Times change; people don't. Last week a raft of newbies "discovered" China: the gloomy magic of Kowloon Harbor at night, the seductions of East-West romance, the perils of baijiu. Seventy years from now it will be the same, as it was seventy years ago, when Shamus A'Rabbit roamed the Middle Kingdom. Instead of sharing his wit and observations with a blog, A'Rabbit [A'psuedonym, of course] composed poems.

Those leery of reading the rhyming thoughts of a white guy long-departed can pretend Shamus is an African-American representing a gang of good reputation. Although the verses lack beat or sample, they offer the comfort in knowing that expats of old were a lot like you and me, just more creative.

Here's one for those of you with the "friend" who soon goes home, poorer not wiser, with buddies left behind to tell his cautionary tale.

INNOCENTS IN THE EAST

O, William was so young and strong
And not inclined to roam
He filled his small-town church with song
A model boy at home!

Till Destiny on one fine day
Broke in upon his life
With bids -from China far away -
Farewell to home and wife!

In time he landed at Hongkong-
We bailed him off the ship
And introduced him to our hong
And mysteries of the tip.

Of wine and games and what is worse
He promptly knew a lot
And soon depleted was his purse
The pace was fairly hot.

He couldn't resist
The girls of this isle,
Their dark liquid eyes
And voluptuous smiles
From Venus to Mercury
He went like a flash
Skyrocketting-plummetting
Earthward to crash.

Then home he went with route selected
By us - to save our faces
And now he's where he's well protected
From "dark and evil places".

Apparently, it's always been tough to join the beau monde, even if you left decent society half a world away to do so.

A FAR EASTERN VARIETY

Every little town
Has a ladder of its own.

When Madame de Jay besieged Hongkong
With dash she made a hit
She vamped the men in many a hong
As victims of her wit.

She ordered gowns made by the score
Of styles defying speech
For swimming, Madame's bathing suits
Caused riots on the beach!

Of books she read quite all reviews
And prattled off her ware
She had no time for current news
But made each woman stare.

Poor old de Jay the simple soul
Was entered in the race
To make for every social goal
And follow wifey's pace.

And so he dined and wined and spent
His funds upon all those
Who never spent a single cent
That anybody knows

They got their first big home - a freak
Sublet from Hongkongese
But oh, it brought them near the Peak
And made them feel at ease!

'Twas planned about how nice 'twould be
When Madame and her spouse
Would go and shine for all to see
To balls at Government House.

But when the Governor's list came out
Their names did not appear
The shroffs engaged them in a bout
To pay would take a year.

And now they're gone - ambitious pair
Their guests forget their faces
But soon more climbers will prepare
To come and take their places.

Onward social climbers
Keep on spending more-
Owing butcher baker
And the compradore.

The overnight ferry from Hong Kong to Guangzhou ended a few years back, but those of you who rode it won't find much missing here.

NIGHT BOAT FROM HONGKONG TO CANTON

With Hongkong Isle behind us-
A cluster of baby stars
Reflects upon the waters
The paths that will be ours.

Here gathered from all nations
We meet the East and West-
A group of all professions
Gold not our only quest.

We feel the boat's pulsations
Propellers against the tide
As steaming up the channel
Past phantom junks we glide.

We pass the grim Two Brothers-
Two islands all alone-
Like sentinels ever watching
This danger-ridden zone.

Between barred decks sleep natives
Packed humans-like sardines-
With hawkers selling medicines
For all their ailing dreams-

A living struggling cargo
Bent on its joy - its crime -
A protoplasmic wonder -
A floating speck of time.

The night wears on in cadence
With thumping of the steam -
We come to the Canton Delta
Cut through the yellow stream

Soft molten rolling cloud racks
Fill spaces overhead
Reflect the dancing light beams
From gold to darkest red

Cocks crow - the dogs give warning -
The cocks they crow again -
Floats lazy smoke with morning
To greet the dawn's refrain.

We enter Canton's river
But ere we've time to stop
Lithe water folk swarm over
Our decks, our stern, our top

Mad jabbering like monkeys-
Man, woman, maid and child-
Dense teeming hoards of Canton
Resound like jungles wild.

Here time began for age of man
Here time will cease to be
Here life goes on without a plan
A separate entity

Here all things are exotic and
We feel exotic too
Here mystery's round the corner and
There's zest to what we do-

Here dreamers may forget the world
And foreigners be kings-
Here's where the commonplace is strange
With topsy turvy things.

Your great-grandfather could have warned you about finding love at the club. Not that you would've listened.

FORBIDDEN FRUIT

Never judge
Of a book
By its cover:
This has been
Said before.

Nor a girl
By the halo
Above her,
If on a
Ball room floor.

A vision fair in old Peking
With eyes of desert blue
And when she danced a barb'ric fling
My senses upward flew.

