History in Images: Pictures and Public Space in Modern China 1557291012, 9781557291011

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“This volume raises an important question that has not been addressed systematically by scholars: how can historians utilize more productively visual images produced through modern technologies, specifically, photographs and movies? Many chapters in this volume make laudable efforts to examine the nature of such materials and their benefits and limitations for historical research; their reflections on the methodologies historians can adopt to utilize such materials will be helpful to many in the field.” —Madeleine Yue Dong, University of Washington

INSTITUTE OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES

CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES

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Pictures Public Space Space Pictures and and Public in China in Modern Modern China

Editedby by Edited

Christian Henriot Henriot and and Wen-hsin Christian Wen-hsin Yeh Yeh

CRM 66

INSTITUTE OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ● BERKELEY

History in Images Images History in

Henriot and Yeh

“As I read the manuscript, I thought, ‘If a picture is worth a thousands words, these words about pictures are also highly illuminating. Bringing attention to the visual within history and as a means of thinking about history adds a fresh and artful dimension to the study of Republican China.’ Indeed, there is much to learn and to think with in the chapters that make up this volume.” —Timothy B. Weston, University of Colorado at Boulder

History in Images

“This is an extremely interesting and useful collection of essays presenting totally new interpretations of images in photography and cinema in twentiethcentury China. Essays herein demonstrate how, with proper analysis, significant information about material culture can be obtained from visual images. These essays in particular validate the notion that visual images are discrete sources of information and should not be relegated to mere illustrations to a written text.” —Ellen Johnston Laing, University of Michigan

CHINA RESEARCH MONOGRAPH 66 CHINA RESEARCH MONOGRAPH 66

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Notes to this edition This is an electronic edition of the printed book. Minor corrections may have been made within the text; new information and any errata appear on the current page only. China Research Monograph 66 History in Images: Pictures and Public Space in Modern China Christian Henriot and Wen-hsin Yeh, editors ISBN-13: 978-155729-155-4 (electronic) ISBN-13: 978-1-55729-101-1 (print) ISBN-10: 1-55729-101-2 (print)

Please visit the IEAS Publications website at http://ieas.berkeley.edu/publications/ for more information and to see our catalogue. Send correspondence and manuscripts to Katherine Lawn Chouta, Managing Editor Institute of East Asian Studies 1995 University Avenue, Suite 510H Berkeley, CA 94720-2318 USA [email protected]

May 2015

History in Images

CHINA RESEARCH MONOGRAPH 66 CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES

History in Images Pictures and Public Space in Modern China

Edited by Christian Henriot and Wen-hsin Yeh

A publication of the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. Although the institute is responsible for the selection and acceptance of manuscripts in this series, responsibility for the opinions expressed and for the accuracy of statements rests with their authors. The China Research Monograph series is one of several publication series sponsored by the Institute of East Asian Studies in conjunction with its constituent units. The others include the Japan Research Monograph series, the Korea Research Monograph series, and the Research Papers and Policy Studies series. Send correspondence and manuscripts to Katherine Lawn Chouta, Managing Editor Institute of East Asian Studies 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor Berkeley, CA 94720-2318 [email protected] Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data History in images : pictures and public space in modern China / edited by Christian Henriot and Wen-hsin Yeh. p. cm. — (China research monograph ; 66) Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: “The astounding visual record left by photographers and filmmakers of modern China constitutes a massive archive that awaits incorporation into historical research on China. This volume’s studies by multiple contributors offer potential paths for revising practices in historical inquiry and examine how modern Chinese society expressed itself in visual culture”—Provided by publisher ISBN 978-1-55729-101-1 — ISBN 1-55729-101-2 1. China—History—20th century—Historiography. 2. Historiography and photography—China—History—20th century. 3. China—History—20th century—Pictorial works. 4. Documentary photography—China—History—20th century. 5. Documentary films—China—History—20th century. 6. Motion pictures—China—History—20th century. 7. China—Social conditions—20th century. 8. Visual communication—China—History— 20th century. 9. Popular culture—China—History—20th century. 10. City and town life— China—History—20th century. I. Henriot, Christian. II. Yeh, Wen-Hsin. DS773.94.H47 2012 951.05—dc23 2012010528

Copyright © 2012 by the Regents of the University of California. Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved. A version of chapter 5 appeared in Journal of Modern Chinese History 4, no. 1 (2010). Chapter 6 is reprinted by permission of the publisher from Paul G. Pickowicz, China on Film: A Century of Exploration, Confrontation, and Controversy (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012). Front cover images also appear as figures within the book.

Contents

1. Introduction Christian Henriot and Wen-hsin Yeh 2. Wartime Shanghai Refugees: Chaos, Exclusion, and Indignity. Do Images Make up for the Absence of Memory? Christian Henriot 3. Sha Fei, the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial, and the Documentary Style of Chinese Wartime Photojournalism Shana J. Brown 4. China, a Man in the Guise of an Upright Female: Photography, the Art of the Hands, and Mei Lanfang’s 1930 Visit to the United States Catherine Yeh 5. The Sound of Images: Peddlers’ Calls and Tunes in Republican Peking Feng Yi 6. Never-Ending Controversies: The Case of Chun jiang yi hen and Occupation-Era Chinese Filmmaking Paul G. Pickowicz 7. “The Enemy Is Coming”: The 28 January 1932 Attack on Shanghai in Chinese Cinema Anne Kerlan 8. Two Stars on the Silver Screen: The Metafilm as Chinese Modern Kristine Harris 9. Alternative History, Alternative Memory: Cinematic Representation of the Three Gorges in the Shadow of the Dam Sheldon H. Lu Index

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ONE

Introduction

CHRISTIAN HENRIOT and WEN-HSIN YEH

Over the course of the nineteenth century, two important pieces of Western technology made their way into the Chinese world. The first was the camera. The second was the printing press. They traveled east following the activities of Western diplomatic, military, and religious missions. They also went east through the activities of Western businessmen. Over a span of more than a hundred years, these technologies, through several generations of designs and capacities, appeared first in regions around the Malacca Straits and Guangzhou, then in Shanghai, Tianjin, and finally inland cities including Beijing. Photo shops and printing facilities appeared in city after city. They produced images and reproduced texts in volume and with variety. As technologies in use, the camera and the printing press initially retained their separate spheres in the nineteenth century. Macao was said to be a center of photography in the 1830s. In the 1850s, photo studios appeared on the Chinese mainland, apparently more in Guangzhou than in Shanghai. Neither Macao nor Guangzhou earned special distinction at this time for printing or publishing. On the contrary, when Ernest Major, in 1872, founded Shenbao (Shanghai daily), the first modern newspaper published on the Chinese mainland for a Chinese readership, the paper used an imported printing press to reproduce the text but printed no photographs. As elements of social practice, the camera and the printing press were also at the center of different histories in Chinese lives. The modern printing press was a major piece of equipment to be housed in enterprises and organizations. The camera, by contrast, produced images that often appealed directly to individual consumers. In the middle of the nineteenth century, photographic practices readily gained followers among Manchu nobles at court as well as Chinese comprador merchants in the treaty ports.

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Viceroy Qiying, who negotiated the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing that concluded the first Opium War, is believed to be the first notable Chinese to have had his photo portrait taken; he did so in order to exchange the prints as gifts with European diplomats. Other Manchu imperial princes who handled foreign affairs also acquired a certain reputation for their interest in photography. After the Boxer debacle, Empress Dowager Cixi posed for photographs in court and allowed the distribution of their prints. Separately, in the merchant quarters in Shanghai, photography—along with the horse-drawn carriage and European-style cuisine—came to define a modern conception of entertainment culture. While the use of the camera spurred the growth of photo studios and the formation of amateur clubs, the use of the printing press propelled the growth of a whole industry of communications. These latter practices included the businesses of printing, publishing, advertising, and journalism. In the 1890s, photographs were incorporated into the poster-calendars produced en masse by the British American Tobacco Company, and the two trajectories of photography and printing began to intersect. Color printing came late, as did color photography. Finally, in the early 1930s, Shanghai saw the publication, on a regular basis, of photographed images in print journals, at first in black and white as in the case of the Shenghuo Weekly and then in color as with the publication of Liangyou (The young companion). The camera and the printing press combined to produce a communications revolution in urban Chinese public space. This public space, with its affordable reproductions of images and texts, reached an unprecedented number of urban residents, including the youthful, the lower middle class, and the marginally literate.1 This history is relevant for us to bear in mind, because a majority of images that moved around in the Republican public space were printed reproductions rather than prints in the original; also, they have significance within the context of the broader history of communications. The production and circulation of images and the framing of pictures in the public space were the works not only of photographers but also of editors, publishers, and others. It was an intrinsic part of the urban experience in Republican Chinese cities for people in their everyday lives to come upon processed and reproduced images. These images abounded, whether embedded in posters, albums, periodicals, films, or other media. They served businesses and markets while also the state and the Guomindang party. They were evident everywhere, in churches, temples, schools, and meeting places for 1 See Wen-hsin Yeh, Shanghai Splendor: Economic Sentiments and the Making of Modern China, 1843–1949 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), chap. 3, “Visual Politics and Shanghai Glamour.”

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work as well as for fun. They can be classified in any number of ways: as advertisement, as propaganda, as entertainment, as photojournalism, as public commemorations or private memories. No single method of classification—by genre, by function, by theme, by ownership, by collection, by circulation, by production, by consumption, and so on—would ever adequately sum up the myriad possibilities describing the changing relationship between a framed image and its framing context. As historians, we come upon these images in public archives as well as personal collections, in the pages of printed materials as well as in prints, in relationship to other images as well as by themselves. In general, for the field of Chinese historical studies, we observe two tendencies. Despite the quantity and availability of visual data from history, few historians of China have invested into this body of sources a concentrated effort to treat them as a major resource of their research. Most have continued to access the past almost exclusively via textual materials. When confronted inevitably by the pictures, they often provide random access to historical images, using them in an ancillary capacity for purposes of illustration. Such practices, established as they are, have subjected the reading of pictures to that of words. Pictures, as we know, do not just reflect different forms of historical experience. They embody forms of communication. They circulate as artifacts in themselves. And they survive as encoded bodies of significance. They are simply not reducible to words. There is much for historians to gain by tackling the methodological as well as the thematic issues through an examination of pictorial materials in history.2 A second tendency among scholars is for those who examine visual materials to simply offer a descriptive summary of the pictorial content, accepting the content as stable, organized, and enclosed like printed words in a bound volume, without taking into account the dynamic context of the framing. Such reading practice assumes innocently that the significance of a picture lies above all in what immediately meets the eye. It further assumes that pictorial contents are to be productively extracted without further mediation. To think of history written as an argument advanced by montage and juxtaposition, as Walter Benjamin and Sigfried Kracauer have suggested, remains for most scholars an anathema. And it is far from the agenda of this volume to make that argument. Most historians would nonetheless agree that there is reward to be had in incorporating the visual into the historian’s craft. To consult the visual, as Vanessa Schwartz puts it, is not simply to do “a history of changes and transformations in the materials and experiences of the visual,” but also to seek “an alternative way to 2 From a perspective of art and cultural history, see the volume edited by Jason Kuo, Visual Culture in Shanghai, 1850s–1930s (Washington, D.C.: New Academia Publishing, 2007).

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think about historical categories and methods,” including an effort to present history and to think in visual images.3 It does not have to be everyone’s project to represent their findings in visual images. Yet visual images do operate within certain discursive norms that are distinct from textual materials. If we are to avail ourselves of the richness of visual materials, it would certainly enhance the reward of research if we are also proficient with the visual codes. When turning to visual data, most of us look for images that have survived from the past. But more often than not, the existence or availability of any specific historical image is matched only by a long sequence of blankness, a space with no pictures. It is easy to lose sight that such absence, omission, or silence is also historically significant. This is because in China as elsewhere, the making of visual images inevitably intersects with the making of other major events. More often than not, visual images are the instanciations of a whole cultural system, with its norms of genre and convention and the politics of ideology that govern the making of the seen and the unseen at any given point in time and place. For this reason, visual invisibility is often just as instructive as visualization in history. It brings new awareness to us when examining historical images, if we endeavor not only to offer a descriptive summary of the visualized, but also to seek to describe the contour of the unseen. As in the case of textual materials, the making of historical images in their own days often had little to do with the projects of future historians. More often then not, pictures were made as events in action; they were meant as much to “do” things and produce results as they were meant to record.4 It makes a difference in our reading of the significance of a historical image what had been happening to it through the successive stages after its initial making, whether it has come to us after long years of invisibility, whether it has been unearthed or prominently displayed in public or private holdings and collections, if it had ever achieved an iconic status in relationship to other images, if it had been set aside as one of too many. What do we, for instance, make of images that had gone out of sight, hence out of mind, until their rediscovery under a set of circumstances rather different from their initial production? How do we reconstruct how they were received at the time of their first circulation? As in the cases of the Hedda Morrison or the Father Joseph de Reviers’s photograph collections, for instance, how do we take into account factors such as dissemination, circulation, preservation, or the accidents of survival and loss when ex3 Vanessa Schwartz, “Walter Benjamin for Historians,” The American Historical Review 106, no. 5 (2001): 1723–1724. 4 Images have a fundamental quality of carrying both meaning and pleasure. They can be received as historical document and as aesthetic experience. See Lynda Nead, “The History in Pictures,” Cultural and Social History 7, no. 4 (2010): 485–492.

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tracting the significance of a preserved image? There are, of course, many different types of visual materials from history. In the case of photography, it is such a “reality-engraving” medium, we argue, that it actually presents a variety of uses, thus defying a single definition or usage as a historical source. In the case of cinema, so much more a fiction-based medium, it seems at first to present a more straightforward and consistent system. Yet precisely because cinema is fiction, it could be relegated to the limited realm of “representations.” Nonetheless, movies provide just as rich a source material from which to probe into the cultural and social currents that reverberate through the social body.5 In this volume, we take up the issue of “images in history” within the context of Republican and more recent Chinese urban history. We do so in response both to the availability of a massive amount of visual data from the Republican period and to a perceived lack of sustained effort, on the part of historians as opposed to cultural critics and students in other disciplines, to consider the mining of such materials for historical insight. The essays in this volume are organized into two groups: those that consider the use of historical photographs and those that examine the practices of Chinese cinema. They represent a preliminary effort to examine pictorial products and public communications of China’s modern period. Drawing on a considerable range of empirical sources, the authors of these essays take up the methodological challenge of pictorial materials for the study of history. The strategies used in the projects vary. When viewed as a collection, these diverse approaches offer a spectrum of methodological possibilities with regard to the use of images in history. Christian Henriot opens the volume with a chapter that examines a heterogeneous collection of single photographs that offers privileged insights into the urban refugee experience in wartime Shanghai. When the Sino-Japanese War broke out in the outskirts of Shanghai in August 1937, it threw large numbers of Chinese civilians out of the comforts of their homes and onto the unforgiving streets of the city. A growing body of research has examined the fate of the displaced Chinese and the sociopolitical consequences in the war context. Historians have generally agreed that there was tremendous suffering in this population and an absence of effective relief measures. These studies placed in sharp contrast the complexity of Shanghai polity and society that intensified popular stress during times of war. Henriot approaches that history, instead of through textual sources, through a large number of on-site photographs taken by international 5 Robert Rosenstone, Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995); “A History of What Has Not Yet Happened,” Rethinking History 4, no. 2 (2000): 183–192; and “Does a Filmic Writing of History Exist?,” History and Theory 41 (2002): 134–144.

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onlookers. He argues that it is only through historical photographs that researchers are enabled both to piece together the chain of happenings of the civilian flight in the concrete setting of a city under siege and to envision the unfolding hardships borne by a multitude of the nameless as well as the voiceless. Pictures, of course, do not speak for themselves. Henriot shows that historical photographs can be made to speak, when the singular images contained in single frames are placed in conversation with a multitude of others framed in comparable sites and settings. Pictures speak, furthermore, through the sheer repetition of certain favored motifs and the camera’s inevitable gravitation, out of many alternatives, toward certain particular compositions of sights and scenes. By dating the snapshots of the refugee flights and mapping them with precision on the urban layouts of Shanghai, Henriot is able to turn a collection of single photographs into visual documents in the construction of a visual narrative. This visual narrative brings to life not only the sites and scenes in time, but also the highly circumstantial nature of certain historical scenes as they unfolded at specific sites. Henriot’s visual narrative, which heightens sensitivities to the specifics of time and place, thus offers a far more fluid construction of the overarching warfare in Shanghai than texts in general are able to do. The outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War gave powerful impetus to the rise of Chinese photojournalism. Shana Brown’s chapter offers a new perspective through the study of the work of a single photographer, Sha Fei. A young man of cosmopolitan background and an aspiring intellectual in the Shanghai literary circles of the great writer Lu Xun, Sha Fei found himself drawn to the battlefield upon the outbreak of the war in 1937. His patriotic activism landed him eventually in the communist base area in the mountainous border regions of Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei (Jin-Cha-Ji), where his photography, inspired aesthetically by the wood-block prints that Lu Xun had promoted as an art for the oppressed, played a decisive role in the construction of a heroic image of the communist-led Chinese resistance. Sha Fei printed his photography in the wartime pictorial the Jin-Cha-Ji huabao, a Communist Party–sponsored photojournal under the propaganda department. He worked in the style of socialist realism. The experiences gained with the Jin-Cha-Ji huabao were to pave the ground, after 1949, for the launching of major government-sponsored pictorials such as China Reconstructs. Brown’s groundbreaking essay fills a critical gap both in our knowledge about a pioneering photojournalist and in our understanding of the connections between the photo cosmopolitanism of Shanghai in the 1930s and the photo realism of Socialist China in the 1950s. What did the photographs of the 1930s succeed in doing, either as tools of propaganda or snapshots of reality? How did the circulation of these

Introduction

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framed images contribute to the formation of the many concepts and ideas that structured public discourse on the Chinese nation or its people? In a chapter on Mei Lanfang, the famed Peking opera actor best known for his performance of female roles, Catherine Yeh examines the role of photography in the shaping and reshaping of non-Chinese perceptions of China through the use of the staged images of Mei during his operatic tour of the United States. Yeh offers a close examination, with technical precision, of photographic representations of the many hand gestures and finger movements Mei used in his opera performance. Western audiences, to be sure, were by and large ill-disposed in their encounters with Chinese opera music. Most Westerners in the early twentieth century associated Peking opera with shrill voices, noisy bands, and circuslike performances. Catherine Yeh shows that through the mediation of photography, and thanks to Mei’s careful choice of plays, Western audiences in the 1930s were initiated into the art by having their attention drawn to opera symbolisms and techniques, such as Mei’s featured female hand gestures. The camera, in other words, guided the Western gaze through the symbolic communications of operatic performances in the cross-cultural encounters. The photographed images, through the privileging and textual framing of certain symbolic codes, deconstructed the performed totality on stage in the service of targeted cross-cultural communication on the page. Thanks to the camera, Catherine Yeh argues, an international audience of the 1930s was successfully trained to look for the “sexuality together with reserve, sensuality as well as vitality” in the cross-dressed and emasculated Mei Lanfang. The hands that held the camera did not always belong to those who depended on their pictures to making a living. There were people who carried their cameras well into the deep recesses of the alleyways behind thoroughfares. These picture takers succeeded in preserving images of the ordinary people beyond the limelight: individuals who otherwise would not have left their images in history. In a fascinating reconstruction of urban lives in Beijing, Feng Yi follows a multidimensional path to retrieve from a unique collection of photographs a complex vision of a typical category of commoners, the peddlers who roamed the streets of Beijing in the late imperial and Republican periods. Starting from Hedda Morrison’s photographs, Feng weaves together several strands of visual representations of these peddlers to examine not just what they looked and even sounded like, but to unveil their eminent role in the urban scene, the indispensable services they provided, and the growing nostalgic and romanticized perspective through which they came to be represented. The author moves among various sets of sources that add different layers. These sources supplement one another while making

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the photographs “sing” or “call” to us. In Feng’s essay, photographs turn from records of urban silences to visualizing tools of Chinese street culture and everyday life. The use of the movie camera introduced new dimensions into urban Chinese visual culture in the twentieth century, both building upon the energy and imagination associated with the photo camera and further extending its possibilities. From the first presentation of a movie in 1896 in Shanghai to the first Chinese-made movie in 1905, and on to the extraordinary diversity of nonofficial cinema in contemporary China, a vibrant movie industry took shape, first in Shanghai, that fashioned various genres of filmic production and gave shape to a widely shared visual culture in Chinese cities and beyond, among the diaspora communities.6 The complexities of past and present, history and memory are fully entangled in a case study by Paul Pickowicz. Pickowicz examines the intriguing case of a movie—unearthed by chance from a private collection in Russia—produced by a joint team of Chinese and Japanese filmmakers under the circumstances of collaboration during the Sino-Japanese War. The film centers on an initial Japanese expedition to Shanghai in 1862, the objective of which was to affirm Sino-Japanese alliance and collaboration. The film offers various layers of reading as the story resonates with different historical episodes functioning at various levels of historic time (Opium Wars and unequal treaties, the Taiping Rebellion, the Sino-Japanese War, postwar trials). As in the case of many other wartime productions, the film was considered politically tainted after 1949 and was thus buried deep in the vaults of Chinese cinematographic archives. The particular conditions of its production as a joint Sino-Japanese enterprise turned it into an even more complete outcast, better erased from official histories of the cinema than ever tackled. Yet, as the author shows, the legacy of the movie is far more complex than is revealed by the straightforward reading of this production as an exercise in propaganda (which it was also). Despite the most sympathetic and sophisticated readings that Pickowicz is able to offer, the overall message, in the end, is that the film was doomed from the outset by the circumstances of its production. Cinema provides another lens through which historical issues are tackled.7 Whereas a large part of cinematographic production falls into 6 Yingjin Zhang, Cinema and Urban Culture in Shanghai, 1922–1943 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999); Sheldon H. Lu, Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997); Zhen Zhang, The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2007); and Paul Pickowicz, From Underground to Independent: Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006). 7 Pioneering historical works on Chinese cinema include Paul Pickowicz, “The Theme of Spiritual Pollution in Chinese Films of the 1930s,” Modern China 17, no. 1 (1991): 38–75;

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the category of nondescript entertainment, other parts directly address historical issues with varying degrees of engagement. We may well argue, indeed, that movie houses were places where a majority of China’s urban population, like counterparts elsewhere, took their lessons in historical narratives.8 And as in the cases elsewhere, popular culture was an arena in which successful communicators affirmed rather than challenged commonly held assumptions at the lowest level of common cultural denominators. Shanghai movies played a major role in the constructing of collective Chinese experience as well as memory. Anne Kerlan examines in her essay the filmic representation of the first Sino-Japanese conflict in Shanghai in 1932 and the competing memories that ensued. The shortlived conflict was a watershed in the life of the city. The Shanghai Incident powerfully shaped the perception of the Japanese community and army in the city. It also offered the first instance of films shot almost “live” about the conflict, by companies that would produce both documentary and fictionalized accounts of the war. As the films were shot while the war was raging, Shanghai film producers of the early 1930s were caught almost instantly in the conflicting expectations held by different audiences, fears and calculations on the part of studio operators, and state attempts to control the narratives and the memories about the war. Kerlan shows that as a result of all these factors at work, Shanghai film producers ended up presenting on screen a narrative of Chinese military heroism that was experienced in real life by but a fraction of the Chinese population in Zhabei, the heart of the battle zone. Kristine Harris, in her examination of the 1931 Lianhua film Two Stars on the Silver Screen (Yinhan shuangxing), uncovers the film’s inherent discussion of the relationship between tradition and modernity, stage and screen, silent and sound film, and domestic and imported motion pictures. She borrows W. J. T. Mitchell’s definition of metapicture to explain the film’s knowledge of its own consciousness and its explorations of the nature of film itself. Two Stars, she argues, prompted early Chinese spectators of cinema to question who was behind the camera and what were they doing there. Two Stars on the Silver Screen was adapted from a novel by Zhang Henshui and tells the tragic love story of a young, fictional movie star, Li Yueying, and her suitor Yang Yiyun. The film, however, shows much more Paul Pickowicz, “Cinema and Revolution in China,” American Behavioral Scientist 17, no. 3 (1974): 328–359; Laikwan Pang, Building a New China in Cinema: The Chinese Left-Wing Cinema Movement, 1932–1937 (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002); and Poshek Fu, Between Shanghai and Hong Kong: The Politics of Chinese Cinemas (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003). 8 Robert Rosenstone, “October as History,” Rethinking History 5 (Summer 2001): 255–274.

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than the love story. It examines the very nature of filmmaking and movie stardom. Harris shows how a miniature golf set is offered up as a “synecdoche for the filmset and even the nation.” She also illustrates the ways in which the movie forestalled any “criticism of immorality or slavish foreign imitation” by emphasizing virtue and nationalism, alluding to the possibility of movie studios’ role in the “struggle to save the nation.” Even as the film calls for nationalistic feelings, it displays the extensive use of Western filmmaking equipment and emphasizes the Western pleasures of wine and ice cream to its eager audience. The film raises questions that are inextricably tied to issues of tradition and modernity, China and the West, virtue and vice, and finally film and fiction. In Harris’s evaluation, the film’s nuanced portrayal of everything from young love to patriotic duty, from arranged marriage to opera, and from playing miniature golf to making boardroom decisions highlights the enormous changes taking place both on and off screen and reflects the “uneasy tensions and anxieties for urban Chinese at a pivotal time.” The film ultimately shows an “array of aspirations and possibilities envisioned by Chinese filmmakers themselves.” In the final essay of this volume, Sheldon Lu jumps ahead in time to look at cinematic productions of the late twentieth century. He offers a captivating study of “memory-in-the making” through a set of films centered on the Three Gorges Dam in Hubei and its tremendous impact on local communities. Lu examines how each filmmaker offers a unique alternative vision to the grand official narrative on modernization, or “history-in-the-making,” with regard to the fate of the people living in the Three Gorges area. Contemporaneous with the construction of the dam, the films tell the story of ordinary people—former “reeducation” youths in nostalgic search of their youth, returning migrant workers looking for their displaced spouses, and so forth—people who once had a life in the now submerged area. This journey back in time turns into a metaphor for a dissonant reading of the Chinese past and the fate of the Chinese nation: “All these films and visual images revolving around the building of the Three Gorges Dam bear testimony to the ruthless physical eradication of cities, towns, villages, and communities.” Movies are not just works of fiction. In fact, they are also works through which history is made or, at the very least, told in a dissenting voice from official records. From a variety of perspectives, the essays collected in this volume offer a significant array of images that enriched urban living and structured urban memories in China in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From the evidence presented here, it is obvious that Chinese publishers and editors, no less than their local Western competitors in major cities, were quick to integrate the new media of photography and film into their

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publications. It is also evident that pictorial representations occupied a major place in public communication in Chinese cities as in all modern cities throughout the world. There was hardly any domain of public social and cultural life that was not represented and transformed by the introduction of visual products. In conclusion, throughout the modern era, urban China was saturated by mechanically reproduced images, which through their multiplication must have done wonders to the fashioning of the Chinese mind. The sheer repetition of “innocuous” images as in advertisements—a topic not touched upon in this volume—would have made a strong impact on social mores and perceptions. And while censorship sometimes hit hard on printed texts, images were not perceived as potentially subversive, except perhaps for cinematic ones. Yet images could more easily seep into people’s imagination and contribute to twisting—through deliberate choice by their creators as in propagandistic pictures and films or simply beyond one creator’s intention—the way modern Chinese adapted to their surroundings at various levels (individual, family, locality, city, nation, etc.). In fact, the very productions of these images involved the mobilization of motifs, genres, functions, technologies, and aspirations of both new and old, such that it is destined to be a futile endeavor differentiating and labeling the “national” origins of modern Chinese visual codes and practices. As a first step toward an attempt to tackle the issue of visual practices in modern Chinese public communications, the authors of this volume have identified a wealth of unsuspected sources to study. They have also demonstrated the reward and promise of this line of research. Visual materials stimulate the historical imagination in seeking new perspectives on the lived past, from the most obscure nobodies who peddled goods in Chinese cities to world-famous celebrities such as Mei Lanfang. The astounding visual record left by the photographers and filmmakers (and more broadly visual artists) in modern China constitute a massive archive that awaits incorporation into the most current research directions in Chinese history. Although a few steps have been taken to address issues of visual culture in modern China, mostly from the perspective of cultural history, there remains a wide open field for all historians to explore. The present volume means to suggest potential paths for a revision of practices in historical inquiry and to examine how modern Chinese society expressed itself in visual culture, which resources it mobilized and deployed, and to what social, cultural, and political ends.

TWO

Wartime Shanghai Refugees: Chaos, Exclusion, and Indignity Do Images Make up for the Absence of Memory?

CHRISTIAN HENRIOT

Introduction Photography figures prominently among the visual sources that have enriched the range of materials used by historians over the last decade. Born with the industrial age, photography rapidly evolved from a practice geared toward individual portraiture or landscape by photo studios or skilled amateurs to a major mode of communication in its own right. An early association with the press magnified the role of photography. By the turn of the twentieth century, photography was rapidly displacing the previous modes of illustration in periodicals.1 Yet the growing impact of photography was also related to its use on the battlefield. War, and especially World War I, gave a major impetus to the rise of photography as the primary medium to report “reality” from the front lines back home. Armies set up photographic services to cover their ongoing conflicts. Individual periodicals would also send reporter-photographers into the field, to be joined soon by press agencies specializing in providing photographs of major events all over the planet. Used for propaganda to boost morale as much as for information, photographs thus became a central element of the emerging mass media.2 1 Anne-Claude Ambroise-Rendu, “Du dessin de presse à la photographie (1878–1914): Histoire d’une mutation technique et culturelle,” Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 39 (January–March 1992): 10. 2 Therese Blondet-Bisch, “Aperçu historique de la pratique photographique durant la Grande guerre,” Historiens et Geographes 89, no. 364 (1998): 249–251; Laurent Veray, “Montrer la guerre: La photographie et le cinématoraphe,” Guerre Mondiales et Conflits Contemporains 43, no. 171 (1993): 111–121.

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War photography definitely ranks as the genre par excellence attempting to document in visual form for viewers far away from the front lines of the battlefield—at least until World War II—one of the most brutal manifestations of man. As photography became more popular, along with the emergence of professional press agencies, it recorded in increasing number the ravages of modern warfare on both soldiers and civilians. War photography has become a “genre” in its own right, producing emblematic images of modern conflicts.3 Altogether, however, this apparent abundance must be balanced with various factors such as a focus on certain aspects of war and neglect of others, the frequent absence of proper labeling, and, of course, important losses in the course of time. Nevertheless, photography offers a wide field to be explored, even if it raises particular challenges for historical research. This chapter explores how historians can use photographs taken during a particular war—the Sino-Japanese conflict in Shanghai in late 1937—as a source to understand certain processes, especially the impact of war on ordinary people, and as a way to both recount the events themselves and to contribute to a reasoned memory of these events. The first part of the chapter deals with the general issue of using photographs as a historical source for the modern historian. In it, I argue that photography offers a privileged medium that seemingly allows the historian to reach out toward the subject matter while also taking him or her onto a largely undetermined field, on account of both “knowing” the past and “telling” history. The second part of the chapter presents a narrative of the experience of refugees in Shanghai based on the use of photographs. There, I argue that photographs reveal aspects that went off the written record and also allow a better understanding of the tragic fate of the refugee population. Although only a limited sample of images are presented with this text to visualize this perception of the past, their illustrative function can hardly be dismissed. For this very reason, I also propose on the Virtual Shanghai on-line platform parallel narratives in the form of visual and map narratives, not to supplement the textual narrative, but as alternative readings of the refugee experience.4 Reflections about the Use of Photography in History “[The] meanings of photographs emerge from cultural experiences; they are ideological reproductions of reality and viewed as realizations of an objective truth. They are also a source of multiple collective memories and therefore components of history as a creative process.”5 This quo3

See the remarkable documentary film by Christian Frei, War Photographer (Switzerland, 2001), 96 minutes; available at http://www.war-photographer.com/en/. 4 See the Virtual Shanghai Project at http://virtualshanghai.net. 5 Bonnie Brennen and Hanno Hardt, eds., Picturing the Past: Media, History, and Photography

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tation somehow sums up the dilemma of historians when dealing with nontextual records. Images, visual materials, and so forth are not, of course, something new on the academic planet. Even among historians, images have provided a rich staple to feed historical inquiry. For the most part, however, this has been the realm of either historians of precontemporary periods (from ancient to modern history) or, quite naturally, art historians.6 Beyond this specific realm that already offers a lot of insight, methods, and practice in the use of visual materials, the “visual” has taken up a new dimension with the development of “visual studies” around the concept of “visual culture.” Visual studies actually draw on a wide array of disciplines and present various ways into the study of visual sources.7 I shall not discuss this field here: First, it is beyond my competence. Second, a large part of the theories, concepts, and even methods are not necessarily relevant for the purpose of a social historian. I have found it very illuminating to peruse many of the works produced on visual culture, especially given my own interest in using the two “faces of the coin” any visual source offers. However, my analysis here will be limited to one kind of visual material: photographs. Photographs have been used quite often in books, sometimes to identify—visually—a particular figure or a particular place. More often than not, photographs appear as an illustrative companion to text, never or rarely disjointed from the broad narrative presented, but yet often not very close to an actual reference in the text, and, above all, they are seldom used as a source of information for the narrative itself.8 What we are left with, in most cases, is the use of photographs as illustrations, as images meant to convey a “sense of things past” by providing a tiny visual window into that past. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 7. 6 For a solid introduction, see Peter Burke, Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence (London: Reaktion, 2001). This volume is part of a fascinating series titled “Picturing History” that the publisher, Reaktion, started in 1995. Despite the progress made toward using visual sources, a recent volume still observed the limited involvement of modern historians with visual documents (Paul Gerhard, ed., Visual History: Ein Studienbuch [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2006], 11–18). 7 One will find solid references in Nicholas Mirzoeff, ed., The Visual Culture Reader (London: Routledge, 2002); Jessica Evans and Stuart Hall, eds., Visual Culture: The Reader (London: Sage, 1999); Gillian Rose, Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials (London: Sage, 2001); John A. Walker and Sara Chaplin, Visual Culture: An Introduction (Manchester: Manchester University Press), 1997; and Stuart Hall, ed., Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (London: Sage, 2003). 8 Some historians have made serious use of photography, although mostly in papers. See Peter Hamilton, “Representing the Social: France and Frenchness in Post-War Humanist Photography,” in Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, ed. Stuart Hall (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 75–150; Terence Ranger, “Colonialism, Consciousness, and the Camera,” Past and Present 171 (2001): 203–215.

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One can definitely go beyond this level and take photographs seriously as a source in themselves: a type of source, however, that raises new challenges. When using photographs, historians are caught in a tension—the source/narrative tension. Images can catch the eye of an audience and create a sense of proximity that is engaging and therefore effective: “In that sense, photographs also serve the imagination of historians and feed their creative instincts.”9 They also confront historians with temptations about their various possible uses: — To see the past ¤ as a source, as if photography could relate to us a concrete view of “how things were” — To illustrate the past ¤ as a mere adjunct to a textual narrative, though in most cases the narrative could do without the images (e.g., portraiture) — To visualize the past ¤ to reconstruct a visual perception of the past and to show it to the reader (from “systematic sample” to “visual narrative”) This is, of course, a crude and probably incomplete view of how historians use photographs in their work, but this representation is meant to place a certain emphasis on the major ways in which, I believe, we can exploit photographs as historians. Probably, for some time to come, the use of photographs as illustrations will remain the dominant use. These images do not distort the historical narrative, and they enliven the long text through which most of us entertain our readers and train our students. We should also note here that photographs have been used as the core material of a “history of.” Yet it is usually in the form of albums where, conversely, text is reduced to a minimum or altogether absent. There is rarely any attempt to construct a signifying narrative through the selected photographs beyond a chronological or topical line.10 To come back to the possible uses of photographs, my interest lies primarily in the two “nonillustrative” functions, namely, “to see the past” and “to visualize the past.” When a photograph comes into the hands of a serious historian—serious enough to give it some credit as a legitimate source—it entails an immediate set of questions to which, in many cases, there will be only partial answers: 9

Brennen and Hardt, Picturing the Past, 7. Jorge Lewinski, comp., The Camera at War: A History of War Photography from 1848 to the Present Day (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980). In the case of Shanghai, there are several such books under various names: Zhenchang Tang et al., trans., Shanghai’s Journey to Prosperity, 1842–1949 (Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 1996; originally published as Lu Yunzhang, ed., Jinshi Shanghai fanhua lu); Shi Meiding ৆ṙᅮ, ed., Zhui yi: Jindai Shanghai tushi 䗑ដ䖥 ҷϞ⍋೒৆ [Remembrance: An illustrated history of modern Shanghai] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1996). 10

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—Where? —When? —By whom? —Why? —How? —What for? Before even looking into the content of the photograph itself, this is what a historian should ask about a photograph. These are, after all, the same kinds of questions we raise about written sources, except that both for historical reasons (photographs have not been collected and processed in the same systematic way as textual records) and for reasons related to the nature of photography (it comes as a fixed and unique image), historians cannot rely on the same set of methods they were trained into using. Photography arrives as a cluster of built-in contradictions. It appears to offer a slice of “true reality,” of a moment that did exist—the camera recorded it—and yet what we see depends on the conditions under which the photograph was taken. Moreover, a photograph does not come as a set of items one can examine and deconstruct in the same way we examine a text (from its source, its language, its support, etc.). A photograph is one and a whole. This is not to say there are no specific tools to “deconstruct” a photograph, but the purpose a historian has in mind only partly overlaps with the approach of a photograph as a piece of art. A frequent difficulty in using photographs lies in their lack of proper identification. Photographs were not considered a significant source in themselves (rather, an “eye on the past” that may be used for exhibitions) and did not receive until very recently the kind of systematic recording process libraries and archives have applied to textual records. In many cases, photographs arrived from various places, were put into boxes in bulk—sometimes left for decades—and then sorted out at a time when there was nobody left that could provide information about them. Photographs were also taken as an adjunct to reportages: “photographs were used to position targets of depiction within a larger story of Nazi atrocity,”11 for example. This holds true for other “stories.” This difficulty is compounded by the fact that many pictures, especially after the popularization of the camera in the early twentieth century, were produced by all kinds of individuals, not just professionals. In my own experience with Shanghai historical photographs, most were taken by “Mr. Anonymous.” 11 Barbie Zelizer, “From the Image of Record to the Image of Memory: Holocaust Photography, Then and Now,” in Brennen and Hardt, Picturing the Past, 105.

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We are left, therefore, with a very rich visual material, but very few indications about its nature, source, conditions of production, purpose, and so on. One way to get around this problem is to work on a specific collection of photographs produced either by an individual photographer or by an institution or a press agency or newspaper. Depending on the degree of rigor of the photographer, the historian may have good knowledge of the circumstances under which the photographs were produced. Yet, a whole array of difficulties remains. First, the photographer may not have left a proper or detailed record of what, when, and where regarding the pictures. One can be in Beijing (but anywhere in Beijing) at any time between 1933 and 1946 and be shown unidentified places, artifacts, people, and so forth.12 The other situation with well-identified photographers is that most of them were or are professional photographers. There are, of course, numerous examples of quasi-professional “amateur” photographing, especially in the nineteenth century (e.g., diplomats, missionaries, etc.), meaning there is probably an intermediate category between sheer amateurs and professionals (e.g., Sidney D. Gamble or Father Joseph de Reviers; see later). On the whole, however, the development of amateur photography in the twentieth century entailed the production of much less focused and “coherent” works. This also means we are left with a large constellation of disjointed images. Professional photography, therefore, may appear as a more secure ground to work on for the historian, and yet this is an illusion because it implies that picture taking was highly conditioned by the purpose photographers had, a major one being to make a living, by selling their pictures either to a certain audience or to magazines. Professional picture taking results from an equation that integrates personal inclination (and subjectivity), purpose (sale, publication), intended audience, and external conditions (social context, technological constraints). Skilled amateurs may have had greater leeway, as their photographs’ immediate purpose and targeted audience could be quite vague, but the subjectivity was there too. In other words, what one gains in better background knowledge, one loses on the side of “spontaneity.” Before moving toward the photograph itself, there is another point that deserves our attention. Photographs were produced in increasing numbers between the moment of their invention and the middle of the twentieth century. In fact, when the camera started to become a consumer 12 This refers to the Hedda Morrison collection on which Feng Yi is working for her Ph.D. The entire collection is available on-line at http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/harvard-yen ching/collections/morrison/.

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good after WWI, millions of photographs were taken by individuals, studios, press agencies and newspapers, institutions, and so forth. And yet, most of these pictures were lost, as happens with all historical records, but probably more in the case of photographs, leaving an advantage to those produced by institutions and press-related organs. Our “vision of the past” requires corrective lenses to make up for this imbalance between “public” (including here newspapers) and “private.” In other words, if photographs are slices of the past, the stack of slices we have has been thinned from an original tower of images. In the case of China, this issue is compounded by additional obstacles related to the historical circumstances the country went through—war, institutional instability, lack of preservation—and, as far as the People’s Republic of China is concerned, utmost difficulties in accessing original collections. What this comes to, eventually, is the realization that photographs will never match the range and depth of issues that textual records, especially archives, are able to cover. Despite the variety of circumstances under which photographs were produced, at least until WWII, photographs were never produced in the same way as written documents by government agencies—say, by a Bureau of Social Affairs or a Ministry of the Interior. Photography was a mere accessory to administration, business management, and the like. There was never anything close to the systematic production of written documents in the case of photography. A major consequence is the loss of the kind of traceability a historian is able to recover through textual records. Photographs will forever be just shots into the past. Individual shots, shots in series, shots in sequence, shots by a single photographer, shots that offer more or less density and granularity on a place, on an event, or on people. But they are shots that bring to the surface a closer sense of experience (what it was like), shots that bring to light aspects of the past that the textual documents failed to record or pushed back into the shade. A unique quality of photography is its immediacy. Its conditions of production differ quite radically from that of textual records. On the one hand, any text is always the result of construction by its author, be it a technical report on road repair, a survey on the use of drugs, a police account of a crime, or the like. Such elaborations may go through various preliminary stages, use different techniques (data collection, interviews, etc.), and involve different “hands” before a text is written. There is much less distance—both temporal and spatial—between a photographer and what he sees than between an author and what she narrates. Alternately, and without underestimating the cognitive dimension of picture taking—I am aware, as noted previously, that the photographer does make choices, that his or her images are not a guarantee of more

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“objectivity”—the time for its elaboration is limited, especially in stressful situations like war. The photographer can hardly change what is in front of the camera. What we gain in photography’s more immediacy and more direct “contact” with the past than textual sources, however, we also lose in terms of depth. The historian gets a framed still image of a split-second moment of the past at location X. And digging into the surface of a single photograph definitely raises a new challenge, as more often than not we end up on the other—blank—side of the photograph. Once in a while, a little help will come in the form of scribbled words on the back, but this may be misleading, even in the case of photographs by professional photographers.13 In fact, as I argue later, the blank side is entirely up to the historian. This is his or her own work ground. A photograph is like a coin: it has two faces. On one side is what I see, the image that offers itself to view and interpretation. The other face is more metaphorical. I do not mean here any annotation or whatever may appear on the verso of the photograph (though this should not be discounted). The other side is what I know about the photograph (what, when, where, by whom, etc.). Having all the relevant data is a considerable advantage for interpreting what the photograph shows, what the photograph tells us. Yet it is not the whole story.14 For the historian, to read a photograph is a challenge to his or her habits. At a preliminary level, a photograph will be read as a whole. It will convey an immediate message or meaning, which is not something that comes through the reading of words that progressively build into a sentence and eventually produce a meaning. A photograph comes as a “bundle” of meaning(s). One sees a photograph before “reading” it. Our eyes are not mere cameras recording mechanically what comes within their range of vision. They are connected to a mind that will add “reading” to “viewing,” including injecting meaning into the image, projecting questions about it, and moving toward more systematic deciphering. The range is wide, from a simple view like a portrait to complex scenes (groups, streets, landscape, etc.). There are many ways to “deconstruct” a photograph depending on 13 Photographers interpret what they see. Sometimes they misread for lack of knowledge of what stands before their camera. Some also overinterpret what they see and assign a meaning to a scene that may not be there. See Sam Tata, Shanghai, 1949: The End of an Era (New York: New Amsterdam Books, 1989); Jack Birns, Assignment Shanghai: Photographs on the Eve of Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). 14 This section owes much to an illuminating book by George Didi-Huberman, Images in Spite of All: Four Photographs from Auschwitz (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). The book examines the case of four photographs taken by a Sonderkommando inside a Nazi concentration camp. These four photographs feed a very elaborate discussion on the use of photography in history.

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one’s perspective and focus. Further, there are tools in visual studies that historians can draw on to guide their steps at this level. The other face of the coin is as important as its “positive” side, especially when one deals with photographs that are accompanied by little or no information. In fact, any “reading” of a photograph is made at the point of intersection between “what I see” and “what I know.”15 This holds true of other sources, but with images, especially when they come with little background data, one can only rely on preexisting “knowledge” to read a photograph and give it proper meaning. “What I know” includes both knowledge on the photograph itself and knowledge outside of the photograph. Knowledge on the photograph refers to all data covered by the usual set of questions spelled out previously (what, when, where, etc.), while knowledge outside the photograph means everything one knows about the broader context of the photograph (which may be as wide as “this is in China”). It includes any knowledge that will condition the reading of a photograph. This is what I metaphorically call the other face of the coin, the “blank” side of the photograph, the ground on which the historian works. My own approach as a historian is based on a very simple method. When reading a photograph I start with a systematic itemization of what it shows (and what it does not show). This is meant to “objectify” as much as possible what I see and keep a distance from any information or knowledge I may have about the image. The second consideration is to attempt to pick out any detail that would contribute to a proper identification and interpretation of the scene under scrutiny. A photograph should never be taken lightly. Details are what may help eliminate options and therefore narrow down the topic, time frame, location, and the like shown on the photograph. Even when the view is obvious—for example, a picture of the Bund—one may be able to date a picture from the buildings shown and not shown (they changed over time) or the size of the trees (provided one knows what kinds of trees and when they were planted). In other words, a rigorous ethnographic and/or archaeological reading is a preliminary and most necessary step for the interpretation of a photograph. This will produce a complete record of identified and unidentified items and layers displayed on a photograph. It is on the basis of this “ethnographic report” that the historian can move to his or her own workplace because the task at hand will work in two directions. The elements of information available on the photograph as well as the prior knowledge of the historian will change the contrast, sharpen the edge, highlight parts left in the dark, or illuminate shadows. Conversely, the “ethnographic report” will serve to challenge or test prior knowledge as well as indicate directions for further research on visible but 15

Again, here, I draw my inspiration from Didi-Huberman’s Images in Spite of All.

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unascertained or unidentified aspects or items displayed on the photograph (type of tree, date of plantation, date of building erection, car model, etc.). In many cases, this attempt will prove fruitless and hit a wall. Yet for any picture to be used as a source, these are the steps to be taken if one does not want to be caught using a “wrong” image. Of course, when an image database exists, this work is made easier thanks to the possibilities of comparison among images that deal with the same topic. From the perspective of using photographs as a source, the historian will meet with basically three types of picture taking: 1. Posed or staged photographs: Despite the similarity, the two modes are not quite the same. Posed photographs were mandatory in the early stages of photography when the time of exposition was counted in periods of up to 15 minutes. A photographer could take a picture of a “real-life” situation, but that real-life situation had to be created on purpose with all participants frozen in immobility for the sake of picture taking. The other kind of photograph to be found in the nineteenth century is staged photography. This is a subtle shift from posed photography, but it entails a fundamental change of perspective. In a staged photograph, the photographer “creates” a situation—for example, pictures of prisoners in cangues, a picture of a capital execution—that is not real. It is reinvented, reenacted for the purpose of picture taking. The issue with such photographs is that they may well faithfully tell a “true story” that was impossible to document in a real-life situation. 2. Targeted photographs: The second major category of photographs is that produced by professional photographers after the transition to cameras allowing instant shots. It is a major category because it can be assumed to have survived better the challenge of time and to provide a wealth of visual documentation to the historian. It is also significant for its quality—professional picture taking—and its relevance: professional photographers, especially those working for press agencies or newspapers, were expected to cover “events.” In using such photographs, the historian is confronted by two major issues: the first one is that of identification, and the second one is the nature of professional photography. Whereas famous photographers and their productions are easy to trace with complete bibliographies (Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, etc.), the lesser known ones—most photographers employed in the press—are often impossible to identify and to relate to specific pictures. Yet all professional photographers share the same approach: they take what sells, or potentially so, or what their employer expects to sell. This is a target-driven practice of photography that carves out thin slices of time meant to represent far more than what they actually show. 3. Random photographs: I include under this category all the pictures taken by nonprofessionals, most of them for a personal purpose (by travelers,

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sojourners, local residents, etc.) rather than for a broader audience. The range covers also “enlightened amateurs” like Sydney D. Gamble—who had a long practice of photography that he used as part of his missionary activities in China, but before all as a personal hobby—or missionaryphotographers like Leone Nani or the Jesuit father Joseph de Reviers, or even diplomat-photographers like Auguste François.16 A large part of the stock, however, comes from people who took pictures “on the fly” rather than with a specific frame of mind, ordinary people—especially foreigners—whose eyes were caught by an aspect of life in China. While most of these pictures fail to present much historical interest or are of poor quality, many provide a “fresh” and less mediated look at what was taken by the camera. For all three categories, the point needs to be raised about the distinction between Chinese and foreigners. Obviously, a large part of our stock of images, especially for earlier periods, is made up of pictures taken by foreign visitors or residents, some of them first-timers in China. This process was renewed throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, even if the circulation of images brought home various layers of “prior knowledge” to the people bound to travel to China. The Chinese/foreigner distinction is also important to keep in mind when thinking about what is shown of China. It can be expected that foreigners looked differently at Chinese society than natives did as they reacted to things they perceived as surprising, alien, unusual, and the like. What we may be lacking here are collections of photographs by individual and identified Chinese photographers to tell us how they “saw” their own society.17 What this comes down to is the extreme variety of visual documents photography has left us from China before World War II. Apart from issues 16 John Hersey, Sidney D. Gamble, and Jonathan D. Spence, Sidney D. Gamble’s China (Washington, D.C.: Alvin Rosenbaum Projects, 1989); Nancy Jervis, ed., China between Revolutions: Photographs by Sidney D. Gamble, 1917–1927 (New York: Sidney D. Gamble Foundation for China Studies, 1989); Nancy L. Johnson and Leonard Sherp, eds., Sidney D. Gamble’s China, 1917–1932: Photographs of the Land and Its People (Washington, D.C.: Alvin Rosenbaum Projects, 1988); Clara Bulfoni and Anna Pozzi, Lost China: The Photographs of Leone Nani (Milan: Skira, 2004); Christine Cornet, Paysans de l’eau (Aix-en-Provence: Actes Sud/Bleu de Chine, 2004); and Dominique Liaboeuf and Jorge Svartzman, L’Oeil du Consul: Auguste François en Chine (1896–1904) (Paris: Editions du Chêne, 1989). 17 Works on individual Chinese photographers are rare, though one can glean some data in the newly published general histories of photography in China. Shana Brown has started to explore the work of photographer Sha Fei during the Sino-Japanese War. See Shana Brown, “Sha Fei, the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial, and the Documentary Style of Chinese Wartime Photojournalism,” in this volume. See also Ma Yunzeng 侀䘟๲ et al., eds., Zhongguo sheying shi Ё೟᫱ ᕅ৆, 1840–1937 [A history of photography in China] (Beijing: Zhongguo sheying chubanshe, 1987); Chen Shen䱇⬇et al., eds., Zhongguo sheying shi, 1840–1937 [History of photography in China, 1840–1937] (Taipei: Sheyingjia chubanshe, 1990).

