Mayor Hsiao Chen-ying – A Most Enlightened Mayor of Tientsin

If China’s city mayors these days aren’t on the take or spending most of their time with their multiple mistresses then they’re prudes who spend their time locking up young feminists or banning old ladies from dancing in parks. Wonder then at the remarkably liberal and practical views of 1936 Mayor of Tientsin (Tianjin) Hsiao Chen-ying. Hsiao, faced with quite a few streets of sin and red light areas in his town, took a somewhat different approach to the previous “Moral Mayors” who had tried to suppress the drugs, girls and gambling. His basic idea was that if the foreigners in their concessions in Tientsin could have gambling, horse racing and lotteries, then why shouldn’t the Chinese in their portion of the treaty port? Simply license these activities, tax them and use the money to support the building of roads, bridges and schools. Let people smoke opium and pay a tax. And, by the way, by liberalising the whole scene you’d stop corrupt coppers taking squeeze from the brothels and casinos.

Hsiao, is seems, was as good as his word, allowing 50 opium dealers to commence business. Still, apparently a rather bunch of strait-laced students objected and protested. The Japanese turned a blind eye, shrugged their shoulders and invaded the city anyway the next year.