Reading Shenbao: Nationalism, Consumerism and Individuality in China 1919-37

Reading Shenbao

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Reading Shenbao Nationalism, Consumerism and Individuality in China 1919–37 Weipin Tsai Lecturer in Modern Chinese History, Royal Holloway, University of London

© Weipin Tsai 2010 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–01982–9 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

獻給我的父母: 蔡榮燦先生, 蔡黃清綉女士

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Contents

List of Figures

ix

Acknowledgements

xi

Glossary

xiii

Introduction Consumers, communities, individuals: a new readership for a new China On the question of individuality and civil society Shenbao as a business Themes for discussion

1 1 4 10 14

1

Patriotism and Gracious Living in Tobacco Advertising Tobacco advertisements, nationalism, and commercialism The emergence of commercial art and advertisements The self-love of women in cigarette advertisements Conclusion

18 21 32 35 42

2

Saving for Happiness – Individual Banking Accounts Selling to the common people New options for savers Beyond economics: politics, regulations, and social change Inspiration and exhortation: a call to action Creating happiness: ways to attract customers Conclusion

45 46 51 54 59 66 69

3

The Modern Housewife – A New Kind of Shanghai Woman Women in modern Chinese Studies What did ‘housewife’ mean? Common sense, emotionalized consumers, and the household Conclusion

vii

71 73 77 85 101

viii

Contents

4

Shame, Guilt, and National Products Chinese consumers Re-examining ‘chi’ Spreading the sense of guilt with plain words Chi and the national product movement Conclusion

5

‘Ziyoutan’ Revisited – The Literature Supplement and Its Writers ‘Ah Q characteristics’ and the useless men of letters National language and mass consciousness Realism in literature ‘The Flies and the Universe’: the polemic over ‘Personal Essays’ Conclusion

6

Re-defining Shenbao’s Readership Middle class readership: challenges and issues Management of content: be neutral but commercial Who was ‘reading’ the advertisements? Writing to Shenbao Conclusion

103 106 109 114 120 125

127 130 136 141 146 157 158 159 164 168 175 183

Postscript: On Ambivalent Individualities

185

Bibliography

190

References

204

Index

241

Figures 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 2.1 2.2 Chart 2.1

2.3 2.4 3.1 3.2 3.3

3.4a, b, c 3.5

Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 8 May 1935 Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 17 May 1919 Guohua Cigarette Company, Shenbao, 15 May 1928 Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 31 May 1924 Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 17 May 1925 Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 25 May 1923 Zhongguo Zhonghe Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 5 May 1928 Fuchang Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 6 May 1928 The International Savings Association, Shenbao, 23 May 1920 The International Savings Association, Shenbao, 6 June 1920 Market share of savings (excluding traditional banks). Wang Zhixin, Zhongguo zhi chuxu yinhangshi, p. 380 A savings song from a Shanghai Bank publication, 1933 Ningbo Savings Association, Shenbao, 18 May 1933 Simmons Mattress advertisement, Shenbao, 6 May 1933 Co-Operative Company advertisement for ‘O.K. Table Wringer’, 1937 Distribution of housing by social class in Shanghai (reproduced from Shanghai lilong linong minju. Beijing: Zhongguo jianzhu gongye chubanshe, 1993) Baby’s exercises from Funü zazhi (Ladies’ Journal), 17: 3, 1931 Ice-Cream advertisement, Shenbao, 9 May 1926

ix

19 22 25 27 30 38 40 44 46 47

54 58 67 72 79

89 93 100

x

Figures

4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 6.1 6.2 6.3

Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 1 May 1920 Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 23 May 1923 Advertisements for imported products, Shenbao, 13 May 1928 Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 15 May 1920 Drawing promoting National Products, Shenbao, 4 May 1933 Zhongxi Great Pharmacy advertisement, Shenbao, 4 May 1933 Lever’s Health Soap advertisement, Shenbao, 14 May 1934 ‘Shenbao liutong tushuguan gongzuo baogao’ (Working Report of Shenbao’s Circulating Library), internal publication of Shenbao, February, 1935

104 105 108 119 124 170 172

183

Acknowledgements It was only when I got towards the end of completing this project that I began to fully appreciate how much help I have received from so many people. This monograph was based on my PhD study at Leeds University. I want to thank Professor Henrietta Harrison for supervising me with a great deal of patience, and for inspiring me in so many ways. I also want to thank the Department of East Asian Studies of Leeds University, in particular Professor Flemming Christiansen, Professor Delia Davin and Dr. Frances Weightman for their very kind support while I was there. I want to thank Professor Steve Smith for reading my work very carefully and giving me many useful suggestions. Professor Andrea McElderry carefully read my second chapter and gave me valuable feedback; I want to thank her for this. I am very much indebted to Dr. Lin Meili at the Institute of Modern History of Academia Sinica in Taipei for her introduction to many useful resources in archives in both Taiwan and China. Her passion in both life and work is something I admire very much. I also want to thank Dr. Peter Zarrow for his many helpful suggestions for the first and fifth chapters of the book. Dr. Max Ko-wu Huang’s work inspired me very much, and I also want to thank him for our many interesting discussions. Professor Michel Hockx very kindly allowed me to attend his seminars on Modern Chinese Literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. I benefited a great deal from attending and have a lot of enjoyable memories of reading poems in the class. I want to thank both Professor Xiong Yuezhi and Mr. Wu Jianxi of the Institute of History, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Professor Xiong’s encyclopaedic knowledge helped me enormously in gaining access to the history of modern Shanghai, while Mr. Wu Jianxi’s help in guiding me to many old bookshops and restaurants in Shanghai allowed me to carry out my research in Shanghai much more easily than would ever have been possible without his help. Mr. Gan Zhenhu at Shanghai Library and Mr. Chen Zhengqin at Shanghai Municipal Archives have given me a lot of help, and I want to thank them here. I also experienced the warmest friendship from both Ms. Wu Yunshan and Professor Xu Dingxin in Shanghai. They kindly xi

xii Acknowledgements

introduced me to many of their old friends, which allowed my interviews to be carried out over a relatively short period. I want to thank Professor Christian Henriot for his kind encouragement and for offering me materials. I am grateful to my friends, Miss Hsieh Yiling, Dr. Aglaia de Angeli, Dr. Federica Ferlanti, and Dr. Ning Jennifer Chang for collecting materials for me in Taipei, Shanghai and Oxford. I want to thank The Universities’ China Committee in London for its generous support which helped me to go back to China to collect more materials for this monograph after my postgraduate study. Peter Lang Publishing has very kindly to allow me to incorporate material from my contribution to a collection of essays published in 2006. I would also like to thank the librarians of Leeds University Library and SOAS Library for their assistance, also the AHRC for funding for my two -year Research Fellowship at the University of Bristol, which gave me some time to turn my PhD thesis into a book. I would also like to thank Professor Robert Bickers and Professor Hans van de Ven for their support. I want to offer thanks for the much encouragement and love I have received from Noël, Margo and Luke since I arrived in Hull more than 10 years ago. Luke has devoted his valuable time in checking my English, and I particularly want to thank him here. I want to thank my partner Tom for his very careful proofreading and many nights of discussions. His music and especially his piano playing always managed to bring me joy. Finally I want to thank my sister, Tsai Yu-pen, for her selfless support for the whole family in Taiwan. Her devotion has allowed me to work in this foreign country, and she will always have my respect and gratitude.

Glossary Ah Q 阿 Q Ah yi 阿 姨 Ah Ying 阿 英 an rou Taishan 安 如 泰 山 baifan pai 販派 Beiqiao 北橋 benfu zengkan 本 阜 增 刊 biaoyu pai 標 語 派 Cao Juren 曹 聚 仁 Chang Kia-ngau 張 嘉 Chenbao 晨 報 changshi 常 識 Chen Binhe 陳 彬 龢 Chen Cunren 陳 存 仁 Chen Diexian 陳 蝶 仙 Chen Duxiu 陳 獨 秀 Cheng Fangwu 成 仿 吾 Chen Guangfu 陳 光 甫 Chen Jinghan 陳景韓 Chen Leng 陳冷 Chenlun 淪 Chen Wangdao 陳 望 道 Chen Zizhan 陳 子 展 chi 恥 chou yaoshui 臭 藥 水 Chunqiu 春 秋 chuxu 儲 蓄 chuxuge 儲 蓄 歌 chuxuhe 儲 蓄 盒 Chuxu yinhangfa caoan 儲 蓄 銀 行 法 草 Chuxu yinhang zeli 儲 蓄 銀 行 則 例 cijili baifenzhibai 刺 激 力 百 分 之 百 Cui Hao 崔 灝 Dagongbao 大 公 報 Dalu shangchang 大 陸 商 場 dangpu 當 舖 dazhong 大 dazhong hua 大 化 Deng Zhongxia 鄧 中 夏 Dianshizhai huabao 點 石 齋 畫 報 Dongfang zazhi 東 方 雜 誌 Dongsheng 冬 生 doufujiang 豆 腐 漿 xiii

xiv

Glossary

duba Shanghai 獨 霸 上 海 du shan qi shen 獨 善 其 身 Dushu yuekan 讀 書 月 刊 Duzhe guwen 讀 者 顧 問 Duzhe tongxun 讀 者通 訊 Du Zhongyuan 杜 重 遠 er 耳 Ershiyi tiaokuan guochi wushengke 二 十 一 條 款 國 恥 五 聲 歌 fangjin qi 方 巾 氣 fengcheng nüzi 風 塵 女 子 fengyue 風 月 fuhao 符 號 funü 婦 女 Funü zazhi 婦 女 雜 誌 Fuxin 福 新 Fu Sinian 傅 斯 年 gainian gongju 概 念 工 具 gaizao 改 造 ganshang pai 感 傷 派 Ge Gongzhen 戈 公 振 geren 個 人 geren zhuyi yishi 個 人 主 義 意 識 gexing 個 性 gong 公 gongde 公 德 gonggong kongjian 公 共 空 間 gonggong lingyu 公 共 領 域 gongji pai 攻 擊 派 gongli pai 功 利 派 gongmin shehui 公 民 社 會 gongyi meishu 工 藝 美 術 gongyü 公 寓 guanli jiashi zhi fu 管 理 家 事 之 婦 guan yinhao 官 銀 號 Guben 固 本 Gu Fengcheng 顧 鳳 城 guniang 姑 娘 guochi 國 恥 Guohua yancao gongsi 國 華 煙 草 公 司 guohuo 國 貨 guohuo dianshan shengguo bolai 國 貨 電 扇 勝 過 舶 來 guomin 國 民 Guo Ming 郭 明 Guo Moruo 郭 沫 若 Guyuan 谷 遠 Huanghe lou 黃 鶴 樓 Huang Yanpei 黃 炎 培 Huang Yuansheng 黃 遠 生 Huasheng dianshan 華 勝 電 扇

Glossary huayuan tun 花 園 屯 Hu Hanzhu 胡 憨 珠 部銀行 Hubu yinhang Hunren 渾 人 huoli 活 力 huoqi cunkuan 活 期 存 款 Hu Qiuyuan 胡 秋 原 Hu Yuzhi 胡 愈 之 Jiande chuxuhui 儉 德 儲 蓄 會 Jiang Baili 蔣 百 里 jiantou hang 薦 頭 行 Jian Zhaonan 簡 照 南 Jiating gongyeshe 家 庭 工 業 社 Jiating rixinhui 家 庭 日 新 會 Jilian huikan 機 聯 會 刊 jimao 雞 毛 Jincheng yinhang 金 城 銀 行 jingpai 京 派 jinqian 金 錢 Jin Yi 金 一 ji suo bu yu wu shi yu ren 己 所 不 欲 勿 施 於 人 jiuguo 救 國 Juanzi 娟 子 juewu 覺 悟 kaitian pidi 開 天 闢 地 Kang Youwei 康 有 為 kechi 可 恥 Kong Lingjing 孔 另 境 Kuaile jiating 快 樂 家 庭 kuangre pai 狂 熱 派 Lang Shu 朗 述 laopai xiangyan 老 牌 香 煙 Lao She 老 舍 li 理 Liang Qichao 超 Liangyou huabao 良 友 畫 報 Li Gongpu 李 公 樸 lingcun zhengfu 零 存 整 付 lingxing cunkuan 零 星 存 款 liquan 利 權 liquan cunkuan 禮 券 存 款 Li Liewen 黎 烈 文 Liang Qichao 梁 超 laomazi 老 媽 子 liangqi 良 妻 Liang Shih-chiu 梁 實 秋 Liao Mosha 廖 沫 沙 Lin Yutang 林 語 堂 Li Zhaobei 李 昭 北

xv

xvi Glossary Ling Lung 玲 瓏 Liu Bannong 劉 半 農 Liu Naou 劉 吶 鷗 liupai 流 派 liutong tushuguan 流 通 圖 書 館 Lunyü 論 語 Lu Xun 魯 迅 Maocheng ji 城記 Mao Dun 茅 盾 Maoxin 茂 新 Ma Yinchu 馬 寅 初 meijun 黴 菌 Meishu shenghuo 美 術 生 活 meiwen 美 文 Miao Cheng Shuyi 繆 程 淑 儀 minzuzhuyi wenxue 民 族 主 義 文 學 modeng 摩 登 modeng nülang 摩 登 女 郎 Mu Shiying 穆 時 英 Nanqiao 南 橋 Nanshi 南 市 nanxing 男 性 Nanyang xiongdi yancao gongsi 南 洋 兄 弟 煙 草 公 司 neiren 内 人 Nie Gannu 聶 紺 弩 Nie Yuntai 聶 雲 臺 nüxing 女 性 Nüzi shijie 女 子 世 界 Pan Yangyao 潘 仰 堯 Pan Yangmang 潘 仰 莽 Pan Wenshan 潘 文 山 pianji pai 偏 激 派 piaozhuang 票 莊 pingdeng 平 等 putong zhishi 普 通 知 識 Qian Xingcun 錢 杏 邨 Qian Xinzhi 錢 新 之 Qian Xibo 錢昕伯 Qian Zheng 錢 徵 qianzhuang 錢 莊 Qinghua xuebao 清 華 學 報 qipao 旗 袍 Qishierhang shangbao 七 十 二 行 商 報 qizi 妻子 quan 權 quanli 權 利 Quan zhichi ge 勸 知 恥 歌 Qu Qiubai 瞿 秋 白 Qu Shiying 瞿 世 英

Glossary ren 仁 Renjianshi 人 間 世 renmin de shehui yishi 人 民 的 社 會 意 識 renqing 人 情 Renyan zhoukan 人 言 周 刊 Riyong zazi 日 用 雜 字 Sanguo yanyi 三 國 演 義 sanwen xiaopin 散 文 小 品 Shanghai jizhi guohuo gongchang lianhehui 上 海 機 制 國 貨 工 廠 聯 合 會 Shanghai shangke daxue 上 海 商 科 大 学 Shanghai shangye chuxu yinhang 上 海 商 業 儲 蓄 銀 行 Shanghai Tongji chuxuhui 上 海 同 蓄会 shangliu shehui 上 流 社 會 Shangwu yinshuguan 商務印書館 shangye changshi 商 業 常 識 Shao Piaoping 邵 飄 萍 Shao Xunmei 邵 洵 美 Shenbao 申 報 Shenbao guohuo zhoukan 申 報 國 貨 週 刊 Shenbao guohuo zhuankan 申 報 國 貨 專 刊 shehuifu 社 會 福 shenghuo hua 生 活 化 Shenghuo zhoukan 生 活 週 刊 shenjia 身 價 Shen Lianqi 沈 亮 棨 Shen Gangfu 沈 剛 甫 Shibao 時 報 shigu 事 故 Shi Liangcai 史 量 才 shikumen 石 庫 門 shimin shehui 市 民 社 會 shimao 時 髦 Shishi xinbao 時 事 新 報 shixin de 時 新 的 shikuan 時 款 shiyang 時 樣 shiyong hua 實 用 化 Shi Zhecun 施 存 Shueihuzhuan 水 滸 傳 Sihang chuxuhui 四 行 儲 蓄 會 Siming chuxuhui 四 明 儲 蓄 會 Simmons 席 夢 思 si you zhongyu Taishan huo qingyu hongmao 死 有 重 於 泰 山 或 輕 於 鴻 毛 Song Hanzhang 宋 漢 章 Sun Fuyuan 孫 伏 園 Su Wen 蘇 汶 Taishan 泰 山 taitai 太 太 Taiyang she 太 陽 社

xvii

xviii

Glossary

Tang Jun 唐 Tang Tao 唐 弢 Tang Yulin 湯 玉 麟 Tao Xingzhi 陶 行 知 Tao Xisheng 陶 希 聖 tezhong dingqi 特 種 定 期 tezhong fenqi 特 種 分 期 tezhong huoqi 特 種 活 期 tezhong xingqi cunkuan 特 種 星 期 存 款 tianran zhishi 天 然 知 識 tianzhi 天 職 tichang 提 倡 Tichang guohuo ge 提 倡 國 貨 歌 Tilanqiao 提 籃 橋 tuifei pai 頹 廢 派 Wang Dungen 王 鈍 根 Wang Zhixin 王 志 莘 Wanguo chuxuhui 萬 國 儲 蓄 會 wanhui liquan 挽 回 利 權 waiguo 外 國 waihuo 外 貨 Wangping 望 平 weimei pai 唯 美 派 weisheng 衛 生 weisheng yungdonghui 衛 生 運 動 會 Wentan denglongshu 文 壇 登 龍 術 Wen Tianxiang 文 天 祥 Wing On 永 安 Wode chuxu jihua 我 的 儲 蓄 計 劃 Wu Jingsong 吳 景 崧 Wu Kaixian 吳 開 先 Wu Tiecheng 吳 鐵 城 Wu Xiangyu 吳 向 隅 Wu Xizhai 吳 習 齋 Wu Yifang 吳 貽 芳 Xiafeifang 霞 飛 坊 xiaji pingmin 下 級 平 民 xiaopin sanwen 小 品 散 文 xiandai 現 代 Xiandai shiliujia xiaopin 現 代 十 六 家 小 品 Xiandai zazhi 現 代 雜 誌 Xiangzi 祥 子 xianqiao pai 纖 巧 派 xianqi liangmu 賢 妻 良 母 xianmu 賢 母 Xianshi 先 施 Xianzai shiye yiban 現 在 事 業 一 般 xiaobao 小 報 xiaofeizhe 消 費 者

Glossary xiaojie 小 姐 xiaopinwen 小 品 文 xiao shimin 小 市 民 xiao yatou 小 丫 頭 Xie Bingying 謝 冰 瑩 xieshi wenxue 寫實文學 Xie Yunyi 謝 雲 翼 Xilou 息 樓 xin 心 Xinchao 新 潮 xin ganjue pai 新 感 覺 派 Xincheng yinhang 信成 銀 行 Xinhua yinhang 新 華 銀 行 xinmin 新 民 Xinyi yinhang 信義 銀 行 Xinmin shuo 新 民 說 Xin Qingnian 新 青 年 xinshi zhuzhai 新 式 住 宅 Xinwenbao 新 聞 報 Xinyue 新月 Xiyouji 西 遊 記 Xi Zipei 席 子 佩 Xu Ah-Qi 徐 阿七 Xuan 玄 Xuantong 宣 統 Xu Dishan 許 地 山 Xujiahui 徐 家 匯 Xu Jingxia 許 靜 霞 Xu Maoyong 徐 懋 庸 xunshi pai 訓 示 派 Xu Qinwen 許 欽 文 Xu Zhimo 徐 志 摩 yamen 衙 門 Yang Chao 楊 潮 Yangchun 陽 春 yanghuo 洋 貨 Yang Lianzheng 楊廉 政 yangli 洋 厘 Yangzao 羊 棗 Yantai pijiu 煙 臺 酒 Yanye yinhang 鹽 業 銀 行 yanzhidian 煙 紙 店 Yeye 野埜 Ye Shengtao 葉 聖 陶 yi 義 Yili qishui 益 利 汽 水 Yinbingshi heji 飲 冰 室 合 集 yingyang 營 養 yinhui pai 淫 穢 派

xix

xx

Glossary

yinliang 銀 兩 yinyuan 銀 元 Yishibao 益 世 報 yiye fengliu 一 夜 風 流 youli yishi 游 離 意 識 yuan 元 Yuan Shikai 袁 世 凱 yuanyang hudie pai 鴛鴦蝴蝶派 Yu Dafu 郁 達 夫 Yu Congyu 余 從 予 yudi 禦 敵 yuefenpai 月 份 牌 Yu Zhiyi 之夷 zawen 雜 文 Zengzi 曾子 Zhang Ailing 張 愛 玲 Zhang Jian 張 謇 Zhang Jinglu 張 静 廬 Zhang Kebiao 章 克 標 Zhanquan 湛 泉 Zhang Taiyan 章 太 炎 Zhang Yuanji 張 元 濟 Zhang Zhuping 張 竹 平 zhanshi cunkuan 暫 時 存 款 Zhao Fengchang 趙 風 昌 Zhao Jiabi 趙 家 璧 Zhe An 哲 安 Zhejiang xingye yinhang 浙 江 興 業 銀 行 zhengcun zhengfu 整 存 整 付 zhengcun zhixi 整 存支 息 Zheng Zhenduo 鄭 振 鐸 Zhili 致 立 Zhongfa chuxuhui 中 法 儲 蓄 會 Zhongguo guohuo chanxiao xiehui 中 國 國 貨 產 銷 協 會 Zhongguo guohuo gongsi 中 國 國 貨 公 司 Zhonghua guohuo weichihui 中 國 國 貨 維 持 會 Zhongguo neiyi gongsi 中 國 內 衣 公 司 Zhongguo tongmenghui 中 國 同 盟 會 Zhongguo tongshang yinhang 中國通商銀行 Zhongguo zhi chuxu yinhangshi 中 國 之 儲 蓄 銀 行史 Zhongguo zhonghe yancao gongsi 中 國 中 和 煙 草 公 司 Zhonghua jiande chuxuhui 中 華 儉 德 儲 蓄 會 Zhonghua zhiye jiaoyushe 中 華 職 業 教 育 社 Zhonghua zhiye xuexiao 中 華 職 業 學 校 Zhongnan yancao gongsi 中 南 煙 草 公 司 Zhongnan yinhang 中 南 銀 行 Zhongxibao 中 西 報 Zhongxi dayaofang 中 西 大 藥 房 Zhongyang yinhang 中 央 銀 行

Glossary Zhongying da yaofang 中 英 大 藥 房 Zhou Qiying 周 起 應 Zhou Shoujuan 周 鵑 Zhou Tingbi 周 廷 弼 Zhou Yang 周 揚 Zhou Zuoren 周 作 人 zhuangpiao 莊 票 zhufu 主 婦 Zhufu de riji 主 婦 的 日 記 Zhuo Jun 卓 君 Zhu Wang Wanqing 朱 王 浣 青 zhuyi pai 主 義 派 Ziyoushen 自 由 神 Ziyoutan 自 由 談 ziwo 自 我 zizun 自 尊 Zou Taofen 鄒 韜 奮

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Introduction

Consumers, communities, individuals: a new readership for a new China To live in Shanghai in the 1920s and early 1930s was to inhabit an era in which, as the title of Cole Porter’s famous musical put it, ‘Anything Goes’. This chaotic era, the humor, satire and irony of which was so brilliantly captured in the musical, gave rise to a distinctive style commonly found in China as well as Western countries at this time – Art Deco. Similarly, issues such as the crash in the stock market, the beginning of the Depression, changes in banking, marriage, religion, personal beliefs, and loyalty to society and tradition, were just as urgent themes in rapidly modernizing China as they were in America, and were particularly hotly discussed in Shanghai. Recently, scholarly attention has moved from politics to the material sphere of ordinary life, and from nationalism as an isolated phenomenon to its interaction with consumerism and personal interests. Indeed, the study of material life and the history of urban populations has seen a shift in emphasis, becoming increasingly conducted within the larger context of Chinese modernization, one of the most significant trends in recent historiography. Against this scholarly background, this book examines the conflicts, challenges and opportunities generated through the encounter between nationalism and commercialism, impacting on individuals and wider society, alongside the conceptual transformations which accompanied the huge changes in material life which took place during this period. This is explored through the experiences and concerns of the readership of Shenbao, Shanghai’s largest, most important and longest-running newspaper throughout this period. 1

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Reading Shenbao

This book also explores how these readers responded to the image of Chinese modernity which was built up through the information they received by reading Shenbao. By doing so, this will further allow us to understand how Chinese people, or at least Shenbao’s readers, participated in this process of modernization, giving us the ability to observe Chinese modernization from multiple aspects: individually and collectively, materially and conceptually. In the Chinese context, this task of mapping includes treating changing understanding and practices in both concepts of individuality and the living of daily life as sequences of reactions to changes in the wider world. China as a nation reacted to the world, and Chinese people reacted to China’s changes. During these two decades, the Chinese nation kept one foot in the camp of tradition, but the other was planted firmly in the modern era. The book explores this ambivalent response through an examination of the phenomenon of individuality as it manifested itself in the readership of Shenbao. Shenbao was established in 1872 by an Englishman, Ernest Major (1841–1908), but in 1909 passed into Chinese ownership under Xi Zipei (1867–1929); in 1912, Shi Liangcai (1880–1934) became the largest shareholder. Its broad editorial policy won it a wide circulation and loyal readership, and rendered it one of the most influential newspapers of the day. The diverse range of news and other content in Shenbao, including politics, economics, social news, education, international news, local news, several scientific columns, and literature, has established its importance as a useful source in historical studies.1 Yet the question of its readership has, up until now, been little studied. In order to gain an understanding of the relationships between Shenbao’s readership and everyday life in modern China, this book looks at the commodities and products advertised in the newspaper. These include cigarettes, personal banking accounts, and hygiene-related products, as well as other household goods. The role of the newspaper in the dissemination of new forms of knowledge, for example in the form of feature articles on home economics, reflecting the emergence of the modern housewife, is also discussed, while an exploration of Shenbao’s literature columns and readers’ letters helps us form a picture of how Shenbao built up and sustained its relationship with its readers, an important element of its overall business approach. Business history has lately become an important area of Chinese studies. The study of those aspects of business that involve relationships between material culture and daily life not only allow historians to understand the shifting human environment, but also mental

Introduction 3

responses to change. For example, by looking at the sale of cigarettes and matches, Sherman Cochran demonstrates how modern products arrived in China with the Western powers, and penetrated Chinese markets.2 In studying how these businesses were built up, Cochran raises important issues ranging from the conflict between Chinese governments and foreigners, to Chinese merchants, tariffs, modernization, nationalism, and international political relations. Beyond this strict focus on commerce, many scholars have explored the material element of Chinese modern history. Two good examples are Susan L. Glosser’s study of milk, then an essentially new product in China, and Carlton Bacon’s work on how radio affected Shanghai’s commercial life.3 Both Glosser and Bacon show how changes in urban dwellers’ lifestyles were related to the growth of general knowledge surrounding or generated by such new products. They also point out that the popularity of new products had a strong relation to the rise of the nuclear family. Of course, this phenomenon is also linked to the growth of consumer knowledge, a burgeoning mass media, and the ever-increasing importance of capitalist economics. Wen-hsin Yeh and Carrie Waara stress how commercial culture shaped Chinese modernity, in tandem with nationalism and the increasing scope for the expression of individual taste in daily life.4 Taking this new scholarship as its starting point, the intention in this book is to move the discourse forward by delving deeper into the emergence of a new concept of the individuality of the modern consumer, developed around the ideas of privacy, material life, and personal interests. In turn, as we shall explore in the following chapters, this commercial and consumerist form of individuality was also strongly connected with the rise and practice of nationalism. Aspects of this relationship have previously been commented on, but it has only recently begun to be explored in depth, for example in Karl Gerth’s China Made: Consumer Culture and the Creation of the Nation.5 In this study of the connection between consumerism and nationalism, Gerth demonstrates how, on the one hand, Chinese businessmen and pressure groups worked to transform consumption into a nationalist and patriotic issue, while on the other, the Chinese national product movement was itself tailored to fit in with a modern image of a consumer lifestyle through the tools of marketing and advertising. Gerth concludes that ‘A weak sense of national identity among the vast majority of Chinese customers who evaluated their interests also in terms of themselves, their families, lineages, communities, and regions, made sacrificing on behalf of the nation difficult, even unthinkable.’6

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Gerth demonstrates that through national product campaigns, a concept of citizenship became established, and the individual was drawn into the framework of the whole community. Gerth admits that from one point of view the national product movement can easily be interpreted as a ‘dramatic failure’. Nevertheless, the movement ‘insinuated nationalism into countless aspects of China’s nascent consumer culture’, and was an exercise in ideological education for the general public.7 Similar efforts in creating collective knowledge supporting Chinese modernization as a pre-requisite for national salvation can be found in other activities, many imposed by the various authorities, such as hygiene education and military-style training in schools.8 In her study on the making of modern Chinese citizens during the Republican era, Henrietta Harrison illustrates how China unified her people by unifying fashion, textbooks, ceremonies, and other symbols of the whole nation.9 Examining these movements, it is very clear that the tension between individual and community cannot be avoided, but beyond the obvious conflict, it is apparent that these two dimensions co-exist in a more complex, vibrant and elastic relationship than first impressions might suggest.

On the question of individuality and civil society The concept of individual is the focus of this book, paying particular attention to shifting ideas of individuality that emerged in the conflict between tradition and modernity. When early twentieth-century Chinese intellectuals talked about the idea of individuality, many emphasized the release of the ‘person’ from family, tradition, discipline, and society. The idea of egalitarianism (pingdeng), the fundamental principle of this new equality, was the realization that each individual had his own qualities and personality that could not be constrained by the hierarchy of ‘feudal’ ethical codes. In this regard, modernity for the Chinese overlapped with the emancipation of the individual personality from tradition. Although political ‘individualism’ was introduced into China alongside many other Western notions, the ‘individuality’ this book is concerned with was not a simple reflection of this importation. Rather, these pages seek to examine how Shenbao readers developed their individuality in reaction to indigenous conflicts between tradition and modernity, and between nationalism and consumerism, which were not necessarily related to specifically political doctrines. In other words, it is concerned with how individuals reacted to the novelty of modernity in ways not provided for by tradition.

Introduction 5

The use of the term ‘individuality’ also avoids confusion with Lydia Liu’s observations about the retreat from ‘individualism’ during the mid-1920s and early 1930s.10 Liu’s book Translingual Practice looks at the shifting meaning of individualism in its historical context from the 1910s to the early 1920s by examining three journals: Dongfang zazhi (Eastern Miscellany), Xin Qingnian (New Youth), and Xinchao (New Tide). Liu concludes: ‘Just as the concepts themselves defy fixing, the attempt to pin down the notion of the individual or individualism in modern Chinese to one or two definitions will prove counterproductive.’11 She argues that individualism was treated as a symbol of petty bourgeois capitalism and rejected by intellectuals, and that the background to this tension was a conflict between private interests and the goals of the nation. This point is discussed in detail later; for the present, it is enough to say that even if the political ideology of individualism was overshadowed by other political ideologies, using the largely apolitical term ‘individuality’ escapes this problem. The idea of individuality employed in this book stresses the link with the experience of daily life. This is because the practice of daily life embraces a whole set of interactions between individuals and their environments. The understanding of the sequences of linkages between space, people, time, language, and action allows the ‘individual’ to come out from this complicated nexus and emerge to the surface. Moreover, the concept of individuality embraces both public and private spheres. The public and private realms of individuals in daily life, therefore, constitute a grand platform from which to comprehend social history and human conduct; and Shenbao, offers us one of the best resources in the period from which to study these topics. Commercial life in Shanghai certainly reacted well to the new printing technology, and quickly used it to sell culture to the public. This phenomenon is well captured in Leo Ou-fan Lee’s Shanghai Modern, which not only deals with the commercial scene in Shanghai, but also addresses publishing, cinemas, architecture, and literature.12 Similarly, Yingjin Zhang and Peng Hsiao-yen offer their observations on how Shanghai printing culture was interwoven with artists’ individuality in their literary works, particularly those involved in Neo-Perceptionist aesthetics.13 Shanghai’s unique environment enabled the increased expression of individuality in the practice of daily life through the printing business. Christopher Reed’s study of the printing technology and publishing business in Shanghai shows that Western printing technology was used selectively by Chinese society which already had a

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rich print culture of its own. Chinese did not simply have this Western import imposed on them, but fitted it to their own agenda.14 Individuality in modern print culture in China is particularly interesting because it was mixed with Chinese nationalism. A semiautobiographical work by Yu Dafu (1896–1945), ‘Sinking’ (Chenlun), is a good example of the interaction between individuality and nationalism. The protagonist of this short novel is a sensitive youth who has studied in Japan and loves literature. Although loneliness is his dominant disposition, at the same time he actually enjoys this rather melancholy mood. This youth has strong feelings toward women, and he always behaves nervously in front of them. Being Chinese in Japan does not make his situation easier, because he feels obliged to adopt his nation’s sense of shame and incorporate it alongside his personal psychological impotence. In front of a Japanese waitress, his sense of inferiority becomes even stronger. His inner voice cries out ‘I am a Chinaman! Oh, China, my China, why don’t you get stronger?’ The protagonist was very aware of this inner struggle, which revolved around wanting to escape from national shame and to be free to find his love. He wrote in his diary: ‘What I want is love. If there were one woman who could love me sincerely, I would also be willing to die for her, be she beautiful or ugly ... O ye Heavens above, I want neither knowledge nor fame nor useless lucre. I shall be wholly content if you can grant me an Eva from the Garden of Eden, allowing me to posses her body and soul.’15 Yu Dafu’s protagonist believed the love of the opposite sex offered the possibility of transcending worldly distinctions of wealth, class, appearance, and even national boundaries. In practice, however, the protagonist of ‘Sinking’ did not manage to escape these limits. Yu Dafu’s story can be seen as symbolic of the condition of the Chinese people at this time. It was not only writers who remained trapped in a struggle between their individuality and their membership of a nation. This kind of inner conflict can be a feature of daily life for the Chinese, and the traces of the emotions it aroused are still visible in the literature discussed in this book, including its advertisements. But to understand these emotions, we also have to take the commercial relationships between publishers, writers, and readers into account; and this equally applies to the study of Shenbao and its readership. In exploring the relationship between these readers and the emerging discourse of nationalism, we require as a foundation the notion that the audience has a certain degree of autonomy in making decisions, and in giving feedback via the mechanism of the market. In this

Introduction 7

context, it is through acting as a consumer that each person’s sense of individuality and the wider nationalist mood of society are brought out and hinged together. Building on this, it is reasonable to suppose there might develop certain kinds of imaginary communities to support the cultural and commercial inter-exchange which such a hinging requires. Small scale, self-identified communities, spontaneously formed through shared experiences such as consumption of books, newsprint and consumer goods and services might appear from this market perspective to function much more effectively than the fragile new republic, particularly when the situation of the state itself was not very stable. One question that has exercised many scholars is whether China, ancient or modern, ever had a civil society. In Western political theory, one of the defining characteristics of the existence of civil society is generally held to be the existence of a public sphere. It is therefore unsurprising that the search for evidence for a ‘public sphere’ that would justify the claim to existence of Chinese civil society has been widespread in Chinese studies, partly in response to Habermas’s influence.16 Furthermore, encouraged by political changes in Eastern Europe, scholars of Chinese studies have used ‘civil society’ to examine China’s situation after Deng Xiaoping’s market reforms and prior to the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.17 These two concepts have been applied to the study of the late Qing and Republican eras. However, many scholars believe that the attempt to apply too literal an interpretation of Habermas’s ‘public sphere’ or of the idea of ‘civil society’ to a Chinese context causes more problems than it solves.18 Leo Ou-fan Lee points out that historians are unable to agree on whether China had a civil society or not, and argues that the Chinese translations of ‘public sphere’ (gongmin shehui or shimin shehui) and ‘civil society’ (gonggong lingyu or gonggong kongjian) simply add to the confusion. The translation of the Chinese term ‘public’ (gong) is undeniably complicated in a modern Chinese context. Lee himself argues that China has never had a civil society.19 Habermas would presumably agree with Lee’s view, for as he made clear in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: We conceive the bourgeois public sphere as a category that is typical of an epoch. It cannot be abstracted from the unique developmental history of that “civil society” (bürgerliche Gesellschaft) originating in the European High Middle Ages; nor can it be transferred, idealtypically generalized, to any number of historical situations that represent formally similar constellations. Just as we try to show, for

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Reading Shenbao

instance, that one can properly speak of public opinion in a precise sense only with regard to late-seventeenth-century Great Britain and eighteenth-century France, we treat the public sphere in general as a historical category.20 Habermas, then, conceived of the public sphere as a unique historical moment. Of course, not all historians agree with Habermas’s view that late-seventeenth-century Britain and eighteenth century France constituted a classic period for rational public discourse, arguing that it is more a projection of Habermas’s contemporary concerns than a representation of historical reality.21 Nonetheless, other scholars have attempted to use the ideas of civil society and the public sphere to illuminate the Chinese case. Prasenjit Duara, for example, rejects the use of ‘the rather narrow conceptualization of the “public sphere” Habermas developed’ as a tool in Chinese studies, but thinks that China in the late Qing period had already produced a weak form of civil society.22 Duara applies this weak concept of civil society to intellectuals’ and local elites’ activities on both the national (represented by Liang Qichao) and rural scales (represented by Northern China). He concludes that although the intellectuals and local gentry of the late Qing period had begun to create a kind of civil society, the statist discourse of nation-building ideology inhibited its further development. 23 Civil society, once separated from its connection with the public sphere, is certainly not an exclusively Habermasian idea. Hegel, Marx, Tocqueville, Gramsci and many other political philosophers have used a ‘modern form of civil society’ to examine human history. 24 ‘Civil society’ and the more neutral ‘public space’ will be treated here as useful analytic concepts rather than as extensions of an historical European tradition. For example, when we agree that Japan, Taiwan, England, and France have civil society, our agreement is based on the fact that the modern form of civil society is understood to exist within the boundaries of the state and the rule of law. Of course these elements are not universal, and each civil society can have more or less of the various qualities involved. To put it differently, although the practical details of civil society in different countries can vary, the basic principles of civil society in modern society are essentially settled. There are at least two conditions for a modern civil society. First, although civil society does not need to assume any particular political form, and its relationship to the state can vary, it has to exist within the state.25 Second, the interaction between state and civil society is

Introduction 9

regulated by law.26 The claim that there was no civil society in China in the twentieth century rests on the fact that Chinese citizenship was then extremely weak, even though there was a formal constitution in existence. As Joan Judge puts it, ‘The very term used for citizen in this period, guomin, reveals the preoccupation of late Qing elites with asserting China’s position vis-à-vis the foreign powers rather than ensuring the right of individual citizens vis-à-vis the nation-state.’27 If we apply these conditions to the Republican era as a whole, it is impossible to find more than a minimal ‘civil society’. Applying this standard to Chinese society in the first half of the twentieth century, this study leans toward Lee’s view that civil society simply did not exist, although Duara’s claim that China at that time had, at best, a very weak form of civil society cannot be entirely dismissed. But how about Shanghai itself? Taken as a microcosm, can Shanghai be said to have had a civil society? In her study of Shibao (Eastern Times), Joan Judge, who holds similar views to Duara about the existence of a weak civil society in China, says that: What is significant in making this comparison ... is not the absence of elements of a Western-style civil society in early-twentiethcentury China. Rather, it is the existence of the political press, the pivotal institution of the bourgeois public, in the profoundly different social, legal, and economic Chinese context ... Whereas the development of the public in Europe was premised on the existence of civil society (Habermas wrote of the public sphere of civil society), in China it was the organs of publicity that served as the impetus for the creation of the institutional infrastructure that constitutes a civil society. 28 To avoid the confusion caused by the use of the term ‘public sphere’, Judge called the sphere in which journalists and other intellectuals aired their opinions a ‘new middle level of society’29 in a ‘middle realm’.30 The goal of this middle level of society was to adjust the value system for the whole country, and this only became possible when these elements met together, namely free press, middle class professionals and reformists, and a new kind of common people both responsive to and formative of public opinion could be mobilized. The road to Judge’s ‘middle realm’ was not smooth. It was vigorously, even bitterly, disputed. Xiaoqun Xu’s study of Chinese professional associations investigates how new kinds of professional associations for lawyers, doctors, and journalists operated under political pressure from

10 Reading Shenbao

government in Shanghai in the Republican period. For example, for the lawyers of the Shanghai Bar Association, established in 1912, a critical issue was independence from state control.31 Similarly for journalism, a nascent profession in modern China, the ambition to establish a professional image and create a middle realm meant constantly fighting censorship, which started with the 1914 Regulation on Newspapers.32 Even in extra-territorial Shanghai, Chinese power regularly made itself felt via the Shanghai Municipal Police in both the International Settlement and the French Concession.33 In these areas too, the lack of a clearly defined state authority and citizenship ensured that even allowing for the energetic nature of its urban life, Shanghai did not have a fully established civil society. Yet this book will demonstrate that the absence of civil society did not impede the development of community and individuality of a sort in modern Shanghai. On the contrary, Chinese individuality, accompanied by nationalism, was expressed in a mixture of self-awareness, self-interest, and a sense of national shame in the practice of daily life.

Shenbao as a business In 1912, the ownership of Shenbao came into the hands of several members of the Jiangzhe elite, so called because its membership was drawn from the Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. The new owners were Zhang Jian (1853–1926), Ying Jizhong (1863–?), Zhao Fengchang (1856–1938), and Chen Jinghan (1878–1965; his most famous pen name is Chen Leng. ‘Leng’ means ‘cold’, and this pen name will be used hereafter). Shi Liangcai, who was already close to this group through Shibao and their shared membership of the club known as Xilou,34 was invited to be General Manager.35 He promptly decided to divide Shenbao’s management into three parts: editorial, finance, and general. He recruited his two most important members of staff, Chen Jinghan and Zhang Zhuping (1886–1994) from Shibao to be Chief Editor and Financial and Advertising Manager.36 There were nine daily newspapers in Shanghai in 1931, 15 in Tianjin, 21 in Beijing, and 11 in Canton; there were 28 bi-weekly newspapers in Shanghai and none in the other three cities. Only Shenbao and Xinwenbao (The News), the two largest daily newspapers in China at that time, enjoyed a circulation of more than 100,000.37 As Timothy B. Weston puts it, 1920s newspapers had gradually moved away from the ‘advocacy-style’ of 1911 to a ‘commercial focus’.38 Shenbao was no exception. Its genesis was as a commercial newspaper, and Shi Liangcai’s interest in expanding his influence in newspaper enterprises ensured

Introduction 11

Shenbao was managed as a commercial business. For Xinwebao and Shenbao, advertisements and circulation were the keys to success.39 Zhang Zhuping understood that the secret of a healthy newspaper’s finances lay in advertisements. He added an advertising department to Shenbao, and divided it into two parts, one for marketing, to bring in business from commercial clients, the other responsible for design.40 The management also realized that circulation figures affected the numbers of businesses wanting to place advertisements in the newspaper, and a new attention to the mechanics of circulation resulted. The space of advertisements in the whole of Shenbao gradually increased from 50–60% before 1910 to 60–70% after 1910, and there was much more advertising in the weekend editions (although this rise seems to have been reverted by the 1920s, according to a study of the later period – see Chapter 1).41 The increase in advertisements in Shenbao not only corresponded to the time at which Zhang Zhuping joined; it also reflected a change in the layout.42 In 1912 and 1913, the first page and second page were devoted to advertisements, editorials, top news, orders, and telegrams. From 1914 to 1927, the first two pages were used for advertisements only,43 and the rest – news, comment, and editorials – were placed on the third and fourth pages among many advertisements. Apart from adding pages, for which Zhang Zhuping was proud to claim the credit, Shenbao also managed to increase advertising space by improving its page design and reducing the font size. By 1928, Shenbao’s advertisement space occupied more than half of the whole newspaper.44 Although most places in China were still not aware of the power of advertising through newspapers, Shanghai was an exception. The power of the advertisement was recognized by native Chinese companies as well as foreign firms. Particularly after 1918, the growth of Chinese native industry was reflected in the amount of advertisements in newspapers.45 After the May Thirtieth Incident in 1925, the Chinese Newspaper Association held a boycott directed against British advertisements in newspapers.46 Following this boycott, the native product movement was taken more seriously, and in Shenbao, a quick glance confirms that far more advertisements for native Chinese products had begun to appear than was previously the case. Wangping Street, a very short side street in the International Settlement right next to the Bund and Nanjing Road, was the dense site of many newspaper headquarters, and large newspaper dispatchers were gathering there too.47 After Shenbao moved in 1918 to a new five-floor building at the corner of Hankou Road and Shandong Road (still very close to Wangping Street), it ordered a cylinder printing machine from

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Reading Shenbao

America. This machine could print more than 30,000 copies an hour. In the next four years, three of these printing machines were added together with stereotype and type casting equipment. 100,000 copies of the newspaper were able to be printed in just two hours.48 The printing speed had to match the increasing circulation and suit the train timetable for delivery outside Shanghai.49 There were several distribution methods for Shenbao. In Shanghai itself, first, the newspaper was sent out directly by the employees at headquarters to subscribers. Second, there were several inner city branches, which also dealt with circulation.50 Third, people could buy Shenbao in shops, or from vendors like those who gathered at Wangping Street. Hu Hanzhu, a former journalist for Shishi xinbao and several of the ‘mosquito’ newspapers (xiaobao) in Shanghai,51 recalled the scenes in Wangping Street. It became very busy early in the morning, packed by a few hundred newspaper vendors. After these vendors got the newspapers from publishers, they crouched down in the street to fold the newspapers. They put most of them in their sorting bags, but were generally left carrying some under their armpits. After this, the vendors vanished very fast, either on foot or on their bikes. Smaller newspapers had to make sure their copies came out before Shenbao and Xinwenbao, otherwise the vendors were likely to leave without hesitation as soon as they got hold of copies of these two most popular newspapers.52 However, the vendors would never leave without Shenbao and Xinwenbao. If either of these two publishers had mechanical problems that caused a delay, the vendors would wait for them. For readers outside Shanghai, people could subscribe to Shenbao at their local branches. In places without a branch, they could combine to raise ten subscriptions, and order Shenbao to be sent by post. A third option was direct subscription, arranged through Shenbao’s headquarters, and in this case the newspaper would be sent by post.53 In order to make sure that readers in the regions around Shanghai could have their newspaper on the day of publication, distribution was tightly integrated with postal delivery lines and the timetables of trains, cars, and steam ships.54 Even the printing process was designed to make sure that the distribution was as efficient as possible: copies for dispatch outside Shanghai were printed first, without the Shanghai Local Supplement.55 As a result, Shenbao’s circulation rose from 7,000 in 1912 to 50,000 in 1922. It rose steadily through the 1920s, from 140,000 in 1926, to 148,000 in 1930, and finally reached 150,000 in 1931.56 The figures suggest that 1912 and 1926 saw particularly significant increases in the readership of Shenbao.57

Introduction 13

Since the establishment of Shenbao in the late nineteenth century, its main political strategy had been ‘neutralism’; this was very obvious in its editorials. Even after Shi Liangcai took over, he adhered to this policy. Shenbao did not want to be linked closely with any particular warlord or risk offending any political power. It tended to ‘report’ rather than ‘comment’ on news, and never unequivocally took sides. However, its main source of political news telegrams was from Beijing, which it used to attract people interested in politics.58 This attitude only started to change with the Japanese invasions,59 and the development of Shenbao after 1931, as the last chapter will argue in more detail, changed its direction in a way that noticeably broadened its readership. 1930 was a tough year for Shenbao. Zhang Zhuping, who had been responsible for Shenbao’s advertising department, left to run his own newspaper, Shishi xinbao. Chen Leng, also left after 16 years.60 The departure of these two people had a major impact on Shenbao, but at the same time allowed Shi Liangcai to re-think the paper’s direction. At this time Shi Liangcai was becoming close to several people who would later have a significant influence on Shenbao, such as Tao Xingzhi (1891–1946), Ge Gongzhen (1890–1935), and Zou Taofen (1895–1944). This circle around Shi Liangcai formed a link between Shenbao and the active young Chinese who were simultaneously involved in the development of industry and in the national product movement, such as Wang Zhixin (1896–1957) and Pan Yangyao (1894–?)61, two important figures in this book. The most important person of all, however, was Huang Yanpei (1878–1965). He had been a close friend of Shi Liangcai for many years, was a famous educator, and an important figure in the Chinese Vocational School (Zhonghua zhiye xuexiao).62 This school was one of the most important institutions for training entrants to Chinese industry in Shanghai, and it also promoted national products. Huang in turn was close to Wang Zhixin, a young director of Xinhua Bank, who dedicated himself to individual savings accounts, discussed in detail in Chapter 2. Tao Xingzhi, another famous educator and left-wing sympathizer, shared Huang’s interest in popular education. Tao became a consultant for Shenbao, and later also actively participated in writing a column in ‘Random Talk’ (Ziyoutan), a famous supplement to Shenbao.63 Ge Gongzhen, a sophisticated young journalist with great experience on Shibao, was invited to join Shenbao in 1930. He was associated with the Shenghuo zhoukan (Life Weekly) circle, which included Zou Taofen and Hu Yuzhi (1896–1986). The concerns of Shenghuo zhoukan, notably

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Reading Shenbao

savings, youth education, family financial plans, and national product movements, overlapped with those of Shenbao. It was through Ge Gongzhen and Wang Zhixin that Shi Liangcai was introduced to the people at Shenghuo zhoukan.64 The involvement of Shi Liangcai with these people prepared the ground for Shenbao to actively support the national product movements in the 1930s. Another significant change in Shenbao was its publication of various supplements. Shenbao’s educational supplements and national products supplements added fresh material to the newspaper, but the most striking development was the re-launch of ‘Random Talk’. Li Liewen (1904– 1972), who had recently returned from studying in Paris and had begun working as an editor for Shangwu Publishing Company (Shangwu yinshuguan), was 28 when he was invited by Shi Liangcai to edit ‘Random Talk’. His literary knowledge and lack of previous political involvement were the two main reasons that attracted Shi to him.65 ‘Random Talk’ was subsequently successful in gaining considerable attention from literary circles as well as a more general readership, and became a very significant public voice. The reputation of Shi Liangcai and Shenbao declined in the Communist era, as both were associated with capitalism, but this situation began to change in the 1980s, when Shi Liangcai and his most successful enterprise acquired higher status. What made it possible for the Chinese Communist Party to alter its judgment on Shenbao was Shenbao’s own changes of direction after 1930, and the assassination attempt which ultimately led to Shi Liangcai’s death, much rumoured to have been ordered by Chiang Kai-shek. The connections between ‘Random Talk’ and various left-wing writers were now held to redeem Shi Liangcai somewhat in official eyes. However, this book is not concerned with either condemning or justifying Shi Liangcai’s political preferences, although they will inevitably come up for discussion. Its main interest lies rather in understanding Shenbao’s readers and their lives via the image the paper projected of them.

Themes for discussion This book takes as its starting point the May Fourth Movement of 1919. This political movement represents a significant milestone in modern Chinese history, and led to a transformation in Chinese society which went beyond politics. As the movement gathered momentum, ideas around society, nationalism and individuality, all central concepts to this book, became widely discussed and gained much new currency across China. The

Introduction 15

fervor of the May Fourth Movement inspired new publications, new kinds of literature, and the formation of social groups, a vibrant social context for the assembly and mobilization of entirely new audiences.66 Emerging from this rapidly evolving background, the collected volumes of Shenbao, expressing as they do many facets of the collision between old and new, modern and traditional, local and national, Chinese and Western, offer a grand set of raw materials for Chinese historians. The approach in this book has been to explore this miscellany of articles and advertisements from a variety of thematic angles, rather than in strict chronology. This thematic and synchronic approach allows the treatment topics according to their particular and distinctive characteristics, even while recognizing their commonality. It supports the effort of rational imagination necessary to construct, based on the material collected, an account of several typical groups of Shenbao’s readers’ mentalities and lifestyles. Each chapter of the book offers a window of understanding on how people can alter their concept of the world to allow them to participate in novelty. This study has been conducted with the awareness that advertising is often aspirational, and it certainly does not want to confuse the fantasies represented in advertisements with historical reality. However, advertisements were intended to sell the product advertised, and if they were publicly displayed, it is reasonable to assume a relationship between the advertisement, the product, and the people. Thanks to this relationship, the fantasies in the advertisements also became historical evidence for later scholars; after all, the fantasies were a part of the contemporary reality. The first chapter focuses on cigarette advertisements, to demonstrate the relationship between commercial life, individuality, and nationalism. By analyzing the texts and art design in cigarette advertisements, it shows how personal tastes interacted with commercial interests and nationalism. The second chapter examines advertisements for individual banking accounts in Shenbao, and the novel sociopolitical situation behind this new product. Although the advertisements for individual banking accounts did not occupy as much space as medical and cigarette advertisements, they played a very significant role in Shenbao’s commercial pages. We see how Shenbao’s readers were introduced to this new commercial product, and how their lives were changed by it. The themes of individuality and private life developed in Chapters 1 and 2 come to the fore in Chapter 3, which examines a new role in twentieth-century Chinese society, that of the housewife. On reading

16

Reading Shenbao

Shenbao, it is impossible not to note that the housewife had become one of the most important consumers in society. Members of this new group were found in metropolitan areas and were the bearers of many novel ideas. The main mission of the modern housewife was to learn and adopt a new ‘scientific’ approach to domestic work. This included a knowledge of hygiene, nutrition, and the family budget. But just as importantly, the housewife also possessed a sense of self-indulgence, which allowed her to focus on her own private interests at the same time as looking after her family. In this way, housewives, at least as depicted in Shenbao, were a microcosm of Chinese modernity. Chapter 4 focuses on the emotional lives of Shenbao’s readers, and in particular their sense of shame and guilt. This chapter will show that consumption, as represented in discourse, was potentially associated with these emotions, which acted on the inner self. As the image of modern China was closely linked with the rising consumer culture, this chapter will highlight two themes necessary for understanding the relationship between Shenbao’s readership, national product movements, and associated feelings of shame and guilt. The first is the idea of the shaming of the whole nation; shame had been brought upon the whole Chinese nation in the conflict with the West. The second, an extension of the first, is the application of the language of shame to individuals in daily life, in particular to the commercial life of Shenbao’s audience. Chapter 5 examines the popular column ‘Random Talk’ and explores how Shenbao balanced private and the public space as it hosted a dialogue among intellectuals about their location on the social map. This dialogue involved interlocution both with the writer’s own self, and with the selves of others. The sense of national shame, discussed in Chapter 4, was absorbed by intellectuals, and reflected in their personal experiences. This internal transformation provoked intellectuals to selfexamination, and self-criticism; they realized they were an unpopular group in society and adopted the self-description of ‘useless men of letters’. The desire to get rid of this identity pushed them into a series of attempts at transformation. Yet, as this chapter will disclose, there is another side to the story of these intellectuals’ search for a position in society. In interacting with their readership via the medium of paid-for printed matter, the intellectuals’ inner struggle became a commodity for the entertainment of an audience, something of which they were in fact very aware. In this way, nationalism, individuality, and consumerism all converged. As well as drawing some conclusions about the relationship between nationalism and commercialism reflected in Shenbao, the concluding

Introduction 17

chapter addresses the issue of readership. Who were these readers, who from many loose but identifiable and overlapping communities together supported this Shanghai institution? As we shall see, they extended beyond the region’s emerging middle class (however we define it – this is discussed at length in Chapter 6), for example through essay competitions and readers’ letters, which aimed to attract entries from students and apprentices at shops and factories. In this way Shenbao reached out toward other social groups, and sought to extend its audience to include new groups beyond its existing base. In total, this exploration of Shenbao’s readership seeks to undertake a close examination of the relationship between individuals and society, a relationship that embraces ideas of nationalism, individuality, and commercialism in modern China. Living through troubled times, Shenbao’s editors, contributors, advertisers, and readers were responding to shifts and events, in ways sometimes subtle, sometimes dramatic, with both great energy and cautious reflection. This study of their words and images seeks to make a useful contribution in the search to understand how Chinese modernity unfolded in the early twentieth century.

1 Patriotism and Gracious Living in Tobacco Advertising

In 1935, Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company placed a full-page advertisement in Shenbao for its new cigarette brand, ‘Air Ship’ (see Figure 1.1).1 The two large Chinese characters for ‘Air Ship’ are placed vertically right in the middle of the page, and beneath them is a picture of a leisurely day out in the countryside. A luxury open-topped car with three occupants, all smoking as they watch an airship flying past, stands in a landscape of low hills and bushes underneath trailing clouds. The man, wearing a travel suit, is in a relaxed posture, with his left arm casually placed on the car door. The two young women with short ‘flapper’ hairstyles, one sitting, the other standing, are also wearing modern fashions and look rather sophisticated. The picture of an almond-shaped airship is placed above the two large Chinese characters. Above it in turn is placed a text reading ‘A Chinese cigarette for opening the sky and forming the land’ (kaitian pidi) alluding to the ancient story of the lightning god whose anger created the division between heaven and earth. And on the right-hand side, another vertical line of text reads ‘Old brand cigarettes’ (laopai xiangyan), a reference to ‘Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company’ (Nanyang xiongdi yancao gongsi, Nanyang hereafter). Above the hilly landscape, on the left-hand side of the advertising space, is a picture of an open pack of ten cigarettes. The picture on the front of this pack is similar to the picture in this advertisement. Carrying the English words ‘Air Ship’ at the top, it shows an airship passing over a busy holiday beach with several sailing boats visible on the water in the distance. This advertisement sent out a mixed message to readers. On the one hand, by using images of the most advanced forms of transport and sophisticated young people, it suggested a modern Western lifestyle of leisure. On the other hand, the emphasis on Chinese-made cigarettes, 18

Patriotism and Gracious Living

Figure 1.1

19

Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 8 May 1935

the long history of the manufacturer, and the use of a traditional Chinese proverb, created a completely different impression. It is difficult to believe that Nanyang was unaware of the contrasting messages it was sending to readers by adopting two different styles in this advertisement. It is of course also difficult to know whether this combination was a successful sales tactic in practice. Nevertheless, the

20

Reading Shenbao

combination of Western and Chinese styles suggests that Nanyang, at the same time as it employed the dream of a modern lifestyle to attract potential middle- and upper-class customers, did not want to give up nationalism and tradition as marketing strategies for keeping customer loyalty and confidence. This twofold strategy, which was in fact adopted by many other cigarette companies, exemplifies the situation of Chinese industry, which was forced to steer a course between modernity and tradition, and between the interests of individual consumers and nationalism. These twin dichotomies are the main focus of this chapter, which seeks to illuminate the history of the everyday lives of Shenbao’s readers through a reading of the images presented to them. The cigarette advertisements that appeared in Shenbao during the 1920s and 1930s are a particularly rich source for this topic. They reveal that the relationship between Chinese nationalism and consumerist individuality was not one of simple contradiction, for in practice both sets of ideals were employed flexibly and actively by China’s cigarette companies. The combination of concepts from Art Deco and Art Nouveau to create a distinctive style of commercial art, linked in turn to a vision of an aesthetically pleasing lifestyle, meant that many decorative ideas for private homes appeared in these advertisements. In other words, decorative art worked perfectly as a way of selling everything from toothbrushes and other manufactured consumer goods such as washbasins, to cigarettes. It also had much to do with the awareness of individual taste. Moreover, in these advertisements, the concept of individuality was extended to women. It may be that changing gender roles in modern China owed as much to advertisers’ need for profits as to the formulations of radical reformers. The evidence shows that the earlier impression of the female cigarette smoker, who was usually seen as a sex worker or at any rate up to no good, was being challenged in the 1920s and 1930s. The styles carefully presented in the advertisements, both portraying and targeting female smokers, offered new and different images to contemporary readers, men as well as women. Such advertisements worked to legitimate female choice and even self-indulgence; if advertisements did not necessarily represent social reality, they at least had to represent believable possibilities. And though there is clearly more to individualism than consumer choices, nevertheless it is impossible to imagine modern individualism without consumerism. Such was the development of individuality in modern Shanghai. In its tobacco advertisements, the dynamic tension between the ideals of nationalism and commercial culture becomes very clear. On the

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21

one hand, using national products became associated with the idea of China’s salvation. In order to fight the British American Tobacco Company (BAT), Chinese tobacco companies put great efforts into appeals to nationalism in their advertising activities. On the other hand, they could not neglect the changing civil and commercial society around them, so they had to design their packages and advertisements to make them more desirable and stylish. The tobacco companies clearly believed that their customers were very much aware of their personal interests, enjoying fantasies of riches, fashionable clothes, and sleek interior design. Personal interests even started to become intertwined with public events through commercial products. A variety of pictures of gambling games, horse-racing meetings, occasions featuring fashionable clothing and furniture, as well as portrayals of female smokers were all visible in cigarette advertisements and suggested to contemporary readers an ideal of a middle-class Shanghai life that could overshadow the importance of nationalism, even though in many advertisements, both sets of ideas were present. Consumerism and nationalism were often compatible in the world of advertising, and the idea of the individual was the ‘hidden glue’ facilitating the co-operation of these two phenomena. As Carrie Waara suggests, the modernization of China should be studied as ‘Chinese-style commercial nationalism’, expressed in the promotion of national products, and bound up with art, industry and the needs of the middle and working-class as depicted in women’s magazines and advertisements.2 The appeals of nationalism and consumerism employed by advertisers offered themselves to individuals as two important sources of knowledge about their surroundings. As we shall see, however, the daily life of the individual in Shanghai at this time was never reducible to a relationship between consumerism and nationalism. The personal dimensions of daily life also shaped individuals’ reception of advertising.