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of quality, they all look alike—black-and-white shots of reality—but they were produced by very different types of “picture-takers” with different perspectives. These images offer very tempting material that seems to materialize before our eyes the ever illusive past the historian is so desperate to grasp in all its dimensions. This material, however, can also prove very illusive and must never be taken as an image of the past. It is an image from the past, a document that requires a difficult exercise in reading through the two sides of the image—what it shows and why and how it is showing its subject. A single image can take one in several directions. A Visual Narrative of the Fate of Refugees in Shanghai, 1937–1938 In the preceding section, I discussed the upstream side of using photographs for the historian. With photographs as a source, the historian may build his approach on a triptych—see/experience/know—both for himself (what I see, what I experience, what I know from the photograph) and about the object of the photograph (the object I see, the experience I observe, the knowledge I gain about the object). On that basis, he may also want to share his view/experience/knowledge with his reader(s) not just by writing about or from the photograph, but also by showing it to the audience. This entails a new challenge, as the use of the photograph downstream will be based on a confusion of usually separate operations in the historical narrative: the written narrative on the one hand, and the original documents on the other hand. A photograph will by its very nature encapsulate both aspects: it seems to provide a guarantee of authenticity (an original document), while it is also meant to convey a message within the general historical narrative. In such a use, the historian is confronted by the set of issues scholars in visual studies have pointed out, especially the fact that the historian has no control over how the images she has selected will be read. In fact, she has a certain degree of control through the use of captions (and text if the photograph is discussed in text). This control may even be pushed toward manipulation. The issue is made even more complicated if one uses images that have become “standards” or even “icons,” as it will be difficult to detach them from the set of predefined meanings with which they came. An image, in its illustrative function, is often used to let the reader “see” an object of history. The “know/experience” functions are less prominent in this case.18 On the other side, the choice of the picture will definitely increase the arbitrary and subjective dimension of how the past is shown. 18 I do not take into account here the “poetic” function of photography, by which I mean the purely artistic dimension of certain types of pictures (still life, nude, etc.) that may never serve as “sources” for the historian.

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It is an end-of-the-line selection made out of what history has left of what the original photographer had decided to take. In other words, by using an image as an illustration, we increase by a very large factor what the picture is showing to take it as the (true) representation of a much larger historical moment. This does not pose a problem, since the image is here only as a supplement to the text and since the image makes a limited intervention into the narrative. It does not diminish the need for a careful selection based on a thorough critical review of the original image. Many of us have worked along these lines with photographs, usually with a limited number due to publishing costs, but more extensively in conference presentations. Some authors have attempted to limit the use of words when using pictures, though these are rare cases.19 More often than not, pictures come with a lot of words. In working on the history of Shanghai, and more specifically on “war refugees,” I have been struggling with these various issues of which I have tried to present a brief sketch in the preceding section. Such an experiment is made possible thanks to Internet technologies. While the use of print technology remains an option, considerations of cost generally rule it out. But more to the point, Internet tools allow elaborate combinations and articulation of source documents, of text with images, of sets of images. One can weave these various elements into alternative narratives that may offer a more complete account or reach out more directly to the reader. Undoubtedly, the use of photographs comes with problems, challenges, and risks. Even with the best intentions and scholarly credentials, the display of images may cause unexpected protests.20 A central issue in taking visual documents as sources to produce a narrative is whether this narrative will actually be “image-driven” or “text-driven.” By training and inclination, many historians—including myself—may tend to reproduce their textual narratives even when using images with an attempt to cover all aspects, from start to end. Another shortcoming is the temptation to flood the audience with as many pictures as possible following a logical—almost clinical—description of the 19 John Berger et al., Ways of Seeing (New York: Viking Press, 1973). This book was based on a TV series. It contains seven essays, three of which are photo-essays that present images without any text. They mix paintings and photographs around a single theme. This is one of the first essays to say something through images, though this is not conceived as a historical approach. The authors attempt to show how images take different meanings depending on how they are used and how they are seen. 20 One such example is the polemical debate over the use of a set of postcards on the MIT-based “Visualizing Cultures” (http://ocw.mit.edu/) Web site after Chinese students protested against these images and used the Internet to denounce, and even threaten, its authors. That it was a Web site carefully developed by scholars with outstanding credentials did not prevent the polemics that arose from the misrepresentation of the actual images out of their proper context.

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phenomenon at stake. As I mentioned previously, no single photograph and not even any extensive series of photographs will ever be able to represent more than the limited time frame of shooting. The multiplication of pictures is less important than their degree of relevance to a given topic. A carefully selected picture, or set of pictures, may prove more meaningful for the purpose of writing a narrative or providing evidence for a point. There is in fact no reason to consider that an image cannot—or should not—be used in the same way as textual documents. It is not uncommon for a historian to retrieve information from a document that relates to a specific object at a very specific time and to either project that information onto a larger period or to insert that information into an interpretative framework that goes beyond the actual meaning of the original piece of information. Interpretation is what gives meaning to our bits of data, and imagination is often necessary to bridge the gaps left by the historical documentation. What I want to suggest here is that we should not refrain from applying this to photographs when it comes to constructing a narrative entirely or partly based on them. This process may be more delicate with photographs than with textual records as the original textual source usually fades away and melts into the narrative produced by the historian. When using images, the image will still be there to be seen by the reader “as it was.” This creates a different configuration for the production of a historical narrative, as the historian somehow loses a part of his autonomy in how that narrative will be read. The range between “image-driven” and “text-driven” will therefore remain very open. The title of this paper refers to the use of photographs as a “substitute to memory.” This will perhaps sound overtly ambitious. It means stepping onto delicate ground, that of the use (and misuse or manipulation) of images to “create” a missing memory or to alter existing memories. What happened in Shanghai in the summer and fall of 1937, but also throughout the war for some segments of the population, was an immensely traumatic event. War always is. And previous experiences hardly helped as war came in new ways to different people. This Shanghai experience of 1937 was recounted in various narratives, a few of them right after the war, most of them in official narratives set in the master narrative of the patriotic war of resistance. It would be interesting to follow the track of commemorative publications after 1949 that served to build a memory of the war in Shanghai. My sense at this point is that apart from newspapers articles on anniversary dates, there was little contribution until the early 1980s, when disputes arose over the revision of history textbooks in Japan.21 Within this very specific framework, texts and photographs 21 I should also emphasize that history education in China has been highly ideological and at times doctrinaire until very recently. See Alisa Jones, “Changing the Past To Serve the

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were mobilized to expose the evils of Japanese occupation and instill a rewritten memory of the war among Shanghai residents (and more broadly among the Chinese people). As many acknowledge, this was less about renewed historical inquiry than an ideological exercise in building a case about Japanese brutality. As far as the use of photographs was concerned, it followed the same pattern, leaving aside entire parts of the war experience, especially that of ordinary people. This is where my interest lies. The issue of refugees looms very large in the history of Shanghai.22 One could even say that Shanghai’s destiny was conditioned by the waves of refugees that sought a haven in its foreign-powers-protected settlements from the middle of the nineteenth century onward. I shall not discuss this here. My concern is with the refugees of the Sino-Japanese incidents in the city from 1931 to 1932 and in 1937. These were unusual refugees, especially in 1937. They differed greatly from almost all their predecessors over eighty years. Actually, the word “refugees” is quite misleading here. Of course, this is about people who suddenly lost their home and found themselves thrown into the streets. Yet, these were also Shanghai residents, not outsiders, and not impoverished peasants seeking refuge in the city. What we deal with here are people who lived in the very city where circumstances placed them in a desperate situation, but still a city they knew well, a city where they used to work, a city where they had connections (relatives, friends), a city where they had networks to rely on (native-place associations), and a city where many were able to find ways out of their desperate situation. This is not to brush away the extreme hardships most of these Shanghai residents experienced. The Japanese assault was a very traumatic moment. Even if the vast majority saved their life, many lost almost everything. They had to rebuild from scratch. Nevertheless, it is essential to factor in this aspect as it goes a long way to explain why the flooding of “refugees” in the settlements did not turn into a humanitarian disaster, why eventually only a small portion of them ended up in refugee camps, and how the complete breakdown of the city was averted. Observers of the time all agreed that about a million people sought refuge in the foreign settlements. It is also admitted that the native-place associations were able to evacuate about a third of this population. And last, all statistics show that the total number of refugees in camps at any one time never went beyond 120,000 people, while an estimated 75,000 to 100,000 lived in the Present: History Education in Mainland China,” in Edward Vickers and Alisa Jones, eds., History Education and National Identity in East Asia (New York: Routledge, 2005), 65–100. 22 For an alternate view based solely on the textual record, see my paper “Shanghai and the Experience of War: The Fate of Refugees,” European Journal of East Asian Studies 5, no. 2 (2006): 217–248.

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streets. Even if we take into account the fact that there were successive waves of refugees (from Zhabei-Hongkou, then Nanshi, then the Western extra-settlement roads area, plus a certain number of peasants from neighboring villages), even if we take into account the turnover in the refugee camps, which would certainly push up the figure, it is obvious that one way or another, close to half a million residents-turned-refugees managed to stay in the city and survive outside of public charity support—in others words, by their own means and probably with the help of relatives, friends, tongxiang, and so on. The demography of the city was completely transformed (see maps 1 and 2). Among Shanghai residents, people took different paths on their way to becoming “refugees.” In fact, the place of residence itself, for instance, was part of the story. From an economic perspective, most of the people who lived in the war-stricken districts belonged to the xiao shimin (petty urbanite) category. It is not a very precise sociological category, but it best encapsulates that population. Many refugees were below that level, such as workers, coolies, rickshaw pullers, and the like. Very few were above that level. The most affluent usually lived in the foreign settlements, and those who did not had left early. We shall hardly see them in our photographs. We also know that some specific communities were concentrated in the northern areas, such as the Cantonese. They were probably among the best “connected” when it came to support by mutual-help networks. They show up in our photographs, though they are not distinguishable from the refuge-seeking residents. One would not expect to find them left over on the streets, when they could find lodging through connections. These are just a few clues to reading our photographs. This is part of the “blank side” I discussed before. Here I shall address the issue of refugees, from the initial moment of their departure amid war and chaos to the physical extinction of specific groups, and by highlighting what I try to convey as salient aspects of the refugee experience in Shanghai. This section is constructed around four sequences of photographs, each focusing on one aspect: 1. Time: flight amid chaos 2. Space: segmentation and exclusion 3. Space: living on the street 4. Time: death and cremation 1. Time: Flight amid Chaos War started on 13 August 1937 in Shanghai, but the movement of population actually started well before and, as far as Zhabei, Hongkou, and even Yangshupu are concerned, was almost complete by the time fighting

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Map 1: Population density in Shanghai before August 1937. (From the Virtual Shanghai Project, Virtual Shanghai map repository.)

eventually began (map 2). The displacement of population was not prepared or planned in any way, neither on the side of residents, nor on the side of the authorities. There was nothing the Chinese authorities could do as almost all their resources beyond some organizational capacity were focused on the war, not the residents-turned-refugees. The Shanghai Municipal Council and the French authorities had no valid reason or pretext to stop the flow, as it happened before the beginning of hostilities. The population simply anticipated what was about to happen. That anticipation was based on past experience and the concentration of troops in their vicinity (map 3), but it was also nurtured by groups that had an interest in such a move. Although this is difficult to document, the press reported on “scare-mongers” who were going door to door to advise the local residents to move at once. There seems to have been some sort of complicity among such provocateurs, moving companies, and real estate agencies. These companies took advantage of the threat of war to increase their profits.23 23

North China Herald, 11 August 1937.

Map 2: Population density in Shanghai after August 1937. (From Virtual Shanghai Project, map repository.)

Map 3: Initial position of Chinese and Japanese troops in August 1937. (From Virtual Shanghai Project, map repository.)

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Figure 1: Shanghai refugees crossing over Garden Bridge to the Bund. (From the Virtual Shanghai Project, image ID 833 [origin unknown].)

We have various reports on the displacement of residents from Zhabei and Hongkou. What the photographic record tells us is not so much how many but how and who. It also gives clues about the social background of the refugees and how they would be able to sustain the experience of the war. That the movement was massive is quite clear from the well-known picture of the Garden Bridge (fig. 1). It is not dated, although it does pertain to August 1937. This bridge was the main avenue through which Zhabei, Hongkou, and Yangshupu residents could move into the International Settlement. It was also the most favorable spot, since the Bund and its garden offered enough space to accommodate the large influx of population. But residents also used all the other bridges. Those bridges posed more difficulties due to their narrowness, which caused traffic jams, even blocking all passage; they were far more dangerous, for people and goods alike (fig. 2). These images convey a sense of panic and chaos (fig. 3). People left in a rush, scared to be caught in a war situation as they had been five years

Figure 2: The flow of refugees on Markham Bridge. (From Four Months of War: A Pen and Picture Record of the Hostilities between Japan and China in and around Shanghai from August 9th till December 20th, 1937, from the Press of the “North China Daily News” [Shanghai: North China Daily News and Herald, 1937].)

Figure 3: Mass displacement of Shanghai residents during the August 1937 Japanese attack. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 2249 [origin unknown].)

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Figure 4: Overcrowded street. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 2416 [origin unknown].)

earlier. The statistics of the Shanghai Municipal Police confirm the extent of that frenzy (fig. 4). Between 26 July and 5 August, fifty thousand people were estimated to have left Zhabei.24 On 24 August, the police counted up to two thousand people per hour crossing along Jessfield Road on the western border.25 In the French Concession, there was a more limited inflow since fighting was expected to happen in the northern districts. Yet several thousand Nanshi residents found their way into the concession before the authorities locked the gates and started to build defenses all around their territory (fig. 5). The North China Herald repeatedly used the term “hordes” to refer to the refugees, even if the newspaper expressed some sympathy toward the fate of the residents of the war-threatened districts.26 These pictures testify to the massive nature of the movement of population that happened in August 1937. They can also explain why 24 25 26

North China Herald, 11 August 1937. North China Daily News, 24 August 1937. North China Herald, 17 November 1937.

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Figure 5: Nanshi refugees moving into the French Concession. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 979 [origin unknown].)

many people would lose things or even kin (children, old people) on the way. Residents made use of all possible ways to leave the war-threatened districts. While bridges offered the most obvious passage, Soochow Creek constituted another channel, especially for those who had decided to leave Shanghai altogether. As figure 6 shows, given the load on each boat, it was very likely only the first step toward further migration back into the countryside or more simply landing upstream in the International Settlement. The picture was taken from the southern bank of Soochow Creek. I have counted thirty-five people on the boat in the forefront. This is an incomplete count, since neither the passengers in front of and on the other side of the boat are visible, nor all those who are inside. The capacity of these boats was pushed to the limit. It is also quite clear that there was not much in terms of personal belongings, even if one can see passengers sitting on top of things piled up on the back of the boat. Yet the ratio between passengers and belongings is obviously low. At various points in time, Pudong residents also sought refuge in the International Settlement. Every time there was a lull in battle, they would cross the river and land on the Bund.27 27

North China Herald, 25 August 1937; 17 November 1937.

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Figure 6: Zhabei residents crossing Soochow Creek to safety in the International Settlement. (From North China Herald, 15 September 1937.)

Most people actually left their homes with very little. There are various ways to interpret what the pictures show to us. Residents may have thought there was only a temporary risk to their lives, locked their houses and left with only a few things, hoping to return home once the crisis was over. Some may have left in a hurry—this was probably true of most— and only gathered what they considered as valuable, or necessary, or simply moveable if they could not afford the cost of a transporter. One can also argue that many, perhaps most, actually had few items to carry with them. In all the pictures that we have, there are very few large vehicles like trucks. Figure 7 shows a truck filled to its maximum with a man seated on one side of the windshield, holding a small suitcase. There were few trucks available, and to most residents the cost was beyond their means. In fact, most families had few items to take with them and made use of simple means of transportation. The most common mode of transportation for goods seem to have been handcarts or wheelbarrows and, of course, rickshaws. Figure 4 provides a good sense of the density of the move and of the disorderly nature of the flight; the incredible mix of modes of transportation and, of course, the limited “material capital” the residents possessed appear in figure 3. It is

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Figure 7: Refugees from the northern districts on a truck. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 15134 [Karl Kengelbacher; 1895–1981].)

Figure 8: Shanghai residents preparing their move into the foreign settlements. (From Four Months of War.)

Figure 9: A group of Zhabei residents about to move into the foreign settlements. (From George C. Bruce, Shanghai’s Undeclared War: An Illustrated Factual Recording of the Shanghai Hostilities [Shanghai: Mercury Press, (1937)].)

obvious that even on a Chinese wheelbarrow or handcart, one could not pile up heavy items (fig. 8). In fact, residents on the move gave the priority to valuables, clothing, bedding (especially bamboo mats), kitchenware, and the like (fig. 9). Figure 9 is fairly representative of what a worker family would have had or would have be able to take along. It came down to

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Figure 10 (right): Refugee mother with child running away. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 2411 [origin unknown].) Figure 11 (far right): Refugees in the street. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 2415 [origin unknown].)

the bare minimum for camping, but this was not about camping. This was about surviving with small children and older people under the open sky on vacant land or in street alleys. Whatever the means of transportation, these people had little to move along with them. They stacked a few pieces of furniture on a small raft that took them across the river. For the vast majority of refugees, the escape was made on foot. By groups, by families, or alone, these residents marched toward the foreign settlements with little more than they were able to carry. Whatever they possessed and left behind at home, what photographs show us are people with small “bundles,” such as a woman with her child (fig. 10) or a son with his elderly mother (fig. 11). The peasants traveled with what they were able to take on a carrying pole. There is no need to stretch our imagination to guess that they carried only clothing and very basic necessities. The poorest among the poor stayed behind until they were literally expelled under orders of the Japanese Navy before the assault on Yangshupu. On 8 September, 4,500 Yangshupu residents were taken by truck to the International Settlement while another 1,500 walked their way to safety. In some cases, they had to be removed by force: “they were mostly poor people, carrying a single bundle, and apprehension was painted in the faces of most. . . . [F]rom straw hut settlement and obscure alleyways they emerged by the hundred. . . . [T]here were many who had to be coaxed to get out.”28 Those who possessed more than the essential had no guarantee to preserve their possessions. The density of traffic offered opportunities for thieves or even regular rickshaw pullers to turn to thievery. Those who had many belongings and goods had to have them carried away on several carts or rickshaws. It was very difficult, however, to make sure that such a “convoy” would hold together. Either voluntarily or under the pressure 28

North China Herald, 8 September 1937.

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of traffic, the pullers would split and lose track of each other and then disappear altogether, even when they had been told the final destination. More than one resident had this bitter experience. 2. Space: Segmentation and Exclusion Shanghai was not one city. It was several cities on the same territory. The existence of two foreign settlements—the International Settlement proper and the French Concession—as well as that of the “external road areas” to the north (“North Hongkou”) and the west of the International Settlement beyond its official boundaries—defied any attempt to make Shanghai a single urban space. Shanghai was fragmented (map 4). In peacetime, this fragmentation was probably not very obvious. It was visible, undoubtedly, at the very least by such concrete elements as street names, the presence of Sikh or Vietnamese policemen, and so on. Shanghai residents were used to living with that reality. The fragmentation of space created unequal conditions and opportunities for Shanghai residents. If we think away from our assessment of the foreign settlements as a “political space” that facilitated the emergence of all kinds of phenomena and processes we lump together as “modernization” and try to look at it from the perspective of everyday life, how then would the everyday life of a regular shimin look like? And how would it look like in a time of crisis like 1937? Quite clearly, past experiences had taught Shanghai residents that the city was not theirs in toto or that parts of the city—specifically, the foreign settlements—could become enclosed enclaves designed to offer protection to their own inhabitants, especially foreigners. Foreign authorities were equally prepared to leave out the residents of the Chinese-administered districts and even to stem any inflow of population. The natural layout of the city was favorable to the establishment of access points. On the north bank of Soochow Creek, a first line of defense ran along Boundary Road, with an iron railing that would be reinforced in times of crisis. Only the Yangshupu District was fully indefensible, but it was not the main living quarter of foreigners (though its Chinese population was close to half a million). The strongest line of defense was Soochow Creek itself. It separated the central districts of the International Settlement from Chinese territory. It was easy—and standard procedure—to block access to bridges to prevent the population from crossing over. In the French Concession, too, iron gates had been installed on every street leading into Chinese territory, at least all along the former walled city. The concession was also naturally protected by Xuhui Creek on its southern flank. In times of emergency, all streets on the northern bank were blocked with barbed wire, sandbags, and even hard walls. Last, in 1937 (but also in 1927), the access routes on the western border of the settlements were also blocked by checkpoints (fig. 12).

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Map 4: The territories of Shanghai. (From Virtual Shanghai Project, map repository.)

Spatial order had to be maintained at all times. When refugees started to pour into the International Settlement, the authorities there were adamant about keeping some areas clear, especially in the evening. It made little sense under the circumstances, but the police had instructions to clean the Bund where refugees had congregated and to push them into the back streets. The North China Herald praised the Shanghai Municipal Police for its ability to enforce such orders despite the work overload the situation had created. The paper even published a picture showing people who had been compelled to settle in a small street for the night.29 The following morning, the Bund would be occupied again. Such pictures as well as some later ones also show the difficulty of living outside: August, as is well known, is not a favorable period to stay outside in Shanghai. Temperature is high during the daytime, but very often rain comes along with typhoons. The year 1937 was no exception. The central issue, however, is that Shanghainese lived in a city within which entire sections would shut down and make the inhabitants of the 29

North China Herald, 25 August 1937.

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Figure 12: Barbed wire chicane on a bridge leading into the French Concession. (From Archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs [Paris], image A000618.)

Figure 13: Iron gate and defense installation in the French Concession. (From Archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs [Paris], image A000573.)

Figure 14: Iron gate in the French Concession. (From Archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs [Paris], Image A000580.)

neighboring districts genuine outsiders. What pictures help us realize is that exclusion was embedded in the spatial fragmentation of the city. The population took its full measure in times of social unrest or war. From photographs, the regular iron gates in the French Concession look quite strong and capable of resisting the pressure of desperate crowds (figs. 13 and 14).

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Figure 15: Refugees massed behind the Porte du Nord iron gate (French Concession). (From Four Months of War.)

Figure 16: Refugees blocked behind an iron gate. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 2254 [origin unknown].)

Undoubtedly so, as other images show (figs. 15 and 16). People would mass behind the gates, hoping to get through or to get food when a distribution took place. The International Settlement also had its own iron gates, even if they were less systematically used than in the French Concession (figs. 17 and 18).30 In 1937, the French Concession took exceptional measures to insulate itself from a possible invasion by refuge-seeking Chinese (figs. 19 and 20). Apart from the permanent gates, it actually built a wall all along its southern border in the hope of defeating attempts to jump into the concession. The North China Herald reported in detail about this defense effort:

30

Shanghai town plan and defences 1939, file 5367, WO 106, U.K. National Archives.

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Figure 17: British soldiers on guard along the border in the western district. (From Bruce, Shanghai’s Undeclared War.)

Figure 18: Gate no. 5 in the International Settlement. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 2258 [origin unknown].) With hundreds of miles of barbed wire strung round its perimeter, supported by machine-gun emplacements and dozens of supplementary defences, the French Concession, true to tradition, stands ready to repulse any who dare attempt to cross the border while carrying arms. From the corner of Zikawei Road and Avenue Haig, extending to the south, the barbed wire entanglement fronts Zikawei creek, the banks of which are so steep and the slime so thick, that it is doubtful even the most agile could obtain a handhold. . . . At the Route Ghisi and Avenue Dubail intersection the block houses again command all avenues while the bridge heads have been closed and triple, even quintuple quantities of barbed wire defy approach. Supporting these defences are sandbag redoubts, the machine-gun covering three directions of approach. The Concession may become a walled city...along that portion of the Zikawei creek, which has been filled in, particularly in the neighborhood of the Power Plant,

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Figure 19: Refugees marching into the French Concession. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 2256 [origin unknown].)

Figure 20: Refugees entering the French Concession from Nanshi. (From Concession Française de Changhai—Service de Police—Rapport annuel 1937 [Shanghai, 1938].)

engineers are constructing a brick wall, which faces Nantao. The construction . . . is proceeding at the rate of 50 yards a day. . . . Further toward the business area the iron-picket gates, reinforced in front by barbed wire and behind by sandbags, are closed, ingress and egress permitted at prescribed points only.31

As we can see, the French Concession was turned into a fortified camp, and the police severely restricted access to it. Yet this did not deter Chinese from trying their luck (see fig. 21), but it definitely prevented a massive inflow. Admission was severely regulated and curtailed for most residents in Chinese-administered territory. On all sides, the access to the foreign settlements was strictly controlled, though not necessarily prohibited. Yet the more time passed, the less the authorities were inclined toward admitting refuge-seeking individuals and families and subjected them to search of their belongings (fig. 22). For the latecomers who showed up on the western borders, admission was conditioned upon bringing in a sufficient food supply to sustain 31

North China Herald, 8 September 1937.

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Figure 21: Refugees jumping over the defense wall of the French Concession. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 868 [origin unknown].)

Figure 22: Military checkpoint in the International Settlement. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 216— Raymond Vibien Family Album.)

Figure 23: A view of military defenses along the Boulevard des Deux Républiques. (From Archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs [Paris], Image A000536.)

themselves.32 The authorities of the foreign settlements definitely tried to keep a balance between their inclination to protect the population within their boundaries and opening up their gates to the city’s other residents threatened by war. Nevertheless, the very existence of such protected areas was a magnet for Chinese residents from neighboring districts in times of war. Shanghai became a city where one could be faced with a heavy set of gates and checkpoints on both sides of the street (fig. 23). 32 North China Herald, 23 August 1937. Producing two basketfuls of foodstuffs per person was enough to be admitted into the International Settlement.

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Figure 24: Refugees newly arrived in the International Settlement. (From North China Herald, 15 September 1937.)

Christian Henriot

Figure 25: Settling down on a street corner. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 2224 [origin unknown].)

3. Space: Living on the Street Probably the vast majority of the Shanghai residents who sought refuge in the International Settlement or the French Concession spent a few nights in the open air. We know that many eventually found a place to stay thanks to friends and relatives. Evacuation was also organized, but no more than 350,000 people actually left in late 1937 and early 1938, while the outward flow was partly compensated by new arrivals from neighboring villages. A substantial part of the homeless were received in all kinds of shelters and camps. Yet, the total number of camp inmates in the International Settlement reached at most 97,000 sometime in December 1937.33 Of course, we need to take into account the turnover in the camps for a more accurate assessment of the total population of refugees there. Nevertheless, a very large group of people obviously did not find their way into camps or proper shelters. They settled in the streets, in the back alleys (lilong), on vacant land, or in any place where they eventually lived in misery. In the International Settlement, the Shanghai Municipal Police estimated the refugees’ number between 75,000 and 100,000 in December 1937, but these numbers were only for the remaining “pockets” of street refugees.34 I do not have any figure for the French Concession. People set up their quarters wherever they could, including on the pavement of major thoroughfares. They had moved into an urbanized area where vacant land was scarce, except in the western parts of the 33 Note, Public Health Department, December 1937, U15-1-1032, Shanghai Municipal Archives. 34 Shanghai Launches Red Cross Drive, special supplement of the China Weekly Review, 4 December 1937, p. 1.

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Figure 26 (above left): A refugee family with its meager belongings. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 2413 [origin unknown].) Figure 27 (above): A group of refugees in the street. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 2417 [origin unknown].) Figure 28 (left): A group of refugees in the street. (From North China Herald, 15 September 1937.

settlements. After they arrived in the foreign settlements, they dropped their bundles and buckets and probably started to figure out what to do next (figs. 24 and 25). Most arrived with only the few basic items that would allow them to settle down almost anywhere, but for a short period. Many images are quite telling. People were lost. They were also often tired from a long and stressful trek, probably afraid to be turned down at the entrance of the settlements, and simply traumatized to have left or lost their home, job, and so forth. People were perhaps tired after days and nights spent in such conditions. It is a delicate task to interpret such emotions from photographs. There is a risk of overinterpretation, but my guess is that many if not most refugees must have felt a sense of loss. There was little they could do, especially if they belonged to the less organized groups in the city, the groups that could not turn to the more or less powerful native-place associations to help them through their ordeal (figs. 26–28). We must be careful when interpreting the situation on the sole basis of photographs. Yet, these images do show people who had nowhere to go, who set up temporary quarters in a back street where they could afford only very rudimentary comfort and relative protection from traffic, public view, or simply the weather. But sometimes, they just stayed where they were, on the pavement of a public thoroughfare, for all to see, oblivious

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Figure 29 (above): Refugees sleeping in the street. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 2420 [origin unknown].) Figure 30 (above right): Refugees at a street corner. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 2226 [origin unknown].) Figure 31 (right): Refugees sleeping in the street. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 2419 [origin unknown].)

to the ongoing activity around them and the gaze of puzzled passersby (figs. 29–31). Many images show babies and young children. They are almost everywhere in our pictures. Written sources do not account accurately for births in Shanghai. In fact, as I argue later, many simply did not live long enough to be recorded in any way. Children were the most vulnerable ones among the refugee population. Living on the street with little or no resources left them with little hope of survival despite any efforts by their parents. A picture of a young mother feeding her baby is just one case of a woman who is quite evidently in a state of complete poverty herself and may not have been able to breast-feed her child sufficiently (fig. 32). This single picture, however, gives us a measure of the immense difficulties and suffering the less privileged residents of Shanghai went through with their forced departure from home. Although high infant mortality was a general phenomenon in urban areas in the Republican era, war had especially devastating effects on the children of these poorer classes. 4. Time: Death and Cremation War was a time of death. Death for those who were involved in military combat. Death for civilians caught in the middle of bombing, shelling, and fire. But also death for the displaced people made more vulnerable to

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Figure 32: Refugee mother feeding her baby in the street. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 2418 [origin unknown].)

disease, even benign illnesses that eventually killed weakened and undernourished bodies. This aspect is hardly documented in public documents like newspapers or reports by charity organizations. It can be retrieved by the historian digging up statistics from forgotten archives. These figures, however, may not convey the full extent of the tragedy that was taking place in Shanghai at any time, but which the war situation pushed to unbelievable heights.35 In this section, I present a set of disjointed pictures and, on the basis of this, make several assumptions that, I believe, do reflect what actually happened in Shanghai in 1937 and 1938. My focus is on the fate of the refugees who failed to find a proper place to survive the time of hostilities. Of course, even among those who managed to get into camps, death struck steadily at higher rates than usual. It is also true that even in peacetime, the poorest groups in the population would, out of necessity, simply abandon their dead—adults and children—on vacant land, on the street, almost anywhere, in flimsy coffins, bamboo matting, or just their clothes. In other words, there was an ongoing process of people, mostly infants, dying in the Shanghai streets and then being left in those streets during the late imperial and Republican periods. During wartime, however, the number of such hardship deaths multiplied several times, and most likely these deaths occurred among the refugees left living on the streets. I shall try to document this through images at the same time as I draw my information from these images. There are, of course, few pictures of abandoned bodies. Only the authorities made it their policy to take snapshots of dead adults for the 35

Christian Henriot, “‘Invisible Deaths, Silent Deaths’: ‘Bodies without Masters’ in Republican Shanghai,” Journal of Social History 43, no. 2 (Winter 2009): 408–437.

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Figure 33: Abandoned corpse of a baby. (From North China Daily News, 11 January 1939.)

purpose of identification. They also checked whether the death was from natural causes or from an act of violence. These records have left us with thousands of identification pictures of little use for the historian. Newspapers generally skipped the topic of abandoned corpses altogether unless it became an annoying problem for residents, especially foreign residents. Photographs were less likely to be published than articles. In other words, these dead would rarely show up in print. However, an image of the body of a dead baby was published in the North China Daily News after it remained uncollected for several days right at the entrance of a major building in the International Settlement (fig. 33). The quality of the image is average, but one can see the head of the baby, the type of matting in which small children were usually wrapped, and the location where the body was left.36 Such abandoned corpses or coffins—corpses or coffins “without master” (⛵Џሡ储) in administrative parlance—were counted by the thousands, then by the tens of thousands (map 5a–b). Such corpses were picked up by two organizations, the Shanghai Public Benevolent Cemetery (Pushan shanzhuang ᱂୘ቅ㥞), mostly in the International Settlement, and the Tongren fuyuantang ৠҕ䓨‫ූܗ‬, mainly in the French Concession. Both organizations emerged in 1912 and 1913 with this exclusive purpose, but the Shanghai Public Benevolent Cemetery was by far the leading operation in Shanghai.37 The organization maintained a staff of “body collectors” that patrolled the streets of Shanghai from dawn 36

“Is It There Still?,” North China Daily News, 11 January 1939. By 1947, the Shanghai Public Benevolent Cemetery had collected 720,000 bodies and coffins (“Pushan shanzhuang boyin mukan tekan ᱂୘ቅ㥞᪁䷇ࢳᇀ⡍ߞ” [Special fundraising issue of the Shanghai Public Benevolent Cemetery], 26 July 1947). 37

a

b

Map 5: The distribution of exposed corpses: (a) French Concession; (b) International Settlement. (From Virtual Shanghai Project, map repository.)

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Figure 34: Collecting a dead body in a street of the French Concession. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 1079 [origin unknown].)

Figure 35: A body collector of the Tongren fuyuantang. (From Birns, Assignment Shanghai.)

to night to pick up bodies in areas known to be disposal spots, or under instructions from the authorities, or following a resident’s call. They also picked up the dead without resources or relatives in hospitals, at other charity organizations, and so on. Their main activity, however, was securing corpses left in the open air in the streets of Shanghai. They used various tools, but the most common one was a handcart such as the one shown in figure 34. The scene is taking place in the French Concession in daytime. The body collectors are easily recognizable by their “uniform” with ৠҕ䓨‫ ූܗ‬printed on the back. In this picture, given the effort the collectors seem to be making, the corpse must be that of an adult. Nevertheless, all statistics show that the vast majority of abandoned corpses—85 percent on average—were those of infants and small children. Figure 35 is a picture of a collector of the Tongren fuyuantang taken not in 1937 or 1938, but in 1947. I use it because it shows a reality that makes no difference with wartime. The only obvious difference is the use of a pedicab instead of a handcart. Pedicabs were introduced in the early 1940s in Shanghai. The photographer in this case, Jack Birns, misread what he was shooting. He labeled his photograph “A bicycle cart delivers a child’s corpse to a temporary morgue.”38 He missed the fact that this was a collector from the Tongren fuyuantang doing his regular job of picking up bodies and delivering them to one of the organization’s stations for encoffining, not a temporary morgue. Despite the temporal shift, this image, I argue, does help us to see and know what it was like to live in Shanghai in 38

Birns, Assignment Shanghai, 38.

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Figure 36: Children’s corpses collected and encoffined by the Tongren fuyuantang. (From Birns, Assignment Shanghai.)

1937 and 1938, when such bodies were collected by the tens of thousands. The second major duty of the Tongren fuyuantang was to provide coffins and perform appropriate rites before burial. As can be seen in figure 36, considerations of cost—as true in the civil war period when Shanghai received a new wave of refugees as during the Sino-Japanese War—caused the Tongren fuyuantang to put several infant bodies together in one coffin. Again, the original caption is misleading: “Children’s corpses in a collective coffin await cremation on Christmas Eve.”39 I doubt that the bodies of indigents were cremated in the late 1940s. Once the coffins were ready, they were transported to their place of burial. In normal times, the bodies collected by the Tongren fuyuantang were buried in one of its thirteen cemeteries located in Pudong. With the war, however, these areas remained out of reach until the end of 1938. Although the authorities provided vacant land in the western outskirts of the settlements in Chinese territory, the number of people dying in the streets went beyond what these plots of land could accommodate. Faced with the issue of having to “host” the coffins of all the dead who could afford the cost of storage in a private or a guild repository—eventually more than one hundred thousand were stored in the International Settlement—the authorities of both settlements decided to require cremation of all abandoned corpses, the protest of the charity organizations notwithstanding.40 Coffins were transported to two or three different places 39

Birns, Assignment Shanghai, 39. Christian Henriot, “Scythe and Sojourning in Wartime Shanghai,” Karunungan: A Journal of Philosophy 27 (September 2007): 117–148. 40

Figure 37: Coffins of bodies collected in the street. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 15451 [origin unknown].)

Figure 38: Preparation for the cremation of coffins. (From Virtual Shanghai, image ID 643 [origin unknown].)

Figure 39: Cremation of dead refugee children. (From Shanghai Municipal Archives, H1-25-4-20.)

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Figure 40: The End. (From Anne-Frédérique Glaise, “L’évolution sanitaire et médicale de la Concession française de Shanghai entre 1850 et 1950” [Ph.D. diss., Lyon 2 University, 2005].)

in western Shanghai where they were piled up on a stack of wood and set afire with gasoline. This was performed under the surveillance of official representatives of the Shanghai Municipal Council or French Municipal Council (figs. 37–40). These pictures tell us these were the coffins of indigent people. It also confirms, by the coffins’ size, that most contained the bodies of infants and small children. Adult coffins are few and stocked underneath the smaller coffins. The process took a few hours, as various stacks of coffins were piled side-by-side and left to burn until there were only ashes left. This is a rare instance of photodocumenting an otherwise quiet and almost invisible process. Concluding Remarks This chapter has addressed the issue of using photographs both as a source and as a medium to build a historical narrative. While the chapter is driven both by text and by images, I believe photographs are a significant part of its construction. There would be no point in excluding elements that can inform us on the issue of refugees and to pretend to elaborate an “imageonly” kind of narrative. What the Internet offers is precisely the possibility to combine various types of documents in one text but also to juxtapose different forms of narrative. This chapter incorporates individual images as well as individual maps that serve to provide visual support to the arguments made in the text. Images are not mere illustrations, as I start from the images, especially the photographs, to build an argument. I have been drawing on their content to understand how the process of becoming homeless unfolded in the particular context of the Shanghai of 1937 and 1938 and what some of the consequences of this displacement were. I also hope to have shown that photographs can take us closer to aspects of life

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than other forms of record, which may have overlooked or missed them entirely. The experience of war was not just an accidental event for certain areas of Shanghai. It was in fact an integral part of living in districts such as Zhabei or Hongkou. The end of the Sino-Japanese War did not mean the end of such migration within and outside of the city. Whereas current official history celebrates the liberation of Shanghai in 1949 and the warm welcome the People’s Liberation Army received, independent photographic records have documented the departure en masse and by any means of the local population. These images are reminiscent of those presented in this chapter. War is such a terrible threat that many people would simply try to avoid it by fleeing to other places. The year 1937 certainly represents the most momentous episode in this experience. The photographs included here have displayed how much chaos, uncertainty, and suffering the war brought. They also materialize quite vividly the social inequalities associated with the political divisions within the city. The traditionally densely inhabited districts at the periphery of the foreign settlements were home to a population with limited resources who could hardly survive without outside help. If they happened to fall out of the protective net of kinship or native-place networks, their future was bleak and that of their children bound to be short.

THREE

Sha Fei, the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial, and the Documentary Style of Chinese Wartime Photojournalism

SHANA J. BROWN

Since the creation of photographic technology, photographers have wrangled with the question of documentary accuracy. The slippage between photography’s capture of extreme detail, which suggests unaltered mimesis, and the medium’s potential for staging or alteration in development has contributed to numerous and ongoing debates regarding its degree of reliability relative to other forms of representation.1 Although by the twentieth century, realism had become the dominant discourse for photography’s practitioners in many parts of the world, assessments of its documentary accuracy can change over time and with different cultural and political contexts.2 Unique discursive formations frame our expec1 Many theorists have contributed to this debate. In the context of this chapter, my perspective has been shaped by Jennifer Green-Lewis’s discussion in Framing the Victorians: Photography and the Culture of Realism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997) regarding nineteenthcentury debates between supporters of photography as a tool for scientific, empirical representation and its critics, who mistrusted the potential for dissemblance. In the past decade, digital processing has made the manipulation of photographic images virtually unavoidable, but I would argue that a historical aspiration to mimesis still colors our views of photography. Certainly, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981) remains relevant, in which Barthes comments that “photography’s Referent is not the same as the referent of other forms of representation. . . . Painting can feign reality without having seen it. . . . In photography I can never deny that the thing has been there” (76). 2 In “The Curse of the Photograph: Atjeh, 1901” (in Photographies East: The Camera and Its Histories in East and Southeast Asia, ed. Rosalind C. Morris [Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2009], 57–78), James Siegel raises intriguing issues related to how local practice could produce distinctly different ideas of what documentary photographs should look like. For example, he introduces the intriguing case of the first Javanese photographer, Kassian Céphas, who was hired by Dutch authorities to photograph local monuments and dignitaries but whose style, although acknowledged as realistic, appeared stiff and inartistic.

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tations of what mimetic representation looks like and shape our assessments of verisimilitude. In Wartime China (1937–1949), photography was prized by leftist propagandists for its ability to verify military events and, just as important, to secure sympathy and political agreement in an era of mass campaigning. Beginning in the 1920s, leftist artists and writers urged their contemporaries to simultaneously represent reality and shape political action.3 In response, photographers refuted the often recognizably manipulated image in art photography and tried to represent everyday life and inspire social and cultural change. By the wartime period, most photojournalists were operating under the institutional conditions of partisan media, and, although they continued to refer to their images as documentary or realist, they were generally directed by specific political or military goals. Indeed, ideological scrutiny of their images could not have been avoided, since the state-sponsored pictorial magazines that published these images constituted one of the most important forms of wartime propaganda for both the Nationalist government and Communist forces. This chapter focuses on one of the most famous photographers of the wartime era, Sha Fei ≭亯 (1912–1950). Born Situ Chuan ৌᕦ‫ڇ‬, Sha Fei was known for his brilliant documentary photography, as well as his editorial work on one of the most influential and admired Communist wartime magazines, the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial (Jin-Cha-Ji huabao ᰝᆳ‫⬿ݔ‬ฅ) published out of the Jin-Cha-Ji Base Area in Hebei. Sha Fei’s wartime photographs were captured with a Kodak Retina, a gift of the Canadian communist Norman Bethune (1890–1939), a medical surgeon in Jin-Cha-Ji and Sha Fei’s close friend. The Kodak Retina is a compact folding camera that uses convenient 35-millimeter, daylight-loading, single-use film cartridges.4 The 3 My understanding of the literary context that encouraged literary realism and documentary visual culture is greatly informed by the work of Marston Anderson, who describes how Chinese intellectuals in the 1920s and 1930s sought to achieve social revolution and alter the “moral complexion of the Chinese people” by embracing a democratic, popular, and socially engaged writing style. Realism was not so much an unfiltered depiction of contemporary life but an ideological stance that compelled the author to create social and cultural change through critical, uplifting, and didactic depictions of the lives of common people. See Marston Anderson, Limits of Realism: Chinese Fiction in the Revolutionary Period (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), esp. 30–34. 4 Pei Zhi 㻈ỡ, “Sheying shi shidai he renmin de yanjing ᫱ᕅᰃᰖҷ੠Ҏ⇥ⱘⴐ⴯” [Photography is the eyes of an age and a people], in Zhongguo zhandi sheyingshi fangtan, 1937–1949 Ё೟᠄ഄ᫱ᕅ᏿㿾䂛, 1937–1949 [Interviews of Chinese frontline photographers, 1937–1949] (Beijing: Zhongguo sheying chubanshe, 2009), 42. A photograph of Sha Fei holding this camera may have been reversed (Wang Yan ⥟䲕, Tiese jianzheng: Wo de fuqin Sha Fei 䨉㡆㽟䄝˖ ៥ⱘ⠊㽾≭亯 [Unshakeable testimony: My father, Sha Fei; Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2005], 99; Eliza Ho, Art, Documentary, and Propaganda in Wartime China: The Photography of Sha Fei [Columbus: East Asian Studies Center, Ohio State University, 2009], 7).

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images captured with this camera express a vivid sense of movement, evocative narrative content, and geometric clarity reminiscent of prewar modernist photography, as exemplified by the dynamic images of Martin Munkácsi (1896–1963) and the young Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004). Yet Sha Fei’s sharply focused and graphic compositions are notable for their velvety rendering of skin, clothing, and landscapes, whose softness and warmth convey an unmistakable sense of political and personal sympathy. The combination of crisp graphic elements, warm textures, and dynamic movement makes his photographs vivid, sympathetic, and seemingly impeccably mimetic. Recent critiques have suggested that some of Sha Fei’s most iconic images may have been staged, and certainly the documentary accuracy of the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial and other examples of wartime propaganda should not be accepted uncritically. Nonetheless, Sha Fei’s style continues to influence Chinese photography, and its aesthetic origins and ideological significance remain important. Hans van de Ven has written of the “textcentered Party” that “made the interpretation of texts a central leadership issue”; the success of Sha Fei and the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial suggests that the wartime Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was also a photocentric party, with images virtually as critical to party ideology as words.5 How Sha Fei came to develop his documentary style and articulate its political message offers us an important window on this moment when Communist visual propaganda was developing a strategically critical—if ultimately shortlived—realist idiom. The Political Context The Jin-Cha-Ji Base Area in north China, where Sha Fei worked as an editor and photographer for most of the war, lacked the geographical cohesiveness of other base areas, such as Yan’an to the west. It was a pockmarked guerilla territory whose southwestern corner was marked by Taiyuan in Shanxi Province, extended through mountainous and rural parts of Chahar and Hebei, jaggedly encircled the Japanese-controlled cities of Beijing and Tianjin, passed the Great Wall, and ended in the northeast near Chengde, home of the former Qing dynasty summer residence. After Manchuria was annexed in 1935, the region was designated by Japan as the “East Hebei Autonomous Government Guarding against Communism” and was placed under the control of the former Republican finance official Yin Rugeng ↋∱㗩 (1885–1947). But in the summer of 1937, it was invaded by the Eighth Route Army, and several mountainous counties were seized by Lin 5 Hans van de Ven, “Emergence of the Text-Centered Party,” in New Perspectives on the Chinese Communist Revolution, ed. Tony Saich and Hans van de Ven (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1995), 2.

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Figure 1: Although actual party control varied throughout the war, the Jin-Cha-Ji Base Area stretched from Taiyuan to Chengde north of the Great Wall, wrapping around the Japanese-occupied cities of Beijing and Tianjin. For most of the war, the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial was produced in Pingshan and Fuping. (Map adapted from Nie Rongzhen, Nie Rongzhen huiyi lu, 406.)

Biao ᵫᔾ (1908–1971), commander of the 115th Division, and his political commissar, Nie Rongzhen 㙊ᾂ㟏 (1899–1992). By January 1938, the JinCha-Ji Provisional Committee had built a new army incorporating some ten thousand former Nationalist troops, student-led militias, and so-called bandit forces (warlords’ or unaffiliated Chinese troops). That summer, an uprising of some two hundred thousand strikers, guerillas, peasants, and other groups brought much of East Hebei under Communist control, but the region soon reverted to a patchwork of semiautonomous bases that were under frequent Japanese attack.6 Under Nie Rongzhen and other Jin-Cha-Ji leaders such as Peng Zhen ᕁⳳ (1902–1997) and Shu Tong 㟦ৠ (1905–1998), head of the area’s political department, the base area stood firmly behind Mao Zedong 6 Wei Hongyun, “Social Reform in the Jin Cha Ji Border Region,” in North China at War, ed. Feng Chongyi and David S. G. Goodman (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 93–114, esp. 94–97. See Gregor Benton, Mountain Fires: The Red Army’s Three-Year War in South China, 1934–1938 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), for a discussion of similar situations in south China.

