China

Mapping Illness and Spatial Division in Hong Kong

by Ipoh

Illness, although not the first thing that might typically come to mind when discussing spatial histories, can prove very significant in mapping patterns of settlement, social divisions, and perceptions of different public spaces. “Climate and Sanitary Condition” from The Treaty Ports of China and Japan illustrates how illness intersects with the labelling of certain spaces. “Climate and Sanitary Condition” from The Treaty Ports of China and Japan describes mid-19th-century Hong Kong from the view of the foreign inhabitants residing there. This source is fascinating for a number of reasons. At first glance, this section of the source, “Climate and Sanitary Condition,” seems to focus solely on disease, specifically detailing which illnesses befell the foreigners across their first few years of inhabitance in the British colony of Hong Kong, with the primary source citing all sorts of illnesses throughout Hong Kong, corresponding locations of said illnesses and outbreaks, and a chart denoting mortality rates among foreigners in their first eight years settling in Hong Kong. However, the meticulous mapping and logging of the specific locations of illness outbreaks serve a broader purpose. By mapping illness outbreaks to certain spots in Hong Kong, the author covertly manages to forge associations, through the use of deliberate language, characterising spaces where predominantly lower-class Hong Kong locals reside as sites of illness. These associations strengthen pre-existing racial/class divisions between foreigners and Hong Kong locals under the guise of spatial divisions. This idea is further reinforced by many other sources in mid-19th century China, like in Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law, Land and Power and The Treaty Ports of China and Japan, where foreign ideas surrounding sanitation and health oftentimes informed the spatial organisation of China’s treaty ports.

The language used to map various illnesses in “Climate and Sanitary Condition” demonstrates how perceptions of disease became paired with particular spaces, and the people who resided in those spaces. “Climate and Sanitary Condition” has a section describing the foreign-stationed soldiers who were residing amongst Hong Kong locals when there was a particularly severe outbreak of an illness, the source writes, “From all accounts, it is not easy to escape the spots of this malarious character at Hong Kong; and if it is ever to be a healthy station, our soldiers must not be housed as they have been hitherto.”1 The terminology used by the author here, describing spots in Hong Kong as possessing “malarious character”2 and later in the source describing the locality of the barracks as “unwholesome,”3 illustrates a contempt for certain spots in Hong Kong, and these certain spots are far from coincidental. The foreign soldiers of the “unwholesome” locality were stationed in the barracks of the East and West ends of town, where many lower-class Hong Kong locals resided.4 In fact, most, if not all, of the “towns” where illness is mapped throughout “Climate and Sanitary Condition” were inhabited by Hong Kong locals, usually “among the lower classes.”5

Due to the large emphasis placed on mapping illness, sanitation became a big priority in areas occupied by foreigners, as a means to combat the areas marked by illness. Specific language in source passages in “Climate and Sanitary Condition” demonstrate just how much sanitation was prioritised. In Bickers and Jackson’s Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law, Land and Power, it is explained that sanitation played a big role in the organisation of foreign spaces within China’s treaty ports. Significantly, this mention of sanitation was centred in the foreign concession, again illustrating spatial separation between foreigners and locals in the treaty ports. Bickers and Jackson write that treaty-port municipal authorities in China employed “public health officials” and attempted to construct “a suitable system for sanitation in the concession.”6 An emphasis on sanitation in the foreign concession does not mean a lack of sanitation in local areas by any means; the significance here has more to do with the emphasis and importance placed on sanitation and how significant this concept was to foreigners. This illustrates that both in the treaty ports and in cities like Hong Kong, when something was deemed sanitary or needing to be sanitised, it was reliably associated with foreigners. Associative wording is of the utmost significance here, as putting so much emphasis on sanitation in foreign spaces creates a connotation of “sanitary” and “healthy” in specific relation to the foreigners. Contrasting that with the aforementioned descriptions of local spaces as “unwholesome” and having “malarious character,” there appears to be quite a harsh divide between locals and foreigners and what attributes or associations they have been given.

A large idea in aforementioned primary source passages is how certain spaces were “marked” with certain illness. Though this is evident throughout “Climate and Sanitary Condition,” it is not exclusive to Hong Kong foreigners and their perceptions of Hong Kong locals. In Henriot’s “The Shanghai Bund in Myth and History: An Essay through Textual and Visual Sources,” Henriot wrote about the renaming of Chinese street names with French figures in Shanghai’s French Concession, demonstrating that colonial separatism from Chinese locals was produced through terminology, where language was able to “mark” spaces in a way that imbues a real association with a place.7 This is arguably the same method of separatism through terminology as seen in the “Climate and Sanitary Condition” section of The Treaty Ports of China and Japan, prompting the question: was the practice of foreigners labelling or “marking” of local spaces commonplace across China in the mid-19th century? Was the practice of “marking” through language predominantly negative in connotation? Or, is this just a small sample of foreigners describing local spaces, not indicative of the opinions of the larger foreign population that inhabited China? Nevertheless, it is interesting to see the role of associative language in both Hong Kong and treaty ports in China.

Ultimately, in The Treaty Ports of China and Japan, the sections regarding illness and sanitation were as they appeared to be. The Treaty Ports of China and Japan was not useful providing empirical evidence through the logging and mapping of illnesses in mid-19th-century Hong Kong; instead, the writing on illness revealed more about the social perspectives, class divisions between Hong Kong locals and foreigners, and how language reinforced spatial separation between them.

  1. Nicholas Belfield Dennys, ed., The Treaty Ports of China and Japan: A Complete Guide to the Open Ports of Those Countries, Together with Peking, Yedo, Hongkong and Macao (London: Trübner and Co., 1867), 32. [↩]
  2. Dennys, Treaty Ports of China and Japan, 32. [↩]
  3. Dennys, Treaty Ports of China and Japan, 33. [↩]
  4. Dennys, Treaty Ports of China and Japan, 33. [↩]
  5. Dennys, Treaty Ports of China and Japan, 34. [↩]
  6. Robert Bickers and Isabella Jackson, eds., Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law, Land and Power (London: Routledge, 2016), 3. [↩]
  7. Christian Henriot, “The Shanghai Bund in Myth and History: An Essay through Textual and Visual Sources,” Journal of Modern Chinese History 4, no. 1 (2010): 5–6. [↩]

Spring Prospectus: Boating and the Bund: The Shanghai Yacht Society and the masculinity of leisure, c.1890-1930.

by 鳳凰

This blog is a short introduction to my Spring essay followed by a short analysis of a few primary sources intend to use as part of the final analysis.