Tobacco advertisements, nationalism, and commercialism In his rich study of the rivalry between BAT and the Chinese-owned Nanyang company in the late Qing period and the early years of the twentieth century, Sherman Cochran concluded that their competition constituted a history of Chinese business in miniature.3 Of particular interest here, however, is that the posters and advertisements, as well as cigarette cards and their packages, that were produced in the advertising wars between the two largest tobacco companies in China often sought

22

Reading Shenbao

to sketch people’s lives. They portrayed popular tradition, regional differences, political developments, and other features of Chinese life.4 To win this ‘war,’ the victorious company needed to have the best advertisements, and at that time Nanyang, BAT, and a few other companies had their own advertising departments.5 Not only Nanyang, which was BAT’s biggest competitor, but also the other native Chinese cigarette companies, employed nationalist ideas as their main strategy in their advertisements in Shenbao. For these reasons the companies gave their cigarettes brand names that were connected either with China or with the issue of national salvation. The ‘Tai Mountain’ brand in particular deserves more attention,6 (see Figure 1.2). The main features of the dramatic advertisement are five columns of characters, an image of an old-style Chinese soldier holding his sword aloft and with the head of a lion on his shield, and a picture of a pack of cigarettes, which appears immediately to his left. His posture is defiant and ready for battle. Above the soldier are more slogans in a smaller font, saying: ‘Promote national products (guohuo), resist our enemies together!’ Reflecting this imperative language, the five main columns are printed in a font based on a rapid cursive style of calligraphy, which conveys a sense of urgency. This kind of calligraphy is presumably chosen in order to evoke patriotic feelings just after the May Fourth Movement. It looks powerful and passionate, and hence promotes the implied claims that smoking this brand of cigarettes was an act of patriotism. Moreover,

Figure 1.2 Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 17 May 1919

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23

since the calligraphy looks like casual handwriting, it could remind the reader of the slogans on the banners people carried in the protests during the movement. The first column runs horizontally across the top of the advertisement in the traditional manner from right to left: ‘Urgent! Please, patriotic gentlemen, do not send money abroad.’ A pack of cigarettes is placed in the middle of the picture, and two small lines of print on either side say: ‘Please smoke highest quality Tai Mountain brand cigarettes.’ To the side of these two lines are two large columns. These read: ‘The only superior national product which can be substituted for foreign goods has now appeared’, and ‘Gentlemen who smoke should regain [China’s] interests and rights. The honorable tobacco paper stores (yanzhidian) should promote national products.’7 The name of the tobacco company is placed at the end of the leftmost column, in the same font and size. Beneath the packet of open cigarettes, the reader is informed that ‘In each pack of Tai Mountain brand cigarettes there is a voucher; and a collection of forty vouchers can be exchanged for a silk scarf.’ This advertisement made heavy use of the image of the traditional Chinese soldier, a key figure in this sort of popular nationalist ideology. Although this advertisement did not explicitly make the parallel, it is hard to avoid attributing to it the intention of evoking a sense of shame in the reader at such painful episodes in recent history as the Boxer Uprising. The Boxers had claimed to be able to resist the foreigners’ modern weapons with only their martial arts and god’s blessing. Notoriously, this uprising caused China to be heavily attacked by troops from no less than eight foreign countries, and ended with the imperial court again fleeing Beijing; further, and very large, indemnities charged to the country; and increased levels of foreign troops. Of course, by 1919, Chinese solders no longer wore traditional uniforms or fought with swords and shields. What is important, however, is the portrayal of a spirit prepared to resist ‘foreigners’. But how was this idea, in which there are certain similarities to Ah Q’s spiritual triumph, employed?8 With regard to the myth of the Boxer Uprising that arose in these years, Paul Cohen observes that ‘in China in the twentieth century, where the West has been by turns hated as an imperialist aggressor and admired for its mastery of the secrets of wealth and power, the Boxers, because they attacked both the West and its modern secrets, have been alternately praised and reviled.’9 The Boxers were reintroduced as heroes in order to serve contemporary purposes, and like this individual Boxer-like warrior bravely waving his sword, the individual

24 Reading Shenbao

smoker should at least make a contribution to China’s benefit by consuming Chinese cigarettes. Moreover, this advertisement, placed only a few days after the May Fourth demonstration of 1919, played on China’s position in the world. The humiliating experience of the negotiations for the Treaty of Versailles, to which China failed to secure an invitation even though she was amongst the Allied victors, encouraged a popular sense of betrayal by the Western powers that was only heightened by the transfer of Qingdao from German to Japanese rule. Once again, just as in the aftermath of the Boxer Uprising, China had emerged as the victim, and foreigners as the enemy. The same kind of strategy was widely used in many other advertisements for Chinese native products. Several terms were continuously employed: ‘rescuing the country’ (jiuguo), ‘nationalist product’ (guohuo), ‘foreign countries’ (waiguo), ‘foreign products’ (waihuo/yanghuo), ‘money’ (jinqian), ‘benefits and rights’ (liquan), ‘promotion’ (tichang), ‘regaining profits’ (wanhui liquan), and ‘resisting the enemy’ (yudi). These terms played on the basic relationship of ‘friend’ and ‘enemy’ in a series of what Reinhardt Koselleck has called ‘asymmetric counterconcepts’.10 In such pairings, one half of the combination always occupies a subordinate, negative role in relation to the other. Examples of such common pairings in early twentieth century China include ‘the country, and the foreign country’, ‘national and foreign products’, and ‘resisting and being disloyal’. These asymmetric counterconcepts reveal how the Chinese understood the events they were experiencing and the situation they found themselves in. The use of these asymmetric terms coupled with the strong moral values suggested by the image of this Boxer soldier constituted a simplistic attempt to tell the Chinese people what to do – fight foreigners and smoke national cigarettes. Nonetheless, the point here is that issues debated at length by intellectuals – increasing national manufacture, the nature of the imperialist threat, the need for political reforms – were also, in symbolic form, part of the popular urban consciousness. Even the brand name was designed to carry special resonance. Tai Mountain (Taishan), perhaps the most prominent of the five famous mountains in China, symbolizes greatness and grandeur. It is invoked in expressions such as ‘An rou Taishan’, meaning a situation that is very stable and difficult to change. However, there is also a saying: ‘Si you zhongyu Taishan huo qingyu hongmao’, which states that every person has to die for something as grand as Taishan, or he will have died for nothing (literally, ‘for the weight of a feather’). The extended meanings

Patriotism and Gracious Living

25

of the name of this brand, then, included the association of potential customers with the brave traditional Chinese soldier who could die a meaningful death for his nation’s interests.11 Nanyang’s ‘Great Wall brand’ cigarettes took the same attitude to its Chinese customers.12 In its advertisement, ‘Great Wall’ offered any patriotic countrymen buying these cigarettes a rare opportunity to own a collectable painting album featuring the work of 12 famous Chinese poster artists of the day.13 In addition to the pleasure private individuals gained from having this album, the brand name ‘Great Wall’ also implied they were behaving like the Great Wall in protecting China’s interests.14 The cigarette companies portrayed themselves and their smokers as a Great Wall defensively protecting the interests of the Chinese, but they also took upon themselves the ‘responsibility’ of reminding compatriots of their hatred toward China’s enemies in a more active way. For example, one of the Guohua Cigarette Company’s advertisements made use of the Jinan Incident, which took place in early May 1928,15 (see Figure 1.3). One of the main reasons for this incident was that the Japanese military was concerned about the safety of more than two thousand Japanese residents in Jinan if Chiang Kai-shek’s Northern Expedition carried out its plan of passing through the town in the Spring of 1928. Although there were many negotiations between Chiang Kai-shek and the Japanese cabinet, an unexpected skirmish between two parties took place on the morning of 3 May 1928, and developed into a larger battle in which several thousand died. Chiang’s military decided to withdraw from Jinan as a result. The picture in this cigarette advertisement evoked this event. The right-hand side is dominated by a panel containing a brutal representation of the incident. Many bodies, dressed in plain traditional Chinese long gowns, lie on the ground. Several soldiers in Japanese uniforms

Figure 1.3

Guohua Cigarette Company, Shenbao, 15 May 1928

26 Reading Shenbao

carrying rifles with their bayonets fixed are digging large holes with pickaxes in which to bury the bodies. More soldiers are standing and leaning on their tools, resting. There is also a long line of Japanese civilians observing the burials. They are wearing haori, Japanese traditional jackets, and the closest bears an image of the rising sun of Japan. To the left of the picture is a short caption: ‘Burying the bodies and destroying the evidence’, and the main text next to it reads: ‘The Japanese army buried all the bodies after killing our people. They intended to hide their murderous crimes. How can this kind of sneaky trick completely pull the wool over the eyes of all the people in the world?’ Guohua clearly identified itself with the unfortunate victims of the Jinan Incident, and also tried to get its customers to do so. This striking advertisement managed to merge into one message hatred toward the Japanese, the deaths of Chinese people, the patriotism of Chinese consumers, and the financial interests of Guohua itself. The request for commercial support was dramatically transformed into a moral demand. This moralizing impulse also accounts for the tendency of Chinese cigarette advertisements to use a lot of words. It is true that on occasion, the preferred channel for linking nationalism to consumption could be a short slogan, such as ‘To love the country is to use national products,’ or ‘People, people, please rescue [China’s] tobacco profits from the very precarious situation they are in’; however, the captions in Chinese cigarette advertisements were usually very long, and looked like short speeches. They gave the impression of being more important than the pictures, and of wanting to be the main channel for educating the customer into ‘correct’ attitudes, particularly nationalism. There is something of a puzzle here. Advertisers might assume that the readers of Shenbao were able to read their long captions if they could read the newspaper itself; but still, why did they choose this way to deliver information? In nineteenth-century Europe, advertisements tended to rely more on the use of text than on a predominantly visual approach. John Orlando Parry’s watercolour of ‘A London Street Scene’ illustrates this dominant style of nineteenth-century advertising. As the young bill-sticker places a new poster on the wall with his long paste-brush, it is quickly buried amongst the many other existing textbased posters. The picture only gradually became the dominant feature of advertisements, in both the West and China. However, these cigarette advertisements in Shenbao prompt another question. Since they carried such arresting pictures, why did they still rely so heavily on text? Was not

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27

a picture enough? Were the Chinese readers at the time simply particularly fond of reading? Or is it that, to judge from the hortatory tone of these national cigarette advertisements, they liked to be told what to do? In her study of one country school teacher’s diary in Shangxi province, Henrietta Harrison points out that this man read his newspaper the traditional Chinese way, cover to cover.16 What is critical here is not the advertisements’ wording taken by itself, but the way such captions worked to create an overall scene in tandem with the picture. Captions were normally placed against the background of the advertisement (often a crowd of people) in a frame to catch attention. This device made the text imitate a bulletin, or leaflet stuck on a notice board. The tone, however, was conversational, in the language of the street rather than a literary form, addressing compatriots informally and directly. Thus the language inevitably allowed itself to be linked with the ‘speech’ performance, one of the most popular ways since the late Qing period of spreading political opinions.17 The tobacco companies were in effect able to insinuate their products and their messages into a crowd scene that would have been familiar to Shanghai residents in their daily lives. Speech-making, moralistic demands, pamphleteering – as symbols, these worked to naturalize commercial products for citizens presumed to be (or wishing to be seen as) patriotic. Textual elements were used to great effect in an advertisement for Nanyang’s Unity Brand cigarettes,18 (see Figure 1.4). In the middle of the advertisement is a picture of a large crowd of people, all in traditional long Chinese gowns, some of whom are smoking, all looking as if they were attracted by something. On the right-hand side is a vertical

Figure 1.4

Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 31 May 1924

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Reading Shenbao

column reading, ‘Unity Cigarettes are the vanguard of territorial unity and national linguistic unity. Gentlemen, please pay special attention.’ But the greater part of the advertisement is taken up by a long caption in a frame superimposed on the crowd that reads: Compatriots from every province have suffered greatly in these few years, and isn’t it because of the disaster of civil war? Let me ask, where did the disaster of civil war come from? Is it not because the territory has not been united yet? It is an old saying that men of action aim for greatness: therefore, since we are men, we have no excuse simply to stay and guard our homes ... The main difficulty is the hindrance of language. I ask you, why are languages not interchangeable? Isn’t it because language is not united? It is clear that territorial and linguistic unity is the most urgent problem to be resolved at the present. Our company sees this, and purposely selects high-class tobacco leaves to make ‘Unity’ brand cigarettes. They are sold inexpensively, so when every gentleman smokes them, as the name of this brand suggests, we can raise the spirit to promote territorial unity and national linguistic unity. I presume everyone must surely agree. The explicitly political issue in this advertisement is the unity of nation and the unification of territory and language. Of course, the reader cannot physically respond in order to indicate whether he agreed with this little speech or not (but who would not?). However, the obvious intention was that when the reader finished digesting it, he would be nodding (as those in the crowd would have been) in agreement. This advertisement was designed to look like a presentation by a leader of popular opinion in a public speech. At the same time, it suggests that the smoking experience for Chinese individuals was not just about taste or packaging. Although smoking remained a personal experience and choice, it also involved the collective life of the Chinese people. Other advertisements also asked people to think of something very ‘meaningful’ while they were smoking, such as the sorrows of China or the memory of the May Thirtieth Movement.19 In the advertisements we have discussed, smoking is not treated as a totally private experience, like ‘making a poem’.20 These advertisers clearly thought that Chinese consumers needed to be explicitly guided, not only in choosing the right cigarettes to smoke, but also in the adoption of the right mentality, both politically and commercially. But did this kind of advertisement work? Did nationalism guarantee the sale

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of cigarettes? Cochran’s research indicates that the reality was not so clear-cut. First, Nanyang did not benefit from the boycotts during the May Fourth Movement, and apart from losses in the few months immediately afterwards, BAT’s business boomed. Second, in the experience of a contemporary who was in a good position to know, namely Jian Zhaonan (1870–1922), the founder of Nanyang, a ‘product’s nationality’ was not sufficient to persuade compatriots to buy it. Most people living in the interior of China did not differentiate very clearly, if at all, between national cigarettes and other brands.21 As Pan Yangyao remarked, the people in north-west China still smoked BAT cigarettes, and didn’t even know of the existence of national products.22 Such problems in the interior of China might simply be attributed to a deficiency of information, but in fact, Shanghai, a city up-to-date with all the news, did not always support national products in a straightforward way either. For example, Shanghai residents did not always fall in with calls for boycotts. Even though the May Thirtieth boycott did boost sales for Nanyang and reached the Upper Yangtze area, as soon as the heat started to go out of the boycott, cigarette consumption returned to its old pattern.23 More evidence of the failure of the nationalist strategy of promoting Chinese cigarettes is revealed in a Nanyang complaint: Shanghai men are most complicated. The love in their hearts for national goods is thin and weak. Those among the upper classes who frequent houses of ill-repute smoke expensive cigarettes to appear elegant ... Therefore if we can produce a brand of cigarettes better than ‘Three Towers’ [The BAT’s most expensive brand] and price it even more expensively, Shanghai men will take it more seriously.24 In Michel de Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Life, the people, as an audience of consumers, are not restricted to a silent role within the cultural and economic activities of society. In an attempt to overcome Marxist and structuralist models, de Certeau points out that the practices of everyday life are not simply instances of passive consumption and have the power to transform the social order.25 In keeping with de Certeau’s observation, it seems that in the Shanghai cigarette market, it was impossible to ignore the reality of consumers’ autonomy in the selection of products. It seems plausible to attribute this to the development of a consumer market in which individuals were increasingly finding their own products through their own ideas about themselves, their sense of identity.

30 Reading Shenbao

In response, native cigarette companies began to come to terms with this dimension of customer psychology and incorporate it into their advertisements. Apart from BAT and Japanese cigarette companies in northern China, many Chinese cigarette advertisements tried to appeal to potential customers by incorporating elements of modern life alongside the theme of nationalism. In this way, the commercialism of capitalist markets forged a connection between nationalism (identity with the group) and consumerism (carving out specific identities). Nanyang’s ‘Bank’ brand cigarettes (see Figure 1.5) provide one of the best examples of this combination.26 We should pay particular attention to the art and design used in this advertisement, which indicated that Nanyang noticed the necessity of targeting different groups of products at different classes of people in the market.27 On the right-hand side of this advertisement, a man in a black jacket with a smart short hairstyle has a tin of cigarettes in each hand; he appears very thoughtful. The brand name runs horizontally above the man, set in an elegant frame with artistic lettering. To the left of him is a round window, covered by a delicate screen with a check design in the background and an ivy pattern on top. Superimposed is a caption explaining to him why he should use national products. Underneath this is a delicate twisting peony, which supports the bottom of this caption. To the left is a shiny metal ashtray with a bevelled edge. In it is a lit cigarette with smoke curling upward. A half-open matchbox leans ‘casually’ on the edge of the ashtray. In front of the ashtray and right next to the matchbox are two used matches placed across each other. In the middle of the clean ashtray are two English letters, N and Y (referring to Nanyang), surrounded by a star with eight points. At the far left of this advertisement

Figure 1.5

Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 17 May 1925

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is a tin of open cigarettes, with the manufacturer’s name placed just above it. On the tin is a picture of a huge Western-style building, and on top of this building is the brand name in English. Apart from the luxurious interior, the caption made sure that this well-off individual, with whom readers were presumably invited to identify, received the correct message: smoke Nanyang cigarettes and be a (wealthy) nationalist. It reads: ‘Today, there are two kinds of cigarettes, one is a native product, and the other one is not. If you (gentlemen) buy national products you can redeem some of your country’s profits, otherwise you will increase its losses. In this case, who is going to earn money and who is going to lose? You have to think about this seriously.’ The last two sentences were repeated in a font resembling handwriting, placed right next to the man in the picture. Again, the caption dividing all cigarettes into two categories was another way of employing the idea of ‘asymmetric counterconcepts,’ this time in the form of a contrast between the native and foreign. Smoking national cigarettes is redeeming the country’s profits; the contrary is selling China’s interests. The image of the individual here (perhaps a successful entrepreneur or banker) is of a very considerate person, who does not think about himself, but only has his country’s interests at heart, even while choosing between two tins of cigarettes (we are presumably meant to infer that one was a national product and the other one was foreign). Unlike the last advertisement, which invited its audience to identity with a crowd, here ‘Bank’ cigarettes sent out a message to a particular social status, the wealthy bourgeoisie and presumably those who identified with them. Of course, the Guohua cigarette advertisement discussed above, which employed the Jinan Incident, shared this intention of appealing to middle-class individuals, particularly those who were worshippers of all things foreign. This cigarette packaged its product in a totally Western style, in contrast with its nationalistic appeal. On the front, there is a picture of a Western man, wearing a bow tie, a pair of glasses, a smart short hairstyle. ‘Cigarettes’ is printed in the Roman alphabet both beneath the picture and on the side of the package. In both ‘Bank’ and ‘Guohua’ brand cigarettes, the mix of nationalism and consumerism displayed in this advertisement rested on a new acknowledgement of the importance of the taste and autonomy of consumers. Put differently, although this advertisement still employed patriotic ideas, it heavily adapted its strategy to reflect the potential buyers’ private lifestyles. In order to appreciate this change, we need to draw attention toward the relation between the art in cigarette advertisements and the new, ‘modern’ Shanghai life.

32 Reading Shenbao

The emergence of commercial art and advertisements A comparison of the cigarette advertisements in Shenbao from the late 1920s and 1930s with those of a decade before shows that leisure and entertainment had emerged in the meantime as important themes.28 For example, horse-racing, the lottery, and a general emphasis on the consumerism of daily life now dominated the world of cigarette advertising.29 In these advertisements, commercial art became very important. And even before this, in the mid-1920s, the proportion of Shenbao given over to advertisements indicated this change of lifestyle. According to one study, advertisements occupied more than 50 percent (54%) of Shenbao.30 The three largest commercial advertising categories were ‘medicine’ (27.5%), ‘entertainment’ (14%), and ‘luxury items’ (12.6%).31 ‘Entertainment’ and ‘luxury items’, together accounted for a quarter of all advertising, reflecting the growth of a modern lifestyle in Shanghai, and the demand for commercial art in daily life. Responding to the modernization of Shanghai’s material life, Arts and Life (Meishu shenghuo), a magazine that asserted a close relation between aesthetics and living, was founded. Like The Young Companion (Liangyou huabao), a very popular publication during the 1930s, Arts and Life aimed to introduce and promote new concepts in daily life. If New Youth was the magazine which brought novel political and social concepts into China, and had a huge impact on Chinese youth, then Arts and Life aspired to be similarly influential over its readers’ living environments and aesthetic taste. One obvious characteristic shared by these progressive magazines was their ambition to present new ‘conceptual tools (gainian gongju)’ to China.32 Such conceptual tools enabled people to understand their surroundings in different ways, amounting in some cases to no less than a change of paradigm. For example, during the late Qing period, the introduction of a few key political terms, such as ‘citizen’, ‘democracy’, and ‘equality’ created a new horizon within which Chinese intellectuals could respond to the world. Arts and Life wanted people to engage with a different aspect of Chinese modernity: the growth of consumption and its interaction with commercial art. The style and content of this magazine frequently overlapped with the commercial news and articles in Shenbao, so it seems reasonable to assume that the readership of both publications overlapped, too. An author called Lang Shu wrote in 1934: Commercial Art is still a completely new term. But commercial art itself has already been existence for some time. In the modern

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age, free capitalist competition is getting severe, [and this] greatly increases the flourishing of this particular kind of art. About ten years ago, the term ‘Commercial Art’ appeared for the first time, now it has become a fixed phrase; and the creation and connoisseurship of commercial art have gained an important status in modern industrial art (gongyi meishu).33 Lang Shu explained that the commercial art world included work in window displays, advertising boards, and all kinds of advertisements, packaging, and special designs for containers. One of the main characteristics of commercial art was its short life. Because of its short life, it had to be very striking and unique in order to catch people’s attention. Therefore, good commercial art aimed at ‘one hundred percent stimulation’ (cijili baifenzhibai). This author emphasized the impact many schools of European art had begun to make, particularly mentioning Picasso’s ‘deformation’, Cubism, and the simplification of Fauvism, Futurism, and Constructionism. Compared to many Western advertisements of the period, Chinese newspaper and poster advertisements show relatively little interest in these abstract styles of art. Nevertheless Chinese advertisements had started to move in this direction. The self-proclaimed modernity of avant-garde art techniques acknowledged a dimension of commercial life in Shanghai that presumed an audience whose individual lives and personal interests would open them to modernism’s appeal. As Lang Shu pointed out, the main characteristic of a commercial advertisement was its short life, which both refers to and reflects the rapid movement of modern urban society. Life had speeded up, and the traditional connections between human beings were being challenged. Individuals were forced to rely more on themselves and on the new relationships they could make for themselves. The ‘one hundred percent stimulation’ of the commercial arts inevitably suggested the particular features of the urban lifestyle, and this increasingly evoked individuals’ sense of their own surroundings and personal possessions. Such stimulation relied strongly on people’s eagerness for comfort and novelty. Fashion is not only about subjective aesthetics but relies also on norms expressed in an ever-changing collective consensus about beauty. Without this dynamic collective consensus no trends would emerge in a group of people, as Bourdieu has argued in his study of the relation between social groups and tastes.34 However, fashion also creates a space for individuality. Its basis is the principle that each individual likes to show his uniqueness. As a result of this desire for recognition, each gives himself a distinct appearance or behaviour. In this

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regard, the importance of the idea of ‘one hundred percent stimulation’ in advertisements was its aim to inspire people to express their personalities through the use of daily domestic items. Commercial art threw light on people’s private interests in modern Shanghai, revealing a more complex reality. It not only appeared on advertising boards in streets and train stations, but was brought into people’s homes in the form of the poster calendars on the walls, doubtless used by housewives for scribbling useful telephone numbers on, and the new domestic industrial crafts.35 In the first issue of Arts and Life, an author called Tang Jun wrote an article entitled ‘Our routes’ to explain the goals and principles of the magazine: First, [we are] following the path of ‘art’ or ‘beauty’ and want to make ‘art’ or ‘beauty’ domestic (shenghuo hua), popular (dazhong hua) and practical (shiyong hua). Second, [We are] following the path of ‘life’, ‘people’ and ‘society’. [We] want to aestheticize and beautify life, aestheticize and beautify the populace, aestheticize and beautify society.36 For Tang Jun and Arts and Life, art was for the common people and for daily life, and beauty ought to be practical, too. A good lifestyle should be the result of a good imagination, which commercial art could help foster. Tang thought that the Chinese had lost the ability to live aesthetically and beautifully, not because they did not want to have this kind of life, but rather because they did not know how. The magazine was set up to educate Chinese people to find their ‘life energy’ (huoli). Examining the cigarette advertisements, it is clear they also aimed to inspire this ‘life energy’. These advertisements, which were contemporary with Arts and Life magazine, inevitably adopted Lang Shu’s idea of ‘one hundred percent stimulation’ in their commercial activities. Advertisements not only sold products but also ‘concepts.’ As the successful poster artist Jules Chéret stated for the benefit of his followers: ‘What you sell is not necessarily the product, but the benefits it gives the buyer: not the oil, but the lovely lamplight it provides; not the skating rink, but the enjoyment it gives you; not the powder, but the beauty it creates.’37 Living aesthetically is about finding the right forms and ‘tastes’ for living, and the tobacco advertisements in Shenbao illustrated to the public how to live well. The fact that native Chinese cigarette companies increasingly integrated this style of advertisement with their nationalist exhortations indicates that nationalism and consumerism were compatible in

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practice. On a small scale, this can be seen in the individual’s mentality as pictured by advertisers. On the one hand, people were asked to purchase Chinese cigarettes for patriotic reasons – one kind of identity; on the other hand, a huge amount of information about different fashions and lifestyles was sent to them – making possible other kinds of identities. Using national products did not mean retreating from modernity. On the contrary, Chinese native factories started to compete with Western ones, and more and more national goods copied imported goods while emphasizing their superior quality to imported items. For example, ‘ABC high class suits dominate Shanghai (duba Shanghai).’38 And ‘China-made electric fans are superior to foreign ones (guohuo dianshan, shengguo bolai).’39 This became what Waara calls Chinese commercial nationalism, the form taken by the Chinese interpretation of Westernization. In this cultural creation, the appreciation of domestic arts worked together with the awareness of self-interest. And in this process, the role of women became particularly significant.

The self-love of women in cigarette advertisements Leo Ou-fan Lee has remarked that in the photos published in The Young Companion, although women still played the housewife’s role, their domestic surroundings had become very different. Their homes were now pictured with a modern, convenient design; this raised all sorts of issues, such as health, hygiene, and the nuclear family. In short, domestic space rapidly became a ‘public issue’ and more importantly, through the physical exposure of the home to the reading public, these domestic topics were ‘publicized’.40 Yet the vision of modernity introduced by The Young Companion after 1926 was also found in advertisements by the middle of the 1920s. Even in advertisements that still relied heavily on captions, interior design was given attention. For example, in the ‘Bank’ brand advertisement discussed earlier, ‘industrial art’ had taken over the subject’s interior environment. This not only portrayed an environment befitting the social status of this man, but also displayed influences from Western art. In this ‘Bank’ cigarette advertisement, in particular, the Art Deco influence is visible in the metal ashtray. The curling smoke in the air is reminiscent of Alphonse Mucha’s posters for Job cigarette papers. The round window with its pattern of ivy over checks, and the delicate twisting peony underneath it, were also imitations of the Art Nouveau style, which had itself initially adopted Far Eastern influences at the end of nineteenth century.41

36 Reading Shenbao

The combination of art and domestic display was even more obvious in the advertisements aimed at the female market. The use of female figures in advertising raises complex issues. We need to remember that the ‘social image of women smoking’ is different from the display of women’s bodies as commodities in the media. The latter falls into the category of cultural expression of a natural human desire for sex, just as the use of the male image can, but the former was entirely constructed. The interest in the human body is a fundamental element of human nature. The use of the female body (or later the male body) in advertisements, playing on the human sexual instinct, was a fashion greatly influenced by the eroticism of Art Nouveau. For example, on Jules Desbois’s cabinet in 1900, the silver handle, the part of a piece of furniture that ‘demand[s] physical engagement,’ was shaped as a naked woman’s back. The male body was also adopted by Art Nouveau. Macrello Dudovich, an Italian artist, used a male nude body as a subject for a poster advertising inks and pigments. Similarly, Franz von Stuck put a nude male statue in his Künstleraltar.42 Even Aubrey Beardsley, in the fashion of Art Nouveau, was attacking the myth of male superiority by drawing nude male bodies.43 Thus, those cigarette advertisements featuring female subjects should not automatically be treated as ‘objectifying’ women. While acknowledging this function of employing the bodies of both genders in advertisements, it is also important to stress the significance of the new social phenomenon of female cigarette smokers. Cigarettes were a ‘refined’ product, and the Shenbao’s many cigarette advertisements with female figures as the main model were often not appealing to male smokers but rather talking directly to female customers as people, not as objects.44 These advertisements were very different from those that made nationalism their main selling point and were aimed solely at male consumers. This does not mean that the designs of the advertisements that involved women did not want to promote national products. On the contrary, almost all of these advertisements were for the same native tobacco companies, and even used the same brand names. This shows how Chinese companies adopted intelligent and flexible marketing plans in response to urban social movements. It seems that the Chinese cigarette companies thought nationalism would appeal only to men, and that winning over female consumers required a different approach. However, it would be wrong to take this for granted. In Shenbao, women, particularly modern housewives, played a critical role. Housewives were recognized as the main

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consumers in the family, and also bore the responsibility for the family budget and the education of any children. Therefore, housewives stood on the front line of the national product movements. Moreover, not a few Chinese cigarette advertisements promoting native products used a woman as the main figure. For example, Nanyang’s ‘White Golden Dragon’ did not forget to remind its female readers that ‘loving and protecting native products is a duty given by heaven (tianzhi) to the people of the nation (guomin)’.45 The portrait made for Nanyang of the famous actor Mei Lanfang dressed as the traditional patriotic national heroine Hua Mulan, became a classic example. It might be that the Chinese cigarette companies thought that in order to make their advertisements more effective, it was better to direct the potential female consumer to link smoking with private life, and women’s inner sensibility. Studies of modern Chinese advertisements and calendar posters have broadly adopted theories of exploitation.46 Shih Shu-mei asserts that Chinese advertisements during this period characteristically portrayed women in the role of a ‘pleaser’ of dominant male subjects. She thinks that although women in the advertisements might appear modern, Westernized, liberated, and equal, they were only given these qualities in order to make them even better ‘pleasers’; and by placing beautiful women in the advertisements for new commercial goods, the encouragement to a commercial lifestyle was accompanied by cultural and economic ‘colonization’ by either the West or Japan.47 Carrie Waara has a rather different view, emphasizing that although Shanghai had received much Western culture, its modernism was ‘consciously invented to capitalize on and transform modern Western cultural elements for Chinese purposes.’48 However, standing somewhat apart from these scholarly views, this book, does not adopt these approaches to the cigarette advertisements depicting women in Shenbao. Instead, the advertisements described below are read as responses by advertisers to the growing awareness of individual taste amongst a newly economically significant group, namely, women. Advertisements that involved more feminine and ‘self-indulgent’ or ‘pleasurable’ visual representations not only had much more to say about patterns of consumption in their detailed images of interior design, but also expressed one very critical point: smoking meant something different for women than for men. Whether advertisers were reflecting a social reality remains a moot point, but they clearly supposed a different approach was needed to convince women to try their brands. Advertisers thus recognized the reality of women’s liberation in the 1920s and 1930s; the practice of women smoking was a significant social

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change. The signals sent by these advertisements cannot be treated simply as an advertising strategy, but rather as a reflection of the sensibility of the whole society. These newspaper advertisements did not merely concern the physical act of smoking but constituted a public acknowledgment of changing forms of women’s private behaviour. As with the advertisements targeted at male consumers, the cigarette advertisements aimed at female smokers combined three themes: the promotion of Chinese cigarettes, urban consumption, and individuality. Nanyang’s ‘Treasure Tower’ brand clearly contained these three elements,49 (see Figure 1.6). In this long rectangular advertisement, a lady, half-facing the viewer, sits comfortably in a dark armchair. She is wearing a long light casual dress, the sleeves revealing a delicate lace under-garment, and on her left arm is a ladies’ watch. Her arm rests in relaxed fashion on the chair, and she is holding a lit cigarette between her index and middle fingers. Her hair is short, but styled in waves around her forehead. She has an open book on her legs, but rests her head and her eyes away from the book; her face, softened by her hair, looks smooth and peaceful. To her right is a window decorated by two sets of curtains. The first set, with a camomile flower pattern across the middle, hang at each side of the window, and the second set, with a lace border, hang across it, creating a secluded triangular space through which she can look outside. By the curtains a slim piece of wall decorated with twill wallpaper is visible. Outside the room is a balcony, and through the lace curtain, a lake and a tower, with its shadow reflected on the water’s surface, can be seen. In the middle of the advertisement, the caption is written in the form of an old style poem. It reads: ‘There is a beautiful lady, with a cute, pretty smile. Her gorgeous eyes are full of

Figure 1.6

Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 25 May 1923

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longing. There is nothing to do in her room except smoke and enjoy it.’ The name of the brand was placed in a large font above the poem, and ‘please use native products’ in a small font appeared on either side of the brand name. On the left of the advertisement was an open cigarette packet with a picture of the tower and its name in English. The concept of leisure illustrated by this advertisement indicates a major social change, legitimating ideals of leisure and luxury that posed a challenge to old-style Confucian notions of the properly virtuous wife and good mother.50 The historical improvement of material life, however, has always placed greater value on the human capacity to create, rest, entertain, and be entertained. In Shanghai, this change was an important step toward individual freedom. The relaxed, soft, leisurely look of the woman’s body language means that she is in possession of her own individuality, able to use her private time to do nothing. In the modern setting of this advertisement, this ‘laziness’ becomes a code to refer to the fact that she has the right just to be there and please herself without being judged. Of course, in this specific context, the concepts of indolence and the availability of time to be alone with oneself were connected with the act of smoking cigarettes. In this advertisement, the Art Deco metal watch, the lace curtains, and the enjoyment and laziness of the lady in the armchair reflected the novelty in Shanghai of the material conditions for individuality that modernity had already supplied in Europe. As early as the eighteenth century, David Hume had already identified three ingredients of the modern age accompanying the industrial processes that provided luxury items to the public: ‘action, pleasure, and indolence.’51 And as Christopher Berry comments, ‘indolence or repose is ... relished as a contrast to action’.52 Moreover, the book resting on the woman’s legs and the ladies’ watch on her arm suggest that the advertiser was trying to show she had certain independent and intelligent characteristics. Though she lived in luxury, this was not a socially backward woman! Wearing a watch was a symbol of being modern and intellectual in this period. In an article ‘The watch and the fountain pen’ published in Shenbao in 1937, an unknown author named ‘Hualing’ said that as times had changed, women’s accessories had changed, too. Since women’s hair became short, the old style of hairdressing had disappeared. Instead, watches and fountain pens had become the most popular items for modern urban women. She wrote: On the arm of any modern lady with short permed hair and highheeled shoes, if there is no rectangular watch, as small as a fingernail,

40 Reading Shenbao

then, no doubt, [her] modern style would inevitably be discounted . . I still often see women who wear watches on their wrists asking other people for the time. I ask them why they don’t just check their own watches. They either answer: ‘It has been stopped for three days,’ or ‘This watch is either slow or fast, it is not reliable,’ or ‘Its spring has been broken for ages.’53 It would be pointless to wonder if this lady’s watch in the advertisement worked or not. The point is that it was an accessory that created a modern image for its owner. This theme of the modern female’s confidence in the private enjoyment of tobacco was used in another advertisement for the Zhongguo Zhonghe Tobacco Company’s ‘Luxury’ brand, (see Figure 1.7).54 Although accompanied on the front page of Shenbao by two other cigarette advertisements (one offering lottery vouchers for horse-racing, and

Figure 1.7

Zhongguo Zhonghe Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 5 May 1928

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the other offering cash in cigarette tins), the ‘Luxury’ cigarette advertisement appeared special. In the middle of the advertisement, a lady with a simple, straight, short haircut is sitting in a large English-style armchair, on a large rug, with her outstretched feet comfortably on a footstool.55 In this well decorated room, she looks as if she is taking a break from her reading. Her right arm hangs naturally from the chair with a book in her hand, and her left hand rests on the arm of the chair with a lit cigarette. Her dress is a combination of styles, with Chinese three-quarter length sleeves (one of many fashionable styles of qipao in Republican China), and a Western black and white check design on their edges. Behind her is a picture on the wall and to her left is a plain curtain and a French door with handsome square panes of glass. There is a standing lamp between her and the curtain, and to her right is a low indoor plant in a clay pot. There is a pack of cigarettes to the right of the advertisement, with a lady’s image printed on the package. At the top of the advertisement, the legend reads horizontally ‘Smoke Luxury cigarettes.’ In the space between this legend and the sitting lady, two short vertically placed sentences read: ‘The lamplight is reflected by the embroidered chair, [this is] a famous cigarette for ladies.’ Smoking, interior decoration, and general luxury were thus linked in a gendered fashion. Shi Zhecun (1905–2003), in his short novel Juanzi describes the following interior: Plum flowers were delicately and harmoniously arranged in a vase, and a fine elegant oil painting hung on the wall. There are a few magazines placed neatly on the study desk, and several casually placed photos, too. The dressing table displays several kinds of cosmetics, and the whole house releases an exquisite perfume.56 Flowers, paintings, books, magazines, and sweet smells made up the image of a ‘proper’ lady’s bedroom, and indicate the personalities and tastes of modern women who know about art, who can read and are intellectual, who care about their appearance, and who also know about aesthetic domestic living. Shi could have been describing the world of a cigarette advertisement, in which living became an art to be learned and self-love became a philosophy to be practiced in daily life. Advertisers here reinforced Jules Chéret’s claim that advertisements not only sold products, but also a certain ideal. Such cigarette advertisements cleverly adapted the new image of modern women to their products and displayed it to the public.57

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The female smoking phenomenon was not only restricted to young women who were trying to imitate female college students, common figures of fashion in the 1920s. Female smokers covered many social groups. For example, in one advertisement, a well-dressed mother is seen sitting smoking on a comfortable couch next to a large Art Deco style radio in the living room, with a small round clock and electric lamp on the wall. To her right, a little girl is leaning on her leg.58 A similar family scene (husband and wife) involving female cigarette consumers can also be found in the advertisement for the ‘Two Baby’ brand of cigarettes. These cigarette advertisements are evidence for, first, the value of individual interests in the Chinese-made cigarette market, and, second, the way in which commercial art and advertisements worked together to convey an expression of the concept of self-love in Chinese urban daily life. This certainly corresponds to Tang Jun’s idea, mentioned above, of making art and beauty domestic, popular, and practical. Commercial art inspired individuals to improve their private sphere. As Zhe An observed, ‘Decorative art is the most approachable [art] for the public. Hence, it is a bridge between people and aesthetics.’59 For Zhe An, decorative art helped people to cultivate a consciousness of beauty and the ability to appreciate the arts; decorative art was a basic foundation of a new public art, and it was impossible to talk about this without discussing decorative art first. One role of advertisements was to popularize decorative art, if not as an aesthetic value in its own right, then at least as an important part of a good life.

Conclusion Despite the unbeatable popularity of BAT’s products, Chinese tobacco companies held on to the hope of selling their goods by selling nationalism. The tobacco companies relied heavily on it to affect the consumer behaviour of different groups. Smoking cigarettes, in this sense, was not a private matter but became a public act that marked the consumer’s patriotism. Chinese tobacco advertisements frequently adopted ‘asymmetric counterconcepts’ in literature and in pictures to emphasize the contradictory relationship between foreign and native cigarettes and the moral superiority of the latter. These advertisements, as would-be opinion leaders, used a strong tone to ‘talk’ to customers who were not only members of Chinese society, but also of particular social groups, such as the middle classes and the intellectuals. In this way, the boundaries of personal smoking experience were invaded by the call to promote native products.

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However, this did not mean that nationalism was pulling in a contradictory direction to other appeals of consumerism. Chinese tobacco companies gradually became aware that nationalism was not enough to sell their products. The price, the quality, and voucher offers also affected buying decisions.60 As well as calling for the promotion of Chinese goods, advertisers devoted themselves to working on the popular mentality. They played an instructional role by using long captions, and at the same time, had to create the possibility for individuals to connect themselves with the needs of the country but without sacrificing the smoking experience. Advertisers designed their brand names to inspire people’s imagination, with references to heroic figures like the Boxers. Since the nationalist appeals by themselves might not motivate consumers, cigarette companies developed additional incentives. They competed heavily with each other in offering more beautiful cigarette cards, poster calendars, radio programs, free cigarettes, cinema tickets, horse-racing lottery tickets, and luxury items – as well as the use of better interior design in advertisements.61 These voucher-gift systems often functioned in several ways. First, like the Tai Mountain offer, they advertised tickets that could be collected and redeemed for a gift, such as a silk scarf. Second, there was a picture card in each package. These cigarette cards normally showed a series of scenes from Chinese folk stories, such as Journey to the West (Xiyouji), and Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi).62 Or they might feature pictures of movie stars. Many people made collecting these pictures a part of their daily lives. Yang Jiayou, a Chinese scholar of Shanghai urban life, remembered the popularity of cigarettes in his childhood. Both of his parents smoked, and Yang regularly collected tobacco cards, particularly Water Margin (Shuihuzhuan) and the different characters in Chinese operas. He always asked his parents to smoke cigarettes with these kinds of cards. He also picked up the cigarette packs thrown away by his neighbours for the cards inside. He even persuaded his friends to ask their parents to buy particular kinds of cigarettes. A third popular way of rewarding smokers was to offer a single cigarette in return for an empty pack or a whole pack in return for ten empty packs. The fourth, and most dramatic, method was associated with horse-racing. These advertisements not only sold themselves on the basis that they were ‘native products’, but also used the lure of easy money. The cigarette companies tempted their customers by offering Spring and Autumn horse-racing lottery tickets, and other lottery tickets for smaller prizes,63 (see Figure 1.8).

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Figure 1.8

Fuchang Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 6 May 1928

These dimensions of the cigarette wars reflected and promoted the individual’s consumer identity, and the use of interior design in particular offered a gendered vision of gracious living that could appeal to ‘middle class’ aspirations of both sexes across different social strata. In other words, personal tastes were not ignored by the cigarette advertisements in Shenbao, even when they were not always explicitly mentioned. In the next chapter we will see, alongside the exploitation of patriotic feelings for commercial purposes, how the theme of Shenbao readers’ increasingly individualistic private lives became a feature of the advertisements for personal savings accounts.

2 Saving for Happiness – Individual Banking Accounts

The previous chapter examined how nationalism and commercialism were employed in cigarette advertisements. Even a simple commodity like a cigarette had become a desirable consumer good. We examined the ways in which marketing strategies and political ideologies came to permeate Shenbao’s pages, and became part of readers’ daily lives. Building on this examination of the relationship between commodities, ideologies, and consumers, this chapter focuses on another kind of product regularly advertised in Shenbao: the individual savings account, or the personal banking account. This was a novel concept for Chinese people, and the history of the development of what was a virgin market for personal banking products tells us much about the activities and concerns not just of the newly-emerging middle class, but also of industrious individuals from lower social backgrounds who were also attracted to the idea of saving for their future in this way. As we shall see, the uptake of personal banking accounts is interwoven with the emerging concepts in China of individuality, the nuclear family, commercialism, and nationalism. In contrast with Japan, the emergence of a Chinese personal savings business relied far more on private individuals and companies than on government. Sheldon Garon’s work ‘Luxury is the Enemy: Mobilizing Savings and Popularizing Thrift in Wartime Japan’1 illustrates how the Japanese government encouraged, even compelled, its people to save before 1945. Thanks to a variety of national savings campaigns, the Japanese people, both in the countryside and the cities, fulfilled the seemingly impossible targets required of them. Japanese national savings did not decrease even after the Pacific War began in 1940; on the contrary, levels of savings actually exceeded the government’s annual predictions. 45

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The Chinese experience, even in Shanghai, differed significantly from the Japanese one. The market for the individual banking was mainly shared by the Chinese-owned banks, as unlike Japan, China did not have a strong central government capable of organizing a successful national savings campaign. In Shenbao’s banking advertisements, the most important motivation presented for individual saving was not the urging of a strong central government, which did not exist; rather, the driving force was a combination of essentially private concerns – in particular, plans formed within the family.

Selling to the common people In 1920, the International Savings Association (Wanguo chuxuhui), the first and largest lottery savings company2 in China in the first half of the twentieth century, placed a large advertisement in Shenbao,3 (see Figure 2.1). It pictured a hand grasping a bulging white money bag which dominated the frame. On this bag, the bold title ran horizontally: ‘You will not suffer from poverty as long as you save.’4 Beneath this title was a longer caption, running ‘Everybody must know about “savings”. This word is very important. No matter what we do, we must

Figure 2.1

The International Savings Association, Shenbao, 23 May 1920

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have the idea of “saving”. In normal times we can save useful money, not squander and waste it, not carelessly let money go when it comes. Then you will have a guarantee against poverty.’ A few days later, the International Savings Association put another advertisement in the same newspaper, specifically targeting young couples,5 (see Figure 2.2). The upper two-thirds of this full-page advertisement showed a man in a Western-style tropical jacket and tie, holding a hat and wearing a pair of Western leather shoes with spats. Opposite him was a young woman with short hair, a Chinese jacket with a high collar and loose sleeves, and a long skirt with highheeled shoes. Placed between this ‘couple’ was a two-line caption reading ‘We wish that all the people in the world who are in love become couples; we wish that every savings depositor in China becomes a man of wealth.’

Figure 2.2

The International Savings Association, Shenbao, 6 June 1920

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Underneath and to the right, another two lines read: ‘Which people, who are in love, would not want a perfect marriage; which depositor does not want the opportunity to make a fortune?’ The main text suggested three methods of becoming rich. First, budgeting so that income exceeds spending; second, saving the extra money; or even better, third, saving from one to 12 yuan with the International Savings Association to make a profit. Lottery savings schemes were later banned by the National Government, in 1934, which will be discussed later, but in 1920, these two advertisements heralded the arrival of a new product for Shenbao’s readers, and indicated a change in lifestyle for ordinary Shanghai people, and for Chinese people in other large cities, such as Tianjin and Beijing. Managing personal savings meant that the Chinese had to come to terms with several new ideas. The new requirements for such savings accounts included learning about Western-style banking processes, based on rational calculations of such things as interest rates and definite periods of time. It also required Chinese people to turn money into an abstract concept: in other words, a personal tie to one’s savings was transformed from a relationship with concrete objects (physical money) to a relationship with figures printed in a savings book. Before the appearance of the Chinese modern bank, China had her own existing financial systems.6 Since the Ming period, China had possessed both pawnshops and traditional banks which could carry out money transfers, offer loans, hold deposits, currency exchange, and even rent security boxes.7 This continued into the early Republican period: according to Chen Cunren (1908–1990), a Chinese medical doctor and old Shanghairen, it was highly unusual for ordinary people to use cheques issued by the traditional banks (zhuangpiao, or qianzhuang). The business of the traditional banks relied heavily on personal relations within small groups. Even at the beginning of the twentieth century only people with some social status and wealth (shenjia) were able to open an account.8 Moreover, the main services of the traditional banks were handling domestic and foreign trade, currency exchange, and clearing house operations; handling savings in small amounts was not among them.9 For most Shenbao readers, the services offered by the traditional banks largely remained irrelevant to their lives. The stereotypical impression of saving as hiding money under the bed or in the cellar was transformed by the emergence of these new financial services into a relationship with a set of numbers.10 Admittedly, at the beginning of the twentieth century, savings gradually became a larger part of the traditional banks’ business, but most

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of it remained oriented towards business and industry.11 Records of deposits were kept in a blank book. Between the cheque and the receipt was a perforated line, and two bank seals. The figures were added in ink calligraphy, then extensively covered by ink stamps belonging to the bank and the bank’s senior staff. The writing was normally full of flourishes like dragons flying and phoenixes dancing, so that it would be difficult to copy. The traditional banks still used ‘silver taels’ (yinliang) as their units of account, rather than silver dollars (yinyuan), because the proportion of silver in silver dollars was too variable.12 During this period in Shanghai, in order to open an account with a traditional bank, a guarantor for the new customer was necessary. There were three reasons for this. First, the majority of customers of traditional banks were wealthy households with official titles or shops, and the amounts coming and going tended to be large, with cheques written in one province deposited or cashed in another. Second, the funds held by these traditional banks were largely in the form of current accounts – liquid assets, able and liable to be moved around quickly – rather than made up of fixed or long-term savings as with modern banks. Finally, traditional banks allowed customers to run up overdrafts if required. Therefore, the guarantor of new customers became very critical.13 The point is that while traditional banks’ business practice (with current accounts and overdrafts) seems quite ‘modern’, in practice, with the use of the guarantor to secure the network, it belongs very much in a traditional context, and for the most part was only available to the wealthy. Traditional banks were not friendly to ordinary people, and despite the fact that China at that time already accommodated several large foreign banks since the second half of the nineteenth century, a bank which was designed around savings for common people was still unheard of.14 When China first developed modern banks with ‘the inspiration of nationalism’15, such as the Imperial Bank of China (Zhongguo tongshang yinhang) in 1897, and Bank of the Board of Revenue (Hubu yinhang) in 1905, which later became Daqing Bank in 1908 and Bank of China in 1912, customers were either government departments, government-sponsored institutions, or Chinese industrial companies.16 When Hupu Bank was renamed Daqing Bank, and set up a depositing department internally, the Board of Revenue also published its first set of regulations, ‘Rules for Savings Banks’ (Chuxu yinhang zeli) with 13 regulations controlling deposits at modern banks.17 However, this was already two years behind some entrepreneursponsored modern banks, such as Xincheng Bank (Xincheng yinhang) in Shanghai, Xinyi Bank (Xinyi yinhang) in Zhenjiang, and National Commercial Bank (Zhejiang xingye yinhang) in Hangzhou.18

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Being much more sensitive to the perspective of the market, the private modern banks took the adventurous move of targeting ordinary people, and accepting small amounts of savings on deposit. These modern Chinese banks had started to be more aware of their role in society, and also noticed the existence of ordinary people: as the economic balance in society began to shift, more and more people and households, beyond those from traditional wealthy families, would require modern banks’ services. Zhou Tingbi (1852–1923), a silk entrepreneur in Wuhu, set up Xincheng Bank, the first private modern Chinese savings bank in Shanghai in 1906 for both commercial and savings business. Without any available regulations from the Qing Government, Xincheng Bank drew on the experience of Japanese banks. This bank was also the first to introduce ‘one dollar’ savings. The banks own Regulation 13 stated: This bank is also a savings bank. It is established to serve the convenience of businesses with small capital, and people like peasants, labourers and businessmen with small and scattered savings. No matter how much is saved, anybody who has more than one silver dollar can deposit money in this bank and earn interest. When the deposit arrives at the bank, a deposit book will be issued immediately.19 This introduction to individual savings accounts was further supported by other policies. For example, higher interest rates were offered on savings for study, weddings, retirement, and for building schools or charitable houses. The bank also opened on Sundays in order to accommodate the hours of workers.20 These changes were aimed at breaking down psychological barriers amongst ordinary people, and relaxing the requirements for account holders. The modern banks, in contrast to the guarantor required by traditional banks, required a referee, but this referee was not responsible for the new depositor’s actions. In practice, this meant that where the traditional banks would rarely reject a cheque or money order, the modern banks would automatically reject a request for payment if funds were insufficient.21 Almost a decade later, Chen Guangfu’s (1880–1976) Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank (Shanghai shangye chuxu yinhang, Shanghai Bank hereafter) similarly embraced a number of innovations in an effort to distinguish itself from traditional banks. In order to encourage small savings, as well as adopting its own one dollar savings policy, Shanghai Bank gave its customers a ‘saving box’ (chuxuhe) to collect their coins, so that when their savings reached a certain amount, people could

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deposit the money into their accounts.22 In a speech at the Qingdao branch of Shanghai Bank in 1931, Chen Guangfu remarked: ‘When I decided to introduce one dollar savings, there were some people who laughed at me for chasing and pursuing smallness. Against their expectations, after several years, those people who laughed at me in the past ... are copying what I have done.’23 Where the traditional banks maintained an exchange rate (yangli) between silver taels and silver dollars, Shanghai Bank began accepting both forms of currency without preference.24 During the First World War and the few years after it ended, Chinese industry got the opportunity to develop, and experienced a short period of growth and prosperity until 1924.25 Many young people came back after the Revolution in 1911 from overseas study, especially from Japan, and got engaged in banking, taking up positions in the modern Chinese banking system, often through family ties. But although these young bankers tried to introduce management in a Western style to distinguish themselves from the traditional banks, they did not totally reject the values of the past. On the contrary, as Andrea McElderry points out, successful young Chinese bankers acquired their status by demonstrating both traditional morality and knowledge of Western management.26 Against this background, bankers and economists, such as Chen Guangfu, Wang Zhixin and Ma Yinchu (1882–1982), believed that the time for Chinese banks to introduce savings services had arrived. Within the general mood in favour of Chinese modernization, these elites thought that there now existed a certain group of Chinese people ready to accept these new products, as their financial status and individual autonomy had grown to a certain level.

New options for savers Before exploring the situation of personal banking, there is a need to review the savings environment in China at this time, and it is therefore useful to explore what was meant by the term ‘savings bank’ when it appeared in Shenbao. It was used fairly loosely, at least until a fully mature legal framework came into force in 1934, which will be discussed later in this chapter. Under the broader definition, the term ‘savings bank’ in Shenbao’s advertisements referred to banks which offered savings services and related products; postal savings; and savings associations operating in specific geographical areas; as well as trusts, lottery savings associations, savings schemes attached to large shops and companies, and other small-scale savings associations which were organized by social societies for their members.

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From the articles and advertisements in Shenbao, we see that there were essentially two kinds of savings associations offering products to consumers: one regular, and one offering a lottery for members on top of normal interest payments. The regular associations began in the North East, beginning in the Xuantong Emperor period (1908–1912), and had already become very prosperous by 1915, the various associations having a presence (either headquarters or branches) at more than 400 locations. The scale of these savings companies, however, was small and local, and access was based on a membership system.27 Other forms of savings companies soon sprang up in other provinces, and some of these became large, growing networks of branches all over China. The ‘Four Banks Joint Savings Association’ (Sihang chuxuhui), founded in 1923, was the largest example.28 According to its regulations in 1931, there were three kinds of savings plans: fixed-term deposits for two years, long-term deposits for ten and 15 years, and an openended savings plan with no fixed-term.29 Depositors not only enjoyed interest on their savings, but also regular bonuses. The second largest, the ‘Siming Savings Association’ (Siming chuxuhui), was an extension of Siming Bank (also known as Ningbo Bank). This association offered very similar schemes, and placed many advertisements in the Shenbao to promote its business.30 There were other smaller local savings associations of the ‘regular’ type, devoted to charity and mutual help. They mainly fall into four categories: thrift, enterprise, insurance, and public charity. The most famous of the thrifty savings associations in Shanghai was the ‘Thrifty Virtue Savings Society’ (Jiande chuxuhui), later the ‘Chinese Thrifty Virtue Savings Society’ (Zhonghua jiande chuxuhui).31 This association was originally formed in 1916, declaring itself open only to people of good character, with proper jobs, and without mental illness. As its regulations suggest, the Thrifty Virtue Savings Society did more than help its members organize their personal finances. It also got involved with its members’ morals, education, and social lives. Apart from promoting a philosophy of frugality, prudence and economy, it also advocated a ‘healthy lifestyle’. It had a members’ centre with gym equipment, a billiard room, table tennis facilities, and a play room for children. Moreover, it also set up a library, a lecture theatre, an exhibition room, a Chinese music hall, a Western music hall, a Chinese opera hall, a new drama room, and a photographic room.32 It also held several campaigns against smoking and drinking, and promoted economic weddings and funerals, addressed in the regulations mentioned above. It suggested the proper amount to spend on these occasions,

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and encouraged its members to give people savings vouchers instead of presents.33 This kind of savings association identified itself with the progress of a new, modern, way of life. Living rationally, in a more than just economic sense, was not only a goal for its members, but was also conceived as beneficial for Chinese society at large. Large companies could also have their own savings associations. For example, Shanghai Tongji Savings Association (Shanghai Tongji chuxuhui) was set up just for the members of the Shangwu Publishing Company and membership required recommendation by two existing members.34 The largest Chinese native flour mills companies, Fuxin and Maoxin, also encouraged their staff to save by forming internal savings groups.35 Unlike the regular kind of savings association, lottery savings companies focused mainly on financial concerns. The first lottery savings company in China was established in 1912, and was known as the International Savings Association.36 It remained the largest such association. The second largest was Zhongfa Savings Association (Zhongfa chuxuhui), which was established in August 1918 in Tianjin.37 These two lottery associations operated under similar rules and were very popular. They attracted many people from many backgrounds all over China.38 In 1934, when the regulations for savings banks were revised, as part of an effort at reform, lottery savings companies were treated as a vice.39 Chen Cunren recorded in his memoirs that he was very attracted by the lottery savings plans of the International Savings Association, and had almost joined.40 In this he was like many other people. Shanghai residents and outsiders were tempted by huge monthly newspaper advertisements announcing the names of lottery winners. Chen Cunren also recorded that this kind of savings company employed many silvertongued salesmen to persuade their own relatives to open accounts. He remembered that other groups banded together to criticize lottery savings companies as a ‘great hoax’, and urged the government to ban them.41 Voices calling for the banning of lottery savings had been heard since at least 1928, and they eventually succeeded on 22 June 1934.42 (See Chart 2.1 for different types of saving associations and market share for the year 1933.) Despite their different operating forms, all the savings banks wanted to link the idea of savings with the image of a modern lifestyle. They believed this would help to attract smaller-scale business from urban families, and from industrious young people who had left their homes in the countryside to come to the cities. But before all this could become possible, the principal institutions, particularly the central government

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Reading Shenbao Savings bank market share by institution, 1933 Postal bank 5% Trust bank 6%

Savings associations 18% Modern banks 56% Lottery savings 15%

Chart 2.1 Market share of savings (excluding traditional banks). Wang Zhixin, Zhongguo zhi chuxu yinhangshi, p. 380

and the influential banks, needed to position themselves so they could be able to offer a good service for people who wished to take advantage of their products. The next section will demonstrate this point. But the situation is rather more complicated: on the one hand, the relatively settled political situation, with the country unified under the Nationalist government, and subject to a centralized set of banking regulations, offered better conditions for saving. On the other hand, the larger economic environment was actually not very good. Consequently we need to look beyond political factors to explain the growth of Chinese savings during the short period from late 1928 to 1937.

Beyond economics: politics, regulations, and social change The development of the savings business in modern Chinese banks during these early decades of the twentieth century was tightly bound

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both to political development in the period, and the evolution of banking regulations. During the Republican period and prior to the SinoJapanese War, the growth of Chinese banks can be divided into two phases: 1912–1927, and 1928–1937.43 The banks set up in the first phase can be grouped into three categories: first, banks transformed from governmental silver houses (guan yinhao) in provinces, originally for accommodating local taxes and remitting deposits for official purposes; second, those formed by the central government for encouraging the development of agriculture and national industry; and third, private commercial banks, highly concentrated around Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai. Although the general environment, particularly during the First World War, provided space for China to set up its own banking system, in parallel with home-grown industrial development, the business climate remained challenging. There were 186 new banks set up in this period, but only 51 left in 1937.44 Judging from the numbers of newly opened banks and the figures for those closed down, from 1924 the Chinese modern banking business was in rather a depressed state, due to the difficult political situation, in particular the seemingly endless internal wars between warlords and Chiang Kai-shek’s Northern Expedition. This, however, started to change after the autumn of 1927, when Chiang Kai-shek’s troops stabilized the situation.45 At that point, ties between Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist party and senior figures in Shanghai’s banking community began to be formed. This relationship deepened after the success of the Northern Expedition, which led to the establishment of the Nationalist government in Nanjing.46 After Chiang Kai-shek’s military hold became more stable, a series of financial reforms was carried out. These included: tariff autonomy (abolishing the tariff privileges accorded to foreign powers); raising government finance through a large-scale bond issue in co-operation with Shanghai bankers; and unifying the currency by introducing the yuan (achieved by abandoning the silver tael). According to Brett Sheehan’s study, the Nationalist Government’s financial policy for regulating the banking business also favoured the modern banks.47 Ultimately, by re-establishing the Central Bank (Zhongyang yinhang) in Shanghai to monitor and control financial activity, the second phase of Chinese banking was ushered in. 137 new banks opened from 1928 to 1937, and only 31 closed down. The banks established during this period ultimately became the majority of modern Chinese banks during the 1930s.48 One action taken by the Nationalist government had a direct impact on the savings business: the introduction of the ‘Law of Savings Banks’ (Chuxu yinhangfa). Although the Savings business in China was still somewhat immature in the first half of the twentieth century, there

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was still regulation by government of these novel products. As mentioned above, the ‘Rules for Savings Banks’ were introduced by the Board of Revenue in the late Qing and became the first regulations for savings banks in Chinese history. More versions were produced during the Republican period before the Sino-Japanese War began in 1937. From 1928 and 1931, the Nationalist Government in Nanjing formulated more versions of the ‘Draft for the Regulations for Savings Banks’ (Chuxu yinhang tiaoli caoan). From 1933 to 1934, the Legislative Yuan, the legislative body of the Republic of China, continually worked on another three modifications. The ‘Law of Savings Banks’ was finally passed in June 1934.49 Certainly there was progress made in these regulations over time. The law published in 1934 gave stricter definitions and regulation of the savings business. For example, lottery saving was banned, and while the previous laws mentioned nothing about regulating the level of interest rates, this Law said that the maximum interest rate and the longest period permitted for fixed-term deposits should be decided by the Banks’ Association in the local area, and then reported to the Ministry of Finance. Where there was no such association, the rates should be decided by the supervisory body of the local government.50 The growth in the savings business of modern Chinese banks in the 1930s was not solely due to the centralization of regulation of the banking and financial systems carried out by the unified Nationalist government, or to the brief period of political unification experienced after the establishment of the Nationalist government, but rather was the result of a much more complicated range of factors crossing social, political, and economic boundaries both internally within China and externally across the globe. There were other contributory factors to the increase in savings, notably wider socio-economic developments due to such factors as the impact on China of the global depression, the huge upsurge in imported goods particularly from Japan, and war in the north east. These have been studied extensively elsewhere, and this chapter, which is looking at the inspiration for savings accounts in advertisements in Shenbao and its readership, will focus on the interaction between readers and the new commercial savings products. As to the generation of enthusiasm for savings accounts, efforts from bankers of the younger generation fitted in well with wider change in both attitudes and in urban demographics. Growth in individuals’ awareness of the need to prepare for their own future, including marriage, education, and career, encouraged people to consider the notion of a personal savings account. Immigration of young people to the cities for employment and education was also a driver for growth, as increasing numbers

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of young people who left their home and parents needed to make their own financial arrangements. These social dimensions surrounding savings will be discussed in detail later in this chapter. But balancing these individual, personal factors, in the public realm, the growing heat of nationalism also provided inspiration for savings growth. In the face of a difficult social, political, and economic situation, which in any case was unlikely to have been well-understood by ordinary people, it was nationalism, through an appeal to patriotic feeling, that was employed to a significant extent by banks to sell their saving products to the public. Shanghai Bank had already held a ‘Savings Songs Competition’ in March 1933. The first prize was 200 Chinese silver dollars. In just one month, Shanghai Bank received more than 2,000 entries, and selected 30 for publication. Later the same year, Shanghai Bank selected some songs from these 30 and printed them in a small handbook, ‘Savings Songs’ (Chuxuge), presumably to be given away free to customers.51 The link between the benefits of personal savings and the national interest is exemplified perfectly by the presentation of these songs. In this handbook, the symbolic images of blazing sunlight and the broad road to happiness represented the hopes of the Chinese people and their nation. The half-risen sun, deliberately reminiscent of the symbol of the Nationalist government flag, occupied the top third of the page, (see Figure 2.3). The rays of this sun fanned out over the ‘broad road of savings’, which ran beneath the source of this extremely sharp, bright light. The artist’s use of perspective meant that the road appeared to be gradually getting broader as it reached the standpoint of the viewer. This road was also surrounded by a ‘wall’ on both sides, visually enclosing it and encouraging the viewer to concentrate on it. Both the road and the walls carried messages. On the left-hand wall was written ‘Form a beautiful virtue of thrift’; and on the right, ‘Promote good customs’. The winning song was inscribed on the road, and read: How to become wealthy and strong? Gentlemen, please sing this song, remember this firmly and don’t forget. Promoting savings means creating countless happiness. The lives of individuals will be peaceful, stable and seemly; and the development of agriculture, industry, and enterprise will be possible. Everybody can be wealthy, and the country will naturally be strong. The greatest way to wealth and strength is like water flowing into the ocean, money should be put into our bank every month, just like water into the ocean.52

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Figure 2.3

A savings song from a Shanghai Bank publication, 1933

The close relationship between personal savings, industrial growth, and the strength of the nation was the theme of the whole publication. The Art Deco style of the sun icon, referencing the National government flag, irradiated the idea of personal savings with patriotism. Moreover,

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the author of the song emphasized that personal happiness was inseparable from the happiness of society. Each individual is like a drop of water, and must eventually join the ocean (society and the nation). The strength of each drop is small; however, the collection of drops in the ocean creates massive power, which helps the growth of business in society, which in turn transforms the happiness of individuals. While patriotism, an older concept, helped to sell the savings schemes of modern banks, the method which was employed here by banks to communicate and deliver message to the public was modern, commercial, and nimble. Unlike traditional banks, ‘modern Chinese banks envisioned deposits as their lifeline.’53 It was in the banks’ own interest to create a friendly image to attract potential customers54 and, as such, they also needed to present their services as meeting personal, not just national, needs. Still, alongside these factors, the modern Chinese banks needed to create positive and friendly feelings, to invite people in and encourage them to want to learn how to use these new banking services, and ultimately to drive people in through the doors of the banks. The final section of this chapter will examine this process, exploring how journalistic discourses on prudent behaviour and the business aims of modern Chinese banks worked together to sell savings products. It will also demonstrate how banks came to offer a wide variety of savings products to suit the different needs of potential customers.