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(1893–1976) and his rural line policies, which articulated a strategy of utilizing peasant-backed forces in self-sufficient base areas to encircle enemyoccupied cities.7 The rural line propaganda efforts of Jin-Cha-Ji, including its photographs, were shared with Mao, who praised their high quality.8 One of the key figures in the Jin-Cha-Ji propaganda and news efforts was Deng Tuo 䛻ᢧ (1912–1966), director of the base area’s newspaper bureau. Later the founding editor of People’s Daily and editor of Mao’s Collected Works, Deng was committed to internal efforts at ideological study and self-criticism among journalists.9 Given the wartime and post-Liberation prominence of these leaders, there appears to have been a high degree of loyalty to Mao’s policies, with party discipline extending firmly into media and propaganda organizations. Despite the region’s lack of territorial unity, it still produced brilliant propaganda, largely due to the talent of its writers, editors, photographers, and other culture workers, who received generous supplies of paper and other materials despite the privations of the period.10 A 1944 telegraph from the Jin-Cha-Ji leadership specified that “newspaper photos are extremely important for their usefulness for propaganda, including photographs of military matters, that increase the influence of our party and military government (from occupied areas to the interior and internationally).”11 Nie was personally enthusiastic about the propaganda power of images; he commanded his photographers to shoot a frame for every bullet that was fired.12 He decided that each regiment and command 7 Timothy Cheek, Propaganda and Culture in Mao’s China: Deng Tuo and the Intelligentsia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 71, mentions the importance of the rural line in Jin-Cha-Ji. Tetsuya Kataoka, Resistance and Revolution in China: The Communists and the Second United Front (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 3–4 and 26–27, discusses the debate among party leaders between the rural and urban line; the latter might have led to greater cooperation with the Nationalist government. 8 The letter from Mao to Nie (dated 18 March 1939) in Mao Zedong↯╸ᵅ, Mao Zedong shuxin xuanji ↯╸ᵅ᳌ֵ䙌䲚 [Selected letters of Mao Zedong] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1983), 153, does not specify which photos. 9 Cheek, Propaganda and Culture in Mao’s China, 15–16 and 79–80. Cheek discusses ways in which Deng’s later efforts to expose Mao’s failings complicate his reputation as a loyal party cadre. 10 Nie Rongzhen㙊ᾂ㟏, Nie Rongzhen huiyi lu 㙊ᾂ㟏ಲដ䣘 [Memoirs of Nie Rongzhen] (Beijing: Jiefang jun chubanshe, 1984), 2:480–481. See Chang-tai Hung, War and Popular Culture: Resistance in Modern China, 1937–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 234, for reference to paper shortages in border regions. 11 Jiang Qisheng 㫷唞⫳ et al., eds., Zhongguo sheying shi, 1937–1949 Ё೟᫱ᕅ৆, 1937–1949 [The history of Chinese photography, 1937–1949] (Beijing: Zhongguo sheying chubanshe, 1998), 80. 12 Hao Shibao, “Nali you zhantou, wo jiu dao nali ા㺵᳝᠄༈, ៥ህࠄા㺵” [I went wherever the front line was], in Zhongguo zhandi sheyingshi fangtan, 1937–1949, 115; Pei Zhi, “Sheying shi shidai he renmin de yanjing,” 42.

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area within Jin-Cha-Ji should have at least one photographer, in addition to photographers sent to front areas by the political department.13 By 1937, the Eighth Route Army in Shanxi and Hebei accommodated several well-known professional photographers and journalists, including Fang Dazeng ᮍ໻᳒ (Xiaofang ᇣᮍ; 1912–1937) and Fan Changjiang ㆘䭋∳ (1909–1970), former colleagues in Shanghai.14 Virtually all CCP leaders documented themselves and their campaigns in photographs; throughout the Yan’an period, Mao was shadowed by the young Hou Bo փ⊶ (b. 1924) and her husband, Xu Xiaobing ᕤ㙪 ‫( ބ‬b. 1916). (Junior photographers remembered the anxiety of shooting portraits of high cadres; they were terrified of what might result if they encountered camera failures or developing problems, or simply failed to produce a complimentary image.15) Nie was not above photo opportunities, for example, when his troops rescued a Japanese girl, fed and tended to her carefully, and mercifully sent her back behind Japanese lines. Sha Fei’s images of Nie and the young prisoner of war are an example of the photographer’s characteristically canny combination of naturalistic poses and sympathetic rendering. Some commanders indulged in the craft themselves, like the New Fourth Army commander Ye Ting 㨝ᤎ (1896– 1946), who carried a Leica around to snap battlefront photos when he himself was not being photographed by visiting journalists such as Agnes Smedley (1892–1950).16 The photographic work in the base areas fueled the production of pictorial magazines, continuing the trend of the genre’s popularity in Republican China. One might expect wartime privations to have killed off the lavish prewar pictorial press, but in both government-controlled areas and CCP base areas, the opposite was the case. At a time when academic publications were printed on grass paper, Chiang Kai-shek funded the publication of color pictorials such as the folio-sized Lianhe huabao 㙃ড়⬿ ฅ (United pictorial), its format clearly modeled after Life magazine. During the Second United Front, government publications such as Wartime Pictorial (Zhanshi huabao ᠄ᰖ⬿ฅ) featured photographs of Communist officers shown in stalwart, disciplined poses—“Gallant Military of the Eighth Route Army”—alongside government officials and generals, “amazons” (female military staff), and refugees. And starting in 1932, some 13

Jiang Qisheng et al., Zhongguo sheying shi, 81. Fan Changjiang ㆘䭋∳, “Yi Xiaofang ដᇣᮍ” [Remembering Xiaofang], in Fang Dazeng ᮍ໻᳒, Xunzhao Fang Dazeng, yi ge shizong de sheyingshi ᇟᡒᮍ໻᳒, ϔ‫ן‬༅䐸ⱘ᫱ᕅ᏿ [Looking for Fang Dazeng, a missing photographer] (Beijing: Zhongguo sheying chubanshe, 2000), 52–56. 15 Hao Shibao, “Nali you zhantou, wo jiu dao nali,” 116. 16 Jiang Qisheng et al., Zhongguo sheying shi, 24. 14

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Figure 2: Sha Fei’s photo of Nie Rongzhen and the young Japanese girl under his care, 1940. Courtesy of Wang Yan. (Sha Fei and Wang Yan, Sha Fei sheying quanji [Beijing: Changcheng chubanshe, 2005], 104.)

twenty-five pictorial magazines were produced in Japanese-occupied areas, including Manchuria, complementing a robust pictorial press that flooded the domestic front with images of Japan’s seemingly noble and victory-filled war.17 In Communist areas, pictorials were produced in nearly all north China bases. After 1935, party leaders recruited photographers to move to north China, part of a general policy of wooing writers and other intellectuals.18 At Zhou Enlai’s personal urging, convoys of Eighth Route Army troops brought to Yan’an the staff of the Mingxing Film Company in Shanghai, including Yuan Muzhi 㹕⠻П (1909–1978), director of the famous leftist film Street Angel (Malu tianshi 侀䏃໽Փ; 1937), his cinematographer Wu Yinxian ਇॄઌ (1900–1994), and Xu Xiaobing.19 Under the political guidance of a Long March veteran, the filmmakers formed the Yan’an Film

17 Du Jing ᴰᭀ, “Kangzhan shiqi Jizhong de 68 zhong baokan ᡫ᠄ᰖᳳ‫ݔ‬Ёⱘ。ฅߞ” [Sixty-eight journals published in Jizhong during the wartime period], Xinwen yanjiu ziliao 41 (March 1988): 191–202. David C. Earhart, Certain Victory: Images of World War II in the Japanese Media (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2008), discusses the propaganda impact of Japanese pictorials, particularly those produced by the Cabinet Information Bureau to valorize the Japanese soldier and booster morale at home. 18 Cheek, Propaganda and Culture in Mao’s China, 66–68. 19 Wu Heng ਇᘚ, “Sheying dashi Wu Yinxian zai Yan’an ᫱ᕅ໻᏿ਇॄઌ೼ᓊᅝ” [Photography master Wu Yinxian in Yan’an], Dongnan wenhua 3, no. 109 (1995): 111–112. After 1949, Yuan Muzhi became the director of the Central Film Bureau. Indeed, virtually all the founding members of the Yan’an Film Group would go on to assume high positions in the post-1949 cultural bureaucracy.

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Group, which immediately set about producing a film on the Eighth Route Army.20 The presence of photographers and filmmakers in Yan’an and throughout Communist base areas can seem axiomatic, providing pictorial counterparts to the political propaganda that was a critical element of military efforts. But despite the fame and experience of Yan’an photographers like Wu Yinxian and his colleagues, Sha Fei and his associates in the Jin-Cha-Ji Base Area—a much more strategically vulnerable region—created some of the most legendary images of the wartime era. Their efforts combined major stylistic trends in Republican photography prior to the wartime period with influences of romanticism and modernism and arguably outshone the work of their more prominent colleagues. Art and Documentation in Chinese Photography In the earliest decades of the twentieth century, Chinese photography entered a dynamic era of popular dissemination. Newspapers, magazines, posters, and other media were increasingly likely to contain photographs, heightening public awareness of the form. At the same time, the increasing affordability and portability of photographic equipment, as well as technological advances like the invention of daylight-loading 35-millimeter film cartridges, placed cameras within the reach of a wide variety of consumers who turned to the medium as a hobby and a creative art. In 1919, members of the Peking University community including Chen Wanli 䱇㨀 䞠 (1892–1969) organized a photography exhibition on campus, and four years later they established a photography society, later called Guangshe, that organized a conference on the medium. In the late 1920s, Chen moved to Shanghai. Together with Lang Jingshan 䚢䴰ቅ (1892–1995), a photojournalist and advertising professional for Shanghai newspapers, he organized the China Photographic Study Society (Zhonghua sheying xueshe), one of a crop of pioneering photographic societies that soon included the Black-and-White Photo Society (Heibai sheying she). Their goal was to elevate “photographic art” (sheying yishu ᫱ᕅ㮱㸧), in keeping with the goal at that time among Chinese artists and educators such as Cai Yuanpei 㫵‫ܗ‬෍ (1868–1940) to encourage “aesthetic education” as a way to increase social harmony and cultural development.21 20 Xu Xiaobing ᕤ㙪‫ބ‬, “Ninggu shunjian, chengjiu yongheng ‫ޱ‬೎ⶀ䭧, ៤ህ∌ᘚ” [Frozen in a moment, achievement is eternal], in Zhongguo zhandi sheyingshi fangtan, 1937–1949, 5–7. 21 Cai Jifu 㫵㑐⽣ et al., Shanghai sheying shi Ϟ⍋᫱ᕅ৆ [History of photography in Shanghai] (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1992), 20–22; Xiaobing Tang, Origins of the Chinese Avant-Garde: The Chinese Woodcut Movement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 13–15.

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Chinese art photographers, like their European counterparts, believed their images should emulate the compositional arrangements, subjects, and textural effects of paintings.22 The paradigmatic example of this approach is found in the work of Lang Jingshan, whose photomontages or “composite images,” created from overlapping negatives of mountains, forests, and clouds, were intended to improve upon nature by presenting idealized examples of each element in perfect focal clarity. Perhaps encouraged by Cai’s comparison of photography and painting, furthermore, Lang’s compositional arrangements and calligraphic inscriptions imitated literati landscape painting.23 Lang’s photographs were praised by the painter Zhang Daqian ᔉ໻ग (1899–1983) for preserving the six elements of literati ink painting, including vitality, technique, and accurate depiction of objects, as well as for conveying a uniquely Chinese aesthetic spirit.24 Following Lang’s example, other art photographers of the period argued that photographers should downplay the unaffected mimesis of their craft. In 1927, the Guangshe photographer Liu Bannong ࡝ञ䖆 (1891–1934) published a book-length essay defending photography’s status as an art form, praising the medium for its simultaneous capacity to represent reality and its filtered, intentioned, and romantic qualities. He recommended that his peers observe proper lighting techniques and play to the medium’s strengths (for example, by focusing on simpler compositions) in order to create aesthetically beautiful photographs that conveyed a sense of national distinctiveness.25 In illustrating his arguments, Liu included dreamy rural images, printed in soft green ink on a pink background, by a photographer named A. Thibault. A distinctly pastoral atmosphere is the keynote of Thibault’s oeuvre, which includes images of broad expanses of field and forest, peopled by quaint farmers; junks sailing under a setting sun; and ducks swimming across a tranquil pond. These subjects, as well as kittens and studies of female figures in scenic landscapes, are common to photographs featured in pictorial art 22 Kin-keung Edwin Lai, “Life and Art Photography of Lang Jingshan (1892–1995)” (Ph.D. diss., Hong Kong University, 2000), 28. 23 Jingshan Lang, Composite Pictures and Chinese Art (Taiwan: Free China Press, 1951), 1–2; Lai, “Life and Art Photography of Lang Jingshan,” 27–28. 24 Zhang Daqian ᔉ໻ग, “Jingshan jijin Zhang xu 䴰ቅ䲚䣺ᔉᑣ” [Zhang’s preface to Jingshan’s collection of best works], in Zhongguo jindai sheying yishu meixue wenxuan Ё೟䖥 ҷ᫱ᕅ㮱㸧㕢ᅌ᭛䙌 [Selected essays on modern Chinese photographic art and aesthetics], ed. Long Xizu 啡᝭⼪ (Tianjin: Renmin meishu chubanshe, 1988), 559. 25 Liu Bannong ࡝ञ䖆, Bannong tanying ञ䖆䂛ᕅ [Bannong speaks of photography] (Shanghai: Kaiming shudian, 1927), 181–185; Lai, “Life and Art Photography of Lang Jingshan,” 39–40.

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magazines of the period. Like Lang, art photographers sometimes added seals or other devices in order to evoke the Chinese pictorial tradition. Even as Lang’s composite photographs received praise in China and elsewhere, many photographers began to reject a deliberately painterly or romantic style in favor of modernism and abstraction. Eschewing dreamy, soft-focus landscapes, their tightly framed and geometric compositions used stark lighting effects, even in renderings of the nude. The seemingly spontaneous images of Cartier-Bresson and Lewis W. Hine (1874–1940) were populated by strongly back- or side-lit figures and composed according to careful geometric arrangements. This new style of modernist photography was beginning to be popular in China at the time, as shown by Wu Yinxian’s striking self-portrait Xiongfeng 䲘乼 (Awe-inspiring; 1930s), showing the photographer nude in a dramatic back-lit pose, his legs folded in a triangle, well-muscled arms stretching taut a thin length of cord. An even greater departure from the previous era was the increasing focus on documentation and socially progressive politics. The photographer was “The Author as Producer” in Walter Benjamin’s essay, whose “mission is not to report but to struggle; not to play the spectator but to intervene actively.”26 As Bernice Abbot wrote in 1951, a photograph was “not a painting, a poem, a symphony, or a dance,” but instead “should be a significant document, a penetrating statement.”27 Hine’s investigative photography was created according to the principle that “the photograph has an added realism of its own; it has an inherent attraction not found in other forms of illustration” and is superior to other forms of pictorial illustration in illuminating social problems.28 American photographers such as Hine and Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) traveled the United States documenting the hardscrabble lives of child miners, destitute rural wives, and black sharecroppers. Soviet photographers of the era such as Ivan Shagin (1904–1982) focused on ethnic minorities and athletes parading in Red Square. By trying to “display new socialist facts, plots, and objects,” photographers identified strongly with the goals of Soviet journalism.29 In China, the call for art to assume a political purpose also found a responsive audience. The left-wing writer Lu Xun 元䖙 (1881–1936) promoted national unity and an anti-Japanese “war for national revolution,” 26 Walter Benjamin, “The Author as Producer,” in Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings, ed. and intro. Peter Demetz, trans. Edmund Jephcott (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978; reprint, Schocken, 1986), 223. 27 Bernice Abbot, “Photography at the Crossroads,” in Classic Essays on Photography, ed. Alan Trachtenberg (New Haven, Conn.: Leete’s Island Books, 1980), 183. 28 Lewis W. Hine, “Social Photography: How the Camera May Help in the Social Uplift,” in Classic Essays on Photography, 111. 29 Margarita Tupitsyn, The Soviet Photograph, 1924–1937 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996), 42.

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Figure 3: Landscape photograph of a fisherman. (From art magazine Yilin xunkan 68, 11 November 1929.)

drawing an explicit connection between artistic style and political purpose and embracing the fact that “all art was propaganda.”30 Chinese photographers increasingly aspired to become active reporters of social and political conditions. The left-wing photographer Mao Songyou ↯ᵒট (1911–2000) argued that photography allowed the artist to insert himself into contemporary life, recording great political events as well as documenting the social conditions of the people.31 To be a photographer became virtually synonymous with being a photojournalist; the fine arts referred to painting and other forms of easel art.32 Wu Yinxian later asserted that his landscapes conformed to strict standards of naturalism, since his only goal was mimetic faithfulness and technical perfection.33 30

Anderson, Limits of Realism, 53, n. 72. Mao Songyou ↯ᵒট, “Xinwen sheying gailun ᮄ㘲᫱ᕅὖ䂪” [Outline of news photography], reprinted in Zhongguo sheying yishu meixue wenxuan, 506–507; Tie Hua 䨉㧃, “Sheying de ticai ᫱ᕅⱘ丠ᴤ” [The subject matter of photography], reprinted in Zhongguo jindai sheying yishu meixue wenxuan, 354–355. 32 Sha Fei, at his first meeting with Cai Shangwei 㫵ᇮ䲘 (b. 1919), gave Cai the option of pursuing fine arts in the base area; Cai chose to become a photojournalist (Cai Shangwei㫵 ᇮ䲘, “Lishi shunjian liu houren ⅋৆ⶀ䭧⬭ᕠҎ” [What a historical moment leaves to those who come after], in Zhongguo zhandi sheyingshi fangtan, 1937–1949, 71–72). 33 Yuan Yiping 㹕↙ᑇ, “Wu Yinxian dashi de sheying zhi lu ਇॄઌ໻᏿ⱘ᫱ᕅП䏃” [The photographic path of master Wu Yinxian], Xin wenhua shiliao 4 (1996): 30–33. 31

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By the wartime period, when photographs of Japanese atrocities, mass movements, and political meetings were not only historical documents but ideological statements, it was even more important that the factual accuracy of base area photographers be above reproach. Sha Fei himself purportedly embraced the idea of strict documentation and refused to stage photographs or engage in other deceptive practices. Nonetheless, he had been known to suggest an artful or politically charged caption that might deliberately alter the viewer’s experience of the image.34 And it was policy for government, party, and military leaders to guide the work of photographers, placing policy above documentary accuracy or aesthetic effect.35 Debates over the relative importance of social engagement, documentary accuracy, and aesthetic pleasure in the visual and literary arts continued throughout the wartime and postwar eras. The ethnographic photographer Zhuang Xueben 㥞ᅌᴀ (1909–1984), whose trips to Tibet and other regions in the late 1930s were featured in Republican-period pictorial magazines, maintained that his goal for his images was to combine both mimetic verisimilitude and aesthetic pleasure.36 Yet in Communist areas, Mao famously set party policy when his 1942 speeches at the Yan’an Conference on Literature and Art established the principle that “literature and art [must] become a component part of the whole revolutionary machinery, so that they can act as a powerful weapon in uniting and educating the people to achieve solidarity in their struggle against the enemy.”37 Then in the late 1950s, a renewed debate over romanticism in photojournalism indicated that the association of photography with fine arts had not entirely disappeared.38 Party leaders could not dictate how the aesthetic value and formal pleasures of photography might be maintained despite the elevation of political concerns.39 In practice, this was left for 34

Ho, Art, Documentary, and Propaganda in Wartime China, 30–31 and 57. Gu Di 主ặ, Zhongguo hongse sheying shilu Ё೟㋙㡆᫱ᕅ৆䣘 [Historical documents of Chinese leftist photography] (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 2009), 1:131–132. 36 Zhu Qi, “Ethnograph, Western China, 1934–1939: Zhuang Xueben,” in Fotofest2008: Photography from China, 1934–2008 (Houston, Tex.: FotoFest, 2008), 42. 37 Mao Zedong, “Talks at the Yan’an Conference on Literature and Art, 1942,” in Mao Zedong and China’s Revolutions: A Brief History with Documents, trans. Timothy Cheek (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002), 114. 38 Guo Moruo 䛁≿㢹, “Guo Moruo tan sheying shifou baohan you langman zhuyi de shoufa 䛁≿㢹䂛᫱ᕅᰃ৺仑৿᳝⌾⓿Џ㕽ⱘ᠟⊩” [Guo Moruo discusses whether or not photography implies romantic techniques], Dazhong sheying 3 (1959): 14. 39 Cheek discusses Deng Tuo’s conflict as a member of the “educated elite” who wanted to “retain their identity as individuals,” even as they were urged to become “‘cogs and screws’ in the revolutionary machine” and “add their individual polish and elegance to a pre-determined message” (Propaganda and Culture in Mao’s China, 69). In the case of photojournalists, a similar tension is depicted in their desire to maintain elements of art photography even as they attempted to produce party-sanctioned propaganda. 35

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individual photographers to discover, as they developed their own styles and pondered the conjoined political effectiveness and aesthetic quality of their images. Sha Fei’s Political Photography As a photographer, Sha Fei came of age at the moment when Chinese photography transitioned from painterly images to an art form dominated by modernist composition and socially engaged content. His earliest surviving photographs date from his honeymoon trip to scenic tourist destinations in Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Suzhou, where he photographed arched bridges, ducks swimming across ponds, cats, and dramatic sunsets. At that time, a Situ Chuan was working at a military radio station in Guangzhou for the Nationalist government.40 (Once he became a professional photographer, he chose the name Sha Fei to evoke the poetic image of a grain of sand whirling through the sky, the kind of “red dust” metaphor popular among politically concerned intellectuals.41) His family was cultured, and several relatives were well-known artists, including the musician Situ Mengyan ৌᕦ໶ች (1888–1953), the filmmaker Situ Huimin ৌᕦ ᜻ᬣ (1910–1987), and the realist painter Situ Qiao ৌᕦ஀ (1902–1958). In 1935, Sha Fei joined the Black-and-White Photo Society, then the largest amateur photography group in China with almost two hundred members, which published two of his photos. As we have seen, when Sha Fei joined the Black-and-White Photo Society, artists in a number of media—literature, music, the visual arts—were expressing their political sympathies through creative works, but for the moment, at least, the most avant-garde visual form appeared to be the woodblock, not photography. The medium was introduced to China by Lu Xun, who organized catalogs and exhibitions of German expressionist wood-block artists such as Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) and encouraged his countrymen to embrace this uniquely “expressive, international, and oppositional artistic medium.”42 Sha Fei’s connection to this movement was through his good friend Li Hua ᴢ‎ (1907–1994), a well-known Guangdong wood-block artist whose Roar, China! (1934)—in which a naked figure, bound with ropes to a stake, struggles to reach a knife and free himself—was inspired by an anti-imperialist Soviet play set in a small town on the Yangzi River.43

40 41 42 43

Wang Yan, Fuqin, 35. Wang Yan, Fuqin, 62. Tang, Origins of the Chinese Avant-Garde, 88–108. Tang, Origins of the Chinese Avant-Garde, 223–226.

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Inspired by Li Hua and other leftist artists, Sha Fei abandoned the vivid cloudscapes, downy kittens, and idyllic river scenes of his honeymoon period. He began to utilize geometric composition and graphic coloration to depict blind beggars, struggling coolies, and impoverished children playing in the streets. These images expressed an intense sympathy while conveying a deep appreciation for the subjects’ individualism and unique spirit. One of Sha Fei’s earliest and most successful documentary images is a portrait of his maternal grandmother dressed in ragged clothes and sewing, titled Frugality (1934–1935). Given the tightly focused framing device that placed the viewer in closer proximity to the woman’s careworn face, Sha Fei’s expression of engagement and sympathy has similar elements to Lange’s visions of Dust Bowl–era migrant farmers. The transition in Sha Fei’s style from romanticism to socially engaged realism coincided with his decision in the fall of 1936 to leave Guangzhou and enroll in the Shanghai Vocational Art Institute, Wu Yinxian’s alma mater. Through his membership in the Black-and-White Photo Society, he became friendly in Shanghai with a distant relative, Situ Bo ৌᕦम, a dentist and amateur photographer, who offered him a place to live and introduced him to famous relations including Situ Qiao, who had recently arranged to paint Lu Xun’s portrait and promised his cousin an introduction to the great man. This happened by chance only a few weeks later, when Lu Xun visited an exhibit of wood-block prints where Sha Fei was working as an assistant. Eagerly snapping images of the famous author, Sha Fei captured the now-iconic picture of a gaunt, smoking Lu Xun sitting encircled by eager young artists. (A wood-block version of this photograph was eventually used as the frontispiece for Lu Xun’s collected works.) Eleven days later, Lu Xun was dead, and Sha Fei was asked to take his deathbed portrait. He captured multiple pictures of Lu Xun’s funeral and memorial services, which were national events befitting the stature of one of China’s most popular and respected (and politically engaged) artists. Sha Fei’s images of Lu Xun were published in well-known pictorial magazines and gave him a national reputation virtually overnight.44 By the summer of 1937, he was able to support himself as a newspaper photographer, providing images to publications in Shanghai, Guangdong, and Guilin. Two solo exhibitions took place within a half-year, one back home in Guangzhou and one in Guilin. In both shows, images of Lu Xun figured prominently.45 In keeping with his new embrace of modernist pho44 Wu Qun ਇ㕸, “Jieshou Lu Xun jiaohui sheyingjia Sha Fei ᥹ফ元䖙ᬭ䁼᫱ᕅᆊ≭亯” [The photographer who learned from Lu Xun, Sha Fei] Xinwen chuban jiaoliu 3 (1996): 43; Wang Yan, Fuqin, 50–59. 45 Wang Yan ⥟䲕, “Sheying jia Sha Fei yu Lu Xun ᫱ᕅᆊ≭亯Ϣ剕䖙” [The photographer Sha Fei and Lu Xun] Wenshi tiandi 1, no. 188 (2006): 32.

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tography, Sha Fei’s post–Lu Xun works are shot at complex angles and show strong chiaroscuro effects and geometric composition. Sha Fei’s new prominence as a modernist photographer coincided with the publication of some of his earliest writings, although perhaps because of his friendship with Li Hua and his association with Lu Xun, many of these pieces were illustrated by wood-block prints, not his own photographs. Sha Fei strongly linked his artistic production to political involvement. “I think photography is a powerful weapon to reveal reality,” he wrote in the introduction to his December 1936 Guangzhou show. Photography is one of the plastic arts, but most people still think of it as a trifle for remembrance, recreation, or news. This fundamentally ignores the meaning of art and dumps photography into an abyss of boring, dilettantish aestheticism, degenerating into an escape from reality, an aimless and dispirited pursuit. . . . In this world, the majority of people actually permit imperialists to massacre, trample, and enslave others! In this irrational society, this is the biggest shame of humanity. It is the responsibility of art to help humanity understand itself, improve society, revive freedom. In that way, workers who create art, especially photographers, should not imprison themselves in a glass house, drunk with power, but should immerse themselves in all levels and perspectives of society, searching for real material.46

Sha Fei’s use of the term “art workers” and his association of making images with making patriotic war anticipated themes that became particularly significant to the Communist cultural world. Within the decade, trainees at the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial learned this song: We are revolutionary photography workers, Carrying our weapons, Going among the masses, Galloping straight into the fight. Taking the wrathful fire of the people’s hearts, And the triumphs of the younger generation, Into our camera lens; Taking the atrocities and shamelessness of the enemy, And printing it into millions of photographs, to reveal to the nation. We are revolutionary photographers, Soldiers of the Communist Party, Studying Marxist-Leninism, Intensifying self-cultivation, Not afraid of spilling blood or being wounded, 46 Sha Fei ≭亯, “Xie zai zhan chu zhi qian ᆿ೼ሩߎПࠡ” [Written before the exhibit], 1936, in Wang Yan, Fuqin, 67.

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Day and night active on the front lines, Taking photos, Using powerful and truly active images, Attracting the people to the revolutionary road.47

The revolutionary fervor of these young photographers is reminiscent of stories regarding the photojournalist Xiaofang, who was supposed to have commented to a fellow reporter that the artillery fire they could hear “is the sound of the struggle of the Chinese race for liberation!”48 Indeed, the rhetoric of the political usefulness of the arts in making war and revolution was familiar to many artists of the period, even among those who had not yet formally embraced a political cause. Artists who specialized in cartoons, drama, wood-block prints, and many other genres wanted to demonstrate political awareness and social engagement.49 As befitting a young man who wanted to embrace revolutionary struggle, Sha Fei took photographs that became characterized by their vivid depiction of dramatic action. Whether capturing the swiftness of a young girl competing in a track race or following soldiers storming up a hill, they convey a rush of movement. More than many of his contemporaries, Sha Fei took to heart the dictum to convey political and social action as it happened. Indeed, for Sha Fei and many leftist colleagues, it was precisely photography’s quality of engagement that made it a creative endeavor, in the sense that it made a discursive statement about social and political conditions. “Photography is a creative art,” he wrote in a 1937 essay in the Guangxi Daily: But, it does not resemble other creative arts that can be created independently, since it has to be something that reflects reality. Because of this, sometimes it is denied that it is an art. However, in actuality it is [an art form] because it reflects reality and the present. Indeed, in the process of reflecting reality, it needs the artistic treatment of the creator’s profound accomplishment, for only in that way can it incite people’s emotions. Thus, in the end, photography can be recognized as a creative art.50

The goal of leftist photographers was not mimesis, but to stir an audience through their representations of social and political problems. This approach answered those critics who belittled photography as a mere 47

Jiang Qisheng et al., Zhongguo sheying shi, 78–79. Lu Yi 䱌䀦, “Yinian Xiaofang ដᗉᇣᮍ” [In remembrance of Xiaofang], in Xunzhao Fang Dazeng, yi ge shizong de sheyingshi, 57. 49 Hung’s work War and Popular Culture discusses the importance of visual and performing arts to the wartime propaganda, particularly cartoons and drama. 50 Sha Fei ≭亯, “Sheying yu jiuwang ᫱ᕅ㟛ᬥѵ” [Photography and salvation], Guangxi ribao ᒷ㽓᮹ฅ, 15 August 1938, in Wang Yan, Fuqin, 86. 48

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Figure 4: A young student wins her race in Jin-Cha-Ji, 1941. Courtesy of Wang Yan. (Sha Fei and Wang Yan, Sha Fei sheying quanji, 195.)

mimetic technology, as well as those who believed that art photography could never be socially responsible. Even more, the claim that photography was uniquely documentary elevated the medium above other socially responsive forms of visual culture, like woodblocks. Zheng Jingkang 䜁᱃ ᒋ (1904–1978; one of Mao’s photographers in Yan’an and son of a famous late-Qing reformer and champion of science) claimed that photography left a more profound impression than film, painting, and other visual arts.51 Before leftist photographers joined the Communists and helped make propaganda, they had developed a discourse of their craft that emphasized its seemingly unique capacity for social engagement and evocative content. Sha Fei and Photography in the Jin-Cha-Ji Base Area The winter and spring of 1936–1937 was an ominous period for China. Although the recent truce between the government and CCP forces was an encouraging sign of unity, few doubted there would be war with Japan in the near future. Sha Fei’s writings during this period showed his personal engagement, as an artist and a photographer, with unfolding national events. A few weeks after the Guangzhou exhibit ended, the Guilin Daily published his poem “I Have Two Fists to Resist”: I have two fists to resist, Unafraid of your sharp weapons, fierce and unbridled, I will not submit or retreat, Even though my head has already been wounded by you. 51

Jiang Qisheng et al., Zhongguo sheying shi, 87.

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Even though my head has already been wounded by you, Still I will not be like those shameless ones, like livestock moaning under the slaughter blade, To fight for survival, my last drops of righteous indignation will pour forth, I will struggle to the last, vowing I would rather die on the battlefield than compromise. I will struggle to the last, vowing I would rather die on the battlefield than compromise, I have no weapons, I have only two fists and a confident heart, But a confident heart can smash your strength, I have not yet had the chance to die on the battlefield, but I want to die on a battlefield.52

Sha Fei seems to have felt little hesitation in committing himself to political work. In August 1937, he declared that it was his role as a photographer to work with the Nationalist government to “awaken the people.”53 However, he soon switched sides. Although he did not join the party formally until 1942 (the same year as Wu Yinxian), by September 1937 he was living in Taiyuan with staff of the Eighth Route Army. Nie Rongzhen gave him a position as the assistant director of the political department’s editorial unit, which published the base area’s newspaper Resist the Enemy (Kangdi bao ᡫᬠ᡹), and after a year Sha Fei assumed primary responsibility for the publication.54 As Sha Fei would soon discover, photographers in north China, even if they had formal art education like Wu Yinxian, considered themselves photojournalists rather than artists. Without help from the Lu Xun Art Institute (whose students learned to sing “we are art workers, we are soldiers against the Japanese, we use art as a weapon to destroy Japanese imperialism, ceaselessly struggling for freedom and liberation”), the Yan’an Film Group founded a photojournalism branch in 1942 and began to hold photographic exhibits.55 By 1945 group members were teaching photography and publishing photojournalism handbooks. The Yan’an Film Group maintained cordial relations with Jin-Cha-Ji photographers, particularly after Wu Yinxian traveled to Hebei in 1939 to film the Eighth Route Army documentary. There he met Sha Fei, who had already begun a photographic training program and who encouraged Wu Yinxian to write 52 Sha Fei ≭亯, “Wo you er zhi quantou jiu yao dikang ៥᳝Ѡাᣇ丁ህ㽕ᢉᡫ” [I have two fists to resist], Guanxi ribao ᒷ㽓᮹ฅ, 18 January 1937, in Wang Yan, Fuqin, 73. 53 Wang Yan, Fuqin, 87. 54 Wang Yan, Fuqin, 111–112. 55 Gu Yuan স‫ܗ‬, “Women shi yishu gongzuozhe, women shi kangri zhanshi ៥‫ץ‬ᰃ㮱 㸧Ꮉ԰㗙, ៥‫ץ‬ᰃᡫ᮹᠄຿” [We are art workers, we are soldiers against the Japanese], reprinted in Meishu 9 (1995): 10–11.

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Figure 5: Sha Fei (second from left) shows Joseph Baglio the production of the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial, 1946. Courtesy of Wang Yan. (Sha Fei and Wang Yan, Sha Fei sheying quanji, 486.)

a textbook; Sha Fei and Deng Tuo both wrote introductions for it.56 Similar efforts by Sha Fei’s protégé Luo Guangda 㕙‫ܝ‬䘨 (1919–1997) were also intended to attract young recruits to the craft of photography.57 Earlier in 1939, Sha Fei and Luo Guangda organized an exhibition of their photographs of the front. Nie, thrilled with their efforts, sent copies of the images to Yan’an and Chongqing and began to consider the advantages of a pictorial magazine. In February 1940, Sha Fei became the first director of the 115th Division’s newly created Photojournalism Department, which began planning the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial. Finding skilled workers was not easy, but eventually up to seventy photographers, editors, and printing staff worked on the pictorial; some, like Gu Di 主ặ (b. 1929), were still in their early teens. Proximity to Japanese-occupied cities ensured some advantages; Luo disguised himself as a merchant to buy printing and photography supplies in Beijing and Tianjin.58 Whereas Sha Fei’s work was created with his prized Retina, junior photographers were given less convenient 120-format cameras whose paper-backed film had to be rolled by hand onto spools before use.59 Photographers on the front lines remembered developing film at night in peasant houses, feeling their way in the dark and using only whatever chemicals they could carry personally.60 When an American airman, Joseph Baglio, was shot down over Taiyuan in 1944, he was shown the primitive photographic equipment and printing presses at their disposal and declared their work under such conditions “unbelievable.”61 56

Jiang Qisheng et al., Zhongguo sheying shi, 74–75. Gu Di, Zhongguo hongshe sheying lu, 130–131. 58 Pei Zhi, “Sheying shi shidai he renmin de yanjing,” 41. 59 Cai Shangwei, “Lishi shunjian liu houren,” 72; Ji Lianbo, “Zuowei sheying jizhe wo shi xinyun de ԰⚎᫱ᕅ㿬㗙៥ᰃ䕯䘟ⱘ” [I was lucky to become a photojournalist], in Zhongguo zhandi sheyingshi fangtan, 1937–1949, 97. 60 Cai Shangwei, “Lishi shunjian liu houren,” 75–76; Hao Shibao, “Nali you zhantou,” 115. 61 Jin-Cha-Ji huabao 6, 30 August 1944, 32; Jiang Qisheng et al., Zhongguo sheying shi, 40–41; and Wang Yan, Fuqin, 146–147. 57

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Jin-Cha-Ji photographers recollected a great deal of self-sufficiency and personal danger. They were sent alone to the front to track enemy movements and take photographs of local conditions.62 In contrast, journalists in government-controlled areas complained about overly strict control. Forced to shadow army convoys, they had little say in their movements. Moreover, the government was so anxious to prevent material sympathetic to the CCP from being published that it was virtually impossible to report on social conditions along the front.63 Jin-Cha-Ji photographers would appear to have precisely the opposite problem; their principal concern was personal safety. But they were also subject to government scrutiny. As army personnel they were obliged to guard military secrets, not take personal photos, and follow other military regulations.64 They also obeyed orders from military and political cadres that superseded their aesthetic preferences and personal sympathies.65 Given these difficult production conditions, it took almost two years to pull together the first edition, a 94-page special volume with over 160 photos, which commemorated the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the war on 7 July 1937. The dedication by Nie inquired rhetorically, in robust running-script calligraphy, “In five years of war, what have the people of Jin-Cha-Ji been doing? The facts of their lives are visible within this small pictorial. It tells our compatriots how they are resolutely and heroically defending our homeland from behind enemy areas; at the same time, it tells the righteous people of the entire world how in the North, through hardship and tragedy, they are resisting the Japanese plunderers!”66 As befitting Nie’s personal support for Mao’s rural line, the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial and Sha Fei’s photographic work frequently depicted daily life among local peasants, party efforts to provide education and support, and peasants’ participation in mass meetings. In addition, the pictorial focused on asserting martial bravery in battle with the Japanese and invoking cosmopolitan unity through photo essays on Bethune and other sympathetic international visitors. These images were intended to produce specific

62 Yang Zhenya ἞ᤃѲ, “Zhongyao shike dou zai nali 䞡㽕ᰖࠏ䛑೼ા㺵” [The important moments were all there], in Zhongguo zhandi sheyingshi fangtan, 1937–1949, 136–137. 63 Liu Zunqi ࡝ᇞẟ, “Wo sui jun caifang he baodao de jingyan ៥䱼䒡᥵㿾੠ฅ䘧ⱘ㍧倫” [My experiences covering and reporting on the army], Zhanshi xinwen gongzuo rumen ᠄ᰖ ᮄ㘲Ꮉ԰ܹ䭔 [Introduction to wartime journalism work] (Chongqing: Shenghuo shudian, 1939), 32–43; Meng Qiujiang ᄳ⾟∳, “Zenyang zuo zhandi xinwen jizhe ᗢῷ԰᠄ഄᮄ㘲㿬 㗙” [How to be a battlefront reporter], in Zhanshi xinwen gongzuo rumen, 28–31. 64 Jiang Qisheng et al., Zhongguo sheying shi, 81. 65 Gu Di, Zhongguo hongse sheying shilu, 131. 66 Pei Zhi, “Sheying shi shidai he renmin de yanjing,” 42.

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political gains, supporting rural line policies as well as indicating the success of Communist efforts in the war against Japan. The Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial Style The only photographs in the pictorial that were produced without ideological guidance from the CCP leadership were occasional civilian photos, which were surprisingly common in both Communist and Republican wartime publications. They were required simply to fill pages, despite the new photography corps trained by Sha Fei and sent to frontline regiments by Nie. From the first issue, the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial was packed with around one hundred photographs, generally stretching to the extreme borders of the page. This is in contrast to many Chinese pictorials of the 1910s and 1930s, which used elaborate borders to frame art photographs as though they were paintings. And while other magazines included lengthy essays or other text, the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial told the story almost completely with visual images, often using filmic elements such as drawn-in filmstrip edging.67 Blurry battlefield scenes gave an impression of hurried production and encroaching danger. In Japanese wartime pictorials (whose stylistic elements may have influenced Chinese counterparts, especially given Jin-Cha-Ji’s proximity to Japanese-occupied areas), the “‘look’ of the war was characterized by minimalism and austerity and expressed graphically through realistic, mimetic art. Wartime chic emphasized the raw, rustic, unadorned, the native, and the powerful.”68 The Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial had a similar sense of rustic and unadorned images, although its overall aesthetic tended toward a softer presentation. The photographs were shot in black and white, but the covers were often hand painted, and the interior of the magazine shows a variety of ink colors, so that even a monochrome image might be printed in green, red, purple, or blue. Sometimes black-and-white photos were printed on colored paper; sometimes colored borders, lines, or other decoration were added, lending a Soviet photomontage quality. Another distinctive feature of the journal was its emphasis on people doing concrete, productive things—plowing fields, aiming guns, climbing walls, and the like. The repetitive compositional style resulted from using proscribed arrangements, including horizontal, vanishing-point, and parallel formats, which were diagrammed for Jin-Cha-Ji photographic 67 In “Picturing Victory: The Visual Imaginary of the War of Resistance, 1937–1947,” European Journal of East Asian Studies 7, no. 2 (2008): 167–192, Rana Mitter has argued that these filmic elements, particularly as found in wartime pictorials, conveyed a sense of an optimistic, “positive teleology” to countermand pessimism over the war’s outcome. 68 Earhart, Certain Victory, 9.

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Figure 6: An art editor for the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial reading an issue in a hospital bed, 1946. Courtesy of Wang Yan. (Sha Fei and Wang Yan, Sha Fei sheying quanji, 434.)

trainees.69 Yet despite the careful placement of figures in these photos, another keynote is action. If subjects are seated, they are speaking at a meeting, eating a meal, reading a magazine, or smiling for a close-up. Their idiosyncratic features, like the disheveled hair of a young invalid reading a copy of the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial in a hospital bed, invite us to project upon them a colorful personality. Leftist photographers prized agency and individualism as the root of their images’ affective power. “Everyone has their ‘personality,’” wrote Zheng Jingkang, “which is appearance of their individual character.  .  .  . Different personalities express themselves in normal speech and action, and these typical movements cannot be feigned.” The best portraits, Zheng wrote, express spontaneous emotion, as we can see from his depiction of a smiling Mao in Yan’an.70 Wu Yinxian’s photographs of Mao giving a speech in 1943, showing the leader’s dynamic hand gestures and vivid facial expressions, are another example of the emphasis on movement.71 As in Robert Capa’s famous Spanish Loyalist at the Instant of Death (1936), dynamism created a sense of emotional poignancy and vicarious experience. A final characteristic of the Pictorial style is that its images tightly control the viewer’s gaze. Narrative objects are centered and dominate the visual 69 70 71

Gu Di, Zhongguo hongse sheying shilu, 133. Jiang Qisheng et al., Zhongguo sheying shi, 94. Gu Di, Zhongguo hongse sheying shilu, 251.

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frame. Tight cropping prevents us from focusing on the periphery of the visual field. The viewer’s eye is level with the photo’s subjects: we stand among them and see what they see. This experiential quality is especially true for issues that focus on Japanese atrocities, like the Jin-Cha-Ji de kongsu ᰝᆳ‫᥻ⱘݔ‬䀈 (Accusations in Jin-Cha-Ji; 1946), a gallery of close-up shots of decapitated corpses, burned villages, and desperate refugees.72 We are not allowed to see anything within the frame other than the one corpse, the one huddled child; images are accompanied by pointed captions such as “look carefully” (zixi kankan Ҩ㌄ⳟⳟ), demanding that we surrender to the horror.73 Unusually, there are no photo credits in this magazine, even to Sha Fei; the photographers are everyman—they are us. These images collapse time and space according to Barthes’ famous statement that “photography presents a new space-time category: spatial immediacy and temporal anteriority, the photograph being an illogical conjunction between the here-now and the there-then.”74 As viewers experience the sensation of personally authenticating the facts of wartime atrocities, they become partners to parallel truth claims regarding military and political events. We photo-bystanders, so to speak, who find our sympathies aroused by these images may be more likely to believe the rhetoric of patriotic Communist valor in other respects. Hence, the style of the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial included several significant characteristics: its filmic, narrative elements; its candid and spontaneous quality; and its insistence on controlling the viewer’s eye and placing the viewer at the scene. In combination, this produced a distinct documentary style. Copycat publications proliferated, even in government areas. The Wartime Pictorial copied the Pictorial’s photo-laden format, although it lacked that magazine’s filmic and narrative effects. The Civil War–era New China Pictorial (Xin Zhongguo huabao ᮄЁ೟⬿ฅ) imitated the Jin-ChaJi Pictorial not so much in format—larger and more lavishly printed, it was another Life clone—but in its content, which offered the Republican government’s version of social and economic revolution, showing happy workers in clean, automated factories and comely peasant women driving shiny tractors. 72 The framing and position of these photographs is distinctly different from British postcards of Boxer atrocities and British reprisals, for example, in which prisoners’ faces and details of executions are obscured. For a discussion of British photographs around the time of the Boxer Rebellion, see James Hevia, “The Photography Complex: Exposing Boxer-Era China (1900–1901), Making Civilization,” in Morris, Photographies East, esp. 98–99 and 105. 73 Jin-Cha-Ji junchu zhengzhi bu ᰝᆳ‫ݔ‬䒡औᬓ⊏䚼, Jin-Cha-Ji de kongsu ᰝᆳ‫᥻ⱘݔ‬䀈 [Accusations in Jin-Cha-Ji] (1946; reprint, Kalgan: Jin-Cha-Ji junchu zhengzhi bu, 1949), 9. 74 Roland Barthes, “Rhetoric of the Image,” in Image-Music-Text, ed. Stephen Heath (Glasgow: Fontana, 1977), 44.

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The innovations of the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial did harden and appear predictable over time. Shots of brave soldiers, Japanese atrocities, prominent Yan’an leaders, captured military hardware, and land reform became clichés in both form and content. The Pictorial’s images became so repetitive that its staff debated the problem of “stereotypical photos.” Perhaps naively, some of Sha Fei’s assistants argued that the root cause of the problem was complacency and lack of attention to changing conditions; the cure would be an even more documentary approach.75 Change came within the decade, although not in the direction that Sha Fei’s staff imagined. Proponents of officially sanctioned Socialist Realism abandoned grizzled and idiosyncratic characters, made stark by black and white imagery, in favor of heroic archetypes that were depicted using “red, bright, and warm” colors and composed to create “tall, big, and whole” forms.76 Dramatic lighting effects, geometric modernist composition, and snapshot intimacy made way for sterilized crowd scenes of optimistic, joyous, and anonymous masses. The Demise of the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial and the Afterlife of Documentary Photography The Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial was widely praised and emulated for its stylistic innovations. Sold in Yan’an through the Xinhua bookstore, as well as in Chongqing, its press runs of a thousand copies (roughly the print run of each issue of the Jin-Cha-Ji Daily newspaper) quickly sold out and were sometimes reprinted.77 Particularly in its earliest issues, it included English-language articles, captions, and letters from foreign sympathizers such as Michael Lindsay (1909–1994), an American teaching in Beijing who toured Jin-Cha-Ji in 1938 and 1939 and left a photographic record with his Zeiss Ikon.78 Later issues contain scant English, however, and were probably intended for an almost entirely domestic audience.79 Production conditions remained difficult. Because of the challenges of securing materials and the frequent need to move production facilities, printing remained irregular, and only ten issues were published by December of 1945. By 1948 the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial had merged with Renmin huabao Ҏ⇥⬿ฅ (People’s pictorial) and ceased separate publication. Sha Fei’s own last photographs were produced in 1946. Despite the success of 75

Jiang Qisheng et al., Zhongguo sheying shi, 97. Mingxian Wang and Meng Cai, “Red Memory,” in Fotofest 2008, 65. 77 Cheek, Propaganda and Culture in Mao’s China, 75; Jiang Qisheng et al., Zhongguo sheying shi, 29, 31–34, 36, 39–41. 78 Cheek, Propaganda and Mao’s China, 88; Michael Lindsay, The Unknown War: North China, 1937–1945 (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 2003), 32–34, 64. 79 Cheek, Propaganda and Mao’s China, 88. 76

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his editorial work, he appears to have been under increasing emotional distress. In May 1948, he entered Bethune Hospital in Shijiazhuang to be treated for tuberculosis. On 15 December 1949, he shot and killed a Japanese doctor at the hospital, a crime for which he received the death penalty (the order was signed by Nie), and he was executed the following year.80 Meanwhile, his colleagues prospered; Yan’an masters such as Wu Yinxian remained prominent in the photographic community. The next few decades saw numerous pictorial magazines in the People’s Republic, from English-language glossies such as China Reconstructs to folios of Mao portraits. Color pictures from the 1950s increasingly betray the plastic sheen of a touch-up brush, whether these photographs were improved by adding suitable background material such as propaganda posters and Mao portraits or Mao’s political foes were cropped out (exclusion of enemies in images was common practice in the Soviet Union).81 The romantic documentary style of the wartime era did survive in photographs including Great Leap Forward (1959) by Ru Suichu 㤍䘖߱ (b. 1932), which shows back-lit peasants toiling to terrace a fog-laced mountainside; Sha Fei’s mastery of dramatic movement is echoed in the leaping Red Detachment of Women dancers captured by Chen Juanmei 䱇 ࿳㕢 (b. 1929). Yet even these images reflect the “new heroic spirit” that submerged individual accomplishment to communal success.82 Sha Fei’s intimate portraits of heroes and the downtrodden were out of fashion, and their sense of spontaneous movement and participatory enthusiasm ceased to be the dominant style. Photographers were still workers, but workers in a state order within which drama and action were no longer considered to represent the real. The combination of dramatic movement and precise detail in Sha Fei’s best photographs contribute to their sense of verisimilitude. Recent critiques, however, suggest that some of his well-known images may have 80 In the 1990s, Sha Fei’s family was able to get the original sentence revised to manslaughter by reason of mental instability. 81 In “On Photographs,” The China Quarterly 46 (April–June 1971): 289–307, Roderick MacFarquhar examined cropped and doctored official photographs to find information as to whether high officials had been purged by the party. In 2006, the artist Zhang Dali ᔉ ໻࡯ (b.  1963) created an installation of doctored post-Liberation photographs that were “improved” by adding background propaganda items such as Mao portraits. David King discusses the Soviet practice of altering official photographs in The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin’s Russia (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1997). 82 Wu Qun ਇ㕸, “Huabei jiefangjun de xinwen sheying gongzuozhe 㧃࣫㾷ᬒ䒡ⱘᮄ㘲᫱ ᕅᎹ԰㗙” [Photojournalists with the North China Liberation Army], in Zhongguo jindai sheying yishu meixue wenxuan Ё೟䖥ҷ᫱ᕅ㮱㸧㕢ᅌ᭛䙌 [Selected essays on modern Chinese photographic art and aesthetics], ed. Long Xizu 啡᝭⼪ (Tianjin: Renmin meishu chubanshe, 1988), 600–601.

