Under Orders
May 30th, 1925. A muggy day in the Shanghai International Settlement. A bead of sweat formed on Chen Ku-Chung’s scalp, rolled down his neck, and added to the wetness of his once-stiff collar. He had just ironed his uniform yesterday, but within minutes of the stifling Shanghai heat his sweat had made his smooth attire clammy and drooping. Exasperated and very much annoyed, he sighed out loud.
“What’s wrong, Chen? Is it your father’s cough again?” One of his constable colleagues poked him in the arm and asked. The six of them had been sitting in the Louza Police Station in awkward silence for hours, and finally someone broke it.
“My father? No. I just can’t stand the heat. Look,” He gingerly pinched his moist uniform with two fingers and lifted it off his body, “I just washed this yesterday, and now it’s all ruined. He casually unfastened the heavy redwood baton hanging at his waist and slapped it down on the table with a loud thud. In the eyes of the Municipal Council, Chinese constables were only fit to patrol with sticks. They were meant to keep the peace and suppress their own kind, but firearms were a privilege reserved strictly for foreign and Sikh officers; the Shanghailanders trusted Sikhs much more and were afraid that if the Chinese had firearms in their hands, they might rebel. Honestly, what a waste of time.” He sighed again.
Funny how his uniform, his symbol of national pride, had now become his burden. Whenever he patrolled the urban streets of Shanghai, his sleek and stiff uniform always managed to win over the curious yet awed looks from Chinese locals, as if he was their model citizen. And he was, in some way; he was one of the first Chinese nationals to join the predominantly foreign Shanghai Municipal Police, and he safeguarded his own city inhabited by his own people. His very presence seemed to say, what now, Brits? Still think you’re better than us?
The conversation burned out, and the police station returned to silence. His superiors, police inspector Edward William Everson and his deputy, had left the station an hour ago for a peacekeeping mission on the Nanking Road, leaving him with five other Chinese constables; Chen hadn’t seen the reconnaissance report, but he heard mutterings amongst his ranks about college students demonstrating and rioting. Apparently two weeks earlier, Japanese factory owners shot a Chinese worker dead during a sit-in protest for higher wages, and those students are now leading the entirety of Shanghai to express a collective outrage.
Chen can’t help but sigh for the third time. If only these protests would actually change the workers’ conditions! Foreigners in Shanghai were not nearly as sympathetic to the working class as his countrymen were; he himself has petitioned on behalf of the other Chinese constables for a pay rise, and as far as he knows, the proposition is still collecting dust somewhere in Everson’s desk drawer. While the locals treated him with respect, foreigners absolutely despised him and his ranks. Maybe because he was taking their jobs, maybe because he violated the principle of white supremacy in the city; whatever the case, however, he was powerless to alter his situation.
If you want to change the rules, you have to be the rulemaker. Being a nobody would never work out, no matter if you acted nice or mean, passive or aggressive. You have to matter, you have to be important, you have to be powerful so that there is a consequence with not listening to you.
Which is why Chen joined the police force.
The night of January 28th, 1902 was a peaceful one for the 16-year-old Chen, until a car’s smooth purr pierced the silence.
From his residence near the Soochow Creek, the rumbling of an engine on quality gasoline sounded unnaturally loud in the damp air, which usually only echoes with faint sloshes of small river waves. A car from the Municipal Council, Chen thought instinctively, nobody could afford cars. Curiosity got the better of him, and he crept out his front door to spy.
In the distance, he could see two headlights swiftly advancing through the darkness, their merciless rays casting a raw brilliancy on everything in its path. Bit by bit, the headlights grew brighter, and the engine grew louder; he could now barely make out the shape of the car. It was a sleek black vehicle, one that would have blended into the night if not for the headlights, exactly the type White men would drive. The front windows were completely shaded, and submerged in darkness, he couldn’t really see who was driving. And on the side…
Chen couldn’t believe his eyes; was Lao Tian Ye punishing him for spying on other people’s business? There was a man standing on the sideboard of the car, holding on for dear life as his body fluttered in the wind.
The car came to an abrupt halt just down the road from where he was looking, and the man on the sideboard swung forward violently, threatening to pitch off the car. Just as the man was recovering his balance, two figures disembarked from the car, and forcibly yanked him off the sideboard. The rider stumbled into the grip of his two captors.
So he wasn’t, in fact, hallucinating. By the deathly pale headlights, Chen could more clearly make out the three people. The one riding on the sideboard seemed to be a beggar, his ragged clothes barely maintaining some decency over his frail frame; the other two, just as he had guessed, were policemen.
He only caught snippets of the conversation between the trio, since he dared not edge any closer. A harsh statement from the policemen, a cry of surprise from the beggar, then a curt voice ordering something, then sobbing pleas.
