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Shanghai's “Dogs and Chinese Not Admitted” Sign: Legend, History and Contemporary Symbol*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Robert A. Bickers  and
Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom
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Extract

This article examines the potency and persistence of myth and language in the context of the dispute, now over 80 years old, about the officially-sanctioned wording of regulations in the municipal parks of foreign-administered Shanghai. Specifically, it examines the potent symbol of the sign placed in Shanghai's Huangpu Park that allegedly read: “Chinese and Dogs Not Admitted.” This symbol has secured a totemic position in the historiography of the Western presence in China before 1949 and is deeply embedded in contemporary Chinese and Western perceptions and representations of that era, and of the whole question of Western imperialism in China. It is the subject both of popular discourse and official fiat in China today. Drawing on a series of revisionist writings and new archival research this article shows that the true facts of the case are both beyond dispute and irrelevant, but that the legend survives undiminished.

For over 60 years before June 1928 most Chinese certainly were barred from the parks administered by the foreign-controlled Shanghai Municipal Council (SMC) of the International Settlement in Shanghai. As shown below, the enforcement of the ban varied over time but for the first three decades of the 20th century it was rigidly administered. Dogs, ball games, cycling and picking of the flowers were also forbidden, but the alleged juxtaposition of the bans on dogs and Chinese became notorious. The potency of “dog” as an insulting and dehumanizing epithet in China undoubtedly exacerbated the insult, and also made the story of the sign's outrageous wording seem all the more plausible.

Type
Issues in the History of Shanghai
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 142 , June 1995 , pp. 444 - 466
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1995

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References

1. See, for example, Pye, Lucian, “How China's Nationalism was Shanghaied,” Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, No. 29 (January 1993), pp. 107–133CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for a thoughtful survey of generations of Western sinologists' arguments over imperialism's effects, and a critique of Fairbanks' paradigm of “synarchy” in the treaty ports, which Pye argues should have been more fully studied over the years (p. 114), see Cohen, Paul, Discovering History in China: American Writings on the Recent Chinese Past (Columbia: Columbia University Press, 1984), pp. 97–148Google Scholar and passim.

2. In Chinese it has also been known as the Gongjia huayuan (Public Garden) and Xiren huayuan (Westerners' Garden).

3. On the Bund see, for example, Huebner, Jon, “Architecture of the Shanghai Bund,” Papers on Far Eastern History, No. 39 (March 1989), pp. 127–165.Google Scholar From quite early on the Bund was the subject of rhapsody, Lang, H., Shanghai Considered Socially (Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1875), p. 35.Google Scholar

4. The Shanghae Evening Courier, 23 July 1869, p. 990.

5. The Shanghai Mercury, 10 May 1881, p. 3;Rules and Regulations of the Shanghai Municipal Police Force (Shanghai: Celestial Empire, 1881); North China Herald (hereafter NCH), 13 May 1881, pp. 462–63; Rules and Regulations of the Shanghai Municipal Police Force (Shanghai: North China Herald, 1884), pp. 53, 54; NCH, 9 December 1885, p. 658; 29 March 1889, pp. 376–77; 20 July 1889, p. 82; 31 August 1889, p. 274; 21 September 1889, p. 362; Shanghai Municipal Council, Annual Report 1890, pp. 222–24Google Scholar and NCH, 19 December 1890, p. 758. A comprehensive general discussion of early park rules, the pass system, the petitions of the 1880s and the opening of the Chinese park is provided in Lanning, George and Couling, S., The History of Shanghai, Part 2 (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1923), pp. 202–205.Google Scholar

6. These extracts from the full regulations are taken from: Handbook of Local Regulations issued by Order of the Municipal Council (Shanghai: Shanghai Municipal Council, 1903), p. 60; Shanghai Municipal Council Gazette (hereafter SMCG), 24 July 1913, p. 172; Shanghai Municipal Council, Handbook of Local Regulations (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1918), pp. 40–43Google Scholar; There were in fact occasional diplomatic exceptions to exclusion, a few passes being issued to “Chinese officials, etc., upon special application,” 28 April 1926, SMC Parks Committee, Minute Book No. 2, Shanghai Municipal Archives (hereafter SMA).

