Light and Shade: Sketches from an Uncommon Life

3. Eton in China

“That's the reason they're called lessons," the Gryphon remarked: “because they lessen from day to day." Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), Alicε in Wonderland Destination Shanghai In October of 1932, my brother Leo and 1 left our home in Harbin, North China, where 1 had graduated from high school and where 1had concurrently attended a music school for three years, studying violin, piano and conducting. 1 was sixteen, Leo twenty-two. Our destination was Shanghai, on the eastem coast of Central China's ]iangsu (Kiangsu) Province. The circumstances and reasons for our departure are described in my essay “Manchurian Adolescence". My main, indeed, my sole, purpose of coming to Shanghai was to enroll in an English school where 1 would leam English and prepare myself for the matriculation examinations for entry to the University of Hong Kong to study medicine.1 In the summer of 1932, 1 met Ben who had been a year ahead of me at high school and was then on vacation from Shanghai where he was studying in an English school, the Public and Thomas Hanbury School for Boys, and was preparing for matriculation examinations to the University of Hong Kong. At high school Ben was a brilliant student especially in maths and science. He came from a poor Russian/]ewish family and had obtained a 1. The University ofHong Kong was established in 1911, its medical faculty stemming directly from the Hong Kong College ofMedicine founded in 1887. Acknowledged as the foremost bearer of Western culture and science in the Orient, its medical degrees are recognized throughout the British Commonwealth. 44 Part 1 scholarship to the University of Hong Kong established by a rich Sephardi ]ew with widespread business interests in the Far East. What Ben told me about his school planted an idea in my mind to follow in his path and try to enroll there as well. In the meantime 1 began to attend English language classes at the YMCA college. Although 1 had had some English lessons at my high school, 1 retained little of that, but the YMCA was a different matter. After two months of concentrated and very productive teaching, 1 made signifìcant progress. By the time 1 left Harbin for Shanghai, 1 could communicate and make myself understood in English, even if somewhat hesitantly. Since by this time my parents were already making tentative plans to emigrate to Argentina, it might seem strange that 1 was not going with them. 1 was only sixteen and it would have been natural for me to follow them. Yet 1 recall no such thoughts: it seemed as if 1 had already fìrmly resolved to enter a British university. Even stranger was the fact that my parents voiced no objection to my plan and had accepted my decision, which would very likely take me on a different course in life from the rest of my family. Could it be that, faced with their own uncertain future, they decided to let me pursue my own destiny? Leo and 1 travelled by train to Dairen, the southern port of Manchur間， where we embarked on a ]apanese passenger ship operating between Dairen and Shanghai, with a short stopover at Tsingtao, a former German possession. The ship journey took two days. The whole of southern Manchuria was under ]apanese control since the Russo-]apanese War of 1904-05, and was now incorporated into the newly created Manchukuo Empire, e叮ectively a ]apanese protectorate. Several seaside resorts around Dairen, scrupulously maintained by the ]apanese, were very popular with summer holiday-makers from around the region. 1recall our sea journey to Shanghai as enjoyable; we found several old friends on board and made some new ones. In Shanghai we were met by uncle David who had arrived in Shanghai a month before us. A room was reserved for Leo and me at a boarding house, run by a Russian family, in the French Concession. Shαnghαi Shanghai was exciting. The size of the city, the traffìc comprising vehicles of every possible type, the streets teeming with people, European and Chinese, and the large imposing buildings, some in grand n凹-classical style, lining the waterfront - the famous Bund - these were all beyond anything 1 had imagined. It was a new world opening before my eyes. To understand how a Eton in Chinα45 Chinese city had become a great modern metropolis, one has...