EURASIAN EXPERIENCES IN SHANGHAI AND CHINA’S TREATY PORTS UNCOVERED THROUGH FAMILY HISTORY
May 2022
For over three-quarters of a century in an enclave in the Chinese city of Shanghai
a collection of foreigners representing over forty home nations commingled and cohabited, forming a distinct cosmopolitan community. In February of 1943, Shanghai’s International Settlement dissolved, and the land returned to the Chinese government after decades of legal privileges allowing foreigners to settle, trade, and self-govern. The International Settlement, a self-governing community within Shanghai but separate from the Chinese part of the city, existed for several decades leading to cultural exchanges complicated by the continuous negotiation over the nature of the relationship between the Chinese and the foreigners. At the same time, the Chinese in Shanghai reacted to changes in culture, technology, and ideology related to and separate from Western influence in Shanghai. Most encounters between foreigners and Chinese in Shanghai involved business dealings. However, few foreign residents attempted to learn Chinese languages. According to American Shanghai resident F.L. Hawks Pott, they “were content to live their own lives in their own way among a people whom they made little effort to understand.”1 Intimate and sexual encounters provided another meeting point between Chinese and foreign individuals. The early mostly male population of foreign settlers often engaged in sexual relationships with locals. Many of these relationships remained temporary and some involved sex work. As early as the mid-nineteenth century, some of these relationships produced children. Eurasians, individuals of Chinese and European descent, negotiated their dual cultural background within this unique context.
Despite a diverse community of foreign nationals, Shanghai’s Chinese, and foreign communities both generally discouraged interracial relationships. Shanghai-born Eurasian Joyce Symons expresses that she “was not totally accepted at best by either culture, nor totally despised at worst.”2 And historian Robert Bickers writes that within Shanghai’s foreign settlements “you were judged by your ‘race’. Eurasians...were generally socially excluded, however prosperous, were routinely discriminated against, and were the subject of public and cultural disdain.”3 Eurasians in Shanghai faced a difficult choice in how they presented themselves. While the multitudes of cultures influenced each other, cultural differences could be stark and revealing of an individual’s background. Historian Emma Teng writes how, “Eurasians disrupt boundaries of colonizer and colonized, white and nonwhite, rendering them problematic figures in accepted paradigms of nationalist and ethnic histories.”4 Yet despite the limitations described by historians and memoirists, a close look at these relationships illuminates not only the difficulties faced in mixed-race relationships, but also the surprising leeway many of the children of these unions had in defining who they were. In fact, mixed heritage created unique opportunities and an unexpected range of choices both personally and professionally. Research into primary historical sources, family records, and contemporary historiography reveal family secrets and previously hidden histories. In this article I submit the stories of my direct ancestors as case studies of the experiences of Eurasians in Shanghai and China’s treaty ports. Contrary to historians that emphasize the limitations on Eurasians in China, these stories show how mixed-race men and occasionally women could benefit from their backgrounds. They built businesses, hosted social gatherings, and even became distinguished figures in Shanghai’s multicultural society. The social barriers and discrimination they faced were significant, but there was also a surprising amount of acceptance. The adaptability of Eurasians in traversing racial boundaries reflects Shanghai’s status as a successful mixed-race city.
1 F.L. Hawks Pott, A Short History of Shanghai: Being An Account of the Growth and Development of the International Settlement (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, Limited, 1928), 1.
2 Vicky Lee, Being Eurasian: Memories Across Racial Divides (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004), 49. 3 Robert A. Bickers, Getting Stuck in for Shanghai: Putting the Kibosh on the Kaiser from the Bund, Penguin Specials (Melbourne, Victoria: Penguin, 2014), 10.
4 Emma Teng, Eurasian: Mixed Identities in the United States, China, and Hong Kong, 1842-1943 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 28.
