"
Mock Hen and Mock Turtle
"Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the
twain shall meet."
--BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST.
"But the law of the jungle is jungle law only, and the
law of the pack is only for the pack."
--OTHER SAYINGS OF SHERE KHAN.
A half turn from the clattering hubbub of Chatham Square and you are in
Chinatown, slipping, within ten feet, through an invisible wall, from
the glitter of the gin palace and the pawn-shop to the sinister shadows
of irregular streets and blind alleys, where yellow men pad swiftly
along greasy asphalt beneath windows glinting with ivory, bronze and
lacquer; through which float the scents of aloes and of incense and all
the subtle suggestion of the East.
No one better than the Chink himself realizes the commercial value of
the taboo, the bizarre and the unclean. Nightly the rubber-neck car
swinging gayly with lanterns stops before the imitation joss house, the
spurious opium joint and tortuous passage to the fake fan-tan and faro
game, with a farewell call at Hong Joy Fah's Oriental restaurant and the
well-stocked novelty store of Wing, Hen & Co. The visitors see what they
expect to see, for the Chinaman always gives his public exactly what it
wants.
But a dollar does not show you Chinatown. To some the ivories will
always be but crudely carven bone, the jades the potter's sham, the musk
and aloes the product of a soap factory, the joss but a cigar-store
Indian, and the Oriental dainties of Hong Fah the scrappings of a Yankee
grocery store.
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