Chen was about to leave the scene when he heard the pleading turn into cries for help. Before his astonished eyes, the policemen lifted the beggar up like a sack of potatoes, and with a few swings, dumped him into the freezing Soochow Creek.
The policemen seemed glad to be finished with business. They promptly hopped back into their car and drove off. The blood-red taillights briefly illuminated the creek’s surface, and the beggar was nowhere to be found. The commotion ended as quickly as it had begun. Chen was still petrified when the engine faded out into the night, and the soft laps of waves against the river banks were all that was left to be heard.
In later days, he pieced together information he caught from the community elders’ talk. The beggar was called Mau te-piau, and he was arrested for begging on Nanking Road. Apparently, several of his neighbors saw the dumping as well, but nobody was brave enough to stop the policemen in their tracks. As for why he was dumped into the creek, nobody knew. The policemen were never punished for their actions anyways, it would have been impossible to know. Mau was never found.
Shame burned through him. He watched his own countryman murdered by two white devils, yet he was completely powerless. This is what happens when foreigners rule us, he thought to himself, this is what happens when we don’t get a say in our own land. There needs to be a Chinese influence in Shanghai. They had to be heard, be felt, and no longer be forced to only watch in silence and horror.
Two years later, Chen signed up at the Shanghai Municipal Council to become a constable policeman.
“… Chen? Ku-chung? Buddy, are you still there?” His colleague, the one who had asked about his father, was poking his arm again, though this time there was a certain urgency to his movements.
Without realizing it, he had drifted into memory. It was just too difficult to stay fully lucid in the Shanghai heat. He sat up groggily, only to discover that during his snooze sweat had completely soaked through his uniform. He sighed again as he turned to face the other constable: “What was it?”
“An emergency call from Officer Everson; he just returned. To arms and formation outside the police station. Now.”
The drowsiness vanished from Chen’s body immediately, and his damp clothes now clung to his skin with an uncomfortable wet coldness. Constables regularly carried guns, but to formation… He flipped up from his position half-sitting half-lying on the floor, holstered a pistol from the weapons cabinet nearby, and followed the other policeman towards the exit. The few steps seemed to take ages, and he struggled with the urge to find Everson and ask why.
June 15th, 1920. Chen’s peaceful office duty was abruptly cut short when his superintendent Appleby hauled a Briton into the police station. They gripped each other so firmly and with so much hatred that it was almost physically impossible to keep a distance between them; it became quite obvious that they had caused each other’s injuries.
Everson came and questioned each in a low voice, while Chen and his colleagues did their best to stop the two from edging close to one another and starting another brawl in the middle of their police station. The Briton was sent out with a promise that the event would be properly settled, and Appleby was called into Everson’s office.
Through the open door, Chen could clearly hear the bits and pieces of their conversations. Weirdly enough, Everson sounded not solemn but instead casual: “I just went through the major details of you two’s accounts.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your actions are very unbecoming of a police officer’s.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your resignation has been accepted.”
A short pause happened, and Chen could imagine the speechless Appleby struggling to find words and breath at the same time.
“But sir, I never submitted one…”
Silence. Then, “I suggest you do.”
“But sir, I — — ”
“Enough.”
Moments later, Appleby emerged from the office deflated, the fight already leaked out of him. He didn’t even meet Chen’s curious gaze as he left the police station, never looking back.
Chen couldn’t contain his curiosity anymore. He ventured to the door of Everson’s bureau and peeked inside. And there it was, dully shining in lost glamor, sitting on the wooden tabletop, Appleby’s police badge.
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He couldn’t help himself: “Sir.”
Everson raised his head: “What is it?”
“What was the evidence?”
A long pause. Everson took the time to look at him, up and down, taking in every detail. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”
Chen was confused. “Pardon, sir?” What did Everson mean?
The inspector smiled slightly, as if saying see? He walked past Chen without saying another word.
By the time Chen came back from this memory, his body had joined the lines of constables outside their station on autopilot. They were facing Nanking Road, the most modern avenue in the entirety of the Orient; yet now, with a riot brewing, it appeared deserted like a ghost town. In the distance right across from him, he could vaguely see a growing crowd on the horizon. He made out the fuzzy outline of a constable struggling to stand his ground against the swarms upon swarms of demonstrators pressing against him. Soon, that man ran out of threats, and he turned towards the station and retreated.
The angry crowd behind him followed, a massive black cloud piling and thundering ominously.
Everson was desperately trying to organize the six of them in a defensive formation. The massing protesters looked like they were about to storm the police station at any time.
Outside, the mob advanced slowly but steadily towards them. By this point, the faces in the crowd were fully visible. At the front were the students, the rumored aggressors, and the most radical in demonstrating. Right behind them were the other, more elderly protesters, mainly workers. At the very back of the crowd, a large group of onlookers massed. Some of the protesters carried bricks, others bamboo poles. The mob churned, a sea of human tides and waves, continuing to push forward towards the station. Chen could clearly hear them yell out chants in both English and Chinese: “Kill the foreigners!”
