She was born in Shanghai (city by the sea) in 1886 during the Qing dynasty The Appropriate Door Fits the Frame of theĪt the age of three my grand aunt proclaimed her independence by categorically refusing to have her feet bound, resolutely tearing off the bandages as fast as they were applied. The True Story of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter

Falling leaves yen mah