Inspiration and exhortation: a call to action Although the story was set in Beijing rather than Shanghai, ‘Xiangzi’, the protagonist of Lao She’s novel Camel Xiangzi, provides an example of China’s emerging ‘homo economicus’. Lydia Liu describes ‘the dream of a homo economicus’ as ‘gaining his independence, self-control, personal dignity, and a livelihood through hard work and private ownership.’55 She argues, however, that as an example of homo economicus, Xiangzi was full of ambivalence. Xiangzi is a rickshaw man who wants to save money to buy his own rickshaw. He wants to be his own boss, rather than renting a rickshaw from a wealthy but unkind man, Mr. Cao. When Xiangzi buys his first rickshaw at age 22, he identifies himself with it. As Liu puts it, ‘He pulls it to a quiet corner and examines it closely, trying to capture “a reflection of his face in the lacquered panels” in a strikingly narcissistic moment. He then decides to celebrate the occasion by naming the day a common birthday for himself and his mirror-image’.56

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After Xiangzi loses his first rickshaw, he decides to save money to buy another one. He spends a lot of time accounting for his labour, the cost of living, and how much he can save up: ‘His lips wouldn’t stop muttering; it was as if he had some mental illness’.57 However, Xiangzi’s attachment to his savings, and to shiny silver dollars, also interferes with his character as homo economicus, and is an omen of his tragic fate. Xiangzi’s emotional involvement with the silver dollars hidden under his bed makes him reject the idea of putting his money in the bank, or taking out any of the investment plans suggested by Mr. Cao’s housemaid. This makes Xiangzi, a protagonist of a modern novel, in fact rather less than modern. Although sharing Xiangzi’s shabby background initially, having also come to the city to make a living, Wang Zhixin of the Xinhua Bank represented a totally different kind of life, and his experience was an example for a generation of youths. Typically for his generation of young, patriotic, educated Chinese, he devoted himself to China’s development using his knowledge of modern banking. Born in Shanghai in 1896 to a poor family, Wang lost his father at five, but his mother worked at embroidery day and night to support his studies. He became a primary school teacher for several years, then went to Singapore to teach. After he returned to China in 1921, he enrolled in Shanghai Business University (Shanghai shangke daxue),58 where he also became an editor for the Chinese Vocational Education Society (Zhonghua zhiye jiaoyushe). This society was part of the Chinese Vocational School (Zhonghua zhiye xuexiao), of which Wang Zhixin was able to meet the founder, Huang Yanpei.59 Through Huang Yanpei, Wang Zhixin was introduced to Li Zhaobei (dates unknown), a Chinese expatriate living in the Philippines and later in Xiamen, who sponsored Wang Zhixin’s study of banking at Columbia University in 1923. After receiving a Master’s degree, Wang Zhixin returned to China, where he taught at the Chinese Vocational School. The School had started to publish the journal Life Weekly and Wang Zhixin became its first editor in 1925. Between 1926 and 1930, he held positions in several banks, gradually coming to the notice of the senior bankers Chang Kia-ngau (1889–1979) of Bank of China, and Qian Xinzhi (1885–1958), thanks to his impressive performance.60 Wang Zhixin’s philosophy for managing savings departments was to narrow the gap between the banks and the ordinary people. In 1930, when he came to Xinhua Bank, he transformed it, developing the reputation of its savings service. Wang Zhixin devoted himself to developing personal savings growth in China, writing many articles in Life Weekly

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to encourage people to save with the banks. For example, in one article, ‘The Benefits of Savings’,61 Wang Zhixin encouraged Chinese people to use modern means to deal with their property, particularly savings. The literature devoted to creating and spreading the idea of saving was in the front line of the battle.62 Life Weekly was one of the examples, and Shenbao, with its middle class and educated young readership and broader circulation, also became one of the active platforms for promoting this subject. Shenbao’s discourse of rational home economics had in fact penetrated its column ‘Common Sense’ (changshi) by the early 1920s. To get the real flavour of the connection between ‘common sense’, savings, the psychology of these elites, and Chinese Modernity, the term ‘common sense’ as understood in China at the time, deserves a bit of attention. According to a database of Chinese scientific, philosophical, and political terms coined in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,63 the English phrase ‘common sense’ had usually been translated as ‘changshi’ from about 1881. In the English-Chinese Dictionary of the Standard Chinese Spoken Language (1916), for example, ‘common sense’, still regarded as a neologism, was translated as both ‘changshi’, and ‘tianran zhishi’ (natural knowledge, or natural science).64 One term very close to ‘changshi’ in Chinese is ‘putong zhishi’ (general knowledge).65 For example in Evan Morgan’s New Terms Revised and Enlarged, ‘shangye changshi’ was translated as ‘business common-sense’.66 Common sense, then, in this context, was a field of ‘knowledge’ to be constructed and learned. In Lobscheid Wilhelm’s English and Chinese Dictionary in 1869, ‘common sense’ was translated by ‘li’.67 ‘Li’, in Chinese means reason or rational thinking. This translation reflects the fact that the earliest translation of ‘common sense’ meant Western ‘scientific’ knowledge. In 1909, Dongfang zazhi (Eastern Miscellany) launched a column called ‘New Knowledge’ to introduce scientific knowledge as the norm of ‘common sense’ to its Chinese readers.68 Ten years later, the charm of ‘common sense’ for intellectuals had not diminished; on the contrary, it was employed as one of their demands during the May Fourth period, which promoted rational thinking and modern ways of living. Jing Guantao and Liu Qingfeng argue that ‘common sense’ was used to replace the older wisdom of ‘three guides and five virtues’, which were increasingly seen as irrational by younger intellectuals.69 This new generation of intellectuals identified someone with ‘common sense’ as a person with the capability for rationality, and treated this concept as just as important as ‘democracy’ and ‘science’. In short, ‘common sense’, as part of the belief associated with individuality, stood for rational thinking and science, or at least the beginnings

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of science; it also stood for modernity and progress, and it became a very important part of modern Chinese education. The new practice of individual banking was firmly associated with concepts of science, knowledge, ‘common sense’, and modernity. In June 1920, Shenbao published an article ‘Saving’ in the column ‘Common Sense’ to explain why and how everyone should save.70 The author had several points to make about savings plans. First, lottery tickets and gambling should not be encouraged. Second, each family should have its own annual budget. Third, schools should calculate their expenses, including the cost of each student, and put any extra money into a bank to earn interest, while schools should also have savings groups for students. Fourth, families should have savings for emergencies. Fifth, people should reduce their socializing and other sources of expenditure like drinking and smoking, which should not be seen as fashionable, but as unhealthy. Finally, the author argued that all this savings growth would help consumption and improve production; saving would increase the power of the nation. If a man could cut his living costs by giving up smoking, a woman could have her own path to virtue, too. Like some of the supplements in Shenbao, which targeted women as readers, the articles about savings also tried to appeal to a female readership, particularly the modern housewife. The issue of female financial independence was already a common theme in the discourse of women’s liberation.71 At the same time, housewives became some of the most important economic actors in society, a role that will be discussed in greater detail in the next chapter. Against this background, it is not surprising to see articles about the relationship between savings and home economics directly addressed to women. In another article in the column ‘Common Sense’, an unknown author used the pen name ‘Mrs Jin Zhong Xiu’ and wrote ‘A Housewife Should Pay Attention to Family Economics’, to remind housewives of their important position in the family and of their essential obligation to manage the family finances correctly.72 It suggested that housewives should make a family budget table at the beginning of the year, list all the normal annual expenses, and then put the rest of the money into bank accounts. It also reminded housewives to make price comparisons to avoid waste. The two main savings products of modern Chinese banks were nonfixed term savings (allowing withdrawal at any time) and fixed-term savings (which could only be withdrawn after a specified time). Each modern bank fashioned its own savings schemes from the respective regulations, with different names to attract attention. For example, in 1934,

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Jincheng Bank offered its customers the following saving programmes: lump sum on fixed-term deposit (zhengcun zhengfu); special fixed-term deposits (tezhong dingqi); non-fixed term deposits (huoqi cunkuan); fixedterm deposits with interest payable periodically (zhengcun zhixi); special non-fixed term deposits (tezhong huoqi); regular deposit savings plans (lingcun zhengfu); fixed-term with special instalment payment savings (tezhong fenqi); and others, including special weekly savings (tezhong xingqi cunkuan); vouchers savings (liquan cunkuan); and temporary deposits (zhanshi cunkuan).73 Shanghai Bank’s internal annual report on deposits and loans for 1931 shows a very similar arrangement.74 Xinhua Bank in its Savings Regulations issued in 1934 by Shanghai headquarters, also had a very similar product range with slightly different names.75 In order to educate the populace about the benefits of savings and reduce the distance between banks and potential customers, advertisements used simple language and familiar scenes from the lives of ordinary people to make them feel that they were the audience that the banks were speaking to. The linguistic tone and style became important in breaking down the boundary between new ideas and the general public. The modern Chinese banks understood this well. Xinhua Bank, for example, had an advertising department and an annual advertising budget.76 Funds were allocated across several different activities: newspaper advertisements, magazine advertisements, decorative notice boards for local offices and non-local branches,77 leaflet costs, cost of materials for producing graphs, stenotype-making fees, and social and advertising expenses relating to various schools and institutions. Xinhua Bank also extended their attention to the small towns on the Shanghai border. It had branches in Wusong, Nanqiao and Beiqiao, for example, where the majority were working in agriculture. In order to change farmers’ conservative ideas about savings, Xinhua Bank had to use even plainer language, as well as pictures, to deliver information.78 Shanghai Bank treated spreading personal banking as a mission, and also used a variety of methods to advertise their products to make sure their services would come to the attention of ordinary people. First, they deliberately put advertisements in mosquito newspapers in rough areas of Shanghai to catch the attention of the people from the middle to the lower class. The Bank also placed savings advertisements in school journals, business publications, and magazines. Shanghai Bank used professional designers to handle the advertisements in cinemas and window displays. Window displays were given different styles according to their location in order to attract the residents.79

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The attitude of those banking employees who had the most direct contact with customers was believed to have a direct impact on business. The so called ‘yamen’ attitude80 should be changed, as good attitudes and reputations gained more business.81 Word of mouth was believed to be the best way of promoting business. Customers were not to be kept waiting for too long, and regulations had to be explained to them patiently. Moreover, finding the most convenient and flexible policies for the individual customer was presented as very important.82 Despite the evolution of savings regulations throughout this period, the essential spirit of the law was maintained, which was to make ‘common people of lower class’ (xiaji pingmin) a priority.83 Presumably in order to meet the needs of lower class people, ‘Rules of Savings Banks’ in 1905 already required that banks should make special rules and offer special interest rates to depositors who had specific purposes in mind for their savings, such as studying, marriage, business, or pension. The intention was to separate the savings business from commercial deposits, as the intended customers of the latter were quite different from those of the former. From 1905 to 1934, the rules also set out to ensure that banks were required to accept very small amounts in deposits. In the 1915 version, the non-fixed term saving account was defined so that each individual deposit should be five dollars or less; it was ten dollars or less in 1928. In February 1934’s ‘Modification of the Draft of the Law of Savings Banks’, the law was subtly changed. The emphasis on encouraging lower class people to save continued, but instead of regulating the amount each time a deposit was made, the modification stressed that as long as the first deposit was less than ten dollars and more than one dollar, the account then belonged to the category of savings deposits, regardless of the amounts saved on subsequent occasions, which were now allowed to be more flexible according to the practices of the particular bank. The key phrase here to characterize or determine whether an account qualified as a savings account was the term ‘fragmentary savings’ (lingxing cunkuan). This phrase described a form of deposit account which well suited the needs of ordinary and lower class people. Other factors that can explain this dramatic change include the fact that these new banking products were relatively customer friendly: there was reasonably easy access for depositing, with fewer formal procedures required than in the past – this aspect was strongly highlighted in the media – as well as better service. Most large banks set up branches in cities and towns to offer more convenient service for the customer. Another contributing factor was the series of changes to banking laws introduced by the Nationalist Government (discussed earlier) which at some level

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increased people’s confidence in these new products. Last, but not least, the ban on the lottery saving associations also helped direct the money into modern banks. An example is Xinhua Bank. Set up by Bank of China and Bank of Communication in Beijing in 1914, Xinhua Bank was designed to be a savings bank, with the intention of serving the needs of common people. However, it did not work out that way in the beginning. On the contrary, due to its financial structure (being under the control of those two banks), its history during the 1910s led to it being closely bound up with Yuan Shikai and the Northern Government’s chaotic financial situation. Xinhua Bank’s savings business was based around lottery savings schemes, while savers’ capital was used by the bank to provide financial backing to the government through the issue of bonds. In the 1920s, there was some financial restructuring, but it was not until 1930, when Wang Zhixin was invited to run the bank, that Xinhua Bank’s savings business finally began to be successful in a significant way.84 In its statement announcing the restructuring, Xinhua Bank emphasized that its goal was to serve the whole of society. This bank was not only aiming to gather and grow the wealth of the depositors to create large social benefits (shehuifu), but was also aiming to change the beliefs of the common people, instilling hope and confidence. Methods of saving were scientific, one aspect of the concept of ‘common sense’. The bank should carry out its responsibilities for consistent checking and supervising, but the stated aim of the bank was not so much about making profit, but rather an expression of humanity’s highest value, the ‘virtue of charity’. Stressing the importance of the welfare of all, the statement said: ‘Why accumulate economic wealth and change beliefs? It is only in order to use them for social benefit, and sincerely to put society at the centre ... It is not just about giving [financial] help, but always to pay attention to [creating] a productive situation and provide supervision and maintenance. Although these can be said to be banks’ usual service, they are actually based on human beings’ highest charitable virtue.’85 This statement, which might appear somewhat strange to contemporary readers, is not unique in the period: many commercial institutions of the time made similarly pious statements about their social credentials. Xinhua Bank’s vision of creating hope for the common people through popularizing individual savings matched that of a growing number of people from various backgrounds – an emerging social phenomenon, even though it remained small at this time – who were becoming attracted to savings schemes, and many advertisements in newspapers

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set out to inform and build on this interest. Although the regulations treated the lower classes as priority, in reality, it was the middle classes who were most enthusiastic about these new savings products. For the middle classes – for example, the readership of Shenbao, made up largely of educated city-dwellers – these products meant that the future could be planned with more certainty, based on rational calculation.

Creating happiness: ways to attract customers The advertisements in Shenbao were products of political change that led to policy reform in the banking sector, which in turn created a context in which large numbers of the newspaper’s readers became customers of modern banks, and prompted them to link their conception of personal happiness with the notion of saving for the future. We have already discussed the various categories of companies offering savings accounts, and observed that the majority of these new banking institutions were owned by Chinese people, no matter whether they were savings associations, lottery savings organizations, or commercial and savings banks. What these institutions had in common is that they were selling a dream – a dream of a secure future based on careful planning. In 1933, the Ningbo Savings Association placed an advertisement in the Shenbao targeted at people wanting to plan for marriage, their children’s education, and buying property, (see Figure 2.4). In this ‘Installment Savings’ advertisement, a man wearing glasses and a Western suit is deep in thought. Three small pictures are placed above his head to indicate what is on his mind. The first is a picture of a couple in wedding clothes. The second one is a pair of children, a boy and a girl, going to school; and the third one is a picture of a two-storey house. Under the picture, the caption reads ‘Skimping on eating and saving on spending now is for endless happiness in the future; abusing eating and excessive spending will bring a pair of empty hands in the future.’ Indeed, the ideas of a good marriage, a house, and children were included by many participants of the Xinhua Bank savings essays competition. They thought that the earlier they realized the necessity of being rational and independent, the better prepared they would be for their future education, career, family, health, and retirement. Xu Jingxia’s story about her savings plans well illustrated the attitudes of middle class people. Xu Jingxia, a primary school teacher and winner of first prize in the ‘housewife section’ of the savings plans competition, made several very detailed savings plans for her future dreams: funds for her

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Figure 2.4

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Ningbo Savings Association, Shenbao, 18 May 1933

children’s education, retirement funds for her and her husband, and funds for building a house suited to their lifestyle. Xu Jingxia and her husband had received a higher education, and they were both working in Wuxi (a big town on the Yangtze River not

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far from Shanghai). Rather than living in the country with her old mother-in-law, they had to find a small place to live with their two children. Although her husband was the eldest son of a large family, all the brothers had independent incomes, and they only needed to give their mother some pocket money monthly. Xu Jingxia’s husband earned 60 yuan a month, and she brought in 33 yuan a month, so the total family income was 93 yuan a month. Xu Jingxia thought that she was only going to work for another seven years, and their savings plans would have to be adjusted for this change. Therefore, their savings plans were mainly divided into two periods, the first when Xu Jingxia was aged from 25 to 33, and the second between 34 and 58. Each of these two main periods were further sub-divided.86 When Xu Jingxia was aged from 25 to 33, their income would continue be 93 yuan per month, and their monthly expenses 73 yuan (including eight yuan for an emergency fund). Therefore, they could save 20 yuan monthly. In the first sub-period, aged 25 to 27, six yuan would go to an educational fund, seven yuan to an old age pension, and seven yuan for a property fund. By 1938 (when Xu Jingxia would be 29), their pensions savings would amount to 1,000 yuan, and this whole sum would be saved in an amortization savings account in the Shanghai Bank. At the same time, the couple was very fond of the Shanghai Bank’s ‘Life Insurance’. They thought life insurance combined the benefits of savings and insurance at the same time, and they decided to pay ten yuan for it every month. The couple needed 2,500 yuan for their own property (land and hardware), and since they would have already got more than 600 yuan for it from their old savings, they would only need to pay four yuan monthly into their account in the second sub-stage of the first period, and would be able to have their own property when Xu Jingxia was 38 years old. When Xu Jingxia was aged between 34 and 38 and then 39 to 58, there would be only two reasons for saving: educational fees, and their old age pension. She thought, although they would not be able to purchase a house until she was 38, once they had done so, they would not need to save for it anymore, and the interest growing in their account would allow them to relax. Since she would not be working after age 33, the family income would drop. However, the salary of her husband should increase, so their family income in this period was predicted to be 80 yuan per month. Although their monthly income would fall, they could pay less for servants at the same time. In addition, after

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they had their own house, they could save on rent as well (ten yuan monthly). In short, the family finances would not be tight without the wife’s salary. In the first sub-stage, they had to put eight yuan away monthly for educational fees, and five yuan for life insurance. A few years later, it would be time for their children to attend middle school and university, and they would need to reserve more money for this expense. They combined several different kinds of savings accounts, and they worked out that they had to save ten yuan for this purpose (five yuan for each child). So, each child could have 368 yuan for four years at university. In the meantime, they only needed to put five yuan into life insurance, and when Xu Jingxia was 58, all their savings plans would be completed, and they would no longer need to pay anything, but would have at least 20,000 yuan in their accounts. They could enjoy 120 yuan from the interest every month, which was enough for them to have a comfortable old age. Like all the entries in the competition, it is impossible to know whether Xu Jingxia carried out her detailed savings plans or not. However, the meaning of such savings plans is to an extent independent of their execution. Regardless of whether Xu succeeded in making her plan real, they are evidence of the aspiration to independence of a young married woman, keen to avoid her future being interfered with by her in-laws, through the new method of personal savings. The contribution made by these savings advertisements was to encourage people to take a firmer grip on their study plans, career preparation, and family funds.

Conclusion This chapter has recounted how, in the first decades of the twentieth century, a new form of banking arose and offered itself to the public through newspapers. It also explored how the attention of Shenbao’s readers was eagerly and creatively sought, in order to promote this new commodity. The traditional banks, caught out by changes in lifestyle, failed to offer new products to ordinary middle class people, and lost out as a result. The history of the rise of the personal savings account offers contemporary scholars a way to explore the nature of individuality in Shanghai, particularly the degree of autonomy that people brought to their finances and their perspectives on the future. The interaction between nationalism and consumerism is also a feature of the growth of personal banking. As we have seen, patriotic ideas provided very strong motivation for younger people. It was common

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for this group to state that forming thrifty habits was not only good for personal gain, but also would contribute to China’s development. Finally, the role of the nuclear family also cannot be ignored. It is a paradox that the institution of the nuclear family was vital to the growth of individuality, not least through developments in financial management and family budgeting, which became increasingly a female preserve. Modern housewives became one of the most important audiences for personal banking advertisements, due to the structure of this new form of family, a significant shift as ‘modern’ ideas took hold. The female consumer, particularly the modern housewife, is the theme of the next chapter.

3 The Modern Housewife – A New Kind of Shanghai Woman

In 1933, Simmons, an American mattress company, placed a large advertisement in Shenbao declaring: ‘Modern women’s lives are very busy’ (see Figure 3.1). Beneath this was a horizontal line of text: ‘They had better sleep well every night, so they can keep their minds and bodies peaceful, healthy, and good-looking.’ On the left-hand side, there were three small square pictures, placed vertically. In the first picture, there was a clock on the wall showing five past nine in the morning. A housewife, wearing a modern, well-cut qipao with short sleeves and an apron, with her hair pinned up, was dealing with a pot on the stove. In the upper left corner of this picture, there was a caption saying: ‘Busy with housework as soon as she gets up in the morning’. In the second picture, two women, a customer and a shop assistant, were having a conversation. The caption was ‘Going out shopping in the afternoon’. In the last picture, the housewife was sleeping on the bed with her hair spread out over a soft pillow. She was lying on her side covered by a fresh quilt; her naked left shoulder and arm are visible. Next to her was a bedside table with a modern electric lamp. The caption was: ‘Having a good sleep at night’. Underneath these three pictures, an image of a divan bed with a Simmons mattress covered in flower patterns stretched across the whole of the lower part of the advertisement. A round graphic was inserted at the top right-hand end of the mattress, displaying a cross-section of the structure of the mattress. Above the mattress and to the right of these three pictures, Simmons Mattress Company told readers: ‘After a good night’s sleep, you will feel extremely pleasant. If you have had trouble sleeping for a long time ... the Simmons Meian sprung mattress ... has 837 small steel springs, and is soft and comfortable. If you sleep on it you will feel the muscles and nerves of the whole body relax and open. It will guarantee eight hours’ good sleep every night’.1 71

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Figure 3.1

Simmons Mattress advertisement, Shenbao, 6 May 1933

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In Chapter 1, the image of modern women was shown to be formed in part by the connection between the concepts of consumer individuality and female self-indulgence; in Chapter 2, the housewife’s role was seen to have become increasingly important due to factors such as the rise of the nuclear family, the growth of individual banking accounts, and the responsibility for the family budget. The women in the Simmons advertisement certainly share the characteristic of selfindulgence, in that they could afford a nice mattress to ensure they slept well. However, the background to this need for sleep was a routine of domestic work carried out throughout the day and organized by Western clock time. These observations relate directly to the kind of women discussed in this chapter: modern housewives. This novel social group was the main target audience for many of the advertisements in Shenbao. However, these women also bore great responsibilities – in particular, to bring up their children as ‘useful citizens’ for the nation through the practice of domestic work, another example of the combination of a modernizing drive with the pursuit of China’s salvation. This chapter argues that it is only by appreciating the ways in which the figure of the modern housewife combined several qualities at once – consumer, domestic, and patriot – that we can understand how her individuality was connected with modernity.

Women in modern Chinese Studies Images of urban Chinese women in the first half of the twentieth century have been widely discussed in recent research, especially in the context of the history of female emancipation. Such images combined the idea of emancipating the Chinese people from the Qing government with thoughts of liberating women from the extended family and old customs. The hope for a strong China was paralleled by, or even projected onto, the image of the strong female.2 The growth of feminism in the West contributed to the emergence of Chinese female revolutionaries who represented the ideal form of the ‘Chinese nationalist’ woman to the public.3 The New Culture Movement of 1915 was the first major revival of the issue of women’s liberation since the late Qing period. Chinese intellectuals now attacked Confucianism by name. Chen Duxiu produced the first (and one of the most dynamic) repudiations of Confucianism in his article ‘1916’. In it, he urged the young to realize that Confucianism’s three principles ruined Chinese people’s ‘independent personhood’.4 Chinese male intellectuals extended the rebellion from Chinese

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tradition to female emancipation, grounding it at the same time in Western ideas of ‘individualism’ and liberal values. Scholars such as Ching-Kiu Stephen Chan argue that by talking about liberating women during the New Culture Movement and the May Fourth Movement, male intellectuals were actually ‘liberating’ themselves. As Chan puts it, ‘The modern intellectual wanted desperately to re-present himself via a mutation in the crisis of the “other” ’.5 Agreeing with Chan’s observations, Wang Zheng points out that during the May Fourth Movement period, men’s construction of images of new types of women reflected their ‘unconscious anxiety over their own identity crisis’.6 The Chinese Marxist view of women was formed in the mid-1920s and 1930s, in the wake of the feminist discourses of the May Fourth Movement. Chinese Marxists made a distinction between ‘nüxing’ and ‘funü’, both terms for women, but with different implications. Nüxing (female) was the contrary of ‘nanxing’ (male). According to Tani Barlow’s analysis, ‘funü’ carried the meaning of ‘kinswomen’, and referred to all Chinese women, but particularly country-dwellers. Moreover, the Marxist ‘funü’ was ‘the product of revolutionary practice and existed in a future world, after the revolution.’ For the Chinese Marxists, nüxing, a neologism from the May Fourth era, belonged to bourgeois ideology. Barlow claims that although discourse by male Chinese intellectuals about female emancipation drew extensively on ‘European humanism’ and egalitarianism, ‘new women’ still remained merely the ‘other of man’ in intellectuals’ writings. Furthermore, she argues that while nüxing was only the product of male intellectuals’ desire to imitate the West, the Chinese Marxist discourse of funü served an explicitly political purpose.7 In a departure from the conceptions of women outlined so far, in the early 1930s the Chinese Neo-Perceptionists (xin ganjue pai), such as Liu Naou (1905–1940), Mu Shiying (1912–1940), and Shi Zhecun, developed an erotic account of modern women, in particular in Shanghai. Peng Hsiao-yen points out that both Liu Naou and Mu Shiying’s erotic novels represented the ‘instant’ character of sexual relationships in contemporary Shanghai. ‘In this kind of short-term sexual relationship, there is no love ... No matter whether they are women from good families or experienced women from the sharp end of society (fengcheng nüzi), they all enjoy a one night stand (yiye fengliu)’.8 In such encounters, there is no obligation on either side, and the women in the novels were not normally given a clear ‘face’; they were ‘apsychological’.9 The Neo–Perceptionists portrayed male protagonists as voyeurs. Since the

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protagonists could not confront a woman or understand ‘this creature’ directly but only through a tortuous ‘peeping’, their understanding was inevitably mostly the product of their own imagination. For example, in Mu Shiying’s ‘Craven A’, sex became a ‘trip’, and the female body ‘an excellent national map’. It took the protagonist ‘one or two days to walk around the whole nation’.10 In short, as result of the revolutionary discourses surrounding the nature of patriotism, awakened women became, in their turn, the basis for the May Fourth intellectuals’ attack on Confucianism. The revolutionaries gave their new women the characteristics of independent personhood. From that point on, women’s emancipation for the Chinese Marxists was about ensuring Chinese women, including students, peasants, and the working class, adopted the right form of consciousness and walked out of their families into the revolution. At the same time, the Neo-Perceptionist literature drew another picture of Chinese women seen through the glass of male voyeurism. Yet these different interpretations of Chinese women do not exhaust the ideas that were circulating in Shanghai. There was another discourse which publicly expressed worries about new social phenomena, particularly the changes in family life and in women’s situations caused by the impact of the West and the defeat of Chinese tradition. For example, in the same year as the May Fourth Movement, a female author called Miao Cheng Shuyi wrote an article in Ladies’ Journal (Funü Zazi) to explain how women should develop and cultivate themselves.11 Miao Cheng Shuyi declared that the first step in her plan for contemporary women’s self-improvement was that ‘everybody should want to be an ordinary woman, and not to be special. The great rules and ideas of the sages and men of virtue are found in the middle way and the peace of everyday life; female virtue cannot overstep this range.’ Then she started to attack the idea of political equality for females. She thought that Chinese society was different from the Western model. In particular, after the First World War, there were more women than men in Western societies; therefore, these societies needed women to work in different vocations. They had no choice but to break their rules or customs and let women be legislators and lawyers. Miao Cheng Shuyi had different ideas from the May Fourth intellectuals about the best type of family life, and she thought that the best form of work for women was the life of the housewife, especially for extended families. She claimed that modern material life in cities had already proved a bad influence on women from all walks of life. And the fashion for material life, symbolized by cars, Western restaurants,

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new clothes and theatres, totally destroyed the traditional virtue of women: thrift. The loss of thrift led to more serious moral poverty, which would affect the whole family and society: ‘ “Thrift” is not only [a] personal virtue of women; families and society would really receive great harm from [the loss of] it.’ Miao Cheng’s concern about the effects of modernity on women and, indeed, on the whole of society was not unique. On the contrary, her article is representative of a general trend in the literature towards this view of the relations between morality, the new values of material life, and feminist discourse.12 The most important thing missing from all of these discourses, however, was the sensitivity to the realities of daily life of these modern women. This does not mean that the material, including the writings and pictures related to women’s daily lives being discussed, must be produced by women in order to be sensitive to their inner experience. The various discourses illustrated so far showed how Chinese female emancipation was discussed by Chinese intellectuals, but we are not given a full picture of how these liberal ideas operated in the daily lives of ‘real’ women. Moreover, Barlow’s concern about the gap between nüxing in discourse and nüxing in reality opens up an interesting question. We must ask whether, given that the discourse of nüxing helped to create a new generation of Chinese intellectuals, there were any other groups, or classes, being ‘constituted’ in similar ways? Talal Asad argues that political discourses are integral to the contexts that people inhabit. Such discourses do not merely ‘ “legitimise” behaviour from outside ... or simply mobilize people with given “interests”; they operate in diverse historical circumstances to construct motivations, to transform commitments, and to reorganize experiences.’13 In the same way that Barlow sees the use of nüxing as an example of Asad’s claims about the interaction of terminology with its referents, we can apply Asad’s notion to another neologism ‘zhufu’ (housewife).14 The adoption of the term ‘housewife’ was due to the development of a new relationship between married women and family size in modern China. The different translations of ‘wife’ and ‘housewife’ help to make this development clearer. The translation of ‘wife’ in Chinese is ‘qizi’ or ‘neiren’; and the translation of ‘housewife’ is ‘zhufu’ or ‘guanli jiashi zhi fu’ (the woman who organizes the domestic work).15 The main meaning of ‘wife’, that is, refers to the marriage relationship, but the dominant concept of the housewife refers to home economics. These translations came into use at the turn of the twentieth century (before 1916), though the term ‘housewife’ was rare. In the later

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1920s, and particularly in the 1930s, ‘housewife’ appeared much more often, presumably because it reflected the continuing development of the nuclear family. As one would expect if Asad is correct, the term ‘housewife’ followed the emergence of actual housewives. In turn, as the category entered the popular vocabulary, more and more people made use of it to identify their own circumstances. The complex meaning of home economics carried by the term ‘housewife’ gave modern married women a new ideal type to emulate. On reading Shenbao, it is impossible not to notice that the terms zhufu, (housewife) and taitai (wife) were frequently employed to refer to what seemed to be a definite group. The members of this new group were found in metropolitan areas and were the bearers of many novel ideas. Housewives, at least the group referred to in Shenbao, were a microcosm of Chinese modernity. Shenbao, a well-established newspaper with loyal readers, provided an image of the housewife whose characteristics included a realistic attitude to the economic matters of daily life. These women collected information, practiced new ideas, and shared responsibility in the popular mind for fulfilling the nationalist mission of Chinese self-strengthening. These housewives are different from the women created by the pens of the Neo-Perceptionists; they were not looking for the kind of ‘instant’ relationship described in their writings. On the contrary, such housewives were managing long-term domestic situations, including relationships with husbands, children, housekeeping, family budgets and even their own education. The discourse about women in the literature generated by the May Fourth intellec tuals, Chinese Marxists, and Neo-Perceptionists do not exhaust the ways of understanding the lives of Chinese women at that time.

What did ‘housewife’ mean? Let us return to the mattress advertisement mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, and look more carefully at the significant meanings it implied about this new social group. This will give us a better comprehension of the social meaning of the term ‘housewife’. Remember that the first piece of information provided by this advertisement was that ‘Modern women’s lives are very busy.’ Their daily plans were structured: performing the housework in the morning, shopping in the afternoon, and cooking in the evening for the whole family. Beside the daily schedule organized around the needs of her family, the advertisement also offered plenty of advice for the proper modern housewife. It is good for her to sleep well at night in order to remain ‘peaceful’ and ‘healthy’ in

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‘mind’ and ‘body’ – and of course, stay ‘good looking’. The idea of the self-indulgent modern woman, who could not simply be dismissed as a fashionable student or a prostitute, was a growing element in the concept of the individual. This advertisement also indicates that the housewife had control of family shopping activities, and therefore over at least some of the domestic finances. In it, ‘xiandai’ (modern) is the first term confronting the reader. This term, like a soldier sent to establish the front line of an army, was given the most important mission of creating an atmosphere for readers, and teasing their imaginations in order to persuade them to buy the product. The way this Chinese advertisement approached its potential customers was also close to the style used in advertisements for household appliances in the West at this time. For example, it is very similar to a poster advertisement for a wringer or mangle made by the Co-operative Company,16 (see Figure 3.2). In the first picture, an old-style, large wringer stands in a room with a clock on the wall. The husband was bending his body and using both hands on the handle of the wheel to operate the wringer to wring out one piece of cloth with the wife standing behind him. The second picture showed the housewife with a smile on her face, easily doing the laundry by herself with a small and improved version of the wringer. The last picture showed this couple sitting down together by a table enjoying a good conversation, with the caption ‘The “O.K” wringer is a real joy bringer.’ Both advertisements emphasized efficiency as an important element in domestic work; it is surely no coincidence that in both advertisements, a clock was shown to emphasize the time that could be saved through the purchase of the goods in question, time that would otherwise be lost in sleeplessness and domestic drudgery. The joy of the housewife, or of family life, was also treated as a critical element in both scenes. These two advertisements were clearly beating to the same pulse, making use of very similar concepts of modernity so far as the family and the role of the housewife were concerned. ‘Modern’ (xiandai or modeng) was one of the most popular terms used to refer to Chinese women in Shenbao. It accompanied various advertisements and novel products in the commercial market and in daily life. The Chinese term ‘modeng’, according to Leo Ou-fan Lee, appeared first in Shanghai as a translation of the French ‘moderne’.17 It was of course given different meanings, depending on the writer’s outlook. In a dictionary of the Standard Chinese Spoken Language (1916), ‘modern’ was

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Figure 3.2 Co-Operative Company advertisement for ‘O.K. Table Wringer’, 1937

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associated with time and novelty.18 The word also referred to fashion, in phrases such as ‘shixing de’ (fashionable) and ‘shiyang, shikuan’ (new kind, new type). However, when ‘modern’ was used to describe a person, it could carry negative connotations. For example, it could refer to a university student from a wealthy background who was blindly following fashion, lacking in financial independence, and using too many foreign products. In this case, the term ‘shimao’ was also usually employed. For example, in a 1933 article in Shenbao, so-called modeng and shimao women were those who used foreign products and tried hard to get their husbands and boyfriends to buy expensive goods for them.19 The meaning of modernity for women was similarly controversial. The introduction of a modern personal banking system not only impacted on how individuals managed their money, but also affected how individuals located themselves in their families, on the basis of the recognition of a new form of independence. This effect of modern banking overlapped with the new concept of modernity as it intersected with the lives of women, including, of course, housewives. For those opinion leaders who wanted to combine modern ideas with a new lifestyle in order to educate people, particularly housewives, the meaning of ‘modern’ was important. In 1934, an unidentified author ‘Xunzi’ wrote an article titled ‘The Modern is Not Guilty’, asserting that modernity should be promoted rather than opposed in order to improve Chinese living standards. The author thought that modernity in fashion simply reflected contemporary ideas about clothing; it was not a crime. The author concluded that people should try to introduce modernity to the majority in China: ‘Long live the modern’.20 Giving ‘the modern’ a different and positive meaning was necessary in order to come to terms with the new norm of material life that had arrived China. Pan Yangyao, a close ally of Wang Zhixin in the promotion of national products, wrote an article in Shenbao called ‘The True Meaning of Fashion’. He asked ‘What is shimao? What is modeng?’ as a way of introducing his attempt to give new and constructive meanings to ‘modernity’. He answered that there were three basic criteria for being fashionable and modern: beauty, moderation, and hygiene (the latter will be discussed in more detail later on). He also gave a further explanation of the principle of moderation, which had three further subdivisions: convenience, economy, and simplicity.21 This mixture of ideas constituted the foundation for a new set of meanings of the ‘modern’ in the discourse of Shenbao from the late 1920s, a form which became particularly prevalent in the 1930s.

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In Shenbao’s articles, particularly those intended for female readers, the most popular term used to refer to Chinese women was ‘funü’, rather than ‘nüxing’; but as this chapter will show even though funü was adopted by writers in Shenbao, it was not necessarily associated with the Chinese Marxist interpretation mentioned above. While funü was popularly used, the existence of two more terms signalled the arrival of the new social group housewives represented. The first one is zhufu (main lady), and the second one is taitai (‘Mrs’ or ‘wife’).22 The use of these new terms illustrated the new demands on modern housewives. Zhufu and taitai were credited with more substantial modernity and domestic knowledge. The social and domestic status of housewives was being recognized. The housewives were in the driving position when it came to home economics, which not only required self-confidence, but also knowledge to fulfil their role.23 However, like the term ‘modern’ itself, zhufu and taitai also expressed ambivalent feelings. On the one hand, to be a taitai was to be treated as a so-called ‘upper-middle class’ or wealthy housewife with a strongly materialistic attitude to life. An author using the pen name Zhanquan referred to taitai as the wives of upper-class society (shangliu shehui).24 He thought that in upper-class society, the wives were considered to be decorations or playthings. Although they gave birth, they did not participate in educating children, a job which was handed to other women with other domestic work to do. The taitai’s main job was entertaining and socializing. They became ornaments for their husbands’ social occasions. In Shenbao, taitai was normally put in the same category as ‘xiaojie’ (miss, or young lady, rather than guniang; xiaojie implies being fashionable) and modern young ladies (modeng nülang). 25 For example, one article said ‘most of the bourgeois taitai xiaojie men (wives and misses) ... must use completely authentic foreign products’.26 Another article by Zhu Zhenmu, which discussed the negative effects on China of the high demand for silver in the international market, blamed ‘modern ladies, taitai, and misses’ for taking advantage of the strong Chinese currency to buy even more foreign goods.27 In short, the feeling that accompanied the use of taitai here was a negative one, creating an image of grasping married women. Nevertheless, this negative view of modern wives was not the only one to be found in the discourse. The taitai was also treated more like the modern housewife, as someone who participated positively in domestic work. In an article addressed directly to women, ‘For the Information of Wives and Misses’ the author said that ‘In the past, when talking

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about the need to promote native products, [people] would curse and blame women. [However] this year should be the time for women (funü), wives (taitai), misses (xiaojie), and female students (nü xuesheng) to seek the limelight.’28 In his article ‘Let taitai-men (married ladies) Promote National Products’, Pan Yangyao believed that housewives had great power over the use of national products.29 A taitai was treated as a sensible and responsible housewife, a zhufu, who not only cared about her appearance, but also home economics and patriotism. The term zhufu combines the meanings of both ‘power’ and ‘wife’. The term, zhu means self, master, host, dominating, controlling, and priority.30 Fu means married woman or wife. When these two characters were combined together, Zhanquan’s reference to the wife as merely an ornament for her husband, mentioned above, became much less tenable. Pan Yangyao, using an event held by the Female Youth Association as an example, pointed out that the new role played by modern taitai and zhufu was totally focused on the family. The guiding principles of domestic work were, apart from the use of Chinese products, ‘beauty, economy, peace, hygiene, and simplicity.’31 On 1 January 1934, Pan wrote an article launching ‘the year of the women’s national product movement’. Housewives (zhufu) according to Pan were handling important family plans on a daily basis, and whatever needed to be done in the family must have their support. In order to avoid budgetary difficulties, the housewife had to calculate her domestic spending carefully in advance. Pan recalled that last year my friend Mr. Wang Zhixin created a kind of family budget table to help housewives organize their budgets.32 Almost a year earlier, Pan Yangyao had published similar ideas about the important role of modern housewives in Shenbao. In ‘Housewives’ Responsibilities’, Pan particularly emphasized housewives’ roles as both directors of their families and important consumers in society.33 He said that the management of the most basic but important things of family – the seven staples of fuel, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, and tea – were dependent on housewives. Housewives were leading the way in determining the pattern of consumption of their families, so that the two roles increasingly coincided in modern society. In short, the ambivalent meaning of the term taitai, and the use of housewife (zhufu), reflected the transformation on the meanings of modernity (modeng), particularly when this term was associated with women. Moreover, the attention given by some writers in Shenbao to modern housewives announced that this group was not only enmeshed

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with material life, but also had a significant role in mobilizing for Chinese salvation by imparting ‘scientific’ knowledge to their families.34 Compared with less educated women, modern housewives (or at least the expected female readers of Shenbao) expressed their individuality, personality, and values through their daily activities, particularly in household economics and consumption. This was why the discourses we have been examining had to hold on to this group and tried to ‘persuade’ its members, rather than simply attacking them. The concept of the ‘virtuous wife and good mother’ (xianqi liangmu) was involved here in the Chinese process of modernization. Chen Zhengyuan’s recent research points out that the concept of the ‘virtuous wife and good mother’ was prevalent in Japan, Korea, and China from the late nineteenth century onwards. However, she questions the view that this term spread from Chinese Confucian classical texts to the Japanese and Korean worlds. She argues that the exact term ‘xianqi liangmu’ was not seen in classical texts at all, although there were independent terms like ‘xianmu’ and ‘liangqi’. What Chen Zhengyuan’s research shows is that the term ‘virtuous wife and good mother’ was in fact the product of the contemporary nationalistic mood in Japan, Korea, and China, in particular in Japan. According to her observations, this concept required women to learn modern knowledge to take care of their families in the larger interests of their country’s development. 35 Seen in this light, Chen’s study of the ‘virtuous wife and good mother’ supports our understanding of the modern housewives of the Shenbao readership. Housewives were expected to set a good example for their families. The main outlines of this ideal Chinese modern housewife have been revealed in several studies of Shanghai urban life by Chinese scholars.36 On the national products issue, modern housewives were seen as guides for their husbands and children in patriotic behaviour expressed through the use of native products. 37 In another article in Shenbao entitled ‘My Mother and National Products’, for example, the un-identified author’s mother was treated as an ideal mother figure, whose consumer behaviour not only supported Chinese-made products, but also educated her children to be good modern Chinese citizens.38 Another example of the use of an ideal mother figure is found in an interview with Mrs. Zhu Wang Wanqing, an active figure of the Association of Family Daily Progress (Jiating rixinhui).39 The interview took place in her home. As soon as the journalist arrived, the

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first impression was one of attraction to the atmosphere of the house. Although the rooms were small, they were tidy, clean and well organized. The products used in the family were China-made, and Zhu Wang was not only good at designing clothes and making them by herself, she was also a good cook, as the Zhu Wang family’s meals and varied snacks on the occasion of that interview were made by her. Zhu Wang and the mother in the previous example both represented the idea of the modern Chinese ‘virtuous wife and good mother’. Such women possessed both independence and knowledge of domestic economy. As we shall see, the latter quality became increasingly important in distinguishing the new type of modern housewife both from the previous generation and from her less educated contemporaries. Joan Judge’s article ‘Citizens or Mothers of Citizens?’ points out that late Qing reformers ‘did not view mothers of citizens as individual actors who would further disperse the political and social field through their economic or political independence, but as the unifiers of foreign and Chinese cultural practices ... private and public spheres’.40 The modern woman’s most important role was to be the mother of citizens.41 Judge observes that the concept of the good mother and virtuous wife can be seen as a compromise between conservative and radical ideas about women. Conservatives did not approve of women’s political participation at all, restricting them to training junior members of the household, and maintaining traditional morality. The radicals suggested that women, as citizens with equal status to men, should participate directly in politics. However, reformers offered a third way to resolve the conflict. On the one hand, they insisted on female citizenship; on the other hand, they linked that citizenship with motherhood. As Judge puts it, ‘Integrating citizenship into the female lifecycle, they gave the most intimate of human relationships – that of mother to child – a political meaning’.42 Judge’s view of the relation between women and citizenship in the late Qing period in fact also applies to most of the Republican period, particularly the discourse of the opinion leaders in Shenbao. However, the development of consumption in Shanghai added further dimensions to this relationship. Shenbao articles suggested housewives had lives beyond the kitchen, transforming them into active and sagacious consumers who would participate in the national products movements at the same time. In extending their role in this way, Shenbao’s advertisements did not give up their ambition to inspire women’s sense of material enjoyment, or treat such improvements in material life as an issue which would contradict the role of the good mother.

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Common sense, emotionalized consumers, and the household Liu Bannong (1891–1934), a Chinese writer and poet of the May Fourth generation, criticized the pointless life of the ‘virtuous wife and good mother’. He wrote: I have calculated the things you (housewives) do every day. You get up at 7 in the morning. You have to tidy your hair and cook breakfast and you have to do food shopping just outside your door. You have to get your children to eat. You have to help the older children to dress and pack their satchels for them and send them to school. After you have done all of this, it is 9 o’clock. After 9, you have to wash up bowls, chopsticks, pots and woks from breakfast, then you have to clean the ash from the stove and pick vegetables (very often five cents of jimao leaves and ten cents of green bean sprouts take you one or two hours). Washing fish and chopping meat nearly takes you to 11 o’clock without you noticing. So you quickly cook rice and fry dishes until 12. After lunch and washing your face, it is about 1. Then you will check if you have laundry to do. If you do, you soak them in the hot water. Hand laundry is the biggest time waster. Generally one pair of socks takes ten minutes; one short sleeved shirt costs twenty minutes. After three or five garments have been washed, the day is dark. Even before the day gets dark, you feel tired and need a break. You have a break until 6, then you need to prepare dinner. You have to wash pots and woks, chopsticks and bowls again. At night, you have to make shoes for the children and mend clothes. The rest of the time is only long enough for you to quickly check out The Dictionary for Daily Miscellaneous Words (Riyong zazi), and use these few halfcompleted words to write down one or two small items of expenditure. After 10, you are hastened by yawns to bed ... even if the house has a young maid (xiao yatou) and an old nanny (laomazi) to help, only one third at most of her housework is reduced ... May I ask, what results will come out from her being so enslaved?43 Liu’s record of a housewife’s schedule missed out two important points relating to the housewives’ psychology. One is the degree of modern knowledge employed in their actually quite varied housework, and the other is the existence of a positive desire among many such women to dedicate their time to their families. This section examines the critical

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role of what was called ‘common sense’ in modern housewives’ household management. Then we will address the complex psychology linking their domestic and commercial lives. Apart from all sorts of updates on consumer news in the high street, which were normally placed either in the ‘Local Supplement’ or by each shop as separate advertisements, housewives were also targeted by regular columns, such as ‘Random Talk’ and ‘Common Sense’, in Shenbao. ‘Common Sense’, both as a column and as an ideal for the Chinese modern housewife, is one of the most important sources for understanding her development. As noted in Chapter 2, ‘common sense’ was a novel term introduced to China during the late nineteenth century. It indicated the influence of a Western belief in the virtue of being ‘scientific’, in the sense of favouring cultural and political rationalism. The column ‘Common Sense’ was established by Chen Diexian (1879–1940), a former editor of Shenbao’s ‘Random Talk’ column, which will be discussed in Chapter 5. Chen was also a founder of a successful company named ‘Household Enterprise’ (Jiating gongyeshe), famous for female cosmetics, hygienic items, and household necessaries. Chen devoted his energy to domestic science, and with Shi Liangcai’s support, offered a great deal of information about household and family economics in his ‘Common Sense’ column.44 The experience of Shanghai’s Shenbao-reading urban housewives, who were very likely also to be readers of women’s magazines, was paralleled by the experience of American middle and upper middle-class housewives in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The term ‘home economics’ was the result of a series of debates over the management of domestic work that took place from the second half of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century.45 Education in home economics was given in girls’ schools, vocational training schools, and also to housewives and their servants. Subjects included the theory of germs, baby care, home decoration, nutrition, clothesmaking, and accounting. All received attention from the American home economists, and were then introduced into China. The popular women’s magazines, such as Ladies’ Journal, Ling Lung, and Happy Family, (Kuaile jiating) commonly reported these discussions to their readers.46 Many expressions of this combination of ideas were clearly directed towards a specifically female audience. One article emphasizing the importance of rationality in order to promote nationalism wrote that: ‘The really modern fashion was to love national products which expressed that kind of honest and noble reason.’47 A romantic kind of

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nationalism was presented as the result of rational reflection; really modern women were those who cared about their appearance, had common sense, and used their intelligence to do the right thing for their country through their commercial activities. When the concept of common sense was applied to home economics, it was as domestic knowledge to be learned by housewives. The ideas of economy, efficiency, and hygiene were claimed to be critical parts of ‘common sense’ crucial to the development of Chinese modernity and nationalism, and this has been discussed in the previous chapter about savings. In the current subject about home management and the emergence of the modern housewife, the idea of common sense was greatly employed again. For example, in the article ‘Common Sense and Life’, the author identified ‘common sense’ by two characteristics: general, and practical. In addition to being practical, ‘common sense’ was also essential for life; hence, according to the author, modern housewives should learn it in order to have happy families.48 Shenbao ran the ‘Common Sense’ column from June 1920 until March 1927, and several other newspapers had similar columns. Regular topics discussed included ‘economics’, ‘morality’, and ‘hygiene’. Moreover, it also included knowledge of the art of living well and the aesthetic design of utilities for daily use. ‘Hygiene’ (weisheng) was a very important idea presented to modern housewives in the ‘Common Sense’ column. Although many contemporary dictionaries translated ‘weisheng’ as both ‘hygiene’ and ‘sanitation’, ‘hygiene’ will be used most here.49 ‘Hygiene’ has connotations of health, cleanness, and subjects related to health care and health maintenance. It is closer to how ‘weisheng’ was used by the Chinese than ‘sanitation’, which is more narrowly focused on cleanliness and bacteria.50 For example, in 1920, this column had a short subsection which explained to the public how a really hygienic and sanitary person should behave.51 A detailed examination of this passage is revealing. First, the hygienic person sleeps and eats at the right time, and eats the right amount. Second, the hygienic person works eight hours per day, five hours of labouring, and three of mental work. Third, the hygienic person does not smoke or drink. This person avoids any kind of overly stimulating food, and drinks a glass of salted water every morning. Fourth, the hygienic person must exercise once or twice daily in the morning and evening, and wash regularly. Fifth, the hygienic person does not talk harshly or show any unpleasant facial expressions to other people. This person only shows a pleasant face and treats them with a gentle and sweet attitude. Sixth, the hygienic person has his/her own

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eating utensils, and washing and showering equipment. These will not be shared with other people. Seventh, before marriage, the hygienic person will arrange an examination of his future wife’s health, and her age must be over 25. Eighth, the hygienic person does not wear clothes that are too tight. In winter, the hygienic person does not wear a scarf and in summer does not go out naked. This person will wear a hat when going out, wearing clothes that allow his body to breathe, and wash them regularly. Ninth, the hygienic person will sterilize and boil his food. This person will not spit just anywhere, and will not go to public places where there might be infectious diseases. Tenth, the hygienic person does not misuse medicine, such as tonic, sleeping pills, and stimulating drugs. Eleventh, the hygienic person’s home will have an open south-facing window for better natural lighting. Indeed, like ‘common sense’, hygiene is a concept referring to a lifestyle. The hygienic person should fight bacteria, poor domestic living conditions, and a negative attitude to life. He has to work at keeping a positive view of himself and others. He must attain knowledge of the proper use of medicine, and take regular exercise, as well as having a general sense of the best arrangements in daily life. Hygienic knowledge is also common sense that modern housewives needed to learn. Although this article suggested to people that they take a broad view of daily life in order to be truly hygienic, in practice, at least for the housewife, the main concern was her family’s bodily health. Protecting family members from infectious diseases and the cleanliness of the family house became priorities. The poor quality of housing made domestic hygiene difficult and time-consuming. A few alleyway houses were built in the mid-1920s with modern gas pipes and bathrooms and flushing toilets. Such homes were constructed in 1924 on Xiafeifang (Jaffre Lane, or Huaihai Road after the 1949) in the French Concession.52 However, this was not common. From Shenbao’s housing advertisements, it seems that the installation of modern bathrooms and toilets was not popular before the late 1920s. Only after the widespread emergence of the new-style alleyway houses were middle- or upper-middle class residents able to say goodbye to night stools. As late as 1937, the few houses advertised with a sanitary room were either described as ‘new style residences’ (xinshi zhuzhai), garden houses (huayuan tun), or apartments (gongyü).53 A map showing the distribution of different types of housing in central Shanghai before 1949 indicates that there were four main kinds of house in Shanghai: Those with stone portals (shikumen)54 are in blue, new style alleyway houses in red, garden style houses in green, and

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finally, residential apartments in dark red-brown, (see Figure 3.3). Based on our analysis of the readership of Shenbao, we can hazard that the social distribution shown on this map is likely to reflect the geographical distribution of its wealthier readers among its broad readership.55 The blue dots were everywhere in the greater Shanghai area. However, they were more concentrated around the International Settlement, in particular the meeting point between Huangpu River and Suzhou Creek. The stone portals were also tightly packed beyond the Huangpu River and into Hongkou, site of the American concession, and the Northern Train station in Zhabei. These stone portals also occupied a lot of space on the West side of Suzhou Creek in the Huangpu district and in the South-east part of the Jingan area.56 Around Nanshi (South City, which was under the Nationalist government), there were also many stone portals. The red dots, which represented the new alleyway houses, were mainly to be found in three locations. First, the Hongkou and North Sichuan Road area (where many Japanese lived); second, the remainder of the Jingan area in the northern part of Huangpu district, and third, the new French concession, Xujiahui. The green dots for garden houses and the red-brown dots for apartments only occupied a tiny percentage of space in Shanghai, and were mainly seen even further west than Xujiahui.

Figure 3.3 Distribution of housing by social class in Shanghai (reproduced from Shanghai lilong linong minju. Beijing: Zhongguo jianzhu gongye chubanshe, 1993). Unfortunately it has not been possible to reproduce the colour-coding.

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Previous studies of Shanghai residential conditions agree that although the stone portals accounted for the majority of residential architecture, and most were located in the centre of foreign settlements, they were not popular with more well-off residents.57 In the mid-to-late 1920s, wealthier urban families moved out from stone portals to newstyle alleyway houses. It is reasonable to think that the distribution of social classes, treating the population as whole, reflects the distribution of housing in Shanghai: Shenbao’s housewife readership had a greater chance of living in the new alleyway houses in the western part of the foreign concessions. Although the local government did have policies for public health, the major responsibility for creating healthier conditions rested on the family, or even the individual.58 And even with the better living standards that came with moving into the new style of alleyway house, or even a garden house, the problem of hygiene was not solved, as appears from various advertisements in Shenbao. For example, one advertisement placed at the beginning of the summer warned people to be well prepared for the worst season for diseases. The heading of this advertisement by Shanghai Anglo-Chinese Dispensary (Zhongying da yaofang), one of the largest dispensaries at that time, read: ‘Crucial domestic sanitary products for summer’.59 It listed 26 products, and apart from some fruit drinks and toilet perfumes, sugar products, and herb pills, the rest were preventative medicine, washing-up liquids, and medicines. For example, it listed insecticides, larvicides, anti-itching cream, stomach pills, glass fly-traps, ammonia water for baths, camphor balls, mosquito repellent incense, anti-cholera water, and prickly-heat powder. Insecticidal and lanicidal liquid was put in a watering can and sprayed on the flower bed to prevent diseases. In the interview with Miss Feng, she remembered that when she and her family still lived in a stone portal house, her parents used to pour insecticides and larvicides (chou yaoshui) into the sewer outside the kitchen at the back of the house.60 In other advertisements, similar products appeared. For example, an advertising panel designed and sponsored by Shanghai Association of Mechanized National Products Manufacturers (Shanghai jizhi guohuo gongchang lianhehui), the largest group for native products in China before 1937, occupied a whole half page of Shenbao. Only native Chinese factories qualified for membership of this group. This advertising panel was deliberately given a dramatic name, ‘A normal housewife’s diary’. In this idealized diary, we can see what kinds of products she was told she needed for her family’s daily life. Of course, all the products were

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Chinese-made. The diarist recorded what she needed or what she bought on each day for 20 days in April. On 16 April, she recorded: The Municipal Government is holding a campaign for sanitation, our back door entrance area is rather filthy, it should be swept and cleaned. There was only half a tin left of the Yalin larvicides bought last year, and after a few sprays, it was all gone. I telephoned Weishi and asked him to buy a tin for me when he came (tonight). When he arrived, he also brought two cakes of Guben soap for me. It is really very useful for washing one’s body and hands. It was nice of him to think of this. He said, ‘Yalin larvicides and Guben soaps are both from the famous Wuzhou Dispensary, they can be bought in all the tobacco-paper shops, groceries, and pharmacies, they are sold everywhere. Just walk to the beginning of any of the alleyways, you don’t need to make a phone call.61 The new habit of housewives using chemicals for killing diseases and cleaning was formed at a similar time to the West, following the establishment of theories of bacteriological cleanliness in the 1920s.62 Concern about hygienic living environments brought a new market for commercial products, as seen in these two advertisements. Their style suggests that Shenbao’s readership regarded these chemical products as part of modern life. This kind of familiarity was represented, for example, by the male character in the second advertisement automatically picking up two bars of Guben soap for the diary-keeping housewife.63 Apart from knowledge of sanitation, the issue of child-care was also very important. Scientific theories about how to take care of children made the modern mother abandon her grandmother’s methods for raising children, and turn to new approaches.64 For example, modern parents would learn about the connection between nourishment, bodily development and children’s psychology. To raise children in a modern and scientific way became another new target for the Shenbao-reading housewife, and this new target was connected in many ways to concepts of sanitation and common sense that we have already discussed. In the ‘Common Sense’ column, an author using the pen name ‘Lüye’ asserted that parents should stop using old methods to handle their babies. Parents should not blame and reprimand, or even ignore, their crying babes at midnight. Lüye pointed out that the problem of babies crying at midnight could be much improved if mothers fed their babies correctly; timing and quantity of feeding were crucial.65

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If the housewife wanted to learn more about how to treat her newborn babies, she had other resources, such as Ladies’ Journal or Happy Family. For example, in the first issue of 1931, Ladies’ Journal taught mothers how to do exercises with their babies. These baby exercises had 16 stages, and mothers could easily follow the demonstration given in the 16 photos with explanations for each stage, (see Figure 3.4a–c). The magazine also illustrated some easy exercises for children in 26 pictures and captions. In this section, although some exercises still needed the parents’ help, most could be done by the children themselves, or with other children.66 Having strong bodies meant having a good future, and for China, having healthy people meant creating a strong nation. Children were the hope of both their parents and the Chinese nation. Apart from exercises, eating well also contributed to child growth, and this was work for the housewife. Much research on nutrition and aliment (yingyang) done by other countries was translated into Chinese.67 One article in Shenbao also explained to readers why food is good for the human body, because food contains at least six kinds of nourishment: water, salt, protein, fat, carbohydrate, and vitamins; each contributes to our bodies in a unique way.68 Similar topics were discussed in the magazine Happy Family. For example, Liu Wang Liming, a famous female activist and home economist, wrote an article ‘Nutrition and Health’ in this magazine.69 She argued that there were 17 main elements constituting the human body. Therefore, the housewife needed to remember these 17 elements, and (apart from oxygen) offer her family these as much as she could in their diet. Happy Family also talked about nutrition from eggs, how to make delicious sandwiches, and how to choose better milk powders for babies.70 It warned mothers that children would suffer bad effects from unnecessary snacks, particularly in the summer when diseases were active, and parents should therefore keep their children away from snacks.71 During an only slightly earlier period in London, although the Victorian housewife normally had one or two servants, she often still had to work with them, because there was always so much that needed to be done in a house without modern technology. This was the same in Shanghai, even though our Shenbao housewife did not need to do most of the heavy jobs by herself. Her servant normally came from another province, and was often called ‘Ah yi’, which literally means auntie. In this case, however it typically means nanny, although she might be given other chores in addition to looking after the children. Even then, the housewife still had plenty to worry about. One of the common chores done by most mothers was mending and patching clothes and

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Figure 3.4a, 3.4b, 3.4c Baby’s exercises from Funü zazhi (Ladies’ Journal), 17: 3, 1931

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Figure 3.4

Continued

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Figure 3.4

Continued

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shoes for the family. One mother gently ‘complained’ that her baby daughter grew too fast and was very energetic, so she had to constantly make and mend shoes for her daughter in order to keep pace with continual growth.72 For a year or so Ling Lung magazine, very popular with female readers, ran an item called ‘A Housewife’s Diary’ (Zhufu de riji), a series about a so called middle class housewife’s daily life. The story, written in diary form, recorded what happened to the protagonist on a daily basis. She lived with her husband, a baby girl, and a live-in nanny. In this ‘diary’ the protagonist ‘recorded’ that she sat next to the fireplace and made her baby daughter cloth-based shoes after dinner.73 Financial issues were a common topic in this housewife’s diary. Her husband had originally been an editor for a newspaper, but left the job because he was not happy that his captions for advertisements were changed without his agreement, and decided to write more literary articles for other publishers.74 Although this housewife did not write down the specific amount of her husband’s income, due to supporting their relatives from both sides of the family and having friends living with them for free, she had to worry about money all the time. Electricity bills, payment for the nanny, and even the cost of four seasoned large shrimps for dinner all weighed on her mind. Financial pressure for the modern housewife had a new rhythm, being governed by the date when wages were paid to her husband. The couple in this diary felt that a month went very slowly because they were longing for the husband’s salary; however, when they had to pay rents and bills, they felt a month was very short.75 In these circumstances, naturally, the housewife preferred to handle the shopping by herself, rather than asking her servant to do it for her, even if she was only buying vegetables from the peddler who came to the alleyway houses regularly to do business. Compared with other kinds of domestic work, shopping was the most creative job for housewives. We noted that one of the advertisements above pointed out that both soaps and larvicides could be bought in the tobacco paper shops on the corner of every alleyway. A short walk from her house to local shops gave the housewife exposure to a different set of experiences than if she had just stayed at home all day. She could plan what to buy, compare prices, meet people and chat to them, and collect commercial information. Sometimes walking to the regional centres for shopping might give housewives opportunities to meet their friends and chat.76 Similarly, doing the shopping was a welcome activity for Victorian housewives, as a diversion from their normal ‘sewing and kitchen

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work’.77 For them, shopping also meant more than just buying commodities. It involved at least implicit recognition of independence, as well as allowing them to go into the outside world where they could ‘exercise personal judgements’ over finances, and express their emotional attachments to their families through their purchases.78 From the discourses and the advertisements presented to and about modern housewives, an image of the readership of Shenbao and other women’s magazines can be constructed for whom the introduction of ‘common sense’ was an aid to learning the right way to run their households. Such a housewife was supposed to remember what she had learnt about germs and nutrition from Shenbao and elsewhere. She should also have studied the importance of saving and controlling the domestic budget. At the same time she ought not to abuse the ‘authority’ and responsibility she gained from the moment that she had her own family; she was to shop with her family’s best interests at heart. The new common sense could thus keep her very busy. If a housewife really wanted to employ scientific domestic knowledge and manage her home according to what the home economists said, then she needed to make plans. She had to decide, for example, what to eat and what food she needed to get for a day. In a typical week, she needed to leave a day aside for doing laundry, ironing, and mending. And she might find that some of her family members needed her to prepare more clothes. At the weekend, the family needed to take their children to the park, according to the experts’ suggestion, or visit their relatives. The housewife also needed to plan a month in advance, allowing for bills or any extra unexpected expenses. For the change of season, clothes and the domestic interior would have to be changed as well. And in the summer, the housewife had to pay attention to diseases in and outside the house. The new home economics and common sense become one of the main interests of the urban housewife. She built up a relationship with new products, particularly those products related to the concepts of sanitation, health, nutrition, and beauty. The urban housewife was in the front line of the battle to maintain the health and supply the needs of her family. She shared the responsibility with her husband for taking care of their home. Combining the tendency to try new things and her love of her family, her housekeeping finally became subject to the phenomenon of ‘emotionalization’.79 Emotionalisation ... provided a rationalization for the middle-class woman who was in most parts of the advanced capitalist world now doing her own housework ... Most importantly, the ideal of

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the non-working wife was consolidated ... Housework ... became not just a job but an expression of love and warmth, performed by each woman for her own family. ... Cowan has observed that cleaning the bathroom sink was not just cleaning, but an exercise of protective maternal instincts, providing a way for the housewife to keep her family safe from disease. Tasks of this emotional magnitude could not possibly be delegated to servants, even assuming that qualified servants could be found.80 Although these observations were made of the 1970s, they nevertheless fit in perfectly with the situation of Shenbao-reading housewives before 1937. The advertising literature in Shenbao emotionalized the housewife and her housekeeping. She was not only a domestic labourer, but a modern housewife who treated her housekeeping as a profession involving her affections for her family, and offering her family care and services. Commercial advertisements created imaginary situations for the housewife to realize through her own participation in activities such as shopping. After reading what home economists and advertisements had suggested in Shenbao, the housewife could go out and employ what she had learned in buying activities in the afternoon, as our opening advertisement for the mattress suggested. As in England, America, and Canada, the industrial revolution brought more manufactured products into the housewife’s world.81 The Shenbao housewife was inevitably attracted by all sorts of advertisements in the newspaper. She no longer needed to make everything by herself now. Instead, she had more to buy in the markets and streets. The items she chose after hours of careful research were purchased in the belief that she was doing the best for her family and herself. Therefore, the products she bought home had ‘social meanings’; the product itself was a ‘code’ and the ‘buying process’ coincided with the whole emotionalized background to being a housewife and her mission of housekeeping. The China Underwear Company’s advertisements are a good example of a company that promoted its products in this way. Placing a picture of two running healthy boys at the top of this advertisement, it said ‘Active children and students need to wear flexible and comfortable clothes to help their bodies to grow’.82 This advertisement was obviously intended to put ideas into the housewife’s mind. She was to imagine that the products would not only keep her children warm, but also help them grow. Our housewife might also have thought that her family needed cod-liver oil, because it contained rich sources of vitamins A and D

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and other nourishing elements. These were not only good for growing bones, but also for middle aged and old people. Families who consumed this product ‘will be the ideal happy family’.83 Similarly, ice-cream was sold to her as a source of rich nutrition that would be very good for her family. In one full-page ice-cream advertisement, the idea of a strong and healthy body was connected closely to the product, (see Figure 3.5). The whole advertisement was framed by a twisted chain pattern, so it looked very focused. On the left of this advertisement, there was a semi-naked man, wearing only his underwear, a pair of short socks and shiny black leather shoes, standing like a statue on the top of what is supposed to represent a large ice block. He was posed like a model, folding his arms behind his head. His body was very strong, and because he was wearing so little, his muscles on his arms, back, chest, stomach, and legs were very obvious. This vertical figure was placed at the forefront of the image for maximum visual effect, occupying a third of the entire page.84 To the right of this figure, the advertising space was divided into three parts. At the top, there was another large ice cube, to the right of which was a large glass of ice-cream. Beneath these two pictures, there was a flowing line (symbolizing the coolness of ice, but here also treated as the floor of a scene). There was a party happening on this wavy line. In the middle of the wavelet, there was a large round tray with many ice cubes, placed in a pyramid shape, and finished with an apple on the top. To the left of this pyramid of ice cubes, there were four women with smart outfits enjoying ice-cream (one sitting on the wave, the other three standing). On the right hand side, there were three other women doing the same thing. Beneath this female ice-cream party, the name of this product appeared in a large font, placed horizontally from right to left. Below this in turn was a short article introducing this product. It read: ‘Fanre-fo ice-cream is made in America. Made completely by machine, frozen under very low temperatures, and transported to Shanghai directly. It is very clean and pure, and other common ice creams cannot compete with it’. It continued by quoting the claim of an American chemistry professor that apart from ice-cream, no other kind of food contains the perfect amount of protein and salt for the needs of the human body. Other kinds of normal food lack calcium, so they often cause people to feel weak. Only ice-cream has this ingredient. The company continued by saying that ‘Children’s growth ... relies on calcium. Our ice-cream ... contains rich cream and iron, so it can improve the growth of hair, teeth, bones and nails. Its protein especially develops muscles and gives

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Figure 3.5 Ice-Cream advertisement, Shenbao, 9 May 1926

energy’. These claims were summarized by the slogans on the large ice cubes mentioned earlier. ‘Eat ice-cream everyday, strengthen the body and clear the mind’, ‘[Ice-cream is] good food for sanitation, it is the basis of health’.