7. L'estrange Malone, Colonel C., New China: Report of an Investigation (London: Independent Labour Party Publication Department, 1926Google Scholar, 2 vols.), Vol. 2, facing p. 20; personal observations.

8. A Mischievous Slander (Tianjin: Tientsin British Committee of Information, Memorandum 19, 21 March 1927).

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11. The issue had been politicized to such an extraordinary extent that we will refrain here from citing any of these pieces, but any search through the recent historical literature emanating from Shanghai will turn up examples.

12. Qing, Ye, “Guanyu ‘Huaren yu gou bu de runei’ de yixie shishi” (“A few historical facts concerning ‘Dogs and Chinese Not Admitted’”), Guangming ribao, 13 June 1994, p. 3Google Scholar; Dagong bao, 12 April, 1994.

13. See, for example, Tiangang, Li, “Shanghai zaoqi xiqiao yule jigou (er ti)” (“Early entertainment organizations of Shanghai's Westerners”), Shanghai wenhua (October 1994), p. 57Google Scholar, and “Monumental change,” Shanghai Star, 2 December 1994, p. 16.

14. The quotation comes from one of the draftees of the agreement, “A far sighted agreement – an interview with Shao Tianren, legal adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” FBIS-CHI-94, 19 December 1994.

15. China Daily, 19 December 1994, p. 1.

16. Qing, Ye, “A few historical facts”; for discussions on other similarly contested issues in China see the pertinent chapters in Watson, Rubie S. (ed.), Memory, History, and Opposition Under State Socialism (Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1994).Google Scholar

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18. Daily Telegraph, 13 April 1994, p. 11. The report of the forgeries was published in Dagong boo, 12 April 1994.

19. Representative texts by authors belonging to the various groups mentioned include: Bertram, James, Return to China (London: Heinemann, 1957), pp. 195–96Google Scholar; Ch'en, Jerome, China and the West: Society and Culture, 1815–1937 (London: Hutchinson, 1979), pp. 217–18Google Scholar; Seligman, Daniel, “Ghettos in China,” Time, 7 April 1980, p. 42Google Scholar; Lor Malloy, Ruth, Travel Guide to the People's Republic of China (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1980), p. 201Google Scholar; Fraser, John, The Chinese: Portrait of a People (Toronto & London: Collins, 1980) photograph caption (p. 7)Google Scholar; Allan, Sarah and Barnett, Cherry, China (London: Cassell, 1980), p. 149Google Scholar; Rosenthal, A. N., “Memoirs of a new China hand,” New York Times, 26 July 1981, p. 19Google Scholar; Van Slyke, Lyman, Yangtsze: Nature, History, and the River (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1988), p. 25,Google Scholar and Cotterell, Arthur, China: A Cultural History (New York: Penguin 1988), p. 232.Google Scholar

20. Putnam Weale, The Eternal Priestess, p. 26. (Searches have yet to reveal any such controversy in the North China Herald for the years before 1914.)

21. Latourette, K. S., The Development of China (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1917), p. 236.Google Scholar

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23. Grant, Joan, Worm-eaten Hinges: Tensions and Turmoil in Shanghai, 1988–89 (Melbourne: Hyland House, 1991), pp. 68–69Google Scholar; see also Mathews, Jay, “Foreigners in China emerge as a new privileged class,” Washington Post, 9 March 1980, p. A18.Google Scholar

24. A documentary case in point (Yorkshire Television's China Rising) is described in Davidson, Max, “The arts: female struggle,” (London)Daily Telegraph, 11 August 1992, p. 10Google Scholar; a Japanese documentary, “Shanghai Kyodo Sokai” (“Shanghai International Settlement”), first shown on 5 May 1986, included a shot of the Malone photograph of the 1917 sign, identified inaccurately as the “Dogs and Chinese Not Admitted” one; a sample work that focuses only briefly on China which includes a reference to the sign is Rowbotham, Sheila, Women in Movement: Feminism and Social Action (New York: Routledge, 1992), p. 207.Google Scholar