The relationship between sport and empire initiated the homogenization of societies, cultures and institutions whilst introducing western sports globally.1 This essay will explore the relationship between the Shanghai Yacht Club and its use as a font of colonial masculinity.  Through the club’s role as a site of leisure, its function consolidated the British settler community in Shanghai as an economically, politically and racially separate and exclusive social unit from its establishment in 1868. The first recorded yacht race along the Shanghai River was in 1869 and soon after in 1871 the private Shanghai yacht club Boat house and Slipway Company was established in the bund; a ‘‘spatial form’’ that was already was backed up by a full set of strong and largely autonomous Western dominated institutions such as Shanghai Municipal Council, Mixed Court, Volunteer Corps, and Maritime Customs.2 The racially exclusive nature of these events distinguished British Settlers from the rest of the International Settlement. Resultantly, the club became a source of institutionalized identity for the settlers who controlled access to the bund and therefore, activities such as rowing or yachting which took place on the waters parallel were a physical manifestation of their ethnic and economic elitism.  

Boating and the Bund is an essay of three parts, it firstly asks, how did the leisure activities of rowing and sailing buttress the social lives and status of British male colonial identity in the Shanghai International Settlement from c.1890s-1930? The Shanghailanders, a nickname for the British settlers in Shanghai, were a social and ethnic group causing significant issues for the British State because if the legalities of their informal prescience in Shanghai.  With their financial successes tied inextricably to the treaty port system and their extraterritorial privileges, British settlers used social activities to create a unity and a sense of community identity.3 Articles in the Social Shanghai, a tabloid style magazine that as published by the North-China daily New and Herald Limited performed as a public newsletter focused on elevating the prestige associated with the British Settler’s leisure activities and the reputation of prominent men within these groups. A section of the Social Shanghai entitles ‘Well-Known Shanghai Residents’  in the 1908 January- June edition includes a section on MR G. W. Noel ‘a native of Surrey, came to Shanghai in 1895’, a reputable local man who became a partner at the auctioneering firm Makenzie and Co to form ‘one of the best known  and most highly esteemed auctioneers in the Far East’.4 Dubbed a great success, Mr. Noel is immediately named as an ‘active member’ of over 12 clubs in Shanghai (fig. 1) including the yacht club. tis clear that prestige and charisma, qualities of foremost importance within Shanghai’s British elite, were expressed primarily through visibly participating in community building leisure activities in order to highlight that your wealth and social standing was substantial enough to afford such pastimes. 5 On one level, participation was an illustration of a mans wealth and on another it was a sign of commitment to the Shanghailander community by investing in their shared value system, operated through leisurely clubs. Consequently, this essay asks; Why did the North China Herald and China Daily newspapers build such substantial excitement around the British clubs (as in rowing/sailing etc. rather than dancing clubs) of Shanghai and make their events into a source of tabloid media?  

Figure 1: Social Shanghai,  January-June 1908.6

Secondly, executing the Yachting races along the bund illustrates how British settlers used the site to reinforce their identity spatially. As figure 2 illustrates, it is clear that the Bund is a site of exerting British culture and national identity through architecture and leisure. Sailing and rowing were primary opportunities to display agility and skill whilst asserting spatial control over the bund. These club also used their institutions and infrastructures to generate British imperialism within Shanghai’s international settlement during the decline of the Shanghailander political authority. By racing with British settlers from the Hong Kong yacht club to provide a vector through which the British settlers of Shanghai could associate themselves with the colonial authority of Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Telegraph and the China Herald report extensively on the relations and competitions between the two British yachting clubs.7 This essay argues that this relationship was co-constitutional. Whilst the Shanghailanders need to outsource their authority as British Settlers form their more stable Hong Kong associates, equally British colonial masculinity was supported significantly by the use of sport to illustrate their capacities and therefore the Hong Kong club also boosted their colonial identities from the racing tournaments.

 

Figure 2: The Bund, Shanghai by Sunqua (1830-1870).8

Thirdly, as the Nationalist Revolution took hole in 1923-1928, dependence on Leisure as a source of strength established competing masculinities. with the boom of Chinese clubs were challenged by Chinese alternatives in the leisure and club scene, no evolution occurred within British circles. Therefore, using articles from North-China Herald, China Mail and the Hong Kong Telegraph to track the growth of their Chinese counterpart clubs,  the this essay aims to analyze how this decline impacted the relationship between the British and other ethnic groups within the international settlement as they were no longer able to rely on this source of colonial masculinity which was fundamental to asserting their control in treaty port Shanghai. 

This essay will argue that the creation of social anticipation and a group mentality through clubs like the Yacht Society were established to separate the British Shanghailander from other international settlers and local Chinese residents. Consistent records of races between Shanghai and Hong Kong Yacht and Rowing Clubs further illustrate that this was an inter-treaty port social system through which British treaty port settlers were able to justify each other’s permanency.  

  1. Ning Jennifer Chang, ‘Women in the Chase: sports Empire, and Gender in Shanghai, 1860-1945’, Chinese studies in History 54, no. 2 (2021), pp.130-148. [↩]
  2. Christian Henriot, ‘The Shanghai Bund in Myth and History: An Essay through Textual and Visual Sources,’ Journal of Modern Chinese History 4, no. 1 (2010), pp.1–27 [↩]
  3. Robert Bickers, ‘Shanghailanders: The Formation and Identity of the British Settler Community in Shanghai 1843-1937’, Past and Present (1998), pp.161-211. [↩]
  4. North China Daily News and Herald Ltd., ‘Social Shanghai: A Magazine for men and women’ Vol V (January-June 1908), p.31. Accessed at: Social Shanghai Vol V January-June 1908 : Shorrock, Mina : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive (accessed 20/03/2024) [↩]
  5. ‘Social Shanghai: A Magazine for men and women’ Vol V (January-June 1908), p.31. Accessed at: Social Shanghai Vol V January-June 1908 : Shorrock, Mina : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive (accessed 20/03/2024) [↩]
  6. North China Naily News and Herald Ltd., ‘Social Shanghai: A Magazine for men and women’ Vol V (January-June 1908), p.31. Accessed at: Social Shanghai Vol V January-June 1908 : Shorrock, Mina : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive (accessed 20/03/2024) [↩]
  7. Anonymous 1925, Feb 09. HONG KONG YACHT RACERS WINNERS FROM SHANGHA, The China Press (1925-1938), p.1. (Accessed at: HONGKONG YACHT RACERS WINNERS FROM SHANGHAI: Full Account Of Interport Regatta; Some Very Good Sailing – ProQuest) Accessed on 20/03/2024 [↩]
  8. The Bund, Shanghai by Sunqua (1830-1870) in the Ashmolean Library collection, Accessed at: https://collections.ashmolean.org/object/359962  (Accessed 20/03/2024) [↩]

Between Bayonets and Paper Money: The Failure to Police Rice Shortages

by 波山

In “Policing Modern Shanghai” Frederic Wakeman argues that murky relationships between different police forces, criminal organisations, and corrupt political relationships were vital for “police work.”1 Even as a top-down effort for police professionalisation, the Chinese Special Municipality’s Public Safety Bureau (PSB) nonetheless needed to negotiate these treacherous, pre-existing networks of political relationships, for as long as the opium trade was central to Chiang Kai-shek’s as a source of revenue. Set in this historiography, scholars have used rice and food supplies to effectively historicise the spatial politics of empire-making in Occupied Shanghai. Along these lines, I use contemporary press reports of a late 1939 rice shortage to argue that the refraction of political blame was dominated by reactions to a depleting social order and questions of Chinese loyalist affiliations.