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The article was accompanied by other shorter but equally strong statements, such as ‘Regular ice-cream eating is a good habit for strengthening the body, muscles and bones’ and ‘Having ice-cream before or after meals will not damage the appetite or stomach’. Apart from these sound medical ‘instructions’, the company also suggested that ‘Parents should instruct their children to buy ice-cream every day. However, they should also warn [them] not to wolf it down, but eat it slowly to gain full nourishment’. This ice-cream advertisement illustrates the process of emotionalization that the urban housewife experienced through her involvement in commercial and domestic life. Her common sense about nourishment, hygiene, and biology were appealed to. The simulated medical tone of the instructions added extra confidence. The guarantee given by this company that eating ice-cream will not harm children’s stomachs or reduce their appetite for regular meals was intended to reassure her, because this issue worried most mothers. Buying nice underwear, codliver oil, and ice-cream for children made our housewife move closer toward becoming a ‘virtuous wife and good mother’.

Conclusion The construction of Shenbao’s image of the housewife rested on finding new terms for the groups they belonged to, like ‘zhufu’ and ‘taitai’. These two categories were connected with the concept of ‘modernity’. Both it and they underwent a series of transformations, from negative to positive. In the case of the transformation of ‘zhufu’ and ‘taitai’, this was a result of the acknowledgment for the role of married women in the nuclear family. Being a good housewife, or a good mother and a virtuous wife, required commitment, energy, literacy, intelligence, and interest. The demand for common sense in home economics, however, did not mean the suppression of housewives’ personal requirements, either in terms of personal growth or material enjoyment. On the contrary, while housewives were active consumers, their personal interests were not treated as vices in a good mother. The image of the modern housewife was also connected with that of the mother of good citizens. This point was particularly stressed in relation to the consumer aspect of daily life. Not only did advertisements promote the benefits their products would contribute to children’s health, they also portrayed the companies as helping to create good citizens for China.

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Commercials in Shenbao designed for housewives, included promotions relating to activities associated with the national product movements. A way of playing the role of a good mother was to educate family members to use national products; housewives were the foot-soldiers in the national product ‘war’. These discourses in Shenbao suggest that individuals’ participation in the market involved an emotional as well as a physical investment. It demanded a sense of guilt and shame experienced by the inner self. The next chapter is going to look at how the individual feelings of Shenbao’s readers were mobilized by the Chinese products movements.

4 Shame, Guilt, and National Products

On 1 May 1920, Nanyang Tobacco Company (Nanyang) posed a question to the public in an eye-catching advertisement: ‘What is the meaning of the word “rights” (quan)?’ Obligingly, they provided the answer: The rights of the nation, the rights of the people, and “privileges and rights” (liquan) are very important.1 People, you are so earnestly fighting for the rights of the nation and the rights of the people, why don’t you recapture your privileges? To want to retrieve your privileges, you have to love using national products first,2 (see Figure 4.1). One of the most striking features of this advertisement was the picture placed on the right side of the panel. The naked upper body of a man reclines against a dark background. His head looks upward, and the rest of his upper body is in a dramatic pose. His left hand is on his waist, and his right arm is lifted up on the air, carrying a very heavy-looking old Chinese weight with the character ‘quan’ (right) printed on it. The muscles of his arms and his neck are very pronounced. The original meaning ‘quan’ in Chinese is a weight for a scale; later it also meant ‘to make judgements’. As we shall see, the heroic portrayal of this man is very representative of the self-image of the national product movement. The text accompanying this picture combined the original Chinese meanings of quan (scale) with the new idea of right and gave it a dual reference: to the judgements necessary to restore the privileges of the Chinese people, and to the strong body of the individual, who should be brave and patriotic. In 1923, Nanyang placed another advertisement, this time for its ‘Great Wall brand’, with a caption and picture urging Chinese people to 103

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Figure 4.1

Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 1 May 1920

buy native cigarettes.3 The image depicts the education of the Chinese younger generation, (see Figure 4.2). In it a female teacher, wearing the traditional wide-sleeved shirt, and a modest A-line skirt, stands in Western-style heels. Her back faces the reader as she inspects her uniformed primary students, marching beside the high campus brick wall. Her ‘troops’ are walking in military formation in two neat parallel lines, arranged in decreasing order of height. On the ground, next to her left foot, are a small ball and two croquet gates. To the left of the picture, the lengthy caption read: Little brothers, little brothers, listen to what I am telling you. Although you are still young, you are already members of the Republic of China ... Foreigners call us the Country of Sick People. Our country’s dangerous situation is really disgraceful (kechi) ... However, as long as people don’t lose heart, and the whole nation is patriotic, this weak country will still be able to do something ... Promote national products and gain back its rights and power. We will never adopt foreign goods, we will ensure China endures for a billion years, and everybody will be a hero. In the middle of this long caption, there is a picture of a tin of cigarettes. Both sides of this tin bear the legend: ‘We wish smokers to be the great wall of our country’. In another example of the use of nationalism to advertise national products, in 1931, Yantai Beer Company, a Chinese-owned business, placed a large advertisement in Shenbao.4 This advertisement gave four reasons why the whole nation allegedly liked to drink Yantai beer. The first three reasons were the purity of this beer, made from spring water;

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Figure 4.2

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Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 23 May 1923

its relatively cheap price, and the good delivery service with the added facility of telephone ordering. The final reason was the promotion of native products. Promoting native goods and gaining back Chinese rights and powers were obligations of the entire nation. The whole nation would have to abolish its old shameful habit of using foreign products. C. F. Remer, a contemporary, pointed out that the Chinese boycotts from 1905 to 1932 had ‘powerful effects of an emotional and psychological sort ... The rise of present-day boycotting in China has been connected with the rise of Chinese nationalism.’5 Remer’s view can be endorsed by posterity, but we will also extend this observation and look at the emotional psychology of the support given to the movement by one of the largest commercial newspapers in Shanghai. All three advertisements exemplify the combination of commercialism and nationalism in a way alleged to be beneficial to China’s development: both phenomena worked together in the same advertisement to sell one product. These nimble advertising tactics helped Chinese industries to survive. In the case of the Yantai Beer Company, for example, by emphasizing the purity of the beer, they focused on modern concerns about cleanliness and hygiene already noted in the chapter on housewives. In addition, they appealed to potential customers through cheaper prices. Moreover, the novel offer of telephone ordering with home delivery was designed to attract people with changing shopping habits that reflected their modern lifestyles and financial status. On the other hand, the company also played the nationalist card. What catches the attention in these advertisements is the employment of the concept of ‘shame’ (chi) to maximum effect. ‘Shame’, an

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important existing moral principle of Chinese tradition, was brought up to date and made to serve the needs of nationalism and patriotism in a modern context. This study of Shenbao suggests that in public discourse, ‘shame’ went beyond the boundaries of its original meaning in issues of ‘face’, and became connected to an idea of ‘guilt’ and a modern nationalist rhetoric of obligation designed to raise awareness amongst individuals of their role as members of the nation. This chapter will look at how ‘shame’ was employed in these commercial and nationalistic contexts in Shanghai, and how it interacted with the concerns over individuality present in Shenbao’s readership. First, however, we must examine the notion of the consumer.

Chinese consumers The verb ‘to consume’ and its cognates had been introduced from Japan in the late Qing period. ‘Consumer’ was recognized as a neologism by both A.H. Mateer and Evan Morgan when compiling their phrasebooks during the early twentieth century.6 Although scholars have already paid attention to consumption, for example, of silk and woodblock books during the Ming and Qing dynasties,7 it is misleading to describe the people of this time as consumers in the twentieth century sense. What was lacking from these earlier periods in Chinese history was the existence of large groups of urban consumers, such as those in Shanghai. The popular usage of ‘consumer’ (xiaofeizhe) draws attention to several facets of this novel experience. Firstly, it had as its background massive machine production and an unprecedented scale of distribution.8 In the West, these forms of economic activity had appeared after the Industrial Revolution, but they were only introduced to China at the beginning of the late Qing period. However, before the introduction of machine-made products, the large-scale Sino-Western trade in goods such as silk, tea, and opium had already driven innovations in money, credit, insurance, and transportation. Trade also commercialized Chinese agriculture and created new commercial centers.9 Later, it led to the introduction of Western-style organization of purchasing and stock exchange systems in China.10 The opening of the treaty ports also brought a rise in consumption to Shanghai, due in particular to the huge volume of imported goods.11 This phenomenon created a new rash of general stores in China. Even before the establishment of larger department stores in Shanghai, such as Sincere (Xianshi

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baihuo gongsi) in 1917, and Wing On in 1918, general stores for sundry foreign goods had opened ‘almost everywhere in the city’.12 The popularity of such goods is evidence of the appearance of modern consumers in Chinese society.13 Although the large department stores in Shanghai offered new sightseeing spots and entertainments in urban life (they often included a leisure centre on their top floor), Lu Hanchao points out that most of the daily shopping was done in neighbourhood shops. ‘It was ... quite common for Shanghai people to visit Nanjing Road, and the Bund only once or twice in many years.’14 Compared with Western consumer society, Chinese consumerism, even in Shanghai, was never on the same scale.15 The ‘consumer’ in Shenbao’s readership shopped at a wide variety of locations – department stores in large commercial areas, neighbourhood shops, and even at the tobacco paper stores on the corner of alleyways in the residential areas. Nevertheless, even the smallest retailers were involved in selling products manufactured by machines in a process of mass production, whether their goods were foreign or national. The Chinese-owned companies that manufactured products to meet daily household needs, such as cigarettes, matches, underwear, socks, hats, shoes, towels, fabrics, dyeing materials, hot water bottles, soap, pots and pans, cosmetics, disinfectant, mosquito-repellent incense, medicines, electric fans, etc., required large markets to support this production. It was only by defining the populace as consumers that the foundations for large-scale production of national products could be laid down. Secondly, the ‘consumer’ also became aware of the meaning of ‘private liberty’. Chapter 1 addressed personal tastes and interests in consumption, the ‘private liberty’ that allowed an individual to be both a consumer who participated in a collective identity, and to make distinctive decisions based on the ‘natural desire to better [his] condition.’16 What needs to be emphasized here is that the values of Shanghai consumers were becoming more moderate and rational. The luxury and wastefulness of the late Qing period have been pointed out by several researchers;17 however, these traits subsided during the 1920s and 30s.18 It is unlikely to be coincidental that this shift in consumer attitudes happened at the same time as the development of personal saving accounts. As discussed in the second chapter on individual banking accounts, Shanghai-dwellers developed the sense to plan their budgets based on their income. Similarly, articles urging the habit of saving were a popular theme in publications such as Shenbao’s ‘Common Sense’ column, Ladies’ Journal, and Life Weekly.

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Figure 4.3

Advertisements for imported products, Shenbao, 13 May 1928

This climate in Shenbao from the late 1920s onwards forms an interesting contrast with the numerous fabulous and luxurious advertisements for foreign products,19 (see Figure 4.3). Underlying it was Shenbao’s complicated situation as a commercial newspaper that also had to reflect its readers’ diverse patterns of consumption: these readers wanted to be

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rational, and prepare for the future (morality was not the main motivation anymore); but at the same time, they were interested in new foreign products. In his analysis of the relationship between markets and consumers, Don Slater uses several pairings of contrary and contradictory concepts, such as ‘rational/irrational’, ‘active/passive’, ‘creative/conformist’, and ‘individual/mass’ to categorize ideal norms of consumer behaviour.20 There is of course no such clear contrast in reality; nevertheless, the tensions expressed by these pairs were reflected in the situation of Shanghai consumers during the national product movements. One of the main difficulties facing the national products movement was that many foreign products were actually cheaper than China-made goods, due to the larger scale of production commanded by foreignowned companies.21 However, the combination of larger commercial markets with more mature consumer behaviour made the organizers of the national products campaigns think they had a core audience willing to listen to persuasion. Therefore, by employing the term ‘consumer’ to refer to Shenbao’s readers and then moving on to address the issue of patriotism, this introductory article for ‘Shenbao National Products Weekly’ was persuading Shenbao’s readers, who came from different social backgrounds, to support national products.22 On the one hand, it did not want to completely ignore or reject the autonomy of individuals as consumers. On the other hand, it urged consumers to go beyond pure self-interest, and protect the national welfare.23 In these two ways, the ancient discourse of guilt and shame transformed itself to become embedded in a modern patriotic and commercial context, as we shall now see in our re-examination of the notion of shame (chi).

Re-examining ‘chi’ ‘Chi’ should not be merely understood as translatable by ‘shame’. The idea of ‘chi’ that worked for Chinese ‘salvation’ in events such as the national product movement was in fact a mixture of ideas of shame and guilt. Secondly, the idea of chi worked both individually and collectively through operating to create both feelings of personal guilt and a sense of national shame. We will look in detail at how the idea of chi was related to ideas of nationalism in early twentieth century thinkers such as Liang Qichao (1873–1929), but first it is necessary to establish the broader context. A common way of characterizing the ethical differences between Western and Asian societies, including the Chinese, is to draw a contrast

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between the ideas of shame and guilt.24 The Chinese are claimed to have understood the concept of ‘shame’ in a way that dominated the regulation of behaviour; by contrast, in Western societies, people are considered to have been moved by the ‘guilt’ of a reflexive individual consciousness constructed by Christianity.25 In the shame-oriented society, punishment is administered by a variety of authorities in a number of different forms, including family sanctions, loss of social status and exposure to ridicule and criticism. These are the main fruits of ‘wrong’ behaviours. In a social morality oriented around sin and guilt, by contrast, personal blame, grief, and the practice of confession to God, whether or not via the intermediary of a priest, are the distinguishing features. 26 There is clearly something to be said for this large-scale distinction. However, several points need to be addressed. First, the idea of shame in English is normally translated by ‘chi’ in Chinese. Chi’s radical is ‘ear’, and its character ‘xin’, means heart, or mind (because in the Chinese context heart was thought to be the place that human beings did their thinking, and this reflected the way that Chinese words were created). Chi, however, can arguably be more accurately translated into English as ‘disgrace’ or ‘humiliation’. Being disgraced or humiliated is a situation appropriate to people caught or discovered doing something which does not fit social norms. In other words, people who were humiliated lost face in public. As Eberhard remarks, the fact that chi is ‘written with the determinant “ear” and the word for “heart” ... is explained by lexicographers as a feeling which causes one’s ears to become red’.27 When a person feels shame or guilt, his ears will turn red, as the blood from his heart (xin) flows to the surface of his skin. Even though chi has this visual significance, it should not be understood merely in the sense of losing face, or as related exclusively to ‘shame’ (in contrast with guilt or sin) in the Chinese social context. None of these English translations of ‘chi’ are entirely satisfactory for conveying how this word relates to the deepest feelings of the individual. Second, the profound feelings associated with ‘chi’ are best displayed by an analysis of its connections with other words, which suggest chi needs to be understood as part of a broader vocabulary descriptive of the self’s expectations and obligations regarding the practice of morality. Chi in fact also carries the meaning of ‘guilt’ in the Chinese tradition.28 In Confucian teaching, the concept of ‘ren’ (humanity or virtue) occupied a critical position. One of the most important meanings of ren is: ‘Do not do to others what you would not have done to yourself’.29 The

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question is, then, how to act rightly towards yourself and others, and how to make sure this action is the correct one. Right action comes from reflection on and analysis of self, and in Confucianism this process is the practice of the sense of ‘chi’. Here, ‘chi’ acts as a ‘positive’ driving force, educating people in the norms of morality and possession of their own dignity. In other words, chi is not only about humiliation in front of others. It can also mean private feelings of shame and guilt. The feeling of chi does not need to be a response to social pressure and condemnation, but can be a reflection of a person’s self-criticism. As Mencius (372– 289 BC) later claimed: ‘A man may not be without shame. When one is ashamed of having been without shame, he will afterwards not have occasion for shame.’30 Therefore, a gentleman is one who inspects himself for a sense of shame. Zengzi (505–436 BC), another important Confucian figure, examined himself ‘three times’ a day, and he would do nothing which would cause him shame even in a room by himself.31 A gentleman, then, uses the principle of chi to examine himself and others. Although he would be ashamed if his performance of a bad deed was discovered by others, he would already have felt guilty simply as a result of his own reflection. This inner process involving ‘chi’ and the idea of guilt should not merely be confused with the concepts of face and social pressure in the Chinese society, as the Chinese word chi means ‘listening to the heart’, the inner voice. Apart from this Confucian tradition, the religious aspect of Chinese society also inculcated the notion of guilt. Eberhard elaborates on the ways in which guilt and sin penetrated common people’s daily practices through their religion. He points out that although lower class people in particular were not readers of Confucian texts, folk songs, operas, and stories delivered the same doctrines to them.32 Again, Pei-Yi Wu exposes the existence of a confessional style of writing in China, particularly of a religious kind. Even though these kinds of texts did not belong to the mainstream of Chinese classical literature, their appearance in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries can be said to ‘reflect a changing attitude or a new mood in the moral climates’.33 By analyzing the interaction between Buddhism and Daoism, Wu explains that the ideas of guilt and sin were practised through religious prayer both publicly and privately in the form of confession. Third, I want to emphasize the connection between guilt and the context of nationalism in Chinese modernity. As Chinese people were already familiar with the sense of guilt in both their religious practices

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and Confucian principles, their adoption of a felt sense of national shame, internalized as guilt and obligation, was no novelty for them. The connection of patriotism with chi was well-known in the Chinese tradition. One example is the story of Wen Tianxiang, the thirteenth century South Song officer and patriotic poet, a captive of the Mongol conquerors of South Song who established the Yuan dynasty. In the late Qing period, the story of how Wen nevertheless refused to serve the new dynasty, and was executed three years later, became popular.34 It related how he had written his last words on his belt: ‘Confucius talked about attaining Virtue (ren), Mencius discussed achieving Righteousness (yi). Only if Righteousness has been accomplished has Virtue been reached. What have we learned from studying the books written by sages and men of virtue? From now on, I can hardly feel ashamed of myself’35. Wen Tianxiang emphasized that he had studied Confucianism and internalized its values as his own. His loyalty stemmed from his belief that a gentleman should be responsible for his actions, and he would not betray his people. His conscience did not allow him to do anything other than die for his country: surrendering would only cause him shame and guilt. Wen Tianxiang’s story represented a typical example of conscientious, responsible, and patriotic conduct. In this context, the Mongols were seen as invaders without civilization and also the destroyers of Chinese culture. Such hostility toward different ethnic groups can of course be found in many literatures. Just as in European political discourse, we can discern the use of ‘asymmetric counter-concepts’36 in the distinction between the barbarians and the favoured Han Chinese. The shame caused by the invasion of a nonHan group constituted the main discourse in the construction of the nationalist emotions of the people.37 A similar approach was employed by the leading figures of the late Qing period. For example, the declaration of a ‘Chinese United League’ (Zhongguo tongmenghui) headed by Sun Yat-sen distinguished the Qing government from the Han race as a way of garnering popular enthusiasm in 1905.38 As part of the attempt to overturn the Qing government in order to build a modern republican political body, the declaration used ‘guomin’ (people of the nation, or citizen) to educate the Chinese people about the concept of the modern state and their identity as members of a nation or as citizens.39 Liang Qichao, one of the most famous figures to have discussed citizenship early in this period, regarded China’s condition as a source of shame (chi).40 The solution was the cultivation of ‘new people’ (xinmin) who would base their lives on the concept of right (quanli). Such ‘new

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people’ would not only promote the growth of ‘private virtue’ (side), but were also crucial to the growth of public virtue (gongde).41 Liang thought that the quality of people’s private virtue reflected their level of public virtue, and vice versa.42 He also made a list of the reasons for the decline in popular virtue between the time of Spring and Autumn (770–476 BC) and late Qing periods. These included the power of the sovereign, the personal characteristics of the emperors, wars, and standards of scholarship as well as of material life.43 Liang Qichao was strongly of the view that the corruption of virtue in the late Qing period was the worst in history. Popular morality was ‘filthy to the extreme, and full of every bit of evilness.’44 The lack of both public and private virtue resulted in the lack of a sense of the ‘group’ or community in Chinese society. He took from Confucian doctrine the belief that self-respect (zizun) was essential to human identity, and decided that the reformation of modern China depended on regaining this ‘self-respect’, which he believed had been lost.45 Liang Qichao extended these ideas to his thoughts on citizenship, claiming that without ‘self-respect’, a person cannot be a citizen, and a nation will fail to be a nation.46 In the end, Liang Qichao wrote: ‘I am particularly worried that if everybody has lost their self-respect, and then four hundred million people will have accepted their enslavement as beasts of burden as a divinely imposed duty. This kind of deep-rooted habit of self-deprecation and dependency will make them give in to one man today, and another tomorrow.’47 The idea of self-respect in the discourse of the construction of the nation in modernity implies people’s ‘awareness’ of their true situation; this was then transferred to those meanings of ‘chi’ relating to citizenship. John Fitzgerald, in Awakening China, thought that Liang Qichao’s call for new citizens was an attempt to build a new ethics for China. This ambition can be traced to Liang Qichao’s teacher, Kang Youwei (1858– 1927), but in fact there are grounds of divergence between them.48 According to Fitzgerald, Kang gave his ‘awakened’ men a sympathy for ‘cosmopolitanism’, and argued that the ‘self’ should finally locate itself in the world, not the nation. Being sympathetic to the Chinese anarchists, Kang thought that all nations, as irrational unions of human beings, should eventually disappear, even including China.49 Liang did not agree with his teacher, believing that what China urgently needed was to become a modern nation. Even though they did not agree with each other on this point, Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, and the Chinese anarchists were all hoping for the emergence of ‘awakened’ individuals with a new code of ethics.

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Countless figures devoted themselves to this project, including Sun Yat-sen, Chen Duxiu, the Nationalist party, and the Communists. As Huang Jinling shows in his recent book, modern China’s construction involved the transformation of the body, of institutions, and of mentalities. Huang pays particular attention to the ‘reform’ of Chinese people’s bodies and minds through laws and the regulations of all levels of education. The common term in this context, gaizao (literally meaning change and building) specifically indicated the urgency of prompt reforms in physical training and ethical education through schools, society, and the family.50 What was the new ethics? Liang Qichao wanted to build ‘new people’ for China; Chen Duxiu was looking for an ‘emotional [tie]’ between individuals and China; and Sun Yat-sen was trying to abolish boundaries, whether ties of family or clan, between individuals and the nation.51 But the new ethics for all of them involved patriotism, which is now the link between awakened individuals and the nation. The awakened self was one who had undergone a deep realization of his condition and his surroundings. He recognizes his situation and wants to improve his circumstances. As Fitzgerald puts it, this is a very ‘personal affair’.52 The new ethics was constructed around self-conscious individuals cultivating patriotism, and the ideas of shame and guilt played a key role. Under this kind of mental settlement, centred on an organic political body encompassing individual and nation, the rise of Chinese nationalism became possible. The sense of shame and guilt was the glue which linked these components together. Meanwhile, in order to promote and develop these ideas and engage and enthuse ordinary people, it was necessary that the language which carried this discourse must be plain, and the forms supporting it flexible.

Spreading the sense of guilt with plain words Although not all of the anti-foreign product movements played out exclusively in large cities, most of them did. The obvious reasons for this were both economic and social. In cities, there were naturally more consumers and more commercial activity, as well as greater intellectual and cultural exchange, particularly in the large treaty ports. Lucian Pye, in his article ‘How China’s Nationalism was Shanghaied’ bravely attempts to explain why those Chinese people who lived in treaty ports, particularly Shanghai, carried a greater feeling of guilt than their rural counterparts, and how this led them to a much stronger embrace of nationalism.53

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Pye begins by observing that Chinese intellectuals and political leaders had lost focus in their pursuit both of modernization and of a nationalist agenda. He argues that the vast majority of Chinese people had failed to grasp these concepts, due to their strong cultural roots, and also due to the unique political situation from the late nineteenth century. In addition, China’s case was very different to that of other countries. Unlike colonized countries in Asia and Latin America, China’s treaty port system gave her people only indirect contact with foreigners, and this, Pye argues, gave Chinese people a far more complex feeling toward foreigners. Without being directly dominated by foreigners, but at the same time being forced to cope with the impact of foreign activity, Chinese elites failed to bridge tradition and modernity. Therefore, their actions towards nationalism and modernization were hasty and extreme: ‘either nihilistically denouncing Chinese civilization or romanticizing it’.54 In these circumstances, ambiguous feelings of ordinary Chinese people toward foreigners were created. Taken all together, the result was a mindset that prevented Chinese engaging in direct confrontation with foreigners, a trait demonstrated most strongly by the inhabitants of Shanghai. Pye also argues that the gap in living conditions between the treaty ports and interior China led to different attitudes and reactions towards the West. The people living in treaty ports, and in particular the middle class, who had essentially voted with their feet in favour of foreign rule, nevertheless tended to develop feelings of guilt, and be more supportive to ideas of nationalism. Pye’s observations on modern Chinese history and Chinese elites certainly contribute to our understanding of the development of Chinese nationalism, while his account of the particular attitudes and behaviours of the treaty port inhabitants also offers an interesting perspective. However, from Shenbao and other materials explored in this book, three points require our attention. First, it was not only the middle class, or indeed any particular social group, which was capable of carrying this sense of guilt or of comprehending the idea of nationalism. True, intellectuals and party leaders in treaty ports were typically the people who initiated anti-foreigner activities and who produced literature to encourage and inspire patriotic feeling; but they were the people who had the greatest ability and knowledge to do so, and once protests began people of all classes joined in enthusiastically. Second, although it is true that most of the anti-foreigner and boycott movements rose up in treaty ports, the existence of the middle class was not the main reason for this phenomenon. Rather the entire urban economic, social,

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demographic, and political background should be taken into account. Finally, the association between nationalism and feelings of guilt and shame can be equally demonstrated in rural areas, for example, in an account of how village people formed small-scale militias during the Boxer Uprising in Shangxi province.55 Pye’s analysis of the relationship between Chinese people, nationalism, and feelings of guilt, therefore, may ultimately prove incomplete in delivering a deeper understanding of the situation. From many articles in Shenbao, along with advertisements and other literature at that time, we see evidence that patriotic discourse was aimed at readers from a variety of social groups, and also at people living outside Shanghai. In China’s situation, where the leaders of political movements were pushing for strong government, efforts to foster this national sense of shame in combination with feelings of personal guilt answered an urgent need. Place these efforts alongside what we have gathered in our exploration of Shenbao’s readership, and consumers in general in the Chinese context, and we can fairly conclude that the plain language which was used to carry ideas of nationalism and sense of guilt was not aimed solely at intellectuals or people with higher social status. On the contrary, it was the wider general public which was targeted, through use of simple language accessible to the masses. What connected national shame with personal guilt in this literature were repeated metaphorical depictions of the defeat of the nation as a blow impacting the family, or even as a personal tragedy. For example, one song urged people to have a sense of shame about China’s situation in the world: Please look at the dispossessed people, they are suffering and very pitiful. They are like slaves and beasts of burden without freedom.56 The author of this song likened the Chinese people to little better than farm animals, in order to warn his people that losing their country meant not only the loss of freedom, but, far worse, the loss of their humanity. Another such song gave an even more vivid picture of how national shame translated into popular pain. Entitled ‘Five Sighs Song for “The Twenty-One Demands” ’, it contained lines such as: The Twenty-One Demands is like twenty-one rough jutes. Alas, my whole body is bound extremely tightly ... My body is like a meat dumpling ...

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These Twenty-One Demands are like twenty-one lashes ... Alas, my whole body can hardly stand the pain from beating. One lash leaves a mark, two lashes leave two marks ... Alas, how can I be reconciled to this beating for no reason.57 In this song, the author linked national issues to personal experience, and presented national defeat in a way that was hard to ignore. The loss of the nation’s privileges was a metaphorical physical torment. If the cultivation of the private and public virtues of citizenship took a long time to mature, at least nationalism could rely in the meantime on the passionate emotions associated with ‘chi’. It was through this kind of image that ‘citizenship’ was actualized for people at the same moment that they shared the ‘pain’ of the whole nation.58 In Shen Lianqi’s Speeches on the Nation’s Shame, such feelings about China’s situation formed the main theme.59 This collection addressed events such as the Opium War, the Sino-French War over Annam, the Sino-Japanese War over Korea, the Boxer Uprising, the Russo-Japanese War in Manchuria, and the Twenty-One Demands issued to China by Japan. In order to make Chinese people recall recent history, publications associated with the national product movement often made lists of these events, and large-scale commemorations were usually organized by the national product movement on their anniversaries. In this particular instance, although Shen told his readers that they should be rational and not indulge in hatred of foreigners, he used language that reminded the Chinese that their country had been taken advantage of and shamed by other nations; the unmistakable message was that they were expected to feel guilty once they were awakened.60 This kind of discourse was also employed in patriotic songs to good effect. In the song ‘Shame Inspiring Song’, we find the lines: Everybody, summon up your courage and try hard. Bestir our spirits, spread our country’s power and fame, and clear the nation’s shame (guochi).61 From the literature discussed so far, it ought to be clear that the idea of chi in traditional Chinese society embraced more than ‘shame’ as a means of normalizing people’s behaviour. The confessional style and the accompanying sense of guilt which have often gone unnoticed by scholars of ‘chi’ can be found in both Confucian literature and folk religious practice. Moreover, ‘chi’ contained both elements of shame and

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guilt as a result of Chinese political history. Chinese people had long been familiar with the association of national shame and personal guilt in the form of ‘asymmetric counter-concepts’ created in response to past invasions. This association had in fact been in widespread use as recently as the late Qing period to serve the emergent demands of citizenship. But how did these songs suggest people protect China? ‘Five Sighs for the National Shame for “The Twenty-One Demands” ’ continued: ‘First, let’s improve national products. The work must be solid, and the materials must be real. Then make styles with new fashions. Second, the prices cannot be high. Sell them, as long as it covers the cost of production. Naturally people will be happy to promote them.’62 The promotion of national products seemed be the most realistic way for ordinary individuals to help their country.63 We saw at the beginning of this chapter that the combination of nationalism and commercialism was frequently employed by Nanyang. This company also made use of the idea of national awakening in its advertisements. In 1920, it placed an advertisement presenting readers with a large male lion sitting very erect on the right side of the advertisement,64 (see Figure 4.4). Immediately to the left of this lion were two Chinese characters in a large font: juewu (to awake), and to the left of these, a short article. It said: The most horrible thing in life is that people are not awakened. If people are already awakened, they should love their country. The best way to love one’s country is by promoting national products and retrieving rights and profits. So I want to offer a piece of advice to everybody; if you wore foreign clothes in the past, now you should want to wear Chinese clothes. If you used foreign products previously, now you should want to use China-made goods ... Awakened people, never forget this. The single lion in this advertisement represents a hopeful image for both individual ‘citizens’ and China. The awakened lion with its mouth open suggests the decision not to continue in a dazed state, described as the most horrible thing in the life by this advertisement. ‘Awakening’ relies on the individual’s inner reflection to make him feel ashamed of the international situation of his country. Chi helped to project the shame of the country onto people’s personal failures and defeats. Similarly, the ideas of national shame and personal guilt were employed in songs encouraging people to screw up their courage and fight for national

Shame, Guilt, and National Products

Figure 4.4

119

Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 15 May 1920

products. For example a ‘Song for Promoting National Products’ published in Shenbao ran: Why are we good Chinese people helping foreigners? ... If we voluntarily sell foreign products, The national subjugation and genocide are coming. This year is students’ year for promoting national products, you have to be earnest to advertise national products. Beside studying and attending class ... Make resisting foreign goods a priority. They drain our money and take our lives ... How were Korea and Okinawa ruined? How were Liaoning and Shenyang assaulted? Also [remember] the Mukden Incident and the Shanghai Incident.65 When national calamities happen, the suffering is unbearable. Everybody, don’t use foreign products, Keep our country and peace.66 Another example from Shenbao contained the following lines: Foreign products, foreign products, Suck our blood like a fierce animal ... . National products, national products, Let’s make them by ourselves ... The money will come back again.67

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In such songs, national subjugation and national calamities were presented as the results of selling foreign products, and the contrast between ‘Chinese good people’ and ‘fierce animals’ was intended to give the Chinese confidence and self-respect (zizun, in Liang Qichao’s term), in being members of their nation. A collective national memory of humiliating events such as the Twenty-One Demands, and the Mukden Incident also connected the past to the present in a way that served current requirements. Nor must we be too quick to draw a line between urbanites and country folk based on the division of sense of shame and guilt. In 1920s and 1930s China, with her lack of external and internal political cohesion and loose governing power, the idea of individual shame and guilt was externalized to serve the function of a ‘social contract’ to bind the whole society together and give it a collective identity. Thus, promoting national products became a very popular method whereby chinese individuals could demonstrate their patriotism. We can now explore the role of the idea of guilt in the national product movement as it appeared in Shenbao in greater detail.

Chi and the national product movement Babara Mittler in her study of Shenbao prior to 1912 points out that Shanghai people during that period of time had a ‘syndrome’ of ‘multiple personalities’. By this she means that Shanghai people possessed more than one identity. On the one hand they looked up to the West; on the other hand, they were extremely sensitive about their backward social and material status, and this feeling could turn to hostility toward foreigners. Mittler concludes that this kind of psychology, very well expressed by Shenbao, was widely shared by Chinese people, and became a ‘collective psyche of a modernizing China confronting the foreign presence’.68 Mittler’s observation here offers an explanation as to why, through the Shenbao newspaper, the National Product Movement was able to gather momentum throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Shenbao’s ‘Jilian Association Column’ (Jilian huikan, and Jilian here stands for Shanghai Association of Mechanized National Products Manufacturers) and it’s ‘Shenbao National Products Weekly’ (Shenbao guohuo zhoukan), later renamed ‘Shenbao National Products Special Column’ (Shenbao guohuo zhuankan), were the leading columns for promotion of national products in Shanghai newspapers from 1928 to 1937. The Jilian Association Column was sponsored by Shanghai Association of Mechanized National Products Manufacturers (Jilian Association

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hereafter). The Jilian Association was established in June 1927, and became the most active union in the Chinese national products movement.69 The Jilian Association immediately replaced the Chinese National Product Preservation Association (Zhonghua guohuo weichihui), which had been formed in 1911 but had been suffering a decline in membership as early as 1920.70 In its early days, the Jilian Column was given half a page, and was filled by advertisements from different national factories, divided into many small squares.71 Most of the time, each advertisement only had enough space to allow the company to put down its name and the name of its product. Sometimes the logos of the products were squeezed in. Later, Jilian Column also accommodated articles. The most regular writer was Pan Yangyao, who has already been mentioned in the previous chapters on individual savings accounts and the modern housewife. Although he mostly used his other pen name ‘Pan Yangmang’ or simply ‘Yangmang’ when he was writing about the national products movement, he will be referred as ‘Pan Yangyao’ in the main text of this book. In early 1932, Chang Kia-ngau, the chairman of Bank of China, began inviting bankers and industrial figures for Friday afternoon discussions of the future of national products. In August, with Huang Yanpei’s support, one meeting decided to form the ‘Chinese National Product Production and Distribution Association’ (Zhongguo guohuo chanxiao xiehui).72 Pan Yangyao (Yangmang), who at that time represented his own Zhongnan Industrial Company, was one of the 15 members on the executive board of the new association.73 A year later, the new association expanded, and its members decided to rename it the ‘Chinese National Product Company’ (Zhongguo guohuo gongsi) to accommodate new members and the increased demand for national products.74 On 9 February 1933, a full-page advertisement on the cover of Shenbao announced that the Chinese National Product Company was to use Dalu Shopping Centre (Dalu shangchang) in Nanjing Road, the busiest road in Shanghai, as its permanent location from which it would sell national products. On the same page, Shi Liangcai, Pan Yangyao, and Wang Zhixin were listed as executives of this company.75 The new association, in combination with the Shanghai Nationalist Government, had declared 1933 the year of national products. ‘Shenbao National Products Weekly’ was launched on the first day of the year, and Pan Yangyao was the chief editor. From Jilian’s Column to the ‘Shenbao National Products Weekly’, Pan Yangyao remained the most active

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writer on such subjects in Shenbao, even after his superior, his close friend Shi Liangcai, was assassinated in 1934.76 The ideas of national shame and popular guilt underwent some alteration as the result of the connection between commercial activities and patriotic consumption of national products. This process is visible in the introductory article explaining this column’s mission of bridging the gap between producers, distributors, and consumers. This article pointed out that contemporary national products were different from the past. This time, the campaign on their behalf was well prepared, and there was co-operation between ‘production, distribution, and consumption’. It referred to Chinese people by a modern term, ‘consumers’ (xiaofeizhe), and claimed that previously, because consumers were unable to tell which were genuine national products, they were exposed to blame from their conscience. It declared: As for consumers, because there are many foreign products on the market, even if they make up their mind to use national products, it is very hard for them to choose. After they buy the wrong things, and make big mistakes, their own conscience condemns them and the material loss really annoys them ... The blood and fire of the Mukden Incident and the Shanghai Incident have already shocked and awakened the whole Chinese people’s heart. Never again will anyone want to buy poor quality products and send money away to pay the enemy’s military expenses, in order for them to damage our nation and the people of this country.77 Pan Yangyao emphasized the role of consumers in the national product movement, and treated guilt as a critical element. He reminded people of the punishment they would receive from their conscience if they bought foreign products. In another article ‘An Examination for the Year of National Products’ Pan pointed out that the results of this promotion in 1933 had not been good, and asked ‘Whose Responsibility is This?’78 He wrote: ‘The common people are still pretending to be deaf and dumb. The greatest sadness is that the heart has already perished. If Chinese and Shanghai people particularly really have blood and hearts, do they really want to sit here and wait for death?’ Three years later, Pan, still using the same desperate tone, wrote: Today people talk about promoting national products, and the only way to do this is for everybody to rely on his conscience. Produce hot-blooded sincerity, and together use virtue to protect [the national

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product movement] ... to complete our heaven-sent task. No more reluctance, and no more cowering, this is a question of life or death.79 For Pan, the people who were still pretending to be deaf and dumb were those isolated from ‘citizenship’; and the condition of citizenship was becoming awakened by a sense of guilt to support national product movements. Since promoting national products was a heaven-sent task, there was no other option but to fulfil this obligation in order to avoid the self-blame stemming from this sense of guilt. The emphasis on personal conscience included retailers as well as consumers. Another Pan Yangyao’s article focused on the responsibilities of shops and stores. Even the shops and stores around ‘Ghost Temple’, one of the most popular and traditional sightseeing destinations, did not always sell national products. The ignorance of small shop owners could ruin the reputation of the city. This kind of mistake was the shame of Shanghai, and Pan urged sellers located in the temple area to ‘put down the cleaver, and become Buddha right away’.80 Such extreme contrasts between hell and salvation occurred not only in the songs of the national shame, but also in literature, and advertisements. A typical case is the picture of a person at a fork in the road,81 (see Figure 4.5). The road on his right-hand side is marked ‘national products’ and the one to his left is ‘enemy products’. On the right-hand road there is a sign saying ‘lease of life’, and on the left-hand side, the sign says ‘road to perdition’. As this man hesitates over which way to choose, the answer is, of course, very obvious to readers. Pan thus attributed a dual identity to his audience; they were both ‘consumers’, and the ‘people of the country’. This combination targeted the citizens’ sense of guilt so that they might in future avoid ‘blame from their conscience’, by making the right choices as citizens of China in their capacity as consumers. Although the ideas of national shame and individual guilt remained as elements in articles of Shenbao, the content of the speeches and songs was not always so heavy. On the contrary, the tone can be concerned with practical issues, connected with issues affecting the daily life of the modern family – family budgets, savings, fashion, design, the displays in shops, and advertisements. In other words, what came to be a main field of the national products movement was the personal sphere, which included the recognition of the changing ways in which people earned their livelihoods. The modulation from a tone of heroic grief and indignation to a more ‘market friendly’ attitude actually brought the claims of the national product movements closer to the public.

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Figure 4.5

Drawing promoting National Products, Shenbao, 4 May 1933

At the same time, after this shift took place, individuals became more willing to absorb the sense of chi and integrate it into their daily lives. As well as being the driving force of the sense of shame for the whole nation and each awakened individual, the new generation of promoters of native goods changed their vocabulary. They used terms like ‘progress’, ‘common sense’, ‘consumers’, ‘knowledge’, ‘modern family’, and so on. Du Zhongyuan (1897–1943), another important figure in the national product movement and writer for Life Weekly, wrote an article discussing the ‘way out’ or future solutions for China-made products. According to him, four things were necessary: limits on imports, removal of all unreasonable taxation, improvements in transportation, and government support. Du pointed out, however, that the existing political situation did not make it easy for China to achieve these four changes. He thought that the remedy was to rely on the people themselves, and ‘the first step is to use advertising methods to inspire people to be happy to use national products.’ He said: On the one hand we must let people know about the crisis caused by the economic aggression of foreigners in China. On the other hand

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we must explain to people that using national products is a divine task. Copy the way that missionaries preach sincerely in front of the people ... to provoke people’s understanding and interest ... to imbue people with new knowledge, and make their conscience grow disgusted towards foreign products ... Then later producers and consumers must work hard together to cancel unreasonable taxation, to reduce producers’ costs, and indirectly to reduce consumers’ spending.82 Du Zhongyuan suggested that people should treat using China-made products as a divine task and mimic the Christian missionary style to awake the sense of ‘guilt’ of people. But what exactly, in Du’s mind, was the ‘new knowledge’ that would lead people to react correctly toward foreign products? ‘New knowledge’ consisted of patriotism and citizenship, virtues that we saw in the last chapter were often regarded as simply equivalent to what modern housewives were required to learn about ‘common sense’. The extension of this new knowledge included understanding that using national products was a wise and rational choice for consumers, that the Chinese economy was damaged by people consuming foreign products, and that in order to spend less on the products they purchased, people had to co-operate with producers to ask the government to get rid of heavy taxation. Hence, the senses of personal guilt and national shame were reintroduced by connecting consumers’ interests with national ones through ‘new knowledge’. Put differently, the ideas of shame and guilt were old, but the language used to connect them with the national product movement was new. The emotional element in the appeal to ‘chi’ was reduced in favour of a rational attempt to attract individuals as consumers to purchase Chinese goods. In this way Du and others like him found a use for ‘chi’ in the discourse of nationalism that did not contradict modern life, even though it was an old concept. Indeed, it was now associated with ‘new knowledge’: citizenship, nationalism, and consumerism.

Conclusion Jon Saari offers his view about the psychology of Chinese who belonged to the generation who lived at the turn of the twentieth century: ‘The inner experience of imperialist domination, or what I would call “inner imperialism,” and the constellations of emotions attached to it – fear, humiliation, resentment, shame, envy, dependence, hatred – drew heavily on the psychological resources of this generation.’83 This observation

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can easily apply to other countries with colonial experiences, but here it precisely points out the multi-layered feelings of Chinese people toward the Western powers. What is more for us to see is how this complex heavily influenced twentieth century Chinese history. This chapter has shown how the idea of shame operated on individuals as one of the causes of participation in the modern Chinese national product movements in Shanghai. It is important to see that the idea of shame in Shenbao’s national products columns was not disconnected from modernity. On the contrary, the connection between nationalism and consumerism was a primary factor in pushing the whole national product movement move forward. Thanks to the arrival of industrial production and urban life in China, the old concept of national shame worked in a new fashion through advertisements. Furthermore, national product department stores were constructed to serve Shanghai urbanites’ modern lifestyle. The recognition of the new status of consumers reinforces the argument of previous chapters about the importance of personal interests in modernity. Moreover, the way that the idea of shame was involved in the national product movement can be seen on two levels. The first, and most important, is the idea of shame of the nation. At this level, shame was brought upon the whole Chinese nation in the conflict with the West. The second, an extension of the first, is how the language of shame was applied to individuals in daily life with the idea of guilt. Language stirred the collective memory of the past in order to connect it to the present political situation of China. The sense of guilt in each individual narrowed the gap between social backgrounds, aiming to reach each individual with the picture of ‘citizenship’. In other words, through the sharing of common emotions about China’s humiliation by consumers, the awakened conscience of private individuals was able to call into being a shared if largely imaginary citizenship. If this rapid formation of community through a sense of guilt and shame in the modern Chinese discourse was familiar to ordinary readers of Shenbao, it was also certainly not unknown to intellectuals. On the contrary, intellectuals were the group who helped to create these feelings of shame and guilt in society, in which they then participated. The intellectuals’ desire to locate themselves in this discourse of shame and guilt was shown very clearly in their contributions to Shenbao, which the next two chapters will examine.

5 ‘Ziyoutan’ Revisited – The Literature Supplement and Its Writers

‘Random Talk’ can be rightly treated as a free ‘stage’. On this ‘stage’ we can perform freely, and that is to ‘speak’ freely ... We believe that everything in the world is progressing and modernizing. This is due to, firstly, theoretical necessity, and secondly, the needs of reality ... The curtain is opening, the ‘stage’ is appearing now. People on the stage are ‘performing’ freely now, just watch.1 So far, this book has examined the topics of nationalism and consumerism by looking at the ‘community’ Shenbao created out of its readership. During the period under discussion, Shenbao readers participated, albeit passively, in significant ‘nation-building’ activity. As this trend progressed, commercial products inevitably became invested with symbolic patriotic emotion. However, we also see that while nationalism worked in tandem with commercial interests, the personal interests which underpinned economic activity were not co-opted by business interests, or made subservient to them. On the contrary, our investigations of personal banking accounts and the emerging role of the modern housewife show that an individualistic, rather self-interested mode of thinking had begun to work its way into the wider patriotic, nationbuilding discourse in a very subtle fashion, based on changes in daily routine and fresh attitudes to life in general. A study of Shenbao’s readership offers a picture of what social groups were woven into this imaginary web. This imaginary web stretched across different social groups who shared different educational and economic backgrounds (the composition of the Shenbao readership will be addressed further in the concluding chapter). It is, however, worthwhile to shift the focus a little from more passive general consumers, and consider 127

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those who provided some of the content. The situation of writers has not yet been examined in detail in this book, and their double role in respect to Shenbao, as both content providers and avid readers, offers a unique insight into the broader interaction between enterprise and audience. The sentiment of intellectuals was expressed by their writings, and their personal lives overlapped with their work in print, lending an edge to what they put before the public. Unlike the ordinary readers of Shenbao, the writers also connected to the newspaper through their own economic activity: as well as reinforcing an emerging nationalism through promoting their own particular vision of modern Chinese society, writers were pursuing their personal interests within the literary market. The tension between nationalism and commercialism, therefore, also became relevant for writers and commentators, just as it did for the ordinary people who made up their readership. Through examining the supplement ‘Random Talk’, this chapter will explore two main themes. The first is intellectuals’ perceptions of their own and of the wider collective identity and situation in society. Although the period following the re-launch of ‘Random Talk’ was short, the content produced in that time provides an interesting insight into how writers and editors systematically assembled a whole set of discourses for attesting their identity. Beginning with a critique of Chinese characteristics which resulted in a weak Chinese nation, writers named their own ‘useless individuality’ as one of these characteristics, a vice just as debilitating as the vices of politicians or common people. Reflecting on such defeatist sentiment, writers then tried to seek ways forward, through construction of a discourse on mass consciousness, mass language, and mass literature and aesthetics. The second theme takes over from the first; as the heat of writers’ attacks on each other (in particular over issues surrounding mass literature) reached its height, they began to reflect more deeply on the nature of their own discourse, turning to reflection on the relationship between writers’ perception of their unique intellectual situation and their economic activities. The quotation at the head of the chapter comes from the introduction to the re-launched daily supplement ‘Random Talk’ for the 1 December 1932 edition of Shenbao. Following the departure of two important contributors to Shenbao, Chen Leng, and Zhang Zhuping, and the shock caused by the occupation by Japan of three North-eastern provinces in the previous year, the supplement had been revived by Shi Liangcai. By moving away from the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly (yuanyang hudie pai)2 styles of literature, the revived ‘Random Talk’ gained considerable

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attention in literary circles, attracted a more general readership, and became a very significant public voice.3 The strategy of keeping the name but changing the content worked well in promoting Shenbao, as the change of style was seen as an announcement by the newspaper of a more progressive attitude. When ‘Random Talk’ was first established in August 1911, the three main editors, Wang Dungen (1888–1950), Chen Diexian (who was already mentioned in Chapter 3),4 and Zhou Shoujuan (1895–1968), had promoted Mandarin Duck and Butterfly as defining the essential style and character of the supplement. In order to give it a fresh feel, Shi Liangcai removed Zhou Shoujuan from the position of editor, and invited Li Liewen to run the feature. Li Liewen was aged 28 at the time, and had only recently returned from studying in Paris. On his return to China he had begun working as an editor of publications for Shangwu Publishing Company, but was still a novice in both newspaper and literary circles.5 His literary knowledge and lack of previous political involvement were the two main reasons that attracted Shi Laingcai to him.6 The re-launched ‘Random Talk’, which ran from December 1932 to October 1935, tackled a variety of issues.7 Li Liewen’s editorial in the first issue emphasized that the main guiding principle was going to be ‘freedom’. To be able to write freely was the essential condition of being progressive and modern. As in the past, the re-launched half-page ‘Random Talk’ feature took the form of a main article or essay (similar in structure to a contemporary newspaper column) supported by additional material. The form and content remained literary in nature, though strong political views did find their way into the feature, either as essays, in serialized fiction, or in poems. Although there were a number of regular contributors, there was no established pattern to their appearance. Many articles were written in a satirical tone, using the form of zawen (miscellaneous essays, usually critical in tone), or in the style of informal, personal essays. Lu Xun (1881–1936) was the most famous writer of zawen, which were characterized by a rather spontaneous, unstructured response to events.8 The satirical tone of zawen performed a similar role to the clown in Chinese classical opera, helping to hide the direct relationship between the writer of the play and the audience, and delivering the meaning through ironic ‘play’. Due to the indirectness of the communication between the clown (the player) and the audience, this art created the effect of ‘placing a veil’ on the stage, which made audiences curious about the truth behind the veil. The authors of zawen expressed

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their attacks on politics, government, and other writers through this long-established, inherited art. As Li Liewen intended, the supplement quickly became an important place for intellectuals to express their opinions about various social and political issues. Whenever a controversial issue was raised, over the following days, weeks, or even months, other intellectuals would write articles on the same topic, either expressing their support for the original writer, or attacking him. As soon as a particular issue provoked this kind of response, more people would write in, generating a snowball effect. What began as individual expressions of opinion ended up defining differences between ‘parties’.

‘Ah Q characteristics’ and the useless men of letters Between 1931 and 1932, incidents in Mukden, Shanghai together with the Japanese occupation of the North-eastern provinces caused a huge ‘earthquake’ in the publishing world in Shanghai. The first reaction of the National government was to load up more than 3,000 large wooden boxes of antiques, and move them from Beijing to cities in the south including Nanjing and Shanghai.9 However, university students were not allowed to leave Beijing.10 The National government’s sense of priorities provoked mocking attacks from intellectuals. Lu Xun adapted Cui Hao’s (704?–754) poem, ‘Yellow Crane Tower’, into a condemnation of the National government: The rich have already ridden off with ‘culture’, and only left the cultural city here. Culture will never revisit, the ancient city [Beijing] will be left quiet and empty for thousands of years.11 Lu Xun’s article, and many others in ‘Random Talk’, examined the background to the loss of Chinese territory, generally concluding that the reason the Chinese nation was weak was due to the Chinese people having reacted too slowly and inadequately to the arrival of modernity. Their disappointment about the Chinese political situation tempted writers to blame what they identified as the character traits of the Chinese.12 In ‘Random Talk’, articles attacking Chinese character attracted a lot of attention, and the unsatisfactory nature of Chinese individuality was one of the most popular topics with readers. The most widely discussed example was ‘Ah Q’. This fictional figure had been introduced to readers a decade previously by Lu Xun’s novel, ‘The True Story of Ah Q’, and

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the outline of the story was widely known by the early 1930s. Ah Q, whose real name was not given, was a tramp in Wei village. People could beat him up whenever they felt like it. After such beatings, Ah Q always told himself: ‘Finally I have been beaten by sons, this world has really come off its tracks.’13 By regarding himself as the spiritual father of his attackers, he was able to achieve a self-delusive spiritual triumph over them that allowed him to keep his self-esteem. Mao Dun (1896–1981), using the pen name ‘Xuan’, wrote ‘Ah Q Face’ as an attack on the Nationalist government’s policy over the Mukden Incident.14 Mao Dun thought that an ‘ “Ah Q face” is the face common to most Chinese people’, and Ah Q’s mental paralysis was also a disease shared by most Chinese. Mao Dun declared that the kind of ‘spiritual triumph’ Ah Q had achieved by feeling contempt for his attackers was the only comfort the Chinese people had left. The policy of nonresistance had uncovered the weakness and cowardice of the government, and the flight of the chief General in Mukden, Tang Yulin, had deprived it of the last shred of popular confidence. The ‘Ah-Q spirit’ was not just visible in the Mukden Incident; it was everywhere in Chinese society. One author lamented that the only reason the Chinese were still able to ‘survive’ in the world was due to their two main characteristics of being able first to ‘look’, and then to ‘run’. This author said that the reason China faced ruin was because its people were only capable of looking; but the Chinese, as a race, would not be exterminated because they were so good at running away.15 Similar ‘talents’, of course, were attributed to the cat people by Lao She (1899– 1966) in Cat City.16 The story of Ah Q’s personal failure, from being a condemnation of the entire Chinese nation, came to represent the people’s worst fears. Furthermore, in the discussions in ‘Random Talk’, Ah Q’s lack of status in his own village became a metaphor for intellectuals’ doubts about their value to Chinese society; as writers themselves put it, their own vices were shared by the whole of society. There is one tale relating to ‘Random Talk’ which needs to be mentioned. Throughout this period many pens were writing satirical articles criticizing the Nationalist Government’s policies toward the Japanese invasion; then, at a certain point, pressure from the authorities led to a change in editorial direction. Only six months after the re-launch of the supplement, an editorial note was published: In these years, speaking is difficult, and writing is even more difficult ... The editor sincerely asks the literary giants throughout the country to talk more about the frivolous (fengyue), but grumble

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less, so writers and the editor both benefit. If you still have to discuss the greatness and the weakness of others, or recklessly talk about important affairs, although we will be reluctant to throw them into the paper bin, we still cannot publish them. To place the editor in this dilemma is to lack a forgiving attitude.17 Not long previously, Shenbao had been banned from rail distribution for criticizing the government, and now this intervention over the content of ‘Random Talk’ opened afresh the barely-healed wounds inflicted on the newspaper by its difficult relationship with the authorities.18 Li Liwen’s words in the original Chinese have both a humorous and gently ironic flavour, and gave a strong lead to writers about the required new direction, asking them to lower the volume of complaints against Chiang Kai-shek’s team, and substitute material less directly confrontational, but more entertaining. Following this request, the style of ‘Random Talk’ gradually altered, and articles relating to writers’ selfexamination and literary criticism began to replace those on politics and social criticism. Lin Yutang (1895–1976), in ‘On Kicking Bottoms’,19 wrote that there were only two classes in Chinese society; the bottom kickers, and the kicked. The purpose of studying was simply to become qualified to kick other people’s bottoms in the future. Lin Yutang wrote that for as long as men of letters and politicians were unpopular, they would write against the injustices suffered by the people whose bottoms were being kicked. However, once they achieved popularity, they soon joined the people doing the kicking. Lin Yutang’s critique of intellectuals was symptomatic of the internal tensions experienced by this group, and it represented a voice, by no means new, in which intellectuals went to the extent of attacking themselves in print. Zheng Zhenduo (1898–1958) used the penname ‘Guyuan’ to write an article entitled ‘The Present Phenomenon of the Literary Circus’20 illustrating his discontent with his colleagues’ behaviour. He asserted that some men of letters were little different from politicians, particularly when they wanted to ‘climb up’ to achieve a certain status. Zheng wrote that ‘When they require sympathy from the crowd, [men of letters] are enthusiastic, and progressive. They show themselves in a completely new light in the literary circus. They attack everything belonging to the old order. They want to destroy, to ruin the old foundations, and to create new ones. They present the revolutionary’s dauntless spirit’. However, when such a person became successful, and

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assumed leadership, his attitudes changed. ‘He does not howl, or cry anymore; on the contrary, he thinks that other people’s crying disturbs his leisure life.’ They are ‘opportunists’. These attacks by Lin Yutang and Zheng Zhenduo on intellectuals were both predicated on the observation that the Chinese intellectuals regarded their knowledge as producing problems peculiar to them as a class. Both thought that knowledge allowed intellectuals to grasp opportunities to pursue personal interests more easily but without regard for principles. Such introspection did not reassure these two writers about their own status in society and they felt a pressing need to modify their role in the community. Their internal self-examination was shared by many writers in ‘Random Talk’. They not only felt familiar with the ‘Ah Q look’, but also felt that they were not far from simply being useless men of letters. Unless they could change, they would remain worse than even the common people in Chinese society. Cao Juren (1900–1972), a regular writer in ‘Random Talk’, wrote ‘Escape from the Line of Death’ to alert intellectuals to the decline of their sense of social responsibility.21 When a few intellectuals were gathered together, they often complained to each other about ‘being bored’, but Cao asked, ‘Is life really so boring?’ For Cao, the main problem was that intellectuals were too focused on the development of ‘the consciousness of individualism’ (geren zhuyi yishi), and had embraced what he called ‘this decadent sentiment’. He believed this consciousness came from the deep attachment to the ‘nuclear family’. Since modern youth had escaped from traditional families, they had not gone into society to be active members of it. On the contrary, they had found shelter in their own nuclear families, isolated themselves from the rest, and became alienated. Modernity and the growth of individual taste might only speed up the corruption of youth, rather than inspiring awareness of individuality. Personal financial freedom might simply allow individuals, or nuclear families, to focus on their own happiness rather than that of the whole nation. Intellectuals were no different; they would cut their ties with society, and become ‘individuals’. Extending Cao’s logic, though he did not make it explicit, when intellectuals became merely ‘individuals’ in society, they would no longer be intellectuals at all. In another article in ‘Random Talk’, Cao Juren provoked a series of exchanges on the nature of intellectuals.22 Cao was reflecting on a film called ‘The God of Liberty’ (Ziyoushen). According to Cao, in the film, the representatives of Hangzhou Student Union had to stay in a very small shabby classroom while preparing to take part in the movement.

