The Rise of Political Intellectuals in Modern China: May Fourth Societies and the Roots of Mass-Party Politics

Shakhar Rahav’s The Rise of Political Intellectuals in Modern China concentrates not on Shanghai and Peking but on Wuhan around the May 4th Movement…..

• Histories of China’s May Fourth movement have focused on the seaboard metropoles of Beijing and Shanghai. This book is the first in English to look at the movement from the hinterland city of Wuhan. It thus highlights the ways in which hinterland activism helped shape the movement.
• Rather than focusing on ideology or organization, the book explains the movement’s success in terms of social relations and social networks.
• Previous studies of the period have acknowledged the importance of myriad small societies in the political changes that presaged the Chinese Communist party. Studying the development and everyday conduct of such societies, the book illuminates what they meant for their members at the time.
• Studies of the movement have emphasized its importance for the rise of Communism. This study attempts to explain the transition from politics conducted through a web of small societies, to a politics conducted by means of mass-oriented political parties.
• May Fourth is usually taught by referring to a handful of historical personages who operated in Beijing. This book offers a narrative account that occurs in major hinterland city-Wuhan-and it circles around a unique protagonist-Yun Daiying-whose career intersected with that of well known figures who later acquired much significance, such as Mao Zedong. The book thus illuminates the period and better known activists, like Mao, from a fresh and unexpected angle.

Japanese infantry passing Hongkew High School, Shanghai – 1937

Today a picture of Japanese troops moving through Hongkew in 1937 at the start of the war in China and the assault on Shanghai. The school they are moving past is the Anglo-Chinese High School on Range Road (now Wujin Road) run by the Church Missionary Society, originally founded in 1850. I’m not sure how much of that school still exists – it was the No.2 Primary School in the 1960s and is now part of the Jiaotong University medical school (I think).

Newly Reissued – The Golden Ghetto: The American Commercial Community at Canton and the Shaping of American China Policy, 1784-1844

Jacques M Downs’s history of the American’s at Canton and their own little bit of dope dealing (which, let’s be honest, they like to overlook and forget now and again!) is now reissued by Hong Kong University Press….

Before the opening of the treaty ports in the 1840s, Canton was the only Chinese port where foreign merchants were allowed to trade. The Golden Ghetto takes us into the world of one of this city’s most important foreign communities–the Americans–during the decades between the American Revolution of 1776 and the signing of the Sino-US Treaty of Wanghia in 1844. American merchants lived in isolation from Chinese society in sybaritic, albeit usually celibate luxury. Making use of exhaustive research, Downs provides an especially clear explanation of the Canton commercial setting generally and of the role of American merchants. Many of these men made fortunes and returned home to become important figures in the rapidly developing United States. The book devotes particular attention to the biographical details of the principal American traders, the leading American firms, and their operations in Canton and the United States. Opium smuggling receives special emphasis, as does the important topic of early diplomatic relations between the United States and China.Since its first publication in 1997, The Golden Ghetto has been recognized as the leading work on Americans trading at Canton. Long out of print, this new edition makes this key work again available, both to scholars and a wider readership.

RAS Shanghai – West Meets East – The Jesuits and the Mapping of China – 16C-18C – 10/3/15

RAS LECTURE  

Tuesday 10 March 2015

7:00 PM for 7:15 PM start

Radisson Blu Plaza Xingguo Hotel, Tavern Bar

78 XingGuo Road, Shanghai

VINCE UNGVARY ON

“West Meets East –

The Jesuits and the Mapping of China – 16C-18C”

Jesuit missionaries had begun to visit and live in China since the mid 1500’s. While their missions where primarily to spread Christianity, it was their advanced knowledge of Science, Mathematics, Astronomy & Cartography that was seen as valuable to the Chinese Court and learned classes. Thus using cartographic media, these Jesuits both recorded China via ‘western style’ maps to pass knowledge to Europe, and showed Chinese Emperors and high officials maps of the world which they had never seen before. A fascinating story of the early interactions between East & West.

Vince Ungvary is a professional antique map dealer who has been collecting antique maps of China & Asia for the past 20+ years and is a member of the International Map Collectors Society (IMCOS). Vince will also be displaying a wide range beautiful museum-grade, original antique maps of China and Asia, some from the Jesuits in the mid 1600’s. All antique maps displayed will be available for purchase along with a Certificate of Authenticity.

Talk Cost: RMB 70.00 (RAS members) and RMB 100.00 (non-members). Includes glass of wine or soft drink. Those unable to make the donation but wishing to attend may contact us for exemption.

Membership applications and membership renewals will be available at this event.  Those unable to make the donation but wishing to attend may contact us for exemption.

RAS Monographs: Series 1 & 2 will be available for sale at this event. RMB 100 each (cash sale only).