Late 1939 Shanghai was characterised by a city grappling with acute commodity shortages,2 homelessness and refugee movement.3 In the immediate aftermath of full-scale war, Henriot has argued, even basic statistical data failed to record information such as “sex” or “age” – they counted “only as ‘mouths’.”4 Shanghai as 孤岛 gudao (lonely island) exemplified the way in which Japanese control of commodities had brought the Chinese to their knees. In fact, the imperial hierarchy meant that immediate sources of rice went to Japanese citizens in the imperial metropole and the Japanese army in China.5

For the case of Shanghai, rice became a commodity with several levels of obstacles. Beyond the wider Japanese naval blockade manifested in a second level of political control: via “certifications.” Rice, on the physical verges of the seaports of Shanghai, was often held up, as it was at Soochow Creek because the Japanese had “withheld all permits for the entry of rice from the hinterland via the important shipping centres of Quinsan, Wuhu and Sungkiang.” Even by land, rice “arriving here by trains were prohibited from being transported into the Foreign Settlements.” To that effect, a second level of bureaucratic control meant that rice supplies were merely sitting in boats, obstructed from redistribution. To combat this, the Shanghai Municipal Council, Rice Guilds and the French Municipal Administration instituted a price ceiling and declared prices above $20 per zah to be illegal.6 Under this system of control, the press excoriated high rice prices as the result of “unscrupulous” rice merchants, hoarding supplies and raising prices opportunistically. Each criticism, however, was directed at different culprits. On the other hand, a Chinese evening paper reported Chiang Kai-shek’s reaction to focus on traitor elimination: he had ordered “Chungking forces in Zhejiang to investigate the price increase “racket” in Shanghai” and to “shoot those merchants who co-operate with the Japanese in manipulating markets.”7

The different truths of different newspapers was also reflected in reports that much of the rice shortage owed to “the Nipponese army” descending upon “the huge rice producing area from Wuhu to the Tai Hu lake” with “bayonets and paper “money”.”8 For Chiang Kai-shek’s imagination of the police “as an instrument of vertical integration,” moreover, his attack on opportunists ironically appears to encapsulate the opportunism of his modernisation project as a guise to implement “instruments of autocracy.”9 Thus, even within these different types of supplies blockades amidst the Japanese Occupation, the apportioning of culpability and collaboration became ever closely examined under the lens of the press in relation to the politics of retribution and loyalism.

  1. Frederic Wakeman, “Policing Modern Shanghai”, The China Quarterly no. 115 (1988): 409. [↩]
  2. See footnote 50 in: Christian Henriot, “Shanghai Industries in the Civil War (1945-1947)”, Journal of Urban History 43, no. 5 (2017), 744-766. [↩]
  3. Christian Henriot, ‘Shanghai Industries Under Japanese Occupation’ in In the Shadow of the Rising Sun: Shanghai Under Japanese Occupation, edited by Christian Henriot and Wen-Hsin Yeh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004): 20-25. [↩]
  4. Christian Henriot, “Shanghai And The Experience Of War: The Fate Of Refugees” European Journal of East Asian Studies 5, no. 2 (2006): 231. [↩]
  5. Frederick Wakeman, The Shanghai Badlands (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 55. [↩]
  6. “New Record Price Quoted for Rice”, North China Daily News, 9 Dec 1939 [↩]
  7. Ibid.  [↩]
  8. “Japan Buying Causes Rice Price Increase”, Shanghai Evening Post & Mercury, 30 Nov 1939 [↩]
  9. Wakeman, “Policing”, 439. [↩]

Exporting imaginaries of Empire: Navigating soft diplomacy surrounding Japanese depictions of Manchuria at the Chicago World’s fair, 1933-34.

by 鳳凰

The puppet state of Manchukuo, created in 1932, was advertised by the Japanese Empire as a state “autonomous from Western influence”.1 This narrative was consistently reinforced through exhibitions, pamphlets and films produced by the Japanese government. To reinforce this narrative on a global stage, the Japanese invested a small portion of their exhibit at the World’s Chicago Fair in 1933 through a Manchuria exhibit in partnership with the Southern Manchuria Railway Company (fig.1). Concurrently, an American exhibit of the Golden Temple of Jehol (fig. 2), a province invaded by the Japanese Kwantung army and also an annexe of Manchuria at the time, was an expensively replicated and highly popular exhibit at the fair.2 This article uses Shepherdson-Scott’s work on the World’s Chicago fair supported by pamphlets and images of the event to illustrate that political diplomatic pursuits were consolidated through visual displays of authority.2 These imaginaries of Manchurian and Chinese territories served to assert specific narratives about contested legitimacy of Japanese authority in Manchuria at this time.

Defined by Young as the ‘Jewel in Japan’s Imperial Crown’, Manchukuo developed into a significant and profitable portion of the Japanese empire, however, public knowledge in the US about of the role of Japan in Manchukuo was controlled, Manchukuo was not recognised as a state by the US government and Japanese involvement in this territory was considered aggressive.3 Soft power, this is co-opting rather than coercion, in the form of elements of Japanese culture such as Japanese gardens or the exportation of travel guidebooks and pamphlets to private tour companies across Europe and the United States was widely accepted and proliferated in public discourses on Japan. In contrast, the acclimatisation of western audiences to imaginaries of Japanese Imperial power was confronted and countered by the US. Images of Japan were only accepted in the form that they were presented to a western audience when they were a exotic or visually appealing, thus, the trustees of the A Century for Progress fair capitalised on this reality by exoticising the Temple of Jehol and reinforced its Chinese heritage and the sovereignty of China. By challenging Japanese associations with the Manchurian Railway company and its assimilation of ‘Manchukuo’ into Japanese notions of modernisation and mobility, the temple of Jehol publicly rebuffed the relevance of the Japanese occupation of Manchuria and intertwined national politics corporate public relations within the context of the fairground.2

Figure 1: Illustration of the Japan Exhibition complex, Manchurian pavilion is visible on the far right (1933-34).4

Figure 2: The golden Temple of Jehol at the Century of Progress World’s fair 1933-34.5

 

Figure 3: Cover of the Brochure for the Southern Manchuria Railway exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933.6

