birds, and detest being
looked at, or talked to, or photographed, or written about. They don't
want white men in their restaurants, or nosing about their places. They
carry this love of secrecy to strange lengths. Not so long ago a press
photographer set out boldly to get pictures of Chinatown. He marched to
the mouth of Limehouse Causeway, through which, in the customary light
of grey and rose, many amiable creatures were gliding, levelled his nice
new Kodak, and got--an excellent picture of the Causeway after the
earthquake. The entire street in his plate was deserted.

Certain impressionable people--Cook's tourists and Civil
Servants--return from the East mumbling vague catchwords--mystic,
elusive, subtle, haunting, alluring. These London Chinese are neither
subtle nor mystic. They are mostly materialist and straightforward; and,
once you can gain their confidence, you will find yourself wonderfully
at home. But it has to be gained, for, as I have said, they are shy, and
were you to try to join a game of cards on a short acquaintance ...
well, it would be easier to drop in for a cigarette with King George. To
get into a Grosvenor Square mansion on a ball night is a comparatively
easy matter: swank and an evening suit will do it; nothing very
exclusive about those people. But the people of Limehouse, and, indeed,
of any slum or foreign quarter, are exclusive; and to get into a Poplar
dope-house on bargain night demands the exercise of more Oriental
ingenuity than most of us possess.

Only at the mid-January festival do they forget themselves and come out
of their shells. Then things happen. The West India Dock Road is whipped
to life. The windows shake with flowers, the roofs with flags. Lanterns
are looped from house to house, and the slow frenzy of Oriental carnival
begins. In the morning there is solemn procession, with joss-sticks, to
the cemetery, where prayers are held over the graves of departed
compatriots, and lamentations are carried out in native fashion, with
sweet cakes, whisky, and song and gesture. In the evening--ah!--dancing
in the halls with the white girls. Glamorous January evening ... yellow
men with much money to spend ... beribboned girls, gay, flaunting, and
fond of curious kisses ... lighted lanterns swinging lithely on their
strings ... noise, bustle, and laughter of the cafes ... all these
things light this little bit of London with an alluring Eastern flame.

There was a time, years ago,