The angry mob pressed onwards, and time seemed to slow down as they closed the last meters of distance. They were merely dozens of feet away from where Chen stood in the courtyard of the station, and Everson decided to act. He rushed to the front and shouted: “Stop! If you don’t stop, I will shoot!” in both Wu and English. But his voice, the clear and cold one on the day of Appleby’s resignation, seemed a whisper against the mob’s seething rage. Seeing that his verbal warning did not work, Everson reached down towards his holster and pulled out his pistol. He pointed the gun at the men in the mob, waving it around trying to make them back down. In the crowd facing his gun, there were numerous middle school students, of sixteen and seventeen years of age. A small part of Chen wondered what in the world these kids were doing.
Chen stared idly at the crowd. He had never seen a demonstration this large.
“Men, ready guns!” He heard Everson scream an order. He continued to stare blankly at the advancing protestors. Twenty meters away. Nineteen. His body knew exactly what he was doing, though; in a smooth motion, his hands pulled out his pistol and armed it.
Wait, what? Were they going to shoot? The protestors? The students?
Bricks and other projectiles began landing around him; the crowd was within throwing distance.
“They want to take the police station; I do not care how, but do not let them!” Everson’s shrill cry was distant and foggy.
Once again, his body followed the orders for him. His right thumb cocked the pistol, and his arms thrusted the barrel forward, pointing in the direction of the demonstration.
Ten meters away. Nine.
Images flashed into Chen’s mind. The pillaging French soldiers. The dead shopkeeper. Why was he playing the murderer’s role now?
Eight. Seven.
Appleby’s silent resignation. The badge lying forlornly on Everson’s desk. No, he must follow orders, even if it is a damning one, the way Appleby did; didn’t his body follow the directions already for him?
Six. Five.
He stared at the faces in front of him in the approaching crowd. They looked so different, yet so similar; yellow skins, black eyes, black hair, flat noses. The same as each other, the same as his own. Didn’t he join the police force seeking justice for Chinese people?
Four. Three.
But this is justice, isn’t it? Everson said that the protesters wanted to take the police station, and that meant they were going for the weapons stored inside. Somebody is going to die anyway. Giving them guns is definitely not justice, that is for sure.
Two.
Or is it? Is Everson always right? He fired Appleby without a reason, did he not?
Foreigners treated him as if he were a thief, not sparing even a single bullet for the Chinese police. But now, in order to suppress Chinese students, they generously opened their armory and handed over the lethal weapons to this Chinese police officer themselves! How ironic! The “power” and “guns” he had been striving for for so long ended up in his hands in this way.
One.
Stillness. The world held its breath.
“Fire!”
Everson’s voice seemed unnaturally loud now. Only the order and roaring blood could be heard in Chen’s mind.
An order is an order. Chen Ku-chung was under orders. His fingers snaked around the trigger. His heart beat once, twice. He hitched his breath.
Chen squeezed his eyes shut, and pulled down with all his might.
Historical Notes
Shanghai. This one word had captivated the West for decades in the early 20th century. It was the synonym of the exotic, of the wealthy, of the luxurious; it was also the symbol of oriental primitiveness, of racial inferiority, of squalor, and of disorder. The dazzlingly modern Nanking Road won the city the honor of “Paris of the Orient” and “Riviera of the East”, yet only several blocks away from the Road there lay slums and red light districts, where famine, plague, and crime relentlessly claimed life after life. The magical city contained two fiercely opposing realms, one heaven and one hell, within its bounds.
Quite ironically, the local Chinese lived in the worst of these two conditions, while the better was reserved for Westerners and their descendants. Foreigners who permanently settled in Shanghai called themselves “Shanghailanders”, and with the aid of their superior mother nations, established a rigid social hierarchy inside the city. The governing Shanghai Municipal Council and its many officials existed at the top, and then it was the big capitalists, then smaller landowners and businessmen, then the blue-collared workers who had to depend on labor to earn a living. The Chinese existed beneath this lowest rung, taking up the job of “coolies” and servants.
The Shanghai Municipal Police bridged the gap between these two vastly different worlds. They enforced orders that their Shanghailander superiors gave them, mainly to govern and administer the Chinese majority. They face both pressure from above to enact orders, and pressure from beneath due to anticolonial revolt. As tools for the executive branch of government, policemen oftentimes have no choice but to follow orders.
These power dynamics become very interesting when we discuss a specific branch of the Police, the Chinese one. They, too, had no choice but to enact whatever orders that came from above, even if it meant firing upon their countrymen, because they hold within their bodies a duet of conflicting identities: Shanghai policemen, and Chinese. Where do their loyalties lie?
Or, in the absence of an answer, where should they lie?