In this period following the 1931 ‘Manchuria Incident’ when the legitimacy of Manchukuo and the role of Japanese occupation and the Kwantang army still proved to be an elephant in the room, these displays of consolidation and reputation by the Japanese and the US governments respectively reflected the sumbilinal power play between the two nations over the legitimacy of Japanese dominance in Manchukuo.2 In the official Southern Manchurian Railway brochure (fig.4), relations between the US and Manchuria regarding trade is phrase neutrally, ”Japan is serving as the major trade exchanger between the United States, and Manchuria and China” and yet it still alludes to Japanese hegemony in the region.7 Moreover, images in the brochure include, the capital city under construction by the Japanese, the Japanese Kwantung Army Government offices, and the central circle of government buildings in the capital, Changchun.8 In contrast to the cultural statement in the form of the temple of Jehol which gained significant praise for its dazzling quality and drew attention from visitors because of its beauty, the presentation of the Manchuria exhibit focused on acclimatising the American audience with Japan as an intermediary between the US and China/Manchuria. Whilst the temple challenged the political borders of Manchukuo and the authority of the Japanese exhibition, the production of knowledge that associated Japan with significant political and economic stakes in Manchuria’s capital and infrastructure and the physical positioning of the Manchurian exhibit within the Japanese exhibition proved to be a spatially powerful illustration of their authority in the region and their goals for the future.

Figure 4: Brochure for the Southern Manchuria Railway exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933.6

In conclusion, the overt retaliation against Japanese constructions of Manchukuo at the Chicago World’s fair by the American embassy illustrate the limits applied to Japanese overseas diplomatic pursuits. The competing narratives created by the US to challenge Japanese assertions of Imperial power highlight that beyond military and policy based rebuttals of Japanese occupation of Manchuria in the early 1930’s, alternative and creative challenges to Japanese power were established within the public eye designed both to covertly manipulate public opinions of the power of the Japanese government but also to intimidate Japanese authority on foreign soil.

  1. Louise Young,  Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism (London, 1998), p.1, p.22. [↩]
  2. Kari Shepherdson-Scott, ‘Conflicting Politics and Contesting Borders: Exhibiting Japanese Manchuria at the Chicago World’s Fair, 1933-34’, The Journal of Asian Studies 74:3, (2015), pp.539-564. [↩] [↩] [↩] [↩]
  3. Young,  Japan’s Total Empire, p.22. [↩]
  4. Illustration of the Japan Exhibition complex, Manchurian pavilion is visible on the far right (1933-34), A century of Progress exposition in Chicago, 1933-34.  Accessed at: Yale University Library. [↩]
  5. Image of The golden Temple of Jehol at the Century of Progress World’s fair 1933-34, Accessed at the Art Institute of Chicago, https://www.artic.edu/artworks/235402/golden-temple-of-jehol (Accessed 5/02/2024). [↩]
  6. Cover of the Brochure for the Southern Manchuria Railway exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933, Available at: http://travelbrochuregraphics.com/blog/2014/01/09/brochure-south-manchuria-railway-from-the-1933-chicago-worlds-fair/ (Accessed: 05/02/2024). [↩] [↩]
  7. Brochure: Southern Manchurian Railway form the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, Available at: http://travelbrochuregraphics.com/blog/2014/01/09/brochure-south-manchuria-railway-from-the-1933-chicago-worlds-fair/. (Accessed: 05/02/2024). [↩]
  8. Brochure for the Southern Manchuria Railway exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933, Available at: http://travelbrochuregraphics.com/blog/2014/01/09/brochure-south-manchuria-railway-from-the-1933-chicago-worlds-fair/ (Accessed: 05/02/2024). [↩]

Cambodia, a land of gentleness? A comparison between an old and modern tourist perceptions

by Chim Lạc

Cambodia, a country located on the Indochinese peninsula in Southeast Asia is often referred to as a hidden gem for international tourists. With bordering countries Thailand to its west, Vietnam to the east and Laos to the north, Cambodia is constantly overshadowed by both its western and eastern neighbours as Thailand has been known to international tourists for decades and Vietnam has been known for its long war with America and a rapidly growing economy in recent times.1 As democracy is restored to Cambodia, its rich history, especially the globally renowned UNESCO world heritage site of Angkor Wat has attracted millions of tourists every year and has even featured on the current national flag of Cambodia despite the fact that it was discovered when Cambodia was under French rule.2 This blog post will compare how an old foreign travel account from The Geographical Journal written by Lord Curzon in the 19th century and a 2023 Chinese travel agency’s article views Cambodia and what sites they feature prominently. After doing a brief comparison with Bali, the article will conclude that the images of tourism in Cambodia are shaped by power dominance given how it remains a poor state and that the nationality of the individual writing about it plays a key role in shaping narratives about the country.

The first account from The Hon. Lord Curzon, a prominent British politician published in The Geographical Journal published in 1893, it details his travels across French Indochina in what is now Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. In his account, he generalises the lives of Cambodians as native and exotic as he notes how swift they are at building wooden huts on top of the Tonle Sap Lake. First, following the French colonial administration, he reinforces the account of the ‘Indochinese’ people by dividing them into categories. He describes the ‘natives’ as more effeminate and shorter in stature the deeper south you go and that the landscape is abundant with crops and crops.3 Subsequently, he describes their eating habits as ‘barbaric’. This demonstrates that at that time when not much technology was around, tourism was limited to the upper class and that generalised accounts, especially by the privileged like Lord Curzon were seen as authoritative and acceptable to be published in magazines like The Geographical Journal. Next, he offers a description of a travel itinerary from Phnom Penh to Angkor Wat. The journey he undertook involved riding on a French steamship and then embarking by land on oxen carts and sampans operated by native Cambodians. Following up, he offers a brief description of the ruins on how they illustrate a once-glorious empire now being controlled by the French and under constant threat from invasion by the Siamese (present-day Thailand).4 This indirectly justifies imperialism and showcases the weakness of Cambodian culture as by showing the ruins of an extinct great empire, it shows how the power is now rested in the French, that is controlling Indochina and the Siamese, who resisted colonialism and constantly putting pressure on French interests in the region. As a result, it can be seen that in the heyday of imperialism, travel was limited to the colonial elite and native cultures of the people under European control were subject to exoticisation and generalisation. 

Fast forward to the 2020s, Cambodia, although managing to free itself from colonialism and the horrors of the Khmer Rogue with its strong economic growth, its development standards lagged behind global standards. In place of the French, the Chinese now have a strong presence in the region as part of its Belt and Road Initiative to provide infrastructure aid to developing nations across the world to achieve its status as a great power.5 Although it was claimed that the investments were to benefit Cambodia’s growing economy, it has raised concerns among experts that Cambodia is becoming too dependent on China and that China is attempting to use its economic might to chip away at Cambodia’s sovereignty.6 By looking at tourist numbers by nationality, China ranks third after Vietnam and Thailand as the largest source of tourists outside of Southeast Asia.7 In the travel guide published by China International Travel Service Guilin Co. Ltd, it lists out the top sites for travel in Cambodia, which not suprisingly Angkor Wat appearing on the top, then it advertises certain Buddhist temples, the royal palace in Phnom Penh and numerous beaches along the southern coast with a short paragraph stating Cambodians as pure and nice.8 Unlike Lord Curzon’s account which describes Angkor Wat and the people of Cambodia in detail, the Chinese account simply just lists out sites that are culturally ‘Cambodian’ in nature and a complete guide to Cambodian cuisine. Furthermore, the account states that the friendliness of Cambodians and the affordability nature of the country is definitely a reason to visit the country. This demonstrates how with changing geopolitics and modes of travel, the nature of tourism also changes, and in the case of the Chinese, they are the main power influencing Cambodia.