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Cao pointed out that this was not what he had observed. In reality, the representatives of Hangzhou Student Union stayed in a very nice garden house, travelled by first-class coach to Shanghai, and ate at top restaurants. Visiting representatives of the National Student Union who came to Hangzhou stayed in new hotels and drove about in cars. Some of the female student representatives were great beauties. The Beijing representatives had more than ten banquets to go to when they came to Hangzhou, and were even busier than assemblymen. Cao Juren pointed out that these students worked together with politicians, and copied politicians’ tricks of shouting, crying, generally being overly emotional, and proclaiming from the stage that they were the real defenders of justice. These were the ‘mould’ (meijun), opportunist ‘heroes’ the times had thrown up who were simply trying to exploit popular agitation for their own ends. Cao Juren emphasized that he was not dismissing the May Fourth Movement; on the contrary, it had brought a fresh energy to Chinese society, and provoked the ‘consciousness of revolt’ in the ‘little citizens’. However, he urged people not to be deceived by fake ‘heroes’ who tried to manipulate the movement for their own ends. After reading Cao Juren’s article, Yang Lianzheng (1900–1946), using his penname ‘Yangzao’, wrote ‘The “truth” of the “May Fourth” ’23 giving his own impressions of the students he had seen during the May Fourth Movement. He certainly had different opinions from Cao. Yang said that he had participated in the May Fourth Movement in Tangshan, in Northern China, where students had been in very different material circumstances from the representatives of Hangzhou Students Union. He also disagreed with what Cao had written about students co- operating with politicians simply because of the attractions of reputation and success. In response to Yang Cao’s work, Cao Junren did not change his attitude toward the students of the May Fourth Movement at all. On the contrary, he restated his views even more strongly. In the article entitled ‘An Addendum and Correction to “The Mould of the May Fourth” ’ in ‘Random Talk’, he wrote: The intellectual’s fickleness (youli yishi) is most horrible, and to portray the May Fourth Movement student representatives as pure activists of a social movement is most dangerous. The intellectuals themselves are capable of forgetting the dark shadow of their own decline, but the ordinary people are also willing to turn over any kind of movement to the hands of intellectuals. One of the

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old sayings is quite correct: “A rebellion which is led by a bunch of scholars will not be successful even after three years.” It is really too rare that student representatives will want to serve society with full heart.24 A week later, Nie Gannu (1903–1986), under the pen name ‘Gannu’, wrote ‘About Intellectuals’25 in which he declared that ‘Recently Mr. Cao Juren has looked down on intellectuals’, and rejected Cao’s views. Nie had three main points. First, not all intellectuals were like Cao’s intellectuals, and the way Cao presented them was too pessimistic, not leaving sufficient space for them to develop. Second, even though some intellectuals of the May Fourth Movement had changed their positions and loyalties later, this did not mean that the value of the May Fourth Movement itself should be underestimated. Nie, like Yang, thought that the spirit of the May Fourth Movement was the work of popular consciousness at that time, and that Cao’s critique of the intellectuals diluted its significance. Cao Juren did not respond, perhaps because he thought Nie Gannu had missed his point. Cao had not in fact rejected the basis of Yang’s personal experiences during the May Fourth Movement at all, nor had he ignored the contribution of the May Fourth Movement, as he had made clear in his first article. What Cao wanted to do was to remind people to separate the achievement of raising popular consciousness to the point where strike action became possible from the so-called ‘heroes’ (intellectuals) created by this movement. While expressing his doubts over the reliability of intellectuals as leaders of social movements, Cao emphasized the ‘nature’ of intellectuals – their fickleness – and concluded that it would be a mistake for people to gamble their future on this group. Around the same time that these debates were being conducted in ‘Random Talk’, Zhang Kebiao (1900–2007), a new upcoming writer, published a book called Ways to Succeed in Literary World (Wentan denglongshu). In this book Zhang Kebiao used satire to describe writers’ unique, even ‘tasteful’, lifestyles.26 Zhang remarked that meeting and befriending the right people was one of the necessities of literary fame, as important as natural talent and study. In the chapter on ‘Life’, Zhang observed that the Western suit was the best outfit for intellectuals; suits were like wings, which would make men of letters ‘fly up’. However, once writers became famous and were launched successfully on the literary world, they then had to get rid of their suits, because from that point on they represented modern China, and modern Chinese

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men naturally ought to wear Chinese-style luxury clothes.27 So what happened as writers climbed up the career ladder, according to Zhang Kebiao, was essentially the process as described by Lin Yutang, Zheng Zhenduo, and Cao Juren’s descriptions of some intellectuals’ habits of bottom kicking. Cao Juren went further in identifying one crucial point, the question of the ‘consciousness’ of intellectuals. Cao seems to have reflected that the intellectuals’ corrupt consciousness, or perhaps better, their corrupt ‘heart’, could cause more damage to China’s future than the common people’s ‘Ah Q look’. The subject of consciousness obsessed intellectuals; they relentlessly analyzed their personal existence to discover what kind of consciousness they possessed. And for most of them, the first step to breaking with membership of that unpopular class, the ‘petty bourgeois’, and reaching a more comfortable position in their own minds, was to achieve the ‘right’ form of consciousness: mass consciousness.

National language and mass consciousness From C.T. Hsia, to Leo Ou-fan Lee, and David Der-Wei Wang, Chinese scholars of modern Chinese literature noted that the core concern of Chinese writers in the early twentieth century was the obsessiveness of Chinese strengthening and the ideologies that lay behind this theme. Based on C.T. Hsia’s observation that Chinese literature during the 1930s had a ‘penchant for “hard-core realism,” which flaunts its raw materials and practices unabashed moral exhibitionism’,28 David Der-Wei Wang’s The Monster That Is History illustrates how literature created a ‘phantasmagoric realism’ to form community memories for modern China.29 Hung-Yok Ip also notices that the aesthetic consciousness of the May Fourth Movement, based on an admiration for human nature, shifted in Chinese left wing literature due to the search for the right aesthetic for revolutionary literature. While the writers in the 1920s and 1930s were searching for ideas and ideologies to shape their work, they were already caught up in an ambiguous tension between their individuality and the collective emotions of revolutionary discourse.30 Bonnie McDougall, also building on Hsia’s point, argues that ‘Modern Chinese writers and most of their audiences (educated youth, literary intellectuals, cultural bureaucrats, Overseas Chinese and Western sinologists) share an obsession with the fate of Chinese intellectuals.’31 As Robert Hegel points out, ‘The goal of self-development in Chinese Marxism is self-transcendence no less than it was in Confucianism by

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arguing that modern Chinese literature, including leftist literature, did not go beyond traditional concerns about the utility of literature.’32 In other words, although the term ‘consciousness’ was re-introduced into China with strong philosophical and political meanings at the turn of the twentieth century, the social obligation carried by consciousness at the beginning of the twentieth century was not alien to the Chinese due to the Confucian doctrine in the last 2,000 years. While the term ‘consciousness’ was re-introduced into China with much stronger political concepts at the beginning of the twentieth century with Western philosophies, this existing term in Chinese tradition was then used specifically to emphasize the divisions of classes in modern China. Although the conceptual meanings of ‘consciousness’ can be various, the employment of this term in the articles of ‘Random Talk’ became the fashion. Clarifying their consciousness was a way for intellectuals to furnish an identity for themselves. In the anxious attempt to map out their position in society at large, under circumstances which did not offer other obvious alternative options, the term ‘consciousness’ served a purpose. This litmus test of personal and political identity in the debates in ‘Random Talk’ involved applying the term ‘consciousness’ to the issues of a national language, a mass consciousness, and a mass literature. Chen Zizhan (1898–1990), a famous left wing intellectual, wrote an article entitled ‘Classical Language, Vernacular, and Mass Language’ in which he argued that there was no point wasting time discussing the use of classical language in China anymore, because it was already a well recognized fact that China should move on from vernacular language to mass language.33 He emphasized the relationship between the objective social condition of the people and literature: ‘Chinese society has reached a certain level of revolutionary practice; as soon as the base is moved, the whole of the old culture will be shaken ... the literary revolution is only one aspect of this ... No matter how an individual or the particular class he belongs to try to struggle [against mass consciousness], the final victory will not belong to them, though we also have to admire their bravery.’ After portraying articles still being written in classical language as restricted to a few individuals, Chen Zizhan went on to make another claim about vernacular literature. He thought that as the vernacular literature was the product of intellectuals, it was still not genuinely popular. He urged that it was time to move towards mass language, which he defined as ‘language which can be spoken, can be listened to, and can be read’. However, there was a problem with this argument which emerged when he considered the question, ‘who were the masses?’

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According to Chen Zizhan, the masses are peasants, who accounted for more than 80% of the population. The masses also included craftsmen, the new industrial workers, small merchants, shop clerks, and store-holders. Chen noticed that these people’s literacy was rather low, and that therefore the movement for a mass language still needed to rely on the work of intellectuals. Chen admitted, furthermore, that a mass language could not totally avoid adopting Western words, and that some Chinese would be Westernized. This was acceptable as long as it was not just an attempt by a particular individual to emphasize his personal experience of overseas study. Even if mass language had to borrow some classical or Western terms, this was no excuse for personal showing-off. Chen Zizhan’s views on language and its theoretical foundation reflected one of the most popular views of the relationship between individuals and society. His ideas demonstrate the shifts that took place after the May Fourth Movement, and announce the transformation of the idea of individuality among intellectuals themselves. Through the discussion on language, intellectuals felt the need, silently or otherwise, to examine their own attitudes/consciousness toward their country fellows. They thought they had detected a shift in the historical process from individuals to ‘classes’. In Chen’s article, the intellectuals’ responsibility to promote mass language had become a duty towards the populace. A few days later, Chen Zizhan drew a response from Chen Wangdao (1891–1977), who thought Chen Zizhan’s remarks about mass language – that it should be understood by the populace whether it was spoken, read, or heard – were unsatisfactory.34 Language should also be easy for people to use in writing. The way for intellectuals to create literature accessible to the masses was to use mass language. Intellectuals should be close to the populace, and learn their language. Both Chens saw a mass language as the key to emancipating themselves from membership of the ‘middle class’ and shedding their identity as useless men of letters so that they could become real members of society. Other writers who participated in this debate on mass language tended to highlight the ‘social consciousness of the people (renmin de shehui yishi)’. They were not happy with the vernacular any more; on the contrary, it marked them as middle class intellectuals. Embracing the idea of a mass language was their ticket to a new status as members of another social class. A belief in the connection between ‘the spirit of the age’ and popular consciousness became the important theoretical basis for many intellectuals who promoted the adoption of a mass language.

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The link these writers forged between a mass language and mass consciousness had allowed them to distinguish the boundaries between classes. The next step was to take sides. Given this context, the discussions of mass language in ‘Random Talk’ were more moral than epistemological or linguistic in purpose. The moral approach of writers such as the two Chens and Hu Yuzhi to dealing with the problem of mass language had already prepared their ground.35 Hu Yuzhi’s article ‘About Mass Language’ argued that the efforts of the May Fourth Movement had only created an opposition between classical language and the vernacular, and had made little contribution to bringing writing closer to oral culture. He continued by saying that the May Fourth Movement neglected the fundamental issue responsible for the current problem with language: the persistence of a ‘feudal’ consciousness. According to Hu, the kind of feudal consciousness found in classical language that had belonged to the ruling class of the last century had re-entered Chinese society in the form of vernacular language through ‘Saturday literature’ (the term used to refer to the kind of romantic stories found in the Saturday supplements of newspapers): The declining language of the falling class is not going to have a bright future ... Mass language should be understood as a language which represents mass consciousness. The difference between mass language and the May Fourth vernacular is that the vernacular does not necessarily represent mass consciousness. But mass language certainly will not allow a declining social consciousness to sneak in by the wall gate. A few days after Hu Yuzhi’s article was published, Ye Shengtao (1894– 1988) wrote ‘A Rambling Talk on Reading, Writing and Mass Literature’ in support of his view.36 Ye wrote ‘Who is not one of the masses? Who does not need mass literature? ... Literature must really be able to express mass consciousness, then it is qualified for the duty of communicating the feelings of people in society.’ Ye Shengtao’s urge to write literature for the masses was not the first or the last. As the duty of communicating with the people was seen as the priority of the language, Wu Xiangyu (the pen name of Wu Jingsong 1906–1967), an active left-wing writer, in the article ‘The Age and its Needs’ asked ‘For whom are we writing?’37 Wu Xiangyu thought the literary population was small, and its taste had not changed in the last 30 years. Like Hu Yuzhi, who was concerned about the relationship between Saturday literature, Mandarin Duck and

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Butterfly literature, and the vernacular, Wu thought that a small group of people’s conservative tastes had dominated the old style novel (with each chapter headed by a couplet giving the gist of its content), and that their consciousness and lifestyle were left over from the previous dynasty. These people were like ‘silverfish’, who would only manage to eat the soft paper of original Chinese books. Even though a few of these silverfish could corrode some of the hard printed paper in foreign books, they might end up with indigestion. Another typical kind of reader had a ‘foreign’ lifestyle, and spoke foreign languages well. However, they only read low quality foreign books, and inevitably, only received the worst part of foreign culture, in the form of detective or supernatural novels. Wu thought that these peoples’ consciousness was the most stubborn, because they only knew about the ‘individual’ (geren), but not the mass (dazhong). A similar attack came in Fan Zhongyun’s About the Construction of Mass Language’, which alleged that the vernacular language had merely changed from offering up feudal novels about brilliant men and beautiful women to producing love stories about modern youth.38 He claimed that the ‘fundamental consciousness’ of these stories was ‘the same as that of classical language, which is feudal, hedonistic, commercial and exploitative.’ For Wu Xiangyu, the cruel realities of the twentieth century offered plenty of topics to write about. But these kinds of complicated subject were far above the ability of the people who had the wrong kind of consciousness, and only read and wrote old-style novels. To deal with modern society, and present it vividly to the people in an artistic way, two things were critical: right consciousness, and new writing skills. Wu insisted that the old style of novel should be abandoned, and a new Chinese literature dealing with social realist topics promoted in its stead.39 Ultimately, however, the idea of mass consciousness remained unclear. There was an explanation of sorts for this lack of clarity, of which intellectuals themselves were sometimes uncomfortably aware. As Tao Xingzhi put it, mass literature would only truly be realized after the masses controlled the signifier (fuhao).40 Only then would they use it to write of their actions, and thoughts.41 Bonnie McDougall describes the dilemma of these Chinese authors as follows: ‘Intellectuals have the tools to narrate the life of other classes and thereby to inscribe meaning on the social body as a whole, but their subjects are illiterate, unable to write their own stories or to read the stories about them. Encounters between narrator/protagonists and their subjects are confrontation across an invisible wall: the only honourable course is to stop writing, as Lu Xun did.’42

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Of course the writing continued, and the self-criticism of writers never stopped. The ever-present use of the term ‘mass consciousness’, as attributed to an ill-defined and largely imaginary object, was a symptom of a self-imposed obligation to participate in a mission of nation salvation by writers. This rather romantic attitude toward mass consciousness also reflected a common characteristic of these authors, namely the extension of a traditional pattern for exercising social responsibility of intellectuals, rather than a distinctively different modernity. At the same time as the discussions on national language and mass consciousness, ‘Random Talk’ was also accommodating another large debate on literary realism and personal essays. As well as building up a theoretical foundation for mass language, mass literature, and literary realism, the attack on personal essays was carried on.

Realism in literature Bonnie McDougall and Paul Pickowicz in effect share Robert Hegel’s view of the utilitarian element in modern Chinese literature.43 Chinese writers’ frustration and disappointment with reality focused their work on contemporary life. Extending Jaroslav Průšek’s observations on modern Chinese literature, McDougall asserts that in the twentieth century ‘it is difficult to find anyone not taking sides in the great political struggles or social reform movements.’44 Leo Ou-fan Lee thinks that by combining Western romanticism, naturalism, and realism, young Chinese writers reflected their political worries through new literary styles: ‘Chinese writers tended to focus on the “realist” aspects of European romanticism: the mystical and transcendent dimensions of the romantic aesthetic were largely ignored in favour of a humanistic, socio-political interpretation.’45 Realism, as a ‘watchword’ of modern Chinese literature,46 carried a particular aesthetic and moral value, and offered Chinese writers a way to link their creation not only with China’s social and political condition, but also with the Western world. For the Chinese left-wing writers at this time, the combination between Communist principles and realism in literature offered a sense of moral engagement with society. This combination also provoked the idea of social obligation which, in many ways, was not totally alien to the Confucian values. In the discussion of realism in this column, realism in literature has been employed as an indicator by writers to identify each other’s writing styles as well as political and moral positions.

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Less than a month after the re-launch of ‘Random Talk’ in 1932, Gu Fengcheng (1908–1940?) wrote ‘The Literature We Require’ to argue that China needed literature to report the real living conditions of poor people.47 Gu, editor of the journal Reading Monthly (Dushu yuekan) since 1931, believed that literature should push society forward in accordance with the needs of the age. The first step to doing this was to portray honestly the living standards of the majority. Since the Mukden Incident and the Shanghai Incident, China’s political condition was worse than ever, and many refugees, including those from the Northeast, had rushed into the cities, one of the major reasons for the decay of the agricultural villages. Gu blamed contemporary literature for not reflecting this problem at all, but rather trying to cover the truth. Views similar to those in ‘The Literature We Require’ were also put forward by Wu Jingsong in ‘The Age and its Need’, asserting the importance of social consciousness in literature, which was already mentioned above.48 Wu argued that literary skill should be used to offer a portrait of reality that attracted popular interest. This article can be seen as an imitation of Qu Qiubai’s (1899–1935) two famous pieces of work written in the early 1930s on proletarian literature. The first, published in October 1931, was titled ‘The Actual Problems of Proletarian Literature’,49and the second, published in July 1932, ‘Problematic Popular Literature’.50 Qiu made his point by asking the following series of questions: What kind of language should be used to write? What should we write? For whom do we write? How should we write? For what purpose do we write? For some Chinese writers, realism was a set of ideas intended to enable individuals to comprehend the reality of human nature, something they saw as missing in the traditional three guiding principles and five constant regulations of Confucianism which suppressed this human nature. For these writers, realism was a new value which became established during the May Fourth Movement. Chen Duxiu’s article ‘The Discourse of Literary Revolution’ (not to be confused with the ‘revolutionary literature’ of the Creation Society in the late 1920s) argued that young people should abandon flattery and aristocratic classical literature, in order to establish a ‘realistic literature’ (xieshi wenxue) for the new Chinese people.51 Since 1921, the ‘Society for the Study of Literature’ (Wenxue yanjiuhui), including Zheng Zhenduo, Mao Dun, Zhou Zuoren (1885–1967), Xu Dishan (1893–1941), Qu Shiying (1900–1976), Sun Fuyuan (1894–1966), and other intellectuals, had supported the value of representing real social

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scenes in literature. However, even though their slogan was ‘art for life’, it did not impose any strict principles on its members. While they were all looking to combine authorial experience and observation with social reality in their work, each member was famous for a unique writing style.52 In short, from Chen Duxiu’s promotion of realism in 1915 to the earlyto-mid-1920s, the most popular understanding of realism in Chinese modern literature was that it was a broad trend associated with the beginning of modernity, and not necessarily an indicator of specific political attitude, even though realism was later strongly associated with left-wing literature in China, and this involvement can be seen in the discussions in ‘Random Talk’.53 This change in the relationship between realist literature and writers’ political attitudes was closely associated with developments in literary groups, particularly the Creation Society. At the end of 1923, Deng Zhongxia (1897–1933), a Chinese Marxist, was writing an article to attack Guo Moruo’s romantic poetic work, and the Creation Society, at this time, was still sticking to its original policy of ‘art for art’s sake’.54 Less than five years later, the situation had shifted dramatically. The Creation Society’s had literary direction changed. They did not talk about ‘art for art’s sake’ anymore, but dedicated themselves to revolutionary literature. This created the first point of intersection between realism in literature and political power, soon joined by the Sun Society (Taiyang she).55 Even a member of the Creation Society like Cheng Fangwu, who came up with the new title for intellectuals of ‘literary-artistic workers’ was still full of romantic passion. He confidently announced the arrival of ‘revolutionary literature’ and the formal relationship between literature and realism. The literary principles of the All Russian Association of Proletarian Literature (RAPP), having first spread to Japanese communist literary circles, became the model for the Creation Society and the Sun Society from 1928 onwards. The RAPP’s ‘dynamic proletarian realism’, and later its ‘socialist realism’, provided theoretical support for the efforts of the Creation and Sun Societies to introduce romantic beliefs in a bright future into their works.56 This, however, caused the fundamental tension between these two societies with Lu Xun and Mao Dun’s realism. Qian Xingcun (Ah Ying as his pen name, 1900–1977) was one of the most active members of the Sun Society in this controversy over realism. He was responsible for the division of realism into ‘bourgeois realism’ and ‘dynamic proletarian realism’ which the Creation Society and Sun Society used to distinguish themselves from other writers, particularly Lu Xun and Mao Dun, whose works also carried strong realist elements

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but did not (at least in this period) share their views on the aims of literature.57 Having said that, there was no firm agreement on what realism in literature was even between Chinese Marxist writers and Chinese Communist Party’s sympathizers. The Creation Society’s ‘Revolutionary literature’ slogan was raising the flag of a kind of realism that connected it with proletarian literature. Both Mao Dun and Lu Xun did not agree with the new direction these two societies were taking.58 In March 1930, thanks to a shift in direction in the Chinese Communist Party, a new alliance was formed, the League of Left-wing Writers. Former enemies became colleagues under this umbrella organization. Yet there was still no solid agreement on what realism was, and how writers should treat their own personal judgement, their class background and tastes, in their work. At this time, Zhou Yang (Zhou Qiying, 1908–1989) and Qu Qiubai urged writers to replace the ‘petty-bourgeois’ consciousness, which most of them allegedly shared, with ‘dialectical materialism’.59 The unsolved problem of ‘What reality was and how a writer could truthfully reflect it’ remained.60 Disagreements within the League itself were raised by those writers labelled the ‘third kind of people’, who opposed from within the League’s claim that they were all under an obligation to create a bright future and political prospects for their readers.61 Zhou Yang’s article ‘On “Socialist Realism and Revolutionary Romanticism” ’ was published in 1933. This article, a reflection on the First Meeting of the Russian Writers Committee in October 1932, was published in the magazine Modern (Xiandai zazhi). It announced the successful combination of Marxist socialism and realism in literature, and established the main theoretical base for the League on the issue of realism. Zhou believed that the ‘realism of socialism’ not only corrected the neglect of reality by revolutionary romanticism, but even went beyond romanticism because it embraced the populace. Socialist realism, for Zhou, was the ‘dynamic’ ideal principle of literature, because it could successfully reflect social movement and development.62 However, the literary world was not quieted because of this. The Shanghai literary field at this time included not only the League, but also the following other large groupings: the Chinese Nationalist Literature (minzuzhuyi wenxue), Lin Yutang’s Lunyü literature group, the Beijing school (Jingpai), the Dongbei English group, the Modern (Xiandai) group, and the Chinese Neo-Perceptionists. This proliferation of different literary schools during this period suggests there was in fact plenty of divergence in literary approaches. This literary diversity was reflected in ‘Random Talk’, and the question of how art or literature should be represented remained an

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important feature of the landscape throughout the remainder of our period. However, the issue of realism in literature, political or otherwise, also served as part of the power struggles and pursuit of hidden agendas between the writers themselves; it is not always to be taken at face value. Moreover, the discussions in this column were not very profound or scholarly, due partly to limitations of space, and partly to the nature of the medium. The debates were all directed to finding agreement over the conditions for the creation of art suited to China’s situation. But while the authors often mentioned foreign writers’ names and quoted them to support their own arguments without detailed discussion, they rarely offered well-structured support for their points, and their works were often reduced to repetitious slogans. The sloganistic style of the articles in ‘Random Talk’ nevertheless served the purposes of this column, which was to provoke the emotions of participants and readers. Robert Hegel observes, ‘self-denial plays a significant role in the ideology of the modern age as reflected in contemporary Chinese literature ... the writer denies the individual self for the specific – and transitory – needs of the mass.’63 This observation points out the truth of the Chinese intellectuals, but in the specific context of ‘Random Talk’, it is not the whole story. Intellectuals needed the masses, but they also needed a literate audience. Readers apparently liked to see writers and intellectuals examining themselves, and struggling with their own identities. Even though writers were devoting themselves to providing the conceptual materials for a national language, mass literature and realism in literature, they could not deny their special position as intellectuals even when they affected to deplore it. Their sense of their own ‘individuality’ was the most significant element distinguishing this group from others. Ostensibly, then, ‘individuality’ symbolized something that the writers wanted to rid themselves of. The idea of individuality was seen as a boulder blocking the way to the national salvation. But not everybody agreed with this view about individuality. For many people in the May Fourth Movement generation, individuality was actually one of the flags they carried. For example, Fu Sinian (1896–1950) argued that the greatest achievement of the May Fourth Movement was the discovery of the ‘person’, and this achievement was revealed in prose.64 While it is true that at the macro level, the debates occurring during this time were the collective activity of a single group, ‘intellectuals’, when viewed from close up this activity was composed of many interactions between literary sub-groups. As there were so many groups in

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the Shanghai literary circle, a person might belong to more than one sub-group at the same time. People who disapproved of individuality in their writing could often find themselves in the same sub-group as those who wanted to apply their personality in their work. Indeed, declarations of disapproval of individuality became in themselves expressions of personality. The discussions of realism and mass consciousness in a sloganistic style also easily led, consciously or unconsciously, to moralizing; a ‘standard’ of artistic and literary creation had to be set, and the involvement of individuality agreed on. The artists’ ‘honesty’,65 in their works and towards society, became the most important factor in judging their productions’ quality. These writers were in the process of rebuilding their own credibility, or at least, showing the public that they were trying to do so. Since there was a lack of depth to their arguments, the way these polemics were undertaken in ‘Random Talk’ suggests there was an element of these authors not trying to convince each other so much as trying to gain popularity with their audiences. Moreover, we should take into account that a concern to expand their audience was not absent from the Chinese intellectuals’ consideration. The question of readership certainly cannot be seen independently of the development of a vernacular language and literature. However, it can not be separated from the trend of commercial development of Chinese modernization. The image of the readers is already present in the works of the writer. The demand for a standard in art and literature was therefore connected with these questions: how much self-criticism and moralizing over their social responsibility were these writers willing to take? And how far were they willing to be exposed to the public? In the debates over personal essays (xiaopinwen) in this popular column, the sentiment of writers suggests even much more about the commercial elements of their writing, although their insistence on their personal writing philosophy can not be totally dismissed, either.

‘The Flies and the Universe’: the polemic over ‘Personal Essays’ Before we look at the polemic over personal essays in ‘Random Talk’, it is necessary to know how this new literary style was received in China in the next two decades after the May Fourth Movement. Chinese literary groups during the 1920s and 1930s often used the term sanwen xiaopin, or ‘prose essay’ to refer to a particular form of modern

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Chinese literature in the vernacular. Very often they did not try very hard to separate the component elements (of ‘prose’ and the ‘essay’) in a strict way, but rather, for convenience, simply used these terms together. For example, Qian Xingcun’s Xiandai shiliujia xiaopin (The Sixteen Modern Essay Writers) used this term.66 Or again, Hu Shi’s article for Shenbao’s fiftieth anniversary wrote that ‘Vernacular prose [or essays] have made great progress ... The most noticeable development in prose has been the “essay-prose” (xiaopin sanwen) promoted by Zhou Zuoren etc.’67 Yu Dafu, one of the regular writers for ‘Random Talk’ and a original member of the Creation Society, was asked to edit a volume of prose for A Compendium of Chinese Literature by Zhao Jiabi (1908–1997, the editor-in-chief) in 1935.68 Yu gave a brief, but precise, explanation of how modern Chinese prose differed from traditional literature and how it was influenced by Western literature. Yu also noticed that the use of the term ‘prose-essay’ was very common amongst his contemporaries, and observed that some people treated the form of the long article (excluding poems, novels, or drama) as prose, and similar pieces of shorter length as essays.69 Yu did not think these definitions of ‘essay’ and ‘prose’ involved any particularly strong claims. This is a sensible approach, and therefore, in this chapter, ‘prose’ and ‘essay’ will not be treated as different forms. However, for convenience, the articles in ‘Random Talk’ will be treated as essays, not only because most of them are very short, due to the available column space, but also because the use of the term ‘essay’ is directly related to the theme now under examination. Yu, like Fu Sinian, argued that the greatest achievement of the May Fourth Movement was the discovery of the ‘person’, and this achievement was revealed in prose. Yu Dafu asserted that ‘The greatest characteristic of modern prose is that the individuality (gexing) of each author’s prose is much stronger than any prose in the past.’70 Yu went on to clarify what he meant by ‘individuality’. He claimed that the individuality within prose corresponded to Lin Yutang’s idea of the ‘personal style’. In the ‘personal style’ of prose, borrowed from the ‘informal or familiar essays’ of English literature and commonly adopted in ‘Random Talk’, writers cannot avoid putting their personal experience into their writings, even when writing about serious social issues.71 In agreeing with Zhou Zuoren’s views on prose, Yu Dafu believed that the flourishing of prose and essays with strongly individualistic characteristics was only possible when the social and political situation was altering. This attitude is also seen in Edward Gunn’s analysis of the shifts in modern Chinese literary styles. Gunn points out that the

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arrival of literary innovation, in both language (vernacular) and literary form, reflected a new intellectual and political openness. Literary innovations were no longer subject to suppression but were seen as examples of ‘aesthetic achievement’ and even ‘adopted into common practice’.72 The achievement of the vernacular, according to Gunn, was to release the energy of Chinese writers. As part of a complicated process which involved not only Europeanization, but also a Japanese influence in the form of neologisms and literary psychology, the new prose style of modern Chinese literature came to ‘reflect a set of institutions, as well as personal tastes and social ideas’.73 Gunn also notices one of the points of departure for this chapter, namely that the diversity of Chinese modern prose stimulated and informed politics. Not only did it promote individualism, in its early stages the vernacular was a source of revolutionary thoughts in the fight against the Qing Government, and later led to the mass language movement and proletarian literature.74 This very observation also precisely suits the literary style employed by the authors of essays in ‘Random Talk’, no matter what their political, social, and literary positions were. In addition, this social purpose of vernacular literature has played a central role in my study of ‘Random Talk’, leading me to study closely the vernacular essays, the conflict of literary content, and the individuality or the personal emotions of writers. The essays in ‘Random Talk’ are in fact closer to the style of Lu Xun’s zawen (miscellaneous essays). Yu Dafu’s ideas about strong personal styles in modern Chinese prose are also easily applicable to the miscellaneous essay, a product of the May Fourth Movement. The subjectivist character of the miscellaneous essay combined criticism of politics and society, and became a ‘fighting weapon’ against the unfairness of reality. Lu Xun agreed that there was value in the personal essay’s literary style; however, he asserted that future essays must be like daggers, or throwing a spear, which can ‘fight and clear a survival route for their readers.’75 Jaroslav Průšek, an expert on contemporary Chinese literature, writes that Lu Xun’s essays are the best example of ‘subjective literary forms as a fighting weapon’, and they are also works of ‘socialist realism’.76 The ‘random’ and ‘seemingly directionless’ character of Lu Xun’s miscellaneous essays, according to Leo Ou-fan Lee’s analysis, continue the style of Lu Xun’s teacher in Japan, Zhang Taiyan (1868–1936).77 Many articles in ‘Random Talk’, in particular those in the ‘Lu Xun style’, helped to keep the temperature of the debate high through their tone of subjectivism. From our perspective, the reason for briefly addressing the history of the concepts of ‘prose’ and the ‘essay’ was because the essays in ‘Random

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Talk’ exemplify the characteristics of the new individuality, even though many writers did not want to associate themselves with this term. Despite their similarities about both carrying forms for displaying individuality and writer’s temper, the distinction between miscellaneous essays and personal essays continued to be made during the 1930s, and was the subject of a huge debate in ‘Random Talk’. The great value to us of these undeniably highly emotional essays is that they expressed the feelings of their authors so strongly. And the nature of a newspaper with its short intervals between issues meant that authors were provoked into quick responses and attacks. These emotional responses also inspired support from the various parties, and provide another illustration of Hockx’s point that there were fundamental differences between the ‘literary schools’ (liupai).78 In fact, somewhat ironically, even if the partisans of the miscellaneous and personal essays insisted on their own values in literature, their attempts to persuade each other reduced them to using the same style. The ‘difference’ between miscellaneous essay and personal essay, as many of these writers were then keen to discover, can be vividly seen in this comparison. Mao Dun used the pen name ‘Boyuan’ to write an article ‘The Form of Power’, in which he argued that a good article should taste like good wine, and not be violent and sharp.79 He said that: Literary works should take ‘moving the people’ as their mission. But the power to move people is not visible on the surface of words that employ the style of drawn swords and bent bows. Literature is like wine, some of it makes people feel extremely sharp and strong as soon as it is drunk; some of it feels warm and gentle ... You don’t necessarily feel its “power” when you drink it, but later when its power shows, it makes you really drunk ... China does not lack overbearing and aggressive articles. But it is rare to see gentle ones. Liang Shih-chiu (1902–1987) seems to have agreed with Mao Dun’s view. He criticized the increasing number of literary articles that neglected the aesthetic element of their work. No matter what kind of topics they wrote about, they all adopt a similar tone of mocking laughter or angry cursing ... In this kind of literary language, there is feeling, but as for literary flavour, there is none.80 Both Mao Dun and Liang Shih-chiu made similar objections to the sharp tone of contemporary writing. Liang Shih-chiu, who obviously

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shared Lin Yutang’s idea of the essay, always actively defended the ‘personal tone’ in writing.81 But Mao Dun, even though he believed that literature should be like a soft wine – an expression of support for the ‘personal essay’ – did not explicitly connect himself with Lin Yutang. Almost a month later, an unidentified author using the penname Wu Xi wrote ‘On Literature’, in response to Mao Dun’s article.82 Wu argued that if an article in the style of ‘swords drawn and bows bent’ does not have appropriate content, it cannot be counted as ‘really powerful literary work’. Moreover, although an article might claim to be like a good wine, if it did not have ‘aesthetic’ value it might still make people ‘drunk’ but they would not be able to tell whether they were drunk because of the wine, or because of the poisons in it. He wrote that ‘ “the real literature of power” should be examined from the aesthetic point of view. To place the focus on “being gentle or not when it is tasted”, not only confuses people, but makes people repeat the error of travelling down the old “wrong road”.’ This disagreement between Mao Dun and Wu Xi over essayistic style should not only be treated as an extension of the polemics over realism in literature, discussed in the last section, but also as one of the skirmishes between rival supporters of the miscellaneous and personal essays. One of the initial sparks for the debate was Lin Yutang’s inaugural editorial in his magazine Human World (Renjianshi). Human World, started in 1934, was a magazine which emphasized the freedom and individual characteristics (gexing) of writers. In its first editorial, it claimed that In the last fourteen years, Chinese modern literature’s only success is the success of the personal essay. Though [there are] good creative novels [they] result from the discipline of essay writing ... The essay can develop discussion and argument ... can freely express deep feelings ... draw human relationships (renqing) ... [and] describe the sources of old fables and stories (shigu)...It treats the ‘self’ (ziwo) as the centre ... Its contents includes everything. Everything, whether it is as large as the universe, or as tiny as a fly, provides material for us to write about, and that is why it is called the ‘Human World.’83 Next to the short prologue in the first issue was a photo of Zhou Zuoren, a famous contemporary Chinese essayist, later blamed for ‘attending to his own virtue in solitude’ (du shan qi shen)’,84 that is, for his personal interest in literary style. As well as referring to the essays as ‘xiaopinwen’, Zhou called them ‘meiwen’.85 This pretty name for an essay in Chinese literally means ‘beautiful literature’, in English perhaps ‘belles lettres’.

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By insisting on the importance of the essay and by placing Zhou’s photo in the first issue of Human World, even though none of his work appeared in it, Lin Yutang tried to express his rejection of the pressure of left-wing ideology on literature. The claim that the personal essay had been a successful literary genre over the last 14 years invited attacks from many people. In ‘Random Talk’, those who attacked ‘personal essays’ often cited ‘the universe and the fly’ in an ironic tone. Liao Mosha (1907–1990), who joined the Chinese Communist party in May 1930, and the League of Left-Wing Writers in 1933, used the pen name ‘Yeye’ to publish ‘What Kind of World Are We Living in?’ in ‘Random Talk’. Liao wrote: Mr. Lin Yutang, the main editor of Lunyu [magazine] with the title of “Master of Humour”, has recently seemed to want another part-time job. Previously he has talked about humour, and now he continues by talking about “personal essays”. He has published the Human World to promote this kind of essay ... When I opened the front cover, there was a 16-inch enlarged portrait photo, I almost thought I had mistakenly bought a copy of a modern obituary! After looking at it carefully, I realized this was a new photo of ... Zhou Zuoren, and not the portrait of some deceased famous great man.86 Immediately after reading Zhou’s poem in this magazine, Liao could not help responding to Zhou’s with a poem of his own. His emotions were aroused by what he was seeing in the page. He said: The introduction to this magazine said: ‘Everything, including something as large as the universe, or as tiny as a fly, provides material for us to write about.’ ... I read the whole article, but from the beginning to the end, I only saw the ‘fly’, but no ‘universe’. Unless this is another case like the one in Lunyu, where [Lin’s] witty remarks cover his seriousness, and treat sickness as fun. What Mr. Yutang really wants, actually, is to promote ‘the tinniness of the fly’ rather than the ‘greatness of the universe’ ... The essay is the personal pursuit of petty pleasure and thwarts high aims ... The leisurely free individualism of Western literature, the weak muscles and soft bones of Oriental literature, and the ‘spineless’ principles of poets and celebrities, all combine together in Mr. Yutang’s essay and his magazine The Human World.87 Liao Mosha’s article was one of many miscellaneous essays which attacked Lin Yutang’s personal essays. The satirical tone and ironic

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writing style successfully landed some blows on Lin, while amusing readers. It is difficult to know how seriously the authors regarded each other, but, at least in print, they seemed to have large disagreements about the direction literature should take. In response to such criticisms, Lin wrote ‘An Enquiry into the Pedantic Ambience of the Kerchief Scholarhood’ (‘Fangjinqi yanjiu’). This long article was divided into three parts and was published in a sequential form in three days in Shenbao.88 The first article encapsulated the main spirit of all three pieces. Lin wrote: At the time I launched Lunyu,89 I already thought that the kerchief spirit (fangjin qi), and pedantic attitude were the evil enemies of humour. This is not because pedantic articles are able to resist humorous literature, but because the pedantic environment does not understand humour, so it must affect the writing of humorous people, and make them feel that there are people peering with angry eyes behind their backs when they are writing. This is not good for humorous writing. Only the people, who can keep a bit of naïvety, a bit of haughtiness, and not care about such gloomy chilly porky smells, are able to produce some humour ... Today, although some people are writing in the vernacular, their sub-consciousness has really been deeply poisoned by pedantic doctrine. No matter how trivial the event, they must use headlines about ‘saving the country’ and ‘losing the country’. Hence, using Chinese made toothbrushes is [about] salvation, selling perfume is saving the nation. This makes people very aware of their every action, so that one can’t even sneeze in peace.90 Later Lin Yutang adopted a less intense tone, and tried to persuade people that the way he liked to write and the reason he established this magazine should not have become such big issues, and writers themselves should not set up another kind of ‘censorship’91 to monitor each other’s work. Lin stressed that his actions were only expressions of his personal interests and ‘nature’, and that he had not planned to make such a strong impression on people: I, Lin Yutang, actually do not have any great ambition, it is only because of my nature that I have always disliked the long reasoning articles in the Eastern Miscellany. I also happen to like desultory talk and random chat, so the best thing to do was to create my own magazine by myself. Luckily somebody wants to publish it and some people want to buy and read it, so this allows me to continuously

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fool around. At most, this only adds one small non-serious publication to the various large serious magazines in the county, and balances the atmosphere.92 Lin Yutang’s words here are self-explanatory, but what can not be seen here but worth mentioning is that his and Lu Xun’s friendship had already reached a very sensitive state because of their different ideas about humour and translation.93 The tension between these two might help to generate the fever with which this debate was carried out, as both sides had their own supporters. Lin Yutang’s remarks attracted several expressions of support as well as criticism. For example, Xu Qinwen (1897–1984) wrote ‘Personal Essay and Personality’ to echo Lin Yutang’s ideas about the freedom of writers to write on any subject they pleased.94 Xu later wrote another article to assert that the sense of humour in the personal essay was in fact very similar to the humour found in the miscellaneous essays produced by naturalistic and realist writers.95 There was, he concluded, actually little to choose between them. Wu Yifang (1893–1985), who was a famous writer under the pen name ‘Dongsheng’, also expressed her sympathy with Lin Yutang’s ‘personal tone’ in essay writing, saying ‘Each individual has his own wine cup. Although I use a small wine cup, it is mine’.96 On the other side, however, the episode type attacks on Lin were equally published as well. While ‘An Enquiry into the Pedantic Ambience of the Kerchief Scholarhood’ was read by the public, on the same page of the Shenbao, Guo Ming (a pen name of Shao Xunmei, 1906–1968) and Xie Yunyi, the editors of Renyan Weekly (Renyan zhoukan), rejected Lin Yutang’s accusations that Renyan Weekly had deliberately planned to attack Lin’s Human World and the ‘personal essay’.97 They said they actually shared no interest in Lin’s view about personal essay, therefore, they certainly did not launch any planning attack on Lin and to allow themselves to fall in to any engagement with this issue. The dispute did not peter out over the next few days; on the contrary, it seemed to provoke increased attention because of the response from Zhang Kebiao. Zhang rejected Lin Yutang’s accusations that he had launched a series of attacks using different pen names in several different publications, including ‘Random Talk’. Zhang said now the trouble had been brought to his door, and he was forced to defend for himself. He stated: In Shanghai I heard the rumour that Yutang planned an all-out attack on me. But I asked myself, and knew that I haven’t ever offended this

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person. I cannot believe that this rumour had already come true, and it has really confused me ... If Yutang can examine himself, discover his human nature, arouse his conscience ... Then he should have the strength to correct himself after knowing made a mistake, most sorrowfully self-confess, and apologize to the public.98 Zhang’s letter was published on the same page as Lin Yutang’s final section of ‘An Enquiry into the Pedantic Ambience of the Kerchief Scholarhood’. But alongside these two articles which were directly addressing each other, there was a short announcement by the editor. This editorial note said: ‘Regarding all these debates and arguments relating to “sense of humour”: if we let this continue to carry on, things might end up moving even further away from the original topic. We plan to give it a happy ending right here.’99 Of course the debate did not end there, and it can only be assumed either that there was pressure from contributors to continue, as they still had more to say on this subject, or that the editor sensed many readers would be interested in further developments. These arguments revolving around the personal disputes of writers in ‘Random Talk’ were doubtless a rich source of entertainment, even if this was not the intention of the writers. Lin Yutang and Liao Mosha’s mockery only drew their styles closer, rather than enforcing a distinction between miscellaneous and personal essays. Nevertheless, the debate continued long after both sides had outlined their positions, presumably because it remained amusing.100 ‘Random Talk’ also reveals disagreements between writers and publishers over whose work should be regarded as ‘popular’ and worthy of publication. In the article ‘Where are the Great Works’, the author ‘Hunren’ angrily pointed out what he saw as unfairness in literary circles.101 He alleged it was a well-known fact that many publishers selected works for publication based on authorship alone. The publishing business had become dependent on personal relationships rather than talent and quality. Even when famous writers announced the ‘title’ of a work without any sample of the content, publishers still competed to publish it. This was a phenomenon for which publishers and editors had to take responsibility; yet the ‘blind’ readers also had to carry some of the blame: The ordinary blind readers are a group of pathetic worms with no opinions of their own; they have embraced the principle of only reading famous writers’ works. Eminent writers say humorous literature is great; readers read humorous magazines and books. Eminent writers

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say personal essays are wonderful; they choose personal essays to read. Even the farts of these eminent writers smell good to such readers. Huren’s angry outcry represented other young writers’ feelings as well. Shenbao readers certainly were interested in reading about this kind of ‘back-stage’ dispute between writers and publishers, indicated by a response a few days later, ‘We Want an Outcry over our Unjust Treatment’. In this piece, an unidentified author argued that Hunren’s opinions were hasty and unfair.102 He admitted that famous writers’ works caught popular attention more easily; however, publishers also welcomed work from new writers.103 Of course, such debates had little chance of a resolution satisfactory to both parties. Nevertheless, both sides agreed that the commercial factors and the role of the reader were crucial. This kind of economic mindset of publishers as well as for the writers shouldn’t be surprising, as many writers were their own publishers. In his observations on the publishing world in early twentieth century China, Roswell Britton notes that newspapers and periodicals became the best way for writers to gain a readership, ‘rather than to write books.’104 Nevertheless, many short-lived magazines and newspapers, where writers were often shareholders, were forced to close down, if not from censorship, then from lack of income.105 In his memoir of the publishing business in Shanghai during the Republican period, Zhang Jinglu (1898–1969) remembered the constant financial pressure on the authors and companies. Michel Hockx observes that even so, many of the writers in Shanghai were not alienated from the publishing and marketing elements of their vocation. As members of literary associations that had to survive commercial competition, writers had to know their readers’ tastes.106 When Xu Zhimo (1895–1931) launched the magazine Crescent Moon (Xinyue) in 1928, he said ‘Similar to being in other markets, the market of ideas involves laying out a lot of stalls, opening a lot of shops. [It involves] putting up a lot of signboards, a lot of flags and banners, and covering everything with advertisements. At a glance, there are at least ten businesses that can be listed.’ He then identified 13 styles for literary consumption.107 Thus, both publishers and writers were financially conscious, and Shenbao was no exception. The re-launched ‘Random Talk’ did well in attracting public’s attention by filling this column with famous writers and controversial topics. As well as building up a public sphere and an imaginary community for its readers, ‘Random Talk’ also had an

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editorial policy that looked after its commercial interests. Let us use 8 August 1934 as an example. On the page featuring the ‘Random Talk’ column, no less than 14 advertisements appeared. Beginning at the top of the page, from right to left, the first was for Yili soda water (Yili qishui) and glasses with a picture of modern bright living room. Then came a Chinese Huasheng electronic fan advertisement. The third was for classical textbooks. Next to it was a cure for male premature ejaculation. Then there were promotions for Ultra Carbon stomach medicine and ‘Gets-it’ brand corn water. Beneath this, to the right of the ‘Random Talk’ column itself, the Maochang Glasses Company advertised its famous Carl Zeiss lenses. Beneath the column, there were advertisements for the Shanghai women’s supplementary school, for ‘Beecham’s Pill’ constipation medicine with a picture of a beautiful smiling lady, entitled ‘how to keep health and youth’, for Kodak film, for a so-called French-made ‘Gonolyne’ medicine for cleaning the blood, for Moganshan sanatorium, and finally, two for mental institutions. At least four of these were for luxury items: Soda water, electronic fans, Carl Zeiss lenses, and Kodak film. The one for classical books and the women’s supplementary school also attempted to attract educated people. Four more (medical) advertisements were also either associated with foreign medical companies, or gave their products foreign names to attract customers. In short, ten out of 14 advertisements were clearly not for the ‘masses’, but were aimed at the middle class. The three hospitals were certainly not for working class people, since the fees for specialist treatment in these private institutions were rather expensive. Moreover, this consumer identity did not exclude intellectuals. The friction between these anti-materialist, or at least pro-working-class, discourses and their own lifestyles also had the potential to cause tensions for intellectuals. As noted earlier in the chapter, according to Zhang Kebiao’s satire on literary circles in Shanghai, Ways to Succeed in the Literary World, which was widely debated in ‘Random Talk’, writers had unique lifestyles.108 So, there was a disjunction between the content of the advertisements and the content of the column, which was full of the discourse of mass language and mass consciousness. The way to explain this disjunction is to put the Shenbao readership and Shenbao as an enterprise into the same context as the writers’ work. These three parties constituted the literary topography of Shanghai, interwoven with particular interests on every side: the readers’ personal tastes and voyeuristic interest in the quarrels of the literati, the intellectuals’ individual and collective need for a sense of their own integrity balanced against their desire for

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power in both political and literary circles, and the publishers’ profits and influence.

Conclusion Before Li Liewen, previous editors of ‘Random Talk’ were all involved in other commercial activities. Wang Dungen left ‘Random Talk’ and tried the iron business. The business failed and he returned to literary circles full-time.109 Chen Diexian, who previously also formed another popular Shenbao column, ‘Common Sense’, left ‘Random Talk’ for his successful company which he named Household Enterprise.110 Zhou Shoujuan (1895–1968), a bonsai expert, did business with publishers and magazines.111 These three editors’ characteristics reflected Shenbao’s commercial nature, and their Mandarin Duck and Butterfly literature also fitted the popular taste. Chen Diexian’s company, which produced toothpastes, soaps, perfumes, etc., placed a lot of advertisements in Shenbao to appeal to its readers. It is worth pointing out that even though he handed over the editorship of ‘Random Talk’, Chou Shoujuan did not leave Shenbao. On the contrary, a new column ‘Spring and Autumn’ (Chunqiu) was created for him in January 1933. This column contained personal essays, poems, drams, and other forms of literature. The Mandarin Duck and Butterfly literary style of the original ‘Random Talk’ was transferred to ‘Spring and Autumn’, and became one of the most popular columns in Shenbao. This will be discussed in the final chapter. Beside advertisements, the ‘Random Talk’ column also accommodated several other kinds of literature, including travel writing, romantic serials, translations of short novels, and various essays. Even issues surrounding intellectuals’ self-criticism and debates about mass consciousness successfully excited readers’ appetites. But who were these people? Were they simply the middle classes, or were they some wider cross-section? The final chapter explores these questions, and draws some conclusions about what the evolving make-up of Shenbao’s readership tells us about Chinese society in this period of change.

6 Re-defining Shenbao’s Readership

Dear Mr. Editor: I have been working in an iron shop as an apprentice for more than three years, the shop owner and colleagues all share a good relationship. But there is one thing in my head which makes me feel indignant ... (Wang Fen, Shenbao, 1 January 1933) Previous chapters drew a picture of popular life from the images in Shenbao of various subjects. In the chapter on cigarette advertisements, the tension between commercialism, nationalism, and personal tastes was highlighted. The chapter on personal banking offered a portrait of the rational calculating personality developed by individuals in modern Chinese society. The third chapter, on the modern Chinese housewife, showed how the expectations of this new social role included being self-sufficient, rational, knowledgeable and devoted to a patriotic style of motherhood. Extending this discussion of patriotic morality, Chapter 4 studied the feeling of guilt strongly promoted by Shenbao during the national product movements (even though it still carried plenty of advertisements for foreign goods). Chapter 5 examined how Shenbao’s popular literary column ‘Random Talk’ created a platform for intellectuals, writers, and readers to participate in discussions of current affairs. It also revealed how writers criticized themselves and expressed dissatisfaction about their own station in Chinese society as ‘useless literary men’. Their self-criticism and mutual attacks generated the column’s heat and attracted public interest. Although it was never made explicit, the role of the reader was at the core of this column, and readers’ silent presence affected what writers brought to the literary market through what was the country’s most popular commercial newspaper. 158

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These snapshots of Chinese society and Chinese people are intended to represent an imaginary community shared by Shenbao’s readers. In this community, the ideas of nationalism and commercialism penetrated popular reality, providing concepts which were then actualised in speech and actions. But who were these readers? Who participated in this imaginary community? Were their voices heard in practice? This chapter will try to answer these questions.

Middle class readership: challenges and issues In her study of newspapers and public opinion in late eighteenthcentury England, Hannah Barker identifies a critical problem shared by our study of newspaper readership in Chinese society in the early twentieth century. When she talks about the relationship between newspapers and the public, she says: ‘It has become clear that “the public” was often implicitly equated, at least in part, with those who read newspapers. However, the identity of this body can appear almost as elusive as that of the public itself.’1 It is estimated that each copy of the English Spectator in the late eighteenth century was shared by around 20 readers, and this understanding of its potential readership helped the publisher and advertisers to estimate the size of their investment and to sell both information and goods.2 But how is this figure for the size of its readership arrived at? Barker points out that: ‘Contemporary accounts of readership are not necessarily reliable, and almost always both impressionistic and politically motivated (either praising the “enlightening” effect of newspapers or more commonly damning their “pernicious” influence). For some historians, the key to discovering the identity of newspaper readers lies not in the accounts of contemporary observers, but in the newspapers themselves.’3 Barker notes that though understanding and analyzing the texts, including the advertisements, in a newspaper appears to be one of the best methods of reconstructing a readership, this method involves two assumptions. First, it assumes contemporary advertisers were themselves able to estimate the size of their readership effectively, and second, it assumes that advertisers ‘catered for the bulk of newspaper readers.’ However, Barker offers a counter-example, using an advertisement to show how the story of a readership can be more complicated than suggested under these two assumptions. Using the advertisements for servants wanted in the Morning Herald in the late eighteenth century, she argues that the readership for newspapers was wider than

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other research has suggested.4 In a typical newspaper, different sections (news, columns, and advertisements) offer different information for different kind of readers. Barker’s research offers a useful caution when studying Shenbao’s readership. In the Introduction we mentioned the progress made by Shenbao’s circulation, from 50,000 in 1922 to 150,000 in 1931. As these figures originated from the publisher itself, they must be treated with circumspection; clearly, any publisher has a vested interest in making circulation figures as high as possible. The lack of an independent source for circulation figures, not to mention the absence of reliable figures for literacy rates in China during this period, means any work on this subject must be tentative, not to say speculative. Neither Shenbao nor Xinwenbao, the two largest commercial newspapers, ever seem to have carried out any market research on their readership, and no records of the subscribers have yet been located. Unlike party political newspapers which by their nature had a clear audience, the targets of the large daily commercial newspapers remained ill-defined. We must rely at least partly on contemporary anecdotal evidence to support the view that Shenbao was indeed a very popular newspaper. For example, according to Xu Zhucheng (1907–1991), a journalist, ‘Shenbao papers’ (Shenbao zhi) became a generic term used to refer to all newspapers.5 This phenomenon suggests that the popularity of Shenbao went beyond a certain class, i.e. ‘middle class’, and extended throughout society. For instance, it was common for offices and institutions to subscribe to Shenbao, and many people were able to read the newspaper at their work place. Yang Jiayou, a scholar of Shanghai urban history mentioned in Chapter 1, recalled that his family did not order or buy newspapers, but that his father brought home Shenbao and Dagongbao (L’Impartial) from his office, and returned them the next day.6 Several interview subjects recalled having access to the paper. For example, Wu Yunshan, a senior Shanghai resident, remembered that when she was little, although her family did not order newspapers, her father’s office did. (Of course, not all newspapers end up being used for the purpose for which they are ostensibly intended; Wu recalled that when her father’s subordinate came to their house from his father’s office on a rainy day, he would wrap his good shoes in Shenbao to carry them home.)7 Shenbao was certainly also seen as reading material for the middle class, broadly conceived. In an article written in 1982, Mao Dun recalled his encounter with the column ‘Random Talk’ of Shenbao. He said Shenbao was a necessity on the desks of high-class people (shangliu shehui) as well as for petty citizens.8 In his pioneer studies on Shenbao, often cited in later scholarly work, Terry Narramore stresses there were two main pillars

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of Shenbao’s readership. The first was constituted by the gentry and the commercial and industrial elites. The second was harder to define: ‘Beyond this elite the picture is not so clear. The growth in what are commonly thought to be the middle-class occupations of industrial societies, clerks, shop assistants, professionals, and others in the service industries, is less well understood in the industrializing parts of Republican China. Social groups associated with occupations of this sort opened up an entirely new audience for Shanghai newspapers. It will be seen that the circulation of Shen Bao in the late 1920s and early 1930s (150,000 plus) was large enough to suggest that these social groups, which, for want of a better term, could be referred to as the Shanghai middle class, formed the second pillar of the newspaper audience. But it was very unlikely that Shen Bao’s audience went beyond this social terrain.’9 On the one hand it is straightforward to agree with Narramore’s point that Chinese elites formed a core group of Shenbao’s readership. It is also easy to support his view about the rise of new social groups in China: they were indeed hard to define, even if they shared the property of being Shenbao readers. However, we might question the notion of placing clerks and shop assistants in the category of ‘middle class’; and if these groups, and others like them were indeed a significant part of the readership, this also leads us to question whether the label ‘middle class’ is helpful or useful in this context. Consequently, this chapter suggests that the concept of social class in general is not sufficient by itself to understand Shenbao’s readership, and that this can be far better achieved by treating a broader class of literate people as a distinctive group which cuts across social boundaries. The literacy rate is another consideration. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the illiteracy rate in China was more than 80%.10 The total percentage of the population that actually read a newspaper could not therefore be greater than around 20% (though of course many who were not literate could have listened to a newspaper being read to them). Evidence suggests, however, that the total audience, literary and aural, for newspapers was considerably less than this. Carl Crow (1884–1945), who arrived in China in 1911 from America, and later set up a successful advertising firm in Shanghai, estimated that there were 3,000,000 daily newspapers then being printed, including mosquito newspapers. His calculations were based on the number of printing machines and the number of newspapers they could print per day, as well as the number of promotional coupons in circulation.

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But he was also of the view that one copy of a newspaper could be read by more than one person. Crow gave the example of a newspaper which was delivered to a subscriber’s home. This newspaper might be sold to the neighbour by the servant of the household, by midday, for some pennies. It could then be passed on again, so that it had travelled to somewhere a hundred miles away a week later. By including this kind of secondary circulation, Crow estimated that slightly less than 5% of the total Chinese population read newspapers every day. If we hypothesize that on average around nine people read one copy of each newspaper, then about 7% of the population read newspapers, close to Lin Yutang’s estimate.11 The conventional variables used in the study of newspaper readership in a European context include readers’ education, social class (mainly based on income and occupation), and age. A survey, based on interview, of readership of British national daily newspapers, carried out between July 1963 and June 1964, still stands as a classic example in understanding contemporary newspaper readership.12 The results of the survey were tightly linked to divisions of class structures; indeed the very definition of British social classes is closely bound to the types of newspapers each group is associated with. Unfortunately, attempts to apply even the variables employed, let alone the conclusions of this survey, to the study of Shenbao’s readership in that period, are bound to fail, due to the radical difference between the shape of English society and that of Chinese society in the period under consideration. We can contrast China’s low literacy rates and very large population of people living in extreme poverty with England’s strong and clear social class divisions and in particular its established middle class: the contrast is quite dramatic, and also instructive. In the 1920s and 1930s, China had a much smaller, much less clearly identifiable middle class, while the literate demographic in Chinese society at that time did not strictly align with social class divisions. From the last few years of the Qing dynasty to the early Republican period, what had been a very small group of literate people became larger as the education system expanded to reach more people;13 at the same time, if we explore the make-up of this ‘literate’ group, not everyone became literate in the same way, with those from ‘lower’ social groups becoming literate through non-conventional means, perhaps later in life, and these too could also become readers of Shenbao. There are some insights to be found here in the structure of Chinese education at that time. Before age 15, the standard route for education was primary school (lower and upper), followed by several different

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levels of secondary education: ‘normal schools’ for pupils who aspired to become teachers; middle schools for those aspiring to university or other forms of higher education such as specialist research institutes; while there was also a vocational route for the less academic.14 But this was not the only route to education. Those who did not complete primary education due to poverty or other factors relating to their family situation could also receive education later in life from the ‘popular education’ system. Forms of popular education included libraries, public reading rooms, night schools, half day schools, supplementary schools, theatres, etc.15 For example, in 1914, half-day and literacy schools were opened for 12–16 year olds who did not have previous primary education.16 It also should be emphasized that Chinese society at that time was at a turning point between traditional and modern, and the decaying of old social orders and their replacement with new ones had not yet settled down. Amongst the obvious differences in social structures between Western and Chinese society is the fact that China, as Lloyd E. Eastman points out, was experiencing significant horizontal and vertical demographic shift without parallel in the West at this time. This tended to blur and confuse the divisions between social classes. The new divisions between social classes relied much more on the professions and means of access to wealth.17 While the old gentry declined, new social groups were formed including elites of merchants and intellectuals, as well as students and the masses who moved to the cities for work. The concept of the middle class has been used extensively in history, sociology, politics, economics, anthropology, and no doubt elsewhere. In the study of English society after the Industrial Revolution in particular, the ‘middle class’ has received a lot of attention, and lately has been largely associated with analyses of consumerism and social classes. However, when this concept of a ‘middle class’ is used in the study of modern Chinese society, it must be employed carefully. The idea of the middle class has been explored in recent Chinese scholarship through studies of such topics as banking, industry, new professionals, business, consumption, gender, media, and literature. However, each new piece of research tends to offer a definition of the Chinese middle class from its own point of view, emphasizing different variables (income, reading materials, education, commodity consumption, professionalization) accordingly. None, however, covers the whole readership demographic. For example, Marie-Claire Bergère explores how new bankers and young entrepreneurs participated in Chinese modernization.18 However, when the type of bourgeois in Bergère’s

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study is compared with the concept of the middle class used by Wenhsin Yeh, Susan Glosser, and Carlton Benson, what Bergère has in mind turns out to be quite a narrow group. For these authors, the middle class was broadly identified with the consumption of certain commodities, particularly those of a ‘modern’ nature.19 But even this broader approach of using variables such as income and wealth to define social classes and then to identify the readership of Shenbao leaves out groups such as housewives, students, and young urbanites, all of whom had some education and were literate. Moreover, the use of an income variable can also fail to capture the differences in living standards between city, town, and country. Against these questions, we have to ask further if it is meaningful to define this rather small literate population through application of Western concepts of social class; and even if this is considered worthwhile, we also have to question whether this activity can be done successfully with so little knowledge about the literate demographic. On balance, the conclusion must be that, rather than ascribing the label ‘middle class’ to the whole of Shenbao’s readership, a much better conception is one based on identification of different literate, often overlapping social groups. Some of these readership constituencies, comprising groups such as students, housewives, intellectuals, shop assistants, and apprentices, might be made up mainly or even wholly of individuals identifiable as ‘middle class’ – but the ‘middle class’ label cannot by any means be made to apply to all. Of course, beyond Shenbao’s literate readership there was also, as we have seen, an ‘illiterate readership’ too.