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been staged. The Wenzhou photojournalist Zhang Xiang’ou ゴ㖨厫 has discussed several of Sha Fei’s most famous photographs, particularly battlefield images such as Close Combat (1938), a narrative sequences of several consecutive frames that purports to show a gunfight. Zhang suspects these photos might show a training activity or scenes from a movie set. Although wartime photographers related in vivid detail their experiences shooting photos along the front lines, Sha Fei may have been too valuable to be exposed to personal danger as frequently as his junior colleagues.83 Another of Sha Fei’s photos attributed to a front-line event, The Eighth Route Army Fighting on the Ancient Great Wall (1938), was scrutinized for evidence of staging after a Great Wall enthusiast announced that no major battles had taken place at the photo’s location.84 Of course, Sha Fei’s images were likely captioned and utilized freely by party propagandists as suited their purposes, and Sha Fei might not have been personally responsible for any errors. In any case, questions regarding the documentary veracity of Sha Fei’s work reveal the ongoing significance of his images, which continue to represent a leftist ideal: photography’s mimetic accuracy provides evidence of the political bona fides of the state and its military successes. Rather than being naive, such credulousness represents political critique and rebuke, as seen in more recent outcry regarding doctored images. In 2006, for example, a photograph that purports to show a herd of Tibetan antelope running happily under the Qinghai-Tibet Railway won a photojournalism prize from China Central Television. But soon thereafter, the image was disclosed as a digitally produced composite, the result of superimposing a herd of antelope over a photograph of the new railroad—whose negative environmental impact incurred considerable international criticism.85 As the resulting furor indicates, not only do Chinese photojournalists continue to regard the legacy of wartime photography with pride, but the goal of accuracy in news photography remains an important touchstone for public critique. This is perhaps an unlikely consequence of Sha Fei’s success as a propagandist, but one that he himself would have recognized as a key benchmark of success for a documentary photographer.

83 Xu Xiaobing, “Ninggu shunjian,” 7–10; Zhang Xiang’ou ゴ㖨厫, “Sha Fei de zhaopian zuo jia le ma ≭亯ⱘ✻⠛԰‫؛‬њ஢?,” available at http://zhangxiangou.blshe.com/post/28/ 166461 (accessed 9 March 2011). 84 Ho, Art, Documentary, and Propaganda in Wartime China, 57. 85 “Editor Quits, Paper Apologizes over Doctored Photo,” China Daily-Xinhua, updated 19 February 2008, available at http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-02/19/content _6464965.htm (accessed 9 March 2011).

FOUR

China, a Man in the Guise of an Upright Female: Photography, the Art of the Hands, and Mei Lanfang’s 1930 Visit to the United States

CATHERINE YEH

When Mei Lanfang, the male Peking opera dan actor playing female roles, performed in the United States in 1930, all accounts claim that he was eventually able to bridge the cultural divide and performed to great acclaim before American audiences. Whereas his success hinged on a variety of factors, the most important one was his ability to communicate without a common language with his American audiences through an art form with which they were utterly unfamiliar. American viewers loved the art of the hands. They included theater critics, dramatists, actors, and members of high society, as well as ordinary theatergoers.1 Mei’s success was anything but to be expected. English-language tour guides and popular books on China described Peking opera as being performed in a “naïve style” and only worth a visit because of the “magnificent silk costumes of the actors.”2 With the infighting among warlords and the North-South divide in the 1910s and 1920s amply reported, the general stature of China in most Western minds as a place of cultural sophistication, moral rectitude, and civility was at its lowest.3 And now a man playing women was about to turn the tide. The pressures on his tour were immense. 1 For studies on Mei Lanfang’s U.S. visit, see Mark Cosdon, “Introducing Occidentals to an Exotic Art: Mei Lanfang in New York,” Asian Theater Journal 12, no. 1 (1995): 175–189; Joshua Goldstein, “Mei Lanfang and the Nationalization of Peking Opera, 1912–1930,” Positions 7, no. 2 (1999): 377–420. 2 Charles Evart Darwent, Shanghai: A Handbook for Travellers and Residents to the Chief Objects of Interest in and around the Foreign Settlements and Native City (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1904), 20. 3 Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: Norton, 2001), 140–145.

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In a newspaper interview before arriving in the United States, Mei proclaimed his uneasiness with the expectation that his visit there was to represent the best of Chinese art and culture. “In reality,” Mei said, “[since] I only act and sing in the role of the dan, and there will be so few other actors accompanying me, how could [I] assume such a grave responsibility?”4 This modest disclaimer concerning the powers of the dan notwithstanding, the visit was envisioned, prepared, and perceived as being exactly for this purpose.5 Mei and his advisers had spent more than six years preparing the six-week U.S. tour, helped in a semiprivate capacity by both Chinese and U.S. officials. Much of the preparation was focused on finding ways to make Peking opera accessible to American audiences so as to enhance the image of China and Chinese culture. With the unofficial title bestowed on Mei in the United States as China’s “cultural ambassador,”6 his reception ended up resembling more a state visit than a tour of “exotic” Chinese performances. The key to this success was the appreciation by American audiences of his performance.7 How did this success come about in an environment with no previous exposure to this art form? Although we have no record of the discussions during the preparatory phase, memoirs of major players such as Qi Rushan 唞བቅ (1877–1962), Mei’s long-time adviser and collaborator, show the considerations that went into questions of play selection, style of performance, stage props, stage decorations, costumes, and the like;8 the scholar and cultural critic Hu Shi (1891–1962), who received his doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University, mentions in his memoir that Mei invited him and a few other friends several times for private performances to help decide which operas were best suited for an American audience.9 From these accounts 4 “Mei Lanfang kankan er tan ṙ㰁㢇՗՗㗠䂛” [Mei Lanfang speaks with fervor and assurance], Lubinhan [The Robin Hood], 11 January 1930, p. 2. 5 Although the tour technically was a private visit, both the Chinese and U.S. foreign offices were very much involved in it; see Qi Rushan 唞བቅ, Qi Rushan huiyi lu 唞བቅಲដ 䣘 [Memoirs of Qi Rushan] (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1991), 129–148. 6 This reference appears quite often in journal reviews and newspaper articles, for example, Stork Young, “Mei Lanfang’s New Program,” The New Republic 62 (March 1930): 152–153; Stephen Rathbun, “In and Out the Theater,” New York Herald Tribune, 27 January 1930. 7 For Mei’s visit to the United States, various measures were taken to prepare the American audience, including the publication of English-language books with detailed explanations of the art of Peking opera and, in particular, Mei’s art; for example, George Kim Leung, Repertoire for the American Tour of Mei Lan-Fang (Peking: Private printing, 1929); Ernest K. Moy, ed., Mei Lan-fang: Chinese Drama (New York: Private printing, 1929); and The Pacific Coast Tour of Mei Lanfang (San Francisco: Private printing, 1930). 8 Qi Rushan, Qi Rushan huiyilu, 129–143. 9 Hu Songping 㚵䷠ᑇ, ed., Hu Shizhi xiansheng wannian tanhua lu 㚵䘽П‫⫳ܜ‬ᰮᑈ䂛䁅 䣘 [Interviews with Mr. Hu Shizhi (Hu Shi) in his later years] (Beijing: Xinxin chubanshe, 2006), 144.

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and from the measures taken during the tour itself, we have a good idea of the kinds of consideration that were behind the preparations. Audiences would be exposed to acting, singing, and plot. Plots were made accessible through summaries in English, as was done for Western operas sung in Italian, which audiences mostly did not understand. Acting could be most easily appreciated if audiences had a minimum of information about gestures being a fully coded form of representation, which could be conveyed through program notes together with the plot. Peking opera singing and musical accompaniment were most difficult to access without a longer period of familiarization. Technically, both singing and acting could be recorded (phonography, photography, film) and widely distributed, with film being the most difficult and costly method. In China, Mei was present in all three media. For the U.S. visit, the group preparing the tour settled for photography—for shots of stage acting—as the most effective way to prepare American audiences. This resulted in the mass production of hundreds of different photographs of Mei, which then were sent to people with a say in the matter such as theater critics, newspapers, theaters, and potential sponsors.10 The sheer volume of these photographs is a clear indicator of the importance attributed by Mei and his group, at least for his tour, to the visual aspect of acting rather than to the singing, which traditionally had been the mainstay of Peking opera. Once the group had arrived in the United States and had reworked— after a lukewarm initial response—Mei’s program with the help of an American experienced in stage management and a Chinese who had written and staged plays in English on Broadway, it managed to commission the most prominent stage photographer in the United States at the time, Florence Vandamm (1883–1966), to photograph Mei’s stage performance.11 Whereas the photographs sent from China showed frozen poses with little action, Vandamm brought out the art of Mei’s performance by highlighting the grace and beauty in the flow of action. The potential for this type of photography was one of the aspects of the adjusted program for the U.S. tour. Vandamm’s photos helped translate the art of Peking opera in general, and Mei’s stardom in particular, into visually accessible, dynamic, stage images. The Vandamm photographs were bought for reproduction by newspapers and journals. Both in quantity and quality, her images of Mei in stage costume helped the audience to reset expectations and imagine Peking opera in a new way. These photographs, furthermore, “talked back” by 10 In the New York Public Library, I found many photographs of Mei Lanfang, which had been sent from China to private persons in the United States. 11 A Vandamm collection of Mei Lanfang photos is held in the theater collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts under “Vandamm collection: Mei LanFang,” #1584.

Figure 1. Mei Lanfang ṙ㰁㢇as Yang Guifei ἞䊈བྷ in the opera Guifei Intoxicated with Wine (Gui Fei zui jiu 䊈བྷ䝝䜦). Photograph, 1920s. Sent by George Kin Leung in China to the stage designer Donald Oenslager (1902–1975) in the United States. (From the D. Oenslager Collection, New York Public Library. Used with permission from the New York Public Library.)

Figure 2. Mei Lanfang accompanied by Yao Yufu ྮ⥝໿ in the roles of Heavenly Maidens in the opera Heavenly Maiden Scattering the Flowers (Tiannü sanhua ໽ཇᬷ㢅). Photograph, late 1910s–early 1920s. Sent by George Kin Leung in China to the stage designer Donald Oenslager in the United States. (From the D. Oenslager Collection, New York Public Library. Used with permission from the New York Public Library.)*

*I found these two photographs in the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, under “Theatre collection, Photo file ‘A’: Mei Lan Fang; from the D. Oenslager Collection.” They were accompanied by a note containing a statement written by George Kin Leung (9 Hung T’ung Kuan, East City, Peiping) explaining the meaning behind Mei’s costume and the plot of the operas shown in these photographs. Leung had translated She-ch’ien Liang’s Mei Lan-fang: Foremost Actor of China. With regard to figure 1, Leung wrote: “The usual costume worn in Kuei-Fei [Guifei] Intoxicated with wine. Yang Kui-fei is the famous beauty of the Tang Dynasty. The costume is also similar to that worn in Vengeance on the Tiger-General.” About figure 2, he wrote: “The usual costume worn in plays in which dance occur. It is called the Ku chuang [স㺱] ‘Ancient costume.’ It is worn in such plays as The Heavenly Maiden Scattering the Flowers.”

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countering the prevailing image of the Chinese people in the American press as backward and ignorant, portrayed in the image of “a hideous figure with a queue hanging on the back.”12 The Vandamm photographs recast this image in a startlingly new way. They avoid being directly confrontational. In the image of a beautiful woman that is played to perfection by a man, they negate the previous image through subversion. Together with the recasting of Mei’s U.S. programs, these photos rekindle the longheld notion of a cultural China that had been lost in modern times. They offered at the same time an image of ultimate, refined, and very modern decadence. Artistically, they helped to liberate the image of cultural China from the niche of ethnically and culturally coded performances—Chinatown theater—for the grand stage, where these performances would be seen in the context of the great and innovative stage events dominating the international scene at the time. Mei’s U.S. tour evoked interest and debate long after he had returned to China. Articles continued to be written, and books published. The ongoing fascination with his acting and the importance of photography culminated in a bibliophile volume with depictions of his hands that came out in the United States in 1934. Many of the newspaper reviewers and critics had been puzzled by unfamiliar aspects of the art of Peking opera as presented by Mei; in one aspect, however, there was universal admiration, that is, the expressiveness of Mei’s acting, in particular that of his hands. One critic noted: “The hands of Mei Lan-Fang, their eloquence, fascination and delicacy, have become famous.”13 Another wrote: “Mei Lan-Fang is a dancer, actor and singer all at once. . . . The most beautifully expressive hands I have ever seen on the stage.”14 Another said, “His hands, so essential to his art, show their grace and power even in repose.”15 There seems little doubt that Mei’s hands did play an important role in reaching American audiences in a manner conveying artistic depth. The set of photographs had Mei’s hand gestures as its only subject. The photographer was Benjamin March (1899–1934). Encoded in this set of photographs, on which I will now focus, is yet another layer in the crosscultural translation and transmission of Mei’s art. 12 Paul K. Whang, “Mei Lan-Fang and His Trip to the United States,” China Weekly Review, 11 January 1930; see also Goldstein, “Mei Lanfang and the Nationalization of Peking Opera, 1912–1930,” 377–379. 13 Mary F. Watkins, Herald Tribune, quoted from “Chinese Great Actor, Idol of 500,000,000,” Chinese Institute Bulletin, February 1930. 14 Robert Littell, writing for The World, quoted from “Chinese Great Actor, Idol of 500,000,000,” Chinese Institute Bulletin, February 1930. 15 Percy N. Stone, “Mei Lan-Fang Receives an Interviewer,” New York Herald Tribune, 11 March 1930. See also Li Lingling ᴢԊԊ, Mei Lanfang quanzhuan ṙ㰁㢇ܼ‫[ ڇ‬The complete biography of Mei Lanfang] (Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian chubanshe, 2002), 352–353.

Figure 3. Mei Lanfang in the role of the Heavenly Maiden of the opera Heavenly Maiden Scattering the Flowers. Photograph by Florence Vandamm, 1930. (From Liu Shaowu ࡝㌍ ℺, ed., Mei Lanfang [Daxing hua zhuan] ṙ㰁㢇 [໻ൟ⬿ ‫( ]ڇ‬Mei Lanfang [A pictorial biography]) [Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1997].)

Figure 4. Mei Lanfang on stage with a set designed for his U.S. visit. Photograph by Florence Vandamm, 1930. (From Liu Shaowu, Mei Lanfang.)

Figure 5. Mei Lanfang as Lady Fei and Liu Lianrong as Tiger General in the opera Killing the Tiger General (Zhen E cihu 䉲࿹ࠎ㰢). Photograph by Florence Vandamm, 1930. (From Liu Shaowu, Mei Lanfang.) Figures 3–5. Stage photographs of Mei Lanfang taken in New York by Florence Vandamm prior to the start of his 49th Street performances. They were to be used for publicity purposes.

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A Man’s Art of Representing a Woman: The Coded Language of Mei Lanfang’s Hands In 1931, Benjamin March, an East Asian art historian who had studied Chinese painting with a Chinese master and was in his own words a long-time admirer of Mei Lanfang, went to Beijing and asked for permission to photograph Mei’s hand gestures.16 March was a scholar with a strong interest in the performing arts, especially puppet theater. Once permission had been given, he was assisted in the selection of the gestures and in explaining their meaning by Qi Rushan. The photos were made in two separate sessions. Qi selected the particular patterns of hand gestures to be photographed. He then identified the gestures on March’s prints by adding their Chinese names. In 1934, ten of these photographs were turned into wood engravings by Paul McPharlin,17 who had earlier cooperated with March on a book on Chinese puppetry,18 and this set was privately published in Detroit in 1935 by Robert M. Shields in a limited edition of 150 copies.19 The photographs themselves were not published in the United States.20 16 Benjamin Franklin March Jr. was a writer, curator, and lecturer specializing in Far Eastern art. He studied, lectured, and wrote in the United States and China and, through his works, gained respect as one of the foremost authorities on Chinese art during the 1920s and 1930s. His archive is housed at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. March wrote much on East Asian art as well as Chinese art and puppeteering, for example, Suggestions for Preliminary Reading, Course in Far Eastern Art, Seminar (Berkeley: University of California, 1934); Chinese Shadow Figure Plays and Their Making (Detroit,  1938); and Some Technical Terms of Chinese Painting (Baltimore: Waverly Press, 1935). 17 Paul McPharlin (1903–1948) was a puppeteer who created some twenty productions in Detroit between 1928 and 1937. He is remembered as a skillful performer and inventive puppet maker. He was a founding member of the Puppeteers of America, and in 1929 he established the Marionette Fellowship of Detroit. In 1933, McPharlin organized an important puppetry exhibit for the Century of Progress in Chicago. The Paul McPharlin papers, 1905–1956, are housed at the Archive of American Art. On McPharlin, see Ryan Howard, Paul McPharlin and the Puppet Theater (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2006); on his cooperation with Shields, a teacher at a local technical college, see p. 123. 18 Benjamin March, Chinese Shadow Figure Plays and Their Making with Three Pieces from the Chinese: Visiting Li ErSsu, Fox Bewitchment, The Exorcism. Edited with notes by Paul McPharlin. (Detroit: Puppetry Imprints, 1938). 19 Benjamin March, Orchid Hand Patterns of Mei Lan-fang [Chinese title: Mei ling lan ci ṙԊ 㰁࿓; The orchid gestures of the actor Mei], A Note by Benjamin March in Illustration of WoodEngravings Made from His Photographs of the Chinese Actor by Paul McPharlin and Printed by Robert M. Shields (Detroit: Private printing, 1935), no pagination. 20 It might be that this was not the only such effort. Mei’s biographer Li Lingling claims that a scholar who specialized in the esthetics of the hand was so fascinated by Mei’s hands gestures that he asked for and was granted the privilege of photographing them. This could refer to Benjamin March. A sculptor also was said to have employed his art for the same purpose (Li Lingling, Mei Lanfang quanzhuan, 366).

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Figure 6. Mei Lanfang’s hand gesture “swelling bud” (৿㢲).

Catherine Yeh

Figure 7. Mei Lanfang’s hand gesture “first collected” (߱㑖).

Figure 8. Mei Lanfang’s hand gesture “receiving dew” (ᡓ䴆).

Figure 9. Mei Lanfang’s hand gesture “drooping tip” (ൖ〢).

Figures 6–9. Mei Lanfang’s hand gestures. Wood engravings by Paul McPharlin based on Benjamin March’s photographs. (From Benjamin March, Orchid Hand Patterns of Mei Lan-fang [Chinese title: Mei ling lan ci ṙԊ㰁࿓ (The orchid gestures of the actor Mei)] [Detroit, 1935].)

A set of photographs of Mei’s hands (a total of fifty-three items) survives in China. It has been reproduced many times in different publications. From the different sleeves worn by Mei, these photographs seem to be the result of at least two different photo sessions with a change of costume at one session. It is probable that prints of March’s photographs remained in China, where they were first published by Qi Rushan in 1934, because the ten wood engravings in the 1935 book are each matched by one of these photographs.21 My analysis is based on some of the photographs that had been selected to be made into wood-block prints. Qi provided the names for the different hand gestures after the different features and position of the orchid. In March’s words: “[The patterns represented by Mei’s hand] derive their names from the epidendrum, the fragile Chinese orchid which is a flower symbolic of summer, emblem of love and beauty, of fragrance and refinement, and a model of grace and

21 March wrote a diary (Freer Gallery, Washington, D.C.) during his stay in China between 1923 and 1927 and from April to October 1931. It records two trips he took to photograph Mei’s hands. Claiming that the photographs of the first visit on 28 July 1931 “had been blurred by movement,” March went back on 5 August 1931 to take a second set. Unfortunately, from neither session does a full set of negatives or positives survive. The few existing examples in March’s own archive, however, show that the reproductions first appearing in Qi Rushan’s Mei Lanfang yishu yi ban ṙ㰁㢇㮱㸧ϔ᭥ [A general survey of Mei Lanfang’s performing art] (Beijing: Guoju xuehui, 1934) used images from both sessions.

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loveliness. Mr. Mei plays only women’s roles, and it is evident that the patterns appropriate for his use are aptly named.”22 The hand gestures are aesthetic symbols associated with the orchid as the emblem of femininity. The logic defining and connecting these hand gestures rests on the metaphor of the female as flower (hua 㢅) that is pervasively used in Chinese poetry and novels and is ever present in the language eulogizing courtesans. The rich pun on hua 㢅 (flower/woman) and hua 㧃 (China) was also frequently used since the late nineteenth century by both Chinese and Western authors. Through this metaphor it is suggested that like a flower the female is beautiful, pure, and fragile. She is in need of protection but will fight the “winds of evil” to preserve her integrity; she might have to bend in a storm and even be destroyed, but she will not yield to injustice and brute force. The particular association with the orchid, which is present in all of these gestures, is the noble and refined character of this flower. The hand gestures of Mei represented on the mimetic level different floral formations of the orchid; on the symbolic level, they evoked the idealized qualities of the orchid; and on the performative level, they guided the entire positioning of the head and body, the facial expression, and the attitude to the male counterpart in a manner designed to evoke the idealized qualities of the female even for spectators without explicit knowledge about the orchid association. Operating through highly stylized gestures with their coded meanings, the art of Peking opera lies within an artistic system that is largely based on evocation in a rejection of realistic imitation. The gestures themselves are formulaic; they are learned as patterns together with their intended stage function. Their performative values are understandable in a general way if the viewer knows that these gestures are not random but have an unspecified deeper cultural meaning and if they are integrated into the overall performance; they will be understood more specifically by a connoisseur Chinese audience. Their power is in their suggestiveness, and March’s photographs tried to bring out their conceptual meaning and intended reading in a new way by essentializing them into a form of art in and of themselves. The reason why Qi actively cooperated in this endeavor might have been his determination to make Peking opera into an art form that was recognized around the world, as was European opera. He might have believed that through the use of the modern Western art medium of photography, the Western recognition of Peking opera as high art would be facilitated.24 22

March, “Orchid Hand Patterns of Mei Lan-fang.” Examples are Zeng Pu’s ᳒‌ novel Niehai hua ᅑ⍋㢅 (Flower/China in the sea of retribution; 1903) and Henry Davenport Northrop’s popular book, The Flowery Kingdom and the Land of the Mikado, or, China, Japan, and Corea (London, Canada: McDermid and Logan, 1894). 24 For an in-depth study on Qi’s effort to modernize Peking opera, see Goldstein, “Mei Lanfang and the Nationalization of Peking Opera, 1912–1930,” 377–420. 23

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10a. “Swelling bud” (৿ 10b. “First collected” (߱ 㢲) – Gesture of handling 㑖) – Gesture of handling a letter. needle and thread.

10c. “Hiding from the wind” (䙓乼) – Gesture of praising.

11a. “Extended calyx” (Ԍ 11b. “Welcoming the 㨐) – Gesture of holding wind” (䖢乼) – Gesture of the whip. pointing into the void.

11c. “Drunken red” (䝝 ㋙) – Gesture of holding a basket.

Figures 10–13 (above and opposite): Photographs of Mei Lanfang’s hand gestures, possibly by Benjamin March. (From Liu Shaowu, Mei Lanfang.)

March claimed that he was not simply fascinated by the communicative artistic power and beauty of Mei’s hands. He had taken these photos based on a Chinese artistic principle of “patternism” that he felt was at the core of Chinese painting as well as acting.25 It had been introduced to him by the man who had also initiated him into the art of Peking opera, Dr. Zhang Pengchun ᔉᕁ᯹ (1892–1957). Dr. Zhang also happened to be Mei’s adviser and had managed his tour of the United States.26 As to acting, this 25

March, “Orchid Hand Patterns of Mei Lan-fang.” See Huang Dianqi 咗↓㻔, “Zhang Pengchun tong Mei Lanfang fu Mei fang Su yanchu de shengkuang ᔉᕁ᯹ৠṙ㰁㢇䍈㕢㿾㯛ⓨߎⱘⲯ⊕” [The grand success achieved by Mei Lanfang, accompanied by Zhang Pengchun, in their visit to the United States and the Soviet 26

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12a. “Flowing fragrance” (⍂佭) – Expression of fear.

12b. “Receiving dew” (ᡓ䴆) – Holding a tray.

13a. “Reflection” (‫צ‬ᕅ) – Pointing downward.

13b. “Dripping tassel” (ൖ㍆) – With arms akimbo.

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12c. “Dripping dew” (ൖ䴆) – Holding a small thing.

13c. “Drooping tip” (ൖ 〢) – Courtesy of inviting.

principle meant that “the novice of the stage learned patterns of gesture and posture and the rhythmic and harmonious relation of patterns to one another.”27 In the northern, Peking opera, the association of the acting style of the dan with the orchid goes back to the “southern” opera, Nanxi, that is better known as Kunqu. Kunqu had thrived since the early Ming dynasty. It is often referred to as the “orchid” among the opera forms, and the hand gestures in Kunqu are referred to by the general term lanhua zhi 㰁㢅ᣛ (orchid gestures) or qiao lanhua 㗍㰁㢅 (performing the orchid).28 To understand the implied meaning, we have to switch genres and look for evidence in paintings and in texts. The orchid as a pictorial topos Union], in Huaju zai Beifang dianjiren zhiyi—Zhang Pengchun, ed. Huang Dianqi (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1995), 263–286. 27 March, “Orchid Hand Patterns of Mei Lan-fang.” 28 Qi Rushan, Mei Lanfang yishu yi ban, cited in Qi Rushan quanji, 2:0973.

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appears in painting handbooks from the early Qing (1675), alongside the plum, the bamboo, and the pine.29 By the eighteenth century, the flower had made it into the painting sections of everyday encyclopedias.30 All four plants represent different virtues of a scholar-official, with the orchid in particular evoking the ideal image of the literati’s purity, refinement, and moral uprightness even under duress.31 The metaphorical use of the orchid has a rich if ill-researched history. It seems to have started off as a simile for the behavior of the Confucian “gentleman,” the junzi ৯ᄤ. A third century c.e. compilation with much pre-Han material credits Confucius himself with referring to the link between the orchid and the gentleman in a discussion of his own unsuccessful quest for a government position: “The orchid grows in the woods, it lets out its perfume disregarding whether or not there is anyone [to appreciate it]; [just like the orchid,] the gentleman pursues the way and establishes morality and does not compromise his principles because of poverty (㡱㰁⫳ᮐ⏅ᵫ, ϡҹ⛵Ҏ㗠㢇, ৯ᄤׂ䘧ゟᖋ, ϡ⚎もೄ㗠ᬫ㆔).”32 This statement gave status to the orchid but was just one interpretation of an existing cultural pattern and did not freeze its meaning. The orchid metaphor has been widely used since preimperial times to refer to male exemplars of moral fortitude. Hand gestures evocative of the orchid—and claiming high moral stature and cultural refinement for the performer by implication—also became a fashion of sorts among literati.33

29 Jieziyuan huazhuan 㡹ᄤ೦⬿‫[ ڇ‬Mustard-seed garden painting manual] (reprint, Beijing: Renmin meishu chubanshe, 1979), vol. 2. 30 Since the Ming period (1368–1644), a variety of everyday encyclopedias have been published, the best-known being the Wanbao quanshu (Comprehensive compendium of countless treasures); the edition used in this paper is Chen Jiru 䱇㑐‫ۦ‬, Zengbu Wanbao quanshu ๲㺰㨀ᇇܼ᳌ [Expanded comprehensive compendium of countless treasures], amended by Mao Huanwen ↯✹᭛ (Suzhou: Jinchang jing yi tang, 1823). 31 Zhang Bin ᔉᕀ, “Wei Jin shige zhong de lanhua yixiang yanjiu wenxian zongshu 儣ᰝ 䀽℠Ёⱘ㰁㢅ᛣ䈵ⷨお᭛⥏㍰䗄” [Summary of sources on research on the metaphor of the orchid in Wei Jin poetry] Wenxue jie (June 2011): 222–223. 32 D. C. Lau, ed., Kongzi jiayu zhuzi suoyin ᄨᄤᆊ䁲䗤ᄫ㋶ᓩ [A concordance to the family sayings of Confucius] (Taipei: Taipei Commercial Press, 1992), 20.1/40/8. 33 There are some claims that the fragment of a manual of orchid hand gestures for literati men aiming at refining their social interaction, Lanhua pinzao 㰁㢅ક㯏 (Assessment of orchids), was recently discovered in an antique bookstore in Suzhou. However, no details are as yet available on its date and the particulars of its content, and there are no scholarly studies of it. It identifies the four qualities of this flower as “bending, soft, white, and ethereal” (䠸, ᶨ, ⱑ, ⯺). In other words, the hand gestures suggest indirectness through “bending,” yielding and acquiescence through “softness,” purity through “whiteness,” and delicacy through “ethereal slimness.” See http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/content/ free/1/2129853.shtml.

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March’s photographs have two different points of reference. One is the reference to the orchid as the general metaphor together with a specific link between an orchid formation and a particular posture; the other is the function of these gestures in the abstract representation that defines the art of Peking opera. For example “swelling bud” (hanbao ৿㢲; fig. 10a) is also referenced as the “position of holding a letter”; “extended calyx” (shen’e Ԍ 㨐; fig. 11a) is the “position of holding a horse-whip”; “teasing the flower” (douhua 䗫㢅; fig. 14a) is the “expression of respect”; and “competing blossoms” (doufang 價㢇; fig. 14b) is the “expression of salutation.” This system derives its logic from the orchid/female association, and its strength from its social echo with essentially Confucian notions of womanhood. The formal similarity between the depictions of the various states of the orchid and operatic hand gestures, which was reinforced by the application of the same or similar names to both, enhanced the association and enriched the performance with the meaning derived from the orchid metaphor. The representation of the orchid in figures 15 and 16a–b compares with the photo images of Mei’s orchid hand gestures, evoking the same underlying artistic impulses in the construction of a set of social ideals in a coded language. After taking the photos, however, March realized there was a problem—there was no way for them to ever succeed in bringing to life the power of Mei’s hand gestures. He saw in Mei’s stage acting an integrated system of coded symbolic gestures representing the social ideal of the female in all its facets. To isolate the hand gestures and photograph them out of the context of stage acting meant also dislocating them from their social context. “In a way it was a false ambition, for whereas our acting in the West is chiefly behind a proscenium arch and so essentially twodimensional, the Chinese stage is an open apron and each gesture and movement is designed with a three-dimensional plasticity.”34 Trying to capture Mei’s art through photographs of his hand gestures, March felt, was bound to fail. The photographs disappointed him, and he turned to McPharlin to create drawings out of them. March certainly has a point: such an opera performance takes place on a stage with shifting scenes and involves acting and singing. The dan is not just acting out orchid hand gestures; his entire body and voice are to be permeated by this metaphor. No photograph or painting of a hand gesture will be able to represent all of this. At the same time, the essentialization of this rich array of form and meaning into a series of images of hand gestures with the minimalist key to their meaning through the title is a powerful device that in a way takes its model from Peking opera itself by not being realistic but evoca34

March, “Orchid Hand Patterns of Mei Lan-fang.”

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14a. “Teasing the flower” (䗫㢅) – Expression of respect.

14b. “Competing in beauty” (價㢇) – Expression of salutation.

Figure 14: Photographs of Mei Lanfang’s hand gestures, possibly by Benjamin March. (From Liu Shaowu, Mei Lanfang.)

tive. Given the strong associations among audiences both in China and abroad between Chinese arts and subtle and refined forms of expression with rich, evocative, “eternal” meaning, the viewers had the key to see these titled photos not just as images but as evocations of a rich and deep ensemble. March’s move from the photograph, with its claim to realistic veracity, to the wood-block image, with its tradition of evoking richer associations of meaning, was to help bridge the gap. Qi used the orchid gesture tradition to conceptualize Mei’s art, thus linking Peking opera with other earlier operas, but above all with a high register of moral uprightness that was especially pertinent to dissociate the modern dan from the traditional associations of being a plaything for the rich and mighty. By codifying Mei’s hand gestures within this system of signifiers and integrating it with traditional Chinese literati culture, Qi helped elevate the standing of Peking opera while the evocative rather than imitative acting style found an enthusiastic echo well beyond the members of the Western avant-garde. Seen in this larger pictorial and textual tradition, ironically, the association of Mei’s hand gestures with literati high culture evoked through the orchid can only work through the form of photography or painting that frames and isolates this one element in stage acting, whereas in a performance the whole system of acting carries but also dilutes this meaning. In this sense, the American audience had more and less to go by, as they saw Mei’s hand movements in an integrated performance. Although largely unfamiliar with the details of coding behind each hand gesture

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Figure 15: Jieziyuan huazhuan 㡹ᄤ೦⬿‫ڇ‬ [Mustard-seed garden painting manual] (Reprint, Beijing: Renmin meishu chubanshe, 1979), vol. 2.

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Figure 16a–b: Chen Jiru 䱇㍭‫( ۦ‬1558–1639), Zengbu Wanbao quanshu ๲㺰㨀ᇇܼ᳌ [Expanded comprehensive compendium of countless treasures], amended by Mao Huanwen ↯✹᭛ (Suzhou: Jinchang jingyitang, 1823), 11:9.

of the actors and each element of the performance, the foreign audiences were nonetheless primed to expect a rich system of elusive meaning to be evoked by Chinese art, and to set this expectation it was crucial that Peking opera not be seen as folksy entertainment with falsetto voices and acrobats turning somersaults, but be elevated to the rank of a high Chinese art. Even without precise knowledge of the coding, the audience could see the highly stylized evocation of female modesty that also signaled strength of character; they could see sexuality together with reserve, sensuality as well as vitality. The photographs and later the drawings distilled the moment and helped further articulate those complex messages in the art of staging femininity in its idealized form. In this sense, March’s photographs of Mei’s hand gestures helped define the art of the dan as a high form of art. The gestures act out an evocation of virtuous femininity now identified within a system of meaning in a series of controlled and artful single moments and events. Through this isolation, the link to the high culture of literati tradition and Confucian ideals was brought into focus. In formal terms, photography was able, through its own limitations as an art form, to accentuate certain features or elements. It helped isolate one of the most important artistic attributes of the art of the dan, which sets him apart from the other male roles, with

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their emphasis on the movement of the legs and arms. There might be an echo here with the avant-garde performance styles of the 1920s with their borrowings from “oriental” (Indian, Balinese, Thai) hand gestures. By choosing to photograph the hands, March highlighted the point where Mei’s art most successfully crossed the cultural boundaries of the time. The power of the hand gestures is in their suggestiveness, brought out through their interaction with mien and body posture. The stage performance of these moments of femininity brought out a transculturally understandable image of the ideal female and, at the same time, suggested an image of China itself as a nonthreatening, culturally refined, and erotic female. In terms of the art of the Peking opera, this image of the powerless, yet resilient, courageous, and, most importantly, morally superior female figure was conveyed through movement rather than lyrics; through acting in a highly refined code rather than singing. Photography and the Manual for Movement in Peking Opera: The Art of Femininity It was no accident that Qi had advised March on the hand gestures, because he was in the process of writing something no one had ever written before, a work that would attempt to formally reset the relative emphasis of the components of Peking opera, the Manual for Movement in Peking Opera (Guoju shenduan pu ೟࡛䑿↉䄰), which came out in 1932.35 The book outlines the forms of movement of the different roles in the Peking opera cast, including, of course, those of the dan, who had by now risen to a dominant position in this opera form. This contrastive description with its strong emphasis on dan hand gestures helps verbalize the implied power dynamics between the different roles in Peking opera and their possible social and political significance. March’s photographs of Mei’s hand gestures were initially prompted by the artistic expressiveness of Mei’s hands for female beauty. Seen in the light of Qi’s acting manual, the hand, through its beauty and grace, represents female modesty. Perhaps unwittingly, these photographs capture the coded language of a new feminine ideal in the reformed Peking opera of the 1910s and 1920s, reformed, it should be remembered, with the strong help of Qi himself. In recreating and capturing each gesture with its suggestive orchid pattern, March helped identify and isolate the pattern of gestures that were most characteristic of Mei’s art and in this way also helped to essentialize the art of the new dan. 35 Qi Rushan, Guoju shenduan pu ೟࡛䑿↉䄰 [Manual for movement in Peking opera] (Beijing: Beiping guoju xuehui, 1932), quoted in Qi Rushan, Qi Rushan quanji 唞བቅܼ䲚 [The complete works of Qi Rushan] (Taipei: Qi Rushan quanji weiyuanhui, 1977), vol. 1.

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The first item in Qi’s section on hands in the Manual for Movement in Peking Opera is “opening the hand” (zhang shou ᔉ᠟): Position: Palm opens toward the outside with the finger pointing up. For each role the position is different. [For the role of the] jing ⎼ [painted face]: the hand should be [fully extended] into a round shape; all five fingers should be separated; this expresses a person’s masculine vigor, rough and rude (uncalculated) nature; in his dealings with all things he is big-hearted, bold, and unconstrained. [This applies to] all the martial roles. (ᔶᆍҎП䲘ໃ, ㉫㦑䃌џ 䮞໻䈾ᬒг) [For the role of the] sheng ⫳ [male character]: open the four fingers slightly, extend [upward] only the thumb; together they should form the “vertical and horizontal shape.” This expresses the upright and restrained men of letters (wenren ᭛Ҏ), who refrain from indulgence. (ᔶᆍ᭛Ҏᮍ ℷ᢬䄍, ϡ㚃ᬒ㐅Пᛣ) [For the role of the] xiaosheng ᇣ⫳ [youthful male character]: close three fingers, the thumb must be straight, the little finger is slightly opened, a little toward the back extended; extend the palm slightly turned and form the “vertical and horizontal shape.” However, the middle knuckle of the thumb must touch the middle of the palm; this expresses being a literati youth, who still needs to be reserved. (ᔶᆍᇥᑈ᳌⫳⤊䷜᢬䄍г) [For the role of the] dan ᮺ [female impersonator]: close all four fingers, press the thumb at the knuckle base of the middle finger; this is to express female bashfulness. (ᔶᆍཇᄤП㕲╔г)36

The different hand gestures are the artistic language by which the different roles each express their designated persona. They belong to a unified system of acting that expresses Confucian normative social standards and cultural values. As the “opening the hand” gesture is one of the most basic movements, it brings out the basic features of the Peking opera types within this system of meaning. The differences described for this one movement evoke idealized social as well as gender types, emphasizing the ideal type of each part of the cast. In the case of the dan, the ideal of feminine modesty is brought out through the bashfulness of the gesture. To give another example: the second entry on hands is “self-pointing” (zi zhi 㞾ᣛ). For the jing, it is to show respect to someone—holding the left sleeve with the right hand and pressing it to the chest; for normal occasions, swing the right sleeve 36

Qi Rushan, Guoju shenduan pu, 1:0446.

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from inside toward the outside and press it to the chest. For the sheng, the gesture is similar to that of the painted face except that he can use both hands to point toward his chest. When the actor is performing this gesture, the two hands touch at the fingertip and the palms are turned upward. For the xiaosheng, it is the same as for the sheng. For the dan, however, the actor can only point to his/her chest with both hands; the hands must, furthermore, be overlapping and turned upward. The gesture suggests modesty and deference to others.

From these descriptions, it is clear that the dan in almost every case is treated differently from the masculine roles; the emphasis is on female reserve, modesty, and reverence toward the male figure. These social attributes are thus aesthetically linked to and defined as feminine beauty (beauty of character and manners equals esthetic beauty). As shown in figures 19 and 20, the general attitude of reverence and deference expressed in these gestures is regarded as admirable and is essentialized in the photographs as a form of art. As shown in figure 14, feminine beauty is evoked in the gestures representing feminine modesty, symbolized in the shape of blossoms. This interpretation of femininity reflects the entire conception of the role of the dan. The way in which she is to stand, to sit, and to move across the stage, the way she is to use her voice, the various movements, including that of the actor’s eyes, to the restricted movements of her feet (not to be seen but insinuated under her dress), all point to a unified agenda in the artistic formulation of the role. When we link the symbolism of the hands with that of body postures, the case becomes even clearer. There is a set of twelve early photographs demonstrating the different poses used by the dan together with explanations of their significance. They were first published when Mei visited Japan in 1919 and are reproduced in Qi’s 1934 A General Survey of Mei Lanfang’s Performing Art (Mei Lanfang yishu yi ban ṙ㰁㢇㮱㸧ϔ᭥). One is on “looking” (wang shi ᳯᓣ), in which it is stipulated that the dan is strictly forbidden to look straight (up or into the distance; ϡ䀅Ⳉᳯ); when looking, she needs to slightly lower her head, turning it gently to the side, and simply raise her eyelids once.37 In figure 17, we see Mei raising his right arm, implying looking into the distance; the raised arm and concealed hand stand for the eyes. In the following photographs (figs. 18–20), we can also see the hand gestures in action. The movement of the hands together with the body gesture accentuate modesty. They follow a formalized code that communicates not through realism but through the highly formalized language of Peking opera. Yet, there is a universality embedded in these gestures. 37

Qi Rushan, Mei Lanfang yishu yi ban, quoted from Qi Rushan quanji, 2:0975.

Fig. 17. Mei Lanfang, the posture of looking (wang shi ᳯᓣ). Photograph, date unknown. (From Liu Shaowu, Mei Lanfang.)

Figure 19. Mei Lanfang, the posture of considering (si shi ᗱ ᓣ). Photograph, date unknown. (From Liu Shaowu, Mei Lanfang.)

Fig. 18. Mei Lanfang, the posture of pointing (zhi shi ᣛᓣ). Photograph, date unknown. (From Liu Shaowu, Mei Lanfang.

Figure 20. Mei Lanfang, the posture of shyness (xiu shi 㕲ᓣ). Photograph, date unknown. (From Liu Shaowu, Mei Lanfang.)

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21a. “Reflecting the sun” (᯴᮹) – Pointing somewhere far.

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21b. “Emerging pistil” (৤ 㬞) – Handling something small.

21c. “Protecting the pistil” (䅋㬞) – Pointing out.

Figure 21: Photographs of Mei Lanfang’s hand gestures, possibly by Benjamin March. (From Liu Shaowu, Mei Lanfang.)

Beside the obvious fact that they represent aesthetic refinement, which helps transmit their meaning, this movement is a figure without social power in the sense associated with the public realm. At the same time, these gestures do not evoke the impression of a submissive figure. As we can see in figure 17, Mei’s expression conveys a sense of righteous dignity, inner strength, and forbearance. Depending on how the actor interprets the character and her action, the movement does not necessarily signal lack of power. On the contrary, it may suggest complete self-assuredness with a strength and power of its own. The strength is in accepting the role of being subordinate without being servile, and in knowing one’s social position while seeking to defend oneself from injustice brought about by brute force. In the different performances given in the United States, Mei highlighted this particular image of the female heroine. The relationship between the photo images that he sent to the United States and the choice of operas to be performed on the U.S. stage was close. Among Mei’s performances, “By the Fen River Bend” was extremely popular. It tells the story of the warrior Xue Rengui returning home to his wife, Liu Yingchun, after many years of absence—and finding a man’s shoes under the bed. The whole act centers on Xue and his wife confronting each other in a half-flirting half-suspicious manner. In the end, however, Xue realizes that the boy he had accidentally shot by the Fen River bend, thinking him his wife’s lover, had been his own son. Wife and husband together mourn the death of their son. The photographs capture the last scenes of the play with Liu Yingchun, her head tied with the

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Figure 22. The posture of “self pointing” (zi zhi㞾ᣛ). Mei Lanfang as Liu Yingchun in By the Fen River Bend (known to the American audience as The Suspicious Slipper). Photography by Florence Vandamm, 1930. (From Liu Shaowu, Mei Lanfang.)

Figure 23. The posture of “total distress” (stage term: fanxiu 㗏㹪), with both arms raised, sleeve twisted, and hands draped in the sleeves, thrown back. Mei Lanfang as Liu Yingchun in By the Fen River Bend. Photography by Florence Vandamm, 1930. (From Liu Shaowu, Mei Lanfang.)

mourning cloth and her hair loosened to symbolize her extreme grief and distress, posing with the gesture of “self-pointing” (fig. 22) and raising her arms with both hands thrown back (fig. 23) in an expression of deep grief. The image created by the female protagonist is that of the virtuous suffering female who represents “the powerless” in the sense that she is reduced to live in the private realm under the domination of men without the possibility for a public role. Yet, in most cases, these women characters are taking an active part in outmaneuvering their opponents, dominating the plot and outcome of the story. Whereas the end often is tragic, they take action and are not passive victims. Mei was mostly staging plays that had been newly written for him, not traditional pieces. The figure of a beautiful female with moral fortitude who uses her resourcefulness (zhi ᱎ) to cope with misfortune rather than the power associated with male roles is prominent in these plays, an indicator of a consistent agenda. This newly cast figure of the upright female dominated Mei’s U.S. tour as the

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program of his performances at the Broadway 49th Street Theater shows. With Mei’s sublime performance, this figure won over American audiences. Together, these characters were to evoke the spirit of a people that, although lacking masculine force, constituted through feminine powers a force that defined China’s civilization and moral fortitude. Photography and the Image of the Chinese Woman Shaped for the American Public The female image of China and Chinese culture captured in March’s photographs echoes the program chosen for the U.S. performances. On Mei’s side, the shaping of the right image was a process, a dialogue in which the camera was not a silent partner, but suggested and even dictated certain moves. The photographs of Mei’s hand gestures suggest a new direction Peking opera was taking. Image and image making became a dominant trend in the twentieth century, and the rise of the dan had as much to do with this new visual culture, with its potential to focus on beauty, as it had with the rising importance of acting in Peking opera. The dan, with their beauty and the art of seduction, rose in rank. The urge for international recognition further emphasized the visual element, as it seemed ideally suited to help overcome cultural and linguistic barriers. Beyond the increased importance of acting, this resulted in two further fundamental changes in the art form of the dan as well as the perception of it. First, acting became more psychological, and, second, aesthetic beauty rose in importance. Thus, during the 1920s and 1930s—the decades most important in the new development of Peking opera, the increased importance placed on the interpretation of character through facial expression and body gesture was in part a response to these factors. Photography became an interpretive tool that also imposed its own rules, and these in their turn contributed to the way in which the art of the dan developed. The never fully articulated intention to reset the cultural status of China through Mei’s art can be seen in the transformation of the photos used to represent him. The process of image selection as well as rejection to define and construct this ideal image so as to create a new global consensus has left its marks in these photographs. In a flashback, I will now deal with these earlier records to give historical background to March’s and McPharlin’s album. Mei and his supporters, to prepare his visit to the United States, published various photo albums. I will compare two of these albums in an effort to pin down the shifting understanding of the role of photography’s potential mission and function. The first set was published in 1926 and the second in 1929, to accompany Mei’s tour; both publications are simply

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titled Mei Lanfang, with the 1929 volume having the English subtitle Foremost Actor of China. They were both privately printed in Shanghai. The 1926 publication is in Chinese; it consists largely of stage photographs of Mei (with captions in both English and Chinese, as were often provided at the time, for example in films or titles of periodicals) and a few photos with him and his family in normal dress. The texts of some of his most famous operas were added, together with a short biography and a number of congratulatory poems. The publication has an English foreword (with a Chinese translation) by the then American Commercial Attaché Douglas Arnold in which Mei’s intention to visit the United States is announced and welcomed as a great opportunity for cultural exchange. The English- and Chinese-language advertisements in the book are dominated by the theme of travel to the United States, obviously with Mei’s planned visit in mind. Mei himself is heavily featured in these ads. At the end of the volume is the translation of a letter by Mr. Arnold to the Seattle Fifth Avenue Theater informing them that their request, through the U.S. Embassy in China, to obtain photographs of Mei for the inauguration of their theater has been met; five photographs of Mei were on their way to Seattle. The volume published in 1929 is an English translation by George Kin Leung of the material Qi had prepared for the U.S. public. It consists of two parts, one focusing on Mei and his performances, and the other offering a detailed introduction to Peking opera. The choice of photographs going into these two volumes differs greatly in number, topic, and perspective. In the 1926 volume, there are thirtynine stage photos, and in the 1929 volume only twelve. In the thirty-nine photographs of the earlier volume, thirteen different operas are represented, with The Life of Yang Guifei having as many as twelve photographs. Each of the twelve photos in the 1929 volume, by contrast, represents a different play. In general, the volumes can be said to represent two different sensibilities and ideals. From the perspective of the overarching theme projected in them, the 1926 volume is devoted to the theme of beauty, with the representation of three operas, “The Life of Yang Kuei-fei” (the original caption on the photograph reads “Yang Geifei”), “Hsih Shi” (Xi Shi), and “The Goddess of the River of Lo” (Lo is now romanized “Luo”), for a total of nineteen photos, setting the tone. The three women are legendary beauties of China. Yang Guifei ἞䊈བྷ (719–756), known briefly by the Taoist 38 Zhuang Zhujiu 㥞䨘б et al., Mei Lanfang ṙ㰁㢇 (Shanghai: Private printing, 1926); Shech’ien Liang, ed. Mei Lan-fang: Foremost Actor of China (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1929).

