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Shanghai Modernity: Commerce and Culture in a Republican City

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Wen-Hsin Yeh
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Extract

One of the most active areas of research in recent years concerns the urban history of Shanghai in the Republican period. Beginning in the 1980s, scholars have gone beyond an overview of Shanghai's rise as China's leading metropolis in the hundred years after the Opium War (1839–42), and produced richly contextualized analyses on the various aspects of the city's history and society.

Type
Reappraising Republican China
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 150 , June 1997 , pp. 375 - 394
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1997

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References

1 Two outstanding examples are Frederic Wakeman, Jr., Policing Shanghai(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), and Christian Henriot, Shanghai, 1927–1937: Municipal Power, Locality, and Modernization(trans. Noel Castelino) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). A significant amount of research has been done on Shanghai in recent years. See discussion below for other works.

2 G. William Skinner, “Cities and the regional hierarchy of local systems, ” “Regional urbanization in nineteenth-century China, ” “Introduction: urban and rural in Chinese society, ” “Introduction: urban development in Imperial China, ” all in Skinner (ed.), The City in Late Imperial China(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977 ). Ping-ti Ho. “The geographic distribution of Hui-kuan (Landsmannschaften)in Central and Upper Yangtze Provinces, ” Tsinghua Journal of Chinese Studies,No. 5 (December 1966), pp. 120 –152, and Zhongguo huiguan shilun {On the History of Landsmannschaften in China)(Taipei, 1966).

3 William T. Rowe, Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796–1889(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984), and Hankow: Conflict and Community in a Chinese City, {796–1895(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989). David Strand, Rickshaw Beijing: City People and Politics in the 1920s(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). Gail ”iHerShatter, The Workers of Tianjin, 1900–1949(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986).

4 See for instance Lillian M. Li, China′s Silk Trade: Traditional Industry in the Modem iWorld, 1842– 1937(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981); Robert Eng, “Imperialism and the Chinese economy: the Canton and Shanghai silk industry, 1861–1932, ” University of California, Ph.D. dissertation, 1978; Hou Chi-ming, Foreign Investment and Economic Development in China, 1840–1937(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965); Albert Feuerwerker, “Handicraft and manufactured cotton textiles in China, 1971–1910, ” JournalofEconomic History, Wol.30, No. 2 (1970); Richard Bush, The Politics of Cotton Textiles in Kuomintang China, 1927–1937(New York: Garland Publishers, 1982); Sherman Cochran, Big Business in China: Sino-Foreign Rivalry in the Cigarette Industry, 1890–1930(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980).

5 Andrea McElderry, Shanghai Old-Style Banks (Ch'ien-chuang), 1800–1935: A Traditional Institution in a Changing Society(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1976 ); Susan Mann. “The Ningpo Pang and financial power at Shanghai, ” in G. William Skinner and Mark Elvin (eds.), The Chinese City Between Two Worlds(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974); Marie-Claire Bergere, “The Chinese bourgeoisie, 1911–1937, ” in John K. Fairbank (ed.), Cambridge History of China,Vol. 12 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 721–825; Parks Coble, The Shanghai Capitalists and the Nationalist Government, 1927–1937(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980).

6 Hao Yen–p'ing, The Commercial Revolution in Nineteenth-Century China: The Rise of Sino-Western Mercantile Capitalism(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).

7 Albeit Feuerwerker, “Economic trends, 1912 –49, ” “The foreign presence in China, ” in Fairbank, Cambridge History of China,Vol. 12, pp. 28 –127, 128–207.

8 Leo Lee and Andrew Nathan, “The beginning of mass culture: journalism and fiction in the Late Ch'ing and beyond, ” in David Johnson, Andrew Nathan, Evelyn Rawski (eds.), Popular Culture in Late Imperial China(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985 ); Wen-hsin Yeh, “Progressive journalism and Shanghai's petty urbanites: Zou Taofen and the Shenghuoenterprise, ” in Frederic Wakeman and Wen-hsin Yeh (eds.), Shanghai Sojourners(Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies Monograph Series, 1992), pp. 186 –238.

9 Perry Link, Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies: Popular Fiction in Early Twentieth Century Chinese Cities(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981 ); Leo Lee, The Romantic Generation of Modern Chinese Writers(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), and “Literary trends 1: the quest for modernity, 1895–1927, ” in Fairbank, Cambridge History of Modern China,Vol. 12, pp. 451–504. See also Edward Gunn, Unwelcome Muse: Chinese Literature in Shanghai and Beijing, 1937–1945(New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), and Po-shek Fu, Passivity, Resistance, and Collaboration: Intellectual Choices in Occupied Shanghai, 1937–1945(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993).

10 The most important statement on this subject is perhaps Leo Lee's forthcoming book. Shanghai Modern(tentative title).

11 Max Weber, The City(trans, and ed. Don Martindale and Gertrud Neuwirth) (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1958 ).

12 On student protest, see Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Student Protests in Twentieth-Century China, The View from Shanghai(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991). On organized crime and “compradore of violence, ” see Brian Martin, The Shanghai Green Gang: Politics and Organized Crime, 1919–1937(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). On the pleasure quarters of the city that thrived under a divided municipality, see Gail Hershatter, Dangerous Pleasure(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).

13 Marie-Claire Bergere, The Golden Age of the Chinese Bourgeoisie, 1911–1937(trans. Janet Lloyd) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989 ). 14. Gregor Benton, Mountain Fires(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).

