Before the Japanese Came

We had a few years of relative peace and calm in the City. It was a different story in the countryside, I learned later. There were fights all the time. Almost constantly. But, those of us in the City were not particularly worried. I guess China went through too many wars, we became callous . . or, rather, we were constantly on the lookout for any disasters, and we were at ready and be prepared to flee anytime. Were we really prepared for anything at all?

I went to a school not too far from our home. In the beginning, our houseboy would take me and my younger brother, Henry, in our rickshaw. Yes, by then I had a younger brother.  As a matter of fact, I had a number of siblings. 

My mother had thirteen children altogether. I was the fourth born child, but the two babies between my brother, Fu, and me did not survive infancy, Therefore, I am the second child - the first girl. There were a couple of babies between Henry and me. They did not survive either. So, when Henry came along, he became the Apple of our mother's eye. Henry was been pampered in every way. Henry could do no wrong.
Out of the thirteen of us, six lived to maturity. Four boys, Fu, Henry. Chong, and Michael, and two girls, Winnie and me. Winnie is the baby, fifteen years younger than I am. So I was the only girl in the family for fifteen years.Yes, I guess I was spoiled, by my father particularly. He doted on me.
Back to schooldays. Henry went to kindergarten at my school. Later he had to go to a boys' school, since my school was for girls only. When my mother thought I was old enough to walk to school by myself, that's what I did - I walked the several blocks to and back from school everyday. 

We lived in a kind of walled-in housing area called Longtong, or Longtang. Longtang houses were native products of Shanghai soon after the city was forced to be opened to the West as a treaty port. At the beginning, Chinese were not allowed to live in the foreign concessions. Later on the British found that relying on the small number of Western residents would not be able to tap the big potentiality of Shanghai becoming a metropolis. At the same time, incessant civil wars in China made a large number of wealthy Chinese refugees request to move into the foreign concessions. The authorities agreed to it. For the sake of management, large number of collective dwellings were built in designated areas enclosed by walls. The house, similar in design as the English terrace houses, but built to suit the Chinese were surrounded by house-walls including a courtyard at front. Most of them had two stories. They were arranged in line like barracks, row after row and can be easily accessed by sub-lanes connected to the main-lane, while only the main-lane could lead to the city road outside through a gate. (The lanes were wide enough for automobiles to go through.) This later became the main and typical type of housing in Shanghai. (Of course, there were individual homes, villas and mansions, and such for the very rich.)
Longtang was a neighborhood
Instead of a wall to surround the neighborhood, around the perimeter, attached commercial buildings were erected. And the storefronts faced the roads. It so happened our gate was on the far-side of the longtang. And in order for me to shorten my walk, I would ask one of the shopkeeper to let me go through the shop's backdoor to enter the longtang. It saved me about a 5-minutes walk.

You will never guess what kind of shop that I went through for the shortcut. A coffin-maker's shop! Yes, I was very uneasy at first, then I got used to it. I would rush by the coffins with my eyes half-closed so I would not see them in the semi-dark backrooms. 
Actually, since there were no corpses, I needed not have worried about it.