Celestial Being [Ｂｅｉｎｇ‘Ｓｈａｎｇｈａｉｅｄ’]

　　 　　"I could be shanghaied by aliens--and what a dreadful fate that would be!" 　　--Dr. Zachary Smith, Lost in Space episode 27(1966)
　　
　　WELCOME TO THE BUND: Maybe it’s not too bad to be shanghaied to Shanghai today
　　To shanghai an individual is to trick them (usually with the aid of booze or drugs) into captivity and servitude. Usually into service at sea--like a merchant navy version of being press-ganged but without the veneer of official authority. Why poor old Shanghai got the dubious honor of having its name associated with this practice, I don’t know.
　　Now being kidnapped into labor is certainly nasty, but as dreadful fates go, it’s a fair way down the list, I would suggest. For example, staying with the naval theme, being keelhauled, which many did not survive, strikes me as a considerably worse fate. It’s surprising that the Chinese did not get their name associated with some other worse practices, as they seem to have dreamed up many of the world’s most dreadful fates, death by a thousand cuts and water torture, to name but two.
　　It appears, however, that the term has been around in international usage since at least the mid-1800s, with accounts such as the unfortunate Johann Carlson “Yeah, I was shanghaied in San Francisco in 1902” and his subsequent execution for murder as part of his attempt to escape, including his recorded final words on board ship, “O sweet Jesus, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” as he was made to walk the plank, a fate rather more extreme than today’s version of just being posted to Guangzhou instead.
　　But certainly, with conditions on board ship in the 1800s being far from ideal, the solution was to kidnap personnel--often drunkards in a bar--who would then presumably wake up with an enormous hangover and the prospect of three years at sea plying the trade routes between, at least in China, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Yokohama and Manila. Come to think of it, there are some people I haven’t seen for a while after a heavy session in the Long Bar…
　　Kept guarded on deck, they’d be signed up for three or more years at a pittance, and made to work as a ship’s crew. Rum, sodomy and the lash awaited those who objected. Filthy conditions, meager rations, the high possibility of being murdered either by fellow crewmen or by pirates, and at least a full three years out of your life before you had any chance of release, being shanghaied was a pretty bad fate. It wasn’t just the merchants either--the British Navy was known to send burly officers ashore--the so-called “recruitment parties”--and would typically head either to hard drinking bars or other places of general ill-repute to secure the unwilling services of the temporarily misplaced. Whether or not today’s “headhunters”--now dressed up as “executive search consultants”--can trace their origins back to such a past is a matter of some debate, but the thought--especially given the size of their fees--just seems to have some merit in the piratical application of their modern business.
　　Perhaps that’s what has happened to the declining Mao Ming and Ju Lu Lu bar streets in Shanghai--all those dodgy expats ogling the girls and getting wrecked on beers are now out at sea rowing containerships full of Chinese TV sets and electric cookers over to San Francisco and back again. Certainly many of them deserve such a fate.
　　But if you do get shanghaied, you’d be in good company. No less a persona than Edgar Allan Poe was snatched and served time, whereas the legendary pirate Bouchard was notorious for having his entire crew made up of shanghaied personnel--leading to an even earlier date possibly for the practice--Bouchard plied the seas in the late 1700s.
　　Somehow, the term seems to fit. There is no doubt that Shanghai, born of a Chinese mother and a British/American/French/ Russian/Jewish father, has long practiced business in a manner akin to pirates, rogues and spivs, and the whole concept of being dragged off while getting royally tanked, and then spending a few years as a form of slave labor or pirate as a form of purgatory, does seem appropriate. Now who do You know that deserves to be shanghaied and out of the way for a while…?

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