Management of content: be neutral but commercial The political attitude of a newspaper can affect its sales and its relationship with its readers. In order to attract and retain a certain group of readers, a newspaper might decide to have strong political views. Apart from the party-sponsored newspapers, only a few small journals and newspapers during the late Qing and the Republican periods attracted a loyal readership by offering radical views. For example, in the late Qing period, Liang Qichao’s newspapers enjoyed support from elites and overseas Chinese;20 and the ‘underground’ Communist publications in the Republican period gained a firm readership amongst politically active students and communist sympathizers. However, it is less clear that this kind of relationship between editors and readers was applicable to the large commercial newspapers.

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In 1872 the British merchant Ernest Major founded Shenbao in Shanghai. Major, who had launched himself commercially in the tea business in China, established this new newspaper for Chinese readers, and for commercial purposes, and he wanted it to be independent from political control. Major spoke good Chinese and had assistance from his brother as well as a trusted assistant Qian Zheng (he was also known as Qian Xibo, 1832–19??), whom he sent to Hong Kong to glean tips on entering the newspaper business from Wang Tao, by then already well established in journalism and literary circles.21 Major was an innovative proprietor who helped to find fresh sources for news and was one of the first to use the telegram to deliver news.22 At the same time, he also became involved in other business ventures, in matches and in chemicals. He also had other publishing interests, including printing classical books for imperial examinations, and launching a very successful illustrated paper, Dianshizhai Lithograph (Dianshizhai huabao).23 In 1889, Major returned to England, and placed Shenbao under a limited company, Major Company Limited. He never returned to China, and died in England in 1908. As Shenbao was not very profitable, in 1907 it was sold to Xi Zipei, who was a comprador of Qingpu (a county outside Shanghai) and had been involved in Shenbao for over a decade.24 Shenbao continued to be registered as a foreign company until Shi Liangcai took it over in 1911. Shenbao was thus a commercial newspaper right from the beginning, and despite several changes of ownership, its essential character did not change in this respect. Its political neutrality helped Shenbao to appeal to a larger readership, and gain more income from advertisements from different businesses. In examining the contents of the newspaper, we find that Shenbao actually gave more attention to non-political than to politically-related news, presumably to try to attract as broad a readership as possible. According to an analysis of five newspapers carried out in 1923, including Chenbao (Morning Post) in Beijing, Yishibao (Social Welfare) in Tianjin, Zhongxibao (Sino-Western Daily) in Hankou, and Qishierhang shangbao (Seventy-two Guilds Daily News) in Guangzhou, Shenbao offered the largest number of pages of non-news material, although it did not have the highest percentage of non-news in relative terms. If we look at the kinds of news Shenbao printed, economic news accounted for 34%; only around 25% went to politics.25 Compared with the Dagongbao, Lin Yutang stressed, the news quality of Shenbao was poor.26 Chinese news reports tended to be released in the form of official statements in order to be ‘impartial’. They were

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unlike Western news reports, which would remind readers that the official version only gave one side of the story.27 Lin thought ‘the only worry of its publishers’ was whether or not Shenbao was making money, and that it was simply filling up the gaps between poorly edited news with advertisements.28 Lin acknowledged that although Shenbao had made some efforts to improve its quality, particularly by increasing the number of supplements, other publications such as Shishi xinbao (The China Times), Dagongbao and Chenbao were easily superior to it in terms of their range of political and international news, and the level of their editorials. But these higher-quality Chinese newspapers still only appealed to a small readership, and could not compete either with Shenbao or the other large commercial newspaper, Xinwenbao. Barbara Mittler suggests that Shenbao’s readers in the pre-Republican period, who can be taken as representative of the ‘general reader’ at that time, were reading for entertainment and instruction and were happy to be addressed in an ‘authoritative’ writing style.29 But this authoritative form of address was fading away gradually, and from the late 1910s onward, the style employed in Shenbao differed from the early years, becoming much more in tune with both the New Culture and the vernacular movements. In terms of political news, Mittler points out that the reprinting of court gazettes helped sales, as many officials and intellectuals read this kind of news and preferred the authoritative tone of the commercial newspapers.30 This way of re-producing political news did not change during the Republican period, and by recycling news from the halls of government, Shenbao kept itself neutral towards political conflicts. As part of this policy of self-preservation, the paper tended to adopt a vague albeit somewhat conservative position when it commented on internal political affairs during the warlord period. Even after 1930, when Shi Liangcai favoured a nationalist policy and thought Chiang Kai-shek should put resistance to Japan before opposition to the Chinese Communist party, Shenbao’s predominantly commercial direction went unchanged. Perhaps because Shenbao’s own correspondents had little ability to discover the news by themselves, Shenbao also tended to display an ambiguous attitude in its editorials, at least up to the Mukden Incident in September 1931.31 Chen Leng had established his reputation in Shibao by writing sharp criticism. However, this kind of style was less visible in Shenbao, presumably because it was thought it might interfere with the main commercial direction of the paper and cause complications in the relations between the various political parties and foreign powers.32

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From the warlord period to the establishment of the Nationalist Government in Nanjing in 1927, apart from a few exceptional correspondents in Beijing such as Huang Yuansheng (1885–1915) and Shao Piaoping (1884–1926),33 most political news simply reproduced the bulletins offered by officials with very little editing or interpretation.34 Lin Yutang, although he praised Shenbao’s supplements, was disappointed with the quality of Shenbao’s news in general. Under the Nationalist Government regime, Lin suspected that editors of Shenbao seldom re-wrote the news they received. He commented that Shenbao only made ‘occasional attempts to publish special correspondence or feature articles, and it prints learned lectures broadcast by the Central Broadcasting Station of the Publicity Department of the Central Kuomintang at Nanking’.35 Since Shenbao wanted to keep a safe distance from politics and focus on commerce, it had to find other ways to secure a readership. It paid a lot of attention to Shanghai local news, particularly to commercial and business affairs, which proved an important attraction for readers. Shenbao’s numerous commercial advertisements became a very important source of information as well.36 Commercial news and advertisements benefited from each other, and at the same time, were useful for the general readership. This was particularly true for Shanghai readers, thanks to the ‘Local Supplement’, which began printing in 1924.37 This supplement was notable for advertisements for cinemas, theatres, and amusements.38 Our previous chapters have illustrated how different columns and supplements were designed to attract a certain kind of reader. For example, Shenbao’s literature section ranged from romantic tales and reports of strange events, to folk songs, poems and essays. After 1930, it also included Marxist and proletarian literature, but purely, one feels, to keep up with the fashion. We also noted the ‘Common Sense’ column with all sorts of discussions of economics, medicine, hygiene, morality, science, education, religion, law, etc. Shenbao’s supplements and its commercial advertisements must be seen as connected categories. For example, the debates in the literary supplement prompted readers to pay attention to magazines and new publications associated with names already familiar from Shenbao. The hygiene knowledge imparted in the column ‘Common Sense’ helped to sell domestic chemical products. Another modern product, the individual banking account, certainly became more socially acceptable because of the encouragement offered in the articles about saving in Shenbao. The supplements and articles for promoting the national

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product movements were always accompanied by advertisements for various domestically-produced goods. Other weekly supplements for motor cars, radios, medicine, and so on also helped the sale of relevant products advertised in Shenbao. So, until the Nationalist Government was formed in Nanjing, Shenbao managed to keep its leading position in the newspaper world with a mixture of political neutrality and commercial aggression. Even after the tension between Shi Liangcai and Chiang Kai-shek over Chiang’s attitude toward the Japanese invasion came to the surface, the number of Shenbao’s supplements and advertisements was not reduced. Shenbao had them to thank for a significant proportion of its readership.

Who was ‘reading’ the advertisements? While Shenbao was nationally distributed, mosquito newspapers circulated locally in large cities. These mosquito newspapers were a phenomenon of the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries. They were local in content and character, and not all of them were daily. Their contents were very broad, including poems, literature from Chinese opera, news with an entertainment focus, novels, food recipes, ‘Common Sense’ opinion columns, song lyrics, often unconfirmed political news, and gossip. The satirical and ironic tone of these small newspapers made them popular. However, it would be wrong to think that the mosquitoes’ readership was necessarily separate from the readerships of large national newspapers like Shenbao. When comparing Shenbao and the mosquito newspapers, it is often mistakenly thought that Shenbao was simply for middle class readers and the others were for readers from the lower classes. On the contrary, the content of these mosquito newspapers, which included topics such as commercial news, entertainment information, and Mandarin Duck and Butterfly literature,39 overlapped significantly with the material consumed by Shenbao’s readership. Those readers who enjoyed the mosquitoes’ serialized novels would also be likely to read Shenbao’s column ‘Random Talk’ (both in its old and new forms), and its literary column ‘Spring and Autumn’ (Chunqiu). The story surrounding ‘Spring and Autumn’ is instructive here. The column was established in the period after Shenbao’s new chief editor, Chen Binhe (1897–1970), and other intellectuals, such as Huang Yanpei, Tao Xingzhi, Ge Gongzhen, and Shi Liangcai, decided to make some changes around 1930.40 According to Hu Hanzhu, it was Shi Liangcai’s personal decision to give a new face to the existing popular literary

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supplement, in order to bring new energy to the newspaper and at the same time impart some knowledge to young readers.41 However, very soon after the launch of the revamped ‘Random Talk’, Shi Liangcai realized through a conversation with his long-term newsagent, ‘Xu Ah-Qi’ (a name which implies he was the Xu family’s seventh child, so most likely a pseudonym), that this radical change to an old favourite might have already cost him some loyal readers. Hu Hanzhu’s story described Xu Ah-Qi as someone who had earned his living as a newspaper distributor for his entire life. Xu told Shi Liangcai that although the new ‘Random Talk’ attracted young urbanites and students, these groups tended to buy newspapers randomly from the street vendors. The new ‘Random Talk’ had lost Shenbao an older generation of readers who had been regular subscribers for over ten or even 20 years.42 After hearing this, Shi Liangcai quickly created a new column for Zhou Shoujuan, the original editor of ‘Random Talk’, and began once again running ‘Mandarin Duck and Butterfly’ literature in this new literary space, entitled ‘Spring and Autumn’. Although there is no way to prove if this conversation between Shi Liangcai and Xu Ah-Qi did take place, the fact is Shi Liangcai did create another literature column to accommodate the reading taste of old Shenbao readers – the very readers which overlapped with those of the mosquito newspapers. The variety of forms of literature in Shenbao suggests the newspaper had a broad readership that enjoyed a number of different styles. To demonstrate the complicated relationship between the old and the new in Chinese society, Huang Max Ko-wu used medical advertisements to argue that the readership of Shenbao was a mixed group during the Republican era.43 Those readers who still strongly believed in traditional medical theories were exposed to Western concepts of health. But at the same time, imported Western medicine was advertised with explanations given in traditional Chinese style in the text. The mixed personalities and tastes of its readership reflect the transitional shape of Chinese society at that time. In a study of the consumer behaviour of lower middle class English women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Christopher Hosgood points out that the life of the lower middle class can be lived ‘in imitation of its social superiors ... Advertising promoted a world view that enticed consumers into believing that their social experiences and circumstances could be altered by consumer decisions ... Consumerism provided the lower middle class with the fiction that they belonged in the middle-class world.’44 For these lower middle class ladies, seasonal

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bargain hunting became a ‘ritual’ practice which not only offered them some excitement but also allowed them to express their understanding of themselves as good housewives and smart shoppers, even though this might be objectively false in so far as they ended up spending more than they had intended. The press, which carried large advertisements for ‘Great Stocktaking Sales’, ‘The Great Event of the Season’, or a ‘Monster Sale’, was an important resource for these women seeking up-to-date consumer information.45 In the same way as its English counterparts, Shenbao brought such ‘news’ to its readers every day. For example, on a front page from May 1933, Zhongxi Great Pharmacy (Zhongxi dayaofang) announced its three-week summer sale,46 (see Figure 6.1). Beneath this, Three Friends Enterprises (Sanyou shiyeshe) placed another advertisement alerting people to the great opportunity to purchase its fabrics at large discounts that would only last for four days.47 It did not require great literacy to understand this kind of sales information, and women could easily spot it while carrying out their daily routines. The potential to appeal to readers with this sort of sales information, some of whom had only very limited reading ability, was large, encouraging companies to place more

Figure 6.1 Zhongxi Great Pharmacy advertisement, Shenbao, 4 May 1933

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advertisements in large commercial newspapers, and increasing sales of newspapers in return. The tendency of English lower middle class women to imitate the lifestyle of the middle class through advertisements also had its parallel amongst Chinese women. We saw in Chapter 3 how images of modern housewives and young women from better-off social backgrounds were condemned because they depicted groups who consumed foreign products and, crucially, were liable to be imitated by women of a lower social class. Karl Gerth points out that ‘middle- and upper-class women’ and, (somewhat oddly in Western eyes) prostitutes were seen as ‘tastemakers’ in society.48 Such women established fashions in clothes and accessories, and introduced novel lifestyles to their female contemporaries. The important role of these tastemakers was well illustrated in an advertisement for Lever’s Health Soap.49 Although the discourses promoting national products in Shenbao attacked the tastemakers, in their commercial advertising sections they sold the concept of being a fashion leader along with the product itself. In order to make advertisements more appealing to readers, apart from employing large fonts and giving factual information about the dates and prices of sale items, products were often promoted by a sequence of cartoons, (see Figure 6.2). In this large Lever’s Health Soap advertisement, occupying one third of a whole page, there were three pictures in a sequence. There were some captions in each to indicate the conversation being held by the characters in the pictures. The readers’ attention was supposed to be caught by the prelude placed in front of these pictures which gave the background to the story. The ‘prelude’ said: ‘The reason Miss Hu became a socialite. Lever’s Health Soap can reconcile separated lovers.’50 Beneath this was more text in a smaller font, which claimed ‘Lever’s Health Soap is different from the rest, and as soon as you smell its strong medicinal scent you will know its magical effect of killing and protecting from germs immediately. All the chemical ingredients of this soap are specially made. Using this healthy soap to wash and shower can kill all kinds of bacteria, and while its medicinal scent will soon disappear after washing, its protective effect on the skin still remains.’ But what was really meant to catch the readers’ eye were the pictures, drawn as silhouettes. Picture one portrayed two young women seated on two single-armed cloth couches and talking. Both were dressed in modern style qipao with simply cut lines to emphasize their modern and efficient style; both were attractive and shapely. They had fashionable bob hairstyles and pearl ear-rings as marks of good taste. They sat

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Figure 6.2 Lever’s Health Soap advertisement, Shenbao, 14 May 1934

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with their legs crossed to accentuate the curves of their upper bodies, and also to allow their delicate ankles to be seen in their high-heeled shoes. Their gestures not only suggested they were both deeply engaged in their conversation, but also conveyed the kind of body language that a proper socialite should employ when in public. Miss Hu began the conversation: ‘I am really not happy. Why doesn’t Li come to see me anymore? I think I must have done something to offend him’. The other lady replied: ‘Darling, don’t take this the wrong way please, but you have been quite careless recently. You might not notice this but I sense your body gives off a sweaty odour.’ After taking her friend’s advice, in the next picture, we see Miss Hu in her well-appointed bathroom with tiles and a shower curtain dealing with her unfortunate problem. She was shown standing next to the bath with her left leg resting on its edge, holding the soap and a towel to clean herself. She said: ‘Damn, I am so ashamed. From now on I will certainly use Lever’s Health Soap. I will definitely not smell sweaty anymore. Lever’s Health Soap is my really good friend.’ The last scene was of Li and Miss Hu sitting on the couch together with their arms entwined. Li, in a smart Chinese outfit with a long gown, a riding jacket and flat cloth shoes, says to Miss Hu: ‘Darling, you are now so clean and healthy again, I am really very happy. Let’s go see a movie together.’ Miss Hu, in her stylish outfit once more, replies: ‘Sure, let’s go see a movie tonight. I feel very happy.’ At the bottom of this advert was a note to potential customers that there was a voucher in the package that they could send to the soap company with their name and address to receive a copy of a small book on ways of staying healthy. The strategy is clearly similar to that mentioned by Crow, whose advertising agency measured the readership of newspapers based on returns of such vouchers. The page featuring this Lever’s soap advertisement deserves further attention. In the top right-hand corner of this page above the Lever’s advertisement was an advertisement for a shop called ‘Modern Film’ based on Nanjing Road in Shanghai. Without wasting a single word, it stated the price for various sizes of both colour photos and photography in an artistic style. The rest of the page was dominated by the activities of professional associations, news from literary circles, and Shanghai market information. There was also a short weather forecast for most areas of China, and timetables of steamships in and out of Shanghai for the rest of the month. Moreover, there was a reader’s letter with a question about agaric acid, and a lengthy editorial reply with several references.

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These items would appear to indicate a readership that was mainly male, including businessmen, professionals, and educated groups. The readers who were interested in the question about agaric acid probably had some level of higher education; but no higher education was required in order to be able to read the soap advertisement. In fact, it is quite possible that the readers who were really being targeted by the soap advertisement were the family members of the male readers, who may normally have got to read the newspaper first but were probably not the same people who bought the soap. Advertisements and newspapers promoted each other.51 The advertisement for servants in the Morning Herald mentioned above demonstrated that even in their early history a newspaper’s readership could reach beyond the middle class, and even, in some cases, to the illiterate, who could still look at the pictures and get a minimum of information from printed media (and this of course does not take into account that many illiterate people had the paper read to them). In both Chinese and English society, advertisements were treated just like news, as a commodity that could help to sell newspapers. Our knowledge of Chinese reading habits at this time suggests that Shenbao readers tended not to discriminate between the two, and that they ‘studied’ advertisements and the packaging of products as carefully as they read the news, even ‘though it may be printed in a language they cannot read.’52 Indeed, there was a section of the ‘readership’ that either could not or did not want to ‘read’ actual news, but had money to purchase goods and looked to advertisements for advice on what to buy. According to Carl Crow’s experience as a professional advertising agent for years in China, the secret of placing a successful advertisement in Chinese newspapers was to use a lot of pictures and less text. He used his illiterate friend, who owned a motor car and smoked expensive cigarettes, as an example to point out that even illiterate people formed part of the audience for newspaper advertising.53 Of course, the majority of Shenbao’s illiterate ‘readers’ were not as wealthy as Crow’s friend, but they nevertheless played an important role in this imaginary community connecting readership and commercial life in modern China. It is also worth noting that there are degrees of illiteracy, and at least some of those we are referring to here were not simply those who ‘listened’ to the news in the tea house or other public places, but rather people who were able to do some limited reading that allowed them, for example, to extract information from the advertisements about sales.

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Apart from commercial advertisements, Shenbao also offered space for the general public to place announcements. My survey of Shenbao from 1919 to 1937 found that most of the notices placed by the public concerned one of the following categories: central and local administrative offices, educational institutions, police, business and professional associations, native associations, hospitals, charities, and ‘personals’. The ‘personals’ in Shenbao were often notices seeking lost family members, or of divorces, or of lost property, or more sensationally in justification of their personal conduct in matters such as fights, rapes, and murders. Such announcements indicate Shenbao reached a broad audience, confirming the impression we have already formed based on our discussion of literacy rates and other content including advertisements. As the circulation of Shenbao began to increase, it took the further step of inviting readers to write in with their personal issues. Although the launch of this new column, the equivalent of the modern ‘problem page’, was affected by the North East Incident, it was soon revived under a different name to celebrate Shenbao’s sixtieth anniversary. Indeed, it had one column for general readers to write about their problems, and another especially for shop-keepers and apprentices. Readers wrote in to talk about both their personal anxieties and problems in daily life and their larger concerns about the direction of the country. These letters reflect how Shenbao’s readers saw themselves and are a useful contribution to our aim of building up a picture of Shenbao’s readership.

Writing to Shenbao In 1691, an Englishman named John Dunton, a bookseller and printer, launched a ‘problem page’ in The Athenian Gazette, which became The Athenian Mercury after one issue.54 This space attracted discussion of a wide range of subjects – not just love affairs and family problems, but ‘the mysteries of the Creation, the morality of slave-trading, the probability of perpetual motion, what caused a rainbow, the reasons for dizziness and why one hour’s sermon seemed longer than two hours’ conversation.’55 This kind of column was equally well received in Victorian and early twentieth-century cheap popular English publications. Women were the main participants in such pages, and family and personal problems dominated. The editorial responses always expressed a moral sense in offering ‘helpful advices for lower-middle, and even working-class readers, who wished to “do the right thing”.’56

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When people cannot cope with their secrets and troubles by themselves, it seems that for hundreds of years they have turned to advice from newspapers and magazines. Lower-middle and working class readers in particular, presumably because they had fewer resources for help compared with the better-educated and better-off, regarded asking advice from editors as a good method of solving their difficulties. The printed word conveyed authority. The ambivalent relationship between readers who went public by writing in with their troubles and even their personal secrets and were anonymous did not quench the thirst either for advice or for the pleasure to be had from reading about the tribulations of others. On 1 September 1930 Shenbao announced a column called ‘Reader’s Correspondence’ (Duzhe tongxun), as follows: The staff of our newspaper deeply believe that readers have various personal issues which urgently await consolation and solution. We, in a spirit of sincerity and service to society, are willing to act as consultants, and to be approached in words. If readers are able to find solutions because of this, reduce their troubles, and gain some happiness, isn’t this the greatest pleasure we could have?57 Shenbao asked readers to raise questions relating to education, careers, and marriage; they were also asked to give personal information including their name, sex, age, profession (or school address, school year), birthplace, and address for correspondence. Not every letter would be published, and readers could reserve the right to decide whether to reveal their identities in print or not.58 Both Natascha Vittinghoff and Mittler have drawn attention to this phenomenon of reader participation in Shenbao. Vinttinghoff illustrates how Shenbao’s publication of readers’ opinions on controversial issues during the 1870s helped the paper to establish itself as a respectable platform for the expression of public opinion. To achieve this respected status, Shenbao also set high standards for its contributors, including the readers themselves, of ‘conscientiousness, accuracy, objectivity, talent, erudition, knowledge of current affairs, sometimes even expertise in Western learning with a knowledge of Western languages, and – very importantly – moral excellence.’59 Such high standards almost automatically prohibited ordinary readers from writing to the newspaper to express their views, and as Mittler notes, the majority of readers’ articles appearing in Shenbao as editorials during its early years came from the Jiangnan elites.60

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In contrast, the letters in the later ‘Reader’s Correspondence’ column were not for editorial use, and the standards of moral excellence and knowledge of Western learning did not apply; they were simply there to ask for help. Fifty-six letters appeared in Shenbao in September 1930 alone, sometimes up to five letters a day. Judging by their names and titles, most were from men; only about a fifth were from female readers, although one cannot always tell the gender of the author from the name (and of course one cannot entirely exclude the possibility of a female writer employing a male nom de plume). Education and careers concerned male readers more than marriage, but for female readers, marriage and education had similar weight. Although the replies from the editors tended to be sympathetic, their rational and conservative tone was often out of keeping with the mood of those who wrote in, at least so far as career issues were concerned. For example, the Shenbao editors often suggested that readers try to change themselves rather than their job; if they cultivated themselves so that they developed a better personality and greater confidence, they might find their job actually suited them.61 When it came to relationships, however, Shenbao did not insist that people should stay in unhappy or arranged marriages. On the contrary, Shenbao pointed out that marriages arranged by parents had no legal status, and instead of staying in terrible marriages both female and male readers could find a way to get divorced.62 Shenbao did not print the ages of those readers who had their letters published. However, the subjects discussed suggest that the majority were between 15 and 35. Apart from career problems, educational issues also bothered them a lot. Many were seeking advice on how to study by themselves without spending too much money or attending day school as they needed to work. The recurrence of the topics of marriage, education and careers suggests that the editors of Shenbao had carefully selected these three subjects as of the greatest concern to most readers falling into this age category. While men usually felt comfortable putting their real names to their letters about career and educational problems, fewer women did so. However, on issues related to marriage, both sexes tended to use nicknames. But the existence of this environment in which younger people felt free to talk about their personal problems was deeply affected by the North East Incident on 18 September. After this, most readers felt they could no longer talk about their personal issues, and this national crisis took precedence. Without Shenbao making any explicit request, readers began expressing their worries about the war. From 22 September

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onwards, Shenbao’s ‘Reader’s Correspondence’ column was overwhelmed by letters talking about how to resist Japan, and how to boycott Japanese goods. For reasons that are unclear, most readers preferred to conceal their real identities when writing in on this topic, and used nicknames instead. The topic of national salvation continued to dominate throughout October, and Shenbao had to change its editorial policy to cope with its readers’ fervour.63 This flexibility in responding rapidly to its readers’ shifts in interests indicates why Shenbao was so successful in the publishing business. On 8 November, Shenbao announced that ‘Since everybody has now temporarily put aside personal problems like education, career and marriage, and become devoted to finding strategies for national salvation, please express your opinions on the following questions in the list ... Each answer should be limited to 1,000 words’.64 Although Shenbao stressed that readers were still welcome to talk about their personal troubles, all the letters published in November and December 1931 continued to address the political crisis. On the first day of 1932, the air was still full of patriotism, and Shenbao decided to temporarily cease the ‘Reader’s Correspondence’ column, replacing it by an essay competition. In the introduction, Shenbao stated: ‘The twentieth Republican year is over, and since set up this column, we have answered people’s questions every day, and it has been great fun. Now with the sound of a national crisis there are a few great and important questions in front of us, and our heavenly duty is that we should all study them carefully.’65 Despite the phrase ‘heavenly duty’, and references to the divisions between society and individual, public and private, and the great self and the small self, the reason behind Shenbao’s change of direction in this column was probably partly commercial. Instead of encouraging readers to talk about their personal issues, Shenbao recognized that in order to keep their readers’ attention, they needed to adopt a more patriotic tone. However, the amount of commercial advertisements in Shenbao remained constant even at the height of reader demands for the promotion of nationalism. In December 1932, the same day that the new ‘Random Talk’ column was launched, Shenbao tried to reintroduce its ‘problem column’, giving it a different name, the ‘Reader’s Consultant’ (Duzhe guwen). This time, the editorial introduction ran as follows: We believe that current state of society presents everybody with many problems. There are a lot of questions and confusion in everyone’s

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head ... We think all these questions and problems do not just belong to the individual, because we know it is the whole society which produces problems. In human society, no-one is alone ... all problems and difficulties are generally the result of society. Problems should be discussed, and questions should be answered. Here, everyone has right to put all their questions to society, and at the same time, everyone carries a responsibility to discuss problems and solve issues. To do so is not just for yourself alone, or myself alone, or for himself alone, but for the whole of society ... If possible, we will select and hire some specialists to seek answers for people who bring in their questions. If we cannot afford to do this, we will offer our opinions here, and the public can join discussion.’66 Shenbao encouraged readers to talk about their personal problems by making the argument that each individual is part of a community. There was therefore no such thing as a purely personal issue, and each individual should treat their personal problems in the context of society. People had an obligation to solve their personal problems to improve the quality of society as a whole. Shenbao’s tactic of stressing a strong connection between individual and society to assure readers it was fine to talk about their personal problems was necessary, given the widespread feeling that they were obliged to talk only about issues related to the national emergency. Once again, readers were asked to give personal details, but this time, instead of limiting discussion to the subjects of marriage, careers and education, Shenbao introduced another seven areas: politics and economics, law, the family, rural villages, natural science, medicine, and social issues. Moreover, the sender of each letter was required to cut out and attach the column’s logo, or their enquiry would not be dealt with – probably an attempt to make sure that readers had bought a copy of Shenbao themselves. The column combined editorial opinions with readers’ responses to the issues raised. Discussions often stretched over several days in a manner similar to the debates in ‘Random Talk’. In the end, the ‘Reader’s Consultant’ column ran for seven months, and received a lot of responses, some of which were published in two volumes as The Collected Reader’s Consultant in autumn 1933.67 As we noted, a broader range of matters were discussed in this column than in the old ‘Reader’s Correspondence’ column. As well as talking about social issues and rural life, many readers, both male and female, wrote about their personal problems frankly and directly. Shenbao readers had found a place where they could talk and complain, and the letters published in this

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column make the ‘imagined community’ of Shenbao’s readership more comprehensible and concrete. One young male employee of a foreign firm wrote that his monthly income was only about 40 or 50 dollars. After paying eight dollars for rent, 12 for food, five for transport, two for a servant and laundry, three for haircuts and grooming, and ten to his parents, his pocket was almost empty. He could not afford to be ill, because he would have no money to see a doctor. A young man like him was not qualified to make friends with a ‘mo-deng mi-si’ (modern miss).68 Another reader wrote to ask advice whether he should try having a relationship or whether he should concentrate on study. This 17-yearold author began: ‘My life, my future, and my whole world right now are flying in the face of the fiercest storm. Sometimes I feel sad, but sometimes I feel excited because of the dreams I have. My idea of life is flapping and waving without direction, and this is because of the environment I am in. So I often say to myself “what is the ultimate purpose of life”, alas.’69 This youth continued that he could not afford to go to school, and reading newspapers in a public reading room was his only habitual form of study. He wanted to study philosophy, aesthetics, and literature, but how could he? At the same time he was longing for love, but did not know what love was. He asked if he could manage both? Or how could he avoid a relationship if he had to just choose study? A married female reader had her own questions about marriage, love, and female independence. She asked the editor not to publish her letter, saying she would be very grateful for just a private reply. She was Mrs. Su Lin, a young wife of a medical student, who had accepted a marriage arrangement at 15 and had her wedding at 19. She was not happy about this from the beginning, as she had received some modern education in her youth. Luckily her husband was a good man and she returned his love. Mrs. Su lived with her parents-in-law and her husband did not live at home during term-time as he was still finishing his degree. He wanted a family as soon as he finished his degree, and she liked the idea. She hoped she could study obstetrics so she would be able to help his career after he graduated, but her husband preferred her to stay with his parents. He thought taking care of the family would be the best contribution she could make. Mrs. Su disagreed, and she asked what the role of a woman was in a nuclear family, and if there was anything beyond merely supporting her husband and looking after the family?

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At the same time, Mrs. Su was worried that her distance from her husband would grow because of her personality. She said her husband wrote to her at least twice a month, but she hardly wrote him one letter a year. When he came back during the term break, he was very attentive, and liked to be romantic with her, whereas she felt embarrassed saying something like ‘I love you’. Although her husband understood her feelings, Mrs. Su was concerned whether he really understood that she didn’t feel cold towards him, but that she just did not know how to express herself in such a passionate way.70 The stories of these three readers represented the personal concerns of a particular group of Shenbao’s readers. These people were not particularly wealthy or highly educated. They were ordinary people who had their daily routines to deal with, but were also sensitive to the people around them, and wanted to make their lives better. A particularly heart-rending case concerned that of a man who had run away from his home village in Jaingxi province after the arrival of the Communist party. He wrote in lamenting his misfortunes. He had settled down in Tianjin and pawned all of his personal belongings to be a small vendor, but soon his few copper coins together with his baskets were stolen. He wanted to do some hard physical labour, but no one wanted to hire him because he was not strong enough. He wanted to beg in the street, but his remaining pride prevented him. There is no way of knowing how this poor man obtained a copy of Shenbao to cut out the logo of the column and stick it on a letter, or got a stamp to send it all the way to Shanghai. The letter was rather short, but clearly written, and used some classical phrases and idioms. It might have been improved by the editors to make it more appealing to readers, but if so, such cases do not seem to have been in the majority; most of the authors seem to have been using their own words, though some might have been polished either by friends or editors. A lot of readers who wrote in declared that they were poor and had withdrawn from study as teenagers; since they had still received some education, reading a newspaper was a comfort for them. The letters in The Collected Reader’s Consultant clearly show that Shenbao’s readership came from a mix of social classes. Wang Lingjun, the editor of the column for most of its run, said he was amazed by the variety of the backgrounds of those who featured in it. They included teachers (particularly of primary schools), workers, intellectuals of villages, students and graduates of middle schools and universities, soldiers, religious types, young shop-keepers, and the sons and daughters of well-off households.71

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Despite the mixed social background of its readers and its longstanding commercial ties, Shenbao made a particular effort to attract more readers from amongst shop-keepers, students, and the lower ranks of employees. In both the ‘Reader’s Correspondence’ and ‘Reader’s Consultant’ columns, the subjects of study and careers repeatedly cropped up, and in July 1932 Shenbao also held an essay competition on students’ summer vacation plans.72 Like Life Weekly which had noticed the existence of young urban dwellers who had left their birthplaces to come to the city, Shenbao wanted to attract this social group to its readership. At the same time as the ‘Reader’s Consultant’ column was launched, ‘Shop-keepers’ Correspondence’ was also introduced. This column was devoted exclusively to shop-keepers who lived in Shanghai.73 Shenbao made a distinction between shop-keepers and ordinary employees, because the former tended to be youths who had dropped out of school and come to the city to earn a living as apprentices. They normally had to stay at the shop for very long hours. Their status was the lowest in the workplace; and they were mainly expected simply to perform chores for their employers. In the announcement launching this column, Shenbao stated that a circulating library (liutong tushuguan) would be set up. The paper was as good as its word, and this library was used mostly by people from lower social backgrounds who earned their living as shop-keepers, office employees, and manual workers. It was established in the Dalu Shopping Centre in Nanjing Road, also used for selling national products. Shi Liangcai was one of the largest investors, and Li Gongpu (1902–1946), a political activist eventually arrested in 1937 with Zou Taofen for asking the Nationalist government to change its policy towards Japan, was in charge.74 Catalogues were regularly updated and issued to readers. As well as visiting the library in person to borrow books, readers who lived in Shanghai could also order books to be sent out by post. Moreover, the library also gave away books for free in six areas of Shanghai, with weekly deliveries.75 Shenbao’s aim of extending its relationship to include those from lower social classes certainly worked in this case. Within six months, the library had more than 2,000 users; the largest group was shop-keepers, followed by students, office employees, manual workers, and civil servants, (see Figure 6.3). A significant majority of users were aged between 16 and 25, and male readers greatly outnumbered female readers.

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Figure 6.3 ‘Shenbao liutong tushuguan gongzuo baogao’ (Working Report of Shenbao’s Circulating Library), internal publication of Shenbao, February, 1935. The largest group who used the library was shop-keepers, followed by students, office employees, manual workers, and civil servants

Conclusion Although Ernest Major, Shenbao’s first owner, had been devoted to the use of plain language in Shenbao and had also published the Dianshizhai Pictorial to attract more readers, the limited size of the literate population at that time constrained his efforts. With the growth in both overall literacy and particularly in the urban literate population, more people beyond the elites and the middle classes were able to read, and required access to information. Second, improvements in transportation allowed more readers outside Shanghai to obtain Shenbao. Third, the economic growth and technological advances made periodicals more affordable.76 Finally, increased competition from other publications, of both higher and lower quality, forced Shenbao, the leading commercial newspaper, to seek a much broader audience. Shenbao’s political news was not as strong a feature as its commercial news, but this was not a problem in the final analysis, as it was the latter which gained Shenbao the most readers. Its advertisements appealed to the full spectrum of readers; to the literate, the less literate, and even

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to illiterate people. Shenbao’s literary supplements were also ambitious attempts to try to meet the tastes of different readers. While ordinary people were not targeted as contributors by Shenbao for editorials in the late nineteenth century, they certainly were sought out as sources of material for columns like ‘Reader’s Correspondence’ and ‘Reader’s Consultant’ in the 1930s. Readers’ preferences, as in the example of the change in the subjects for discussion in the ‘Reader’s Correspondence’ column, clearly exercised an influence and directed the newspaper orientation in significant respects. Shenbao’s flexibility in responding to its readers’ tastes is one important reason why it remained a successful commercial enterprise for so long; at the same time, its increasing exploitation of these same readers as a commercial resource allows us to build up a picture of its readership in a manner that its editors never intended. Particularly after 1930, the social groups it reached extended widely, embracing huge gaps in readers’ social and economic status through carefully crafted editorial and advertising content. From the wide range of material selected to appeal to its various target audiences, and by its tactics in reaching out beyond its traditional core readership, it is clear that Shenbao was positioning itself to become a newspaper for the whole of society.

Postscript: On Ambivalent Individualities

From the start of the Opium Wars at the mid-point of the nineteenth century, through the period of the Self-Strengthening Movement and the upheaval that followed the Boxer uprising, the process of Chinese modernization had been underway for more than 60 years by the time we reach the starting point of this book. The period between 1919 and 1937, which has been the focus of these pages, was the time when Chinese modernization finally came to be experienced in a more mature form, revealing itself widely in many different facets across society, and affecting large numbers of people in their daily lives. Where in the period before 1900, the locus of modernization was firmly in the military and diplomatic sphere, together with a few other, rather pragmatic elements, the shift in scale and breadth as China moved into the twentieth century was dramatic, particularly after the May Fourth Movement. The issues that have been discussed in this book can be broadly sorted into two categories: those relating to the overall community, and those primarily affecting individuals. Awareness of one’s own situation in one’s own particular environment and time is the most important ingredient in helping develop an awareness of individuality. In the context of Chinese modernization, this study of Shenbao’s readership has attempted not only to examine broader Chinese society, but also to look at the situation, behaviours and characteristics of individuals within that society. By using Shenbao as the thread which draws many parties together, we encounter a varied complex of different social groups that made up Shenbao’s readership. In addition, by examining Shenbao as an enterprise managed with a view to maximizing profit, this book was also able to explore how commercial principles created the conditions for a great deal of interaction in the public realm between publisher and editors, writers and contributors, and advertisers and readers. The book has elected to take as its starting point the May Fourth Movement, which came into being at one of the most significant moments in modern Chinese history and had many effects right across Chinese society. Although the May Fourth Movement did not transform Chinese society instantly, it nevertheless led many within that society to explore novel ideas, and inspired a new generation of young people 185

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to embrace and promote a new spirit for the new age. Although the ideas unleashed were divergent rather than unified, and the many groups of activists which sprouted from this movement went on to develop and espouse a wide spectrum of differing social and political views, its main theme – critical reflection – lifted the May Fourth Movement to a different level, and differentiated it from other movements. One of the central questions which exercised those concerned with the May Fourth Movement was the nature of the relationship between individuals and society, and the implications of this relationship for the concept of ‘nation’. Although far from a new topic in Chinese discourse – the nature of this relationship had always been a central focus of Confucianism – this issue was discussed, challenged, and changing attitudes reflected in a rather new way as the Movement progressed. It was new in several aspects. First, the means and forums used to conduct discussion of the relationship were new, as the Movement’s proponents exploited the new mass publishing and printing technology. Second, discussion was not just based on traditional Chinese teachings, but also on consideration of foreign philosophies. Third, the international, political and socio-economic situation during the May Fourth Movement was more complicated than at any other moment throughout the period, and the discussion of the relationship between individuals and society had to reflect this complexity. Fourth, discussions during the May Fourth Movement and on through the 1920s and 1930s were no longer restricted to a narrow group, namely intellectuals, but spread out among many different social groups and engaged those in many different professions.1 Finally, the influence of the May Fourth Movement was not restricted to the political dimension, but crossed over into many others, including literature, the arts, industry, professional associations, business, consumer culture, printing and media culture, and so on. In other words, by setting the movement in context as a necessary continuation and extension of the long-standing process of Chinese modernization from the late Qing period to the New Culture Movement in 1915, those engaged in the May Fourth Movement were able to continue the innovation, at an accelerating pace, into many aspects of society. Because this influence ranged so widely, the impact of the movement was soon felt in the lifestyles of individuals; hence, it was able to exercise substantial influence on individuals in their private sphere. This dimension of people’s private sphere in the Republican period added to the vibrant discourses associated with the May Fourth Movement an important but practical element that contributed directly to many of the more downto-earth aspects of Chinese modernization.

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Given an awareness of the difference between Chinese modernization and the Western experience of modernization, alongside the quite different development of the concept of individuality in China and the West, it is important to point out one concept which has similarities across both cultures. This is the notion of privacy, of a private existence within a public world.2 In ancient Greek and Rome, privacy meant the deprivation of involvement in the public and political realms. A slave had privacy, but no rights and freedoms in public. Women also belonged to a private realm, the household. In this kind of sphere, ‘man did not exist as a truly human being’,3 and the fulfilment of humanity was actualized in the public zone. This idea of freedom persisted in many ways throughout the Renaissance and Enlightenment, and even into the nineteenth century, when it began to be replaced by ideas which relate more closely to modern attitudes. Privacy began to be praised as one important element in defining a state of freedom. Privacy, in modern sense, ‘is a sphere of thought and action that should be free from “public” interference’.4 In this new understanding of the value of privacy, expressed by Benjamin Constant (1767–1830), John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) and other thinkers, privacy gained conceptual legitimacy to depart from the public realm.5 What is interesting, however, is that personal pursuits and tastes could at the same time be expressed and promoted in public sphere through meetings, lectures, schooling, clubs, and publications. This Western nineteenth century conceptual movement in the idea of freedom and individuality, to allow the idea that ‘privacy’ or a private realm should be identified as equally important as ‘public’ action or activity, seems to find its way to China during the May Fourth Movement. Here, the meaning of ‘public’ was not merely restricted to the political element in society, but rather should include the moral and physical framework within the strong tradition of the clan system in China. With some exceptions, within the clan system, the individual’s body, marriage, ethics, education, profession, and property rights were accordant with the arrangements made within the family. In this sense, the power of the clan made the family zone a public realm. Personal issues were transferred into public topics within the clan, and the concept of privacy was subordinated to the concept of responsibility. Emancipation from traditional clan ties in order to establish personal privacy and individuality was held as a central tenet by the May Fourth intellectuals. Their attempt to break the ties of clan structure and enable individuals to experience far greater personal freedom presented this book with a starting point from which to try to understand

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the changing model of Chinese society as the process of modernization progressed. These critical conceptual issues, examined in this book through the study of Shenbao’s readership, run in parallel to this new experience of privacy in the modern sense, and to the changing relationship between individuals and society. This book’s examination of various different subjects in their respective chapters provides ample illustration that individuality in Chinese society in the 1920s and 1930s was indeed experiencing a change which was directly challenging traditional boundaries between private and public. With the new forms of network and communication in society, in particular the growth of mass publications which sought to interact with their readership, privacy and its related topics became subjects which could be discussed in the public realm. Topics like women’s feet, the marriage of young people, personal savings, issues of domestic hygiene, taste in literature, options surrounding education, even the best brand of cigarettes, each came to the public zone for discussion, all in context of a discourse which had the intent of establishing privacy for each individual in society. In looking at the various topics associated with Shenbao’s advertisements and its literary content, this book has attempted to treat the concept of individuality as a compound of a variety of rules, attitudes, values, and norms carried across a society. The shifting concept of individuality explored in this book is influenced over time through many different qualities: ideas of private and public, individual and society, modernity and tradition, personal interest and collective good, and ideal and practical. While making distinctions between the different components of individuality, this book has also recognized that real individuals, as opposed to idealized ones, are complicated, as each individual can carry contradictory characteristics or make contradictory choices. Consequently, for Chinese people in the first half of the twentieth century, the journey in search of ways to embrace modernity overlapped in many ways with efforts to understand and distinguish notions of private and public, in both conceptual understanding and in practices of the daily lives of individuals. However, while the conceptual body of emerging Chinese modernity included the development of individuality, it also embraced the growth of nationalism. The idea of self-realization of individuals by identifying privacy from the clan system became somewhat overwhelmed by broader efforts for the selfrealization in the organic form of the country, China. The question of how these two aims might reach a harmonic condition in modern

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China brings us right back to the original central concern in Chinese tradition: the relationship between individuals and society. In the process of finding a balance between development of individuals and development of the nation, a priority was made. It is not hard to sense that this tension existed in many corners of Chinese society, among very different social groups, as evidenced for example by the boycotts and strikes conducted in Shanghai and Guangzhou during and after May Fourth. Indeed, the continuing dilemma faced by individuals in balancing personal interests and national welfare repeatedly challenged the line between private and public. And while both were standing at the crossroads, the emergence of consumer-focused commercialism seemed to offer a way forward in resolving the tension between them. In this regard, the question of finding the balance between individual and society in a modernizing society was no longer a tug-of-war between two centres of gravity; rather, it became a question of how Chinese modernity should accommodate the broader change in selfawareness that accompanied not just the emergence of individuality and loosening of the ties of the clan system, but also the growth of nationalism as a political force, and the emergence of commercialism as an economic and social one. The arrival of commercialism in the midst of a rapidly modernizing China shifted the locus of the tension between individuals and the nation, and offered a new perspective on many existing social attitudes. Commercialism made the discussion of individual interests possible in the public realm, and it also offered possibility of a change in the discourse of nationalism, which appeared in a new form in which many could participate. Examples of this can be seen in several places throughout this book, in the many advertising campaigns which sought to make consumption of national products both a nationalist act and a personal virtue. Through commercialism, private and public were joined together in reaching for Chinese modernity. A triangle of forces was formed, sometimes co-operating, sometimes opposing. This uneasy formation reflected quite closely the wider situation of China and its people: the whole of Chinese modernization was driven by the actions and interests of multiple foreign countries, multiple social groups, multiple ideologies, multiple vested interests, and multiple professions. In this complex social, political, economic, and international context, each individual had to carry multiple identities and play multiple roles. As this book has set out, the overlapping identities and ambivalent individualities of Shenbao’s readership illustrate this complexity all too well.

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References Introduction 1. Heidelberg University has produced an Electronic Index to the Early Shenbao, 1872–1895 (www.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/database/Shenbao), and a study of this early period is Barbara Mittler, A Newspaper for China? Power, Identity, and Change in Shanghai’s News Media, 1872–1912 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004). 2. Sherman Cochran, Big Business in China, Sino-Foreign Rivalry in the Cigarette Industry, 1890–1930 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980); Sherman Cochran, ‘Three Roads into Shanghai’s Market: Japanese, Western, and Chinese Companies in the Match Trade: 1895–1937’, in Shanghai Sojourners, ed. Frederic Wakeman, Jr. and Wen-hsin Yeh (Berkeley: University of California, 1992), pp. 35–75. 3. Susan L. Glosser, ‘The Business of Family: You Huaigao and the Commercialization of a May Fourth Ideal’, Republican China, 20:2 (April 1995) 80–115; Carlton Benson, ‘The Manipulation of Tanci in Radio Shanghai during the 1930s’, Republican China, 20:2 (April 1995) 117–46. 4. Wen-hsin Yeh, ‘Shanghai Modernity: Commerce and Culture in a Republican city’, The China Quarterly, no. 150 (June 1997) 375–94; ‘Progressive Journalism and Shanghai Petty Urbanites: Zou Taofen and the Shenghuo Weekly, 1926–1945’, in Shanghai Sojourners, pp. 186–238; Carrie Waara, ‘Invention, Industry, Art: The Commercialization of Culture in Republican Art Magazines’, in Inventing Nanjing Road, ed. Sherman Cochran (New York: Cornell University Press, 1999), pp. 61–89. 5. Karl Gerth, China Made: Consumer Culture and the Creation of the Nation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003). 6. Gerth, China Made, p. 355. 7. Gerth, China Made, p. 356. 8. Huang Jinlin, Lishi, shenti, guojia: jindai Zhongguo de shenti xingcheng, 1895– 1937 (History, Body, Nation: The Formation of the Modern Chinese Body, 1895–1937; Taibei: Lianjing chuban shiye gongsi, 2000). See also Ruth Rogaski, Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty-Port China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). 9. Henrietta Harrison, The Making of the Republican Citizen: Political Ceremonies and Symbols in China, 1911–1929 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 10. Lydia Liu, Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity – China, 1900–1937 (California: Stanford University, 1995), pp. 77–99 & 193. 11. Liu, Translingual Practice, p. 83. 12. Leo Ou-fan Lee, Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). 13. Neo-Perceptionist art was distinguished by its erotic and sensational themes as well as its surreal depictions of the urban landscape, particularly cinemas 204

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and dance halls. Its leading members, such as Liu Na’ou, Mu Yinshi, and Shi Zhecun, were writers, editors, and film-makers. Neo-Perceptionist literature in China in the 1930s was also influenced by the Neo-Perceptionist School in Japan. For a full account of Neo-Perceptionism see Yingjin Zhang, The City in Modern Chinese Literature and Film: Configurations of Space, Time, and Gender (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996). See also Leo Ou-fan Lee, Shanghai Modern, pp. 153–231; Leo Ou-fan Lee, ‘The Urban Milieu of Shanghai Cinema, 1930–40: Some Explorations of Film Audience, Film Culture, and Narrative Conventions’, in Cinema and Urban Culture in Shanghai, 1922–1943, ed. Yingjin Zhang (California: Stanford University Press, 1999); Peng Hsiao-yen, Haishang shuo qingyu: cong Zhang Ziping dao Liu Naou (Erotic Shanghai: from Zhang Ziping to Liu Naou; Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan Zhongguo wenzhe yanjiusuo choubeichu, 2001). Christopher A. Reed, Gutenberg in Shanghai Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876– 1937 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’I Press, 2004) pp. 257–8. Yu Dafu, Chenlun (Sinking; Shanghai: Taidong shuju chuban, 1930, first published 1921). The translation is taken from Joseph S. M. Lau and C. T. Hsia, The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature, ed. Joseph S. M. Lau and Howard Goldblatt (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), p. 49. See also Kirk A. Denton, ‘The Distant Shore: Nationalism in Yu Dafu’s “Sinking” ’, Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR), Vol. 14. (Dec., 1992) 107–23. Leo Ou-fan Lee, ‘ “Piping kongjian” de kaichuang – cong Shenbao “ziyoutan” tanqi’ (The Foundation of a ‘Critical Sphere’ – On Shenbao’s ‘‘Random Talk’’), in Leo Ou-fan Lee’s Xiandaixing de zhuiqiu: Li Oufan wenhua pinglun jingxuanji (In Search of Modernity: Selected Cultural Critiques of Leo Ou-fan Lee; Taibei: Maitian chubanshe, 1996), p. 15. See also Frederic Wakeman, Jr., ‘The Civil Society and Public Sphere Debate: Western Reflections on Chinese Political Culture’, Modern China, 19:2 (April 1993) 108–38; Xie Wen, ‘Zhongguo gongmin shehui de yunyu han fazhan’ (The Cultivation and Development of Chinese Civil Society), in Dangdai Zhongguo de guojia yu shehui guanxi, p. 119. Wang Shaoguang, ‘Pochu dui Civil Society de misi’ (Breaking the Illusion of Civil Society), in Dangdai Zhongguo de guojia yu shehui guanxi, ed. Zhou Xueguang (The Relation between the State and Society in Contemporary China; Taibei: Guaiguan tushu gufeng youxian gongsi, 1992), pp. 3–5. Chen Kuide, ‘Chongjian gongmin shehui – jianlun zuqun shehui wenti’ (Re-constructing Civil Society – On Racial and Social Problems), in Dangdai Zhongguo de guojia yu shehui guanxi, pp. 53–4. It is impossible to list all the literature dealing with the idea of the public sphere in Chinese studies, but I have found the following useful: Frederic Wakeman, Jr., ‘The Civil Society and Public Sphere Debate: Western Reflections on Chinese Political Culture’, Modern China, Vol. 19, No. 2, Symposium: “Public Sphere”/“Civil Society” in China? Paradigmatic Issues in Chinese Studies, III (Apr., 1993) 108–38. The following papers are in the same issue of Modern China: Philip. C. C. Huang, ‘ “Public Sphere”/“Civil Society” in China?: The Third Realm Between State and Society’, 216–40; Marie-Claire Bergère, ‘Civil Society and Urban Change in Republican China’, 309–28; Richard Madsen, ‘The Public Sphere, Civil Society and

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Moral Community: A Research Agenda for Contemporary China Studies’, 183–98; William T. Rowe, ‘The Problem of “Civil Society” in Late Imperial China’, 139–57. See also William T. Rowe, ‘The Public Sphere in Modern China’, Modern China, 16:3 (July 1990) 309–29. Peter Zarrow, ‘The Origins of Modern Chinese Concepts of Privacy: Notes on Social Structure and Moral Discourse’, in Chinese Concepts of Privacy Chinese Concepts of Privacy, ed. Bonnie S. McDougall, Anders Hansson (Leiden: Brill, 2002), pp. 121–46. Leo Ou-fan Lee, ‘ “Piping kongjian” de kaichuang – cong Shenbao “ziyoutan” tanqi’, pp. 15–6. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), pp. xvii–xviii. See, for example, Conal Condren, ‘Between Social Constraint and the Public Sphere: On Misreading Early-Modern Political Satire’, Contemporary Political Theory, 1:1 (March 2002) 79–101. Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 148–9. Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation, p. 173. John Keane, ‘Despotism and Democracy’, in Civil Society and the State, ed. John Keane (London: Verso, 1988), p. 37. For a similar argument please see John Keane, ‘Despotism and Democracy’, p. 53. John Gray, in an explanation of what he calls the ‘post-liberal’ view, points out that ‘in a civil society ... both government and its subjects are constrained by a rule of law ... In any civil society, most social and political activities will take place in autonomous institutions that are protected by the rule of law but independent of government.’ See John Gray, Enlightenment’s Wake: Politics and Culture at the Close of the Modern Age (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 135. Joan Judge, ‘Citizens or Mothers of Citizens? Gender and the Meaning of Modern Chinese Citizenship’, in Changing Meanings of Citizenships in Modern China, ed. Merle Goldman and Elizabeth J. Perry (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 42. Judge, Print and Politics: ‘Shibao’ and the Culture Reform in Late Qing China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), pp. 11–12. Judge, Print and Politics, p. 33. Judge, Print and Politics, p. 2. Xiaoqun Xu, Chinese Professionals and the Republican State: The Rise of Professional Associations in Shanghai, 1912–1937 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 249. Xiaoqun Xu, Chinese Professionals and the Republican State, p. 173. See also Lee-hsia Hsu Ting, Government Control of the Press in Modern China, 1900– 1949 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), p. 49. Frederic Wakeman, Jr., Policing Shanghai: 1927–1937 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), p. 60. Judge, Print and Politics, pp. 45–6. Zhu Ruiyue, ‘Shenbao fanying xiade Shanghai shehui bianqian, 1895–1927’ (Shanghai Social Change as Mirrored by Shenbao, 1895–1927; Masters Dissertation, Taibei shifan daxue, 1990), p. 26; Zeng Xubai (ed.), Zhongguo

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51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

207

xinwen shi (The History of Chinese Journalism; Taibei: Guoli zhengzhi daxue xinwen yanjiusuo, 2 vols., 1966), i., 269. See Zhongguo xinwen shiye tongshi, ed. Fang Hanqi (A General History of Chinese Journalism; Beijing: Beijing Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 3 vols., 2000), ii., 78, and Song Jun, Shenbao de xingshuai (The Rise and Fall of Shenbao; Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1996), pp. 90–3. Both Shenbao and Xinwenbao claimed their circular was 150,000. These statistical figures were published by KMT’s Department of the Publicity Committee. Shanghai Shenbao nianjian (The Shun Pao Year Book; Shanghai: Shenbao nianjianshe, 1933), pp. R2–3. Timothy B. Weston,, ‘Minding the Newspaper Business: The Theory and Practice of Journalism in 1920s China’, Twentieth-Century China, 31:2 (April, 2006) 4–31. Terry Narramore, ‘Making the News in Shanghai: Shen Bao and the Politics of Newspaper Journalism, 1912–1937’ (PhD theses, Australian National University, 1989), pp. 90–5. Song Jun, Shenbao de xingshuai, p. 90. Fang Hanqi, Zhongguo xinwen shiye tongshi, ii., 76. Zhu Ruiyue, ‘Shenbao fanying xiade Shanghai shehui bianqian, 1895–1927’, pp. 218–19. These advertisements are not only for commercial firms, but also for notices from various association, such as schools, banks, and merchants societies, etc. Zhang Zhuping, ‘Yu suo jinian yu ci jinianri zhe’ (What I Would Remember in This Commemorable Day’, Shenbao, Special edition to Shenbao’s twenty thousandth edition, 19 November 1928. Terry Narramore, ‘Making the News in Shanghai: Shen Bao and the Politics of Newspaper Journalism, 1912–1937’, p. 121. See also Ge Gongzhen, Zhongguo baoxue shi, pp. 285. Kinglu S. Chen, ‘Chinese Papers as Advertising Mediums’, The China Weekly Review, 1 September 1928, pp. 15–20. Hu Hanzhu, ‘Shi Liangcai yu Shanghai Shenbao’, Zhuanji wenxu (Biographical Literature; Taibei: Zhuanji wenxue chuban youxian gongsi), 66:3, 118–28. ‘Benbao xiaoshi’ (A Little History of This Newspaper), Shenbao, Special edition to Shenbao’s twenty thousandth edition, 19 November 1928. Fang Hanqi, Zhongguo xinwenshiye tongshi, ii., 79. In order to become a branch, at least 500 daily subscribers were required: see Ge Gongzhen, Zhongguo baoxue shi (The History of Chinese Newspapers; Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1935), p. 238. Meng Zhaochen, Zhongguo jindai xiaobaoshi (The History of Tabloids in Modern China; Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2005), p. 48. Hu Hanzhu, ‘Shi Liangcai yu Shanghai Shenbao’, Zhuanji wenxu, 66:3, 118–28. Ge Gongzhen, Zhongguo baoxue shi, pp. 237–40. Fang Hanqi, Zhongguo xinwenshiye tongshi, ii., 78; Song Jun, Shenbao de xingshuai, p. 91. Lin Yutang, A History of the Press and Public Opinion in China (Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1936), p. 132.

208 References 56. See both Ma Guangren, Shanghai dangdai xinwen shi (The Contemporary History of Journalism in Shanghai; Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 2001), p. 549; Fang Hanqi, Zhongguo xinwenshiye tongshi, ii, p. 184. 57. Narramore, ‘Making the News in Shanghai: Shen Bao and the Politics of Newspaper Journalism, 1912–1937’, p. 18 & 118. It should be noticed that the circulation figures declared by the publishers cannot be treated as fact. While Shenbao and Shibao competed with each other for advertising revenue, exaggerating their circulation figures was one of the common means for each side to win over customers and advertisers. 58. Ma Guangren, Shanghai dangdai xinwen shi, p. 551; Zeng Xubai (ed.), Zhongguo xinwen shi (The History of Chinese Journalism; Taibei: Guoli zhengzhi daxue xinwen yanjiusuo, 2 vols., 1966), i., 335; Fang Hanqi, Zhongguo xinwenshiye tongshi, ii., 79. 59. Song Jun, Shenbao de xingshuai, p. 131. 60. Chen Leng then joined a coal mining company, see Song Jun, Shenbao de xingshuai, p. 129. 61. Pan Yangmang was a pen name of Pan Wenan. His other pen name was ‘Yangyao’. In later chapters we will see Pan’s many articles which were published under both these pen names. 62. Zhonghua zhiye xuexiao (Chinese Vocational School), located in Nanshi (southern Shanghai and the native living area), was established in 1917 by Huang Yanpei with the support of Cai Yuanpei, Ma Xiangbo and Zhang Yuanji, Song Hanzhang (then chairman of Bank of China), and Nie Yuntai (then a cotton mill owner, later first president of the Chinese Cotton Mill Owners’ Association). The School aimed to develop technicians for Chinese industry: see Shanghai zhanggu cidian, ed. Xue Liyong (The Dictionary of Shanghai Anecdotes; Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe, 2000), p. 266. 63. Song Jun, Shenbao de xingshuai, p. 134; Fang Hanqi, Zhongguo xinwenshiye tongshi, ii., 441. 64. Song Jun, Shenbao de xingshuai, p. 132 & 135. 65. Song Jun, Shenbao de xingshuai, p. 164. 66. Vera Schwarcz, The Chinese Enlightenment, Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth Movement of 1919 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 55–93.

1 Patriotism and Gracious Living in Tobacco Advertising 1. Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, ‘Feiting pai’ (Airship brand), Shenbao, 8 May 1935. 2. Carrie Waara, ‘Invention, Industry, Art: The Commercialization of Culture in Republican Art Magazines’. 3. Cochran, Big Business in China, p. 219; Susan L. Glosser ‘The Business of Family: You Huaigao and the Commercialization of a May Fourth Ideal’. 4. Cochran, Big Business in China, p. 219; see also C.A. Bacon, ‘Advertising in China’, Chinese Economic Journal, 5:3 (September 1929) 754–66; Zhuo

References

5.

6. 7.

8.

9. 10. 11.

12. 13.

14.

15. 16. 17.