What is interesting to me is that the Chinese site leaves out the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh. I believe that the reason is because in order to court Chinese investments, the current Cambodian government, filled with members from the brutal Khmer Rogue regime (1977-1979) is making an effort to downplay anything that will contribute to angering China hence showcasing how bilateral relations often shape the style of tourism.

Linking to the compulsory readings, I see parallels with the case of Cambodia with Bali not too far away. Similar to Cambodia, Bali was under Dutch colonial rule and subject to international accounts exoticising its culture.9 Bali was also subject to having its narratives controlled by external forces as while the Dutch conquered it, it was seen as savage, but after pacifying it, the Dutch played a key part in creating images of ‘Peaceful Bali’ by demonstrating its unique mystical characteristics and ornate temples. Even after independence, the multi-cultural state of Indonesia actively promoted Bali as a peaceful paradise for foreigners to attract economic activity while the natives barely got a voice in the construction of their identity. This elucidates how the Dutch colonial government and the Indonesian government all played a part in exoticising Balinese culture similar to what the European travellers and Chinese government did to Cambodia. In short, power plays a part in shaping tourist narratives.

  1. https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/oct/28/-sp-cambodia-tour-two-weeks-holiday-itinerary [↩]
  2. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/668/ [↩]
  3. Curzon, George N. “Journeys in French Indo-China (Tongking, Annam, Cochin China, Cambodia) (Conclusion).” The Geographical Journal 2, no. 3 (1893): 193–210. https://doi.org/10.2307/1773660. [↩]
  4. Curzon, George N. “Journeys in French Indo-China (Tongking, Annam, Cochin China, Cambodia) (Conclusion).” The Geographical Journal, vol. 2, no. 3, 1893, pp. 193–210. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1773660. Accessed 26 Jan. 2024. [↩]
  5. https://china.usc.edu/what-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-means-cambodia [↩]
  6. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/substitute-07232020153513.html [↩]
  7. https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/aseanplus-news/2023/11/30/foreign-tourist-numbers-skyrocket-in-cambodia#:~:text=This%20marked%20an%20increase%20of,%25)%2C%20expanding%20by%20497.5%25. [↩]
  8. https://www.citsguilin.com/article/gonglue/jianpuzhailvyougonglue.htm [↩]
  9. Vickers, Adrian Bali: A Paradise Created (2012 [1996]) [↩]

The Chinese Tourism Service Limited reinforced Chineseness of the Chinese international students by forming exclusive spatial identity

by Cenderawasih

Excerpt 1. the exclusivity of passengers1

Excerpt 2. The instruction of the dress code2

Yajun Mo, in his chapters, posits that the Chinese Tourism Service Limited (CTS) assumed the responsibility of managing and transporting Chinese international students to the United States in response to the demands of the nationalist government. CTS was tasked with various responsibilities, including finding accommodations, helping international students register for school, managing education funds, and sending report cards to their parents, all aimed at maintaining their ties with ethnic roots in China.3. This played a role in cultivating a nationalist sentiment among international students. However, according to the primary source discussed in this blog, it argues that CTS not only contributed to the construction of nationalist sentiment but also actively promoted the concept of Chineseness by establishing an exclusive spatial identity for Chinese international students. In creating this distinct identity, CTS differentiated Chinese students from foreigners during their journey to the US. Also, CTS provided instructions to international students on how to dress appropriately in the US.

The primary source for this blog is an article published by CTS in 1927 in the magazine 旅行雜誌. The blog presents select critical excerpts from this article to illustrate the key argument.

To promote the idea of Chineseness, CTS set Chinese international students apart from foreigners during their sea journey to the United States. As mentioned in Excerpt 1, CTS arranged an exclusive ship solely for the travel of Chinese international students, avoiding their mingling with other foreign passengers. That is, “本社特與美國輪船公司商定 … 巨輪一艘。完全載中國留美學生東行。… 而船公司即稱此船為“中國留學生船”蓋除中國學生外。幾無他客也。”4 Despite the international nature of the journey, operated by foreign entities, these international students acquired an exclusive spatial identity within the confines of the ship. On the one hand, they engaged with the global community by adopting Western transportation and benefited from international business to facilitate their travels abroad. On the other hand, their activities were restricted to their original social circle. While they could leverage foreign technologies, their interaction with the authentic foreign community was limited, given their exclusive status within the ship. What began as an international journey evolved into a trip without immediate contact with foreigners and with limited participation in foreign cultures.

Concerning lifestyle instructions, CTS played a pivotal role in guiding the dress code for international students. In Excerpt 2, CTS emphasised the importance of bringing traditional Chinese-style clothing that could authentically showcase the Chinese identity within the foreign community, thereby creating exclusivity around the clothes of Chinese students. The authors note, “日常所著之衣物三襲。灰色或深色呢絨者。凡二襲。黑或深藍陽啜者一襲,”5 wherein CTS recommended specific colours for everyday wear, elevating these colours to symbols of Chinese-exclusive clothing. In this foreign space, the chosen colours became distinctive representations of exoticism. Notably, CTS highly recommended the inclusion of clothing made from Chinese silk, intended to “以揚東方名貴之文藝,”5 solidifying the Chinese identity through the choice of materials. In this case, materials became symbolic representations of identity, establishing a standardised image of a Chinese in a foreign environment. From the prescribed colours to the emphasis on Chinese-produced materials, CTS reinforced the Chineseness of these students by instituting a set of lifestyle norms for Chinese international students in American society. While these students studied abroad, immersing themselves in foreign cultures and visiting iconic American sites such as Yellowstone National Park as noted by Mo in his chapter,6 they were simultaneously restrained by the directives of their home country’s agency—CTS. CTS constructed an ideal image of being Chinese in a foreign space, blending the students’ spatial identity with foreign influences and a distinctly Chinese traditional foundation.

In essence, the foreign journey for Chinese international students was not merely an educational pursuit but also a reinforcement of Chineseness. CTS, through its involvement in their study abroad experience, not only provided students with benefits but also underscored their Chinese identity by establishing an exclusive space on the ship. Individually, CTS instructed the students’ lifestyle in the United States, promoting a traditional Chinese dress code in style and material. While these international students benefitted from a foreign education, the journey fortified their identity within the community. Consequently, the tourism experience for Chinese international students carries profound implications for constructing Chineseness within overseas Chinese communities.