25. The reference to the sign in a 1993 guidebook, Shanghai (Taipei: Huwei shenghuo), p. 46, is not unusual.

26. The text of the plaque is provided in Ted Thomas, “Keeping a myth alive,” South China Morning Post, 22 January 1987, p. 12. The version of the sign's history recounted on the plaque, which has disappeared during the recent renovation of the park and the building of the Martyrs Memorial, is very similar to that provided in PRC publications such as Xiang, Hua, (ed.), Shanghai shihua (An Informal History of Shanghai) (Shanghai: Wuwen shuju, 1971), pp. 138–142.Google Scholar

27. Morou, Guo, Guo Morou quanji (Collected works of Guo Morou) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1985), Vol. 9, pp. 41–54Google Scholar, see esp. pp. 41–43.

28. Hesen, Cai, Xiangdao zhoubao (The Guide Weekly) No. 46 (16 November 1923), p. 352Google Scholar; and Yat-Sen, Sun, Sun Zhongshan quanji (Collected Works of Sun Yat-sen) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986), Vol. 8, p. 3.Google Scholar

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30. Zhimin, Fang, Fang Zhimin wenji (Writings of Fang Zhimin) (Beijing: Xinhua, 1985), p. 126.Google Scholar

31. Wusi Yundong liushi zhounian jinianji (Commemorating the Sixtieth Anniversary of the May 30th Movement) (Shanghai: Shanghaishi zonggonghui and Shanghai gongren yundong shiliao weiyuanhui, 1985), p. 14; and not only Communists, see, for example, “Oral history,” an interview with Nationalist diplomat Wellington Koo in The New Yorker, 18 April 1977, p. 32. Curiously, we have found no references in PRC works to the story of Mao Zedong having become radicalized by the sign, although the tale has become fairly well known in China, presumably through oral transmission. It is also well known in the West, thanks to Stuart Schram's Mao Tse-tung (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966), p. 73. See also Fogel, Joshua, Politics and Sinology: The Case of Naito Konan (1866–1934) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32. It is interesting to note, in fact, that the lawns and benches on the Bund Foreshore, alongside the Huangpu but not in the Public Garden, and barred to Chinese use from the turn of the century onwards do actually appear to have been “reclaimed” by Chinese users after May 30th, despite SMC policy. Parks Committee, 16 December 1927, Minute Book No. 2, SMA.

33. Xin Shanghai bianlan (A Handy Guide to New Shanghai) (Shanghai: Dagong bao, 1951), pp. 415–16; see also Shanghai ji jinbu yiri you (A Day's Travels in Shanghai and Neighbouring Parts) (Shanghai: Shanghai wenhua chubanshe, 1957), pp. 24—25. An exact reprint of the latter work was published in Hong Kong in 1972 by the Luyou chubanshe.

34. Dong, Weikun (ed.), Shanghai jinxi (Shanghai Yesterday and Today) (Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, 1958), pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

35. Xiang Hua, Informal History of Shanghai, p. 142.

36. Ibid. pp. 142–47; for a similar view, which includes a reproduction of the Malone photograph as evidence, see Shanghai waitan Nanjinglu shihua (An Informal History of Shanghai's Bund and Nanjing Road) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1976), pp. 46–49.

37. A sample brief account from the early 1980s, one of many, may be found in Shanghai youlan {Shanghai Guidebook) (Shanghai: Shanghai wenhua chubanshe, 1980), p. 24.

38. Shanghai Cidian (Dictionary of Shanghai) (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1989), p. 435; Shanghai Cidian (Dictionary of Shanghai) (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 1989), pp. 473–74; Zhang, Xuelin (ed.), Yuanlin jiqu (Record of the Parks) (Shanghai: Shanghai huabao chubanshe, 1991), pp. 23–25.Google Scholar

39. Jiashi, Yang, “Shanghai yuanlin zhiliie” (“An outline gazetteer of the parks”), Lishi wenhua mingcheng — Shanghai (Shanghai — A Famous City of History and Culture) (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1988), p. 88.Google Scholar

40. Wuxiong, Ren and Yulin, Xu, “Waitan gongyuan de lishi” (“The history of the Bund Garden”), Lieqiang zai Zhongguo de zujie (The Concessions the Powers Established in China) (Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1992). pp. 100–103.Google Scholar

41. Guangming ribao, 26 October 1979; Xinhua News Agency, 2 November 1991; Guangming ribao, 11 September 1994, p. 3.

42. Shenbao, 28 April 1881, 29 April 1881, 8 December 1885, 21 September 1888, 11 August 1889, 27 January 1909, quoted in “The entire story.”

