Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-04-14
CITY MADE famous
BY TICKLE FASHION
Bobbed Locks for U. S.
Women Threw Bombshell
Into Chefoo Industry.

"Chefoo, China, recently seized by
revolutionists, is city made famous by
tickle fashion," says bulletin from
headquarters of the National Geo.
graphic Society.
1.-The Germans started the hairnet
industry on large scale, but the World
War in Europe and cheap hair and
cheap labor in Asia caused the industry
to migrate to the Shantung Province
with Chefoo as headquarters.
Although American women's money
paid the wages of thousands of women
and girls in and near Chefoo when the
hairnet industry was fiourishing, per-
haps few of those American women
could locate Chefoo on map without
considerable searching. The city lies
on the north shore of the Cape Cod OF
China, which extends into the Yellow
Sea from the main portion of Shantung
Province toward the middle section of
Korea. If line were drawn due west
from Cincinnati, Ohio, through Denver,
Colo and continued across the Pacific,
Chefoo would be one of the first Chin
csc cities the line would touch.
"Chefoo now ranks third among
Shantung cities, with about 100000 in
habitants. A large foreign settlement
with modern hotels, consular office
buildings and residences bordering wide,
electrically lighted streets, occupies a
knob of land on the north.
THE adjoining Chinese quarter is
congeSted Narrow streets, winding
through this portion of the town. are
lined with squatty buildings mostly Of
fiimSy construction. but it is here that
Chefoo bristles with business activity
throughout the day.
"Stoop-shouldered coolies from neigh
borhood farms and villages trudge to
the market place under loads nearly as
large as those atop mules and donkeys.
Other coolies tug at the handles OF load
ed Shantung wheelbarrows whose wheels
are sometimes 3 feet high. There
is little room in the lanelike thorough
fares for anything else. nevertheless the
ricksha boy draws his fares at high
speed. often forcing pedestrians to side
step into children-filled doorways for
safety
Through the Chefoo streets all the
products for export from the Chefoo
neighborhood are carried to waiting
cargo boats in the harbor. Apples,
sweet potatoes, peanuts. wheat, cotton,
corn. tobacco, pongee silk and hair nets
are transported by vessels flying the
flags of many nations. Cargoes for
Chinese consumption are loaded on
coastwise boats that make Chefoo a
port of call JunkS that lazily fioat
about in the harbor pick up short-haul
shipping Pongee silk and peanuts are
among the more important Chefoo ex-
ports. The latter were introduced in
ShantunG by an American missionary.
"Chefoo was claSsed as one of the
unwalled, therefore unimportant, COM
munities of China before 1862 when the
port was opened to foreign shipping
Later large portion of Shantung ship
ping passed through Chefoo and the
city enjoyed period of prosperity until
1904, when the Shantung Railroad was
completed and the port was forced to
share commerce with ports the rail-
road touched.
Another shock came when the Tient-
sin-Pukow Railroad was completed in
1912. TSingtao, port on the southern
coast of Cape Cod succeeded in get
ting railway connections, while Chefoo
got only promise of a connection. AS
result TSingtao gradually outgrew its
northern competitor The nearest rail-
way station to Chefoo now is 200 miles
to the southwest, between which buses
frequently run over government-owned
highway.
Pickle fashion threw a bombshell
into Chefoo industry when it decreed
bobbed locks for American women
When the industry was at its height
100000 worth of hair nets we're
shipped from Chefoo annually; ma
jority were sold in the United States.
Two years later the value of hair net
expectation dropped to slightly more
than $2,000,000 Seventeen thousand
women and girls in and near Chefoo
made hair nets in 1921; now only few
thousand are employed in the industry"