 

Primary Sources

Zhuang Jiuzhu 庄九铸, Xu Zhaofeng 许兆丰, “Zengbie Youmei Xuesheng” 赠别游美学生, 旅行雜誌 (1927): 86–96.

Secondary Sources

Mo, Yajun, Touring china: A history of travel culture, 1912-1949 (Ithaca, 2022).

  1. Zhuang Jiuzhu 庄九铸, Xu Zhaofeng许兆丰 “Zenbie Youmei Xuesheng” 赠别游美学生, Luxing Zazhi 旅行雜誌 (1927): 87. [↩]
  2. Zhuang Jiuzhu and Xu Zhaofeng, ‘Zenbie Youmei Xuesheng’, p. 88. [↩]
  3. Yajun Mo, Touring China: A History of Travel Culture, 1912-1949 (Ithaca, 2022), p. 36. [↩]
  4. Zhuang Jiuzhu and Xu Zhaofeng, ‘Zenbie Youmei Xuesheng’, p. 87. [↩]
  5. Ibid. [↩] [↩]
  6. Mo, Touring China, p. 36. [↩]

Pu Yi and the Importance of Grandeur, Even in Utopia

by 波山

The planning of Manchukuo (滿洲國) was an articulation of “utopia” for Japanese urban planners and architects, an empty canvas upon which Japanese architecture and construction could project a “Japanese” technical superiority. Historians have shown how planners manifested this in “modern” technologies relating to water supply, heating, sanitation, residential infrastructure.1 Yet, planners increasingly needed to accommodate the Japanese vision of a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Within the spatial logic of Manchukuo, however, this latter vision was constricted by the planners’ own implementation of space in Manchukuo. The 16-17 September 1937 commemoration of the completion of capital construction that was meant to legitimise Japanese imperialism, I argue, demonstrates how the former unwittingly undermined the latter.


Images are from Yishi Liu’s Competing Visions of the Modern: Urban Transformation and Social Change of Changchun, 1932-19572

Firstly, the September commemoration was a deviation from the original, central concern of the colonial authority of planning Changchun. The founding of Manchukuo had been 1 March 1932, but authorities reflected that an anniversary celebration in March 1937 was too early for uncompleted infrastructure. Hence, a modest, barely publicised celebration was first held in the capital Changchun to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the establishment of Manchukuo. Correspondingly, the September commemoration of the construction of Changchun encompassed a working group and preparations including “siting, constructing temporary buildings, deciding the agenda and participants, security, propaganda, and above all, the tour of the emperor. The total cost for the ceremony reached 149,565 Yen.”3

Critically, we should see the remit of the emperor Pu Yi as a fascinating tale of exclusion. The puppet emperor’s significance had been spatially obvious from the get-go – Pu Yi had been housed in what was ‘far from being the grandest house in the city’.4 Yet, even as Pu Yi still retained a ceremonial role, the government-organised tour focused on the legitimising of physical infrastructure over other aspects of governance. Pu Yi’s itinerary consisted of the Capital Construction Bureau (CCB), Datong Plaza, State Council and exhibits of State Council construction achievements among others. At the end of the day, Pu Yi then returned to the palace while officials had a dinner banquet together.5

Liu further demonstrates that the September celebrations were augmented by copies of the emperor’s itinerary, a parade procession that was popularly attended, and the selling out of commemorative memorabilia. Finally, on the 17th, the bonfire tower at Datong Plaza championed “co-existence and co-prosperity” in an imposing manner where it had been flashing the words 一心一德 （”heart and virtue in unity”). While Liu omits further detail on the mass congregation that followed in the days after, possibly due to source limitations, Liu’s exposition of the pomp of the world fair and the “exhibitionary edifice” critical to the Japanese imperialist project demonstrates clearly the primacy of urban construction to Japanese colonialism in Manchukuo.

By privileging the tenets of utopia that underlined the Japanese construction of Manchukuo, I have argued that even the “fair” or “celebration” in a utopic spatial plan can undermine the original structures of rule undergirding such a spatial arrangement. Here, the utopic priorities of the urban planner took precedence over the symbolism of Japanese control in the first place – the September celebrations demonstrate the primacy of space as a way of asserting Japanese imperialism under the disguise of modernity and material progress under a purportedly Asiatic banner.

  1. See: David Tucker, “City Planning Without Cities: Order and Chaos in Utopian Manchukuo” in Mariko Asano Tamanoi (ed.), Crossed Histories: Manchuria in the Age of Empire, pp. 53-81. [↩]
  2. Yishi Liu, Competing Visions of the Modern: Urban Transformation and Social Change of Changchun, 1932-1957, PhD Thesis, University of California, 2011, p. 13. [↩]
  3. Yishi Liu, Competing Visions of the Modern: Urban Transformation and Social Change of Changchun, 1932-1957, PhD Thesis, University of California, 2011, p. 12. [↩]
  4. Bill Sewell, Constructing Empire: The Japanese in Changchun, 1905–45 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2019), p. 106. [↩]
  5. Yishi Liu, Competing Visions of the Modern, p. 12. [↩]

Map of Old Beijing: The Imperial Authority’s Essence, The Manipulation of Human

by Cenderawasih

Figure 1. Beijing 1930 Chinese City Map or Plan of Beijing (Peking), China.

The city of Beijing has been the capital of imperial China since the Yuan dynasty. The map shown above was produced in 1930 by the Japanese. It portrayed the old urban structure of the Beijing city. The map consists of several rectangular blocks named 舊紫禁城 (the Forbidden City), 舊皇城 (the Imperial City), 內城 (the Inner City), and 外城 (the Outer City). The Forbidden City and the Imperial City were contained in the Inner City. The textual explanations provided on both sides of the map are about the categories of the marks on the map. Such details contribute to the analysis of the old urban spaces of Beijing. Through a meticulous examination of the map, accompanying the secondary materials in this week’s reading list, the blog posits that the historical urban layout of Beijing expresses a critical essence of the imperial authority: the manipulation of human mobility and activity. The imperial ruler utilised his authoritative power to regulate the mobility of the general populace in Beijing by arranging fixed residences for specific groups, and to restrict human activities by introducing social rules in different areas of the city.

