The Chinese Standard

[NZBC]

Spotless Shops, But What Of The Storing?

Not By Their Fruits Shall Ye Know Them-Look Behind The Shop Doors K.- Oriental Apathy To Hygiene And The Amenities Of The ' : '"West ' - Frugal through centuries of forbears driven to a frugality unknown m the West, the spawn of ah overcrowded and primitive coolie population, the Chinese who. leaves his hopelessly narrow niche m teeming millions of his patient kind has no very expansive ideas when circumstance drives him to an alien > country, whose language he knows hot, and where £100 deposit m hard cash is demanded. To be sure, he has then one set purpose, even if the heritage of ages had not made patience*, and unremitting toil his natural characteristic and capacity. Consider then the Chinese, who, as most' of his kind do, enters into the business of retailing fruit. How can, European expansiveness compete with the slow, set purpose with which John goes about this, his all and everything m life?

First he must overcome alien prer judice, but that follows on his industry. It is slow, it is painfully meticulous. Apple by apple, and orange by orange, he polishes his wares and passively waits for custom. He asks little, for small reward for drudgery is all he knows, but what he does he doss properly. The front of the Chinese fruit shop becomes m point of attractiveness what anything must become on which patience and unremitting care are lavished. His apples and his oranges are m hard fact his only worldly possessions. Is. it remarkable then that he tends his all m all with care? It is not,, but it is exceedingly bad that he tends it with such affectJonate care. The worst feature of this Chinese fruit trade is the intimate care with which John deals with his wares. The English fruiterer lives — and everyone would have him so — according to his racial standard, Not so the Chinese; he is content to crouch at night m dark, cramped attics foetid with the aroma from the banana cupboard, vhere the gas jet burns unceasingly as substitute for a Pacific sun. "Truth" had occasion the' other day, m connection with another matter, to visit several Chinese fruiterers' shops. The stairway of the first visited was so dark, so narrow, and so littered with old boots— there was a mouldering boot on nearly every step, Confucius only knows why! — that "Truth" stood peering about and striking matches for some time before ascending after the jabbering .old Chinese who led the way. On ' the landing was the inevitable banana cupboard, and m close proximity— iii dark recesses into which, at 3 o'clock m theafternoon,. no gleam of light filtered, and, worse still, no air — were a the bunks of the fruiterers. Where they wash and how they wash, for no towel was visible in^ the match-light, ■is. a matter for conjecture, and may remain so as far as th.is writer is concorned. - He has no desire to poke about among their belongings. 'In another shop an old Chinese, ponr derotisly fat, was bending hi& bloated form over banana cases. He was repulsively unclean, and that he was so was not remarkable. Did we wish , to see his bedroom? Certainly. Making his ungainly way upstairs he announced with pride "only one peoples" .. as he unlocked his bedroom door. Tho window was tightly closed and the air smeilful and warm. Why on earth the door was locked it" was impossible to discern, unless to prevent anyone sweeping the place. The floor, was coated with dust, and beyond a bed on which two dirty blankets lay unfolded, and a . large pair of Chinese slippers, there was nothing m the room. John carefully locked the door as he left. Such places are typical of some Chinese fruit traders. That Chinese of their own accord will riot approximate the New Zealand standard is, of course, well known, but it is high time regulations enforcing a standard approaching decency as we know it, and ensuring, a clear .detachment between the fruit and the domestic arrangements of. these, Chinese were introduced, ;and not only introduced but also made effective. In many of the shops the sorting room, the kitchen; the sitting room, and smoking room are one and the same- place—the .usually small room at the rear of the shop. And here the sorters and- polishers — of the fruit 'only spend their days and entertain visitors who shuffle m to sit and smoke and grabble. And they sit and smoke and gabble to some order, tor the natural slothfulness of th* Chinese is m favor of this restful re- Chinese is m favor of this restful recreation, The interior of the sorting room thus ibecomes a polyglot mixture of fruit and a thousand oda3 and ends. Control of these places, or, at least, the responsibility of th<s supervision of them, was first vested m the Health Department, but a provision made last August has given thai charge into the hands of local bodies. In Wellington, the City Council is. of course the responsible body, and there is no suggestion here that the charge is not given the attention it warrants, but the fruiterer who lives with his assistants on the premises is m the position of a private housekeeper. There can be little interference with the condition of his bedroom, for instance — that, is, so long as he keeps some' detachment m his hours of ease from the fruit. But the line of demarcation is too vague. In the conditions m which these people spend their days it is far too vague. Public health demands that the sorting room, at least, should be the sorting room only, and that here the line of demarcation the. fruit business and the domestic arrangements of the fruiterers should clearly defined. NZ Truth , Issue 990, 15 November 1924, Page 6