Streets Lined With Stalls in Countrymen's Market Regular business in the neighbourhood of St. George's went on under dimiculties for some days Ing the time of the "Basket Fair and a boom was in. progress for _stall-Keepers. Two thousand years ag¢ villagers from the outly-|; Ing sections regularly packed up the baskets they had woven during the winter months and journeyed to the Temple of Peace to remain and wor ship from the second of the fourth moon until the ninth. It was a mighty. religious feast, marking the anniversary of the birth of the "Great Foo." Simple folk simply took advantage of a necessary pilgrimage to dispose of their baserty, That was before the yearning towards commerce turned the event into.a Roman holiday for shop-Keepers, and, incidentally, before Japanese toys coded the markets of China.
The other day hundreds of stalls lined Bubbling Well, Road from Hart Road to Tifeng Road, and occupied every inch of available pavement along the side-streets as far us Great Western Road on the one hand and Kiaochow Road on the other. There was a constantly moving stream of bar~ fain-hunters. passing and. repassing, for it It is a tradition that the basket-weavers must kow-tow before the Buddha and invoke his blessing during Inst week, it is an equally well-established tradition that every~ thing must be "cheap." Tt is this last fact that has brought hundreds. of Shylocks from the highways and byways of Shanghai to hawk their wares at about two or three times their proper price. Strangely enough, the few stray villagers who stare umply at this year's mart, are easy to spot as are the tourists, Un-familar with "big money." one actually insisted upon a twenty-cent piece of silver in payment for his baskets, explaining that the paper money was "not familiar!"
Meeting at Temple However, these simple country~ men are few and far between. The merely stand and st fusion, now and. attempts to compete sional hawkers sing-songing, ever descendants of those who the "Basket Fair" is in "Bubbling Well Temple."
There, tables of incense await the faithful who drop their, coppers. profits from weeks of work in all Probability, into the offerings, and humbly bow in the fashion of old China before the god of their fathers. The actual birthday of the Buddha occurred on the eighth day of the fourth moon, Sunday, May 20, on the foreign" calendar. Until then, the faithful visited the Temple dally, burning Incense and besceching the Englightened for success enlth, and the blessing of many.
"TO watch the "ancient on to be convinced to. Shanghai isa ered time for them.
How long they can possibly remain Innocent of modern practices is a. moot question. It is safe to prophecy that Before the week was out, the country-man who refused, 20 cents: big money as "unfamiliar" "and sisted upon 20 cents small money, became wiser.
As a Buddhist priest remarked, "the village people came in the beginning to receive the blessing of Buddha,—but_now, there are many here from the city who do not visit the Temple." His thin lipped smile spoke volumes discreetly unsaid.
"The basket. fair, reached its climax on Sunday when the Stalls erected around the " Bubbling Well Temple were swamped with people, the majority of them being pilgrims who offered sacrifices before the Buddha, for the birthday, the eighth day of the fourth moon, Besides the worshippers, there were also large crowds of bargain-hunters who purchased articles from the stall-keepers. In Bubbling Well Road and Avenue Road, one would! occasionally see rickshaws passing the street with passengers holding Jarge.bath-tubs, baskets, or other utensils apparently purchased from the stalls.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.