First, the urban blocks of old Beijing required and designed by the imperial government mentioned above resulted in the segregation of different groups of people. For instance, on the map, the green part represents the residential location of famous individuals 著名處所. Most green parts on the map are in the Inner City, with only small parts found in the Outer City. According to Dong Madeleine Yue, the Inner City was the residence quarter of the “Manchu aristocrats and high officials”[1] as well as the “banner men and their families, who were responsible for guarding the palace and defending the capital.”[2] It is evident that the green parts in the Inner City belonged to influential nobility-related figures of the Imperial era. Yet, the residents of the green parts of the Outer city were different, especially in the Qing dynasty (1636-1912). Dong notes, “when the Manchus entered Beijing, they banished Han residents from the Inner City.”[3] It therefore can deduce that the small green parts of the Outer City mostly belonged to well-known Han figures as these people could not live in the Inner City. The ordinary people who did not play an important role in the imperial system were not allowed to be the residents of the Inner City. This division of the residence was not initiated by the ordinary people themselves, but rather imposed by the imperial authority. This resulted in the confinement of the ordinary to certain areas, shaping relatively fixed settlements for different groups of people and making the ordinary keep in captivity like livestock. The imperial administration at this moment manipulated human mobility and controlled the should-be division of people in Beijing by allotting the land to its residents.

Furthermore, the blog claims that the imperial manipulation of the urban design of the Outer and Inner cities contributed to the development and emergence of the theme zones. These organic parts in the urban area combined as an organic whole to support the entire imperial Beijing. The commercial area in the Outer City is a great example. When zooming in the map, it is hard to see the shops and stores directly associated with commercial activities within the Inner City. In contrast, in the Outer City, many shops of different categories are shown, such as 葱店 cong shop, 文宝楼 wenbao building, 纱纸坊 gauze paper shop. It is because that “no permanent businesses, guilds, or forms of entertainment were technically allowed in the Inner City,”[4] according to Dong. This situation was a product of the imperial strategy and manipulation. Dong once depicts the bustle of the Outer City’s business district: “the northern part of the Outer City was the bustling and prosperous commercial center for the imperial capital.”[5] Even if it did not designate the Outer City as an area with prosperous commerce, the arrangement of the Inner City urged development of the business in the Outer city as the Inner City could not “serve the daily needs of its residents,”[6] as Dong notes. The Inner City under the imperial control was a city without a synthetical life. In this case, the Outer City had to develop areas and social occasions to fill in the gaps in the Inner City living areas.

Overall, this blog intends to demonstrate the nature of imperial authority – the control of human mobility and activities. The separated blocks made up by imperial manipulation resulted in the segregation of ordinary people in designated locations. The imperial authority was the decisive agency in this process. As for the limitation of human activities, the urban spaces designed by the imperial government urged the development new areas and social occasions in the Outer City, the commercial area in particular. Such an area was an integral part of the efficiently functioning organic whole. However, the overall logic of constructing this organic whole was determined by the supreme control of the imperial authority, rather than the spontaneous generation of the ordinary people. Therefore, the urban plan of the city of Beijing was a manifestation of capability of the imperial authority rather than the human initiative.

[1] Madeleine Yue Dong, Republican Beijing: The City and Its Histories (Berkeley, 2003), p. 27.

[2] Dong, Republican Beijing, p. 27.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

The Miniature of Shanghai: Case Study of Ward Road Gaol in the early twentieth century

by Tian

Ward Road Gaol, also known as Tilanqiao prison, locates in the Hongkou district of Shanghai. It was one of the first modern prisons in China. Ward Road Gaol was proposed by Shanghai Municipal Council in order to complement Shanghai Municipal Police so that SMP could have charge of the post-conviction treatment of all offenders without relying on others.1 The other motivation for building this new prison is that it was “in the interest of civilization so that China might learn that punishment can be effectual without the employment of barbarous methods which are in vogue throughout the Empire.”, said the British Mixed Court Assessor.2 It was a means to show the advanced prison system of the West and a step to modernise Shanghai. Therefore, Ward Road Gaol differed from the conventional jails in the late Qing period. It was designed and operated by British and Singaporeans, modelling on the structure of western prisons and management systems. However, the motivation of showing the power and advantage of modernization did not get the expected results of the British bureaucrats located in Shanghai. The gaol had experienced failure of administration, problems of mistreatment of prisoners and conflict between the regulations of Chinese and western laws. The gaol shared a similar destiny with Shanghai itself, the transplanted western modernization projects and ideas, and the local reaction and chaos created by this imposed modernity. This blog will explore Ward Road Gaol as a miniature of Shanghai in the early twentieth century.

Figure 1

Figure 2: (source: Waitanyixi)

The intended establishment of modernity of Ward Road Goal was revealed by its architectural construction and administrative system. The building of the prison was in the shape of a cruciform, the intersecting point of the cruciform is the only source of natural light. Figures 1 and 2 also show that this architectural design enabled warders to monitor prisoners from different levels. The spatial arrangement of Ward Road Gaol is what Bentham called a “panopticon”. As Foucault argues, the panopticon’s main function is to monitor the behaviour of prisoners. It is a non-violent way to discipline prisoners.3 The principle of using a panopticon as a disciplining method is different from the principal method used to manage prisoners in a conventional Chinese prison. A traditional Chinese gaol emphasized the application of cruel physical punishment as a deterrent to prisoners. Torturing their bodies was believed to be an efficient means to punish people who are charged with guilt.4 Though Ward Road Gaol aimed to become a modern and ‘civilized’ gaol in China, violence towards convicts was not rare. The discipline was still vigorous. There were medical reports on the assaults of warders on the prisoners. The cause of this situation may be approached from two aspects.

For Chinese warders, treating prisoners violently could be an inheritance from the traditional prison management method. Since Ward Road Gaol was one of the very first modern prisons in China. It was hard to change the long-lived persistent habits. The other cause of it could be the existence of racial hierarchy in Shanghai as a mixed-ethnicity international settlement. Isabelle Jackson observed that violence towards local people was common in the Shanghai police system among Sikh policemen, who were considered to have a higher status than local Chinese. Indians were also hired as warders in Ward Road Gaol by the British.5  According to one of the prisoners’ complaints, Indian warders were called, and allegedly gave more than ten slaps and a punch to a Chinese prisoner who gave his diet to one of his fellows.6

This hierarchical power dynamic did not only exist between prisoners and warders, but also among prisoners themselves. Prisoners of different nationalities could receive different treatments. Extraterritorial prisoners enjoyed more privilege than non-extraterritorial prisoners such as Russian, German and Polish. Similar to what happened to the Shanghai police system that there was more than one force operated in this city, prisoners could be regulated and sentenced by different courts and laws, but sometimes be held in the same prison. Extraterritorial prisoners were allowed to have meetings with their family and friends, their families could send food and letters to them at least once a month. However, non-extraterritorial prisoners did not receive equal treatment, thus non-extraterritorial prisoners somehow turned into “white slaves”.7  The mixture of different legal regulations and the identity of prisoners catalyzed the reshaping of the hierarchy which was different from the world outside of the prison. These hierarchies in prisons also reflect the hierarchy of the whole city.