43. Shanghai youlan zhinan (Shanghai Touring Guide) (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1923), p. 29; Xiuzhen Shanghai zhinan (Pocket Guide to Shanghai) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1911), p. 65; Shanghai zhinan (Shanghai Guide) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1909), part 8, p. 2; Shanghai zhinan (Shanghai Guide) (Shanghai: Shanghai yinhang luxingshe, 1925), p. 23.

44. Parks Committee, 29 December 1911, Minute Book No. 1, SMA.

45. Shanghai xiangtu zhi (Gazeteer of the Shanghai Region) 1907, reprinted in Shanghai tan yu Shanghairen (Shanghai and the Shanghainese) (Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1989), p. 72.

46. Bo, Xi (ed.), Lao Shanghai (Old Shanghai) (Shanghai: Shanghai taidong tushuju, 1919), p. 155.Google Scholar

47. Chinese Information Bureau, How Foreigners Live and Carry on Trade in China (London: Chinese Information Bureau, 14 July 1925) p. 3.Google Scholar

48. Leang-Li, T'ang (Tang Liangli), China in Revolt: How a Civilisation Became a Nation (London: Noel Douglas, 1927) p. 51Google Scholar; China Facts and Fancies (Shanghai: China United Series, 1936).

49. “Chinese and Dogs,” North China Daily Mail; 23 July 1927.

50. Shixun, Kuai, “Shanghai YingMei zujie de hebing shiqi” (“The era of the amalgamation of the British and American settlements”), Shanghaishi tongzhiguan jikan (Shanghai Tongzhiguan Quarterly), Vol. 1, No. 3 (1933), pp. 688–691Google Scholar; Shanghai, tongshe (eds.), Shanghai yanjiu ziliao (Shanghai Research Materials) (Hong Kong: Nantian shuye gongsi, 1972), p. 481.Google Scholar

51. Shanghaishi zhinan (Guide to Shanghai City) (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1933), p. 179; Ni Xiying, Shanghai (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1938), p. 95.

52. Shaozhong, Li, Shanghai yu Shanghai ren (Shanghai and the Shanghainese) (Nanjing: Zhongwen fangsong yinshuguan, May 1945), pp. 16–18Google Scholar (this was reprinted in 1948 as Shanghai zhongshengxiang (Tales of Shanghai Life) by Xu Chi et al. (Shanghai: Xin Zhongguo baoshe); Shanghai zujie de heimu (The Dark Side of the Shanghai Concessions) (Shanghai: Shanghai tebie shi xuanchuanbu, 1943). pp. 21–22; Ji, Longsheng (pseud.), Da Shanghai (Great Shanghai) (Taipei: Nanfang zazhishe, 1942), pp. 36–37Google Scholar; The China Annual 1944 (Shanghai: Asia Statistics Co., 1944), p. 183.

53. A Mischievous Slander, p. 4. The 1943 Dark Side of the Shanghai Concessions notes that “one line of the regulations read ‘This park is reserved exclusively for foreigners,’ another line ‘Dogs not admitted to this park,’ put simply (jiandan shuoqilai) this is ‘Chinese and Dogs not admitted’” (p. 21).

54. Police Guide and Regulations (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1896), pp. 70–71.

55. Ye Xiaoqing, “Shanghai before nationalism,” p. 52.

56. NCH, 9 September 1911, pp. 651–52; Crow, Foreign Devils in the Flowery Kingdom, p. 197.

57. The number of Chinese residents of the International Settlement nearly trebled between 1890 and 1910, to 488,000 (SMC, Annual Report, 1890, p. 299).