209

Botang, ‘Yuefenpaihua de yange’ (Changes in Poster Calendars) Lianhe wenxue (United Literature), 9:10 (August 1993) 93–112. See Ma Chonggan, ‘Tuixiao guohuo yu guanggao zhi guanxi’ (The Relation between Promoting National Products and Advertising), Zhongguohuo zhanlanhui jinian tekan (Special Memorial Issue for the Chinese National Product Exhibition; Shanghai: Gongshangbu Zhonghua guohuo zhanlanhui bianjigu, 1928), p. 13. Nanyang’s ‘Taishan pai’ (Tai mountain brand), Shenbao, 17 May 1919. ‘Yanzhidian’ or ‘tobacco paper stores’ were local convenience stores in Shanghai during this period. They were normally small scale, living-room size, family-run businesses on a street corner: see Hanchao Lu, ‘Away from Nanking Road: Small Stores and Neighbourhood Life in Modern Shanghai’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 54:1 (February 1995), 93–123. Modern English paper stores sell newspapers; Shanghai tobacco paper stores sold toilet paper and Chinese New Year prints. Tobacco paper stores also had another function: exchanging money. In an interview, Ms. Zhang Zhenhuai, who moved to Shanghai with her father in 1932, remembered that she used to change silver dollars for her pocket money (Interview with Ms. Zhang Zhenhui, Gaoan lu, Shanghai, 8 May 2002). ‘Ah Q’ is the fictional protagonist in Lu Xun’s short story, ‘Ah Q zhengzhuan’ (The True Story of Ah Q). See Lu Xun xiaoshuo heji (The Collection of Lu Xun’s Short Stories; Taibei: Liren shuju, 1999, first published 1921). See also Chapter 5 for more discussion. Paul Cohen, History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), pp. 212–13. Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past, trans. Keith Tribe (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1985), pp. 159–97. From ‘Sima Qian zhuan’ (Biography of Sima Qian), in Ban Gu, Han shu (Standard History of the Han). See Hanshu buzhu, ed. Wang Xianqian (The Annotated Standard History of the Han; Beijing: Shumu wenxian chubanshe, 2 vols., 1995), ii., 1231. Nanyang, ‘Da changcheng pai’ (Great Wall brand), Shenbao, 8 May 1921. Cigarette companies normally used their own artists for their advertisements. However some famous artists had their own studios and worked for more than one company. See Ding Hao, ‘Jiang yishu caihua fengxiangei shangye meishu (Dedicating Artistic Talent to Commercial Art), in Lao Shanghai guanggao, ed. Yi Bin (Old Shanghai Advertisements; Shanghai: Shanghai huabao chubanshe, 1995), pp. 13–17. Arthur Waldron, The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 214–16. See also Julia Lovell, The Great Wall: China Against the World, 1000 BC–2000 AD (Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited, 2006), p. 304. Guohua yancao gongsi (Guohua Cigarette Company), ‘Guohua pai’ (‘Guohua brand’), Shenbao, 15 May 1928. Henrietta Harrison, ‘Newspapers and Nationalism in Rural China 1890– 1929’, Past and Present, No. 166 (February 2000) 181–204. Li Xiaoti, Qingmo de xiaceng shehui qimeng yundong, 1901–1911 (Lower Class Enlightenment in the Late Qing Period, 1901–11; Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishe yanjiusuo, 1998), pp. 60–147.

210

References

18. Nanyang, ‘Tongyi pai’ (United brand), Shenbao, 31 May 1924. 19. For example, Zhongnan yancao gongsi (Zhongnan Tobacco Company), ‘Zhongnan pai’ (Zhongnan brand), Shenbao, 30 May 1926; Nanyang’s Jinqilin brand cigarettes, 17 May 1927. 20. Richard Klein, Cigarettes Are Sublime (London: Picador, 1995), p. 51. 21. Cochran, Big Business in China, pp. 73, 90, 104. 22. Pan Yangmang (aka Pan Yangyao), ‘Xibei guohuo liudongzhan’ (The Northern East Mobile National Product Exhibition), Shenbao, 3 May 1934. 23. Cochran, Big Business in China, p. 184. Although BAT suffered from the May Thirtieth boycott, its market share was still much higher than that of all the other tobacco companies combined. See Yingmeiyan gongsi zaihua qiye ziliao huibian, ed. Shanghai shehui kexueyuan jingji yanjiuso (Collected Materials on the British American Tobacco Company in China; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 4 vols., 1983), ii. 733. 24. Wang Shi-jen, Nanyang representative in Shanghai, cited in Sherman Cochran, Big Business in China, pp. 71–2. 25. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), pp. xiii–xv, 167. 26. Nanyang’s ‘Yinhang pai’ (Bank brand), Shenbao, 17 May 1925. 27. This strategy of appealing to a particular social class or audience is visible elsewhere. For example, in the advertisement for Nanyang’s ‘Da changcheng pai’ (Great Wall brand), intellectuals were the target audience. Shenbao, 17 May 1924. 28. As the result of new currency policy introduced at the end of 1933, America bought silver from the rest of the world, which particularly favored China. In 1934–1935, China’s currency strengthened, so that for the common people, the same amount of money could buy more foreign products. Zhu Zhenmu, ‘Yinjia gaozhang yu fuyong guohuo’ (On the Increase in the Value of Silver and the Use of National Products), Shenbao, 3 May 1934. In 1935, however, the transfer of silver overseas began to cause severe deflation, and many financial institutions and factories had to close. See also Hong Jiaguan, Zhongguo jinrongshi (The History of Chinese Finance; Sichuan: Xinan caijing daxue chubanshe, 1993), pp. 309–10. 29. In the end of 1933, the National government passed the law to ban cigarette companies from offering lotteries as a way of attracting customers, in Shanghai Archive: Q. 173–1–322. 30. Yu Xianglin, Huang Yuanxi, ‘Wuzhong baozhi de guanggao fenxi’ (An Analysis of Five Newspapers’ Advertisements), Qinghua xuebao (Qinghua Journal), 2:2 (December 1925) 643–9. 31. The relative proportions of different kinds of advertisement differed between newspapers. For example, in the Chenbao (Morning Post), news accounted for more of the newspaper (60%) than the advertisements. Within the advertisements, ‘medicine’ took up 26%, ‘educational’ advertisements 16.8%, ‘entertaining’ 13%, and ‘luxury items’ 10.1%. Yu Xianglin, Huang Yuanxi, ‘Wuzhong baozhi de guanggao fenxi’, pp. 646–7. 32. Wang Fansen, Zhongguo jindai sixiang yu xueshu de xipu (Modern Chinese Thought and its Scholastic Genealogy; Taibei: Lianjing chuban shiye gongsi, 2003), pp. 181–94. 33. Meishu shenghuo (Arts and Life), no. 3 (June 1934) (Shanghai: Sanyi yinshua gongsi).

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34. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), pp. 260–94. 35. ‘There was a beauty poster calendar (yuefenpai) hanging on the wall. On the arm of the model in the picture, Mother added in heavy pencil the telephone numbers of tailors, servant bureaux (jiantou hang), soy milk shop (doufujiang), aunty-in-law and third aunty.’ See Zhang Ailing, ‘Chen xiang xie – diyi luxiang’ (Scraps of Fragrant Incense – First Part), Zhang Ailing duanpian xiaoshuoji (The Collection of Zhang Ailing’s Short Stories, first published 1943; Taibei: Huangguan chubanshe, 1968), p. 332. 36. Tang Jun, ‘Women de luxian’ (Our Way), Meishu shenghuo, no. 4 (July 1934). 37. Ervine Metzl, The Poster, Its History and Its Art (New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1963), p. 39. 38. Zhongguo neiyi gongsi (Chinese Underwear Company), Shenbao, 14 May 1929. 39. Huasheng dianshan (Huasheng Electricity Fans), Shenbao, 22 May 1936. 40. Leo Ou-fan Lee, Shanghai Modern, p. 73. 41. Ernst Gombrich, The Story of Art (London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1998), pp. 535–6. 42. Ghislaine Wood, Art Nouveau and the Erotic (London: V and A Publications, 2000), p. 56 & 76. 43. Erin A. Smith, ‘The Art of Aubrey Beardsley, A Fin de Siècle Critique of Victorian Society’, The Student Historical Journal, 24 (1992–1993), Department of History, Loyola University, http://www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1992–3/ smith-e.htm (accessed 29 October 2006). 44. The Tai Mountain brand’s vouchers had already implied women consumers might be their target, although the advertisement itself did not say what kind of silk scarf was offered. Shanghai Dachang Tobacco Company’s ‘Two Baby’ brand emphasized their cigarettes were good for both husbands and wives. Shenbao, 18 May 1921. BAT’s ‘Great Britain’ brand used both male and female figures in their advertisement in Shenbao, 17 May 1925. Dadongnan Tobacco Company’s Golf brand used a female golfer as the main subject, Shenbao, 23 January 1933. 45. Nanyang, ‘Baijinlong pai’ (While Golden Dragon brand), Shenbao, 8 June 1927. 46. Yingjin Zhang, ‘Artwork, Commodity, Event: Representation of the Female Body in Modern Chinese Pictorial,’ argues that first, the female body was exploited by the male viewer as part of a power relationship, and second, that the female body was commodified for commercial purposes. See: Visual Culture in Shanghai, 1850s–1930s, ed. Jason Kuo (Washington, DC: New Academia Publishing, 2007), pp. 121–61. 47. Shih Shu-Mei, ‘Shanghai Women of 1939: Visuality and the Limits of Feminine Modernity’, in Visual Culture in Shanghai, pp. 227–8. 48. Carrie Waara, ‘Invention, Industry, Art: The Commercialization of Culture in Republican Art Magazines’, p. 62. 49. Nanyang, ‘Baota pai’ (Treasure Tower brand), Shenbao, 25 May 1923. 50. ‘Virtuous Wife and Good Mother’ (xianqi liangmu) is actually a modern term. See Chen Zhengyuan, ‘Jianjie jindai Yazhoude ‘xianqi lianmu’ sixiang – cong huigu Riben, Hanguo, Zhongguo de yanjiu chengguo tanqi’ (A Brief

212

51.

52. 53. 54. 55.

56.

57.

58. 59.

60.

61.

References Introduction to Modern Asian Thought on the ‘Virtuous Wife and Good Mother’ – Looking at Research Results from Japan, Korea, and China), Jindai Zhongguo funüshi yanjiu (Research on Women in Modern Chinese History), 10 (December, 2002) 199–220. David Hume, ‘Of Refinement in the Arts’, in Essays: Moral, Political and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1985), pp. 269–70. ‘The mechanical arts’ can be rendered as ‘industrial arts’ (gongyi meishu) in the Chinese context. Christopher J. Berry, The Idea of Luxury (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 144. Hualing, ‘Shoubiao yu zilaishuibi’ (Watch and Fountain Pen), Shenbao, 17 May 1937. Zhongguo zhonghe yancao gongsi (Zhongguo zhonghe Tobacco Company), ‘Huali pai’ (Luxury brand), Shenbao, 5 May 1928. Western pieces of furniture, particularly sofas or couches, were common elements in Chinese pictures. Wan Man, an unknown author, wrote: ‘A common family had some Western-style furniture, and a two-seater sofa was essential.’ Su Su, Fushi huiying–laoyuefenpai zhong de Shanghai shenghuo (A Portrait of the Floating World – Shanghai Life in Old Poster Calendars; Hong Kong: Sanlian shudian, 2001), p. 44. Su Su, Fushi huiying, p. 46. Shi Zhecun, ‘Juanzi’ (or ‘Juanzi guniang’, Miss Juanzi), reprinted in Wu, ou, liuxing (Mist, Gull, Meteor; Beijing: Xinhua shudia, 1991, first published 1929), p. 308. There are many examples of advertisements using women as their main image when selling cigarettes. See Nanyang’s ‘Dalianzhu’ brand, Shenbao, 11 March 1928; Huadong Tobacco Company’s ‘Xiuli’ brand, Shenbao, 20 March 1928. In these two advertisements, the women both wore ‘flapper’ hairstyles and clothes with Art Deco patterns. The independent and modern images represented by these two advertisements are stronger than those portrayed by the two women discussed in the main text. Zhongguo huamei Tobacco Company used a smoking woman accompanied by a little girl in their main picture on Shenbao, 3 May 1934. Zhe An, ‘Zhuangshi meishu zhi xin gujia’ (A New Appraisal of the Decorative Arts), Meishu shenghuo, no. 4 (July 1934); see also Carrie Waara, ‘Invention, Industry, Art: the Commercialization of Culture in Republican Art Magazines’, pp. 63–4. Cutting prices to compete with rivals was very common. See Yingmeiyan gongsi zaihua qiye ziliao huibian, pp. 679–92; Nanyang xiongdi yancao gongsi shiliao, ed. Zhongguo kexueyuan Shanghai jingji yanjiuso and Shanghai shehui kexueyuan jingji yanjiusuo (Historical Materials of Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company; Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1958), p. 251. The first Chinese radio station, Xinxin Company, was established in March 1927. Its programs included music, market quotations, current news and advertisements for the company’s products. See Xu Baiyi, ‘Lao Shanghai guanggao de fazhang guiji (The development of old Shanghai’s advertisements)’, in Laoshanghai guanggao, ed. Yi Bin (Old Shanghai’s Advertisements; Shanghai: Shanghai huabao chubanshe, 1995), p. 5. For examples of advertisements announcing radio programs see Zhongguo Huamei Tobacco Company, Shenbao, 3 May 1934, and Huacheng Tobacco Company, Shenbao,

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3 April 1935. For relevant advertisements with voucher-gift systems see Nanyang’s ‘Treasure Towel’, 25 May 1923; Nanyang’s ‘Great Wall brand’, 13 May 1924; Zhongnan Tobacco Company’s ‘Zhongnan brand’, 7 June 1925; Zhongxing Tobacco Company’s ‘Loyal and filial piety brand’, 5 May 1928; Zhongguo Changxing Tobacco Company’s ‘Jinbang’ 5 May 1928; and Fuchang Tobacco Company’s ‘Red cloud’, 17 May 1928. 62. Luo Guanzhong., Sanguo yanyi (The Romance of the Three Kingdoms), Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368). 63. See for example, Zhongxing Tobacco Company’s ‘Loyal and Filial brand’, Shenbao, 5 May 1928, and Fuchang Tobacco Company’s ‘Red Cloud’, Shenbao, 6 May 1928.

2 Saving for Happiness – Individual Banking Accounts 1. Sheldon Garon, ‘Luxury Is the Enemy: Mobilizing Savings and Popularizing Thrift in Wartime Japan’, Journal of Japanese Studies, 26:1 (Winter, 2000) 41–78. 2. The International Savings Association was actually a foreign company although it was very popular in Chinese society. Lottery savings schemes are explained later in this chapter. 3. The first lottery savings association in China was established in 1912. The Frenchmen Jean Beudin and René Fano were involved together with the Chinese Yu Xiaqing, ye Zhoutang, Zhang Hongzheng, and Li Shumin. See Xue Liyong, Shanghai zhanggu cidian (The Dictionary of Shanghai Anecdotes. Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe, 2000), p. 154. 4. Shenbao, 23 May 1920. 5. Shenbao, 6 June 1920. 6. This chapter will only focus on modern Chinese banks, although many large Western banks had arrived in China already at this time, and also offered savings services. Pawnshops (dangpu) and traditional banks (qianzhuang, literally translated as ‘money houses’) were the two typical representatives of these older systems. Although pawnshops dealt with savings, for ordinary people, pawnshops were mainly used for pawning, as high interest rates often made redeeming pledges impossible Chang Mengqu and Qian Chuntao (ed.), Jindai Zhongguo diandang ye (The Modern Chinese Pawnbroker Business; Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1995), pp. 1–26. Hong Jiaguan, Zhongguo jinrongshi (The History of Chinese Finance; Sichuan: Xinan caijing daxue chubanshe, 1993), pp. 78–9. 7. Hong Jiaguan, Zhongguo jinrongshi, pp. 77–81. See also Zhongguo renmin yinhang Shanghaishi fenhang (ed.), Shanghai qianzhuang shiliao (Historical Materials on Shanghai’s Traditional Banks; Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe), 1960, p. 2. Zheng Yifang, ‘Shanghai qianzhuang de xingshuai’ (The Rise and Fall of Shanghai’s Traditional Banks, 1843–1937; Masters Thesis. Taibei: Guoli shifan daxue, [1979]), p. 5. 8. Chen Cunren, Yinyuan shidai shenghuoshi (The History of Life during the Age of the Silver Dollar; Shanghai: Shanghai remin chubanshe, 2000), p. 389. ‘Piaozhuang’ was an alternative term for ‘qianzhuang’, see Rev.

214

9. 10.

11. 12. 13.

14. 15.

16. 17.

18.

19. 20. 21. 22.

References D. MacGillivray, Mandarin-Romanized Dictionary of Chinese, 7th edition, Shanghai, 1925. Leonard T. K. Wu, ‘The Crucial Role of the Chinese Native Banks’, Far Eastern Survey, 4:12 (19 June 1935) 89–93. Wang Zhixin, ‘Chuxu de yichu’ (The Benefits of Savings), Shenghuo zhoukan (Life weekly), 2:11 (1927) 68; Li Yangxing, ‘Wode lixiangzhongde xinhua yinhang (My ideal Xinhua bank)’, Xinyu (The Internal Journal of Xinhua Bank), 4:1 (1936) 3 in Shanghai Municipal Archives, Q269–1-858. Hong Jiaguan, Zhongguo jinrongshi, pp. 122–3. Cunren, Yinyuan shidai shenghuoshi, pp. 390–2. Chen See both Pan Zihao, Zhongguo qianzhuang zhi gaiyao (The Outline of Chinese Traditional Banks), 1929, and Shi Boheng, Qianzhuangxue (The Study of Traditional Banks), 1931, collected in Minguo xiacongshu (Collections of Republican Materials), ed. Zhongguo huobishi yinhangshi congshu bianweihui, 4 volumes (Beijing: Shumu wenxian chubanshe, 1996), ii. 1901, 2101, 2296–7. ‘Bulky Enclosure No.51: Banking and Prices in China’, p. 23 in Second Historical Archives of China in Nanjing, 679 (1) 33163. Linsun Cheng, Banking in Modern China: Entrepreneurs, Professional Managers, and the Development of Chinese Banks, 1897–1937 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p.23. Chen Cunren, Yinyuan shidai shenghuoshi, pp. 143–4. Zhou Baoluan, Zhonghua yinhangshi (The History of Chinese Banks), 1919, in Minguo xiacongshu (The collections of Republican materials), iii. 3149. Wang Zhixi, Zhongguo zhi chuxu yinhangshi (The History of Modern Chinese Savings Banks; Shanghai: Xinhua xintuo chuxu yinhang, 1934), pp. 2–3. The distinction between government sponsored and private bank is always challenging, as many banks were set up with capital invested by officials, governmental departments, or government-owned industry. The three banks mentioned here were capitalized by entrepreneurs. However, some small or middle sized banks which were set up between 1908 and 1915 and also devoted to savings business, such as Beijing Savings Bank (Beijing chuxu yinhang), Chinese Commercial Savings Bank (Zhonghua shangye chuxu yinhang) and Xinhua Bank, were a mixture of investments by government and private shareholders. Hong Jiaguan, Zhongguo jinrongshi, p. 175; Wang Zhixin, Zhongguo zhi chuxu yinhangshi, p. 23; see also Linsun Cheng, Banking in Modern China, p. 33. Wang Zhixin, Zhongguo zhi chuxu yinhangshi, pp. 17–18. Chen Cunren, Yinyuan shidai shenghuoshi, p. 392. Shanghai shangye chuxu yinhang (The Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank; Taibei: Shanghai shangye chuxu yinhang, 1999), p. 12. Yao Songling, Chen Guangfu de yisheng (The Life of Chen Guangfu; Taibei: Zhuanji wenxu chubanshe, 1984), p. 34. Shanghai shangye chuxu yinhang shiliao (Historical materials on the Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank), ed. Zhongguo renmin yinhang Shanghaishi fenhang jinrong yanjiusuo (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1990), p. 111; Benhang shengzhang zhi youlai (The Origin of Our Bank’s Development; Taibei: Shanghai shangye chuxu yinhang, 1985), p. 11.

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23. Chen Guangfu xiansheng yanlunji (The Collection of Mr. Chen Guangfu’s Speeches; Taibei: Shanghai shangye chuxu yinhang, 1960), p. 51. 24. Hong Jiaguan, Zhongguo jinrongshi, p. 275; see also Shanghai shangye chuxu yinhang shiliao, pp. 110–11. 25. Leonard T. K. Wu, ‘China’s Paradox−Prosperous Banks in National Crisis’, Far Eastern Survey, 4:6 (27 March 1935) 41–5. 26. This kind of dualism became the house culture of banks, and employees had to be trained based on these values outside working hours. Andrea McElderry, ‘Confucian Capitalism?: Corporate Values in Republican Banking’, Modern China, 12:3 (July 1986) 401–16. 27. Wang Zhixin, Zhongguo zhi chuxu yinhangshi, pp. 245–54. The reasons for the success of savings associations in North East China were three-fold: first, members did not have to invest a lot to become a shareholder; second, interest on loans was high, so the shareholders got a good return; third, the culture of people in this area was traditionally thrifty, and saving was a habit. 28. Wang Zhixin, Zhongguo zhi chuxu yinhangshi, pp. 12–13. The Four Banks Joint Savings Association (Sihang chuxuhui) was constituted by four banks in 1923: Salt Gabelle Bank (Yanye yinhang), Kincheng Bank (Jincheng yinhang), China and South Sea Bank (Zhongnan yinhang), and Continental Bank (Dalu yinhang). 29. Wang Zhixin, Zhongguo zhi chuxu yinhangshi, pp. 262–3. 30. See also the advertisements placed by Ningbo Savings Association in Shenbao on 6 May 1933, 13 May 1933, 18 May 1933, and 10 April 1934. 31. Wang Zhixin, Zhongguo zhi chuxu yinhangshi, p. 287. This society also was also related to the Thrift Virtue Commercial and Savings Bank (Jiande shangye chuxu yinhang), and the headquarters of the latter was set up in the former’s Zhabei office, December 1931 in Shanghai Municipal Archives, Q90–1-692. 32. ‘Huizhang (The Regulations of the Association)’ in Shanghai Municipal Archives, Q130–22-5. 33. Xianzai shiye yiban (The Outlook of the Present Business; Shanghai: Jiande chuxuhui, 1924), pp. 18–21 in Shanghai Municipal Archives, Q130–22-5. 34. Shanghai Tongji Savings Soceity, September 1920 in The Archives of Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica Taipei, 17–23/51 (1). 35. ‘Quangao tongren chuxu xuanyan (The Savings Manifesto to Colleagues)’, internal publication of Shanghai Maoxin Fuxin Shenxin Headquarter [1929] in Shanghai Municipal Archives, Q193–1-556. 36. Wang Zhixin, Zhongguo zhi chuxu yinhangshi, p. 2 & 270. 37. The original capital of this association was both French and Chinese. However, after 1926 only Chinese capital remained. ‘Zhongfa chuxuhui shixing tingban youjiang chuxu’ (Zhongfa Savings Association Put Ceasing Lottery Savings into Practice), newspaper cutting, 14 June 1935, p. 12 in Shanghai Municipal Archives, Q275–1-1820. 38. ‘Ma Yinchu tan qudi youjiang chuxu zhi liyou’ (Ma Yinchu Talked about the Reasons for Banning Lottery Savings’), Shishi xinbao, 2 June 1934. 39. Shenbao, 24 July 1934, ‘Tiaochen xiugai chuxufa yijian’ (Opinions on Revising the ‘Regulations for Savings Banks’). 40. Chen Wang Cunren, Yinyuan shidai shenghuoshi, p. 331.

216

References

41. Chen Cunren, Yinyuan shidai shenghuoshi, pp. 330–2. 42. This measure was enacted as part of the ‘Law for Savings Banks (Chuxu yinhang fa)’ in 1934: see Wang Zhixin, Zhongguo zhi chuxu yinhangshi, pp. 283–4. 43. Quanguo yinhang nianjian, 1936–1937 (Chinese Banks Yearbook, 1936–1937), Zhongguo yinhang jingji yanjiushi (ed.), reprinted by Center for Chinese Research Materials Association of Research Libraries, Washington, D.C., 1971, pp. 3–5. See also Linsun Cheng, Banking in Modern China, pp. 41–4 & 68–72. 44. Quanguo yinhang nianjian, 1936–1937, p. 5. The main reason for this lack of success was the fact that the majority of those banks were too closely tied to both central government and local warlords; the lack of a free, competitive market did not give these banks opportunities to exercise their proper commercial functions. 45. Tadao Miyashita, Zhina yinhang zhidulun (The History of Chinese Banking), Wu Zizhu (trans.) (Taipei: Meihua yinshuachang, 1957), p. 50. 46. Zhaojin Ji, A History of Modern Shanghai Banking: The Rise and Decline of China’s Finance Capitalism (New York: An East Gate Book, 2002), pp. 166–70. See also Hong Jiaguan, Zhongguo jinrongshi, pp. 265–8; Ernest O. Hauser, Shanghai: City for Sale (New York: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1940), pp. 171, 179, 185–8. 47. Brett Sheehan, Trust in Troubled Times: Money, Banks, and State-Society Relations in Republican Tianjin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 144–7. 48. Quanguo yinhang nianjian, 1936–1937, pp. 5–6. According to Zhaojin Ji, although the statistics quoted suggest that the second growth phase of Chinese banking occurred after 1928, other figures indicate that the upsurge in nationalism after the May 30 incident in 1925 marked the beginning of the decline of foreign banks in China. The year before this incident, modern Chinese banks already held 44% of total deposits, compared with 25% for foreign banks and 33% for traditional banks. This also helps to explain why the banks established after 1928 were able to survive longer, see Zhaojin Ji, A History of Modern Shanghai Banking, pp. 165–70; see also Tadao Miyashita, Zhina yinhang zhidulun, pp. 48–9. 49. These different versions of laws can be found in Wang Zhixin’s Zhongguo zhi chuxu yinhangshi. 50. Wang Zhixin, Zhongguo zhi chuxu yinhangshi, p. 331. 51. Shenbao, 16 March 1933, ‘Shanghai yinhang zhengqiu chuxuge (Shanghai bank solicits savings songs). 52. Chuxuge (Savings songs), ed. Shanghai shangye chuxu yinhang (Shanghai: Shanghai shangye chuxu yinhang yin, 1933). 53. Cheng, Banking in Modern China, p. 139. 54. Cheng, Banking in Modern China, p. 145. 55. Liu, Translingual Practice, p. 106. 56. Liu, Translingual Practice, p. 113. 57. Liu, Translingual Practice, pp. 113–14. 58. Now known as ‘Shanghai caijing daxue’ (Shanghai University of Finance and Economics). 59. Shanghai Business University was supported by Dongnan University, Jinan University, young bankers (Chang Kia-ngau, Qian Xinzhi and Chen

References

60.

61. 62.

63.

64.

65.

66. 67.

68.

69. 70. 71.

72.

217

Guangfu), intellectuals (Huang Yanpei, Ke Chengmao, and Guo Bingwen), and entrepreneurs (Nie Yuntai and Jian Zhaonan). For a short biography of Wang Zhixin see Gongshang jingji shiliao congkan (Serial Collection of Industrial and Commercial Economic Material), 3 vols, ed. Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huili quanguo weiyuanhui (Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1983), iii. 76–7. Wang Zhixin, ‘Chuxu de yichu’ (The Benefits of Savings), Shenghuo zhoukan (Life weekly), 2:11 (1927) 68. For example, See also Zhuo Jun, ‘Chuxu shang de tanhua’ (On Savings), Funü zazhi (Ladies’ Journal), 16:4 (April 1930) 17–32; Shenbao, 12 November 1933, Zhang Yong, ‘ “Qinjian chuxu” yu “jishi goumai” ’ (On Industrious and Thrifty Saving and Consuming at Moment). Wissenschaftssprache Chinesisch – Studies in the Formation of Modern Chinese Scientific Terminologies, “WSC-Databases: An Electronic Repository of Chinese Scientific, Philosophical and Political Terms Coined in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century,” http://wsc.uni-erlangen. de/wscdb.htm (accessed 15 September 2007). Karl E. G. Hemeling, English-Chinese Dictionary of the Standard Chinese Spoken Language and Handbook for Translators (Shanghai: Inspectorate General of Customs, 1916), p. 258. Hemeling, English-Chinese Dictionary of the Standard Chinese Spoken Language and Handbook for Translators, p. 332. Evan Morgan also translated ‘changshi’ as ‘common sense’: see New Terms Revised and Enlarged (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh Limited, 1932), p. 11. Evan Morgan, New Terms Revised and Enlarged, p. 341. Wissenschaftssprache Chinesisch – Studies in the Formation of Modern Chinese Scientific Terminologies, “WSC-Databases: An Electronic Repository of Chinese Scientific, Philosophical and Political Terms Coined in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century,” http://wsc.uni-erlangen. de/wscdb.htm (accessed by 10 September 2007). Jing Guantao and Liu Qingfeng, ‘Xinwenhua yundong yu changshi lixing de bianqian’ (The New Culture Movement and the Change to Common-sense Rationality), Ershiyi shiji (The Twenty-First Century), No. 52 (April 1999) 41–55. The five virtues were humanity (ren), righteousness (yi), propriety (li), wisdom (zhi), and fidelity (xin). Gao Hongging, ‘Chuxu’ (On Savings), Shenbao, 28 & 29 June 1920. Hu Pinyuan, ‘Zhijia siyao –xu’ (Four Principles for Home Management, continued), Funü zazhi (Ladies’ Journal), 5:8 (August 1919) 1–4; Hu Huaichen, ‘Nüzi zhiye wenti’ (On the Problem of Women’s Occupations), Funü zazhi, 6:10 (October 1920) 1–4. Ma Yinchu, ‘Zhongguo nüzi jingji wenti’ (Chinese Women’s Economic Problems), Shenghuo zhoukan (Life Weekly), 2:6 (1926) 36–8. Cai Muhui, ‘Jingji duli yu jingshen duli’ (On Economic Independence and Spiritual Independence), Dongfang zazhi (Eastern Miscellany), 30:1 (1933) 3–6. Liu Wang Limin, Zhonggou funü yundong (The History of Chinese Women’s Movements; Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1934), pp. 58–70. Guo Zhenyi, Zhongguo funü wenti (On the Problems of Chinese Women; Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1937), pp. 84–103. Shenbao, 8 May 1924, Jin Zhong Xiu nüshi, ‘Zuo zhufu de yingai zhuyi jiating jingji’ (Every Housewife Should Pay Attention to Family Economics)’.

218 References 73. ‘Jincheng yinhang jianli ershinian jiniankan’ (The Memorial Volume for Jincheng Bank’s Twenty Year Anniversary) in Shanghai Municipal Archives, Q246–1-448. 74. ‘Benhang linian cunfang kuan qingxing’ (The Situations of Depositing And Loaning of Our Bank Over the Years, Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank printed, [1931?]) in Shanghai Municipal Archives, S173–2-91. 75. ‘Xinhua xintuo chuxu yinhang, Shanghai zonghang cunkuan zhangcheng’ (Xinhua Trust and Savings Bank – the Savings Regulation of Shanghai Headquarters) in Shanghai Municipal Archives, Q269–1-547. 76. ‘Xinhua xintuo chuxu yinhang tushu, guanggao, yanjiu deng banshi shoushu’ (The Various Procedures for Library, Advertising, and Research of Xinhua Trust, Savings, and Commercial Bank), 1934–1936, pp. 70–1 in Shanghai Municipal Archives, Q269–1-530. 77. The notice boards at the offices in Shanghai were changed either once or twice a month, and monthly for branches in other towns, ibid. 78. Xinhua Bank, ‘Beiqiao banshichu tuijin benniandu yewu jihuashu’ (The Current Year’s Business Plan of Beiqiao Office), [1934] in Shanghai Municipal Archives, Q269–1-608. See also Shanghai Municipal Archives in Q269–1-609 for both annual plans for Wusong and Nanqiao offices. 79. Shanghai shangye chuxu yinhang shiliao, pp. 432–3. 80. ‘Yamen’ was the office of the local bureaucracy and was a byword for poor service or even corruption. 81. It was said that 70%–80% banks which failed at that time failed due to employees’ poor attitudes toward customers. Andrea McElderry, ‘Confucian Capitalism?: Corporate Values in Republican Banking’, Modern China, 12:3 (July 1986) 401–16. 82. See Shui Qixiu, ‘Suiji yinbian’, Xingye youcheng (House Journal of the Commercial Bank of Zhejiang), No. 4 (December 1932) 1–4. 83. This was not always the case in practice, as people often complained about bank employees’ attitudes. The term was used in the ‘Modification of the Draft of the Law of Savings Bank’ (Chuxu yinhangfa caoan) in February 1934. 84. Pan Baili, ‘Benhang sanshi zhounian shilue’ (The Summary History for Our Bank’s Thirty Years Anniversary), [1945?], pp. 3–4 in Shanghai Municipal Archives, Q54–1-106. See also ‘Xinhua xintuo chuxu shangye yinhangchuangban jianshi’ (The Simplified History of the Establishment of Xinhua Trust, Savings, and Commercial Bank), [1946?] in Shanghai Municipal Archives, Q269–1-1007. 85. ‘Minguo ershinian benhang gaizu xuanyan’ (Our Bank’s Re-organization Manifesto in the Year Twentieth of the Republican Period’ [1945?], p. 2 in Shanghai Municipal Archives, Q54–1-106. 86. Xu Jingxia, the first prize winner of the housewife section, Wode chuxu jihua, pp. 125–49.

3 The Modern Housewife – A New Kind of Shanghai Woman 1. ‘Simmons Mattress’ advertisement, Shenbao, 6 May 1933. 2. In 1903 Jin Yi, editor of the magazine, Nüzi shijie (Women’s World), wrote a foreword to encourage women to participate in China’s revolution: ‘To

References

3.

4.

5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12.

13. 14.

15.

16.

219

refresh China, women must be renewed. To strengthen China, we first have to strengthen women.’ See Jin Yi, ‘Nüzi shijie fakanci’ (Foreword to Women’s World), Nüzi shijie (Women’s World), no. 1 (1903) 1–4. Chuwo, ‘Nüzi shijie songci’ (Praise for Women’s World), Nüzi shijie, no. 1 (1903) 5–8. See also Tani E. Barlow, ‘Theorizing Woman: Funü, Guojia, Jiating’, Body, Subject Power in China, ed. Angela Zito and Tani E. Barlow (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), p. 264. Chen Duxiu, ‘Yijiu yiliu’ (1916), in Duxiu wencun (Selected Works of Chen Duxiu; Anhui: Xinhua shuju, 1986), pp. 32–6. The three principles were the rules governing the relations of emperor/subject, father/son, and husband/ wife. Ching-kiu Stephen Chan, ‘The Language of Despair: Ideological Representations of the “New Women” by May Fourth Writers’, Modern Chinese Literature, no. 4 (1988) 19–38. Wang Zheng, Women in the Chinese Enlightenment (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 58. Tani E. Barlow, ‘Theorizing Woman’, pp. 267–9. Peng Hsiao-yen, Haishang shuo qingyu, p. 68. Peng Hsiao-yen, Haishang shuo qingyu, p.69. Peng Hsiao-yen, Haishang shuo qingyu, p. 67. In this story, woman’s face is described as the ‘north’, her hair the ‘black forest area’, the forehead a ‘white marble plain’, the eyes ‘two lakes’, the mouth a ‘volcano’, the tongue the ‘fiery flame’, and the breasts ‘little twin mountains’. The protagonist dreams of a view of ‘the south’, which of course is hidden. Miao Cheng Shuyi, ‘Yu zhe nüjie xiuyangtan’ (On the Self-Cultivation of Our Women), Funü zazhi (Ladies’ Journal), 5:8 (August 1919) 1–6. See Yunfang, ‘Xinfunü suo yinggai changchu de jizhong liegenxing’ (The Few Deep-Rooted Bad Habits That Women Should Get Rid Of), Funü zazhi (Ladies’ Journal), 6:9 (September 1920) 3–8; Zhanquan, ‘Xiandai shehui de nüxing’ (Modern Society’s Women), Funü zazhi (Ladies’ Journal), 16:12 (December 1930) 15–23; Tao Xisheng, ‘Xinjiu shangping yu xinjiu funü’ (Old and New Commodities and Old and New Women), Funü zazhi (Ladies’ Journal), 17:2 (February 1931) 2–5. Talal Asad, ‘Are There Histories of Peoples without Europe? A Review Article’, Comparative Study of History and Society, 29:3 (July 1987) 594–607. Barlow quotes Asad’s statement that ‘Historical languages [of class] constitute classes, they do not merely justify groups already in place according to universal economic structures’ to support her view that Chinese intellectuals, by employing Western ‘semicolloquial language’ term, nuxing, in their literature, successfully formed themselves into a new social group, and shortened their distance with European humanisim. Tani E. Barlow, ‘Theorizing Woman’, p. 266. Huaying yinyun zidian jicheng (English and Chinese Pronouncing Dictionary; Shanghai: Commercial Press Ltd., 1903); An English and Chinese Standard Dictionary (Shanghai: The Commerical Press Ltd., 2 vols., 1908); Karl E. G. Hemeling, English-Chinese Dictionary of the Standard Chinese Spoken Language. See the advertisement of the Co-Operative Company for the ‘O.K. Table Wringer’ in Woman’s Outlook, 2 January 1937. I would like to thank Ms. Linda Walkden for supplying a photocopy of this magazine.

220

References

17. Leo Ou-fan Lee, Shanghai Modern, p. 5. 18. Karl E. G. Hemeling, English-Chinese Dictionary of the Standard Chinese Spoken Language (Guanhua). 19. Zhang Mengzhao, ‘Ertong yu guohuo shizhuang’ (Children and Domestic Fashion), Shenbao, 18 May 1933. 20. Xunzi, ‘Modeng wuzui’ (The Modern Is Not Guilty), Shenbao, 1 May 1934. 21. Pan Wenan (Yangmang/Yangyao), ‘Shizhuang zhenyi’ (The True Meaning of Fashion), Shenbao, 11 May 1933. 22. The term ‘jiating zhufu’ was also used: see Xiaobai’s article ‘Expectations for “the Women’s Year of the National Product Movement” ’, Shenbao, 11 January 1934. 23. This argument is also advanced by Paul Bailey, ‘Active Citizen or Efficient Housewife? The Debate over Women’s Education in Early-twentieth-century China’, in Education, Culture, and Identity in Twentieth-Century China, ed. Glen Peterson, Ruth Hayhoe, and Yongling Lu (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), pp. 318–47. 24. Zhanquan, ‘Xiandai shehui de nüxing’. 25. D. MacGillivray, Mandarin-Romanized Dictionary of Chinese, 7th edition, Shanghai, 1925; for ‘nülang’ see Hanying da cidian (A Complete Chinese-English Dictionary), ed. O. Z. Tsang (Shanghai: Linnan Middle School; 1920). 26. Ciyun, ‘Nüren yu guohuo’ (Women and Domestic Products), Shenbao, 16 November 1933. 27. Zhu Zhenmu, ‘Yinjia gaozhang yu fuyong guohuo’ (On the Increase in the Value of silver and the Use of Domestic Products), Shenbao, 3 May 1934. 28. Baling, ‘Gao taitai xiaojiemen (For the Information of Wives and Misses)’, Shenbao, 11 January 1934. 29. Pan Wenan (Yangmang/Yangyao), ‘Rang taitaimen lai tichang guohuo (Let Housewives Promote National Products)’, Shenbao, 23 November 1933. 30. ‘Zhu’, in Zhongwen da cidian, ed. Zhongwen da cidian bianzuan weiyuanhui (The Great Chinese Dictionary; Taibei: Zhongguo wenhua yanjiusuo, 1962, 40 vols), i. 31. Pan Wenan (pen name Yangmang), ‘Rang taitaimen lai tichang guohuo (Let Wives Promote National Products)’, Shenbao, 23 November 1933. 32. Pan Wenan (pen name Yangmang), ‘Funü guohuonian xianci (The Congratulatory Speech to the Year of Women’s National Product Movement)’, Shenbao, 1 January 1934. See also Xiaobai’s article ‘Expectations for “the Women’s Year of the National Product Movement” ’, Shenbao, 11 January 1934. Xiaobai said that ‘women, as the family housewives, are the main chargers of the home economics’. 33. Pan Wenan (pen name Yangmang), ‘Zhufu de zeren’ (Housewives’ Responsibilities), Shenbao, 2 February 1933. 34. You Jianming’s recent conference paper also addresses the importance of scientific knowledge in home economics discourse in modern China. See You Jianming, ‘Cong “Funü zazhi” kan xiandai jiazheng zhishi de jiangou – yi shi yi zhu weili’ (From Ladies’ Journal to the Construction of Modern Home Economics – Examples of Food, Clothes, and Housing), read at the international conference on ‘Modern China as Represented in Ladies’ Journal 1915–1931’, Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica Taibei, [December 2003]. For a comparison between the development of home

References

35. 36.

37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

44. 45.

46.

47. 48. 49.

50. 51.

221

economics in China and the West, see Rethinking Home Economics, Women and the History of a Profession, ed. Sarah Stage and Virginia B. Vincenti (USA: Cornell University Press, 1997). Chen Zhengyuan, ‘Jianjie jindai Yazhoude “xianqi lianmu” sixiang–cong huigu Riben, Hanguo, Zhongguo de yanjiu chengguo tanqi’, p. 201. See Paul Bailey, ‘Active Citizen or Efficient Housewife?’; Constance Orliski, ‘The Bourgeois Housewife as Labourer in Late Qing and Early Republican Shanghai’, Nan nü: Men, Women and Gender in Early and Imperial China, 5 (April 2003) 43–68, argues that middle class women’s productive activities at home were gradually receiving more attention during that time in Shanghai. Baling, ‘Zhufu zenyang quandao zhanggu guyong guohuo’ (How Can Housewives Persuade Husbands to Use Domestic Products), Shenbao, 3 May 1934. Quanjia (an unidentified author) ‘Wode muqin yu guohuo’ (My Mother and National Products), Shenbao, 27 May 1936. Tianxue, ‘Zhu Wang Wanqing nüshi’ (Mrs. Zhu Wang Wanqing), Shenbao, 25 January 1934. Judge, ‘Citizens or Mothers of Citizens?’, p. 37. Judge’s observation applies to male as well as female citizenship. Judge, ‘Citizens or Mothers of Citizens?’, p. 41. Judge, ‘Citizens or Mothers of Citizens?’, pp. 26–7. Chen Dongyuan, Zhongguo funü shenghuoshi (The History of Chinese Women’s Lives. Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1937), pp. 377–8. This busy domestic life paralleled the European model: see Yaffa Claire Draznin, Victorian London’s Middle-Class Housewife, What She Did All Day (USA: Greenwood Press, 2001). Zheng Yimei, Nanshe congtan: lishi yu renwu (Talking about Southern Society: History and People; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2006), p. 212. Sarah Stage, ‘Introduction/Home Economics: What’s in a Name?’, in Rethinking Home Economics – Women and the History of a Profession, Sarah Stage and Virginia B. Vincenti, (USA: Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 5. As the term was the creation of ‘American Home Economics Association’ in 1909, the disagreements over this term can still be heard from time to time. The weekly magazine Ling Lung (or Linloon as it called itself) was first published in 1930: see Columbia University Libraries, Academic Information Systems, http://www.columbia.edu/dlc/linglung/ (accessed 09 March 2003). Liqiu, ‘Guohuo yu modeng funü (National Products and Modern Women)’, Shenbao, 18 January 1934. Jingying, ‘Changshi yu rensheng’ (Common Sense and Life), Funü zazhi (Ladies’ Journal), 15:1 (January 1929) 95–7. See ‘hygiene’, A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, ed. Sir James A. H. Murray (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1901), vol. v. See also Ruth Rogaski, Hygienic Modernity, pp. 104–6. See ‘sanitation’, A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. 1914), vol. viii. Wu Xizhai, ‘Weisheng jia’ (The Hygiene Expert), Shenbao, 28 June 1920.

222

References

52. Shanghai linong minju, ed. Shen Hua and Shanghaishi fangchan guanliju (Shanghai Alleyway Residences; Beijing: Zhongguo jianzhu gongye chubanshe, 1993), p. 100. 53. See the housing advertisements in Shenbao, 17 May 1937. See also Luo Suwen, Da Shanghai shikumen – sunchang renjia (The Great Shanghai Stone Portals – the Ordinary People; Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1991), p. 24. The design of sanitary rooms in the house normally fell into the following categories. One two-piece toilet (with sink and toilet) on the ground floor for servants, visitors, and families; sometimes a flushing toilet (tianjing, literally ‘heavenly well’) located outdoors at the back of the house or near the square courtyard for servants and other labourers; a three-piece bathroom on the second floor and next to the master room; and another two-piece sanitary room on the third floor for the use of children or family guests: see Shanghai linong minju, pp. 37–9. 54. The first generation of stone portals was largely built in Shanghai during the period of the Taiping Rebellion and Little Sword Rebellion in the 1860s. Many Chinese people moved into the International Settlement for protection, so a new kind of building was created to accommodate them. This was a combination of the traditional Chinese square courtyard component structure with the Western style of terraced house. The material of the house was of stone and brick, with wooden doors. Each house itself was of two or three storeys, and each building was normally occupied by more than one family. See Hanchao Lu, ‘Away from Nanking Road: Small Stores and Neighborhood Life in Modern Shanghai’. 55. However, this does not mean Shenbao only attracted middle class female readers. Readership composition is discussed in detail in the final chapter. 56. See Shanghai linong minju, pp. 6–7. 57. Zhang Xichang, Nongtang huaijiu (Remember the Past Time in Alleyways; Tianjin: Baihua wenyi chubanshe, 2002), p. 45. 58. According to the records of the Shanghai Municipal Council in 1935, there were many notifiable diseases in Shanghai: Typhoid Fever, Paratyphoid Fever, Typhus Fever, Smallpox, Measles, Scarlet Fever, Diphtheria, Influenza, Plague, Tuberculosis, Malaria, Cholera, Dysentery, Relapsing Fever, Epidemic Cerebrospinal Meningitis, Anthrax, Rabies, Schistosomiasis, Beri-beri, Encephalitis Lethargica, Choleraic Diarrhoea and Leprosy: see Report of the Year 1935, and Budget for the year 1936, Shanghai Municipal Council (Shanghai: North-China Daily News and Herald, 1936), p. 137. The Shanghai Municipal Council organised many campaigns to improve the environment, for example, reducing the prevalence of mosquitos, see Report of the Year 1935, and Budget for the year 1936, pp. 187–8. The Council also inspected licensed premises, including ice cream and ice drink shops, milk shops, market shops, fruit shops, laundry services, open food stalls, bakeries and confectioneries, tailors’ shops, public swimming pools, and water supplies. Notices, booklets, and posters released by the Municipal Council warn of the dangers of the diseases. There were six poster pictures in the year book for 1936 (five in Chinese and one in Japanese), and at that time the posters were often multilingual. See Report of the Year 1936, and Budget for the year 1937, Shanghai Municipal Council (Shanghai: North-China Daily News and Herald, 1937). The Municipal Council also made an effort to collect

References

59. 60. 61.

62.

63.

64. 65.

66. 67.

68. 69. 70.

71. 72.

223

domestic refuse, but it was still unable to prevent the spread of disease, because people often left their garbage outdoors and this attracted all sorts of animals and flies. The Council also admitted that sanitation was very difficult to achieve in alleyway houses, where the housewives we are studying lived. In the Chinese section of Shanghai, the Chinese Government also paid attention to public sanitation. For example, at the 14th Sanitation Games (weisheng yundonghui) at the Nanshi public gymnastic ground, the leaflets released by the China Airways Company suggested to the public that ‘Diseases get into [us] through the mouth, so the kitchen should be cleaned first ... Mad dogs bite people, it’s horrible! Quick everybody, seize and kill wild dogs ... Swat one fly a day, in ten days you will have killed a swarm.’ Report for the Year 1935, and Budget for the year 1936, p. 186. Zhongying Dispensary, advertisement, Shenbao, 12 May 1919. Telephone interview with Ms. Yuan Bizhen, Essex, 14 June 2002. ‘Shanghai jizhi guohuo gongchang lianhehui (Shanghai Association of Mechanized National Products Manufacturers)’, advertisement, ‘Biaozhun zhufu riji (The Diary of the Standard Housewife)’, Shenbao, 7 May 1936. Nancy Tomes, ‘Spreading the Germ Theory: Sanitary Science and Home Economics, 1880–1930’, Rethinking Home Economics, Women and the History of a Profession, ed. Sarah Stage and Virginia B. Vincenti (USA: Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 35. Guben soap was a very popular soap of Xiang Maosong’s Wuzhou Pharmacy Company. See Jieying, ‘Guanyu guochang feizao’ (About Domestically Produced Soap), Shenbao, 30 March 1933. Guben soap was one of China’s famous exports at that time: see ‘Shenshi jingji qingbao’ (The Shanghai Times Economic Information) in Shanghai Municipal Archives Q 275–11970; See Ruth Rogaski, Hygienic Modernity, pp. 231–3. Meg Luxton, More Than a Labour of Love, Three Generations of Women’s Work in the Home (Toronto: the Women’s Educational Press, 1980), pp. 83–4. Lüye, ‘Yinger jinshi shijianbiao’ (The Time Table for Baby Feeding), Shenbao, 2 May 1921. The home economist also pointed out that the way mothers feed babies affects the baby’s crying: see Xu Naili, ‘Yinger weishime ku?’ (Why Do Infants Cry?), Kuaile jiating (Happy Family), 1:1 (January 1936), p. 84. ‘Ruer ticao’ (Baby’s Exercises), Funü zazhi (Ladies’ Journal), 17:1 (January 1931). ‘Yingyang’ is a Sino-Japanese-European loanword: see Lydia Liu, Translingual Practice, p. 292. As a translation, ‘ailment’ was used more than ‘nutrition’ in English for yingyang in the beginning. Tianshewong, ‘Shipin de huaxue’ (Food’s Chemistry), Shenbao, 18 April 1935. Liu Wang Liming, ‘Yingyang yu jiankang’ (Nutrition and Health), Kuaile jiating (Happy Family), 1:6 (1936), 88–9. ‘Jidan’ (Egg), Kuaile jiating (Happy Family), 2:1 (1937) 49. Liu Shuofu, ‘Sanmingzhi de xinchifa’ (Sandwich’s New Eating Methods), Kuaile jiating (Happy Family), 2:1 (1937) 53. Yang Yunfang, ‘Naifen de xuanze ji qita’ (Choose Powdered Milk), 1:1 (1936) 94. Lu Jinghua, ‘Haizi de xianshi’ (Children’s Snacks), Kuaile jiating (Happy Family), 1:3 (1936) 45. Lin Lung, No. 241 (1936) 1788.

224 References 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79.

80. 81. 82. 83. 84.

Lin Lung, various authors, No. 228 (1936) 758. Lin Lung, No. 229 (1936) 829. Lin Lung, No. 242 (1936) 1870. Lu Hanchao, Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 280–1. Yaffa Claire Draznin, Victorian London’s Middle-Class Housewife, p. 166. Yaffa Claire Draznin, Victorian London’s Middle-Class Housewife, p. 164. Rosemary Pringle, ‘Women and Consumer Capitalism’, Defining Women: Social Institutions and Gender Division, ed. Linda McDowell and Rosemary Pringle (UK: Open University, 1992), p. 151, attributes the first use of the phrase ‘the emotionalization of housework’ to Ruth Schwartz Cowan, ‘The “Industrial Revolution” in the home: Household techonology and social change in the twentieth century’, Technology and Culture, 17:1 (January 1976) 1–23. Rosemary Pringle, ‘Women and Consumer Capitalism’, p. 151. Meg Luxton, More Than a Labour of Love, p. 118. Zhongguo neiyi gongsi (China Underwear Company), advertisement, Shenbao, 20 April 1935. Wuzhou Pharmacy, advertisement, Kuaile jiating (Happy Family), 1:1 (1936) 50. ‘Fa- re-fo Ice-Cream Company’, advertisement, Shenbao, 9 May 1926.

4 Shame, Guilt, and National Products 1. When Evan Morgan discussed quan and li in Colloquial Sentences with New Terms (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1922). He pointed out that quan (right and privilege) for Chinese people from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century implied the idea of ‘force’. Privilege in English, he argued, referred to the Latin word for law, but when quanli reappeared in modern China after the impact of the West, it meant power and force. 2. Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, advertisement, Shenbao, 1 May 1920. 3. Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, advertisement, Shenbao, 23 May 1923. 4. Yantai pijiu (Yantai Beer), advertisement, Shenbao, 13 May 1931. 5. C. F. Remer, A Study of Chinese Boycotts: with Special Reference to Their Economic Effectiveness (New York: Arno Press, 1979, first published 1933), pp. 246–7. 6. For ‘consume’ see Gao Mingkai and Liu Zhengtan, Xiandai hanyu wailaici yanjiu (The Study of Loan-Words in Chinese; Beijing: Wenzi gaige chubanshe, 1958), p. 95. For ‘consumer’ see A. H. Mateer, New Terms for New Ideas, A Study of the Chinese Newspaper (Shanghai: The Presbyterian Mission Press, 1917), p. 27, and Evan Morgan, New Terms Revised and Enlarged, p. 160. 7. See, for example, Li Changli, Wanqing Shanghai shehui de bianqian: shenghuo yu lunli de jindaihua (Social Change in Late Qing Shanghai: the Modernization of Life and Morality; Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 2002). Cynthia J. Brokaw, Commerce in Culture: The Sibao Book Trade in the Qing and Republican Periods (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), particularly Chapter 6 & 7. 8. R. S. Oropesa, ‘Consumer Possessions, Consumer Passions, and Subjective Well-Being’, Sociological Forum, 10:2 (June 1995), 215–44.

References

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9. Yen-p’ing Hao, The Commercial Revolution in Nineteenth-Century China: SinoWestern Mercantile Capitalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 336–8. See also Susan Naquin and Evelyn Sakakida Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), pp. 101–3. 10. Hao, The Commercial Revolution in Nineteenth-Century China, p. 341. 11. Wellington K.K. Chan, ‘Selling Goods and Promoting a New Commercial Culture: The Four Premier Department Stores in Nanjing Road, 1917–1937’, in Inventing Nanjing Road, p. 21. 12. Shanghai shekeyuan jingji yanjiusuo (ed.), Shanghai jindai baihuo shangyeshi (The Business History of Shanghai Modern Sundry Goods; Shanghai: Shanghai shekeyuan chubanshe, 1988), p. 26. For the main locations of this kind of shop see Luo Suwen, ‘Lu, li lou: jindai Shanghai shangye kongjian de tuozhan’ (Road, Alley, and Building: the Expansion of Commercial Space of Modern Shanghai), ed. Zhang Zhongli, Zhongguo jindai chengshi qiye, shehui, kongjian (City, Enterprise, Society, and Space in Modern China; Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1998), pp. 366–9. 13. See also Gerth, China Made, pp. 2–3. 14. Lu Hanchao, Beyond the Neon Lights, p. 277. 15. Peter N. Stearns, Consumerism in World History (London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 84–8. 16. Christopher Berry, The Idea of Luxury, p. 159. 17. Xin Ping, Cong Shanghai faxian lishi (Discovering History through Shanghai; Shanghai: Shanghai remin chubanshe, 1996), pp. 350–1; Yue Zheng, Jindai Shanghairen shehui xintai (The Social Mentality of Modern Shanghai People; Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1991), pp. 147–8; and Li Changli, Wanqing Shanghai shehui de bianqian: shenghuo yu lunli de jindaihua, pp. 235–312. 18. Xin Ping, Cong Shanghai faxian lishi, pp. 351–3. 19. It was not uncommon to see a whole page of advertisements placed by Huiluo Company for imported commodities in Shenbao, 13 May 1928. 20. Don Slater, Consumer Culture and Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997), pp. 33–4. 21. Dai Ailu, ‘Tichang guohuo yingxian diaocha yanghuo’ (The Investigation on the Foreign Products Should Be Done before Promoting National Products), Zhongguo guohuo zhanlanhui jinian tekan (Commemorative Volume for the Chinese National Product Exhibition), ed. Gongshangbu Zhonghua guohuo zhanlanhui bianjibu (Shanghai: Gongshangbu Zhonghua guohuo zhanlanhui, 1928), p. 1. See also Zhou Chengxun, ‘Du guohuo jieshaosuo kaimu xuanyan’ (Reading the Opening Declaration of the National Product Promotion Office), Shenbao, 16 March 1933. 22. C. F. Remer also noticed that from the late 1920s to the 1930s, boycotts were presented to appeal to ‘the ultimate consumer of imported goods’: see C. F. Remer, A Study of Chinese Boycotts, p. 239. 23. Gerth, China-Made, pp. 14–15. 24. For discussions of the idea of shame and guilt see Richard W. Wilson, ‘Moral behavior in Chinese Society: A Theoretical Perspective’, Moral Behavior in Chinese Society, ed. Richard W. Wilson (New York: Praeger, 1981), pp. 11–15; Wolfram Eberhard, Guilt and Sin in Traditional China (Berkeley: University

226

25. 26. 27. 28.

29.

30.

31.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

38.

39.

References of California Press, 1976), pp. 2–3, 13, 89, 120–1; Hu Hsien-chin, ‘The Chinese Concepts of “Face” ’, American Anthropologist, 46:1 (1944) 45–64; Zhu Cenliu, ‘Cong shehui geren yu wenhua de guanxi lun Zhongguoren xingge de chigan quxiang’ (A Discussion of the Formation of the Sense of Guilt in Chinese Character based on the Relationship between Society, the Individual, and Culture), Zhongguoren de xingge (The Character of the Chinese: An Interdisciplinary Approach), ed. Li Yiyuan and Yang Guoshu (Taibei: Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica Monograph Series 6, 1974), pp. 85–116; Jin Yaoji, ‘ “Mian”, “chi”, yu zhongguoren xingwei zhi fenxi’ (The Analysis of ‘Face’, ‘Shame’ and Chinese Behaviour), Dierjie guoji hanxuehuiyi lunwenji (Proceedings of the Second International Conference of Sinology, Taibei: Academia Sinica, 1989), pp. 39–53; Feng Lihan, ‘Qingxu, wenhua yu daodeshehuihua: yi xiuchigan weili de tantao’ (Emotion, Culture and Moral Socialization; read at the Workshop on Feeling, Emotion, and Culture, Academia Sinica, Taibei, [September 2000]). Pei-Yi Wu, ‘SelfExamination and Confession of Sins in Traditional China’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 39:1 (June 1979) 5–38. Feng Lihan, ‘Qingxu, wenhua yu daodeshehuihua: yi xiuchigan weili de tantao’, pp. 4–7. Wolfram Eberhard, Guilt and Sin in Traditional China, pp. 2–3. Eberhard, Guilt and Sin in Traditional China, p. 12. Related terms in the Chinese moral vocabulary include xiu (to be ashamed), ru (to be disgraced, dishonoured), can (to be ashamed), kui (to be abashed), zuo (to be indignant), fen (to resent, to detest, to be angry), yan (to be disgusted), wu (to dislike), ji (to abhor, to hate), bing (to be disgusted, to hate), ze (to blame): see Zhongwen da cidian. ‘Ji suo bu yu wu shi yu ren’, see Lunyü (The Analects), ‘Weilinggong: 24’: see William Edward Soothill, The Analects of Confucius (China: The Presbyterian Mission Press 1910), pp. 747–9. See Mengzi, ‘Jinxin: 6’: see Zhong Ying dui zhao Si shu, The Four Books, with English translation and notes by James Legge (Taibei: Wenhua tushu gongsi, 1988), p. 936. See Lunyü (The Analects), ‘Xueer: 4’, p. 125. Mencius said that one of three pleasures of a gentleman is that ‘When looking up, he has no occasion for shame before Heaven, and, below, he has no occasion to blush before men’. See See Menzi, ‘Jinxin: 20’, p. 948. Wolfram Eberhard, Guilt and Sin in Traditional China, pp. 5–7. Pei-Yi Wu, ‘Self-Examination and Confession of Sins in Traditional China’, 6. Li Xiaoti, Qingmo de xiaceng shehui qimeng yundong, 1901–1911, p. 209. Li An, Wen Tianxiang shijigao (The Historical Materials of Wen Tianxiang; Taibei: Zhengzhong shuju, 1975), p. 143. Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past, pp. 159–97. For a discussion of the songs directed against the Qing Government in which the Qing race were described as inhuman see Li Xiaoti, Qingmo de xiaceng shehui qimeng yundong, 1901–1911, pp. 207–8. ‘Tongmenghui xuanyan’ (The Declaration of the Chinese United League), Sun Zhongshan quanji (The Complete Works of Sun Yat-sen; Shanghai: Sanmin gongsi, 1928, 4 vols), iv. 6. ‘Tongmenghui xuanyan’, Sun Zhongshan quanji, iv. 5.

References

227

40. Liang Qichao, Xinminshuo (On New People), § 8 ‘Lun quanli sixiang’ (On the Idea of Right), reprinted in Yinbingshi heji (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1941), iii. 39. 41. Liang Qichao, Xinminshuo (On New People), § 5 ‘Lun gongde’ (On Public Virtue), reprinted in Yinbingshi heji, iii. 12–16. 42. Liang Qichao, Xinminshuo, ‘Lun side’ (On Private Virtue), pp. 119. 43. Liang Qichao, Xinminshuo, ‘Lun side’, pp. 128–30. 44. Liang Qichao, Xinminshuo, ‘Lun side’, p. 130. 45. Liang Qichao, Xinminshuo, ‘Lun zizun’ (On Self Respect), pp. 66–8. 46. Liang Qichao, Xinminshuo, ‘Lun zizun’, p. 69. 47. Liang Qichao, Xinminshuo, ‘Lun zizun’, p. 76. 48. John Fitzgerald, Awakening China: Politics, Culture, and Class in the Nationalist Revolution (California: Stanford University Press, 1996), p. 68. 49. Fitzgerald, Awakening China, p. 76. 50. Huang Jinlin, Lishi, shenti, guojia, pp. 33–107. 51. John Fitzgerald, Awakening China, p. 89; Chen Duxiu, ‘Jinggao jingnian’ (To the Youth [1915]), in Duxiu wencun, pp. 3–9; Chen Duxiu, ‘Wuren zuihou de juewu’ (Our Last Awakening [1916]), in Duxiu wencun, pp. 37–41; Sun Yat-sen, ‘Minzu zhuyi diyijiang’ (First Chapter on Nationalism), Sun Zhongshan quanji, i. 2. 52. Fitzgerald, Awakening China, p. 92. 53. Lucian W. Pye, ‘How China’s Nationalism was Shanghaied’, The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, No. 29 (Jan., 1993) 107–33. 54. Pye, ‘How China’s Nationalism was Shanghaied’, 113. 55. Henrietta Harrison, The Man Awakened from Dreams: One Man’s Life in a North China Village, 1857–1942 (Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2005), pp. 84–6. 56. ‘Quan zhichige (Shame Inspiring Song; Beijing: Zhongha shuju Press, 1930)’ in Fu Ssu-nien Library (Academia Sinica Taipei), A Tg–001. 57. ‘Ershiyi tiaokuan guochi wushengke’ (Five Sighs Song for the Twenty- One Demands) in Fu Ssu-nien Library (Academia Sinica Taipei), Ta 02–033, tif. 58. This kind of education in citizenship through media such as speeches and opera performances designed to provoke weeping and feelings of patriotism was common in the early twentieth century. See Li Xiaoti, Qingmo de xiaceng shehui qimeng yundong, 1901–1911, p. 120. 59. Shen Liangqi, ‘Guochi yanshuo’ (Speeches on the Nation’s Shame, first printed in 1921), in Jindai Zhongguo shiliao congkan, chief ed. Shen Yunlong, vol. 3, issue 26 (Modern Chinese Historical Materials Series; Taibei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1966–73). 60. Liangqi, ‘Guochi yanshuo’, p. 3. 61. ‘Quan zhichi ge’ (Shame Inspiring Song) in Fu Ssu-nien Library (Academia Sinica Taipei), A Tg–011. 62. ‘Ershiyi tiaokuan guochi wushengke’ (The Songs of Five Sighs for the National Shame for ‘The Twenty-One Demands’) in Fu Ssu-nien Library, Academia Sinica Taipei, A Ta2–033. 63. Gerth, China-Made, pp. 181–2. 64. Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacoo Company, advertisement, Shenbao, 15 May 1920. 65. The Japanese military action took place on January 28 1932, and became known as the Shanghai Incident.