Therefore, the small and isolated world in Ward Road Goal reflected the contemporary situation in Shanghai, such as the difficulty of adapting western practices to an eastern context, the new racial hierarchy among people of different ethnicities, and the chaos of jurisdiction and confusion created by extraterritoriality. In addition, there was a strike that took place in Ward Road Gaol led by the Indian warders, which matches what Jackson has mentioned that there was a rising of nationalism among the Indians who worked in Shanghai. The intention of building a modern prison in China companies with the defects of modernization of prison and of Shanghai as a city.

Nowadays, Ward Road Gaol is more frequently seen as a symbol of the strong will and firm faith held by activists, intelligent and patriots who were arrested and contained in the prison through the propagandization of the media and the government, and a representation of elite, since it is now used to contain people who committed financial crimes. Also, it is now listed in the urban planning schedule, waiting to be removed, in order to build a new cultural park at its original site.

  1. Frank Dikötter, Crime, Punishment, and the Prison in Modern China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), p. 308. [↩]
  2. Ibid, p.308. [↩]
  3. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punishment, part 4. [↩]
  4. Li Wenbing, Zhongguogudaijianyushi, p. 148-149. [↩]
  5. Isabella Jackson, “The Raj on Nanjing Road: Sikh Policemen in Treaty-Port Shanghai,” Modern Asian Studies 46, no. 06 (November 2012), p. 1690-1691. [↩]
  6. Frank Dikötter, Crime, Punishment, and the Prison in Modern China, p. 318. [↩]
  7. Ibid, p. 322. [↩]

Cities as the frontier of propaganda: the creation of utopian/ dystopian space in Dalian in 1950s

by Tian

Cities in Northeast China were critical locations for the industrial construction in the FFYP (the first five-year plan). Liaoning province was even called “the son of the republic”. As Liu Yishi demonstrates in his article, FAW became the icon of FFYP.1 Besides these physical constructions taking place in the Northeast of China, the construction of industrial cities also included the construction of propaganda and ideologies.  Propagandizing the spirit of revolution or revolutionary work was an important task for city planning. By referring to Bakhtin’s carnival sense of the world, I will demonstrate that the political propagandization comprised the carnivalization of public space, which led to the creation of dystopian space in China, especially during the period of Cultural Revolution.

In Liu Yishi’s Competing Visions of Modern, he quotes an article from Dongbei Ribao, a daily newspaper founded in 1945. It presents statistics on industrial production in the Northeast.2 With further investigation into this daily newspaper, one interesting phenomenon could be observed: the spiritual construction of citizens and industrial/ urban construction were treated equally in the socialist construction process in the Northeast. Many columns were devoted to explaining the importance of individual behaviour in maintaining sanitation and being a diligent worker in state-own enterprises. More on that, there were also patriotic education and lectures on the Party’s fundamental guiding principles.

Instead of only printing promotions in newspapers, cities were used as the media to spread these ideas. Two articles published in Dong Bei Daily Newspaper (Dong Bei Ribao) on 27 August 1950 discuss the importance of using the city as the centre to connect villages due to ‘its significant political influence on villages’ and how to exploit the function of cities in real life.  One article further explained that if a problem could be solved or figured out in the city, then surrounding villages could receive the same information so that problems would be solved thoroughly.3 The other article provided readers with eight specific methods which could be used in the propagandization work in Dalian. I will quote two of them here:

“Street radio – Radio is the best tool for propagandization/publicization in the city, it has great efficiency. Especially at the location where people gather, such as the shopping mall. Turning on the speaker, playing a CD first, attracting the attention of the masses, then giving a speech, but the speech needs to be concise and short, with incitation. Because people on the street are very mobile, some people leave, some people will come, and some will return. The speech could be repeated several times.”

“Festooned vehicle – using the festooned vehicles (big scooters or automobiles), hanging slogans around them, decorating them with beautiful flags, parading around. First, drumming attracts the public’s attention, then letting the publicist give speeches. After the speech, a short drama and peepshow could be following section.”3

The mutual characteristics could be derived: 1) the emphasis on the public space like streets and shopping malls; 2) the entertaining element in the process of propagandization, such as the short drama and the CD playing; 3) the political propagandization was hosted in a similar way to the celebration of festivals. These spatial practices match with Bakhtin’s carnival world, which includes the following characteristics: familiar and free interaction with people, eccentricity, carnivalistic mesalliance, and profanation.4  The gathering of a significant number of people in public locations blurs individual differences and makes ideas given by the speaker universal and applicable to all. Social hierarchy is eliminated. Everyone could be a part of the event. Public spaces also enable the occurrence of interaction and communication. The masses could react directly to the one giving the speech and communicate with many audiences surrounding them. However, this interaction is one-way since the audience cannot offer sophisticated and critical comments to the publicist. The only reaction they can give is either to cheer or to leave.

The addition of entertainment makes the masses subconsciously link political ideas and activities to drama, music and plays. Political propagandization is carried out in a format similar to operas and dramas. The request to use short, concise, and provocative language has a similar function to lines written by the playwriter to provoke the audience’s emotions so that they will experience the same feelings synchronously. Entertainment and the selection of public spaces where people’s everyday lives are carried out remind me of Zhang Jingsheng’s aesthetic society. In his Mei de shehui zuzhifa, Zhang proposed that music should be amplified and could be heard around the city, a subconscious form of education as people went about their daily routines.5 The political propagandization through radio and festooned vehicles are like Zhang’s music, played in the background of people’s everyday life, affecting them subconsciously. As L.A. Rocha states at the end of his article on Zhang’s urban theories, the aim of his utopian city was to reproduce the same minds and the same bodies.6 His aesthetics were basically authoritarian through and through.7 The underlying authoritarianism and the attempt to unify people’s minds could also be found in the propagandization work in Dalian.

This reshaping of public space later became the embryonic form of denunciation rally during the Cultural revolution from 1966 to 1976. While the core of this format of propagandization remained the same, the content upgraded from education of patriotism and internationalism to the public execution and criticism of people. Political propagandization was conceived as a kind of public performance. Public spaces become theatres and playgrounds. The seriousness was lost under that scenario, causing collective violence  more likely to happen. The utopian space, which could have been constructed if the masses learned from these teachings, transforms into a dystopian space where dehumanized activities and fearful behaviours take place, just like the performance of grotesque roles in carnivals if the political propagandization work is carried out in a carnivalized manner.

  1. Liu, Yishi. “Competing Visions of the Modern: Urban Transformation and Social Change of Changchun, 1932-1957.” Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 2011, p.117. [↩]
  2. Ibid, p.111. [↩]
  3. Dongbei Ribao, 27. August 1950. [↩] [↩]
  4. “Carnivalesque” in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivalesque [Accessed 15.10.2022]. [↩]
  5. Leon Antonio Rocha, ‘A Utopian Garden City: Zhang Jingsheng’s “Beautiful Beijing”’, in The Habitable City in China: Urban History in the Twentieth Century, 2017, p.155. [↩]
  6. Ibid, p.157. [↩]
  7. Ibid, p.156. [↩]