The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-09-06
Shanghai Letter
By EARL H. LEAF United Press Stan Correspondent

Shanghai (UP)-The Chinese government is trying to eradicate the opium evil in old Cathay, but it's still about as easy to find a | smoke joit'' in any Chinese city to-day as it was to find a speak easy in any American city during prohibition. The Chinese populace is taking the opium eradication campaign just about as seriously as Ameri-
 cans took the federal govern ment's efforts to stamp out need led beer and bathtub gin.
 Having, in days of yore, tasted of the stolen sweets" of a we'll
 stocked cellar in the United States,
 We decided to forget our trials and tribulations with China's favorite illicit pastime and indulge in few fanciful poppy dreams.
 Sing Song House
 | We selected for the scene of our experiment a sing-song house in "Wei Loh Li."ythe most celebrated passageway of it's kind in the world, off Foochow Road, the great pleasure boulevard of the Chinese in Shanghai. Wei Loh Ii" boasts of probably a hundred sing-song houses within it's narrow confines and is the goal of every ambitious sing g-song girl in the Flower King | dom.
 Presenting our letters of intro- duction to the master of the Small
 Two Pcarls," sing-song house of
 some fame itself, we explained our
 wishes in our best Shanghai dia- feet and were admitted into the
 sacred precincts. Three or four Chinese clients were playing nah ! jongg, stuffing themselves with everything from bean curds to | sharks fins, making walla-walla
 and listening enraptured to the high screeching, the wild barbaric ! songs of the sing-song girls.
 1 1e Opium Room
 At the far end of the dim-fit, smoke filled, extravagantly fur nished romo could be seen several | touches on which opium lamps \ were burning and trays of smoking parapheralia were ready for use.
 After concluding a ritual of polite palaver with the master, we were at last introduced to Miss Roo An | kong, slender, exotic, sloe-eyed, archment-skinned Chinese beau- ty who was to preside over the l opium lamp and aid the silly for eigner in ascending the ladder to the seventh heaven of poppy Hand.
 She commenced to work imme- diately. With long silver instru- ment she picked up a bit of the | opium-thick, black syrupy stuff
 'black rice' the Chinese fondly call it-twisting and turning and I spiraling it over the thin steady
 flame of the opium lamp until il was in her opinion properly
 cooked, then inserted the sticky mass into. the tiny aperture of the pipe bowl. while we sucked on the jeweled tip of the stem.
 First Attempt a Flop
 The first pipeful was a flop, An
 kong said, because didn't inhale
 deeply enough. On our second and third pipes we inhaled from the
 bottom of our detestable toes with Iall the force and vioence our lungs lcould muster. The opium splut. ftered and congealed, spluttered and
 melted. burst into flame, smould. lered-acted up generally. Ah-kong worked tireleSsly, diligently, and
 was Q concentrated on her task as a great surgeon performing some momentous operation.
 The fourth pipe gave us sem
 sation of relaxation, as if the mus
 cles in our body had been tensed for life and were now for the first time finding complete relaxation But it was only passing sensa tion, perhaps even a product oi imagination. and we decided we would never emulate De Quincy'i
 "Confessions of an Opium Eater Tn fact, this story is about the bes, T wa could dA.