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Figure 24. Mei Lanfang in the role of Yang Guifei in The Life of Yang Guifei (Taizhen waizhuan໾ⳳ໪‫)ڇ‬. Photograph. (From Zhuang Zhujiu 㥞䨘б et al., Mei Lanfang ṙ㰁 㢇 [Shanghai: Private printing, 1926].)

nun name Taizhen ໾ⳳ, was the beloved consort of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang dynasty. Xi Shi 㽓ᮑ (ca. 506 b.c.e.–?) was said to have lived during the end of the Spring and Autumn period in Zhuji, the capital of the ancient state of Yue. Whereas the former two are historical persons, the Goddess of the Luo River belongs to mythology. When examined closer, most of the photographs in this volume do not communicate with the viewer; the facial and body expressions seem static. Most of the figures are in the standing position without projecting body tension. When the photograph captures Mei in some kind of movement, it appears to only be frozen there, the movement lacking credibility, since it does not exude energy and thus is not able to transmit the character’s emotions. By contrast, the twelve photographs of the 1929 volume seem much more dynamic; the figures portrayed by Mei are infused with emotional qualities and inner tension, and the body expresses a visible body tonus. The general tenor of the volume has moved away from representing beauty in an abstract sense to representing beauty of the art of the dan through movement and psychological depth. Almost all the vacuous photographs of beauty from the earlier volume have been eliminated. The differences can also be seen when comparing (1) photos that represent the same opera but use different images, (2) the photos contained in both volumes, and finally (3) those photos that were rejected. Of the first

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Figure 25. Mei Lanfang in the title role of The Goddess of the River of Luo (Luo shen⋯⼲). Photograph. (From Zhuang Zhujiu et al., Mei Lanfang.)

type, “Qingwen tearing the fan” (Qingwen si shan ᱈䳃ᩩ᠛) may serve as example. Although the photo used in the 1926 volume is more elaborate both in gesture and in background stage design, the 1929 photo resonates with a kind of emotional communication one will not find in the earlier item. The photos chosen for the later publication evoke more inner tension through the expression of Mei’s face and through body gesture; through body language and the expressions of the eyes, the character communicates with the viewer. There are five images the two volumes have in common; three examples are in figures 28 through 30.39 These photographs emphasize two characteristics, the representation of beauty through movement rather than static gestures, and body gesture in terms of martial art, that is, the use of weapons. They bring out a unity of movement and gesture as well as of the expression of the hands and eyes. The later photographs show a new understanding of the potential of photography. From the photo of Mei as Liu Yingcun in Fen River Pass in 39 The other two are: “Tai zhen waizhuan ໾ⳳ໪‫[ ڇ‬Yang Guifei],” with the English caption: “The life of Yang Kuei-Fei” (1926), and “Yang Kuei-fei, the most artful of China’s four greatest beauties, as portrayed by Mr. Mei” (1929); Xi Shi 㽓ᮑ: “Hsi Shih—the most patriotic beauty of China” (1926), and “Hsi Shih, the patriotic beauty” (1929).

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Figure 26. Mei Lanfang in the role of Qingwen in Qingwen Tearing the Fan (Qingwen si shan ᱈䳃ᩩ᠛). Photograph. (From Liang She-ch’ien, ed., Mei Lanfang: Foremost Actor of China [Shanghai: Printed at the Commercial Press, 1929].)

Figure 27. Mei Lanfang in the role of Qingwen in Qingwen Tearing the Fan. Photograph. (From Zhuang Zhujiu et al., Mei Lanfang.)

the 1926 volume (Fan Jiang guan ῞∳䮰; fig. 31), one can see that simply holding a weapon does little by way of showing martial spirit. Although the female figure is dressed in a military combat outfit and is carrying the symbol of the horse (which means that she is riding a horse), there is nothing in the photo that evokes a martial spirit. This photo accordingly did not make it into the 1929 volume. As the 1929 book was designed for the United States, the choice of these photos and their rejected options tell us something about the consciousness with which the editors understood the power of images in shaping public opinion and the precise message the volume wanted to convey to American audiences. The image designed for this audience is a spirited female figure full of a tension and psychological depth that can be understood across the cultural divide. It is, furthermore, the image of a strong and willful female figure with a definite sense of self. In this sense, the

Figure 28. Mei Lanfang as Mu Guiying (a military type [dao ma dan ߔ侀ᮺ]) in The Camp of Mu-ko (Mu ke zhai 〚᷃ᆼ). Photograph. (From Liang She-ch’ien, Mei Lan-fang.)

Figure 30. Mei Lanfang in the title role of Lian Jinfeng (Lian Jinfeng ᒝ䣺ἧ as She Appears in a Marine Battle). Photograph. (From Liang She-ch’ien, Mei Lan-fang.)

Figure 29. Mei Lanfang in the title role of The Goddess of the River of Luo (Luo shen ⋯ ⼲). Photograph. (From Liang She-ch’ien, Mei Lan-fang.)

Figure 31. Mei Lanfang in the role of Fan Lihua ῞Ṽ㢅in Fan Jiang Pass (Fan Jiang guan῞∳䮰). Photograph. (From Zhuang Zhujiu et al., Mei Lanfang.)

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Figure 32. Mei Lanfang in the role of the White Snake in The Legend of the White Snake (Bai she zhuanⱑ㲛‫)ڇ‬. Photograph. (From Liang She-ch’ien, Mei Lan-fang.)

Figure 33. Mei Lanfang as the Heavenly Maiden in the Heavenly Maiden Scattering Flowers. Original caption reads: “Mr. Mei Lan-fang as the Heavenly Maiden in an Attitude of Prayer which Is Famous in All China.” Photograph. (From Liang Shech’ien, Mei Lan-fang.)  

photos successfully represent the spirit of the female character of the relevant operas. From the 1926 representation of Mei himself in his beauty to the 1929 representation of his acting out the female role, a shift in the image of China also took place: from a submissive beauty to a female figure whose fighting spirit infuses her with transforming powers. When seen against the background of March’s photos of Mei’s hands, the hand gestures are also striking in these earlier photos, albeit with a different context and focal point. Two key elements are reflected in these photos: the expression on the actor’s face and the way in which he uses his hands. It so happens that these are the only two parts of the dan’s body that are exposed. Even when the hands are hidden in the sleeves of the garment, they are still the most active part of the action, as captured in the photographs. The hands provide the signs indicating the meaning and emotional nature of the action, whereas the facial expression interprets it. The photographs in the 1929 volume were particularly able to transmit the image of the spirited female figure through her hands.

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In figures 32 and 33, the hand (and arm) gestures form the center of action and provide the scene with meaning. The white snake photograph (fig. 30; Bai she zhuan ⱑ㲛‫ )ڇ‬represents the anger and defiance of the white snake when she is confronted by her enemies, and the Heavenly Maiden photograph (fig. 31; Tian nü san hua) symbolizes the Heavenly Maiden’s piety. These are not gestures of military might or of someone recognized as powerful, yet, they help define the particular features of feminine strength. What the American audience saw—and was to understand through the acting of Mei Lanfang—were the stories of women who, while not having all the might and power of the men they came into conflict with, were nonetheless victorious on their own terms. In the persona of the Chinese woman created by Mei’s art, the audience was given a glimpse of a Chinese culture and society they had little knowledge of, and the appreciation of Mei was to translate into sympathy for China and acceptance of her culture. Conclusion The photographic image of Mei Lanfang produced for and used during his U.S. visit shows the intention Mei’s group had for the international arena, while March’s photographic images of Mei’s hand gestures can be seen as a visual document that in turn reflects reception in the international arena. Both show the power of photography to influence as well as to reflect social perception. Before, during, and after Mei’s visit to the United States, photography helped shape a global understanding of Peking opera and with it China’s image. It helped shift American audience expectations of Peking opera from a form of exotic ethnic music to that of a sublime visual art. Through photography, furthermore, Peking opera was re-contextualized within a Western aesthetic value system and thus elevated to a position of respectability. This transfer involved assigning a new set of aesthetic values to this art. This reset expectations and changed the criteria for judgment. Through the transfer to acting as the principal attraction that was in part prompted by photography, Peking opera was able to move onto a global stage. The photographic images of Mei linked to the U.S. tour all dealt with an implied subject, namely, the image of China herself. Each photograph carried the burden of its possible effect on this image. Going through the photographs published for the preparation of Mei’s visit, those sent to the United States prior to the visit, Vandamm’s stage photographs, and March’s photographs of Mei’s hand gestures and the subsequent wood engravings, we are able to follow a process of shaping, crafting, and distilling of an image of the dan that could and did never forget that it was also an image of China. What the American audience saw and admired

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through Mei’s art was China as the valiant female. Photography helped shape this perception. The image of China as the female represented in the orchid hands has a well-defined agenda. It stands for the symbol of beauty and fragility in the well-defined Confucian social order that emphasizes female purity and moral integrity. Once the orchid symbol translates into opera language, it brings with it emotional and social significance. As the representation of the fundamental conception of the dan character, the interpretation of these signs through the art of Mei brings to life the image of a beautiful, courageous, and resourceful female character of high moral pitch. Hers is the art of “yi rou ke gang ҹᶨ‫࠯ܟ‬,” or “overcoming the male power through the female force of softness,” an interaction with rich and positive associations in Western descriptions of Chinese social and political attitudes. This female does not frontally challenge the audience, as a male martial figure fighting barbarians on stage might have done. It is anything but confrontational. She wins the audience’s sympathy through her subdued reverence, or gestures of reverence, and through the way in which she fights for her rights. This stance puts the audience into the position of being patron and protector rather than merely onlooker; it elicits the audience’s moral indignation and its support for the female. This character, with its frailty, resilience, and moral fortitude on the one hand, and the artistic sophistication and beauty of its performance by Mei on the other, reflected in both a realistic and an idealizing way the popular image of China.

FIVE

The Sound of Images: Peddlers’ Calls and Tunes in Republican Peking

FENG YI

Introduction Street peddlers were a common feature of city life in China well into the twentieth century. The presence of these small-scale, often single-good merchants can be traced back to earlier centuries. That they survived until after World War II reflects in part the state of economic development in China where recent immigrants were prepared to take up the meanest or lowest-paid jobs to make a living. Peddlers were not necessarily the worst off in terms of occupation, although they certainly belonged to the lower rungs of urban society. Their resilience is also a testimony to their intrinsic usefulness and the demand for their services. In the late Qing, they certainly met the needs of women who could hardly walk far away from their homes. Male immigrants with crowded living quarters could rely on peddlers for their daily food. More generally, all residents could avoid the trouble of going out to shop for goods and carry them back home. Quite obviously, there was a market niche for peddlers in the city. In Peking, thousands of peddlers roamed the streets and more particularly the hutong 㚵ৠ, where most of the population lived. They offered their goods or services to the residents day and night, ceaselessly. In order to entice customers from their walled houses and courtyards, peddlers made vocal sounds, sometimes in elaborate form, or, more interestingly, used musical instruments. This was their way of announcing their presence and advertising the good(s) or service(s) on offer. As they each used a distinctive “call” or instrument, residents would immediately know what goods or services were available at their doorstep. Moreover, such calls and music would change throughout the year. Whereas some goods were peddled all year through, others were seasonal. Sounds and calls

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changed with the goods and times of year. These vocal or instrumental calls by peddlers formed an essential part of the typical sounds of the city, especially in the quiet residential neighborhoods. They came to be part of Peking’s street theater, of a folklore recorded with nostalgia by some Chinese literati. Peddlers are a very illusive category. Despite their number and prominence, they left hardly any trace. In the first part of this chapter, I shall examine who they were, how they operated, and what they represented in Peking’s urban society. From this sketchy social portrait, I shall move into a study of how the peddlers were represented in various sets of pictorial records. Finally, I shall demonstrate that peddlers were an integral part of street theater. This is not just a metaphor. Through their calls, songs, and music, peddlers created a constant flow of live entertainment in the street. Peddlers: A Sketchy Social Portrait The pictorial record shows that peddlers were everywhere in the city, not only in the hutong, but also in the main streets, in markets, and in front of schools.1 They were an integral part of Peking’s cityscape, a “feature” that was part of the scenery of Peking. In 369 huabao ⬿ฅ (369 illustrated journal), I found several drawings titled “Natural Scenic Views of Peking” (“Beijing fengguang ࣫Ҁ乼‫ )”ܝ‬that displayed peddlers as the central theme of the view.2 In many newspapers, the images of peddlers were categorized under “Hundred pictures of the city” (“Dushi baiying 䛑Ꮦ ⱒᕅ”).3 In the Xinmin bao, they appeared in a series called “Social Mirror (“Shehui xiezhen ⼒᳗ᆿⳳ”). In Xin Beiping (1935) and Xinmin bao (1938), pictures of peddlers were presented in series titled “Natural Scenic Views of Beiping” (“Jingshi fengguang ҀᏖ乼‫ )”ܝ‬or “Natural Scenic Views of Beiping City” (“Beiping fengguang ࣫ᑇ乼‫)”ܝ‬. City guides also started to give peddlers some prominence. In one Chinese guide to Peking, there was a chapter titled “Portrait of Ordinary People’s Lives” (“Pingmin shenghuozhi xiezhen ᑇ⇥⫳⌏Пᆿⳳ”) focused entirely on different street peddlers.4 A Western guide of Peking also pointed out the street scene with its peddlers as something to see for tourists: “Cries of itinerant vendors, each with his individual noise-making instrument. It is said if one stands long enough on any street corner one may buy all the necessary commodities of life from these walking shops.”5 1 2 3 4 5

“Mai shaobing de lao touzi 䊷➦仙ⱘ㗕丁ᄤ,” Beiping wanbao, 29 May 1932. 369 huabao 21, no. 7 (23 May 1943). Xinmin bao, 11 March 1939. Tian Yunjin, Zuixin Beiping zhinan, 25. San-Tiao Hsiao, Peking on Parade—A Pocket Guide (Peiping: The Standard Press, 1935), 52.

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Nevertheless, there is little information available on the social background of peddlers or on their places of origin. Because their work required constantly patrolling city streets, they could not live far away from Peking. But even if they came from neighboring villages, it was probably necessary for them to find temporary accommodation in the city proper. So far, archives have proved silent on this issue, but one can glean some data from newspapers that published articles about incidents or crimes related to peddlers.6 Fortunately, it was standard practice of local newspapers at the time to give private details such as the address, native place, and age of the individual involved. This is a meager staple, but it helps us find out who these peddlers were. Since such data is very scattered, I shall process it later to examine what kind of incidents happened to peddlers, what attracted the attention of the media, and what was mentioned regarding their background. In the following section, I shall provide a preliminary outline of this population.7 There were, in fact, two kinds of street peddlers: the tanfan ᫸䉽 (stand peddler) and the chuan hutong xiaofan こ㚵ৠᇣ䉽 (itinerant peddler).8 The first type were those who actually had a fixed stand. They stayed in one place, where their goods were displayed. They probably occupied the same spot day after day unless they were displaced by force (road work, police regulation, and so on). These peddlers did not really move around the city all day long. Most such peddlers were to be found in certain streets or markets. The other type—the one I examine in this chapter— were those who were on the move all day long or at certain hours, along regular paths. They were to be found in the hutong. The most common term for them was xiaofan ᇣ䉽, but many other names were used: fufan 䉴 䉽 (burden peddler), jian fan 㙽䉽 (shoulder peddler), xingshang 㸠ଚ (itinerant merchant), xiajie xiaofan ϟ㸫ᇣ䉽 (street peddlers), and youfan ␌䉽 (roaming peddler). All these expressions rendered quite well the nature and specificity of these “itinerant merchants.” Peddlers catered to every conceivable want and desire. Almost everything that a Chinese household needed could be brought to its door, even cool drinks in the summer and hot soup in the winter. Peddlers probably 6 The press often reported stories of seduction, rape, and the like; see Xin Beiping ᮄ࣫ᑇ, 10 September 1933. Xu Yamin has made extensive use of the press to study civil strife and violence in Republican Beijing (see “Wicked Citizens and the Social Origins of China’s Modern Authoritarian State: Civil Strife and Political Control in Republican Beiping, 1928–1937” (Ph.D. diss, University of California, Berkeley, 2002). 7 Lu Hanchao has also offered a glimpse of peddlers in Shanghai’s lilong 䞠ᓘ: Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 189–217. 8 There were also more general terms that applied to small peddlers, with or without a fixed stand: huolang 䉼䚢 (merchandise peddler) and xiaofan ᇣ䉽 (small vendor).

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Figure 1: Street barber. (From the Hedda Morrison Collection, Harvard-Yenching Library, Harvard University. Copyright President & Fellows of Harvard College. Printed courtesy of the HarvardYenching Library.)

made only a thin margin. Because they escaped taxation, they sold at prices that were often lower than those of shops. In the case of peddlers offering house services—repairing furniture, kitchenware, clothing, and the like—or body services—shaving, nail cutting, even massage—they saved residents the trouble of carrying broken items to a shop and enabled them the comfort of “body maintenance” in their own courtyard. Clearly, as a Western observer noted, “if it were not for these itinerant merchants, the residents in the hutong would have to make frequent journeys to the shops and markets, which are often a considerable distance away from their homes.”9 Peddlers eased the life of Peking residents. These merchants catered to those who could not afford to have servants at home to prepare their meals (although servants could also be sent to buy something extra from peddlers) or who did not have space for cooking. In the early morning, peddlers sold breakfast in many locations. One could easily stop by on the way to work or to school to fill one’s stomach. Photographs show that most of the patrons of peddlers were women and children. There were men too, but because women usually stayed at home and took care of the household while their husbands worked outside, and because children, especially young ones, played in the hutong, they were the obvious targets of the peddlers.10 This was especially true of those who provided entertainment such as trained monkeys or “mice men.” Those in old or young age or women who did not go out much, at least until after the May Fourth Movement, could find simple forms of entertainment right at their doorstep. In the time of the spring festival, 9

Robert Swallow, Sidelights on Peking Life (Peking: China Booksellers, 1927), 20. In the press, there was a vein about the dirty tricks that all sorts of people played on honest residents. Some peddlers were said to have multiple tricks to get into relationships with housewives (“Yan jie jiao mai fan de jin xi ⊓㸫ি䊷䉽ⱘҞᯨ,” Beiping wanbao ࣫ᑇᰮ ฅ, 1 March 1936). 10

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Figure 2: Peddlers and everyday life. (From Xin Beiping, 4 and 24 March 1935; 4 April 1935; 19 March 1935.)

these street-artist peddlers would be called home to perform for families, most especially women, who still spent most of their time secluded in the house.11 Peddlers were ordinary people and, in some cases, poor people too. What is missing—and for good reason, since it is hard to come up with the relevant materials—is a concrete sense of the peddlers’ origin, life, and work. In most of the Chinese sources I have consulted, newspapers and city guides, they are called pingmin ᑇ⇥, a term that refers mostly not just to “ordinary people” but plainly to poor people. For example, in the 1920s or 1930s, when rice became expensive, local governments would dispense pingjiami ᑇ‫( ㉇ۍ‬low-price rice). Among the urban renewal projects implemented by the Nationalist authorities, there were plans for pingmin zhusuo ᑇ⇥ԣ᠔ (low-cost housing).12 This appellation did not mean pingmin were bound to remain poor throughout their lives. Peddling goods could 11 Tian Yunjin ⬄㯞⩒, Zui xin Beiping zhinan ᳔ᮄ࣫ᑇᣛफ [New guide to Beiping] (Beiping: Ziqiang shuju, 1936). 12 On municipal policies toward pingmin, see Christian Henriot, Shanghai, 1927–1937: Municipal Power, Locality, and Modernization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 221–228; Zwia Lipkin, Useless to the State: “Social Problems” and Social Engineering in Nationalist Nanjing, 1927–1937 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006), chap. 3.

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be the beginning of upward social mobility for a peasant if he or she could accumulate enough capital to make incremental steps toward a stall or a shop. Of course, we do not have any data on their individual or collective destiny. It is probably safe to assume that few became millionaires, but there is no reason to consider that they had no agency. In fact, even if a Western observer passed a harsh judgment on them—“I have talked with many of these people and been impressed by their dullness and narrow outlook. Making the same rounds year in and year out”—there is no such description in Chinese-language documents.13 Peddlers had to work long hours to make a living. They did not need much capital to start a business, but the return was limited. In the 1920s, for fried bean curd (zha doufu ⚌䈚㜤), “the amount of capital needed per day was about $2, and the poor fellows have to walk the streets until 4 o’clock in the morning for a profit of 30 cents.”14 On the contrary, an author in a city guide wrote that thread and yarn peddlers as well as those who sold women’s toiletry items such as toothbrushes, makeup, and the like earned 3 or 4 yuan per day and were not worried about their daily living expenses. On good market days, the peddlers selling sweet potatoes and sour pears (suanli 䝌Ṽ) could fare better than office employees.15 Work usually started at home, where the food was prepared. For example, peddlers selling almond tea (xingren cha ᴣҕ㤊) cooked ingredients (ground rice and sugar) in the afternoon and kept them warm over a charcoal fire during the night. By 4 o’clock in the morning, the peddlers got up to boil tea and place it in the pots they took along with their traveling stove. They distributed their merchandise until around 10 o’clock, generally making a profit of about 50 cents.16 To sell their goods and services, peddlers had, day by day, to make long and wearisome marches, exposed to all kinds of discomforts and ill protected against the vagaries of the weather.17 In February 1936, the city endured six days of snowfall. The residents cleaned their yards by removing the snow to the streets and alleys. The frozen stacks of snow made it very difficult for the peddlers to walk in the hutong, and so they complained.18 The following winter, there were also large snowfalls that stopped the peddlers’ business.19 Aside from nature, peddlers were also the victims of modern traffic. In 1930, a watermelon peddler was hit by a 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Swallow, Sidelights on Peking Life, 20. Swallow, Sidelights on Peking Life, 26–27. Tian Yunjin, Zuixin Beiping zhinan, 16, 20, 22. Swallow, Sidelights on Peking Life, 27. Swallow, Sidelights on Peking Life, 20. Xin Beiping, 28 February 1936. Xin Beiping, 20 March 1936.

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car in a street close to Heping ੠ᑇ Gate and had his left leg broken. Six days later, another watermelon peddler, a sixteen-year-old, also had his leg broken by a car.20 Most of the time, peddlers were represented as one single person in visual materials, probably because of what they were, all micro individual business owners. It can also be argued that the producers of these images were interested in and concentrated on the “figure” of the street peddler and therefore left aside possible companions or helpers. Reality, as we shall see, was more complex. As with other crafts, peddlers selling one type of food or good might come from the same area. For instance, Shandong steamed bread was a famous delicacy in Peking, and all its peddlers hailed from that province. Since they had to live in the city, they shared rooms but split into two groups to conduct their business, one serving in the daytime and the other serving at night.21 A similar division of labor existed among the lao doufu 㗕䈚㜤 (old tofu) makers. They were divided into two groups, one to peddle their products in the hutong, the other to sell it from stands. They made their doufu in the morning and sold it in the afternoon.22 Other peddlers were peasants from the nearby countryside who found an occupation selling candies in the streets during the winter.23 The street barbers were almost all from Baozhi.24 They usually did not bring their families with them to Peking. They went to the city together, bringing money to rent rooms in a temple or poor peasants’ dwellings. They shared both rooms and food. In such cases, they were called guohuo 䤟ӭ (pot mates).25 Tanghulu ㊪㨿㯚 (candied fruit skewer) peddlers came from two districts in Hebei.26 The blown-sugar candy peddlers (chuitangren ਍㊪Ҏ) were all from Shandong Province, while most of the meat-dumpling peddlers were from Zhuzhou.27 Those who sold earthen cooking pots (shaguo ⷖ䤟) had to get them from Qitang in the mountains west of Peking or from Mentougou 䭔丁⑱ in the suburbs. They transported their goods on their shoulders to the city and marketed them in the hutong. Since these were heavy items, they probably brought a certain quantity to the city to last them a few days or more.28 Xiaoxiao ribao ᇣᇣ᮹ฅ [Small daily], 13 July 1930. “Ping shi jiaomai de ji zhong yexiaopin ᑇᏖি䊷ⱘᑒ。໰ᆉક” Beiping chenbao ࣫ᑇ᰼ ฅ, 20 August 1934. 22 Beiping chenbao, 13 July 1934. 23 Xinmin bao wankan ᮄ⇥ฅᰮߞ, 9 December 1938. 24 “Titou tiaozi tanmiao ࠗ丁ᣥᄤ⎵ᦣ,” Beiping chenbao, 24 November 1934. 25 “Titou tiaozi tanmiao.” 26 “Beiping de Bing Tang Hu Lu,” Beiping chenbao, 20 December 1933. 27 “Chui Tangren de shan zuo maimai,” Beiping chenbao, 11 November 1934. 28 Xinmin bao wanbao ᮄ⇥ฅᰮฅ, 16 July 1938. 20 21

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Peddlers could be involved in more than one activity to make up for the seasonality of their goods. We learn that those who sold blown-candy figures dispensed their good only in the spring, autumn, and winter. In the summer, they specialized in repairing umbrellas in the hutong. These peddlers began their rounds after noon and worked until the end of the day. Like steamed-bread peddlers, they shared one room among three or four men. One peddler told a journalist that there were more than thirty peddlers in this trade.29 It seems that the peddlers who sold cooked food prepared everything by themselves. They purchased the ingredients in the market, cooked at home, and went into the hutong to sell. Some brought the primary ingredients with them and prepared the food in situ with the moving kitchen kit they carried. Those who sold fresh products, like vegetable and fruit vendors, would get their supply from a broker or a market in the city. Some probably came from neighboring villages, whence they departed at daybreak. The press reported that brokers took advantage of food peddlers and bullied them knowing that if they protested the peddler would have nothing to sell.30 In Peking, there were two fruit markets, one outside of Qianmen ࠡ䭔 Gate, north of Zhushikou ⦴Ꮦষ, and the other outside of Desheng ᖋࢱ Gate. Each morning, all the fruit peddlers in Peking went to the markets or shops to buy fruits that had been brought on camels from the countryside.31 There were also wholesale markets (yaohuoshi 㽕䉼Ꮦ) in Peking. One was outside of Qianmen Gate in the Dajiangjia ᠧ䞀ᆊ hutong; the other was inside Desheng Gate in the Tangfang ූ᠓ hutong. These two markets sold toys and candies. In the early morning, the different kinds of peddlers gathered there to buy their goods. As these markets opened for only two or three hours daily, the various peddlers swarmed to the place.32 The establishment of modern municipalities had an impact on street peddlers, although the lack of archival sources makes it difficult to actually assess this. A search in the archives failed to bring to light anything about measures of control or regulation of the peddlers. In the press of the time, we read that taxes were levied on shops or fixed stands in the streets. For instance, stands selling calendars had to pay a police tax (jingjuan 䄺 ᤤ), a welfare tax (shehui gongyi juan ⼒᳗݀Ⲟᤤ), and a 3- to 5-cent stand tax (tandishui ᫸ᑩ⿙). There is no mention of any tax on itinerant peddlers.33 On the contrary, the municipality did issue rules on the control 29

“Chui tang ren de shanzuo maimai,” Beiping chenbao, 11 February 1934. “Shucai fanzui huoyue,” Xinmin bao, 22 April 1938. 31 Qiu Sheng, “Beiping jishi diaocha,” Beiping ribao ࣫ᑇ᮹ฅ, 27 February 1929. 32 Qiu Sheng, “Beiping jishi diaocha,” Beiping ribao, 28 February 1929. 33 Beiping chenbao, 31 December 1932. The capital for a fixed stand was at least 6 or 7 yuan, whereas itinerant peddlers needed only 3 yuan. The Peking municipal government reduced 30

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Figure 3: “Unsanitary” suanmeitang peddler. (From Shi bao, 20 August 1935.)

of hygiene. The introduction of such modern policing in the city created tensions and conflicts. In August 1935, Shi bao ᆺฅ (Reality) published a picture showing a peddler pouring all his soup on the ground in front of a policeman.34 The caption explained that the government controlled the quality of cold and hot drinks, for which a permit was required. A policeman of the Public Health Section had caught the peddler selling suanmeitang 䝌ṙ⑃ (plum soup) without permission and had ordered him to destroy it on the spot. The concern for public health also led the municipal government to prohibit certain chestnut vendors the same year.35 On another occasion, a tanghulu peddler got into a fight with a policeman when the latter tried to take him to the police station. The peddler sold tanghulu through a lottery system to attract customers; the policeman accused him of gambling.36 Obviously, controlling the vast army of peddlers that walked the hutong was not an easy task for the local government. The concern for public health that eventually came to the forefront of municipal governance in the Nationalist era, especially as regards food, may explain the emergence of conflicts with peddlers (see fig. 3). One should not be surprised to find that some peddlers were involved in disputes and strife with customers or with their own family.37 For examthe tax on street merchants in the winter of 1936, to encourage them because they bolstered the city’s economy, but the measure applied only to the futan ⍂᫸, or peddlers with only a temporary stand (Xin Beiping, 12 January 1936). 34 Shi bao, 20 August 1935. 35 Tian Yunjin, Zuixin Beiping zhinan, 17. 36 Xin Beiping, 2 November 1931. Customers could get tanghulu by drawing straws. If they were lucky, they received free tanghulu; if they lost, the peddler kept the money and the tanghulu. 37 Xu Yamin argues there was a high level of social breakdown in Republican Peking. Although his interpretation is debatable, it does show that the press focused very much on incidents involving family disputes. See Xu, “Wicked Citizens and the Social Origins of China’s Modern Authoritarian State.”

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ple, a zongzi ㊑ᄤ (rice dumpling) peddler was robbed by a customer who pretended to have left his money at home to attract the peddler to an isolated spot.38 In another case, a vegetable peddler who had been called into an alley by the servant of a Japanese household to buy eggplants argued over price. As he refused to sell at the low price offered, he received blows from the servant that caused him to bleed.39 This case was not unusual. Peddlers also fought with each other. It was reported that two vegetable vendors who had an argument about the division of profit hit each other with a kettle in a small tea house.40 Conflicts about money also caused family disputes. A peddler named Wan Diancai made a living selling stewed chicken, while his wife earned some side money by sewing. When Wang asked his wife to pay for their rented room, they got into a violent quarrel that eventually landed them in court.41 In another example, Li Tingrong, a thirty-three-year-old peddler, had a dispute with his elder brother to whom he had lent money. Instead of starting a business with the loan, the elder brother had gambled away the money. Li then chopped his gambling partner to death with a cooking knife.42 The newspapers also report on cases of peddlers’ committing suicide. Sun Deshan and Wang Yu, two scavengers (dagude ᠧ哧ⱘ) who lived in a courtyard, had a dispute about business. One day, Sun saw some old merchandise that he offered to buy, but he did not get it because his price was too low. The following day, Wang went to the same place and came back with the merchandise. This angered Sun, who out of despair hanged himself.43 Peddlers in the Pictorial Record The visual material I used for this research consists of drawings and photographs produced in the Republican period. Two of the major collections are made up of hand-painted pictures of peddlers. The actual source of the images is unclear, as we shall see later, but they both offer an imagined visual record of peddlers. The third set of record contains photographs, the bulk of which were taken by Hedda Morrison in the 1930s and 1940s.44 38

Xin Beiping, 13 April 1936. Xin Beiping, 20 August, 1932. 40 Beiping baihua bao ࣫ᑇⱑ䁅ฅ, 12 September 1930, 4. 41 Xin Beiping, 25 April 1933. 42 Xin Beiping, 27 September 1932. 43 Xin Beiping, 4 August 1933. 44 I deliberately exclude here images recently published in books in China for their lack of proper referencing of sources and obvious plagiarizing from otherwise well-known collections like Hedda Morrison’s, such as Jiu Jing daguan 㟞᱃໻㾔 [Old Beijing in panorama] (Beijing: Renmin Zhongguo chubanshe, 1992); Fang Qi and Jiran Qi, eds., Old Peking: The City and Its People (Hong Kong: Hai Feng Publishing, 1993). 39

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The fourth set comes from popular newspapers. It includes both drawings and photographs, but because I had access only to low-quality microfilms, I shall not include the newspaper photographs in this chapter. The number of images displayed here is limited, but they constitute a major source in our study of the peddlers’ life. The photographic record plays a major role in sharpening our gaze on the peddlers’ condition. Photographs, contrary to paintings, take us into the urban space. They place the peddlers in city streets. These pictures make us more aware of the relationship between the city and the peddlers, between the urban layout and everyday life, between life in the neighborhood and the peddlers’ business. Although we cannot hear the peddlers, these photographs are the silent records of the vibrant sounds that animated the streets of Republican Peking. In Morrison’s images, peddlers no longer appear in the aestheticized representation of Victor Constant’s or Qi Rushan’s drawings. They offer a plain view of the peddlers’ allure. If we look closely, we can observe that their clothes are not in a shabby state. They may be plain and worn out, but they are far different and way above that of the beggars Morrison also recorded with her camera. It can also be said that the peddlers offer a better appearance than the coolies or manual workers portrayed in the same period. Probably, their appearance was somehow important vis-à-vis customers who might turn away from peddlers looking too miserable. In photographs, they have a pleasant expression, perhaps because they were in front of the camera, but quite clearly they were not beggars or poor sods eking out a living in the street. The two pictorial books on peddlers were published at around the same time in the mid-1930s. In fact, they are probably the only two such records on peddlers, except for short series of images and notices in Peking’s popular newspapers.45 I do not have more information about this sudden interest in peddlers, a category that could not rank very high in elites’ concern and more generally in the public. It may be part, as is obvious in one of the two books, of a “nostalgic turn” among literati and intellectuals in Peking. One can find in the press and in various publications this sense that something had been or was about to be lost in Peking’s culture, and that it was time to make a record of it before it became history. The popular 45 Pictorial representations of peddlers date back to the Song dynasty. Although they provide an amazing record of these itinerant merchants, they fail to give the contexts where they operated. For Beijing, a visual record was made in the middle of the nineteenth century by Chinese artists commissioned by a Russian resident physician. This is probably one of the earliest visual testimonies on peddlers in the capital city. See Ellen Johnston Laing, “Li Sung and Some Aspects of Southern Sung Figure Painting,” Artibus Asiae 37, no. 1/2 (1975): 6–12; K. Y. Sonolin, ed., The Bretschneider Albums: Nineteenth Century Paintings of Life in China (Reading, U.K.: Garnet Publishing, 1994).

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press, in particular, ran several series of illustrated short papers on different aspect of the former capital’s distinctive features.46 The first collection of images on peddlers in the Republican era was published by Victor Samuel Constant (1894–1989). Constant prepared this work for an M.A. degree at the California College in China, also called the College of Chinese Studies, while serving as assistant military attaché at the U.S. Embassy from 1925 to 1936. He eventually published it in spring 1936 under the title Calls, Sounds, and Merchandise of the Peking Street Peddlers.47 The author states that his work includes the most important and most common peddlers who went around Peking streets.48 Sixty-five peddlers are presented in the book (four in photographs), with a description of their calls, characteristic sounds, and what they had to sell or to offer as a service. Yet it is obvious from the pictorial representation of the peddlers that the images cannot be from the Republican period. Some peddlers are represented wearing a queue, some images are not clear but the subject’s hairstyle point to the pre-1911 period, and many men are painted with their full hair. In other words, we cannot be certain that Constant painted them himself, nor can we know whether he drew on earlier publications to represent peddlers. The College of Chinese Studies was first established in 1910 in Peking as the North China Union Language School, a school for English-speaking missionaries, businessmen, and diplomats. By the late 1910s, it had become a major operation for Chinese-language training among American missionaries, scholars, and military officers. With the Japanese invasion of China in World War II, the college moved to the United States, to the University of California campus at Berkeley in 1942. Later, its collections went to the Claremont Graduate School (now Claremont Graduate University).49 Victor Constant was the son of an eminent attorney and military officer.50 He joined the U.S. Army and was posted to China be46 I used such material in my study of Peking’s shop signs, “Shop Signs and Visual Culture in Republican Beijing,” European Journal of East Asian Studies 6, no. 1 (2007): 85–110. 47 The original M.A. thesis is available at the Occidental College Library in California. It is dated 1936 in the catalog. 48 Samuel Victor Constant, Calls, Sounds, and Merchandise of the Peking Street Peddlers (Peking: The Camel Bell, 1935; reprinted in 1993 by Bird and Bull Press and in 1994 and 2004 by Beijing tushuguan chubanshe), iv. 49 On the history of the College of Chinese Studies and the California College in China Foundation, see Weijiang Zhang, “Institutional Development and Legacy: An Early Model of Effective Cross-cultural Postsecondary Education: A Case Study of the College of Chinese Studies in Beijing and the California College in China Foundation in California” (Ph.D. diss., Claremont Graduate University, 2004). 50 New York Times, 12 February 1989. On Constant’s father, see http://www.colonialwarsny .org/constant.htm.

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tween 1925 and 1936.51 Given his birth date and career, he could not himself have seen the Qing-period peddlers. We have to assume that he used the books listed in the bibliography, such as the one by Qi Rushan, Musical Instruments of the Old Capital (discussed later), or the one by an anonymous author, an “Old Manchu Dynasty” hand-written manuscript titled “Huo sheng” (Business sounds). This suggests that Constant had access to sources from the Qing dynasty. He also noted that he made investigations and had personal conversations with street peddlers to prepare the book.52 His study, therefore, was also grounded in his experience when he lived in the city during the Republican period. The second collection is in a book by Qi Rushan 唞བቅ (1877–1962) that was printed and circulated privately in 1935 and published the following year. Qi was a famous Chinese opera and music theorist and dramatic author who contributed much to the renewal of Peking opera.53 His book on peddlers Gudu shiyue tukao স䛑Ꮦῖ೪㗗 (A pictorial study of city music in the ancient capital) describes forty musical instruments used by peddlers.54 It is illustrated with black-and-white images of the peddlers and their instruments, with textual explanations of the instruments themselves. There are no indications on the origin of the images. As in Constant’s book, some of Qi’s images seem to be from the end of the Qing dynasty and others from the Republican period (nine pictures in Qi and fourteen in Constant). This pictorial record is focused only on peddlers who used a musical instrument. Undoubtedly, for Qi, these instruments were an integral part of Chinese musical culture, and peddlers were the guardians of a vanishing culture. Qi also mentioned he had produced another book, Beijing huosheng ࣫Ҁ䉼㙆 (Beijing business sounds), on peddlers’ calls, with only the lyrics but not the sounds (you zi wu sheng ᳝ᄫ ⛵㙆).55 The two books discussed here present peddlers in an artistic form. Apart from the issue of when they were produced, they put the emphasis 51 See the short biography in the Pettus Archival Project, at http://www.cgu.edu/pages/ 3226.asp. 52 Constant, Calls, Sounds, and Merchandise, 185. 53 Catherine Yeh, “Refined Beauty, New Woman: Dynamic Heroine or Fighter for the Nation? Perceptions of China in the Programme Selection for Mei Lanfang’s Performances in Japan (1919), the United States (1930), and the Soviet Union (1935),” European Journal of East Asian Studies 6, no. 1 (2007): 57–84. 54 Qi Rushan, Gudu shiyue tu kao [A pictorial study of city music in the ancient capital] (Beiping: Beiping guoju xuehui, 1935). 55 Qi Rushan, Gudu shiyue tu kao, 1. To this day this book remains unavailable, even if it is noted in a recent dictionary on shop signs; see Qu Yanbin ᳆ᔹ᭠, Zhongguo zhaohuang cidian Ё೟᢯ᐠ䖁‫[ ݌‬Dictionary of Chinese shop signs] (Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe, 2001).

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on peddlers as figures of the local folk culture and even of an ancient but fading musical tradition. Qi sees them from the point of view of protecting Chinese musical instruments, while Constant presents them in artistic vignettes reminiscent of fine art. In both cases, we are left with a record that emphasizes aesthetics, exoticism, and nativism from a nostalgic perspective. The clothing, hairstyle, and even the movement of the body in these paintings are aesthetized. They are meant to take the reader back into the Chinese past, a gentle past where hard work and poverty are glossed over. Style and allure are given prominence to highlight the richness of past customs. Qi would have seen the peddlers at the end of the Qing dynasty as a young adult, but these books came out in the mid-1930s, not as ethnographic records of peddlers, but as odes to an idealized past. For a more realistic representation of Peking peddlers, I relied on the photographic collection of the German photographer Hedda Morrison.56 Morrison took around one hundred photographs of peddlers in Republican Peking. None of these photographs are dated or give indications on locations. We know Morrison lived and was active professionally in the city between 1933 and 1946. As her photography was aimed at producing commercial images, she took great care to record what she felt were iconic representations of life in Peking. At the same time, perhaps due to her original training in fine industrial photography, she generally covered her topics in several steps: she would take a picture of a peddler with all his equipment, then of the goods on sale, of the devices used to carry the goods (shoulder pole, box, tray, and the like), and of course of the instruments used to call customers. These pictures are not stylized, as are the drawings in the two books, with an intent to show the action of singing or calling. These are plain images that offer a definite visual record of peddlers in the street. Apart from these major collections of images, I have found both pictorial and textual data in the newspapers published in Peking in the 1930s, such as the Shi bao and Xin Beiping ᮄ࣫ᑇ (New Beiping). In 1935, both published a series of drawings, altogether fifty-six images, on peddlers. During wartime, the Xinmin bao ᮄ⇥ฅ (New people) ran a series from July to November 1939 that included about thirty photographs of peddlers. The form of representation of peddlers in the newspapers was quite similar. It usually consisted of images, each with a short caption. The impact of these series was probably not insignificant. The Shi bao was a very popular newspaper with an extended life span in the city, from 1929 to 56 For an overview of Morrison’s work in China, see the beautiful Web site set up by the Harvard-Yenching Library at http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/harvard-yenching/collections/ morrison/.

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1943. The other two came in succession, the Xin Beiping from 1931 to 1938 and the Xinmin bao from 1938 to 1944. They all featured series on popular culture, past and present, in the former capital city. Altogether, our visual documentation is made up of 209 images of peddlers in Peking, most of them for the Republican period, with about one third in photographs. This visual record allows us to explore further the prominent though illusive population of peddlers. From a gender perspective, these images show that almost all were adult males. Women are extremely rare; only three appear—two of them peddled matches in exchange for used shoes, paper, and the like, and the other was a rice cake vendor with a cart. The match peddlers appear in Constant and a newspaper, while the rice cake vendor comes up only in Constant.57 Hardly anything can be said of these beyond the obvious fact that peddling was an activity for men. Even in the photographic record of the 1930s, after women had gained their place in the public space, they were not yet shown to be part of this labor market. There were of course considerations of physical strength, but as we shall see—and can see today in China—there are plenty of goods women can carry and peddle. The world of peddlers had not yet opened to women in Republican Peking. There were also a few children who worked as peddlers, again in the drawings, not in the photographic record.58 They were to be seen in marketplaces, but rather than peddling goods, there were more often peddling their “art,” namely, acrobatics and martial arts.59 Peddlers for the most part were in their adult years. Of course, there is no way to tell their age even on an average basis. Nevertheless, the peddlers in Morrison’s photographs are for the most part in the thirty- to fifty-five-year-old age bracket, with an even distribution among those in their thirties, forties, and fifties.60 There are very few older peddlers, and no more than a handful in their twenties.61 What was the actual variety of goods and services available to Peking residents? Our sample of 209 images shows 106 different activities, even if our count is based sometimes on small differences. In the paintings, it was 57 In the Morrison collection, one can also find a female fortuneteller, but it is unclear whether she was actually an itinerant peddler in the hutong. 58 Children peddlers were often reported as carrying baskets and calling “zhua, xiao baicai you ᡧ, ᇣⱑ㦰਺” (for sale, small cabbage); see Fei Fan, “Ping shi qiu de biaoshi yu sheng yu ke pa de huosheng,” Beiping chenbao, 25 August 1934. 59 See the Morrison collection: http://beijing.virtualcities.fr, Image ID 11789 and Image ID 12853. 60 As an example, a newspaper reported that Liu Yichen, a vegetable cart peddler, was forty-nine and his wife forty-two. They lived in Liulichang, near Xuanwu Gate. See Xin Beiping, 19 December 1932. 61 I found one example in the press of a shaobing peddler said to be eighty-two years old: Liu Dejiang, “Mai Shaobing de lao touzi,” Beiping wanbao, 29 May 1932.

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probably easier to represent a greater variety of peddlers. Constant and Qi present thirty-five and sixteen types, respectively. Morrison had to count on her encounters, at the right moment of the day, and of course only during daytime. Her record of a hundred photographs actually shows fifteen different peddlers (and six unidentified food peddlers). The newspapers offer the largest sample, with about forty different peddlers. Even if we take into consideration the similarity among some peddlers, there is no doubt that a wide variety of goods and services was available. Within this sample, the vast majority (eighty-three) peddled goods while the rest (twenty-four) offered services.62 Among those who marketed goods, a large number sold food (thirtyeight). I distinguish among those who carried raw food (fruits and vegetables), cooked food, and drinks. The first category usually marketed one specific type, such as garlic, melon seeds, or fresh almonds. There are a few cases of images with captions indicating “fruits” or “vegetables” with no more precise labeling. Even if we take the whole sample, the number of peddlers catering in raw food was limited. It was not a main line of business. The commercial edge of peddlers was more on the side of prepared snacks and drinks. As to the latter, we have five kinds that remain popular to this day: hot tea, almond tea, suanmeitang, milk liquor (mai lao de 䊷䝾ⱘ), and tea soup (chatang 㤊⑃). We also know that peddlers delivered plain boiled water to houses. On the side of cooked food, the variety is beyond description. It includes basic items like mantou 伙丁 (steamed bread), huntun 仯亽 (wonton soup), and shaobing ➦仙 (baked rolls), which were all part of the regular diet for breakfast. There was a large number of candies, sweet delicacies (including the famous tanghulu), and salted dumplings. In other words, while some peddlers brought the staples of everyday life, many of them catered to the “extras.” Given the share of candies and sweets, they could have targeted a certain clientele of children and older people more inclined toward such products. The variety of goods marketed outside of food is also very rich. Fundamentally, one could list most of them under household goods. It started with the basic necessities such as cooking oil, charcoal, and matches. Then followed anything related to cooking—stoves, china, earthen cooking pots, kettles, ironware, gourds, and the like—and maintenance of the house—brushes, feather dusters, lamp bowls, mats, and all kinds of small everyday items (combs, small scissors, and the like). A third group can be organized around house decoration, with things like paper flowers, 62 The distribution in the collections is as follows: “goods”: Constant (26), Qi (13), Morrison (11), newspapers (32); “services”: Constant (9), Qi (2), Morrison (4), Newspapers (9). Altogether, in the four visual collections, there are 143 images of peddlers selling goods and 63 of peddlers offering services.

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pictures for the wall, goldfish, fresh flowers, calendars, and images of “door gods” (menshen 䭔⼲) to bring happiness. We also find peddlers selling cloth, umbrellas, earmuffs, toys, medicine, and other miscellaneous items. From this list, it seems that peddlers distributed goods that came in many shapes and weights. While some of these goods could be obtained from regular shops, especially the basic kitchenware, peddlers often brought goods from a specific place that had a reputation in their manufacturing. Besides offering a lower price than other peddlers, this may have given them a competitive advantage. In terms of services, the range was definitely narrower, even if this does not necessarily reflect the actual number of peddlers involved in these lines of business. Yet, the consumers of candies were certainly far more numerous than those requiring shoe or kettle mending. In my sample of service activities, there are two broad categories: those offering a concrete form of service and those providing a form of entertainment. I shall discuss the latter category in the next section. The range of services matched the most common needs of families in their everyday life. They were mostly repair or mending services. Peddlers could fix almost anything: shoes, mats, vessels, kitchenware, woks, kettles, leather goods, and so on. These were items that were meant to last as long as possible so moneystrapped families could avoid purchasing new ones. The fairly low cost of common kitchenware tells us how cheap the repair service provided by the peddlers was. Knife and scissor sharpeners were also in great demand, as cooking requires adequate tools, but we also find among the peddlers a carpenter who would probably fix worn-out furniture. Aside from repair or maintenance, a small group of peddlers specialized in removing items from houses, usually by purchasing (such as a silver buyer) or simply taking away worn-out items (scavengers). There were also peddlers who provided for the comfort of soul and body. The first category was made up entirely of fortunetellers, who took care of people’s peace of mind by advising them about the good or bad omens in their life. Although they form a single category, it is represented by twelve images in our collection. In charge of the body, the most prominent by all criteria were the barbers. Although on the wane, roving barbers can still be seen in the streets of Peking today. They have a long, enduring presence in the urban landscape. They were generally among the most represented in Westerners’ photographic record. The barbers provided an essential service until 1911 by taking care of the shaving of the front part of the head, something not easily done by oneself, and the weaving of the queue. More generally, because of the hot Peking weather, males in the popular classes often had their head fully shaved during the summer. There was therefore a large market of heads to shave almost all year through (although barbers were listed by Constant among the summer

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peddlers). Two other parts of the body were also serviced by specialized peddlers, for feet and ears, although sometimes both were serviced by the same person in the way of cleaning, massaging, and cutting nails. Yet, in our image collection, they appear as two separate figures. Roaming the street to sell one’s goods or services entailed one form or another of transportation. Peddlers had various types of equipment. They could carry a simple basket or a tray where the goods—generally light ones—were displayed, or a box, for better protection or to carry tools. When it came to heavier goods, or even for a whole set of equipment for cooking, one of the most common instruments was the shoulder pole (tiaozi ᣥᄤ), but peddlers also used various types of wheelbarrow and two-wheeled and three-wheeled handcarts. The visual record demonstrates the remarkable creativity of peddlers in the use of various devices to carry their goods and tools. I shall examine the major types and see how they were distributed among the different kinds of activity. Peddlers used five sorts of carrying devices: trays, bags or baskets, boxes, shoulder poles, and carts (fig. 4a–e). Of course, there was also a combination of these items, especially with the shoulder pole to which peddlers suspended all kinds of objects (trays, baskets, boxes, stoves, and the like). Bags were the least used device (eight examples). They served the need of those who had light equipment (ear cleaners, feet fixers) or sold light and small-sized goods (hair accessories, tobacco, Jew’s harps). The tray was also a relatively rare item. The simplest form was made of rattan on which goods were spread flat. Obviously, with such trays peddlers could carry either a limited quantity of goods or goods that were especially light. Trays appear in twelve images (five within the single-activity sample) used for light food items such as almonds, melon seeds, shaobing, tanghulu, all kinds of candies, and flowers. The third most important carrying device was a large round or oval basket or box slung over the shoulder and carried on the lower back or in front of the body. Boxes (or baskets) appear forty-three times (twenty-three within the single-activity sample). This category also includes cages (for mice and monkeys) and the “running land boats” (see section 3). Mostly, they were used by peddlers who could pile up their products but also had to protect them from the rain or shocks. Their items included cloth, fans, matches, medicine, cosmetics, almanacs, pomegranate blossoms, and toys. Boxes were hardly used for food. In my sample, I found them only for pea cakes (wandou huang 䈠䈚 咗), pear cakes (ligao Ṽ㊩), and shaobing. One type of scavenger was also shown carrying a box. Wheel carts, a traditional rural instrument, are represented in twentyfour images (sixteen within the single-activity sample). Wheel carts were more popular in northern China, where the land was dry and harder

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Figure 4a–e: Tools of transportation. (From Hedda Morrison Collection, courtesy of the HarvardYenching Library.)

than in the south, even though the Chinese wheelbarrow could be seen in any city.63 The sturdy carts enabled peddlers to carry a large quantity of goods—it was not unusual for a single man to carry between two and eight people on a wheelbarrow, for example.64 In Peking, carts came in different forms, two- or three-wheeled and the traditional wheelbarrow. They required a higher investment than a box or a shoulder pole, and even though they could carry more goods, they were more cumbersome 63 Pictures of Shanghai in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries show streets or wharves with fleets of wheelbarrows. See the following images on the Virtual Shanghai project Web site at http://virtualshanghai.net: ID numbers 1681, 133, 1782, 2340, and 5392. 64 See http://www.virtualshanghai.net, Image ID133.