15 These works take as their point of departure the earlier contribution by Jean Chesneaux, 2*e Chinese Labor Movement, 1919–1927(trans. H. M. Wright) (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968).

16 Emily Honig, Sisters and Strangers: Women in the Shanghai Cotton Mills, 1919 –1949(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986); Elizabeth Perry, Shanghai on Strike: The Politics Chinese Labor(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993).

17 Emily Honig, Creating Chinese Ethnicity: Subei People in Shanghai, 1885–1980(New Bavcn: Yale University Press, 1992 ).

18 Perry, Shanghai on Strike

19 On deparochialization, see Rowe, Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City.

20 Bryna Goodman, Native Place, City, and Nation: Regional Networks and Identities in Shanghai, 1853–1937(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).

21 The following discussion is based on David Strand, “Conclusion: historical perspectives, ” in Deborah S. Davis et al. (eds.), Urban Spaces in Contemporary China: The Potential for Autonomy and Community in Post-Mao China(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995 ), pp. 394 –426.

22 See Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism(Cornell: Cornell University Press, 1983 ).

23 See the essays by Frederic Wakeman, Wilbam Rowe and Mary Rankin in Philip C. C Huang (ed.), ” Public sphere civil society’ in China? Paradigmatic issues in Chinese Studies, ffl, ” Modern China,Vol. 19, No. 2 (April 1993 ).

24 Leo Lee, “The cultural construction of modernity in Early Republican China: some research notes on urban Shanghai, ” paper presented at the conference “Becoming Chinese: Passages to Modernity and Beyond, ” University of California, Berkeley, 2–4 June 1995, pp.2g–29.

25 Leo Lee suggested that this constant effort to keep up with time was one of the key characteristics of modernity. See Leo Lee, “In search of modernity: some reflections on a new mode of consciousness in twentieth-century Chinese history and literature, ” in Paul A. Cohen and Merle Goldman (eds.), Ideas Across Cultures: Essays on Chinese Thought in Honor of Benjamin I. Schwartz(Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies. Harvard University Press, 1990 ), pp. 109 –136.

26 Li Boyuan, Wenming xiaoshi (A Short History of Civilization)(Reprinted Beijing: Tongsu wenyi chubanshe, 1955 ), pp. 99 –105.

27 Ibid.p. 100.

28 Ibid.p. 101.

29 Ibid.p. 102.

30 Ibid.p. 103.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid.

33 For a recent formulation of this position, see Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996 ). 34. Joseph Levenson, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate: A Trilogy(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958 ), Vol. 1. See also Levenson, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and the Mind of Modern China(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965 ).

35 Xu Dingxin, “Ershi sanshi niandai Shanghai guohuo guanggao cuxiao ji qi wenhua \tece” (”National goods advertising in Shanghai and its distinguishing features, 1920 s and 1930s”), paper presented at the seminar on “Consumer Culture in Shanghai, ” Cornell University, July 1995.

36 On the use of posters and calendars for advertising, see Sherman Cochran. “Marketing medicine and advertising dreams in China, 1900 –1950, ” paper prepared for the conference on “Becoming Chinese: Passages to Modernity and Beyond, 1900–1950” at the University of California, Berkeley, 2–4 June 1995.

37 Carlton Benson, “Story-telling and Radio Shanghai, ” Republican China(April 1995 ); also Xu Dingxin, “National goods advertising, ” p. 10. For an original and full treatment of the subject, see Benson, “From teahouse to radio: storytelling and the commercialization of culture in 1930s Shanghai, ” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Berkeley, 1996.

38 Susan Glosser, “The business of family: You Huaigao and the commercialization of a May Fourth ideal, ” Republican China(April 1995).

39 A Society for the Use of National Goods (Quanyong guohuo hui) was formed by Chinese leaders of Shanghai's 20 major guilds on 23 March 1915, less than two months after the Twenty-One Demands presented by Japan to China were made public. Cochran, “Marketing medicine and advertising dreams, ” p. 14.

40 On the boycotts, see Cochran, Sino-Foreign Rivalry,and Parks M. Coble, Facing Japan: Chinese Politics and Japanese Imperialism, 1931–1937(Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1991 ).

41 Cochran, Sino-Foreign Rivalry

42 Xu Dingxin, “National goods advertising, ” p. 14.

43 Ibid.pp. 14 –15.

44 Ibid.p. 14.

45 Kuiyi Shen, “Comic, illustrations, and the cartoonist in Republican Shanghai, ” paper presented in the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Chicago, 13–16 March 1997.

46 Ellen Johnston Laing, “Commodification of art through exhibition and advertisement, ” paper presented in the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Chicago. 13–16 March 1997.

47 For treatment of the issue of gender in the context of Shanghai, see Rey Chow, Woman mid Chinese Modernity: The Politics of Reading Between West and East(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991 ); and Yingjin Zhang, The City in Modern Chinese Literature and Film: Configurations of Space, Time, and Gender(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996).

48 Wen-hsin Yeh, “Progressive journalism and Shanghai's petty urbanites.” For a full treatment of the subject of “small family, ” see Susan Glosser, “A contest for family and nation in Republican and Early Communist China, 1919–1952, ” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Berkeley, 1995. See also Kathryn Bernhardt, “Women and the law: divorce in the Republican Period, ” in Bernhardt and Philip C. C. Huang (eds.). Civil Law in Qing and Republican China(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994). 49. Wen-hsin Yeh, “Corporate space, communal time: everyday life in Shanghai's Bank of China, ” American Historical Review,Vol. 100, No. 1 (February 1995), pp. 97–122.