Hey! Stop shanghaiing me!

Shanghai may now be known as the hub of East Asia finance after Tokyo and the largest, most populous and richest city of China. But once Shanghai had a dark history, currently plastered on English Dictionary.

What word you may asked? Why, it’s the word “Shanghai” itself.

Just search “shanghaied” on our beloved search engine and you will get a Merriam Webster entry of shanghai as a verb, shanghaied as past form and shanghaiing as a continuous form.

To shanghai means to put aboard a ship by force often with the help of liquor or a drug or to put by force or threat of force into or as if into a place of detention.

To shanghai shares the infamous past of Shanghai and colonialism in Asia. The need for crewmen was great during the colonialist era and there were just too many people to recruit.

So sailor began to force or drug sailor-to-be into the ship and sailed without the consent of the novice. The kidnapped Chinese would have no other choice than to serve as crew. Or sailor would just hijack other ship’s crew to their own ship as an extra hand.

Shanghaiing refer to the usage of brute against someone’s will and can be used as a synonym to “bullied into doing things against will”.

So in the spirit of high-English and we can all say “Stop Shanghaiing me!”

@RiezaApr