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for peddlers who lived in the city proper. The last form of device was the wheel-based cart. In Peking, it seems goods were transported only on wheelbarrows. Carts were used exclusively for the sale of goods, with food (sweet potatoes, shaobing, tanghulu, tracery candy, mantou, and the like) representing more than one half of the images (fourteen). A large part of the merchandise sold from carts was cooked foods that required heat during transport. Not surprisingly, carts were also the preferred device for charcoal, ironware, and vessels, but also for yarn and thread, brushes, and various household goods. With 101 images, the shoulder pole was the most ubiquitous carrying device. It was a very popular device used throughout China, probably originating in the countryside where it was in common use. The shoulder pole allowed an individual to carry a large and heavy quantity of goods or equipment. Sometimes, it was used for the transportation of small children. Almost anything could be hung on shoulder poles: baskets, buckets, ovens, and so forth. In other words, a peddler could transport solid as well as liquid products (water, soup, and the like). He could also carry an elementary but complete kit to provide either cooked food or a service such as hairdressing. In Peking, the shoulder pole was used as much by peddlers in the service business as by those selling goods. The shoulder pole is found in a wide array of activities with no discernible pattern. There are thirty-two food peddlers in our sample of those using shoulder poles, all the barbers, knife sharpeners, and oil peddlers, most menders of kitchenware, our one carpenter, and most entertainers. In fact, it appears, quite logically, that the choice of a carrying device had to do with the weight and/or quantity of the goods or tools. Among candy peddlers (nineteen), we find three carts, thirteen shoulder poles, and three trays, depending on the amounts the peddlers were able to produce and sell. The charcoal peddlers (two) used a cart and a shoulder pole. Given the weight of charcoal, there was hardly any other option. Cloth was peddled in boxes (two examples) or on shoulder poles (three), while flowers were carried on shoulders poles (three) and a tray (one). Nevertheless, the shoulder pole was more a carrying device for various containers than the direct carrying tool. This distinction is made above all with the purpose of differentiating those who carried their produce and tools in baskets, boxes, and shoulder baskets in quantities that by force were more limited. Finally, there were peddlers who went around without a carrying device. The major one of this type was the fortuneteller. In our collections, he always appears without any objects, even if other visual records show fortunetellers with a table, a chair, and an advertising poster. Apart from pictures by Morrison where I cannot determine whether the peddlers had a carrying device, the only other figure of a peddler without one was the blind street singer.

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In the pictorial record, peddlers are represented as individual figures totally detached from the context in which they operated. Furthermore, paintings tend to idealize the images of peddlers and to present them in a fairly conventional way. For instance, it would be impossible to say from their clothing where they fit socially. The record by Morrison offers a better view of peddlers. Photographs show peddlers in their ordinary daytime clothing. There was no embellishment; this is how they were. According to Morrison’s husband, she never staged the pictures she took in the streets.65 Of course, she had in mind to sell her photographs to Western customers, and this would certainly have commanded the decisions she made when taking a picture. Yet, her photographs caught the moment when she was in a given place, roaming the streets for possible shots of social life in Peking. They also show the range of clothing through the seasons. Peddlers could afford only plain and simple clothes, but in most pictures they present a decent appearance. A few of them, for example, the toy peddler, look poor and wear seriously worn-out garments, but this is rather exceptional. The photographs convey the image of ordinary people who made enough money to afford presentable outfits. Even if they belonged to the lower strata of society, they did not convey a sense of poverty or destitution. Peddlers as Street Theater Peddlers brought into city life not just goods and services but sounds, songs, and calls produced with their voices or with musical instruments. These sounds created a sonorous environment that was characteristic of the urban scene in Peking, one could even say of urban theater. Some calls could have been perceived as shouting or sheer noise. Yet, there was competition among peddlers not only to have a distinctive “call,” but also to produce sounds or songs that would please their prospective customers. As can be seen in Constant’s work, some peddlers actually sang a song, with or without an instrument, to advertise their goods. Western and Chinese scholars alike have argued the obvious, that the calls and sounds were meant to attract people to buy the goods or services that came to their doorstep, that noisemaking was a primitive form of advertisement. The custom of using sounds to advertise oneself can also be read in relation to the urban structure of Peking. Those familiar with the city (before its unfortunate renewal by way of bulldozing entire blocks) have in mind the dense crisscross of alleyways—the famous hutong—that organized the physical layout of the city. The hutong formed passageways lined with walls behind which were housing units—the courtyard houses 65 Interview with Alastair Morrison talking about his wife, photographer Hedda Morrison, by Ed Stokes [sound recording], on 26 and 30 November 2003; 25 May 2004.

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(siheyuan ಯড়䰶)—that were themselves partitioned into units separated by walls. A bird’s-eye view of Peking would reveal a vast sea of roofs . . . and walls. These walls were clearly an obstacle to making contact with the people inside. Constant read these omnipresent walls—city walls, palace walls, yamen walls, and walls of the rich and poor—as having profoundly affected China’s history and the psychology of its people. He wrote: “they have caused the Chinese family to build for itself a small feudal castle, so to speak, into which the family or clan withdraws and closes the gates. . . . The compound is their world to a larger extent, certainly to the women folks, to whom going outside its confines is quite an event.”66 Although his broad generalization from the special case of Peking to “China” is tainted by a Western bias, there is no denial that the walls of Peking, the difficulty in walking the long distances created by the walls, the poor state of the streets through most of the late imperial and Republican periods, and the rigors of the climate can explain why peddlers became a pivotal element of Peking’s “customs.”67 It is difficult to trace when the tradition of peddlers’ calls and sounds began. As with most things in China, it has been assumed to have come from ancient history. In a paper published in the Xinmin bao in November 1939, we are told that all the types of peddlers who roamed the alleyways of Peking have a two-thousand-year history, even if Peking had hardly come out of the ground two thousand years ago.68 More serious studies, however, place them in a longue durée history, with a solid record at least since the Song dynasty. Meng Yuanlao’s ᄳ‫ܗ‬㗕 Dongjing meng hua lu ᵅҀᄳ㧃䣘 (Record of the wonders of the Eastern Capital), written in the twelfth century, offers one of the earliest mentions of peddlers in the city.69 In various texts that describe Peking under the Yuan, the Ming, and through the Qing dynasty, one can find other mentions of peddlers.70 In 66

Constant, Calls, Sounds, and Merchandise, iii–iv. The best description of the physical layout of Peking and its impact on life in the city is to be found in Luca Gabbiani’s work. It covers the ninteenth century, but most of his arguments apply to our period. Luca Gabbiani, Pékin à l’ombre du mandat céleste: vie quotidienne et gouvernement urbain sous la dynastie Qing (1644–1911)” (Paris: Editions de l’EHESS, 2011), 43–70. 68 Xinmin bao, 10 November 1939. 69 These references were taken from Jin Shoushen, “Jiu jing huolang” [Peddlers in the old capital], Liyan huabao ゟ㿔⬿ฅ (Standing word pictorial) 205, 200th commemorative volume (August 1942). 70 For the Yuan dynasty, see Xiong Luoxiang ❞໶⼹, Xi jin zhi ᵤ⋹ᖫ [Edited records of the Xijin gazetteer], Beijing guji chubanshe, 1983; for the Ming, Shi Xuan ৆⥘, Jiujing yishi 㟞Ҁ䙎џ [Bygones in the old capital] (Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 2000]; for the Qing, Pan Rongbi ┬ᾂ䰯, Dijing suishi jisheng ᏱҀⅆᰖ㋔ࢱ [Time records of the imperial capital] (Beijing: Beijing guji chubanshe, 1981) and Fucaiguochong ᆠᆳᬺዛ, Yanjing suishi ji ➩Ҁⅆ ᰖ㿬 [Time notes on Yanjing] ([Beijing] : Wendezhai, 1906). 67

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the late imperial period, according to more recent studies, there even existed three manuscripts devoted to peddlers in Peking.71 Current scholarship in China and Taiwan focuses on tracing the origin of the peddlers’ calls. Qu Yanbin corroborates the existence and effect of these calls as well as the nature and use of instruments in a wide range of premodern sources. Mostly, however, the major argument is that these city sounds were an element of Chinese folk culture.72 A folklorist approach dominates these works marked by a form of nostalgia. From our images, we can see that there existed three kinds of peddlers depending on what they used to make their calls. The first category relied only on the voice, while another group used a musical instrument. Of course, a third category used both voice and instrument. There also seem to have been peddlers who were silent—san bu yu ϝϡ䁲—and made no sound or call at all, and one wonders how they could exist.73 They were the cobblers, the glutinous-rice figure peddlers, and the feather duster peddlers.74 Moreover, some used an instrument, but made no vocal calls: feet fixers, shoe repairmen, pig castrators, bowl repairmen, medicine peddlers, barbers, and fan repairmen.75 In my collection of 209 images of peddlers, there are 54 peddlers who made vocal calls and 117 who used an instrument (along with their voice). If I limit my classification to the 106 activities, calls were made in 41 cases and instruments were played in 37 cases. The remainder represents 15 cases where there was no indication that either a call or an instrument were used. This may have more to do with a deficit of information than actual silence on the part of these peddlers. Even if we cannot hear them, we can see in the images the instruments 71 The first one, Yisui huosheng (Merchandise sounds of the year), gave a record of peddlers’ calls through the four seasons, while the second, Yanshi fufan suoji (Itinerant peddlers in Peking), concentrated on recording their way to make calls. The third manuscript, Maoyi (Trade), presented the peddlers who walked the hutong and the small merchants who set up their stalls along the streets. See Qu Yanbin, Zhongguo zhaohuang yu zhaolai shi sheng Ё೟᢯ ᐠ㟛᢯ᕴᏖ㙆 [Shop signs and trade calls in China] (Shenyang: Liaoning renmin chubanshe, 2000), 181; Wang Wenbao ⥟᭛ᇊ, Yaohe yu zhaohuang ৚ୱ㟛᢯ᐠ [Calls and shop signs] (Beijing: Tongxin chubanshe, 2002), 244. 72 Qu Yanbin, Zhongguo zhaohuang yu zhaolai shi sheng. There is another work on Peking’s peddlers and their calls in the form of an encyclopedia. Wang Wenbao, Yaohe yu zhaohuang; Bai Tiezheng ⱑ䨉䣮, Lao Beiping de gudian’er 㗕࣫ᑇⱘᬙস‫[ ܦ݌‬Ancient traditions of old Beiping] (Taipei: Huilong chubanshe, 1977); Chen Hongnian 䱇⋾ᑈ, Gudu fengwu স䛑乼⠽ [Costumes and traditions of the old capital] (Taipei: Zhengzhong shuju, 1970); Sha Zheng ≭ ⠁, Gudu fengqing hua স䛑乼ᚙ⬿ [Social costume pictures of the old capital] (Taipei: Baiyun wenhua, 1981). 73 Constant, Calls, Sounds, and Merchandise, v. 74 Bai Tiezheng, Lao Beiping de gudian’er, 83. 75 Gao Fengshan, “Yaohe sheng,” Beijing wangshi tan [Beijing’s past] (Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1988), 293.

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they played, and we know from the newspapers and Constant’s work of those who used their own voice. The share of peddlers with instruments may also be biased upward by the fact that Qi’s collection was based on musical instruments, not peddlers. This does not fundamentally alter the general sense that peddlers made generous use of music instruments for advertisement purposes. In the drawings, the vocal-call peddlers are often represented with their right hand over their right ear. This is a customary gesture used by singers to hear themselves better or to make sure their tune is right. It may also have been a way of isolating oneself from surrounding noises. Other witnesses confirm this practice: “A peculiarity to be noticed is that at the moment of utterance many of the criers put a hand over one ear...it really comes from a custom of putting the hand over one side of the mouth in the desire to concentrate the sound upon a particular house or quarter.”76 Even the peddlers who pushed a handcart, as in these pictures, were placing vocal calls or singing as they walked through the hutong. The vocal calls of peddlers are no longer to be heard in Peking. Their voices, however, are not completely lost. As with other elements in Chinese commercial culture, words went beyond the mere description of the actual items on display. As peddlers sang, they used nice words to promote their goods and, as in poems, added rhyme to their calls. The purpose was to entice customers to come forward: “Some call out their wares in a musical voice or song calculated to please the hearer.”77 Metaphors abounded to designate in a more flowery language even the simplest good. The watermelon peddlers called: “Liang dakuai er lie, duome da de kuai er, sha da riyouyi’er de, dakuai er de, dakuai de ai—you! (ܽ໻ϔพ‫੻ܦ‬, ໮咐໻ⱘพ‫ܦ‬, ≭໻᮹ᇸϔ‫ⱘܦ‬, ໻ พⱘృũ਺!)” (Two [melons] in one, they’re soo big, shadariyouyier, oh so big!) 78 The sweet potato peddler had “Guodi lie . . . Lizi wei er . . . (䤟ᑩ ੻ . . . ᷫᄤੇ‫( ”)ܦ‬Fresh from the wok . . . taste like chestnuts!), and the turnip peddler “Saili lie . . . la le huan . . . (䋑Ṽ੻ . . . 䕷ᢝ᦯ . . . )” ([They] beat pears . . . if strong, [I] exchange them). Some of the calls had an interesting meaning, as among peanut peddlers—“Luohuasheng lie. . . . Zhimajiang de zei er lai . . . cui rang de luohuasheng ai . . .” (㨑㢅⫳੻ . . . 㡱 咏䞀ⱘੇ‫ܦ‬՚ . . . 㛚⪸ⱘ㨑㢅⫳ઢ . . .)” (Peanuts!  . . .[They] taste like sesame paste. . . . Crispy peanuts!) —and mantou peddlers—“Qibing lai . . . mantou . . . yangrou xian er de . . . baozi!” (ẟ仙՚ . . .伙丁㕞㙝仵ⱘ . . . ࣙᄤ!)” (Chess cakes have arrived . . . steamed bread and mutton-stuffed 76 77 78

Swallow, Sidelight on Peking Life, 21. Constant, Calls, Sounds, and Merchandise, v. “Beiping de jiaomai sheng ࣫ᑇⱘি䊷㙆,” Dao bao ᇢฅ, 2 January 1933.

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buns!).79 The variety of goods and services made available by peddlers required uniquely identifiable vocal calls. As each peddler introduced his own style, the calls, songs, and tunes that floated in Peking’s hutong were legions.80 Their calls and songs were recorded in various materials, notably in textual materials like songs.81 Constant made a record a various peddlers’ songs. One author stated that there was a harmonic link between the vocal calls and the goods on sale.82 Instrument calls, as Constant argues in his introduction, brought about a particularly interesting dimension in that they introduced other lines of music into the street theater.83 The pictorial record shows the wide range of instruments peddlers played throughout the streets. The images reveal the diversity of sounds that were produced, from Buddhist temple horns of Tibetan origin to the strokes of a drumstick on a simple drum. Even the goods on sale could be used as musical instruments, provided that they could produce a sound. A kettle, a gourd, or any such article could easily be turned into a musical instrument on which to play simply by striking or rubbing it with something to produce cadence or by beating on it. This is parallel to the practice of using original goods as shop signs on shops in Peking.84 The use of the instrument calls could also have been a way of sparing the peddlers’ vocal cords and letting them have a break in their physical efforts. Obviously, all these instruments were made to produce a sound, but some were designed to produce a single specific sound. Some were real musical instruments. Of course, this is the case of the instruments of the street entertainers who made a living performing in the street, but even peddlers selling goods advertised themselves by playing an instrument. Qi Rushan highly praised these peddlers, whom he saw as the guardians of Chinese traditions. There is probably some embellishment to his presentation here. Qi lamented that throughout Chinese history several thousand types of musical instruments were used, whereas only a few were still in use at the time of his writing. In the Qing dynasty, tens of different musical instruments were used, but mostly for offering sacrifices, or during funerals and wedding ceremonies. According to Qi, after the establishment of the Republic, the old instruments played on the occasion of sacrifices disappeared, while wedding and funeral rituals came to “Dumen huosheng 䛑䭔䉼㙆,” Xinmin bao, 29 January, 1938. Swallow, Sidelight on Peking Life, 20. 81 Bai Tiezheng, Lao Beiping de gudia’er, 79. 82 Lu Fangyi ਖ㢇䙥, “Beiping de huo sheng ࣫ᑇ䉼㙆,” Beiping yigu ࣫ᑇϔ主 [A memory of Beiping] (Beiping: Yuzhoufeng she, 1938), 107. 83 Constant, Calls, Sounds, and Merchandise, v. 84 Feng, “Shop Signs and Visual Culture,” 99–100. 79 80

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include Western music. Peking was therefore fortunate to have peddlers who played these musical instruments. They should receive all the credit for preserving and protecting these old instruments.85 In Qi’s reading of the peddlers’ calls, tunes, and songs, there was more than advertising calls and sounds to sell their goods and services. These sounds were city music. Peddlers brought onto the streets a permanent flow of sounds and songs that turned Peking’s hutong into a permanent albeit fleeting musical theater. I am a little less enthusiastic than Qi about the role of “guardians of tradition” that he bestows upon peddlers. There is no doubt that musical instruments were frequently used and that their sounds definitely pervaded Peking hutong. One can question to what extent this represented the diversity and sophistication Qi would like us to perceive. Based on the visual record, it is possible to determine what kinds of instruments were used. Wind (chui ਍) and string (tan ᔜ or la ᢝ) instruments were represented in nine images and three images, respectively. The overwhelming category was represented by drumlike or gonglike instruments that a peddler would stroke with a stick. Altogether, only thirty-five instruments are represented in our visual collection. The wind instruments include the flute, suona ஽ਊ, Jew’s harp, and three types of trumpet. String instruments are limited to the huqin 㚵⨈ and sanxuan ϝᓺ. Such a distribution makes it apparent that the vast majority of these instruments were not made to play elaborate melodies. If we set aside the string instruments and wind instruments, the other instruments could not produce more than one single note or at most two notes. There is hardly any deviation in the distribution of instruments among the different collections for a given line of business. This reflects the standardization of how each peddler wanted to be identified. The two exceptions in this coherent system are fortunetellers—all used a drumlike instrument, except for one who used a wind instrument—and knife sharpeners, who were equally divided between drum-type and wind instruments. In Constant’s and Qi’s collections, candy peddlers are shown in different pictures using a small gong (luo 䩐) or a drum (gu 哧). The two paintings are very similar and could have been copied from the same source or made by the same painter. Behind the apparent monotony of these broad categories lay the reality of an amazing diversity of instruments producing simple but distinctive sounds. Identifying the sounds required a certain familiarity from the prospective customers, but peddlers could also play on cadence and rhythm to single out their trade. Although our documentation makes explicit mention of only five types of peddlers 85

Qi Rushan, Gudu shiyue tu kao, 1.

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who used both voice and instrument, it is quite certain that vocal calls accompanied the instrument in most cases. The calls and songs that pervaded Peking’s hutong were far from monotonous. They punctuated the course of the day. The flow of food peddlers started in the early morning with the sounds associated with vegetables, porridge (zhou ㉹), shaobing, fried sticks (youtiao ⊍ṱ), and all the other typical items of a Peking breakfast. In the afternoon, by three or four o’clock, there began calls for bean porridge (madoufu 咏䈚㜤), tea flour (miancha 咉㤊), old bean curd (lao doufu 㗕䈚㜤), barley porridge (damaizhou ໻呹㉹), and bean curd soup (doufunao 䈚㜤㜺).86 In the evening came a string of small snacks such as mantou and wonton soup in all seasons; sweet sesame balls (yuanxiao ‫ܗ‬ᆉ) and tanghulu were sold in winter. These peddlers stayed at home during the daytime and woke up at three or four o’clock in the afternoon. By six or seven o’clock, they went out to sell their goods until three or four o’clock the next morning. Peddlers who dispensed food had their usual routes in the same districts where they were assured to meet regular patrons.87 Some customers had even built a relationship to schedule in advance the products with peddlers.88 In Republican China, the year was punctuated by seasons and by festivals. Whereas the change of seasons brought a renewal of the fresh or dried products that came on the market, festivals were accompanied by the sale of specific goods. Constant organized his book by season. It presents the peddlers that operated during each season with their respective goods, calls, and instruments. Altogether, there are 64 images categorized under the four seasons: spring (20), summer (6), autumn (19), and winter (19). The seasonality of certain products is quite obvious as certain fruits would mature during a certain period only. Constant’s categorization, however, raises some questions. Some of the products do not appear to be related to a specific season, unless certain manufactured goods depended on available labor (say, peasants during winter), transportation (snow would be an obstacle for peddlers), climate (hot summer weather would affect fresh produce), and so on. If we look at peddlers by season, spring understandably brings fortunetellers (people would want to know their chances in the New Year), fresh flowers, various types of cakes or tracery candy (again in relation to the New Year). It is less obvious that cloth, braids, melon seeds, or knife sharpeners should be associated with spring. 86 “Gudu teshu shipin: Douzhi, ma doufu স䛑⡍⅞亳ક˖䈚∕ǃ咏䈚㜤,” Beiping chenbao, 28 November 1934. 87 Swallow, Sidelights on Peking Life, 21. 88 Qu Hongqi 㖳匏䍋, “Lao Beijing de jietou xiangwei 㗕࣫Ҁⱘ㸫丁Ꮛሒ (2),” Beijing wenshi ziliao ࣫Ҁ᭛৆䊛᭭ 52 (1995): 185–186.

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The summer list is fairly short. It makes sense to include barbers, as warm temperatures would make it more pleasant to be shaved outside (although in the pre-1911 period, shaving had to be done in any season) and also many men had their heads shaved to better weather the hot summer. Fans were also a welcome device to beat the heat, but whether foot care or bundle cakes were summer-only features is debatable. Finally, dried fruits required a combination of ripe fruits, warm temperature, and the wind that only came with the summer. Constant, in his autumn listing, includes peddlers who definitely worked all year round (selling shaobing or candy) or whose seasonality is not obvious (china menders, those selling matches, kettles, or clay- or earthenware), unless the Peking resident was making provisions of such cooking utensils as were necessary for a certain season, such as special pots used for stews in the winter. Other products make more sense as seasonal items, such as sesame oil (fresh from the summer harvest), charcoal (winter reserve), and moon cakes (Mid-Autumn festival delicacy). Finally, with winter came two major types of peddlers, those who provided entertainment through the cold season (despite the rigors of the weather). Stoves would certainly be useful, but this was true for any season. Milk liquor and turnips may have only been winter treats, but I shall leave this as an open question. Finally, there were those who sold goods for the New Year (almanacs, door gods). In the preceding weeks, as calendars and almanacs were sought after by every family, there was a “year-end rush” (gannian bao 䍩ᑈᲈ) that attracted all kinds of people who would not normally peddle goods, like the book sellers who usually had a small stand, but also newspaper boys, rickshaw pullers, or people who had lost their regular job. They purchased the calendars and almanacs from the publishers at Qianmen damochang ࠡ䭔ᠧ⺼ᒴ or around Liulichang ⧝⩗ᒴ. There were several hundred of them roaming in the hutong by the end of the year.89 From this brief overview based on a single collection, we can see that certain categories of peddlers showed up only during a given season with a very distinctive product, especially in relation to a major holiday like the New Year or the Mid-Autumn Festival. Some may have been much more common at certain moments of the year, even if they could be found at any time. My collection and its details are too limited to support the idea of an ever-changing flow of peddlers according to seasons. It appears reasonable to conclude that there was a stable population of peddlers who marketed their goods and services all year through, with some seasonal oscillations. There was also a flow of peddlers who were closely associated with the change of seasons. The visual record I have used probably 89

“Xiaofan qi lai gan nian bao ᇣ䉽唞՚䍩ᑈฅ,” Beiping chenbao, 31 December 1932.

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underestimates this aspect, even if the distinctions between, say, two types of fruit peddlers was probably thin. Yet, Republican Peking lived very much by the rhythm of the seasons. The constraints of weather, transportation, and traffic within the city, as much as the care (if not craving) of Chinese for fresh and distinctive produces created the conditions for a vibrant peddlers’ market. With each peddler came a form of music or call that added a new line in the undirected street symphony. There may have been some romanticizing about this music. Qi Rushan wrote that peddlers were a great feature of Chinese culture. Their vocal calls were like songs, and the sounds of their instruments were just like an orchestra.90 Constant was no less prone to metaphor to describe the contribution of peddlers to the urban scene: “But whether vocal or instrumental, the peddlers’ advertising is full of audible color and is one of the outstanding features of life in the Peking Hutung.”91 This “audible color” was to the ear what the colorful shop signs and shop fronts were to the eyes. The grayish appearance of Peking’s streets was constantly repainted by the calls and sounds from peddlers. If the hutong lacked the vivid colors of commercial streets, they enjoyed the privilege of the living theater created through the stream of peddlers who walked them day and night. Westerners may have harbored different views on the quality or nature of these “sounds,” but their testimony confirms to us the omnipresence of peddlers’ voices on the urban scene. In The Years that Were Fat, George Kates wrote of a vivid memory of peddlers’ vocal advertising: “In China the tone is much more sonorous, the calls more singing, more prolonged. It would swell to a great chorus of rhythmic metropolitan altercation, with every soloist vocal in his turn. Kindling, or cabbages, garlic and leeks, each had its own motif; each had its special praises lifted insistently for a moment above the continuing background of sound.” The author seems to have enjoyed this music of the street, which is not common on the part of the Western residents’ usual perception of Chinese tunes. Kates went as far as noting there was something that was missed by those secluded in the comfort of their foreign-style houses with sash windows and laid floors in the Legation Quarter: “they missed much . . . local peddlers and hawkers were excluded by special police guarding the entrance barriers.”92 Some may have been bothered by the constant flow of sounds, such as this French author who wrote about life in Peking: “The Chinese hate silence, just like nature detests emptiness.”93 90 91 92 93

Qi Rushan, Gudu shiyue tu kao, 1 Constant, Calls, Sounds, and Merchandise, v. George N. Kates, The Years that Were Fat (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1952), 82. Jean Bouchot, Scène de la vie des Hutungs (Beijing: Albert Nachbaur, 1926), 66.

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For local residents, it was not a simple call; it was a song or a poem. Old residents knew from the music of the call which peddler was arriving. In Yuzhoufeng ᅛᅭ乼 (Universal wind) in 1936, an author aptly described how he felt. He wrote that when people heard a call, an image emerged in their mind of a twelve-year-old child selling binghe ‫ބ‬Ḍ (ice cubes) under the hot sun.94 The peddlers’ various songs, a newspaper wrote, were the beauty of the small and wide lanes and alleys.95 Yet the calls were not exact science and required training and familiarity. Because peddlers used metaphorical adjectives, split words, and inflected tones, people also recalled or complained that vocal calls could not be understood by the sense of their words for someone new to the city. There was an article in Beiping chenbao in 1931 about improving the calls. The proposal stated that the vocal calls of peddlers should be improved in four ways: first, they should be sonorous because of Peking’s traditional house constructions with more than three or four courtyards; second, they should use the short voice instead of the long one in order to let people understand the words; third, they should use Peking’s dialect; fourth, the choice of the words should be simple and clear.96 From this proposal, one can assume that the vocal calls were not always readily understandable, except by local residents. In the popular periodicals published in Republican Peking, there were lots of news and comments every day on opera. People lived with opera, even at the street level. In 1938, Shao Quan, a Xinmin bao journalist, went so far as to place the calls of Peking peddlers at par with the famous Peking opera.97 The sounds of peddlers were received as a form of street theater, extending to people a simple albeit similar experience of theater and performance. Among the peddlers that brought genuine spectacle into the streets were the street performers. There was an extraordinary array of such artists, as the pictorial record shows us. Later memories present them as impoverished peasants or individuals who could no longer work (or had never been able to) because of a physical handicap.98 This may be just a conventional trope about misery in prerevolutionary China. In the pictures that we have, the performers all look physically fit. They were said to originate from the neighboring districts around the city.99 The perform94 “Beiping de huosheng ࣫ᑇⱘ䉼㙆,” Beiping yigu, in Yuzhou congshu, vol. 1 (Beiping: Yuchoufengshe, 1938), 110. 95 “Jimo gu cheng de qi qing miao qu ᆖᆲসජⱘϗᚙ཭䍷,” Beijing wanbao, 4 December 1936. 96 “Guanyu jianmaishang xuanhe de yijian 䮰ᮐ㙽䊷ଚ୻ୱⱘᛣ㽟” [The proposal to the shoulder pole peddlers], Beiping chenbao, 30 January 1931. 97 Xinmin bao, 29 January 1938. 98 Qu Hongqi, “Lao Beijing de jietou xiangwei,” 173. 99 Tian Yunjin, Zuixin Beiping zhinan, 13.

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ing artists that we have in these images plied their trade in different ways. Three of them put animals on show: mice, a monkey, and a bear. This was not a whole circus, but it brought into the neighborhood the thrill of a simple and pleasurable show. Its short duration allowed the performer to repeat it several times during the day, with his animal’s resilience as the only limit. The second category of street entertainers were those who presented shows like those on stage, including puppets, magicians, and the running land boat (pao hanchuan 䎥ᯅ㠍), a form of theatrical performance). The last category were those who performed in a traditional way. In Peking, this included the street musicians, among whom were many blind people. There were also the storytellers, among them one kind who accompanied his voice with a big drum. Conclusion Peddlers’ daily rounds in the streets were an important part of Peking’s everyday life. Peddlers attended for the most part to the usual or recurrent needs of the population. At a time when few people enjoyed the comfort of modern amenities, when moving around the city entailed an effort or an expense, however small it was (say, for rickshaws), Peking residents could rely on the flow of goods and services that came to their doorsteps and avoid all the hassle of personal chores outside the home. That peddlers were an enduring presence in the city until 1949 is in itself a proof that people enjoyed the facility these itinerant merchants provided. They presented an occasion for social intercourse. At their calls, residents came out of their houses to buy goods, eat some snacks, and probably have a little chat. The passage of peddlers created a social moment when people living in the same neighborhood could see one another. Peddlers, however, did not enjoy an easy life. They had to roam the streets for long hours, sometimes in unforgiving weather. Although they were one-man shops, we have seen that many hailed from outside Peking; they lived and worked together and probably found some comfort and solidarity in that communal life. Even if becoming rich was beyond the reach of most, peddlers covered a narrow slice of the common people between poor and ordinary manual workers. The visual record has been an essential component of our study. It brings to light a phenomenon that does not figure prominently in textual sources. It literally “reveals” this central dimension of Chinese urban street culture. From these images, I was able to extract a multitude of facets of peddlers’ work, life, and art. In some of the works I used, such as Constant’s and Qi’s, images are supplemented with text that seems to give clues for the understanding of the peddlers. We have seen that a systematic treatment of these images actually helps to deconstruct a narrative that

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in part tends to idealize the peddlers’ life and role and to aestheticize their appearance. Even for the crucial issue of calls and music instruments, a careful analysis tones down a bit the enthusiastic endorsement of “operalike” street entertainers. These notes of caution, however, do not challenge the fact that peddlers were a musical presence in the hutong of Peking, and their movements through the neighborhood brought a regular and ever-changing stream of sounds. Peddlers were the anonymous actors of the hutong theater. They brought foods and household necessities to the doorstep as much as they entertained with their calls, songs, and musical instruments.

SIX

Never-Ending Controversies: The Case of Chun jiang yi hen and Occupation-Era Chinese Filmmaking

PAUL G. PICKOWICZ

Completed in late 1944, Chun jiang yi hen ᯹∳䙎ᘼ (Remorse in Shanghai) is perhaps the most controversial Chinese movie ever made. Yet one looks high and low in the scholarly literature for a sustained discussion of this extraordinarily interesting work. There are many fleeting references to Chun jiang yi hen, almost all of which hint at controversy—controversy that surrounds all films made in occupied China during the 1937–1945 war years. With the exception of Poshek Fu, scholars of Chinese cinema (including myself) have not written much about occupation-era cinema. Yet it seems unreasonable simply to ignore this period. Either the films of the occupation years are part of Chinese film history or they are not. Scholars should not avoid controversy. Everyone should take a stand. My own view is that those who are interested in the entire hundred-year history of Chinese filmmaking should have informed opinions about the movies made under conditions of occupation and the legacies of those films during the postwar era. The various brief references to Chun jiang yi hen raise more questions than they answer. Jay Leyda writes a few lines about Chun jiang yi hen, Zhang Yingjin and Xiao Zhiwei make a passing reference to it, and Poshek Fu devotes a few useful paragraphs to it, though he makes it clear he was not able to see the film.1 Virtually all these brief accounts contain factual errors. Some blurb writers express great passion. Cheng Jihua, taking 1 Jay Leyda, Dianying: An Account of Films and the Film Audience in China (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1973), 146–147; Yingjin Zhang and Zhiwei Xiao, Encyclopedia of Chinese Film, annotated ed. (London: Routledge, 1999), 195, 228; and Poshek Fu, Between Shanghai and Hong Kong: The Politics of Chinese Cinemas (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003), 126–129.

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great care (for reasons that will be explained later) not to reveal the names of any of the Chinese associated with Chun jiang yi hen, savages the film in just a few lines and steadfastly refuses to recognize it as an authentic “Chinese” movie.2 That is, he deliberately declines to list the movie in his comprehensive filmography of movies made between 1905 and 1949. The Film Archive of China, however, includes Chun jiang yi hen in its official catalog of “Chinese Films.”3 It is easy to see that considerable confusion, and even a bit of mystery, have always surrounded the movie. Given its obvious notoriety, why has no one written in detail about Chun jiang yi hen? In part, it is because very few scholars have had an opportunity to see the film. For decades, researchers feared that no copy of Chun jiang yi hen had survived the various traumas that shook China in the half century after 1945. In 2001, however, a copy turned up in an archive in Russia. Thus, more than sixty years after the film’s release, it is finally possible to sort out many of the controversies related to the notorious Chun jiang yi hen. In doing so, we are able to learn something about four distinct historical moments: the Taiping Rebellion (the time in which the film is set), the Japanese occupation of Shanghai (the time when the film was made and released), the Civil War (the time when some of the people associated with the film were singled out for harsh criticism by the Nationalist government), and the postrevolutionary era (the time when the film was inaccessible to researchers but functioned nonetheless as a focal point of passionate Communist discourses on anti-Japanese and nationalist themes). Controversial Context In May 1943, the Wang Jingwei government in Nanjing agreed with the Japanese occupation authorities in Shanghai that the Chinese film world was not doing nearly enough to support the war effort.44 Wang wanted to see political propaganda films that supported Japan and embraced the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, movies that explicitly denounced Anglo-American imperialism. Wang took action by having his operatives set up Huaying (Zhonghua dianying lianhe gongsi), a new unit that was to regulate all filmmaking, distribution, and exhibition. Huaying was part of Wang’s Ministry of Propaganda, and its managing director was Feng Jie, the head of the Shanghai 2 Cheng Jihua et al., Zhongguo dianying fazhan shi (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1981), 2:118–119. 3 Zhongguo dianying ziliaoguan guanzang yingpian mulu (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying ziliaoguan, 1995), 11. 4 The following paragraphs rely heavily on the excellent and pathbreaking research of Poshek Fu, Between Shanghai and Hong, 108–132.

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bureau of the Ministry of Propaganda. Feng was a hard-liner, but considerable artistic control remained in the hands of Kawakita Nagamasa and Zhang Shankun, extremely interesting and hard to categorize people who had worked well together at Zhonglian (Zhongguo lianhe zhipian gufen gongsi), the Sino-Japanese film group that was dissolved to make way for Huaying. Kawakita and Zhang were firmly committed to Sino-Japanese cooperation, but they believed that feature films, by definition, needed to have artistic and entertainment dimensions.5 Huaying made thirty-six features in 1943. Economic conditions were deteriorating steadily in this period as the war drew to an end, thus it was necessary for the films to have entertainment and market appeal. Otherwise, no one would go to see them. As a consequence, Chinese and Japanese observers who were primarily concerned with the political role of films expressed renewed disappointment about concessions made to entertainment priorities. Huaying’s films were insufficiently political. They failed to offer enough explicit propaganda support for the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Some officials felt that political goals might be easier to achieve in films that were Sino-Japanese coproductions. Huaying was thus urged to get involved with Japanese counterparts. But only one coproduced film was actually turned out during the war: Chun jiang yi hen, a film also known by its Japanese title, Noroshi wa Shanhai ni agaru. The project, which involved Huaying and Great Japan Productions (Dai Nippon eiga kaisha), began in late 1943 with a Japanese screenplay that was carefully reviewed and revised by Tao Qin, an important Huaying scriptwriter. The production was well funded, and the actual filming took more than six months.6 Chun jiang yi hen was an unprecedented coproduction in many respects. Not only was the screenwriting cooperative, there were two directors, one Chinese (Yue Feng, later replaced by Hu Xinling) and one Japanese (Inagaki Hiroshi). Yue Feng made a number of occupation-era films (both before and after the end of the “Orphan Island” period in late 1941), and Hu Xinling had been trained in Japan. Inagaki, according to Peter High, was well known in Japan.7 The cast included a veteran Japanese star, Bando Tsumasaburo, and many of the brightest wartime and postwar Chinese stars: Mei Xi, Li Lihua, Wang Danfeng, Han Langen, and Yan Jun. Actor Liu Qiong and cinematographer Huang Shaofen, both of whom were active in occupation-era filmmaking, declined invitations to join the project.8 5

See Yingjin Zhang, Chinese National Cinema (London: Routledge, 2004), 88–89. See Fu, Between Shanghai and Hong Kong, 126–129. 7 Peter B. High, The Imperial Screen: Japanese Film Culture in the Fifteen Years’ War, 1931–1945 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), 81, 151, 157, 180. 8 See Zhang and Xiao, Encyclopedia of Chinese Film, 195, 228. 6

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In aesthetic terms, the film integrated Chinese and Japanese approaches. As a consequence, it has a fascinating hybrid (or regional, as opposed to national) look. The Chinese production staff was apparently greatly impressed by the equipment and technological support provided by the thirty technicians who arrived from Japan to help. Controversial History Chun jiang yi hen, a historical film, is based loosely on events that occurred in the middle of the nineteenth century. After the declining and isolated Tokugawa bakufu lifted bans on foreign travel, a Japanese ship named the Senzaimaru arrived in Shanghai on 7 June 1862. The boat contained fifty-one passengers, and it was Japan’s very first semiofficial mission to China. China and Japan had no formal diplomatic relations. On the surface, the reason for the visit was to look into commercial conditions in China in the aftermath of the Opium War (1839–1842) and the opening of various Western-dominated treaty ports on the China coast. Japan had been forcibly “opened” by Commodore Matthew Perry and the United States Navy in 1853, so the Japanese, concerned that Western nations would seek to set up treaty ports in Japan, were naturally curious about conditions in China. In effect, the Japanese aboard the Senzaimaru were on an intelligence-gathering mission to a part of the world they understood poorly. As Joshua Fogel has pointed out, the Japanese on board the Senzaimaru “wanted to see what happened when an East Asian country was forcibly opened to trade by the West.”9 Many of the Japanese who arrived in Shanghai in June 1862 had another, less public, agenda. They hailed from domains in southern Japan, such as Chōshū and Satsuma, that were hostile to the ruling Tokugawa bakufu. Indeed, a number of those protonationalists who boarded the Senzaimaru were later prominent in the Meiji Restoration that overthrew the Tokugawa in 1868. In fact, one of the major historical figures portrayed in Chun jiang yi hen is Takasugi Shinsaku, a young militant from Chōshū who was a loyal disciple of Yoshida Shoin, a highly influential Japanese political activist who stridently opposed any flexibility on the issue of compromises with the West. In the film, Takasugi’s role is played quite effectively by Bando Tsumasaburo. Takasugi kept a diary that, to this day, remains one of the key sources on the 1862 voyage of the Senzaimaru. 9 This discussion of the voyage of the Senzaimaru borrows heavily from the excellent pioneering research done by Joshua A. Fogel. See Fogel, “The Voyage of the Senzaimaru to Shanghai: Early Sino-Japanese Contacts in the Modern Era,” in Joshua A. Fogel, The Cultural Dimension of Sino-Japanese Relations: Essays on the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1997), 79–94.

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The Japanese visitors were at once impressed and repulsed by what they saw in Shanghai. As Fogel has shown, there was a gap between the respect for Chinese culture they had gained by reading books in Japan and the shock they experienced when they witnessed the poverty of the Chinese they saw on the streets of Shanghai.10 The power, technical sophistication, and wealth of the West was very much on display in Shanghai, but it was painful for the Japanese to see Chinese elites as well as commoners reduced to a subordinate status. The Japanese met Chinese from various walks of life and even paid visits to private homes. The Japanese travelers were quite a novelty. At that time, there was no reason for anyone to express hostility toward them. The Japanese communicated with the Chinese by means of bi tan (brush conversation)—the exchange of notes written in classical or literary Chinese. The Japanese also met with Westerners, including British, French, and American residents of Shanghai. “The Chinese have become servants to the foreigners,” Takasugi lamented in his diary. “Sovereignty may belong to China but in fact it’s no more than a colony of Great Britain and France.”11 One of the many remarkable things about the visit of the Senzaimaru is that by coincidence its passengers got to see the great Taiping Rebellion that was shaking the foundations of Qing rule. Indeed, the Japanese travelers reported actually hearing gunfire exchanged between Taiping and Qing forces outside Shanghai. They were referring to the attempt made by Taiping forces under the command of Li Xiucheng to attack and occupy Shanghai beginning in January 1862. By the time the Senzaimaru arrived in summer 1862, the Taiping assault had been largely repulsed, though there were still skirmishes taking place outside Shanghai.12 Takasugi’s diary reveals that he was highly sympathetic to the Taiping rebels, whose activities were badly understood back home in Japan. What was important to Takasugi was not the Christian theology of the Taipings, which he downplayed, but the fact that the rebels opposed British forces that were helping the Qing. In further bi tan conversations with Chinese contacts in Shanghai, Takasugi was shocked to learn that Lin Zexu, the imperial commissioner who did his best to resist the British in Guangzhou on the eve of the Opium War, was not adequately appreciated by the Chinese Takasugi met. He was also puzzled as to why so many Chinese seemed to accept British and French domination. In historical terms, China was “ahead” of Japan 10

Fogel, The Cultural Dimension of Sino-Japanese Relations, 82. Fogel, The Cultural Dimension of Sino-Japanese Relations, 86. 12 12. See Jonathan Spence, God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1996), 298–309, for a discussion of the early 1862 Taiping assault on Shanghai. Spence also mentions the Senzaimaru (309). 11

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in 1862 when the Senzaimaru reached Shanghai. Whereas Japan was just beginning its contact with the West, China had been interacting with the West for more than twenty years. Takasugi had no way of knowing about long-term patterns of economic, social, and political decline in China. He thus wrongly concluded that the demise of the Chinese government and the poverty of its people were solely the result of Western aggression. He was convinced that the same thing should not happen to Japan. The sense of China being “ahead” of China at this time and of Japan needing to learn from China’s experiences was well captured in his diary. Fogel argues convincingly that when Takasugi left Shanghai in the summer of 1862, he continued to believe that Japan and China shared many aspects of a common culture, a culture that had originated in China. Though he respected Chinese culture, and thus regarded China and Japan as comparable (and thus equal) cultural entities, he concluded that China was losing its fight with the West. He was disappointed, even stunned. In a perfect world, it would be satisfying to see China and Japan standing side by side in that fight, but Takasugi was mainly concerned about Japan and how Japan might avoid the problems that faced China. Japan needed to make political and military reforms. It did not occur to Takasugi that Japan had any special role to play in assisting China in its struggle to cast off the yoke of Western imperialism.13 Controversial Wartime Renarration By spring 1944, when production of Chun jiang yi hen commenced, the war was not going well for Japan. In fact, it was the beginning of the end. By the time the film was completed in late 1944, American B-29s were already flying bombing missions over Japan. The question confronting Zhang Shankun, Kawakita Nagamasa, Yue Feng, Inagaki Hiroshi, Hu Xinling, and all the others associated with this one and only Sino-Japanese coproduction of the war era was how to tell the story of the first Sino-Japanese encounter of 1862 after the Senzaimaru arrived in Shanghai. In a very general sense, the film narrative is faithful to the history of the Senzaimaru mission. But, like virtually all historical movies, it creates many fictional characters and situations, and it takes liberties with its plot development and thus distorts in order to craft a compelling and focused human story. In the film version, Takasuji and the others reside in a small inn in Shanghai. Their initial encounters in Shanghai cause them to see a sharp distinction between Chinese culture and Western culture. The group is hosted by Qing officials who speak of the need for SinoJapanese cooperation. One official says that Chinese and Japanese should 13

Fogel, The Cultural Dimension of Sino-Japanese Relations, 92–94.

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Figure 1. Sino-Japanese friendship and mutual respect flourish in midnineteenth-century China in Chun jiang yi hen (Remorse in Shanghai, dir. Xu Xinling, Inagaki Hiroshi, 1944). (From the Film Archive of China.)

overcome old conflicts, tensions, and mistrust. In fact, there had been no meaningful contact between China and Japan for centuries, so there could not have been any mistrust. This speech was undoubtedly inserted for the benefit of audiences viewing the film in 1944. After this formal reception, the Japanese are then taken to a Peking opera performance, which they very much enjoy and respect. In fact, they regard it as a prime example of first-rate Asian art. On another occasion they are hosted by Western residents of Shanghai who treat the Japanese to an evening of ballroom music and dancing. The Japanese are deeply disturbed by the superficiality and decadence of the evening gathering. Back at the inn they meet and befriend a beautiful and intelligent young staff member, Yu Ying, played by the famous actress Li Lihua (who was only twenty years old at the time). The Japanese guests are stunned to learn that she can speak Japanese. She explains that she had spent some time in Nagasaki, the only Japanese port open to Chinese trade during the late Tokugawa period. She offers to function as their guide and translator in Shanghai. Yu Ying is, of course, a fictionalized character. By the time the film is over, it is clear that Takasuji and the Li Lihua character, Yu Ying, have affection for each other. But this relationship is developed slowly and with extreme care in the film. The dimension of mutual sexual attraction is present, but it is extremely muted and understated

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so as not to give offense to the film audience in China. Takasuji is extraordinarily respectful and admires the intelligence and clearheaded rationality of the young Chinese beauty. Their many conversations focus almost entirely on politics. It is clear that the Li Lihua character detests the British and other Western aggressors. She supports the Taiping rebels and tells Takasuji as much as she can about the rebel movement. She is also contemptuous of the Qing, who, for various reasons, have lost control of the situation in China. The young woman then takes the Japanese visitors on a tour of Shanghai during which they see desperate war refugees as well as British artillery emplacements. Strolling along the streets of Shanghai looking at Chinese antiques, Takasuji meets another fictionalized character, a young Chinese woman named Xiao Hong, played by the famous actress Wang Danfeng (who was only nineteen years old at the time). She and a household servant try to sell Takasuji a family heirloom, an antique Chinese inkstone. The treasure is being sold to raise money for her upcoming marriage. Takasuji, who demonstrates deep knowledge and respect for the splendid artifact (knowledge the British could never have), buys the inkstone. It turns out that the young woman’s father, the head of a better-off family that is in decline, served in the Chinese military at the time of the Opium War and has deeply rooted anti-British instincts. The old man’s son, Shen Yizhou, played by the famous and handsome wartime actor Mei Xi, is an officer in the Taiping rebel army. He is in Shanghai on a secret mission. Speaking excellent English, the Mei Xi character visits the British consulate and is assured by a sympathetic, midlevel British official (all the non-Asian parts in the film are apparently played by Europeans who were residing in Shanghai during the wartime occupation) that the British will not resist the entry of Taiping forces into the city. He then visits an American arms dealer who agrees to sell modern weaponry to the Taipings. Here, the filmmakers are taking liberties with the historical record. The impression is left that in June 1862 the Taiping attack on Shanghai has not yet begun in earnest and that the Taiping leadership is still counting on support from the British, French, and Americans. In reality, the Taiping attack was launched in January and, by June, when the Japanese were visiting, had already been beaten back by combined Qing and Western forces.14 But the film is clearly made more dramatic if the events of January (a time when there were still some Western voices of support for the Taiping crusade) are said to be happening in June. There is no evidence that the Japanese visitors met with anyone associated with the Taiping movement, but in Chun jiang yi hen, the young 14

Spence, God’s Chinese Son, 302.