228 References 66. Jin Songfu, ‘Tichang guohuo ge’ (Song for Promoting National Products), Shenbao, 23 May 1935. 67. Jirang, ‘Guohuo geyao’ (National Products Song), Shenbao, 11 April 1935. 68. Barbara Mittler, A Newspaper for China? pp. 358–9. 69. Shinianlai zhi jilianhui (Jilian Association in the Last Ten Years; Shanghai: Shanghai jizhi guohuo gongchang lianhehui, 1937), p. 1. Although this association was based in Shanghai, its members came from all over China. The units of this organization were factories, not individuals. This organization was one of the largest and most active groups in the national product movement. 70. Jindai Zhongguo guohuo yundong yanjiu, ed. Pan Junxiang (The Study of Modern Chinese National Products Movements; Shanghai: Shanghai shekeyuan, 1998), p. 95. 71. Collective advertising was one of the main strategies of this organization. Moreover, members benefited from reduced taxes on advertising: see ‘Shanghaishi guohuo chanxiao jibenshe zhangcheng’ (Regulations for the Association of Shanghai National Product Manufacturers and Distributors) in Shanghai Municipal Archives, Q 5–3-3084. Joint advertising meant consumers could be better informed about the full range of national products that their families would need. 72. Pan Junxiang, Jindai Zhongguo guohuo yundong yanjiu, p. 34. 73. Pan Junxiang, Jindai Zhongguo guohuo yundong yanjiu, p. 35. One of Pan’s company’s products was fountain pen bodies: see the advertisement in Shenbao, 4 April 1935. 74. Junxiang, Jindai Zhongguo guohuo yundong yanjiu, pp. 35–6. 75. Zhongguo guohuo gongsi (Chinese National Products Company), advertisement, Shenbao, 9 February 1933. 76. Pan Yangmang was another pen name of Pan Wenan, in the Introduction to the publication of Gongshang shiliao (Historical Materials for Industry and Business), recalled that Shi Liancai had often asked him to collect such materials, and regretted that Shi was unable to see this publication before he died. Pan Wenan, ‘Panxu’ (Pan’s Introduction), Gongshang shiliao, ed. Shanghai jizhi guohuo gongchang lianhehui bianjibu (Historical Materials of Industry and Business; Shanghai: Shanghai jilianhui chuban, 1935), p. 3. 77. Pan Wenan (pen name Yangmang and Yangyao), ‘Benkan de shiming’ (The Mission of This Column), Shenbao, 1 January 1933. 78. Pan Wenan (pen name Yangmang), ‘Guohuonian zhi jiantao’ (The Self Examination for the Year of the National Product Movement), Shenbao, 2 November 1933. 79. Pan Wenan (pen name Yangmang), ‘Zheshi sihuo wenti’ (This is a Question of Life or Death), Shenbao, 27 May 1936. 80. Pan Wenan (pen name Yangmang), ‘Guohuo cheng’ (National Product City), Shenbao, 30 May 1935. 81. Drawing promoting national products, Shenbao, 4 May 1933. 82. Du Zhongyuan, ‘Zai zhongzhong yapoxia guohuo yinggai zenyang mou chulu’ (How Can National Products Find a Way Out from under Layer on Layer of Pressure), Shenbao, 9 February 1933. 83. Jon Sarri, Legacies of Childhood: Growing up Chinese in a Time of Crisis, 1890– 1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), p. 215.

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5 ‘Ziyoutan’ Revisited – The Literature Supplement and Its Writers 1. Li Liewen, ‘Muqian zhici’ (Opening Speech), Shenbao, 1 December 1932. 2. Mandarin Duck and Butterfly literature was popular during the late Qing and early Republic period. The themes of this style of literature were broad, but many of them were about romance, legends, and martial arts. They were not seen as serious literature but were intended to be very entertaining and easy to read. See Perry Link, Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies: Popular Fiction in Early Twentieth Century Chinese Cities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981). 3. ‘Mao Dun yu “Ziyoutan” ’, Shenbao jieshao (The Introduction to Shenbao), ed. Shanghai shudian Shenbao yingyinzu (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 1982), p. 59. 4. Chen Diexian’s orginal name was Chen Songshou, and his other famous pen name was Tianxu wosheng. 5. According to Mao Dun, Li Liewen’s father was an old friend of Shi Liangcai, and this relationship initiated Li Liewen. 6. Song Jun, Shenbao de xingshuai, p. 164. 7. Xie Bingying’s term to celebrate the new editorial policy of ‘Random Talk’: see Xie Bingying, ‘Xinsheng de ziyoutan’ (The Reborn ‘Random Talk’), Shenbao, 1 December 1932. 8. Leo Ou-fan Lee argues that the quality of literature, particularly of essays and novels, declined between 1928 and 1937, as many authors were too busy disputing over ideologies to make progress in their literary work. However, one might speculate whether the open-ended form of these essays offered writers a more attractive medium, since they were freer to express their feelings. See Leo Ou-fan Lee, ‘Literary Trends: The Road to Revolution 1927–1949’, The Cambridge History of China, ed. John K. Fairbank and Albert Feuerwerker, vol. 13 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 445–6. 9. Mao Dun, ‘Huanying guwu’ (Greetings to the Antiques), Shenbao, 9 February 1933; and Li Huiying, ‘Guwu banjia de yiyi’ (The Meaning of Moving Antiques), Shenbao, 14 March 1933. 10. Lu Xun, ‘Chongshi’ (Believing in Reality), Shenbao, 6 February 1933. 11. Lu Xun, ibid. The corresponding lines in the first part of Cui Hao’s ‘The Yellow Crane Tower’ (Huanghe lou) run: The celestial being has already ridden the yellow crane away, and only left the Yellow Crane Tower here. The Yellow Crane has never revisited, but the white clouds have still been being floating in the sky for thousands of years. For the original Chinese text see Tangsong mingjia shici xinshang, ed. Chu Juren, Gao Zhengyi, (An Appreciation of the Poems and Songs of the Great Tang Song Masters; Tainan: Dafu shuju yingxing, 1993), p. 160. 12. There was a vast literature on this topic. Liang Qichao’s critique of the Chinese character in his ‘On the New Kind of People’ (Xinminshuo) was one of the most famous. Later, Sun Yat-sen, Chen Duxiu, and Lu Xun wrote

230 References

13. 14.

15.

16. 17. 18.

19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

descriptions of Chinese weakness that also contributed to it. In the author’s opinion, however, Lao She’s Cat City (Maocheng ji), even though it has not been widely discussed by scholars, gave the most representative view of Chinese character shared by these intellectuals. Lu Xun, ‘Ah Q zhengzhuan’ (The True Story of Ah Q), p. 77. Mao Dun, ‘Ah Q xiang’ (Ah Q Face), Shenbao, 1 March 1933. See also other articles in ‘Random Talk’ for the similar subjects: Yangchun (Mao Dun’s another pen name), ‘Xinzhao buxuan’ (Understanding Without Being Told), Shenbao, 20 January 1933; Fan Zhongyun, ‘Jiangjunmen de kuxin’ (The Painstaking General), Shenbao, 12 January 1933; Xu Yu, ‘Ah Q yongyuan jianzai’ (Ah Q Has Always Been Healthy Here), Shenbao, 23 March 1933; Wuyou, ‘Kong Yiji jiqi huanjing’ (Kong Yiji and His Environment), Shenbao, 23 September 1933. Shen Gangfu, ‘ “Kan” han “tao” ’ (‘Look’ and ‘Escape’), Shenbao, 31 December 1932; Gao Ming, ‘Zhongguoren de shou han jiao (Chinese People’s Hands and Feet), Shenbao, 20 February 1933. Xu Maoyong, ‘Renru yu futong’ (Enduring Humiliation and Bearing Pain), Shenbao, 18 October 1933. Yu Congyu, ‘Ji “Ah Q” erlai de shidai’ (After ‘Ah Q’), Shenbao, 24 October 1935. Lao She, Maocheng ji, Maocheng ji (Cat City; Shanghai: Chenguang chubanshe, 1948), pp. 24–5, 39, 63–4. ‘Bianjishi’ (The Editorial), Shenbao, 25 May 1933. Li Liewen resigned on 9 May 1934, and was succeeded by Zhang Zisheng, but the style of this supplement did not change even after Shi Liangcai, the newspaper’s owner, was assassinated on 13 November 1934. See ‘Li Liewen qishi (Li Liewen’s Announcement)’, Shenbao, 9 May 1934. See also Tang Tao, ‘Preface’ to the reprinted edition of Shenbao (Shanghai: Shanghai tushuguan, 1981), pp. 8–9. Lin Yutang, ‘Lun bao pigu’ (On Kicking Bottoms), Shenbao, 26 November 1933. Gao Zhi wrote ‘Lun baopigu’ (On Embracing Bottoms) in response to Lin Yutang’s article: see Shenbao, 1 December 1933. See also Kong Lingjing, ‘Muqian zhuyi’ (Opportunism), Shenbao, 15 June 1933. Zheng Zhenduo, Shenbao, 27 January 1934. Cao Juren, ‘Taochu siwangxian’ (Escape from the Line of Death), Shenbao, 31 March 1933. Cao Juren, ‘Wusi de meijun’ (The Mould of the May Fourth Movement), Shenbao, 12 September 1935. Yang Chao, ‘Wusi de shiqing’ (The Truth of the May Fourth Movement), Shenbao, 20 September 1935. Cao Juren, ‘Wusi meijun buzheng’ (An Addendum and Correction to ‘The Mould of the May Fourth Movement’), Shenbao, 8 October 1935. Nie Gannu, ‘Guanyu zhishifenzi’ (On Intellectuals), Shenbao, 15 October 1935. Zhang Kebiao, Wentan denglongshu (Ways to Succeed in the Literary World; Haerbin: Heilongjiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 1988, first published 1933). Zhang satirised literary circles in Shanghai by pointing out that making friends with the right people was one of the key techniques to being famous. This work provoked a lot of discussion, including many articles in Random Talk. See also Michel Hockx, ‘Theory as Practice: Modern Chinese Literature and

References

27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42. 43.

44.

45.

231

Bourdieu’, Reading East Asian Writing: The Limits of Literary Theory, ed. Michel Hockx and Ivo Smits (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003), p. 233. Zhang Kebiao, Wentan denglongshu, p. 53. David Der-wei Wang, The Monster That Is History: History, Violence, and Fictional Writing in Twentieth-Century China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), p. 4. David Der-wei Wang, The Monster That Is History, pp. 278–84. Hung-Yok Ip, ‘Politics and Individuality in Communist Revolutionary Culture’, Modern China, 23:1 (Jan., 1997) 33–68. Bonnie McDougall, Fictional Authors, Imaginary Audiences, p. 37. Robert E. Hegel, ‘An Exploration of the Chinese Literary Self’, in Expressions of Self in Chinese Literature, p. 13. Chen Zizhan, ‘Wenyan, baihua yu dazhongyu (Classical Language, the Vernacular, and Mass Language)’, Shenbao, 18 June 1934. Chen Wangdao, ‘Guanyu dazhongyu wenxue de jianshe’ (On Constructing a Literature for Mass Language), Shenbao, 19 June 1934. Hu Yuzhi, ‘Guanyu dazhongyuwen’ (On Mass Language), Shenbao, 23 June 1934. Ye Shengtao, ‘Zatan dushu zuowen han dazhongyu wenxue’ (A Rambling Talk on Reading, Writing, and Mass Literature), Shenbao, 25 June 1934. Wu Xiangyu, ‘Shidai yu xuyao’ (The Age and Its Needs), Shenbao, 31 October 1934. Fan Zhongyun, ‘Guanyu dazhongyu de jianshe’ (On the Construction of Mass Language), Shenbao, 30 June 1934. The idea of collectivism dominated Wu’s articles in ‘Random Talk’ in late 1934. His ideas on art, collectivism, and realism will be discussed in the final chapter. Fuhao (signifier) here used by Tao Xingzhi is better to be understood as meaning words in written form. Tao Xingzhi (pen name Xingzhi), ‘Dazhongyuwen yundong zhi lu’ (The Path of the Movement for Mass Language), Shenbao, 4 July 1934. Bonnie McDougall, Fictional Authors, Imaginary Audiences, p. 48. Pickowicz argues that the reason a leading establishment literary theorist of the CCP such as Qu Qiubai decided to study Russian literature was to change China’s socio-political condition. Paul G. Pickowicz, Marxist Literary Thought in China: The Influence of Qu Qiubai (Berkeley: University of California, 1981), Preface. Wang Xiaoming also observes that the utilitarian element in modern literature, particularly in political articles, can be traced back to New Youth (Xin qingnian). The editors and contributors to New Youth also believed that literary theory could decide the direction of literature: see Wang Xiaoming, ‘Yifen zazhi he yige “shetuan”: lun “wusi” wenxue chuantong’ (A Journal and a ‘Society’: on the ‘May Fourth’ Literary Tradition), Jintian, 11:2 (Fall 1999) 94–114. Bonnie S. McDougall, The Introduction of Western Literary Theories into Modern China: 1919–1925 (Tokyo: The Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies, 1971), p. 259. Leo Ou-fan Lee, ‘Literary Trends I: The Quest for Modernity, 1895–1927’, The Cambridge History of China, ed. John K. Fairbank, vol. 12 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 493. See also Wong Wang-chi, Politics

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55.

56.

and Literature in Shanghai: The Chinese League of Left-wing Writers, 1930–36 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991). Yi-tsi Mei Feuerwerker, Ideology, Power, Text: Self-Representation and the Peasant ‘Other’ in Modern Chinese Literature (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), p. 49. Gu Fengcheng, ‘Women suo yaoqiu de wenxue’ (The Literature We Require), Shenbao, 25 December 1932. Wu Jingsong (Wu Xiangyu), ‘Shida yu xuyao’ (The Times and the Age), Shenbao, 31 October 1934. Qu Qiubai, ‘Puluodazhong wenyi de xianshi wendi’ (The Actual Problems of Proletarian Mass Literature), 25 October 1931, reprinted in Zhongguo xiandai wenxueshi cankao zilao, vol. 1, pt. 1, pp. 305–23. Qu Qiubai, ‘Wenti zhong de dazhong wenyi’ (Problematic Popular Literature), first published in Wenxue yuebao, 1:2 (July 1932), reprinted in Zhongguo xiandai wenxueshi cankao zilao, vol. 1, pt. 1, pp. 323–38. Chen Duxiu, ‘Wenxue geminglun’ (The Discourse of Literary Revolution), New Youth, 2:1, 1919, reprinted in Zhongguo xiandai wenxueshi cankao zilao (The Reference Materials for Modern Chinese Literature), ed. Beijing shifandaxue zhongwenxi. xiandaiwenxue jiaoxuegaigexiaozu, vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 21. See also Yi Junzuo, Zhongguo wenxueshi (The History of Chinese Literature; Hong Kong: Ziyou chubanshe, 1959), p. 479. For example, Xie Bingxin’s style was very different from that of Xu Dishan, Mao Dun, and Ye Shaojun. See Yin Guoming, Zhongguo xiandai wenxue liupai fazhanshi (The Developing History of Chinese Modern Literary Schools; Guangdong: Guangdong gaodeng jiaoyu chubanshe, 1989), pp. 86–8. The other main aesthetic view was romanticism. See Zhongguo xiandai wenxue cidian (The Dictionary of Chinese Modern Literature), pp. 7–8. Mao Dun, Ziye (Midnight, 1933) was seen as representative of realist work. Deng Zhongxia, ‘Gongxian yu xinshiren zhiqian’ (Dedication to the New Poets), first published in Zhongguo qingnian zhoukan (Chinese Youth Weekly), 5 December 1923, reprinted in Zhongguo xiandai wenxue yundong shiliao zhaibian, vol. 1, pt. 1, pp. 146–8. The most famous and powerful declaration was made by Cheng Fangwu, who wrote: ‘We are far behind the times ... If we are still going to shoulder the revolutionary intelligentsia’s responsibilities, we have to negate ourselves yet again (the negation of the negation). We have to endeavour to gain class consciousness. We want to make our media close to the phrases of peasant and worker mass ... Our Literary Movement should move forward a step, from Literary Revolution to Revolutionary Literature ... The world has been formed into two warring camps. One side is capitalism’s left-over evils and Fascism’s lonely castle; the other side is the united battle line of the mass of peasants and workers ... Nobody is allowed to stand in the middle. You either come here, or go there.’ See Chen Fangwu, ‘Cong wenxue geming dao geming wenxue’ (From Literary Revolution to Revolutionary Literature), Chuangzao yuekan (Creation Monthly), 1:9 (April 1927) 1–7. Chan Sylvia, ‘Realism or Socialist Realism? The “Proletarian” Episode in Modern Chinese Literature 1927–1932’, The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, 9 (1983) 55–74.

References

233

57. Wen Rumin, Xinwenxue xianshizhuyi de liubian (The Transformation of Realism in New Literature; Beijing: Xinhua shudian, 1988), pp. 88–110. 58. Leo Ou-fan Lee, ‘Literary Trends: the Road to Revolution 1927–1949’, pp. 422–8. 59. This position was not supported by all writers, and the disagreements it provoked were the basis for the later debates over ‘the third kind of people’. Hu Qiuyuan and Su Wen were the two most important authors to be labeled representatives of this ‘third kind of people’. Both argued in response that it was impossible for an author to get rid of his background, or class, in his writing. They claimed that it was a positive virtue for an author to bring the thoughts, emotions, interests, and desires belonging to a particular class into their work. See Hu Qiuyuan, ‘Guanyu wenyi zhi jiejixing’ (About Class in Literature), reprinted in Sanshi niandai ‘wenyi ziyou bianlun’ ziliao (Materials for the Debates on 1930s’ Literture Freedom; Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1988), pp. 82–3. 60. Sylvia Chan, ‘Realism or Socialist Realism?’. 61. Hu Qiuyuan, ‘Agou wenyilun’ (Literature for Dogs), Sanshi niandai ‘wenyi ziyou bianlun’ ziliao, pp. 6–16 62. Zhou Yang, ‘Guanyu “shehuizhuyide xianshizhuyi yu gemingde langmanzhuyi” ’ (On ‘Socialist Realism and Revolutionary Romanticism’), Xiandai (Les Contemporains), 4:1 (November 1933) 21–31. 63. Robert E. Hegel, ‘An Exploration of the Chinese Literary Self’, p. 12. 64. For example, Zhou Zuoren, using the pen name ‘Zhongmi’, wrote ‘Gexing de wenxue (The Literature of Individuality)’ to stress that a new kind of literature was needed for a new kind of Chinese people. See Xin qiingnian (New Youth), 8:5, January 1921, p. 3. The Introduction to Xinchao (Renaissance), 1:1 (January 1919) 3, asserted that individual personalities should not be destroyed by the majority. Fu Sinian, in the same issue, argued for the value of individuals in society, and insisted on ‘The free development of the individual for the Common Welfare’: see Fu Sinian, ‘Rensheng wenti faduan’ (The Beginning of the Problems of Human Life), ibid., 15. 65. Pan Mohua, pen name ‘Ji’, ‘Zuojia de chengshi’ (Writers’ Honesty), Shenbao, January 29 1935. 66. Qian Xingcun (Ah Ying), Xiandai shiliujia xiaopin (The Sixteen Modern Essay Writers; Shanghai: Guangming shuju, 1941). 67. Hu Shi, ‘Wushinianlai Zhongguo zhi wenxue’ (Chinese Literature of the Last Fifty Years), Zuijin zhi wushinian Shenbao teji (The Last Fifty Years: Special Anniversary Issue of Shenbao; Shanghai: Shenbao, 1922), p. 23. 68. Zhongguo xin wenxue daxi, ed. Zhao Jiabi (A Compendium of New Chinese Literature; Shanghai: Shanghai liangyou tushu yinshua gongsi, 10 vols., 1935–1936). 69. Yu Dafu, ‘Daoyan’ (Introduction), Zhongguo xin wenxue daxi: sanwen erji (A Compendium of New Chinese Literature: Essays, vol. two), pp. 2–3. 70. Yu Dafu, ‘Daoyan’, pp. 4–5. 71. Yu Dafu, ‘Daoyan’, pp. 6–7. 72. Edward Gunn, Rewriting Chinese: Style and Innovation in Twentieth-Century Chinese Prose (California: Stanford University, 1991), p. 1. 73. Gunn also argues that Europeanization in Chinese vernacular literature ‘came to signify merely new means to achieve old ends’, see Edward Gunn, Rewriting Chinese, p. 37 & 42.

234 References 74. Edward Gunn, Rewriting Chinese, pp. 31–61. 75. Lu Xun, ‘Xiaopinwen de weiji’ (The Crisis of the Personal Essay), in Zhongguo xiandai wenxueshi cankao zilao, ed. Beijing shifandaxue zhongwenxi xiandaiwenxue jiaoxuegaigexiaozu (Materials for the History of Modern Chinese Literature; Beijing: Gaodeng jiaoyu chubanshe, 3 vols., 1959), vol. 1, pt. 2, p. 501. 76. Jaroslav Průšek, ‘Introduction to Studies in Modern Chinese Literature’, in The Lyrical and the Epic: Studies of Modern Chinese Literature, ed. Leo Ou-fan Lee (Bloomington: Indiana University press, 1980), p. 72. However, Leo Ou-fan Lee stresses that the roots of Lu Xun’s satirical miscellaneous essay are to be found in the powerful ‘classical prose’ (guwen) of the Wei-Jin period: see Leo Ou-fan Lee, Voices from the Iron House: A Study of Lu Xun (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), pp. 112–13. 77. Leo Ou-fan Lee observes that ‘A typical guwen essay in the hands of Zhang Taiyan and Lu Xun is difficult to read precisely because of its compression of allusions into a seemingly centreless and disorganized whole. This somewhat contradictory combination of precision and chaos, conciousness and turgidity, was Zhang Taiyan’s stylistic weapon to counter the influence of all prevailing schools of his time.’, Leo Ou-fan Lee, Voices from the Iron House, p. 112. 78. Michel Hockx, Questions of Style: Literary Societies and Literary Journals in Modern China, 1911–1937 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), p. 15. 79. Mao Dun, ‘Li de biaoxian’ (The Form of Power), Shenbao, 1 December 1933. 80. Liang Shih-chiu, ‘Lun sanwen’ (On Prose), Xinyue (Crescent Moon), 1:8 (October 1928) 1–5. 81. Liang Shih-chiu personally thought that his action for publicly holding an opposite position from the left-wing writers was unique in the ‘Crescent Moon’ group. See Liang Shih-chiu, Liang Shih-chiu zizhuan (Autobiography of Liang Shih-chiu; Jiangsu: Jiangsu wenyu chubanshe, 1996), p. 144. 82. Wu Xi, ‘Tan wenxue’ (On Literature), Shenbao, 24 December 1933. 83. Lin Yutang, ‘Fakanzi’ (Annoucement), Renjianshi (Human World). No. 1 (April 1934) 2. 84. Susan Daruvala, Zhou Zuoren and an Alternative Chinese Response to Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), p. 51. 85. Daruvala, Zhou Zuoren and an Alternative Chinese Response to Modernity, p. 54. 86. Liao Mosha, ‘Renjian heshi?’ (What Kind of World Are We Living in?), Shenbao, 14 April 1934. 87. Mosha, ‘Renjian heshi?’, ibid. 88. Lin Yutang, ‘Fangjin qi yanjiu’ (An Enquiry into the Pedantic Ambience of the Kerchief Scholarhood), Shenbao, 28 and 30 April, 3 May 1934. ‘Fangjin’ was the square handkerchief worn by male scholars of the Ming Dynasty, and in these debates it became a symbol of an old conservative order. 89. Lunyü was a semi-monthly magazine, published since 1932 in Shanghai. 90. Lin Yutang, ‘Fangjin qi yanjiu’, Shenbao, 28 April 1934. 91. Lin Yutang, ‘Fangjin qi yanjiu’, Shenbao, 3 May 1934. 92. Lin Yutang, ‘Fangjin qi yanjiu’, Shenbao, 28 April 1934. 93. Chen Shuyü, ‘ “Xiangde” yü “shuli”: Lin Yutang yu Lu Xun de jiaowang shishi jiqi wenhua sikao’ (Have Each Other and Departure from Each

References

94. 95. 96.

97. 98. 99. 100.

101. 102. 103.

104. 105. 106. 107.

108.

235

Other: The History and Fact of Lin Yutang’a Interactions with Lu Xun and His Cultural Thoughts), Hanxue yanjiu, 13:1 (June 1995) 281–298. Xu Qinwen, ‘Xiaopinwen yu gexing’ (Personal Essay and Personality), Shenbao, 26 April 1935. Xu Qinwen, ‘Youmo he fengci’ (Humour and Satire), Shenbao, 29 October 1935. Wu Yifang, ‘Wenxue yu ziwo’ (Literature and Self), Shenbao, 18 July 1943. Wu studied in America, and was the head of Jinling Women’s University in 1929. Guo Ming and Xie Yunyi, ‘Laihan zhaodeng’ (Letters to the Editor), Shenbao, 28 April 1934. Zhang Kebiao, ‘Laihan zhaodeng’ (Letters to the Editor), Shenbao, 3 May 1934. ‘Bianzhe fuji’ (The Editorial Note), Shenbao, 3 May 1934. For example, ‘Lingmo’ likened Lin Yutang’s ‘personal essay’ to an autumn fly losing the energy of the summer so that it elicited sympathy rather than the urge to swat it, in ‘Qiu ying’ (Autumn Fly), Shenbao, 23 September 1935. Hunren, ‘Weida de zuopin zai nali?’ (Where are the Great Works?), Shenbao, 31 August 1934. Kai, ‘Women yao dahan qiyuan’ (We Want an Outcry over Our Unjust Treatment), Shenbao, 8 September 1934. The highly competitive nature of publishing can be seen from the fact that there were at least 20 literary societies established in Shanghai in 1933. In 1934 the figure had reached 29, the highest level before 1949. 25 new literary journals were founded in 1933, 17 in 1934, 22 in 1935, and 33 in 1936 according to Michel Hockx, ‘Appendix B: Statistics on Literary Societies, Journals and Books’, Table 1 and 2 in Michel Hockx, Questions of Style, pp. 277–8. Roswell S. Britton, The Chinese Periodical Press, 1800–1912 (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1933, repr. Taibei: Chengwen chubanshe, 1976), p. 122. Zhang Jinglu, Zai chubanjie ershinian ‘Being in the Publishing Circle for Twenty Years’ (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 1984), pp. 122–128, 135–43. Michel Hockx, Questions of Style, pp. 33–4. The 13 types were: 1. the sentimentalist (ganshang pai), 2. the decadent (tuifei pai), 3. the aesthetic (weimei pai), 4. the utilitarian (gongli pai), 5. the moralist (xunshi pai), 6. the aggressive (gongji pai), 7. the extremist (pianji pai), 8. the refined (xianqiao pai), 9. the obscene (yinhui pai), 10. the fanatical (kuangre pai), 11. the peddler (baifan pai), 12. the sloganeering (biaoyu pai), 13. the ‘ism-ist’ (zhuyi pai). Xu Zhimo, ‘Xinyue de taidu’ (The Attitude of Crescent Moon), Xinyue, 1:1 (March 1928) 3–10. See also Michel Hockx, ‘Playing the Field’, The Literary Field of Twentieth-Century China, ed. Michel Hockx (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1999), pp. 68–9. Zhang Kebiao, Wentan denglongshu (Ways to Succeed in the Literary World; Haerbin: Heilongjiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 1988, first published 1933). Zhang satirised literary circles in Shanghai by pointing out that making friends with the right people was one of the key techniques to being famous. This work provoked a lot of discussion, including many articles in ‘Random Talk’. See also Michel Hockx, ‘Theory as Practice: Modern Chinese Literature and Bourdieu’, p. 233.

236

References

109. Zhang Yimei, Nanshe congtan: lishi yu renwu, p. 115. 110. Zhang Yimei, Nanshe congtan: lishi yu renwu, p. 212. 111. Zhang Yimei, Nanshe congtan: lishi yu renwu, p. 239.

6 Re-defining Shenbao’s Readership 1. Hannah Barker, Newspapers, Politics, and Public Opinion in Late Eighteenth Century England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 22. 2. Barker, Newspapers, Politics, and Public Opinion in Late Eighteenth Century England, p. 23 3. Barker, Newspapers, Politics and English Society, 1695–1855 (Harlow: Longman, 2000), p. 60. 4. Barker, Newspapers, Politics and English Society, 1695–1855, p. 61. 5. Xu Zhucheng, ‘Tan lao Shenbao’ (Talk about old Shenbao), Baohai jiuwen (Old Stories about Newspapers; Shanghai: Renmin chubanshe, 1981), p. 8. 6. Interview with Mr. Yang Jiayou: Longzhou lu, Shanghai, March 25, 2002. 7. Interview with Ms. Wu Yunshan, Yueyang lu, Shanghai, March 21, 2002. 8. ‘Mao Dun yu Ziyoutan’, Shenbao jieshao (The Introduction to Shenbao), ed. Shanghai shudian Shenbao yingyinzu (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 1982), p. 59. 9. Terry Narramore, ‘Making the News in Shanghai’, p. 19. 10. Wu Tiecheng, ‘Jinggao shimin’ (An Address to Citizens), and Wu Kaixian, ‘Saochu wenmang’ (Wiping out Illiteracy), Shenbao, 4 May 1935. 11. Carl Crow, Four Hundred Million Customers (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1937), pp. 171–2. Lin Yutang estimated 5% to 7% of the whole Chinese population were reading newspapers. Lin Yutang, A History of the Press and Public Opinion in China, p. 149. 12. Mark Abrams, ‘Education, social class and reading of newspapers and magazines’, number five in a series of booklets on aspects of IPS (Institution of Practitioners in Advertising) national readership surveys, 1966. 13. Paul Bailey, Reform the People: Changing Attitudes towards Popular Education in Early 20th Century China (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990), pp. 31–48. 14. Bailey, Reform the People, p. 156. 15. Bailey, Reform the People, p. 188. 16. Bailey, Reform the People, p. 200. 17. Lloyd E. Eastman, Family, Fields, and Ancestors: Constancy and Changes in China’s Social and Economic History, 1550–1949, chapter nine on ‘New Social Classes in the Early Modern Period’ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 192–216. 18. See Marie-Claire Bergère, The Golden Age of the Chinese Bourgeoisie, 1911– 1937, trans. Janet Lloyd, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). 19. The relevant literature about ‘middle class’ in modern China has already been reviewed in the Introduction, chapter one and chapter three. 20. Roswell S. Britton, The Chinese Periodical Press, 1800–1912, p. 118–120. See also Chen Yushen, Wanqing baoyeshi (The History of Journalism in the Late Qing Period; Jinan: Shandong huabao chubanshe, 2003), pp. 115–35. 21. ‘Chuangban chuqi de Shenbao’ (Shenbao’s Early Stage of Establishment), Shenbao jieshao, pp. 5–6 & 10.

References

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22. Ge Gongzhen, Zhongguo baoxue shi, pp. 64–5. 23. Rudolf G. Wagner, ‘The Role of the Foreign Community in the Chinese Public Sphere’, The China Quarterly, No. 142 (June 1995) 423–43. 24. Hu Daojing, ‘Shanghai de ribao: Shenbao’ (Shanghai’s Daily Newspaper: Shenbao), Shenbao jieshao, p. 32; Ge Gongzhen, Zhongguo baoxue shi, p. 64. 25. Wang Enfan and Yang Zhaoxi, ‘Baozhi de xinwen fenxi’ (Analysis of Newspaper News), Qinghua xuebao (Qinghua Journal), 1:1 (June 1924) 119–27. 26. Lin Yutang, A History of the Press and Public Opinion in China, pp. 131–2. 27. Lin Yutang, A History of the Press and Public Opinion in China, p. 136. 28. Lin Yutang, A History of the Press and Public Opinion in China, pp. 132–4. 29. Mittler, A Newspaper for China? P. 410 & 414. 30. Mittler, A Newspaper for China? pp. 240–1. 31. Lin Yutang, A History of the Press and Public Opinion in China, p. 136. 32. Song Jun, Shenbao de xingshuai, pp. 125–6. 33. Song Jun, Shenbao de xingshuai, p. 94. 34. Zhou Mangyong’s article written for Shenbao’s fiftieth anniversary complained that newspapers in Shanghai failed to deliver political news from Northern China promptly and correctly. Even after the establishment of railways, most of China was still inaccessible. Moreover, even though telegrams were used for news reporting, when wars or important events happened in Northern China, the lines became overcrowded and communication was affected. By the time news arrived in Shanghai, it was two days old. There were around 50 or 60 news reporters in Beijing, but most of them were controlled by the warlords. As Zhou remarked, it was hard for editors sitting in a small room in Shanghai to judge the authenticity of such ‘news’, see Zhou Mangyong, ‘Wushinianzhong zhi shinian’ (The Ten Years among the Fifty Years), Zuijin zhi wushinian (The Last Fifty Years; Shanghai: Shenbaoguan, 1923), pp. 36–7. 35. Lin Yutang, A History of the Press and Public Opinion in China, p. 135. 36. Fang Hanqi, Zhongguo xinwen shiye tongshi, ii. 78; Shanghaishi tongji (Statistics of Shanghai; Shanghai: Shanghaishi difang xiehui, 1933), p. 10. 37. ‘Benfu zengkan’ (Local Extra Supplement) began publication in 1924: see Zhu Ruiyue, Shenbao fanying xiade Shanghai shehui bianqian, 1895–1927, p. 219. 38. Lin Yutang, A History of the Press and Public Opinion in China, p. 143. Shenbao ‘Local Supplement’ was a critical advertising arena for Shanghai business. See Chen Ziqian & Ping Jinya, ‘Shanghai guanggao shihua’ (A History of Advertising in Shanghai), Shanghai difangshi ziliao (Materials for Shanghai Local History; Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1984), issue 3, pp. 139–140. 39. Meng Zhaochen, Zhongguo jindai xiaobaoshi, pp. 1–6. 40. See the ‘Introduction’ chapter, above. 41. Hu Hanzhu, ‘Shi Liangcai yu Shanghai Shenbao’, Zhuanji wenxu (Biographical Literature; Taibei: Zhuanji wenxue chuban youxian gongsi), 69:1 (July 1996) 117–125. Hu Hanzhu claims that Lu Xun was invited to write for the new ‘Random Talk’ column from the beginning, and that his fee was the highest at 30 yuan for 1,000 words; ten yuan was the standard for other writers. Even if his article was unused due to censorship, he was still paid. 42. Hu Hanzhu, ibid.

238 References 43. Huang Max Ko-wu, ‘Cong Shenbao yiyao guanggao kan minchu Shanghai de yiliao wenhua yu shehui shenghuo, 1912–1926’ (The Medical Culture and Social Life in Early Republican Shanghai: A Study Based on the Medicine Advertisements in Shenbao, 1912–1926), Jindaishi yanjiusuo jikan (Bulletin of the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica), vol. 47 (December 1988), part II: 141–94. 44. Chirstopher P. Hosgood, ‘Mrs Pooter’s Purchase: Lower-Middle-class Consumerism and the Sales, 1870–1914’, Gender, Civic Culture and Consumerism: Middle-Class Identity in Britain, 1800–1940, ed. Alan Kidd & David Nicholls (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), pp. 147–8. 45. Hosgood, ‘Mrs Pooter’s Purchase’, pp. 150–2. 46. Advertisement by Zhongxi dayaofang (Zhongxi Great Pharmacy), Shenbao, 4 May 1933. 47. Advertisement by Sanyou shiyeshe (Three Friends Enterprises), Shenbao, 4 May 1933. 48. Gerth, China Made, pp. 299–306. 49. Lever’s Health Soap advertisement, Shenbao, 14 May 1934. 50. The use of ‘Miss Hu’ as the name for the main character in this advertisement may have been intended to invoke an association with Hu Die, a very popular actress in Shanghai at the time. 51. Hannah Barker, Newspapers, Politics and English Society, 1695–1855, p. 97. 52. Carl Crow, Four Hundred Million Customers, pp. 20–1. See also chapter one, n. 17, above. 53. Crow, Four Hundred Million Customers, p. 175. 54. Robin Kent, Aunt Agony Advices: Problem Pages through the Ages (London: W. H. Allen & Co. Ltd, 1979), pp. 1–2. 55. Kent, Aunt Agony Advices, p. 2. 56. Kent, Aunt Agony Advices, p. 22. 57. Shenbao, ‘Shenbao duzhe tongxun jianzhang’ (Simple Regulations for Shenbao ‘Reader’s Correspondence’), 1 September 1931. 58. The Regulations established three basic principles for the column. 1. When there was no specific request in the original letter about the form of response, and Shenbao judged it in the public interest, the letter would be published. 2. When the letter expressed a wish for a reply via the newspaper and was selected for publication, Shenbao reserved the right to edit it because of limited space. 3. If Shenbao could not reply via the newspaper in time, and if editors were still concerned by the questions, the letter would be answered by post. 59. Natascha Vittinghoff, ‘Readers, Publishers and Officials in the Contest for A Public Voice and the Rise of A Modern Press in Late Qing China (1860– 1880)’, T’oung Pao, vol. 87, no. 4–5, 393–455. 60. Mittler, A Newspaper for China?’, p. 84. 61. Shenbao, ‘Duzhe tongxun (Reader’s Correspondence)’, 7 and 18 September 1931. 62. Shenbao, ‘Duzhe tongxun’ (Reader’s Correspondence), 13, 15, 22 and 30 September 1931. 63. Barker points out that to secure and extend their circulation, the political stance of English newspapers in both London and the provinces in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries tended to echo that of their

References

64. 65.

66. 67. 68.

69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75.

76.

239

readers: see Barker, Newspapers, Politics and English Society, 1695–1855, pp. 120–1. Shenbao, 8 November 1931. Shenbao, 1 January 1932. Shenbao listed three subjects for readers to discuss: what the government should do to improve China’s situation; what youth should do to help the country; and how to improve the production of native goods. Shenbao, 1 December 1932. Duzhe guwen ji (The Collection of Reader’s Consultant), ed. Wang Lingjun, 2 vols. (Shanghai: Shenbao, 1933). Mr. Li Junsheng, ‘Zenyang jiejue nanü gongtong shenghuo de wenti’ (How to Solve the Problems of Men and Women Living Together?), Duzhe guwen ji, i., 13. Mr. Guying, ‘Dushu yu lianai’ (Study and Romance), Duzhe guwen ji, i., 209. Hangzhou Mrs. Su Lin, ‘Aiqing de baozheng’ (The Guarantee of Love), Duzhe guwen ji, i., 130–2. Wang Lingjun, ‘Xüyan’ (Introduction), Duzhe guwen ji, i., 1. Shenbao, ‘Zhengwen’ (Call for Articles), 1 July 1932. Shenbao, ‘Dianyuan tongxun yuanqi’ (Prologue to Shop-keepers’ Correspondence), 1 December 1932. Cao Juren, Shanghai chunqiu (Stories of Shanghai; Beijing: Shenghuo dushu xinzhi Sanlian shudian, 2007), p. 153. See also chapter four, above. Li Gongpu, ‘Benguan liangnianlai de jinzhan guocheng he jinhou yinian de jihua’ (Our Library’s Progress in the Past Two Years and Plans for Next Year), Shenbao liutong tushuguan gongzuo baogao (Working Report of Shenbao’s Circulating Library), internal publication of Shenbao, February, 1935, p. 7 in Shanghai Municipal Archives: Y08–1-11. Carrie Waaram, ‘The Bare Truth: Nudes, Sex, and the Modernization Project in Shanghai Pictorials’, ed. Jason Kuo, Visual Culture in Shanghai, 1850s– 1930s, p. 167.

Postscript 1. See the example Guangdong Native Association, Bryna Goodman, ‘Being Public: The Politics of Representation in 1918 Shanghai,’ Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 60:1 (Jun., 2000) 45–88. 2. Lukes, Individualism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1973), p. 59. 3. Lukes, Individualism, p. 60. 4. Lukes, Individualism, p. 62.Lukes, Individualism, pp. 63–4.

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Index abstract art, 33 advertising/advertisements, 11, 15 aimed at housewives, 71–102 banking, 15 cigarette, 15, 18–44 commercial art and, 31–5 human body in, 36 for imported products, 108 of native products, 24, 103–6 personal banking, 45–70 readers of, 168–75 advice columns, 175–6 Ah Q, 130–1, 136 Ah Ying, 143–4 also see Qian Xingcun All Russian Association of Proletarian Literature (RAPP), 143 anti-foreigner movements, 115–16 art abstract, 33 avant-garde, 33 in cigarette advertisements, 31–5 commercial, 31–5 decorative, 20, 42 domestic and, 35–6 Art Deco, 1, 20, 35, 39, 42, 58 Art Nouveau, 20, 35, 36 Arts and Life (Meishu shenghuo) (magazine), 32, 34 Asad, Talal, 76 Association of Family Daily Progress, 83 asymmetric counterconcepts, 24, 31, 42 audience autonomy of, 6–7 autonomy audience, 6–7 consumer, 29 avant-garde art, 33 baby exercises, 92–5 Bacon, Carlton, 3

bank account advertisements, 15, 45–70 Bank of China, 49, 121 Bank of the Board of Revenue, 49 banking regulations, 54–9, 64–5 banking system, 48–51 banks attraction of customers by, 63–4, 66–9 growth of, 54–9 private, 49–51 savings, 51–4 traditional, 48–51, 59 Barker, Hannah, 159–60 Barlow, Tani, 74, 76, 219n14 Beardsley, Aubrey, 36 Berry, Christopher, 39 Board of Revenue, 49, 56 Boxer Uprising, 23, 24, 116, 117, 185 boycotts, 29, 105, 115–16 brand names, 24–5, 43 British American Tobacco Company (BAT), 21–2, 29, 42 Britton, Roswell, 155 Buddhism, 111 business history, 2–3 Camel Xiangzi (Lao She), 59–60 Cao Juren, 133–5, 135–6 capitalism, 5, 14 censorship, 10, 152, 155, 237n41 Central Bank, 55 Central Broadcasting Station, 167 Chan, Ching-Kiu Stephen, 74 Chang Kia-ngau, 121 chemicals, 91, 165, 167, 171 Chen Binhe, 168 Chen Cunren, 48, 53 Chen Diexian, 86, 129, 157 Chen Duxiu, 73, 114, 142 Chen Guangfu, 50, 51 Chen Jinghan (Chen Leng), 10, 13, 128, 166 241

242 Index Chen Leng, 10, 13, 128, 166. See Chen Jinghan Chen Wangdao, 138 Chen Zhengyuan, 83 Chen Zizhan, 137–8 Chenbao (newspaper), 165 Cheng Fangwu, 143 Chéret, Jules, 34, 41 chi (shame), 105–6, 109–14, 117–18, 120–5, 127 Chiang Kai-shek, 14, 25, 55 child-care, 91–6 China Underwear Company, 98 China-made products, see national product movement; national products Chinese Communist Party, 14, 144, 151, 166, 181 Chinese consumers, 106–9 Chinese literature, 136–41, 141–6 Chinese Marxism, 74, 136–7, 144 Chinese modernization, 1, 2, 21, 185–9 Chinese National Product Company, 121–2 Chinese National Product Preservation Association, 121 Chinese Nationalist Literature, 144 Chinese Thrifty Virtue Savings Society, 52–3 Chinese United League, 112 Chinese Vocational Education Society, 60 Chinese Vocational School, 13, 60 Chou Shoujuan, 157 cigarette advertisements, 15, 18–44 commercial art in, 31–5 Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, 18–22, 25, 27–31, 37, 38, 103–4, 105, 118–19 nationalism and commercialism in, 20–31, 42–3 women in, 20, 35–42 cigarette cards, 43 circulating library (liutong tushuguan), 182 citizen, 32 citizenship, 9, 84, 113, 127 civil society conditions for, 8–9

individuality and, 4–10 in Shanghai, 9–10 clans, 187–8 cleanliness, 91 Cochran, Sherman, 3, 21 Cohen, Paul, 23 collective consensus, 33 collective knowledge, 4 commerce, 3 commercial art, emergence of, 31–5 commercial culture, 3, 20 commercial nationalism, 21, 35 commercialism, 1, 21–31, 189 common sense (changshi), 65, 85 concept of, 61–2 in household management, 86–101 ‘Common Sense’ (‘Changshi’ column), 61, 62, 86, 91, 167–8 Communists, 114 communities formation of, 7 A Compendium of Chinese Literature (Zhongguo xin wenxue daxi), 147 conceptual tools, 32 Confucianism, 39, 73–4, 75, 111, 136–7 consciousness, 24, 42, 75, 110, 128, 133–41, 144, 146, 156, 157 Constant, Benjamin, 187 Constructionism, 33 consumer behaviour, 109 consumer culture, 4, 16, 186 consumer goods, 106–7 consumer knowledge, 3 consumerism, 1, 16, 32, 107, 125, 163, 169 nationalism and, 3, 4, 20–31, 34, 43, 69, 126 consumers autonomy of, 29 housewives as, 36–7, 78, 96–7 individuality of, 6–7 consumption, 3, 7, 16, 26, 29, 32, 37–8, 62, 82, 83–4, 106–8, 122, 163–4, 189 Co-operative Company, 78–9 cosmopolitanism, 113 Creation Society (Chuangzao she), 143–4

Index 243 Crow, Carl, 161–2, 174 Cubism, 33 currency unification, 55 customers, 3, 20–1, 25–6, 30, 42, 78, 105 bank, 49–51, 57, 59, 63–4 ways to attract, 59, 66–9, 156, 173, 210n29 female, 20–1, 36–8, 42, 70 Dagongbao (newspaper), 165–6 daily lives, 2–3, 21 consumerism of, 32 of housewives, 96 individuality and, 5 of women, 76, 85–6 Dalu Shopping Centre, 121 Daoism, 111 Daqing Bank, 49 de Certeau, Michel, 29 decorative art, 20, 42 democracy, 32 Deng Xiaoping, 7 Deng Zhongxia, 143–4 department stores, 106–7 Desbois, Jules, 36 disgrace, 110 domestic, art and the, 35–6 Dongbei English group, 144 Dongfang zazhi (Eastern Miscellany magazine), 5 Du Zhongyuan, 124–5 Duara, Prasenjit, 8, 9 Dudovich, Macrello, 36 Dunton, John, 175 Eastman, Lloyd E., 163 Eberhard, Wolfram, 111 editorials, 11, 13, 166, 176, 184 education, 13–14, 162–3 egalitarianism, 4 elites, 8, 9, 51, 61, 115, 161, 163–4, 176, 183 emotional lives, 16 emotionalization, 97–8, 101 entertainment advertising, 32 equality, 32 essay competitions, 17 “essay-prose” (xiaopin sanwen), 147 ethics, 113–14

family, nuclear, 70 family life, 75–6 Fan Zhongyun, 140 fashion, 33 Fauvvism, 33 female body, 36 female cigarette workers, 20 feminism, 73 feudal ethical codes, 4 financial reforms, 55–9 Fitzgerald, John, 113, 114 foreign banks, 49 foreign products, 108–9, 125 foreigners, ambiguity toward, 115 Four Banks Joint Savings Association (Sihang chuxuhui), 52 fragmentary savings, 64 freedom, 39, 187–8 French Concession, 88 friend, 24 Fu Sinian, 145, 147 Fuchang Tobacco Company, 44 fuhao (signifier), 140 funü (women), 74, 81–2. See also women Futurism, 33 gaizao (chang and building), 114 Garon, Sheldon, 45 Ge Gongzhen, 13–14 gender roles, 20 general stores, 106–7 Gerth, Karl, 3–4, 171 Ghost Temple, 123 Glosser, Susan L., 3 Great Wall brand, 25, 103–4 Gu Fengcheng, 142 Guben soap, 91 guilt, 16, 110–12, 114–20 Gunn, Edward, 147–8 Guo Ming, 153 Guohua Cigarette Company, 25–6, 31 Habermas, Jurgen, 7–8 hairstyles, 39–40 Han Chinese, 112 happiness, 66–9 Happy Family (Kuile jiating magazine), 86, 92

244 Index Harrison, Henrietta, 4, 27 Hegel, Robert, 136, 141, 145 Hockx, Michel, 149, 155, 230n26, 235n103 home economics, 61, 62, 86, 87, 97 homo economicus, 59–60 horse-racing, 43 household management, 86–101 housewives, 15–16, 36–7 adoption of term, 76–7 appeals to, 62 child-care and, 91–6 common sense of, 86–101 concept of, 77–84 as consumers, 36–7, 78, 96–7 daily lives, 85–6, 96 household management by, 86–101 hygiene and, 88–91 modern, 71–102 shopping by, 96–7 housing, 88–90 Hsai, C.T., 136 Hu Hanzhu, 12, 169 Hu Shi, 147 Hu Yuzhi, 13, 139–40 Huang Yanpei, 13, 60, 121 Huang, Yuansheng, 167 human body, 36 Hume, David, 39 humiliation, 110, 111, 125, 126 Hung-Yok, Ip, 136 hygiene, 4, 87–8, 90, 91 ice-cream advertising, 99–101 illiterate, 140, 164, 174, 184 Imperial Bank of China, 49 imported products, 108–9 individual freedom, 39 individual savings accounts, 45–70, 80 individualism, 5, 74 individuality, 2, 3, 39, 189 civil society and, 4–10 of intellectuals, 145–6 nationalism and, 6 new, 149 of women, 20 indolence, 39 industrial growth, 58 industrial revolution, 98

inner imperialism, 125–6 intellectuals, 4, 5, 8–9, 16, 24, 27, 32, 42, 61, 73–6, 115–16, 128–58, 163–6, 186 critique of, 132–3, 135 individuality of, 145–6 self-examination by, 133 interior design, 41, 44 International Savings Association, 46–8, 53 Japan occupation by, 128, 130 personal banking in, 45 Japanese, 25–6 Jian Zhaonan, 29 Jiangnan elites, 176 Jiangzhe elite, 10 ‘Jilian Association Column’ (‘Jilian huikan’), 120–2 Jinan incident, 25–6, 31 Jincheng Bank, 63 Jing Guantao, 61 journalism, profession of, 10 Juanzi (novel), 41 Judge, Joan, 9, 84 juewu (awake), 118 Kang Youwei, 113 kechi (disgraceful), 104 knowledge collective, 4 consumer, 3 Koselleck, Reinhardt, 24 Ladies’ Journal (Funü zazhi magazine), 75, 86, 92, 93, 107 Lang Shu, 32–3 Lao She, 59, 131 Law of Savings Banks, 55–6 League of Left-wing Writers, 144, 151 Lee, Leo Ou-fan, 5, 7, 35, 136, 141 Legislative Yuan, 56 leisure, 18, 32, 39, 133, 151 Lever’s Health Soap, 171–4 Li Liewen, 14, 129, 130 Li Zhaobei, 60 Liang Qichao, 8, 109, 112–14, 120, 164, 227n40, 229n12 Liang Shih-chiu, 149–50

Index 245 Liao Mosha, 151, 154 life energy, 34 Life Weekly (Shenghuo zhoukan magazine), 13–14, 60–1, 107, 124, 182 Lin Yutang, 132, 144, 147, 152–3, 154, 165–6 Ling Lung (magazine), 96 literacy rate, 160, 161–2, 175 literary psychology, 148 literary realism, 141–6 literary schools, 149 literary supplements, 168–9, 184 Liu Bannong, 85 Liu, Lydia, 5, 59 Liu Naou, 74 Liu Qingfeng, 61 Liu Wang Liming, 92 local supplement (benfu zengkan), 12, 86, 167 lottery savings companies, 46–8, 53, 56, 65 lottery tickets, 43 lower class, 63, 64, 66 lower middle class, 169–71 Lu Hanchao, 107 Lu Xun, 129, 130–1, 140, 143, 148–9 Lunyü (magazine), 144, 151, 152 luxury items, 32, 39 Ma Yinchu, 51 Major, Ernst, 2, 165, 183 Major Company Limited, 165 male body, 36 Mandarin Duck and Butterfly literature, 128, 129, 139–40, 157, 169 manufactured products, 98, 107 Mao Dun, 131, 142, 143, 149–50, 160 market reforms, 7 marketing strategy, 20–31, 103–6 Marxism, 74, 136–7, 144 mass consciousness, 136–41, 146 mass language, 128, 138–9, 140, 141, 148, 156 mass literature, 128, 137, 139, 140, 141, 145 mass production, 107 material culture, 1, 2–3, 75–6

Matter, A.H., 106 May Fourth Movement, 14–15, 22–3, 29, 74, 134–6, 139, 145, 185–6 May Thirtieth Incident, 11, 28, 29 McDougall, Bonnie, 136, 140, 141 McElderry, Andrea, 51 medical advertisements, 156, 169 Mei Lanfang, 37 meiwen, 150 Mencius, 111, 112 Miao Cheng Shuyi, 75–6 middle class, 45, 159–64, 169–71 military schools, 4 milk, 3 Mill, John Stuart, 187 Mittler, Barbara, 120, 166, 176 moderation, 80 Modern (Xiandai magazine), 78, 80 Modern group, 144 modernity, 2, 3, 61–2 meaning of, 80 promotion of, 80 tradition and, 4 modernization, 1, 2, 21, 185–9 Morgan, Evan, 106 mosquito newspapers (xiaobao), 12, 63, 161, 168–9 mother, ideal of, 83–4, 101 Mu Shiying, 74, 75 Mucha, Alphonse, 35 Mukden Incident, 119, 131, 142 also see North East Incident Nanjing Road, 121 Nanyang Brothers’ Tobacco Company, 18–22, 25, 27–31, 37, 38, 103–4, 105, 118–19 Narramore, Terry, 160–1 National Commercial Bank, 49 national language, 136–41 national product movement, 4, 11, 13, 14, 21–3, 37, 103–26 advertising and, 103–6 chi (shame) and, 109–14, 120–5 guilt and, 114–20 national products, 29, 35 advertisements for, 24 national shame, 16, 111–12, 116–18, 123–4, 127

246

Index

nationalism, 1, 3, 188–9 commercial, 35 consumerism and, 3, 4, 20–31 development of Chinese, 115–16 guilt and, 111–12, 114–20 individuality and, 2, 3, 6, 14, 20 as marketing strategy, 20, 21–31, 42–3, 103–6 print culture and, 6 rationality and, 86–7 Nationalist government, 54, 55, 114, 131–2, 167 nationalistic discourse, 116–20 neologisms, 148 Neo-Perceptionists, 5, 74–5, 144 neutralism strategy, 13 New Culture Movement, 73–4, 186 news content, 164–8 newspapers, 2, 10–12, 63, 65, 69, 87, 120, 139, 155, 159–62, 164–66, 168, 171 see also specific newspapers Nie Gannu, 135 Ningbo Bank, 52 Ningbo Savings Association, 66 North East Incident, 175, 177 Northern Expedition, 25, 55 nuclear family, 3, 35, 45, 70, 73, 77, 101, 133, 180 ‘one hundred percent stimulation’, 33–4 Opium Wars, 185 Pan Yangman, 121, 208n61, 228n76 Pan Yangyao, 13, 29, 80, 82, 121–3 also see Pan Yangmang Parry, John Orlando, 26 patriotic discourse, 116–20 patriotic songs, 117–20 patriotism, 22–3, 35, 58–9, 69–70, 75, 112 see also nationalism pawnshops, 48 Wu,Pei-Yi, 111 Peng Hsiao-yen, 5, 74 people of the nation (guomin), 37, 112 personal banking accounts, 45–70, 80

personal essays (xiaopinwen), 146–56 also see prose essays personal freedom, 187–8 personals, 175 Picasso, Pablo, 33 Pickowitz, Paul, 141 political news, 164–8, 183–4 popular education, 13–14, 163 port cities, 114–16 Porter, Cole, 1 print culture, 6 printing technology, 5–6, 11–12 privacy, 3, 187 private banks, 49–51 private liberty, 107 private virtue (side), 113 problem page, 175, 178–82 professional associations, 9–10 prose essays, 146–7 public health, 90 public space, 8, 16 public sphere, 7–8 public virtue (gongde), 113, 117 Pye, Lucian, 114–16 Qian Xibo (Qian Zheng), 165 Qian Xingcun, 143–4, 147 see also Ah Ying Qingdao, 24 Qishierhang shangbao (newspaper), 165 Qu Qiubai, 142, 144 Qu Shiying, 142 quan, 103 quanli (right), 112–13 radio, 3 ‘Random Talk’ (‘Ziyoutan’ supplement), 13–14, 16, 86, 127, 128–57 rationality, 86–7 readers emotional lives of, 16 ‘Reader’s Consultant’ (‘Duzhe guwen’ column), 178–82 Reader’s Correspondence’ (‘Duzhe tongxun’ column), 176–82 readers’ letters, 17, 175–83 readership, 17, 127–8, 158–84 advertisements and, 168–75

Index 247 readership – continued apprentice, 17, 158, 164, 175, 182 elites, 161 illiterate, 140, 164, 174, 184 middle class, 159–64 shopkeeper, 17 women, see women realism, in literature, 141–6 Reed, Christopher, 5 Regulation on Newspapers (1914), 10 regulations, banking, 54–9, 64–5 Remer, C. F., 105 residential conditions, 88–90 ‘Rules for Savings Banks’ (Chuxu yinhang zeli), 49, 64 Saari, Jon, 125 sanitation, 87–8, 90, 91 sanwen xiaopin, 146–7 savings encouragement of, 59–66 personal happiness and, 66–9 savings accounts, 45–70 savings banks, 49–56, 64–6 Savings Songs’ (Chuxuge), 57–9 self-denial, 145 self-indulgence, 72 self-love, 35–42 self-respect (zizun), 113, 120 Self-Strengthening Movement, 185 servants, 92 sexuality, 74–5 shame (chi), 16, 105–6, 109–14, 117–18, 120–5, 127 ‘Shame Inspiring Song”, 117 Shanghai in 1920s and 1930s, 1 civil society, 9–10 commercial life in, 5–6 housing in, 88–90 Shanghai Association of Mechanized National Products Manufacturers, 90, 120–2 Shanghai Bar Association, 10 Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank, 50–1, 57, 63 Shanghai Incident, 119, 142 Shanghai Municipal Police, 10

Shanghai Tongji Savings Association, 53 Shangwu Publishing Company, 14, 53, 129 Shao Piaoping, 167 Shao Xunmei, 153 Sheehan, Brett, 55 Shen Lianqi, 117 Shenbao (newspaper), 1–2 advertisements in, 11, 15, 32 as business, 10–14 circulation, 12, 160 distribution, 12, 89, 132 neutralism strategy of, 13 news content, 164–8, 183–4 ownership of, 165 printing technology, 11–12 readership, 2, 6–7, 15, 127–8, 158–84 supplements, 14, 167–8 see also specific supplements writers for, 128–57 Shenghuo zhoukan (Life Weekly magazine), 13–14, 60–1, 182 Shi Liangcai, 2, 10, 13, 14, 128, 168–9 Shi Zhecun, 41, 74 Shih Shu-mei, 37 shimao, 80 Shishi xinbao (newspaper), 13 ‘Shop-keepers’ Correspondence’ (‘Dianyuan tongxun’ column), 182 Siming Bank, 52 Siming Savings Association, 52 Simmons Mattress Company, 71–3, 77–8 ‘Sinking’ (Chenlun novel), 6 Sino-Japanese War, 55, 56 Slater, Don, 109 smoking advertisements, see cigarette advertisements social change, savings banks and, 54–9 social contract, 120 socialist realism, 144 Society for the Study of Literature, 142–3 ‘Song for Promoting National Products’, 119

248

Index

speech performance, 27 Speeches on the Nation’s Shame (Guochi yanshuo), 117 ‘Spring and Autumn’ (‘Chunqiu’ column), 157, 168–9 stone portals, 89 Sun Fuyuan, 142 Sun Yat-sen, 112, 114 Sun Society, 143 supplements, 14, 62, 139, 166–8, 184 taitai, 81–2, 101 Tang Jun, 34, 42 Tao Xingzhi, 13, 140 tastemakers, 171 thrift, 52, 57, 70, 76 Thrifty Virtue Savings Society, 52–3 Tiananmen Square massacre, 7 Tianjin, 48 tobacco advertisements, see cigarette advertisements traditional banks, 48–51, 59 Treaty of Versailles, 24 treaty ports, 114–16 Twenty-One Demands, 116

women appeals to, 62 Chinese Marxist view of, 74 in cigarette advertisements, 35–42 citizenship and, 84 hairstyles, 39–40 individuality of, 20 in modern Chinese studies, 73–7 political participation by, 84 smoking by, 37–8, 40–2 see also housewives women’s liberation, 73–4 Wu Jingsong, 142 (see also Wu Xiangyu) Wu Xi, 150 Wu Xiangyu, 139, 140 Wu Yifang, 153 Wu Yunshan, 160

vernacular language, 137, 138–40, 146–8, 152, 166 virtue, 112, 113 virtuous wife and good mother (xianqi liangmu), 83, 85 visual imagery, 26–7 Vittinghoff, Natascha, 176 voucher-gift systems, 43

Xi Zipei, 2, 165 Xiandai shiliujia xiaopin (The Sixteen Modern Essay Writers), 147 Xu Xiaoqun, 9 Xilou, 10 Xin Qingnian (New Youth magazine), 5, 32 Xinchao (New Tide magazine), 5 Xincheng Bank, 49, 50 Xinhua Bank, 13, 60, 63, 65–6 xinmin (new people), 112–13, 114 Xinwenbao (newspaper), 10, 11, 12, 160 Xinyi Bank, 49 Xu Ah-Qi, 169 Xu Dishan, 142 Xu Qinwen, 153 Xu Zhimo, 155 Xu Zhucheng, 160

Waara, Carrie, 3, 21, 35, 37 Wang, David Der-Wei, 136 Wang Dungen, 129, 157 Wang Zheng, 74 Wang Zhixin, 13, 14, 51, 60–1, 65 Wangping Street, 11–12 wealth, building, 48 Wen Tianxiang, 112 Weston, Timothy B., 10 Wing On, 107

Yalin larvicides, 91 yamen attitude, 64 Yang Cao, 134 Yang Jiayou, 43, 160 Yantai Beer Company, 104–5 Ye Shengtao, 139 Yeh Wen-hsin, 3 Ying Jizhong, 10 Zhang Yingjin, 5 Yishibao (newspaper), 165

upper class, 20, 29, 81, 171 urban, 1, 3, 10, 24, 33, 36, 38, 43, 83 urban housewife, 86, 97, 101

Index 249 Young Companion (Liangyou Huabao magazine), 32, 35 Yu Dafu, 6, 147 zawen (miscellaneous essays), 129–30, 148–9 Zengzi, 111 Zhang Jian, 10 Zhang Jinglu, 155 Zhang Kebiao, 135–6, 153–4, 156 Zhang Taiyan, 148 Zhang Zhuping, 10, 11, 13, 128 Zhao Fengchang, 10 Zhao Jiabi, 147

Zheng Zhenduo, 132–3, 142 Zhongfa Savings Association (Zhongfa chuxuhui), 53, 215n37 Zhongguo Zhonghe Tobacco Company, 40–1 Zhongxi Great Pharmacy, 170 Zhongxibao (newspaper), 165 Zhou Shoujuan, 129, 157, 169 Zhou Tingbi, 50 Zhou Yang, 144 Zhou Zuoren, 142, 147, 150–1 Zhu Wang Wanqing, 83–4 Zhufu (housewife), 76–7, 81, 82, 101 Zou Taofen, 13