To see a human form divine
Upon a rhythmic wave
Is more than words can well define
When nature won't behave.

My youth it craved just one caress
Of heaven's joy 'twould seem
To bask within the loveliness
Of such a sylphic dream.

Alas, thought I, 'tis Fancy's call-
Tomorrow I must go
Beyond the Manchu's famous wall
To Siber's dreary snow.

The caravan it leaves at dawn
With camels dignified;
Into the vastness I'll be drawn
With Thought alone my bride.

And lo, behold, the morning-basked
In smoke o'er all the town
Revealed a form befurred-who asked
To ride my camel brown-

Fair Katrinka of the floating dance-
The one of yester eve-
Who by some trick of Goddess Chance
Must take a hasty leave

From walled Peking through Nankau Pass
By caravan as old
As paths worn deep in rocks-alas,
With sorrows never told:

And so we rode-a pensive twain-
Beneath the Lama's Gate
Quite lazily our desert train
Played silently with Fate.

Upon the chords of my poor heart-
This maiden spoke the tongue
That eyes alone betray in part
When loving songs are sung-

Deep was her artist-soul, so full
Of love to satisfy
And make each hour more beautiful
To live and not to die.

Betimes she'd entertain me with
Old songs from Russian scribes-
Again she'd change with dash and wit
To tales of Tartar tribes.

And oft her smiles would drive me wild
To claim her for my bride
And then she'd feign a weeping child
To slip away and hide.

We see a plum,
A beauty-peach-
With eyes agleam
For it we reach-

It's fragrance calls
Us to our toes
And then it falls
To hit our nose-

And "Oh I " we sing-
Or else we cry:
"The rotten thing!"
And pass it by.

This one goes out to all you poor souls who take an assignment in Dongbei.

MANCHURIA

(1924)

If from the East we come in through the door
Which opens to the arm of old Korea
And travel northward overland we'll find
The barren hills, from years of wasted lives,
Are being patched by thrifty Japanese
With pine and oak and other hardy trees-
Where waste and desolation of the past
Bestirred some two or more score years ago
By horny-handed rugged Western men
Who sunk their shafts and built the mountain flume
And opened to the torpid native mind
The light and life of Progress-with the rails
To reach the great Manchurian plains.

If through the Southern or the Western Gate
We reach the plains along the Yellow Sea
Or enter at the end of China's wall
Or, from the North through Siber's dreary snow
We find the pioneer hath left his bones
In silent spots amid the clustered stones-
The hardy ones whose lot it was to roam
Afar from kith and kin and friendly town
To come from many corners of our globe-
Afar from every homeside stream and field
Or country lane with memories filled
In unison with every season's mood.

Here staged upon the bleak Manchurian plain
Afar from all that Western men hold dear
We see the drama's drab and dreary course,
The slow and sluggish metal with its dross
E'er mixing and remixing to upbuild
An empire where but in the yesteryear
Through wind and sand the Mongol stunned by time
Was moving with a dull and bovine tread.

Here biting all the ugly dust and grime
We find the men of Nordic stock inured
To roughness of the blazers of the trail
The man from north of Tweed, the hardy Scot
Who drifted over cold Siberian plains
Prospecting down the Ulya to Okotsk
The man from Queensland who had trekked alone
Along the Andes searching gold
Or up the Rio de la Plat' to Corumba
The one who built the plant that made the guns
Which drove the Russians backward from these plains-
Another browsed around the Philippines
To mix here with the fop just out from Home
Complaining o'er the absence of the Ritz,
Its perfume baths and dainty manicure-
The trader who will stay for weary years
To make a home on uncongenial soil,
A Western home in splendid isolation
Like the lotus gracing well the stagnant pool-
A flower in a sea of desolation.

What of the day prescribed by Time to come
When o'er these plains spring cities fair and -rear-
Will those who come to fill the banquet halls,
The fairy balls or drama on the stage-
To watch the manmns perform like all
Now here to toil and eat the dust and grime-
Will they who ride along the avenues green
Displaying charms-the fairest of the fair-
Will they-yes, all the dainty ones to come
Give but a single thought to these old dogs
Who struggle now to scratch the crusted earth
And turn the dross of rough hewn pavements gold?

This one isn't necessarily about China, but is far too true not to include.

PLEASE COME AGAIN

The weather is "unusual"
When e'er a stranger reaches town-
In London, Paris, or New York-
Or other places of renown-
"You should have come a month ago-
You should be here when we have snow-
You would enjoy our season's rain
If you could but a month remain-"
Oh, I am wondering if ever I
Can reach Japan when it is dry-
In California never yet
Have I arrived when it was wet-
I wonder if when I reach Hell
Old Nick will say I've not done well
To come when all the fires are out
And tell me I should rturn about.
And come again for earthly reasons
When Hell is in the best of seasons.