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Taiping leader, chased by Qing soldiers, is given refuge by Takasugi and his lovely Chinese interpreter. One of the many high points of this surprisingly well-done film is a long discussion between the two men. Takasugi is highly respectful and supportive of the Taiping leader, but he asserts that the British and Americans are not reliable. They have exploited China since the time of the Opium War and will betray the Taipings. Indeed, Britain has already reduced India to a “slave” nation and wants to do the same to China. The Taiping leader is emotional and indignant. He retorts that Britain and America are “civilized” nations, incapable of betrayal. Moreover, since the Taipings are Christians, they have a special religious bond with the Westerners. In linguistic terms, this scene, like many others in the film, is mesmerizing. Takasugi speaks Japanese, while the character played by Mei Xi speaks Chinese. The Li Lihua character speaks both Japanese and Chinese in her role as interpreter. At one point, though, she puts aside the role of translator and tries, in her own Chinese voice, to convince the Taiping leader that the British brought opium and the Opium War to China and continue to exploit China in various ways, including exercising control over the highly profitable Chinese customs office. “Reason” and “clarity of political vision” are very much gendered female in this film. The Li Lihua character is cool, calm, and astute, while the views of the male Taiping leader are clouded by his emotions. He storms away, refusing to continue the dialogue. The figure of the strong Chinese woman, it should be noted, is widespread in prewar, wartime, and immediate postwar Chinese cinema. The Taiping attack on Shanghai is depicted in glowing terms. It is as though Shanghai has been liberated. The people go out into the streets to welcome their heroes. Strict prohibitions are enacted, including a total ban on opium consumption and trafficking. A joyous family reunion brings together the old man, his Taiping rebel son, his attractive daughter, and her fiancé. The old man is troubled, however, by his son’s views of the British. He cannot quite believe that the British are going to do anything to help China. In the old days, he says, “the British were our enemies.” But both of the young Chinese men present in the room, the son and the future son-inlaw, tell the old man he is wrong. That was then; this is now. When the old man mentions to his son that he has invited the Japanese over for a visit, the son abruptly departs, saying he does not want to see the Japanese. When the Japanese guests arrive, another fascinating discussion, undoubtedly the single most interesting and effective scene in the film, ensues. In brief, the meeting is a love fest. The old man deeply appreciates Takasugi’s profound knowledge of Chinese culture. Moreover, the Japanese visitor shows Confucian-like respect for the wisdom and dignified bearing of the older man. Writing bi tan notes, the old man tells of the bad

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old days of the Opium War, the heroics of Lin Zexu, and the pain of witnessing Indian soldiers kill Chinese. Imagine the horror of it, he laments, “Asians killing other Asians.” There is no evidence that the Japanese actually discussed the fate of India with their Chinese contacts. Repeated references to the unacceptable colonial status of India and its people were obviously inserted for the edification of viewers in 1944. The old man then asks if he can take a close look at Takasugi’s sword. He is overwhelmed by the magnificence of the sword. “It is a weapon,” he declares, “but it is also a work of fine art!” This meeting of new friends is disrupted when the Japanese are informed by mail that there is trouble back in Japan. In Choshu, the home domain of Takasugi, an initial exchange of fire between Japanese coastal forces and Western naval vessels has led to a French landing and the destruction of Japanese fortifications. The incident described in the film actually happened, but it occurred in June 1863, not in June 1862.15 Again, to heighten dramatic impact the scriptwriters took liberties with the chronology of the period to suggest that the Chinese and the Japanese, then and now, are in the same boat. In the film, the Japanese visitors to China are seen rejoicing because, they proclaim, this outrage will unite all Japanese and create a national consciousness. The film then cuts to a scene in the British consulate. The decision has been made to support the Qing and help defeat the Taipings. In a scene that highlights the explosive issue of racial difference, a single voice of conscience on the British side, a diplomat named Medhurst who had earlier met with the Taiping rebel leader, asserts that the British cannot break their promise to the “King of the Taipings.” After all, he says, the Taipings are Christians. His superior laughs. “It’s a pity that the King of the Taipings doesn’t have white skin, like us,” he retorts. That is, it all comes down to race. As for religion, he insists that the Taipings are nothing but a bunch of “fanatics.” In any case, he quips, “God knows nothing about what happens east of the Cape of Good Hope!” Meanwhile, in the Taiping camp, the highest leaders insist that the British will never engage in acts of betrayal. The Shen Yizhou character is sent to the British consulate to reconfirm the neutral stance of the British, but he is quickly thrown out of the compound by security personnel. Only then does he understand that the Japanese and Yu Ying, the Chinese woman, were right all along. The Westerners, working with the Qing, then launch an attack on Taiping forces. A squad of British troops arrives at the old man’s house looking for Shen Yizhou. They loot the home, burn it to the ground, and kill the old 15

Rhoads Murphey, East Asia (New York: Longman, 1996), 264–265.

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man. In response, the old man’s future son-in-law kills a British soldier. One of the Japanese friends slays a British soldier who is about to fire on Xiao Hong, the old man’s daughter. The Japanese then stand together with the family to mourn the old man in the time-honored way. The fiancé vows to join the Taiping army. The daughter, burning with hatred for the British, says she will await his return. The final portions of Chun jiang yi hen are infused with multiple expressions of cultural and even political solidarity between China and Japan. For instance, one of the Japanese visitors makes an effort to speak Chinese in order to console the young woman who has lost her father. During the chaos of the counterattack on the Taipings, the young Taiping leader, Shen Yizhou, shows up at the residence of the Japanese looking for Takasugi. His purpose is to acknowledge the wisdom of the well-meaning Japanese and to pledge his friendship. Unfortunately, Takasugi is absent when Shen arrives. This sets up the final sequence. When Takasugi returns, he is distraught to learn that he missed seeing Shen Yizhou. Takasugi’s friends tell him it is time to get out of Shanghai and return to Japan. It is too dangerous with so much fighting. Takasugi steadfastly refuses to leave. He declares that he must go out and find Shen. In a Japanese-language conversation, Takasugi gives the following reason: “I have to go to him because he came to see me. Sincerity. That is at the heart of Asian morality.” The Li Lihua character insists on going with Takasugi. It is only at this point that their mutual affection is made crystal clear, though they are still much more comrades-in-arms than a romantic couple. On the outskirts of Shanghai they encounter a column of retreating Taipings. Takasugi and Shen finally spot each other, and they engage in a brotherly reunion, with each praising the other. By this time, the Japanese view the Qing authorities as the hopeless running dogs of foreign power. Shen resolves to drive out the Western imperialists “even if it takes a hundred years.” Clasping hands with Shen, Takasugi shouts, “When you start fighting against the foreigners, we Japanese will start fighting against them too.” As the Taiping forces march forward, a song titled “Miya-san, Miya-san” plays in the background. This marching song was actually composed at the time of the Meiji Restoration for Japanese imperial troops. Thus, a rousing effort is made in the end to link the Taiping antiforeign, anti-Qing agenda to the antiforeign, anti-Tokugawa cause of the still unfulfilled Meiji Restoration. This use of “Miya-san, Miya-san” in Chun jiang yi hen was not the first time the tune was borrowed. One can find variations of it in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado (1885) and Puccini’s Madame Butterfly (1904).16 16

I am indebted to Nishimura Masato for this information.

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In Chun jiang yi hen’s final shot, Takasugi is out at sea on the Senzaimaru headed back to Japan (without the Li Lihua character). A long sequence showing Shen leading an attacking force of Taiping rebels is superimposed on a facial shot of Takasugi. Of course, the 1944 audience knew that the Taipings were defeated shortly after 1862 and that the Japanese were losing the Pacific War of the 1940s, but on screen the Taiping rebels and their Japanese comrades certainly looked like winners. Controversial Reception The original plan was for Chun jiang yi hen to premiere in Shanghai, Nanjing, and Guangzhou on 7 December 1944, the third anniversary of the outbreak of the Pacific War. But severe economic and political turmoil stood in the way.17 The film was released in both China and Japan but screened under extremely unfavorable circumstances. To this day, it is hard to know much about popular response to the film. It is difficult to estimate the number of people who had a chance to see the film. There certainly was systematic press coverage of the project in Hua bei ying hua, a popular occupation-era film monthly controlled by the cultural authorities in Shanghai. Indeed, Hua bei ying hua published a number of articles on the film over a nine-month period in 1944.18 Not surprisingly, Hua bei ying hua had nothing but praise for the movie. Providing a summary of the story line for readers, one article stated that the film told the true story of the British-American invasion of East Asia and thus inspired Chinese and Japanese people to work together to fight their common enemy. Like all film magazines, Hua bei ying hua also offered up gossip and tidbits of interest to film fans. Some of the Japanese, it was said, tried their best to speak a “stumbling” brand of Chinese. Li Lihua, by contrast, made rapid progress in acquiring a working knowledge of Japanese. She often volunteered to translate for Bando Tsumasaburo, the main Japanese star. Wang Danfeng, required to speak a bit of English in the film (a scene in which she denounces the British squad that intends to burn her father’s house), was said to have spent all her spare time practicing. According to Hua bei ying hua, the Chinese and Japanese technicians and staff worked well together, stopping to discuss every scene. Other sources suggest that there was strife from time to time, but Kawakita 17

Fu, Between Shanghai and Hong Kong, 129. See the following articles in Hua bei ying hua: “Chun jiang yi hen lishi ju pian,” no. 48, 1944; Chun jiang yi hen zhipian quzhi,” no. 48, 1944; “Xuanchuan bu zhongshi wenhua yingpian,” no. 48, 1944; “Chun jiang yi hen kai pai huaxu,” no. 49, 1944; “Chun jiang yi hen bujing fuli tanghuang,” no. 50, 1944; “Yi nian lai Shanghai yingpian tongji ji shezhi,” no. 52, 1944; “Chun jiang yi hen jingcai yimu,” no. 56, 1944; and “Nanxing shumiao—Mei Xi,” no. 56, 1944. 18

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Nagamasa intervened on occasion to keep the project moving ahead.19 Special mention was made of the dramatic scene in which Takasugi meets Shen Yizhou for the first time. A garden and a study were meticulously designed to serve as a dignified backdrop to their serious discussion of politics in the Pacific region. The scene worked, it was said, because both China and Japan were on the side of “righteousness” at the time of the visit of the Senzaimaru. The actor Mei Xi, who played Shen, was said to have matured as an artist, no longer playing the role of the “handsome and rich” young man in order to meet the challenge of playing the part of an experienced middle-aged man. But in a matter of weeks following the release of Chun jiang yi hen, SinoJapanese partnerships of any sort were in deep trouble. Wang Jingwei died in Japan in January 1945. In spring 1945, American B-29s were bombing Tokyo and other Japanese cities. On the evening of 8–9 March 1945, at least eighty-five thousand residents of Tokyo were killed in a single fire bombing.20 In August, atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan then surrendered unconditionally. Back in China, the Nationalist government, based in remote Chongqing during the war, returned to power in Nanjing and Shanghai by the end of 1946. “Takeover” officials, some of them corrupt and merciless, were looking for opportunities to confiscate the property of people said to have behaved as “traitors” during the war. All those who had resided in occupied Shanghai during the war were suspect. Some of those arrested or charged were indeed guilty of treason—that is, they had worked hand in glove with the Japanese occupiers. Many who were innocent were nonetheless jailed and/or stripped of their property. Some who were guilty, but well connected, escaped without a blemish. It all seemed unfair and arbitrary.21 Due to the unusual public visibility of film personalities, there was much talk in the immediate postwar period about their wartime activities. But from the outset, public opinion was divided. Writing in 1946, a commentator named Hu Yan pointed specifically to Chun jiang yi hen and one other highly controversial wartime film, Wan shi liu fang (Eternity), produced in 1943, as examples of films said by some to be the work of collaborators and traitors. Hu disagreed, refusing to condemn as “traitors” the actors and actresses associated with the projects. According to Hu, clearly a fan of such stars as Li Lihua and Mei Xi, their “cooperation” is understandable. During the occupation era, he claimed, if an actor or actress 19

Fu, Between Shanghai and Hong Kong, 129. John Hunter Boyle, Modern Japan: The American Nexus (Fort Worth, Tex.: Harcourt College Publishers, 1993), 258–260. 21 Suzanne Pepper, Civil War in China: The Political Struggle, 1945–1949, 2nd ed. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1999), 7–42. 20

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refused to cooperate, he or she might have been arrested and tortured. What were actors and actresses supposed to do? Commit suicide? Hu also pointed out that treatments of Western imperialist aggression during and after the Opium War were basically accurate. The thrust of Hu’s article suggested that those who were looking for scapegoats should leave the actors and actresses alone.22 A very different approach was adopted in an unsigned article that appeared in Zhongguo yingtan in 1946. This polemic not only singled out screen artists, it focused exclusively on female stars. Chen Yunshang, the talented Cantonese actress who played strong female roles in Mulan cong jun (1939) and Wan shi liu fang, was said to be in “deep trouble” and hiding out in Hangzhou following her husband’s arrest. Chen Yanyan (the Chinese “Bette Davis”), who had made a number of wartime films, including the 1942 production of Huanghua xudu (A waste of the best of times) directed by Yue Feng, was said to have been abandoned by all her friends. Li Lihua, the article declared, had lost her soul because, in Chun jiang yi hen, she actually spoke Japanese and condemned Britain and the United States. Now she was shamelessly running around trying to make friends with Westerners.23 This postwar gossiping and sensationalism seems trivial, but it was followed by an official Nationalist government investigation. According to archival sources, on 19 November 1946, Shanghai’s first postwar mayor, Wu Guozhen, was authorized by municipal party and military authorities to conduct an investigation of the wartime film industry. Only two films were singled out: Chun jiang yi hen and Wan shi liu fang. Those who had opinions about these two films were invited to attend an investigation meeting to be convened at the Huguang cinema in Shanghai.24 By early 1947, a report prepared by one of Mayor Wu’s top aides summed up the evidence gathered in the investigation. The report agreed that of all the Chinese films produced during the war years, only Wan shi liu fang and Chun jiang yi hen needed to be taken seriously. The other films did not have meaningful political content. After viewing the two controversial films, investigation committee members, who included officials as well as journalists, wrote down their views. Mayor Wu’s aide said that in his own view there was a difference between Wan shi liu fang and Chun jiang yi hen. Wan shi liu fang was made under Japanese supervision, but it was well made in terms of plot and style. Not only did it “not distort the historical facts of the Opium War, to a certain degree it can even inspire 22 23 24

Hu Yan, “Chun jiang bu yi hen, wan shi yong liu fang,” Ying yi hua bao 2 (1946). “Bukan huishou de nu mingxing,” Zhongguo ying tan 1, no. 1 (1946). Wu Guozhen, “Zhongguo Guomindang,” Shanghai shi dang’anguan, Q1-12-1464.

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national consciousness.” By contrast, Chun jiang yi hen was indeed a work of collaboration carried out by traitors. It engaged in “all-out propaganda” for Japan’s Pan-Asian agenda, and it badly distorted “the image of Britain and the United States.”25 The investigation committee found evidence that the Japanese who promoted the production of Wan shi liu fang were greatly disappointed by the result. That is, the film was insufficiently propagandistic. Thus, the Japanese moved on to Chun jiang yi hen and took a more hands-on (coproduction) approach to get the desired political result. These and other materials were sent along to the Shanghai Municipal Court. Beginning on 4 October 1947 and continuing on 11 November and 9 December, a total of approximately thirty people, almost all of them formerly employed by the Huaying group set up by the Wang Jingwei government in early 1943, were summoned to testify before the court, one group at a time. Chen Yanyan and Li Lihua were in the third group to appear. According to a newspaper report, Chen confirmed that she played roles in several movies but insisted that none of them were “collaboration” (funi) films. Moreover, she wanted to know why the women were being singled out. “Why was I interrogated,” she asked, “while my male counterpart in those films, Liu Qiong, was not subjected to any charges?” Li, only twenty-three years old in 1947, claimed she joined Huaying “against her will.” She insisted that even now, in 1947, she had no idea about the “gist of Chun jiang yi hen.” Making use of a play on the words yi hen in Chun jiang yi hen, she said that she definitely “regretted” (yi hen) her involvement in the movie. “I don’t want to be an actress any more,” she added.26 According to interviews I conducted with Li in the mid-1980s, the cases against Chen and her, along with the charges made against others, were not pursued in the Shanghai courts. The main reason was that the civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists was at a critical point, and the Nationalist state had more important things to do. Indeed, both the Nationalists and the Communists were interested in winning the support—overt or covert—of leading personalities in the cultural world. Nothing was to be gained by moving ahead with the scapegoating of a few actresses. As for the film personalities who were active during the occupation era, some chose to leave China. Li Lihua went out to Hong Kong (where she made Hua guniang and many other films) before immigrating to the United States (where she had interacted earlier with John Wayne, Victor Mature, and others). Chen, older than Li, went to Hong Kong and then to 25 26

“Shanghai shi zhengfu baogao,” Shanghai shi dang’anguan, Q1-12-1464. “Li Lihua, Chen Yanyan shenxun qingxing,” Zhongguo dianying 4 (1947).

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Taiwan. Liu Qiong went to Hong Kong in 1948. Wang Danfeng, the young actress who played Xiao Hong in Chun jiang yi hen, also went out to Hong Kong in 1948. Many of the occupation-era Shanghai stars who worked in the Hong Kong Mandarin-speaking film industry in the late 1940s monitored mainland Chinese politics very closely. Some, noting the success of the Communists on the civil war battlefield, even sought to open a dialog with party representatives about a future return to Shanghai after it was taken over by the Communists. Others who had risen in the Shanghai film world during the occupation simply remained in Shanghai. For example, Sang Hu, a young occupation-era screenwriter, had an extremely successful career in the Shanghai film world after 1945 and 1949. Controversial Legacy From 1949, the first year of the People’s Republic of China, to the present day, official attitudes toward occupation-era film production have been somewhat inconsistent. The people who took over the film industry after 1945 with the Nationalist return to power, as well as the people who took it over after 1949 with the Communist victory, tended to be film artists who had not remained in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation. This does not mean they were in Yan’an. Most spent the war years in Chongqing working in some cultural capacity for the resistance movement organized by the Nationalist government.27 One suspects that, at a personal level, they had nothing against their colleagues who had remained in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation. After all, they had worked together in harmony prior to 1937. Old networks of support and bonds of friendship had meaning. But it was clearly in the personal interests of those who had departed from Shanghai during the war to offer little resistance to the immediate postwar idea that occupation-era films and film personalities were tainted. The cloud that hung over people involved in the occupationera industry made it easier for those returning to Shanghai from the interior in 1946 to assume control after the war. When one examines the list of leading film personalities who joined the Communist Party between 1949 and 1958, it becomes apparent that most were people such as Zhao Dan, Bai Yang, and Zheng Junli who had worked in the interior during the war of resistance. Thus, it continued to be in their interest, even after 1949, to allow a dark cloud to hang over occupation-era film workers. But their willingness to perpetuate such ideas was far from total. Archival sources show that in the early years of the People’s Republic, films made during the occupation era, including 27 See Paul G. Pickowicz, “Victory as Defeat,” in Becoming Chinese: Passages to Modernity and Beyond, ed. Wen-hsin Yeh (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 365–398.

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Yue Feng’s 1941 picture Jia (Family) and even Maxu Weibang’s Qiu Haitang (made for Huaying in 1944) were still being shown in public in China. Qiu Haitang, for instance, was screened 223 times in Shanghai alone in 1950 (to a total audience of over a hundred thousand). Needless to say, Chun jiang yi hen was not among the occupation-era films screened at this time.28 In the early years of the People’s Republic, it was rare for a film personality who rose to fame in the occupation-era film industry to be admitted to the Communist Party. But many of these people prospered and led privileged lives in socialist China. In part, this is because their levels of collaboration with the Japanese were insignificant. People who ran hotels and restaurants before the occupation also ran them during (and after) the occupation. The same is true of most in the occupation film industry. They made movies. Another reason for their acceptance following the establishment of the People’s Republic is that they were popular and their skills were badly needed by the new regime. Wang Danfeng, who played a role in Chun jiang yi hen almost as important as Li Lihua’s, seems to have lived a charmed life. She appears not to have been caught up in the ugly Chun jiang yi hen scapegoating that occurred after the war. She went to Hong Kong in 1948 but voluntarily returned to socialist China in 1951, after the start of the Korean War and a new wave of anti-Americanism. She appeared in ten films in the 1950s and early 1960s. She even survived the Cultural Revolution. Like Wang Danfeng, the occupation actor Liu Qiong returned to socialist China from Kong Kong in 1952 to become something of a matinee idol. Liu also survived the Cultural Revolution and even played a lead in Mumaren (The herdsman), a leading 1980s film. Sang Hu, an important occupation-era screenwriter whose credits include Nong ben duoqing (Devotion to love), a film produced by Huaying in 1943, had a distinguished directorial career after the founding of the People’s Republic. A lifelong non-Communist, he not only survived the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957 and the Cultural Revolution, he actually made films during the latter. Thus, it is true that many of the people who worked in the occupationera film industry were not discriminated against or victimized either after the war or after the founding of the People’s Republic. They flourished. Yet it is also true that the films they made during the war remained under a cloud, never screened, never studied in a serious way, and, on occasion, denied recognition as “Chinese” films by Cheng Jihua and other influential film historians. Even now, the Film Archive of China is reluctant to make these films and related research materials accessible to serious scholars. As for biographical information about occupation-era actors, actresses, directors, and screenwriters who stayed in China and had successful careers 28

Shanghai shi dang’anguan, B-171-1-35.

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after 1949, state-controlled publications have consistently covered up their involvement in Huaying and similar wartime organizations. I interviewed Wang Danfeng and Sang Hu on a couple of occasions in the 1980s, and they were disinclined to say much about their work in the occupation period. The stigma persists. What conclusions can one reach, then, about Chun jiang yi hen? We know that the Film Archive of China still does not want to screen the film. Indeed, the archive does not even have a videotape or DVD copy of the film. Its only copy seems to be a 35-mm print that is stored in an inaccessible off-site film vault (pian ku). There is official hostility to the film because it is hard, after all, to avoid the conclusion that Chun jiang yi hen is indeed a work of collaboration. Poshek Fu has argued quite eloquently and with good reason that scholars should refrain from arbitrarily placing occupation-era films into the “collaboration” category. He rejects the resistance/collaboration binary and the notion that anything that was not actively “resisting” the occupation must have been actively “collaborating” with the occupation. Fu asserts that virtually all occupation-era films fall primarily into a middle zone, neither resisting nor collaborating. The films made at that time were light entertainment, and they kept the industry alive under difficult circumstances. In the case of some films, however, Fu goes one step further and makes a convincing case that a work such as Mulan cong jun (Mulan joins the army; 1939) can actually be read as an anti-Japanese patriotic narrative. He also states that more controversial works such as Wan shi liu fang intentionally subverted Japanese efforts to make them more explicitly propagandistic. Thus, in the end, Fu finds that most films are middle-zone, light, entertainment works, but that some actually qualify as resistance works or come very close to qualifying. I agree fully with his conclusions and his implied critique of those who want to place all occupation-era work in the “collaboration” and “treason” categories, superpatriots who continue to discredit occupation-era film workers, who discourage research on these films, and who even deny the films status as Chinese movies. Fu does not, however, find any examples of middle-zone works that clearly spilled out in another direction, close to the collaboration category. I would argue that the Chun jiang yi hen project involves an almost unambiguous case of collaboration, especially considering that it was made at a time when the Japanese cause was headed for defeat. Fu states clearly that he did not have a chance to see Chun jiang yi hen. This is a pity, because one senses that he might agree that this work does not fit very well into the noncollaboration, middle-zone category. Of course, one must concede that all sorts of alternative readings are possible when one is dealing with a diverse film audience. Unfortunately,

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in the case of Chun jiang yi hen, we are not likely to know with precision how the audience reacted. But it seems to me that the possibility of various readings does not do much to undermine the conclusion that Chun jiang yi hen was a work of collaboration. Certainly, the Chinese film-world leaders involved in the production were fully aware of the nature of the narrative and its clear expression of support for the Japanese war cause and the Japanese vision of a Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Postwar Nationalist investigators tended to be quite flexible, but even they concluded that there was a clear distinction between Chun jiang yu hen and Wan shi liu fang. Even if Chun jiang yi hen was a work of collaboration (and I think it was), it is hard to support the idea that it is not a Chinese film. If it is not a Chinese film, what is it? It appears that the Japanese have never claimed that the film is Japanese. So, what does a film have to be to qualify as Chinese? If a film is made in China, set in China, has a Chinese director, has a Chinese scriptwriter, has famous Chinese film stars, makes overwhelming use of the Chinese language, is released in China, is regarded at the time of release and later as a Chinese film, and is funded, at least in part, by Chinese sources, is it not a Chinese film? If the coproduction aspect of the project disqualifies Chun jiang yi hen as a Chinese film, then many of the best movies made in China after 1984, including some of the Fifth Generation and most of the Sixth Generation works that have received much international acclaim, have to be disqualified as well. These days we are fond of speaking of innovative new films that are intimately connected to processes of “globalization” and “transnational” cultural production, but that does not stop us from regarding them and writing about them as Chinese films. We assume that the phenomenon of globalization is brand-new. Perhaps we need to think of how different Chun jiang yi hen would seem if we thought of it as a very early example of “transnational” filmmaking. The tangled legacy of Chun jiang yi hen is further complicated by another problem. If one looks closely at the analysis of Chinese history from the Opium War to the time of the Taiping attack on Shanghai in 1862 that is conveyed in Chun jiang yi hen, and pays special attention to its critique of Western imperialism, the conclusions it reaches about the toll that Western aggression took on the Chinese people, and its indictment of the failings of a declining Qing state, one sees that the overview is essentially accurate, even though highly simplified. Commentators noticed this problem as early as 1946. Nonetheless, critics of the film, ever eager to marginalize the work, invariably avoid discussion of this issue. Not only is the film overview accurate, it is a view of mid-nineteenthcentury Chinese history that was embraced in its entirety by post-1949

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Communist filmmakers in the People’s Republic. Anyone who doubts this assertion need only take a close look at such famous Mao-era films as Lin Zexu (1959). The British were ruthless exploiters. The Chinese people suffered miserably. The Qing government was incapable and at times even unwilling to do anything about the threat. Peasant rebels were decent and patriotic. To this day, these are the lessons that every Chinese schoolchild learns. When it comes to the history of the mid-nineteenth century, all that Chun jiang yi hen says is that there were both Chinese and Japanese who recognized these facts in 1862. There is another irony associated with the various attempts to discredit Chun jiang yi hen in the People’s Republic. By contemptuously dismissing the Qing state as running dogs of foreign imperialism, incapable and perhaps unwilling to do anything to protect Chinese national dignity, the makers of Chun jiang yi hen were clearly sending a political message to the film audience in 1944: the former Nationalist government, exiled now in Chongqing, is no better than the Qing state. The Nationalists are dominated by the Western imperialists and care little about the sufferings of the Chinese people. Present-day historians of China do not accept this view, but for many decades propaganda organs in the People’s Republic repeatedly delivered precisely such a message. It is true that in recent times the Communist Party has taken a softer, gentler approach to the Nationalist Party and its history. But that tendency is driven by the dynamics of present-day Taiwan politics. During the Mao years, patriots in the People’s Republic were willing to ignore the antiimperialist, pro–peasant uprising, and anti-Nationalist thrusts of Chun jiang yi hen in order to focus all attention on the film’s pro-Japanese (and, hence, treasonous) essence. In the post-Mao years, some Chinese nationalism has turned into Chinese ultranationalism, an ultranationalism that loves to target Japan and Chinese who are seen as soft on Japan.29 In the postrevolution, postsocialist era of globalization, fewer people than ever in China (including film scholars, one suspects) would have any interest in the anti-British, anti-Qing, anti-Nationalist, and pro-peasant elements of Chun jiang yi hen. Indeed, even more than in the past, critics in China are likely to dwell exclusively on the pro-Japanese nature of Chun jiang yi hen and thus continue to deny the film its rather unique place in the controversial history of Chinese cinema. 29 For an example of a “new nationalist” and “anti-Japanese” tract that recycles old and familiar information about Japan’s involvement in China’s occupation-era film industry to make easy political points in an anti-Japanese environment, see Tian Ye and Mei Chuan, “Riben diguozhuyi qin Hua qijian de dianying wenhua qinlue,” Dangdai dianying (January 1996): 91–94.

SEVEN

“The Enemy Is Coming”: The 28 January 1932 Attack on Shanghai in Chinese Cinema

ANNE KERLAN

On the morning of 28 January 1932, Japanese troops launched an attack on Shanghai. The direct cause of the “Shanghai War” was the deadly incidents that had occurred at the Sanyou factory between Japanese and Chinese and the anti-Japanese protests that followed. Japan took the pretext of the need to protect its population to concentrate military forces around Shanghai. The real cause, however, was the Japanese military’s determination to expand its influence into Shanghai after the September 1931 invasion of Manchuria. On 27 January, Japan issued an ultimatum to the Shanghai Municipal Government, asking for monetary compensation for property loss and the end of all anti-Japanese protest. In the afternoon of the following day, the municipal government accepted all Japanese demands. Yet that very night, the Japanese army launched an aerial bombing of Zhabei, one of the most densely populated parts of the crowded city and one of its main industrial hubs. To the army’s great surprise, however, and contrary to widely held views of the technological disadvantage of the Chinese army, Chinese troops, with the full support of Shanghai residents, offered a staunch resistance. In a battle that lasted thirty-three days, the Japanese brought in massive reinforcement and unleashed increasing firepower and destruction. In May 1932, the Chinese 1 This paper was first written for the symposium “Cultural Memories and Culture in Transition” held at Vilnius University’s Center for Asian Studies in May 2006. I would like to thank Qin Shao for her close reading of the paper while I was rewriting it; her advice was very helpful. 2 Donald A. Jordan, China’s Trial by Fire: The Shanghai War of 1932 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 46–47. 3 Jordan, China’s Trial by Fire, 47.

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and Japanese governments, pressed by the International Powers—the United Kingdom and United States, eventually signed a cease-fire. In many ways, the Battle of Shanghai can be seen as the first episode of World War II. It introduced elements that would become characteristics of modern war: aerial bombing of cities and destruction of civilian areas, heavy civilian casualties, and urban guerrilla warfare. For Shanghai and the Chinese people, the event was shocking and destructive. Casualties among Chinese are still subject to debate. According to the most recent studies, 4,000 soldiers were killed and more than 7,000 were wounded (which accounts for 18 percent of the total Chinese armed forces in the Shanghai area), while at least 6,000 civilians were killed and 230,000 were displaced due to the exodus from Chinese areas into the International Settlement. Economic destruction was even worse. Eighty percent of housing and 70 percent of commercial shops and industrial buildings in the zone were either entirely or partially destroyed. The January 1932 event, coming a few months after the invasion of Manchuria, was clearly a turning point for China. The attack on Shanghai starkly illuminated the extreme fragility of what was at the time seen as the most advanced, modern part of the country. It also heightened the crisis of legitimacy of the Guomindang, as the cease-fire signed by the government was very unpopular because its terms violated China’s sovereignty. Whereas the battle had shown the Chinese were capable of a spirited and unified defense, its conclusion did not meet the expectations of a population calling for resistance against Japan. The nationalist feelings that had strongly developed among the Chinese were suppressed by the Guomindang. From that perspective, the January 1932 Incident can be seen as a lost opportunity for the young Chinese nation; its memory and narrative in the 1930s was a complex, politicized, and thus unstable and contested subject. Cultural productions, especially popular ones like movies, reflected this contested terrain. If the January 1932 attack was not more traumatic by itself than the loss of Manchuria a few months earlier, it had a particular significance as it occurred in a place—the affluent city of Shanghai—that concentrated China’s most modern media; as such, the event received a lot of coverage. The most important film companies were located in the city, and many of them had their studios in the part of the city that came under attack. Therefore, they had crews on site, ready to film the battle: the constitution of a visual memory of the war started with the event itself. However, this 4

Jordan, China’s Trial by Fire, 188–193. Jordan, China’s Trial by Fire, 198. 6 See Christian Henriot, Shanghai, 1927–1937: Municipal Power, Locality, and Modernization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 92. 5

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visual memory’s development is representative of the difficulties of the Chinese nation to construct itself in the 1930s and was contingent upon the historical background of the country. We can identify three moments of development between 1932 and 1937: first, in 1932, in the aftermath of the war, a cinematographic memory of the war was constituted. Then, while government censorship was at its worst, came a censored and a “displaced memory,” before finally, on the eve of the Japanese invasion of Shanghai in 1937, a renewed (reborn?) memory was made possible by the political union against the threat. This chapter will examine the process of memory making about the war by focusing on the films (newsreels and featured films) produced by one of the major Chinese film studios of the period, Shanghai’s United Photoplay Service (Lianhua yingye zhipian yinshua youxian gongsi; hereafter called the Lianhua Company). In the first, “cinematographic moment,” two different, yet interrelated, memories were constructed: a documented memory and a dramatized memory. Only a very few months after the attack, the company released newsreels that described the war. These movies constituted a documented memory of the event that went along with the rise of patriotism among Chinese people. But also produced were feature films that took the war as their main topic, only this time it was presented in a fictionalized narration. Both memories contributed in their own, different ways to the building of a collective, national memory. After the signing of the peace agreement in May 1932, however, the internal and international political situation led to the censorship of films by the Guomindang, in particular of films on the Shanghai Incident. The memory of the event came under attack. Artists at Lianhua tried to circumvent the censorship and to address the issue of the consequences of a censored memory at both the individual and the national level. A displaced memory of the war, ironically freer and maybe more powerful, haunted the movies that were produced between 1934 and 1936. Finally, when the Japanese threat led to a new national union in 1936, the memory of the incident was unleashed again, renewed by these years of underground expression as well as by the sense of emergency that prevailed. It was too late, however, as the unsettled memory of the Battle of Shanghai had become the symbol, if not one of the causes, of the inability to forge one strong Chinese nation: the cultural memory of the 28 January 1932 Incident illustrates well the destiny of the Chinese nationalism of the 1930s. 1932: The Cinematographic Memory When the war broke out, the Lianhua Company, officially founded in August 1930, was in its early stages of development. However, thanks to several hits and ambitious managers, it was already one of the three main

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film companies in China. Lianhua, like the rest of the Shanghai-based Chinese movie industry, was directly affected by the Japanese attack. One studio was completely destroyed, and the company never fully recovered from this loss. The Battle of Shanghai also marked the end of a dream: the dream of making Lianhua the equivalent of a Hollywood Major. On the political front, Lianhua, together with the other Chinese film studios, actively participated in the mobilization in support of the Chinese troops. The Lianhua National Defense Group (Lianhua tongren kangri quiguo dui) was organized to join the war effort and raise funds to promote the Chinese boycott of Japanese goods and support the army. Moreover, the company sent technical teams to the battleground to film the fighting and was the first to release a newsreel on the event. Hence, Lianhua participated in the creation of the documented memory of the war. The Documented Memory The first newsreel released by Lianhua, Japanese Atrocities against Hu [Shanghai] (Bao Ri huo Hu ji; two reels), also known as The History of the Battle of Shanghai (Shanghai zhanshi), was announced as early as 16 May (fig. 1). It was screened at the Fu’an Theater, located south of the Chinese city in a department store. However, the very short life of this first newsreel shows the difficulty of adapting to the needs of an audience while the political situation was becoming increasingly complex. Advertised as a film showing “real battle scenes,” it stayed only two days on screen. In the 18 May 1932 issue of Shenbao (Shanghai daily), the 7 See Anne Kerlan-Stephens and Marie-Claire Quiquemelle, “La compagnie cinématographique Lianhua et le cinéma progressiste chinois, 1930–1937,” Arts Asiatiques 61 (2006): 181–195, for a study of the Lianhua Company. 8 All together, more than thirty Chinese film studios were destroyed during the war; see Cheng Jihua, Li Shaobai, and Xing Zuwen, Zhongguo dianying fazhan shi [A history of Chinese cinema] (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1963), 183. 9 Studio no. 4, located on Tiantong’an in the Zhabei area, was entirely destroyed. The financial loss forced Lianhua to close the Beijing studio as well as dismiss the dance troupe and to reorganize its entire management structure. See Cheng, Li, and Xing, Zhongguo dianying, 246; Zhou Chengren, “United Photoplay Service: Structure and Organization,” in The Hong Kong-Guangdong Film Connection, ed. Wong Ain-ling (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Film Archives, 2005), 118. 10 Cheng, Li and Xing, Zhongguo dianying, 180. 11 See the article in the Shenbao supplement, 16 May 1932. 12 Fu’an was a theater that specialized in screening Chinese movies, for cheap prices (2 jiao); see Dai Xiaolan, ed., Zhongguo wusheng dianying [Silent Chinese film] (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1996), 196. The seating capacity of the Fu’an is not known, but it is described as a “big cinema” by Li Songyun in his article, which lists forty-nine “big cinemas” in Shanghai (see Dai, Zhongguo wusheng, 787). We can estimate a seating capacity between five hundred and nine hundred.

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Figure 1: Shenbao, 16 May 1932, advertisement for The History of the Battle of Shanghai.

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Figure 2: Shenbao, 18 May 1932, announcement about the cancelling of The History of the Battle of Shanghai.

Fu’an Theater published an advertisement in which it apologized for having to cancel the screening of the movie (fig. 2). No further explanation was given, which fed the rumor that the movie had been taken off screen or maybe destroyed because the Japanese did not like it. The truth was less political. It highlighted, however, the expectations of the Shanghainese about the representation of the war. According to the Diansheng ribao (Radio movie daily news), an incident occurred during the screening of the movie: some spectators started to protest against a film that “was showing the refugees and the destruction rather than the battles.” In order to avoid a riot between the supporters and the critics of the film, the theater decided to cancel the show. The movie was not screened again during the entire year of 1932. With The History of the Battle of Shanghai, Lianhua had obviously failed to satisfy its audience, and the reasons for its failure are interesting to analyze. To understand the reactions of the spectators, one needs to remember the historical background. The movie was released only ten days after the signing of a cease-fire that imposed humiliating conditions on China and was perceived as highly unfair; although the Chinese considered themselves the victims, the agreement was much more favorable to the Japanese. The Japanese attack on Shanghai and the unfair cease-fire agreement stirred up feelings of anger, and the movie world reflected on this with debates revolving around two issues: how to feed a patriotic spirit 13

Diansheng ribao, 18 April 1932. The Shanghai Cease-fire Agreement was signed between China and Japan on 5 May 1932 under the supervision of the League of Nations. Among other conditions, Shanghai became a demilitarized zone: Chinese troops were not allowed to be stationed within a radius of 30 kilometers around the city, while Japanese units were still allowed in the city proper (Henriot, Shanghai, 1927–1937, 113). 14

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that would lead to victory in battle and how to defend the honor of China and the Chinese. Since the invasion of Manchuria in September 1931, moviegoers had asked for patriotic films and specifically for films about the war with Japan. They called for movies that would encourage a prowar spirit. For instance, pacifist films such as All Quiet on the Western Front (1930; dir. Lewis Milestone) were subject to criticism. What people wanted were movies that would illustrate the heroism of the war rather than discourage people from fighting. Along with the rise of patriotism, the Chinese felt strongly that they had to defend their honor on screen. The problem was not new: many American movies in particular had featured Chinese characters who were “shameful for the nation.” The problem became even more crucial when people realized that their enemies, the Japanese, were using movies to advertise themselves and to put down the Chinese. For Diansheng ribao, it was nothing more than a “Continuation of the War On-Screen.” In a long article published under this thrilling title, the journal analyzed a few Japanese movies on the Manchurian and Shanghai wars. The journalist described how Japanese transformed the truth by presenting themselves either as clever heroes or as the victims of rioters. The Imperial Army also stoked the writer’s imagination, as it was shown as a strong and modern army. Not only could such movies discourage the Chinese, who did not have a well-organized state or army, but as some of them were shown internationally, they could eventually serve Japan’s interests against China. The conclusion of the article was clear: “Chinese film companies have to make movies on the war and on saving the nation; they have to show the courage of the students or of the soldiers who fought for their country. They have to make counter-propaganda films.” In other words, the visual memory of the war was not considered simply a way to commemorate the incident, nor to establish facts. Rather, it was seen as a propagandistic 15 The magazine Yingxi shenghuo received, for example, over six hundred letters from its readers that included this request (see Cheng, Li and Xing, Zhongguo dianying, 180). 16 The movie was not banned, however, due to the support of the National Film Censorship Committee. See Zhiwei Xiao, “Film Censorship in China, 1927–1937 (Cultural Control, Nationalism)” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, San Diego, 1994), 163–164. 17 See the scandal around Harold Lloyd’s movie Welcome Danger (1929), which eventually was banned in all of China, including in the International Settlement. See Xiao, “Film Censorship in China,” 192–197. In 1932, another movie, Shanghai Express (1932; dir. Josef von Sternberg) raised Chinese anger. 18 Diansheng ribao, 29–30 June and 1 July 1932. 19 Diansheng shibao, 25 June 1932, mentioned the screening of a Japanese propaganda movie The Big Japan (Da Riben) at Berlin. 20 Diansheng ribao, 2 July 1932.

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Figure 3: Shenbao, 6 July 1932, advertisement for The History of the Battle of the Nineteenth Route Army against the Japanese.

tool in the new battle that the Chinese had to fight. The reaction of the audience against The History of the Battle of Shanghai well illustrated this. From what can be inferred from the film advertisement, Lianhua wanted to make a movie that would be “a sad commemoration of the past.” The film emphasized the human loss and the “cultural and patrimonial destruction”; it insisted on repressing the Japanese. This was not what people wanted to see. They wanted to be shown as heroes, not as victims; they wanted revenge, not grief. Lianhua understood its mistake and released in July another newsreel, The History of the Battle of the Nineteenth Route Army against the Japanese (Shijiu lu jun kang Ri zhanshi; three reels), that clearly conveyed a different tone, as can be seen from the advertisements published in the Shenbao in July 1932 (fig. 3). First, the movie was a real war movie, filmed by a crew who followed the soldiers “at the front lines at their life’s stake,” and was acknowledged as such by the heroic leader of the Nineteenth Route Army, General Cai Tingkai. The ads also stressed the bravery of the Chinese soldiers who had only their courage to fight an army of tanks, planes, canons, and other modern machines. There was no longer any mention of the civilians’ suffering or casualties. The enemy’s tyranny was described to the extent that it highlighted the courage of the Chinese people. The History of the Battle of the Nineteenth Route Army against the Japanese was well received by the critics, but it also had to face fierce competition.21 The interest in Shanghai war newsreels was growing, and by July 1932 many films were being released that became quite popular.22 Lianhua’s newsreel did not seem to distinguish itself and had less success than The Bloody Battle of Shanghai against the Japanese (Shanghai kang Ri xue zhanshi; produced by the Huizhong Company), which was screened twenty-nine days in June, the first month of its release, at the Fu’an Theater. By comparison, Lianhua’s newsreel stayed on screen for only thirteen days in July in two different theaters, the Gonghe and the Fu’an. The critics of the two movies in Diansheng ribao justified the success of The Bloody Battle of Shanghai against the Japanese by the very good quality of the fighting scenes, some 21

It received a C grade in Diansheng ribao, 9 July 1932. According to my research in Shenbao and Diansheng ribao, ten newsreels on the Shanghai war, including one made by a foreign correspondent, were released between June and October 1932. 22

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of them taken by foreign cameramen.23 The same article regretted, on the opposite side, the poor quality of photography in Lianhua’s production. As both movies are lost, it is difficult to form an independent judgment. We can notice, however, that The Bloody Battle of Shanghai against the Japanese was also advertised as a movie made by “the great martial arts filmmaker Zhang Huizhong.”24 Was this movie truly enhancing the beauty of the fighting? Or was it just the overall quality of the images that explained its success? We are left only with hypotheses. With the production of newsreels of the Shanghai war, film companies contributed to the building of a documented memory that served several purposes. At one level, the films provided people with real images of a local event that became a national trauma. However, as they were also conceived as works of propaganda, not only did they document the war but they also contributed to the creation of a mythology, an iconography of the war. The documented memory was already part of a collective interpretation of the war. The success of the newsreels was certainly due to their novelty. For the first time in China, a war was entirely filmed and shown by Chinese for the Chinese people. The newsreel advertisements all stressed the fact that the filming was done “at the front lines” by crews sent out to the battlefront. The images projected in theaters to large audiences became the reality of the war as they were, truly, images of the real war. Or, as the Lianhua ads put it, “watching the movie is like living the real event.” From this standpoint, the newsreels had an impact on the visual memory of the war, as they constituted an enduring repository of images that had the status of facts. The Shanghai war newsreels were important both for the people of Shanghai and for the entire nation, as they communicated events that were not witnessed by the vast majority of the Chinese and in so doing they contributed to a sense of unity in a population that was unequally affected by the war. In Shanghai, the Chinese area of Zhabei bore the brunt of the attack, and many inhabitants of other parts of Shanghai did not directly experience the war. They heard a lot but did not see much. The diary of Nie Er, a musician working at the Lianhua Music and Dance Troupe Company, describes very well the strange atmosphere that must have prevailed in Shanghai. Rumors among neighbors, the sounds of air raids, and the sad sight of refugees running away from the war zone were part of the daily routine of people living, like Nie Er, in areas close to but unaffected by the war. For them, war was a faceless monster haunting their dreams and dis23

Diansheng ribao, 9 July 1932. This movie also received a C grade. Shenbao, 4 June 1932, Fu’an Theater advertisement. 25 Nie Er was living on Aiwen West Road, nowadays Beijing West Road. This road, located in Jing’an District, one street north of present-day Nanjing West Road, southwest of Zhabei, 24

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rupting their everyday lives. The newsreels, however, put a single, shared face on the monster. The History of the Battle of the Nineteenth Route Army against the Japanese, for instance, showed the modern Japanese army or simply the movements of enemy troops. By watching such movies, the people of Shanghai, wherever they lived, whatever they endured, could build and share a collective memory of the battle. In addition, the newsreels reached an audience that was much broader than the Shanghainese. The films were distributed elsewhere in China and in overseas communities. Thanks to this large distribution, the Battle of Shanghai became a nationwide event. It was clearly the first stage in the building of a national memory. With the newsreels, war became a visible fact. However, filmmakers and producers did more than film mere facts. They started to elaborate on the facts as choices were made about what to show and what to exclude. The story of the rejected History of the Battle of Shanghai and the difference in content of the two Lianhua newsreels sheds light on the mythology created by these films, among other agents. The second Lianhua newsreel, as well as the vast majority of the other productions of the time, emphasized the heroic deeds of the Nineteenth Route Army’s soldiers, who were presented as the patriots China needed. This not only threw a veil on the suffering of the population, but it also contributed to a political interpretation of the war and its conclusion. A popular (but inexact) vision saw in the Battle of Shanghai a demonstration that Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) and the Guomindang government were unwilling or unable to defend the nation. The belief was that only the Nineteenth Route Army, who participated in the war in Shanghai with the Fifth Army, resisted the Japanese, and that this army did not received enough munitions from the government. This was not the case, but nevertheless the newsreels echoed and ampliwas in the northern part of the International Settlement. Apparently, all the artists of the Lianhua dance troupe were living there; some Lianhua filmmakers such as Sun Yu were also living in this neighborhood. See Sun Yu, Yinhai fanzhou [A boat on the Silver Sea: An autobiography] (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1987), 86; Nie Er, Nie Er riji [The diary of Nie Er], ed. Li Hui (Zhengzhou: Daxiang chubanshe, 2003), 240. Another account of the war period was left by an artist close to Lianhua, Tian Han. He was living in Zhabei and had to flee. He stayed with the Lianhua actor Jin Yan: “Jin Yan was living at Lianhua’s dormitory; I was continuously seeing Bu Wancang or Wu Yonggang. Sometimes I would go to see them filming; sometimes they would follow me across the war zone” (Tian Han, “Sange modeng nüxing yu Ruan Lingyu” [Three Modern Girls and Ruan Lingyu], in Zhongguo zuoyi dianying yundong [The Chinese Left Film Movement], ed. Chen Bo [Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1993], 246). 26 Some patriotic associations based overseas went to Shanghai to buy copies of the movies in order to distribute them in Cantonese among expatriate communities. See Cheng, Li, and Xing, Zhongguo dianying, 181. 27 In China’s Trial by Fire, Jordan argues that the Chinese victory was in reality due to Guomindang troops and that the government actually did send munitions to the army (ix–xi).

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fied this opinion. They spread an imagery of the war that concentrated on soldiers who were, so to say, “the people’s soldiers,” in opposition to the remote state army. The war of Shanghai became the war of the Nineteenth Route Army and was quickly subject to an ideological battle that affected its significance and its memory. The newsreels participated in the creation of this mythology. The Dramatized Memory During the Battle of Shanghai, not all of Lianhua’s personnel went into the field to film. Lianhua’s manager Li Minwei (Lai Man-wai) wrote in his diary on 28 January 1932: “We have held meetings for some days and agreed that all studios send crews to the battle zones to document the fighting. But the other studios did not keep their promises, only studio no.1, under my lead, sent Bu Wancang, Li Lesan, Huang Shaofen, Luo Jinghao, Zhao Fuli, Jin Yan, Wu Yonggang, Huang Qiutian, Ma Guiquan and others to shoot the scenes of the Wusong-Shanghai Battle at Zhabei, Zhenru, Minhang road, Dachang and along the railway.” While some filmmakers and technicians from studio no. 1 were on site, documenting the battle, others decided to produce feature films about the battle. Two complementary concepts of the mission of cinema in relation to the building of a visual memory of the event were at stake. In the first one, cinema was seen as a way to document the real events. In the other view, filmmakers used their talents as storytellers to express what was, according to them, the meaning of this particular moment. This is how All for the Nation (Gongfu guonan), a movie now lost, was made. Collectively written and filmed in two months between February and April 1932, during the incident itself, it was released in Shanghai in August 1932 in an open-air theater in the Black Cat nightclub. It stayed on screen for only five days during that month and failed to become a hit despite the “twelve stars and four directors” who participated in its production (fig. 4). It probably suffered from competition from the talking feature film by Mingxing, Battle of Shanghai (Shanghai zhanshi), released a few days earlier in August 1932, which met with relatively good success in that it was screened for 28 Man-wai Lai, The Diary of Lai Man-wai, ed. Shek Lai (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Film Archives, 2003), 14. 29 Cheng, Li, and Xing, Zhongguo dianying, 249; Wang Renmei, Wode chengming yu buxing: Wang Renmei huiyi lu [My success and misfortune: An autobiography] (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1985), 124–125. 30 The Black Cat Open-Air Film Plaza (Bali lutian yingchang) was located across from Zhaofeng Park (today’s Zhongshan Park) at the western limit of the International Settlement. Malraux, in Man’s Fate (set in 1927), describes a scene in a nightclub with the same name, The Black Cat.