To RSVP:  Please “Reply” to this email or write to

RAS Bookings at: bookings@royalasiaticsociety.org.cn

The Campaign to Save Trent Park in Enfield

A post that is, rather longwindedly perhaps of interest to China Rhymers. Trent Park is a Grade II listed mansion that now sits in the Trent Country Park in the north London borough of Enfield (where I happen to come from – the borough not the mansion you understand). The building was for many years part of Middlesex University and in WW2 was a POW camp for German officers (mostly Luftwaffe pilots captured during the Battle for Britain and their rooms had hidden microphones so we could listen in on them). It is a beautiful building, in good condition (at least the exterior is and, the last time I was there, the interior was in pretty good condition too) and surrounded by nice grounds and an orangery. there used to be a lovely outdoor swimming pool which I used once but not sure if that is still there. However, the current owners are in liquidation and the future of the site is uncertain. There is a campaign to preserve the building and you can sign a petition to ensure that the London Borough of Enfield does so here.

And so here is the longwinded link to China:

In 1909 the estate was sold to Sir Philip Sassoon who entertained the likes of Chaplin and Churchill at the mansion;

Sir Philip’s cousin was Siegfried Sassoon, the war poet;

Sir Philip was the son of Sir Edward Albert Sassoon, himself the son of David Sassoon, best associated with the Sassoon’s trading empire in India;

Sir Victor Sassoon was a cousin and he of course went to Shanghai and did rather well for himself.

Trent Park as it is today

The Orangery and swimming pool (where I once took a summer dip)

Trent Park surrounded by barbed wire and guards when it was a POW camp in WW2

Maurice Dekobra’s 1943 Shanghai Honeymoon

After mentioning Maurice Dekobra’s 1943 novel Shanghai Honeymoon (Lune de miel à Shanghaï in the original French) yesterday I feel a little more is deserved. The novel was first published in English in 1946. It wasn’t that well received by reviewers (“standard” seems the most commonly used description) despite one admitting that “Maurice Dekobra knows all the Shanghai gestures, native and foreign”, though I reckon it’s worth a read for a number of reasons. It certainly captures the moment of the Solitary Island and the desperation of those sojourners stuck in the city while also providing an excellent portrait of the varied international community and the nightclub scene – the Topaze nightclub in the book is probably based on Dekobra’s own experiences in Shanghai, and most probably in Sir Victor Sassoon’s Ciro’s nightclub. It is also a reasonably light novel that becomes progressively darker and ends in Bridge House with the barbarity of the Japanese invasion of the International Settlement. It neatly encapsulates the idea of Shanghai as a place to reinvent yourself, escape bad starts in life and troublesome pasts though perhaps overdoes this a tad. Still, it has been rather overlooked and, while it’s no Malraux, it is better than most of the contemporary portrayals of the city I’ve read (and that’s probably most of them to be honest!).

For the interested I’ve blogged previously on Dekobra’s China-related work here, here and here

Madame Flora Ying of The Forbidden City, San Francisco – according to Maurice Dekobra

A small addition to my recent post on the Forbidden City nightclub in San Francisco a while back. Reading Maurice Dekobra’s (who I’ve blogged about multiple times on this site – use the search box to see) 1946 novel Shanghai Honeymoon (which I’ll blog about in more detail soon) the club pops up and we can assume that if he didn’t visit then he had certainly heard of it. Speaking of a certain Madame Flora Ying at a party in Shanghai Dekobra writes that she was not discovered on the Tartar City of Peking nor the Flower Boats of Canton but rather, and remembering Dekobra was a sophisticated Parisian and habitue of Montmatre and so a little scornful of American vaudeville entertainment:

“He had found Madame Flora Ying quite simply in a nightclub on Sutter Street, San Francisco, the Forbidden City, where half a dozen Chinese girls had been engaged to amuse touriosts by singing vulgar sailors’ songs with their own perculirar stylized gestures. Mlle Flora Ying put on a special act. She undressed in an extremely narrow golden cage. Although her act held some of the glamour of the Orient, it was not, in fact, unlike the typical striptyease performance of a New York show of the kind which invariably attracts curious youngsters, hungry eyed bachelors and blase widowers, and where for a dollar the audience may feast its eyes upon some ravishing beauty in evening gown nonchanalantly shedding her garments to the strains of a Strauss waltz.”

There’s a lot more on the Forbidden City here

Chinese Houses of Southeast Asia: The Eclectic Architecture of Sojourners and Settlers

Ronald Knapp and Chester Ong’s Chinese Houses of Southeast Asia looks at the architectural legacy of Chinese migrants across the region…..

The migration of the Chinese from southern China to Southeast Asia created one of the world s great cultural diasporas. Many of these migrants and their descendants became successful and built architecturally unique homes shophouses, bungalows, villas, and mansions combining Chinese, European, and local influences. The story of these hybrid architectural forms is the main focus of this book. While most of these houses are now disappearing, some fine examples remain scattered throughout Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Over a period of several years Ronald G. Knapp and photographer A. Chester Ong travelled across the region in search of overseas Chinese heritage homes. Chinese Houses of Southeast Asia is the result of their researches. This book provides a fascinating portrayal of the historical circumstances of the Chinese in the region through essays, historic photographs, paintings, and line drawings. Nearly forty elegant residences dating from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century are presented and form the core of this book. Each residence is depicted in stunning color photographs along with background information about the families who built and lived in them. These accounts reveal the entrepreneurial spirit of the Chinese as well as their social and economic circumstances. Images and drawings from China help clarify the cultural influences from that region, and in a few cases similar and even closely-related residences in China are also presented.