58. Parks Committee, 25 October 1915, Minute Book No. 1, SMA; SMC, Annual Report 1903, map inside front cover.

59. Parks Committee, 16July 1915, Minute Book No. 1, SMA; GuZiren, who complained in London in 1925 about exclusion from the parks, was a St Graduate, John's, The Times, 4 February 1925, p. 16Google Scholar; Who's Who in China (5th ed., Shanghai: China Weekly Review, 1936), p. 291.

60. Parks Committee, 8 May 1914; 1 June 1921, Minute Book No. 2, SMA.

61. J. O. P. Bland to Public Garden Committee, 14 July 1899, Shanghai Municipal Council, Annual Report, 1901, pp. 421–22.

62. SMCG, 10 October 1908; 5 September 1908 (quoted in 29 June 1911, p. 166); 2 June 1910, p. 185.

63. The 1881 protest pointed out that “there is in view no official notification” (emphasis added) giving information on the rules; NCH, 13 May 1881, pp. 462–63.

64. SMCG, 2 June 1910, p. 185.

65. Ransome's piece first appeared in the Manchester Guardian, 2 May 1927, and was later reprinted in the author's book, The Chinese Puzzle (London: Allen and Unwin, 1927).

66. The diversity of Shanghai's foreign community and differences of opinion relating to the way Chinese residents should be treated are handled well in Nicholas Clifford, “A revolution is not a tea party: the Shanghai mind(s) reconsidered,” Pacific Historical Review, No. 59 (November 1990), pp. 501–526; and Huskey, James, “The cosmopolitan connection,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 227–242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Contemporary Western criticisms of exclusionary policies include Powell, J. B., “And the Municipal Band plays on!” China Weekly Review, 13 April 1927, pp. 194–95Google Scholar; and a letter to the editors of the North China Daily News entitled “Admission of Chinese into public parks,” which was reprinted in NCH, 1 May 1926, p. 208.

67. “Such things as forbidding the good class Chinese from entering the Jessfield Park, when any Japanese or fifth class Portuguese half-caste is allowed to do so, strikes me as an intolerable insult and one that does much harm,” Maj. Gen. J. Duncan to Sir Miles Lampson, S/O 16 January 1928, Great Britain Public Records Office Foreign Office files, FO228/3804/ 16 25a.

68. Quoted in SMCG, 19 April 1928, p. 159c.

69. Parks Committee, 21 December 1909, Minute Book No. 1, SMA.

70. The British Municipal Council in Tianjin only opened its parks to all residents in 1926, (Tientsin No. 37b, 2 April 1927, “Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of Ratepayers,” p. 2, FO228/3179/101 108c). Previously Chinese were only admitted with permits, and in effect this was intended to mean amahs (except “quarrelsome” ones) and their European charges, British Municipal Council Tientsin, Handbook of Municipal Regulations (Tianjin, n.d., c. 1923), pp. 69, 92–93.

71. Wu Guifang, “Informal discussion of old Shanghai,” p. 81.

72. “Guanyu ‘Huaren yu gpu bu de runei’ de erfang duzhe laixi” (“Two letters from readers concerning ‘Dogs and Chinese Not Admitted’”), Dang ‘an yu lishi (Archives and History), Vol. 2, No. 3 (1986), p. 106.

73. W. H. Trenchard Davis quoted in SMCG, 14 April 1927, p. 147. See also Powell, “And the Municipal Band plays on!”

74. Honig, Emily, Creating Chinese Ethnicity: Subei People in Shanghai, 1850–1980 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

75. In fact, during the 1927 negotiations the commercial entrepreneur Hongsheng, Liu pointed out that “the views of the lower classes of the Chinese must be given due consideration” as “a certain amount of pressure has been brought to bear on the delegates by this class of the community,” 17 February 1927Google Scholar, Parks Committee Minutes, Book 2, SMA.

76. Pye, “How China's Nationalism was Shanghaied,” pp. 116–17.

77. The Jubilee of Shanghai, 1843–1893 (Shanghai: North China Daily News, 1893), pp. 38–39; Fairbank, John K., Trade and Development on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842–1854 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964), p. 466.Google Scholar