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Figure 4: Shenbao, 18 August 1932, advertisement for All for the Nation.

seventeen days during the first month of its release. The critics stressed the fact that both films had a very similar scenario but that, unfortunately, All for the Nation suffered from the lack of unity in its direction. The movie was considered unstructured and difficult to understand, and apparently some of the twelve stars did not invest a lot in their acting performances. Perhaps the fact that it was a silent movie did not help in the comparison with Mingxing’s production. Two aspects of All for the Nation need to be stressed: first, the choice of staging the entire movie in reconstituted sets, including the scenes in the trenches; second, its subject matter, as it differed from that of the newsreels. The critics admired more than anything else the quality of the sets and of the reconstitution. It seems that the directors did not use, as was the case in Battle of Shanghai, excerpts from actual newsreels of the war. In other words, the filmmakers chose to create a visual memory of the event that would be independent of the reality. The screening, together with the film, of two animated movies on the war made at Lianhua by the Wan brothers is further proof that for artists the accuracy of the description was ancillary to a visual interpretation of the event. The reality of the images shown did not matter—only their “truth.” This artistic choice was important in terms of collective memory. Fiction can be more powerful than reality when it helps us to understand—and not only to witness—an event. This is what Pierre Sorlin explains about postwar cinema in Europe: “Films provide spectators with images which, very often, substitute for actual memories, creating a contrived but very effective idea of the past.” Where newsreels allowed all Shanghainese, and maybe all Chinese, to build the basis of a collective, visual memory of the war, feature films also create, as Jay Winter puts it, “a set of codes” that provide the necessary interpretation of the event. This is an important characteristic of historical 31

Diansheng ribao, 22–24 August 1932. Wang Renmei, Wode chengming, 124–125. 33 Diansheng ribao, 24 August 1932. 34 Pierre Sorlin, “Children as War Victims in Postwar European Cinema,” in War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century, ed. Jay Winter and Emmanuel Sirvan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 117. 35 Winter and Sirvan, War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century, 36. 32

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films, which, as Robert R. Rosenstone described well, can create “a way of re-visioning the past” through their visual inventions and recreations. As such, “they can be a stimulus to thought, an intervention into history.” This is why the visual invention of a movie like All for the Nation can, in its fictional way, convey truth about the war. What was, then, the idea of the war displayed in All for the Nation and what interpretation did it point toward? Although the film no longer exists, its story allows us to draw some conclusions. Contrary to newsreels, which focused on soldiers, the movie described the life of a Zhabei family during the battle and the human and material sacrifices made by its members. A film critic praised the meticulous, although reconstituted, description of the civilians’ lives during the war. The critic liked the fact that the movie showed some aspects of the war that were never filmed before, such as the interior of Zhabei houses. The dramatized memory of the war differed here from the documented one as it was a memory anchored in the human, singular, almost intimate experience of the war rather than in military action. The same was true of the other feature film produced by Lianhua in 1932 about the event, The Struggle (Fendou), or Battle of Shanghai by Mingxing, which also described the life of Zhabei residents during the war. Why did these feature films introduce a new and complementary vision of the war? First, one might suppose that the filmmakers who went on site did not have a chance, for technical or military reasons, to film the war from the inside. However, Battle of Shanghai also used excerpts from newsreels showing some film stars in action on the front lines or helping at hospitals, whereas Lianhua’s first newsreel did try to illustrate the suffering of the civilians—and was a failure with audiences. One must then read carefully the movie advertisements that, as expected, developed a message slightly different from those of the newsreel. The ads for the movies set a parallel between the heroism of the Nineteenth Route Army and the people of Zhabei, victims of the war described as “our compatri36 Robert R. Rosenstone, “JFK: Historical Fact/Historical Film,” The American Historical Review 97, no. 2 (1992): 510. 37 See Rosenstone, “JFK,” 509: “the Hollywood historical film will always include images that are at once invented and yet may still be considered true; true in that they symbolize, condense, or summarize larger amounts of data; true in that they carry out the overall meaning of the past that can be verified, documented or reasonably argued.” 38 The Struggle tells the story of two young men competing for the same girl. They are arrested for their bad behavior but redeem themselves by joining the army in Shanghai and sacrificing themselves in battle. This ending was, according to Chen Jihua, added to the script by a patriotic Shi Dongshan, who had started before the war to shoot a film that was then supposed to be a simple romance. See Cheng, Li, and Xing, Zhongguo dianying, 249. 39 See the movie’s description in Zhang Junxiang and Cheng Jihua, eds., Zhongguo dianying da cidian [China cinema encyclopedia] (Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe, 1993), 838.

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ots.” The ads also called repeatedly for the union of all in order to save the nation. Contrary to the newsreels, which documented facts, the feature films could play on two registers. At one level, they told the story of some individuals during a singular event—the Shanghai war; at another level, however, as they relied on fictional characters, they could reach to the universal or the symbolic. Zhabei became a microcosm, the symbolic equivalent of the nation. The dramatized memory was not just about helping the Chinese to realize the existence of the war or to build a collective memory of a real event with its mythology; it was about making this war a universal moment that would contribute to the emergence of a sense of shared national destiny. The newsreels and the feature films produced in 1932 by Lianhua studios both facilitated the building of a collective memory of the war: their screening in movie theaters provided a moment of public recollection necessary for such memory building as well as a basis for a mythology of the war. They also met the needs of the public for a direct expression of patriotism. Feature films went one step further by transforming the singular event of the Battle of Shanghai into a universal moment that could become the cement of the young Chinese nation. They were released at a time when this was seen by many as a crucial issue: whereas the sociopolitical tensions that had been transcended for a few months by the Japanese threat became stronger, the collective memory of the January 1932 Incident was endangered and with it the hope of a united nation. From Censored to Displaced Memory The urge to create a shared memory of the Battle of Shanghai was strong at Lianhua. Doing so was important, perhaps, because the unity of the nation was very uncertain, as it was being attacked from outside as well as inside. From outside, the conclusion of the cease-fire agreement proved to the Chinese that the International Powers were unfair to them and that Japan remained a potential threat. The Chinese film industry itself was affected by the attitudes of foreigners toward their country, and films on the war in Shanghai particularly suffered from the ban put on them in the foreign settlements. The political value of images of the war was tremendous for all sides—Chinese, Japanese, International Powers—and soon they crystallized many of the issues and tensions revolving around the cease-fire 40 The “myth of war enthusiasm” was a very strong one in post–World War I movies. See Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 129. We may wonder how much influence the filmmakers from Lianhua received from these types of movies in producing their own.

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agreement. While images were seen by the Chinese as ways to counterattack Japanese propaganda, they partially missed their target due to their lack of distribution within the foreign community. In Shanghai, the Shanghai Municipal Council quickly put a ban on movies about the war, as its members were worried about the Japanese reaction. The only theaters where the movies were screened in Shanghai were located in the Chinese city, with the exception of the Black Cat Open-Air Film Plaza, a dance hall transformed into a cinema during the summer—the only place found by Chinese film companies to reach a broader audience. Together with this ban on Shanghai war movies that affected directly All for the Nation, for instance, the films’ distribution was also affected by Japanese pressure on Chinese studios. One Mingxing movie was attacked by the Japanese, who demanded it be censored because it developed anti-Japanese feelings by showing somebody tearing apart the Japanese national flag. The biggest danger, however, came from inside China. Although the government first welcomed the development of patriotic films, the situation started to change with the end of the battle. When the Guomindang government signed the cease-fire with Japan in May 1932, it committed itself to preventing further anti-Japanese propaganda. As early as June 1932, the Central Department of Propaganda issued a new rule: the production of films “with a revolutionary content about the war against Japan” was forbidden under the pretext that these productions might endanger the peace effort. The reaction of the corporation showed how, at this point, the patriotism of the government became questionable. In a column published in the Diansheng ribao in June 1932 under the headlines “Why does a party that calls itself a revolutionary party want to forbid revolutionary movies? Is the signing of the cease-fire the beginning or the end of our country? All film companies refuse this illegal interference,” the compa41 As early as 18 April 1932, the Shanghai newspaper Shenbao mentioned that the Mingxing Film Company had sent crews to film the war in the neighborhood of its studio and that the government could present the images to the international community as a testimony of the Japanese violence. 42 All for the Nation was banned first in Shanghai. The Chinese government managed to lift the ban, but still the movie was screened in Shanghai long after its release in Nanjing. See Diansheng ribao, 18 August 1932. 43 Diansheng ribao, 24 June 1932. 44 See the memo issued by the National Film Censorship Committee in October 1931: “Since the Manchurian Incident, our national crisis has gotten worse and our people have been very emotional. We should seize the opportunity to guide this sentiment toward patriotism. There are many ways to do this but the most efficient of them all is film” (Jiaonei liangbu dianying jiancha weiyuan hui, ed., Dianying jiancha weiyuanhui gongzuo baogao [A work report of the China Film Censorship Committee; Nanjing, 1934], 63–64, quoted in Xiao, “Film Censorship in China,” 147). 45 Diansheng ribao, 12–13 June 1932.

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nies asked the Central Department of Propaganda to cease its regulation. Soon thereafter, however, the government put a ban throughout Shanghai on films mentioning the war. These were the first steps toward a censorship that would soon become even more stringent. The Description of the Shanghai War under Censorship Rules According to the Central Department of Propaganda’s regulations, any mention of Japan or Japanese or of the war in films was prohibited. However, in a first stage, images of the violence of the war did not disappear. Many Chinese filmmakers, who were left-wing or simply patriotic, sought strategies to get around censorship. They were helped by a Censorship Committee that, until 1934, remained relatively independent from the Central Department of Propaganda and the Guomindang in its decision making and, by and large, approved the popular nationalism of the movies. Initially, filmmakers and producers took the regulations literally. Instead of “Japanese,” they used such words as “enemy” or “invader,” but they still mentioned and showed in detail the attack on Shanghai. Such was the case in Three Modern Women (Sange modeng nüxing; dir. Bu Wancang; 1933), written by Tian Han. The movie is lost, but we can infer from the following portion of script that its visual representation of the incident was very explicit: Images of Shanghai under fire. Intertitle: After the invasion of 18 September, the Shanghai war begins. Images: The area of Hongkou, schools and buildings bombed, is on fire. Enemy planes are dropping bombs. Zhabei area: Soldiers behind sandbags aim their guns and shoot. Stretcher bearers come and go under bombs.

This excerpt gives precise details of war scenes, including the geographical names of the areas of Shanghai under attack, even though the “Japanese” are not named. One year later, in Homecoming (Guilai; director Zhu Shilin; 1934), the military attack was accurately portrayed with soldiers and gunfire, the bombing of a private house, its destruction, and the panic among fleeing civilians. But at least in the damaged version I was able to 46 On censorship in 1932 and 1933, see also Cheng, Li, and Xing, Zhongguo dianying, 292–294. 47 On the evolution of the National Film Censorship Committee between 1931 and 1934, see Xiao, “Film Censorship in China,” 150–186. 48 Zheng Peiwei and Liu Guiqing, eds., Zhongguo wusheng dianying juben [Chinese silent film scripts] (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1996), 2259.

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see, the Japanese enemy is not named. In both movies, the memory of the event is still strong, and it looks almost as though filmmakers had decided that censorship did not apply to visuals, only to words. However, there is a big difference between both of the aforementioned movies and the first feature film produced at Lianhua, All for the Nation. If the Shanghai Incident is still visually present in these two later movies, it is only for a few minutes in features that do not take the war as their main topic. In Homecoming, as well as in another movie from the same period, Road to Glory (Chulu; dir. Zheng Jiduo; 1933), the depictions of the incident became the background for romance; the event is a mishap that changes life without bearing any strong meaning. It looks as though by making the mention of the January 1932 war problematic, censorship prevented the film company from representing and addressing the attack in its deep significance. What happens to an event if it cannot be mentioned or addressed directly? Is there not a danger that the memory of the event itself will disappear and, with it, the unity of the nation? This is, I believe, one of the worries that filmmakers encountered in the 1930s when censorship became an issue. This concern was beautifully expressed in a movie by Sun Yu that is a critical example for understanding the memory of the incident in 1930s China. Threats to the Memory of the Shanghai Incident in Little Toys Little Toys (Xiao wanyi) was made in 1933. It was then still possible to show the January 1932 Incident on screen, but worries about the effect of censorship were strong. The film was released on 10 October 1933, in one of the city’s movie palaces, the Carlton, a nine-hundred-seat theater located in the International Settlement next to the racecourse. The movie tells the story of Sister Ye (played by Ruan Lingyu), an industrious young woman who lives by selling toys she makes by hand. Through a series of hardships, she, along with her community, takes refuge in Zhabei, where she has to face competition by large Western toy factories. In January 1932, her only remaining child, a seventeen-year-old daughter, is killed while rescuing wounded fighters. This final tragedy leaves Sister Ye hopeless. The movie is a very rich reflection by Sun Yu on the fate of the young China—a nation willing to develop itself but burdened by the fight against internal 49 Three Modern Women did suffer from self-censorship but not because of the images evoking the war. See Chenbao [Morning daily], 31 December 1932, in Chen Bo, ed., Sanshi niandai Zhongguo dianying pinglun wenxuan [An anthology of Chinese film critiques of the 1930s] (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1993), 115. According to Tian Han (“Sange modeng nüxing yu Ruan Lingyu,” 349), Lianhua decided to cut some sequences related to a telephone company: the producer was afraid that the movie would not receive international showing because of its criticism of foreign phone companies.

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Figure 5: Little Toys, photograph from the film from the VCD, side 2, at 19’58”21: the 28 January 1932 attack, with toy planes.

Figure 6: Little Toys, photo from the VCD, side 2, at 20’03”03: the 28 January attack, with real planes.

and external enemies. Toys are, for Sun Yu, a symbol of China’s vulnerability and inability to defend itself in the face of Western industry and modern war machines. The January 1932 Incident is not presented as just another twist of fortune on this hard path; it is rather the coup de grâce that destroys the very fragile equilibrium Sister Ye (as China) had built for herself and her community. What makes this movie even more interesting is that the incident is presented twice: once as a historical event, and a second time as a memory imprinted in Sister Ye’s mind. The initial battle episode is developed at length over almost fifteen minutes. To describe the war, the filmmaker chose a very complex approach, mixing a few shots taken on site during the real battle with reconstituted scenes. The Japanese enemies are never named, nor are they shown individually; they are an anonymous, indistinctive mass, represented by the modern machines that are attacking the city. In the first sequence, Sun Yu alternates shots of children playing with toys (tanks, planes, boats, and guns) and shots of “real Japanese war machines” as the script puts it (figs. 5–6). One shot at least (the shot of Japanese boats on the Huangpu River) is taken from a newsreel (figs. 7–8). By associating toys with real machines, Sun underlines the fragility of the Chinese army facing a modern, mechanically well-equipped enemy. Then, he shows the battlefield before focusing on the heroism of the humble people living and resisting in Zhabei and on the fraternity between civilians and soldiers (of 50 It has been very difficult so far to identify which shots were taken on the spot and which were not. The images of the Japanese war machines could all be real. This is at least what the script seems to indicate. See Zheng and Liu, Zhongguo wusheng dianying, 2648. 51 The quality of the image of this boat is very different from that of the rest of the movie, which may be an indication of its provenance.

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Figure 7: Little Toys, photo from the VCD, side 2, at 20’17”05: the 28 January attack, with toy boats.

Figure 8: Little Toys, photo from the VCD, side 2, at 20’22”01: the 28 January attack, with real boats.

the Nineteenth Route Army). The shot of the battlefield is interesting. It is shown twice during this sequence, but each time with a different meaning: first, it is a generic image of the war in Shanghai; second, it is meant to be an image of the Battle of Jiangwan, where the soldiers are heading, as we learn from an intertitle (fig. 9). The simplest explanation for this repetition is economic: Lianhua could not afford a very detailed reconstitution of the war, hence, Sun used the same image twice. However, there is another interpretation: it is as though Sun showed the psychological process of building a memory of the event. The image of the battlefield becomes a memory imprinted in the viewer’s mind. The description of the war in Little Toys shifts from the external depiction of an event to the internal evocation of the memory of it left in the mind. However complexly produced, the meaning of the entire scene of the Shanghai battle is, so far, quite straightforward: it shows the heroism of the Chinese people in confronting the violence of the attack. The end of the movie, however, differs greatly from this consensual interpretation. This is 28 January 1933, one year after the incident, on the eve of Chinese New Year. A lonely, desperate Sister Ye is trying to sell her toys in the street. She is in a state of shock, and when the firecrackers traditionally used on that day explode, the sound of the explosion reawakens her memories and fears. The incident is shown again, including that same image of the battlefield, but this time these images are without a doubt the visual reminiscences of a traumatic event; they are visions coming from someone’s mind (fig. 10). After a moment of panic brought on by hearing Sister Ye shouting “The enemy is coming!” everybody realizes that there is no danger: it is only a poor, crazy woman hallucinating. Was the entire Battle of Shanghai just a bad dream, the hallucination of some crazy mind? Should we ignore it as such?

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Figure 9: Little Toys, photo from the VCD, side 2, at 30’54”13: the battlefield. Figure 10: Little Toys, photo from the VCD, side 2, at 44’31”06: Sister Ye’s hallucination of the 28 January attack.

By asking implicitly this question, Sun criticized the perversity of the government’s censorship. If we cannot give a proper name to the images of the events, we may start to question their reality, or, like Sister Ye, be considered insane. Censorship will manage, says Sun, to erase from our memory the veracity of the event; a censored memory can lead to craziness. As such, censorship will make people go insane to the extent that recollection is a necessary stage in the path to forget and to heal. If access to the true event is blocked, what can individual memories do to produce hallucinations? Further, Sun shows a society deeply divided between rich, unconcerned people and those who suffered from the war, oftentimes the most humble. Moreover, it is divided between the few who remember (Sister Ye is alone) and those who do not: amnesia has already spread around her. In this context, the finger she points at some other characters and at the audience most evidently says: “Wake up! Remember! Keep fighting!” It might also say that the enemy to fear is less the Japanese than the Chinese themselves, if they are prepared to repress or ignore the trauma their country suffered. With Little Toys, Sun moves from an evocation of the January 1932 Incident to the question of its place or absence in the nation’s memory. It is clear that, for the filmmaker, a repressed memory and national disunity are linked. This is also how people understood the movie, which was a big success at the time. As Sun himself recalls: Little Toys was released in October 1933 in Shanghai, almost two years after the January 28 Incident, while it was clear that Japan was preparing for a new military invasion. Viewers responded to the movie with 52 The film was successively screened in two large Shanghai theaters, the Carlton (909 seats; 8–13 October) and the Beijing (located on Guizhou Road in the International Settlement; 800 seats; 26 October–4 November) and received a B grade in Diansheng ribao.

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enthusiasm, showing the desire of Chinese people to fight against Japan. The movie also received a positive welcome from my left-wing colleagues. This is what comrade Xia Yan wrote in an article titled “To Mister Sun Yu, after Watching His Movie Little Toys” (Shenbao, 10 October 1933): “ . . . We have to behave as madly as Mrs. Ye without being afraid to be seen as mad. We have to shout again and again toward all those who are accusing us of being mad! Let’s hope that all the ones who are willing to behave as the mad ones can join the crowd of those ready to resist!”

Truly, by mentioning the war but also its fate in the national memory, Little Toys addressed a crucial issue and met people’s own concerns about the fate of a nation under threat. The Displaced Memory of the Shanghai Incident The encounter of Chinese filmmakers with the violence of the war changed their vision. Public demand also evolved, becoming more interested in movies that addressed the problems of contemporary China. After 1932, a trend for more realistic, left-wing movies appeared, while communists gained in influence in the cinematic milieu. This development was not welcomed by the Guomindang government. General Chiang Kai-shek was obsessed with communists more than anything else and was waging war against the Chinese Communist Party in the countryside. Dissatisfied with the liberal stand of the Censorship Committee, which was accused of being too lenient toward left-wing productions, he encouraged coercive actions against the movie industry: on the morning of 12 November 1933, the Yihua Company was attacked and destroyed by a gang acting for the Guomindang. It was a message of terror sent to the movie companies. The National Film Censorship Committee was dissolved and a new committee, placed directly under the supervision of the Guomindang and the Central Department of Propaganda, was organized in early 1934, in a clear shift toward political censorship. Censorship became stricter: films were inspected twice, once in script form and once after production. There was less and less room for the direct expression of patriotic views. Filmmakers started to evoke the incident in its symbolic meaning rather than as a historically visible reality. Displacement and allegory became their two main strategies. In terms of displacement in time, the warlord period and the Northern Expedition of 1926–1927 offered an ideal backdrop to calls for patriotism and resistance against military oppression. Displacement in

53 54 55

Sun Yu, Yinhai fanzhou, 103. See Xiao, “Film Censorship in China,” 181. See Xiao, “Film Censorship in China,” 139–141.

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space was also resorted to, as in the case of The Road (Dalu), another Sun Yu work. The movie was first screened in January 1935, three years after the Battle of Shanghai and around the Chinese New Year. Sun set his story “somewhere inland”—in the countryside, far from the city. A group of young workers was building a road. They were compared, in the booklet that was distributed in the movie theater, to “soldiers who are facing fire at the front lines.” At the end of the movie comes the enemy’s attack on this young and courageous China trying to modernize, as in Shanghai in 1932, from the air. The description of the attack, with an airplane flying over the busy team of workers, surprising and killing them in their daily activities, but also the resistance of one of the young workers, mortally wounded, cannot but resonate with the memories of the 1932 attack in the minds of Shanghai people. Sun uses sensorial memory rather than visual accuracy. The sound of the airplane in a peaceful sky, and the violence and rapidity of the bombing, must have been striking moments for an audience that had experienced a similar situation a few years earlier (figs. 11–14). The Road ends with the powerful vision of the resurrection of young workers under the eyes of Ding Xiang (played by Chen Yanyan; figs. 15– 16). It is—again—a hallucination, but this time the message is one of hope: the young China will resist any destructive attack and will push forward its effort to build a modern nation. If The Road is less somber than Little Toys, it is because the destruction is counterbalanced by this young spirit of resistance; the deaths of the workers is not a mere annihilation, but rather a heroic sacrifice for the nation. It is almost as though Sun was trying to recreate in another space, the countryside, the spirit of unity that was associated with the Shanghai war. However, the vision of ghosts rising from among the dead cannot but resonate with the question of remembrance of the war in the Chinese collective memory of that time. Ding’s last words, “No! They are not dead,” form the cry of somebody who wants to remem56 The Road was screened during seventeen days at the Jincheng, a 1,786-seat theater. See Laikwan Pang, Building a New China in Cinema: The Chinese Left-Wing Cinema Movement, 1932–1937 (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002), 244. 57 Zheng and Liu, Zhongguo wusheng dianying, 2738. 58 Zheng and Liu, Zhongguo wusheng dianying, 2738. 59 We must note that the image of the return of the dead from the war was a very popular one in European visual arts after World War I. I can think of the very famous movie by Abel Gance, J’accuse (1919), seen by one to two million people throughout the world, and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, directed and produced by Rex Ingram (1921), seen in 1922 by ten million people, both offering striking visions of the resurrection of the dead. See Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning, 138. This theme is also found in Seventh Heaven, directed by Frank Borzage (Fox; 1927), with a different, much more romantic tone. Sun, who had learned filmmaking in the United States between 1923 and 1926, may have seen those movies.

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Figure 11: The Road, photograph from the film on VCD, side 2, at 44’42”06: workers hear a sound coming from the sky.

Figure 12: The Road, photo from the VCD, side 2, at 45’03”24: plane attack.

Figure 13: The Road, photo from the VCD, side 2, at 45’14”20: panic among the workers.

Figure 14: The Road, photo from the VCD, side 2, at 45’120”03: panic among the workers.

ber. By remembering her friends, she calls them back from beyond. Sun makes a strong association between memory and revival: only memory can help the Chinese nation to go on and become stronger; only memory can preserve a spirit of unity. The Road ends, like Little Toys, with images from the mind. However, Ding’s hallucination is different from the vision of the mad, desperate, and lonely Sister Ye. Two paths for the development of a memory of the event are shown here. Sister Ye’s memory is the memory of a traumatic event the reality of which is denied by the community. Here lies the reason for her madness. Ding’s vision is pure hallucination but it is shared by her companions and by the spectators and as such it becomes a collective act of commemoration and hope that has the power to bring the dead back to life. Concerns about the repressed, censored memory are put in contrast to the miraculous effect of the power of a free remembrance. This China,

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Figure 15: The Road, photo from the VCD, side 2, at 49’14”02: resurrection of the dead. Figure 16: The Road, photo from the VCD, side 2, at 50’13”15: Ding Xiang’s hallucination.

however, was a utopia in the 1930s: The Road is set in a place that has no name and that does not exist, and its message was quite unique at the time. The reality was what Sister Ye encountered in the city of Shanghai: disunity, repression, and fear. The Reborn Memory Between 1935 and 1937, Lianhua did not produce any movie that mentioned the January 1932 Incident. Censorship had clearly won. Political and economic factors also played a role: as Lianhua was facing an important financial crisis, its managers tried to receive, without success, support from the Guomindang. The overall production politic of the company was then reconsidered as Luo Mingyou, who had some connections with the Chen clique of the Guomindang, was reluctant to spend money for movies that would be openly supportive of the ideas of the leftists. But even though the attack on Shanghai was not mentioned or shown, the event, as well as the loss of the northern territories and, overall, the Japanese threat, appeared in many of the movies of this period like an open wound that could not heal. The way China was blocked from allowing these events a place in the collective memory is also indicative of the absence of true national unity. Two phenomena could be observed: First, as the singular events—the Manchuria invasion and the Shanghai attack—were not represented in detail anymore on screen, they lost their factual specificity to become an overall, general, almost abstract evocation of an enemy’s threat. Second, filmmakers continued to question the deep reasons such traumatic events could happen and be almost erased from collective memory. As they could not represent the traumas themselves, they explored what they believed to be their roots: China’s social ills, such

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as poverty and class exploitation, the low status of women, the state of civil political war within China, and so on. Scenes of destruction and violence against humans (particularly women) were often associated with the nation in these films and became increasingly frequent, as though the violence of the war and, associated with it, the violence of the repression of the memory of the war were made indirectly visible. Ironically, censorship led to a thorough critique of contemporary Chinese society that did not leave the government unscathed. In 1936, however, the political situation began to change. With the Japanese threat becoming stronger, many intellectuals called for a united front against the enemy. In January 1936, four years after the Shanghai Incident, two Lianhua filmmakers, Sun Yu and Cai Chusheng, created the National Salvation Association of Shanghai Cinema (Shanghai dianying jie jiuguo hui) to abolish the film censorship system and encourage the production of national defense films. By the end of 1936, Chiang Kai-shek was forced to align himself with anti-Japanese sentiments, and unhampered national unity seemed possible. It was in this context that Lianhua filmmakers produced several movies that called for resistance against the invader explicitly. Most of them used allegory (Langshan diexue ji; Bloodbath on Wolf Mountain) and displacement (Gucheng lienü; The heroine in the besieged city). It was only in 1937 that the Battle of Shanghai was once again used in two fiction movies. The first movie was one of the eight episodes forming the Lianhua Symphony (Lianhua jiaoxing qu) series. It was another film by Sun Yu. In fact, Hallucinations of a Crazy Man (Fengren kuangxiang qu) started where Little Toys had ended. A farmer was locked in a mental hospital because he wanted to fight against the enemies who had destroyed his home and family. His reminiscences—or hallucinations—are shown: an airplane dropping bombs, a tank, a battlefield. Sun used the very same footage he had used in Little Toys. He edited it with images of the Great Wall: in memories, the January 1932 Incident now fused with the invasion of Manchuria (figs. 17–18). One aspect distinguished this film from Little Toys: there was more violence in the representation of the war. Children and not just young people or soldiers were shown dying. This type of violence was even more present in Cai Chusheng’s Fifth Brother Wang (Wang laowu). This was in many ways an exceptional movie: it was a comedy with a social content that described the difficult lives of poor people. The Shanghai war came and destroyed what little they had left. Cai chose to show the war only from 60

Pang, Building a New China in Cinema, 60; Cheng, Li, and Xing, Zhongguo dianying, 416. The movie was screened from 1 July to 21 July 1937 at the Xinguang, a theater with over one thousand seats located in the International Settlement. 61

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Figure 17: Hallucinations of a Crazy Man, photograph from the film on VCD, at 28’40”14: visions of the 28 January 1932 attack (to compare with fig. 9). Figure 18: Hallucinations of a Crazy Man, photo from the VCD, at 28’45”15: visions from the 28 January 1932 attack fused with visions of the September 1931 attack (the Great Wall).

Figure 19: Fifth Brother Wang, photograph from the film on VCD, side 2, at 33’56”07: flow of refugees during the 28 January attack.

Figure 20: Fifth Brother Wang, photo from the VCD, side 2, at 46’12”14: a baby consumed by fire during the attack.

the perspective of humble people. For them, the truth of the war was brutal. It was no longer a question of heroism and courage. No soldiers were shown, no military machines. What we see are fires, destruction, horrible deaths, and people fleeing. When the character Wang’s home is bombed, we are inside, and we can see a baby burning. The violence of war is at its climax (figs. 19–20). Can we see a development in the memory of the event that goes from the heroic images of the war shown in 1932 to those of fierce destruction and death? Whereas each filmmaker elaborates his own vision of a reality, it is interesting to note that the first images of the 1932 battle after three years of absence from Lianhua movies are more radical. Sun and Cai felt a sense of urgency, and the images they chose were accordingly powerful. The memory of the event was also used for a new purpose. It was not so much about the past as about the future; the two filmmakers were truly hoping that the brutality of the images could prevent another invasion

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by inspiring a strong spirit of resistance among the Chinese. It was too late, however, as the destiny of Fifth Brother Wang showed: Cai Chusheng started to shoot his film in February 1937, but it was shown to the Shanghainese only in April 1938, when the city was occupied. In the meantime, war had broken out, a terrible war that destroyed the hopes of building a new, modern Chinese nation. Conclusion When we look back at all the Lianhua films produced in the 1930s that mention the January 28 Incident, it becomes clear that the cultural memory of this event was sharply divided. There was obviously an artistic difference between the filmmakers who wanted to document the facts and constitute a visual memory, those who used these same facts as propaganda, and those who also tried to send a universal message. Moreover, and more important, there was a social division in the distribution of the memory. Lianhua’s two newsreels, as well as its 1932 feature film, All for the Nation, were screened only in the Chinese working class district of Shanghai, mainly in the part of the town that had suffered directly from the war. Such was not the case with the later movies that were screened in the more expensive theaters of the International Settlement and the French Concession. We are unfortunately lacking sources to understand better how the movies were received by the Shanghainese audience. But certainly, the absence of the newsreels on the Shanghai war in the foreign part of the town, as well as the differences in the location, the comfort of the theaters, and the prices of the tickets made the moviegoers’ experience different. Even if the population could be bound by watching the same movie, the memory of the war was not the same in Zhabei as in the International Settlement, nor did it have the same meaning for the few urbanites of the Chinese city or the educated people living in the settlements. It was not only censorship or the political situation that weakened the chance for a strong, united memory of the war to develop. Social divisions also had a negative impact on the development of a national memory. Overall, during Lianhua’s period of activity, the visual memory of the 28 January 1932 Incident, as it was developed in cinema, was for the most part a dramatized memory. The principal result of censorship was the disappearance of a documented memory, whereas a dramatized memory survived only through successive shifts and ultimately full displacement. By censoring images of the incident, the Chinese government transformed its memory into a problematic product of the imagination rather than into a factual commemoration. This was true not only during the 1930s but even long after. This event was never treated with full attention in China’s history, and it looks as though it was doomed to fall between the cracks of

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national memory. Even now, documented images of the Shanghai war are very hard to find, and feature films seldom evoke it. First, its memory was fused with the memories of the September 1931 invasion of Manchuria and, even more so, with the bloodier Japanese attack on Shanghai in August 1937. The second Japanese attack transformed forever the meaning and the memory of the first battle, which seemed retrospectively a mere incident that failed to prevent the war. After 1949, the significance and importance of the event were also transformed. Because the Nineteenth Route Army played an important role in the battle of Shanghai and because this army later joined the communist rebellion in Fujian, the heroism of the soldiers was highlighted.64 The event became the background of one of the myths of early Chinese Communism. After having been censored, its historical reality was ideologically subverted. Because the memory of the incident was from its beginning subject to censorship, it is as though the reality of the event was denied. In more recent feature films, the Shanghai war is strangely distant and blurred. Center Stage (1992), by Stanley Kwan, is exemplary of this representation. The movie is highly relevant to the argument here as it tells the story of Ruan Lingyu, one of the most famous Chinese actresses of the 1930s, who was then working for Lianhua and who played Sister Ye in Little Toys. The 1932 war is indeed evoked in Center Stage, but as indirectly as possible, almost as though it was not a true event but a fantasy coming from people’s minds. When the attack starts, people are dancing in a nightclub, and the lights go out. We hear the sound of a siren and a bomb falling, but the image shows the imposing facade of a building on the Bund, grey and solid. The destruction is invisible. The next scene is staged in Hong Kong, where some Lianhua actors, including Ruan Lingyu, have sought refuge. In an elegant gathering, the actors and their friends are chatting about the war while Ruan is thinking about her mother and her daughter still in Shanghai. We see what she imagines—her beloved ones in their house, hidden behind a window and looking at a red sky—while we hear the sounds of bombings in the distance. The only images of the event shown in the movie are coming from a worried woman’s imagination. Fifty years 62 Between one and two hundred thousand Chinese died during this attack on Shanghai (Marie-Claire Bergère, Histoire de Shanghai [Paris: Fayard, 2002], 304). 63 This is the same problem that happened after World War I: warnings sent in 1918 in the aftermath of the war did not prevent a world war from occurring again. See Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning, 9: “That message of hope, of raising the witness of those who had suffered during the war to prevent its recurrence, was bound to fade away.” 64 The Nineteenth Route Army and its leaders Cai Tingkai, Chen Mingshu, and Jiang Guangnai were sent to Fujian after the Shanghai war where, instead of fighting against the communists, they joined them in a rebellion in 1933. Thus, the Nineteenth Route Army became, in the Chinese communist mythology, a heroic procommunist army.

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after the traumatic moments of 28 January 1932, their memory, like their images, still have an uncertain status or, as one of the characters of Center Stage rightly says about the event: “This may go down as an interlude in history.” The ghostly evocation of the Shanghai war in cinema matches well, indeed, the unsettled nature of its historical status.

EIGHT

Two Stars on the Silver Screen: The Metafilm as Chinese Modern

KRISTINE HARRIS

W. J. T. Mitchell, in his book Picture Theory, suggests that metapictures function to “explain what pictures are—to stage, as it were, the ‘selfknowledge’ of pictures,” much the way “idols, fetishes, and magic mirrors . . .seem not only to have a presence, but a ‘life’ of their own, talking and looking back at us.”1 In 1931 Shanghai, the newly established Lianhua Film Company produced a motion picture, Two Stars on the Silver Screen (Yinhan shuangxing 䡔⓶䲭᯳), that did just this. As a movie about the making of movies, Two Stars told the story of a talented young singer, Li Yueying, who was “discovered” and elevated to stardom by the fictional “Yinhan Film Company.” Two Stars not only presents the actress’s performances for stage and screen, and the surrounding backstage dramas, but also self-reflexively includes the process of filming and promotion. Two Stars might be considered part of a genre of fictional and filmic representations of the movie world circulating through cinemas and print media globally during the 1920s and 1930s. Chinese film companies made numerous pictures about Shanghai’s film industry, including The Female Movie Star (Dianying nümingxing 䳏ᕅཇᯢ᯳; Tianyi; 1926), The Emotional Actress (Duoqing de nüling ໮ᚙⱘཇԊ; Mingxing; 1926), An Amorous History of the Silver Screen (Yinmu yanshi 䡔ᐩ㡋৆; Mingxing; 1931), and A Female Star (Yige nümingxing ϔ‫ן‬ཇᯢ᯳; Tianyi; 1933), to name just a I wish to thank Christian Henriot and Wen-hsin Yeh, along with Jin Jiang, Anne Kerlan, Sheldon Lu, Barbara Mittler, Oliver Moore, Robert Polito, William Schaefer, Gillian Rose, and Catherine Yeh, for their many stimulating and helpful comments on an early presentation of this research in 2007 and subsequent drafts. 1 W. J. T. Mitchell, Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 57.

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few.2 During the same period, self-reflexive films from Hollywood such as Show People (MGM; 1928) and Showgirls in Hollywood (First National; 1930) were also being amply imported to China.3 Alongside these films, Chinese magazines and book publishers brought out short stories and novels about the movies, “casting” real-life notables as characters.4 Dramatizing the new culture that was embodied by movie stars and the new technologies that magnified and amplified them, these works shaped and directed the public fascination with cinema and drew attention to the film medium itself as a form of cosmopolitan modernity. The 1929 novel Two Stars on the Silver Screen by the popular “butterfly fiction” writer Zhang Henshui ᔉᘼ∈ (1895–1967) was among the first of these fictional representations of the Shanghai movie world. Initially published in a modern, serial format—as ten chapters in the newspaper Huabei huabao 㧃࣫⬿ฅ—it would become, in two years, the basis for a highly successful film adaptation.5 The title, Two Stars, calls attention to the “doubles” that play a large part in Zhang’s fiction: couples, twins, and doppelgangers, who often bear uncanny resemblances to real-life figures in contemporary China. What makes the film Two Stars, and the original novel, exceptional and distinct from so many others in the genre is the degree to which it is selfreflexive and its powerful engagement with some of the most hotly contested issues being debated in the arts and periodical press at the time. If metafilms “explain” the medium, putting the camera on display and rendering the technology part of the spectacle, then Two Stars enhanced these self-reflexive qualities by magnifying the doublings of Zhang’s original novel, by employing a cast and crew whose experience often closely resembled that of real-life figures in the film world, and by introducing a 2 Unfortunately, none of these films is extant in complete form. Fragments of the second half of Mingxing’s film An Amorous History survive; see Zhen Zhang, An Amorous History of the Silver Screen: Shanghai Cinema, 1896–1937 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), xiv–xvii. 3 Show People, directed by King Vidor, had played in Shanghai as Yinmu yanshi 䡔ᐩ㡋৆. Mervyn LeRoy’s other backstage musical, Broadway Babies (First National; 1930) played in Shanghai at the Olympic Theatre in June of 1930 as Bailaohui zhi yang nannan ⱒ㗕ःП⋟ವ ವ. This film’s plot was very close to that of LeRoy’s follow-up film, Showgirls in Hollywood. 4 Yiming, “Dao sheyingchang qu” [Going to the movie studio set], Yingxi shenghuo 15 (1931.4.24): 29–30, a serialized script for a “comic Peking opera,” dramatized the interactions between director Zhang Shichuan, actress Hu Die, cinematographer Dong Keyi, and director Cheng Bugao. Other examples include Shuliu Shanfang, “Dianying waishi,” Yingxi shenghuo 15 (1931.4.24): 196 ff.; Xuanwu “Yindeng chunying,” Yinmu zhoubao 16 (1932.1.3): 35–36. 5 Zhang Henshui, “Yinhan shuangxing,” Huabei huabao (1929). The edition I cite is from Zhang Henshui, Zhao Yuling ben ji/Yinhan shuangxing: Zhang Henshui quanji (Taiyuan: Shanxi Beiyue wenyi chubanshe, 1993), vol. 10.

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plot for the film-within-the-film that mirrors the larger narrative. Even the Yinhan Film Company within the film is modeled on the Lianhua Film Company: the fictional and real studios share the goal of producing Chinese sound films, and the film Two Stars even features Lianhua filmmakers in brief cameo roles as themselves. The rise of recorded music and sound film played an important part in the film Two Stars. This was Lianhua’s first foray into sound filmmaking, and, like so many early sound films, it was, at least in part, a musical. (Zhang published the novel when silent filmmaking was still the norm, but by 1930 or 1931, early sound films from the United States, including full-scale musicals, were being imported to China, and a few large Chinese studios were starting to venture into this new arena.) Lianhua was so proud of its accomplishment that the triumph of synchronized sound was even foregrounded as a climactic point in the film. In reality, Two Stars was a hybrid film that employed both silent and sound filmmaking techniques. The dialogue and narrative exposition were still presented with intertitles, and a musical soundtrack was recorded on disks for playback during screenings, to be cued to onscreen musical performances at various points within the film.6 It is important to note here that the soundtrack on recent VCD and DVD reissues of Two Stars is not the original music. For the analysis in this chapter, I have reconstructed the missing sound elements using archival materials and contemporary descriptions, to demonstrate the significance of the songs for the plot and meaning of the film.7 Along with narrative doublings, Two Stars plays on the relationships between media (fiction and film, art and life, stage and screen, silent and sound film, opera and film, players and play, motion pictures and still photographs), and it grapples with some of the broader tensions in contemporary culture (commerce and art, tradition and modernity, China and the West, men and women, filial obligation and romantic love). In Two Stars, the ground constantly shifts between these dualities, which become layered, interwoven, and complicated. Foregrounding a consciousness of the film medium, Two Stars prompts the spectator to consider, who is behind the camera? 6 This “sound-on-disk” was a common method of sound filmmaking in the early period, as the process involved the lowest up-front cost and offered the most flexibility in exhibition. The other method, “sound-on-film,” was a more advanced process that enabled synchronously recorded dialogue, but it had numerous drawbacks, requiring much higher investments for both production and exhibition, and placing new limits on the set. In China, Lianhua and Mingxing both began with the “sound-on-disk” process, while Tianyi used “sound-on-film.” 7 The analysis that follows is based on detailed descriptions, the libretto, scene summaries, contemporary magazines, memoirs, and other sources.

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Fiction and Film; Art and Life The original Two Stars novel, with its representation of 1920s film culture in urban China, provided a template for the metacinematic qualities of the subsequent film adaptation. We begin with a detailed summary of Zhang’s narrative and then consider his sources and how the novel came to be adapted for film. As we will see, not only was the novel constructed around the theme of mirrorings between art and life, but the characters themselves mirrored real-life figures in Shanghai’s entertainment world. Li Yueying ᴢ᳜㣅, the protagonist of the novel Two Stars, first appears as a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl at the modern Qunying School in pre-1927 Beijing. Enamored with Hollywood movies and foreign fashion, she adores tragic romance pictures starring Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish, including Orphans of the Storm (1921) and Way Down East (1920). She reenacts one of Gish’s most moving, tragic scenes for her classmates, who give her the nickname “movie fan” (dianying mi 䳏ᕅ䗋). An only child, Li Yueying lives with her father, Li Xudong ᴢᯁᵅ, who is a composer and music teacher. Mr. Li writes a song-and-dance show called Wuchou xianzi ⛵ᛕҭ ᄤ (Immortal maiden of no worries) for the girls to perform, with Yueying in the lead role as an immortal maiden who rides the wind down to earth, accompanied by her butterfly and blossom attendants, to alleviate human despair and loneliness with her dancing. The spirits bring happiness to young girls, but then the blossoms are tragically blown away by the wind, leaving the immortal maiden and butterflies alone, singing a mournful song. The touching performance proves such a hit that Miss Li receives invitations from schools nationwide to perform; her beauty and talent are admired far and wide. She becomes a national star, with schoolgirls from north to south imitating her dance moves. Her performances also bring new recognition to her father’s artistry, and he soon receives invitations to teach literature and music at schools in the south. Yueying and her father move to Shanghai, where her fame grows. She attends an international girls’ school while continuing to read movie magazines and frequenting cinemas for the foreign features and newsreels, from which she gleans details about the latest hairstyles and dance steps, including the Charleston. Blending these trends with her own wardrobe of northern-style qipao gowns, Yueying soon becomes an East-West style avatar. When the manager of a movie company sees one of her unique dance performances, she is invited for a screen test. Touring the Yinhan studios with her father, she watches the production of a romance film, and on the set she is introduced to the handsome male lead, Yang Yiyun ἞‫׮‬䳆. Soon thereafter, the movie studio films her dance performances as a series of shorts. Yang is smitten with Li’s clear Beijing accent and fluid

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calligraphy, and he charms her by visiting her home bearing plum-scented sweets from a Shanghai department store. The film studio offers Li a role opposite Yang in its next feature. Her father initially resists, concerned about her reputation as the youngest member of the studio, but he finally consents in the interest of art. Li soon earns a middle range salary of 200 yuan for two or three months of work on her first film, along with carfare. Yang takes Li to all the hotspots of Shanghai—parks, restaurants, nightclubs—consuming foreign novelties such as ice cream, coffee, and even wine. Li Xudong is supportive of his daughter and believes Yang’s intentions are friendly and sincere. The three of them go out for meals and even a Peking opera performance. The ideal couple soon becomes the talk of the town, and their first and second movies together are big hits. As Li begins to earn additional income from making gramophone records, her income exceeds Yang’s. At 2,000 yuan for a ten-minute recording, she makes enough to support herself and her father comfortably in the foreign concession zones. Li buys a car and easily affords expensive dinners at Shanghai’s swankiest restaurants. The couple’s romance waxes and wanes. On a long drive through the bucolic countryside outside Shanghai, Yang suggests that the two of them buy a house together, and the pair embraces. But at this very moment, Li grows anxious. She realizes that the remote site of their tryst is the very place where a famous crime of passion once occurred: the 1920 murder of courtesan Wang Lianying, by a playboy named Yan Ruisheng intent on stealing her jewelry. Li has a fear of ghosts and cries out; Yang laughs. As Li’s fame and wealth grow, Yang finds himself unable to keep up with her costly new lifestyle. He begins to slight her, spending time with other women instead, including courtesans (Chunping, Liu Anxiang, Feiyan) who are also movie fans. Recognizing Yang from the tabloids, they shower him with gifts and even pay his expenses. Yang begins to forget dinners and dates with Li, while making new demands on her at work. When the company travels to a location shoot, he tries to cajole Li into sharing a hotel room with him. She refuses, and Yang gradually abandons her. Depressed and alone, Li takes days off work; her colleagues at the movie studio are all sympathetic. She ruefully recalls a film called Sweet Memories (Tianmi de huiyi), in which she had costarred with Yang as a young naïf courted by a wealthy man with candy and favors. The two lead characters get married, but then the man abandons the woman. Li remembers her reluctance to play a character so much like herself who comes to a tragic ending. At the time, Yang dismissed her concerns and assured her that the resemblance was precisely what made her right for the role. Now, three months later, Li is relieved that she did not marry Yang. But she remains heartbroken, and whenever she goes to the movies for comfort, she finds only the same tragic plots. Li reflects on how life has imitated art. She writes

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to Yang expressing her worries (chou ᛕ), but he continues carousing with prostitutes, finally breaking with Li altogether. Li Xudong tries to reassure his disillusioned daughter, who finally leaves the movie business altogether. Yang, meanwhile, neglects his work until his salary drops to just 120 yuan. He eventually submits his resignation to save face. The film company has lost two stars at once. Rumors fly that they have eloped to Beijing, upsetting Li Yueying further. With 3,000 yuan saved from her recordings and talking pictures, she buys a house in the middle-class area of Xujiahui in Shanghai and moves there with her father. She no longer goes out for plays, films, or dancing. Now she just reads, rests, and lives a hermitlike existence. The novel closes on a somber note. One day, while Li sits at an open window singing the mournful “Autumn Wind Song,” Yang happens to drive by and his car breaks down. While fixing the engine, he hears Li’s voice. His companion Chunping remarks on the lovely song, and Yang looks up to see Li’s red sleeves and snow-white hands at the window. He feels a surge of sadness, then slowly restarts the automobile and drives away with Chunping. The stars, realigned for this brief moment, once again diverge. The fictional protagonists of Two Stars, Li Xudong and Li Yueying, paralleled the famous real-life father-daughter musical team in 1920s China, Li Jinhui 咢䣺ᱝ (1891–1967) and Li Minghui 咢ᯢᱝ (1909–2003).8 When Zhang was writing his novel in 1928 and 1929, he would certainly have been familiar with Li Jinhui, whose life and work featured prominently in the press and the performing arts world during those years.9 Li had been a professor at Beijing University during the May Fourth era who combined his interests in Chinese folk music, arts education, and the national dialect movement by writing simple tunes with Mandarin lyrics that could be taught in schools. As Andrew Jones explains in his richly detailed study of popular music in 1920s–1930s China, these songs were immensely successful, and Li promoted them by organizing a group of young women to perform the songs on stage as the “Bright Moon Song-and-Dance Troupe” (Mingyue gewutuan ᯢ᳜℠㟲ಶ).10 In 1922, Li moved from Beijing to Shanghai, where he served as principal of the National Language Institute, while expanding Bright Moon’s activities to include children’s operas, gramophone recordings, and print versions of the music. He brought along Minghui, his only daughter at the time, and trained her in music. 8 Yingxi shenghuo 17 (1931.5.8): 23; Yongqing, “Cong dianying shuodao Li Jinhui” [Speaking of Li Jinhui and the movies], Yingxi shenghuo 35 (1931.09.12): 9. 9 For instance, Xin yinxing 4 (1928.11): 30; Yingxi shenghuo 17 (1931.5.8): 23. 10 On Li Jinhui’s career as a composer, see Andrew F. Jones, Yellow Music: Media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001), 80–83, 88, 91–93.

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When Minghui was a teenager, she achieved renown for her renditions of songs composed by her father such as the cheerful “Misty Rain” (“Maomao yu ↯↯䲼”; 1927) and the famous stage show The Immortal Fairy Maiden of the Grapes (Putao xianzi 㨵㧘ҭᄤ), which started a national craze for “fairy maiden” dances.11 She also performed in spoken dramas alongside male actors. As Jones notes, many of these activities were avantgarde for their time and place (even scandalous to some conservative audiences), but they also attracted the attention of movie studios Shenzhou and Dazhonghua baihe, which invited Li Minghui to work in motion pictures.12 By 1927, she had not only given numerous stage performances but had also made dozens of gramophone records and at least nine silent films. She joined her father’s troupe, now patriotically renamed the “China Song-and-Dance Troupe” (Zhonghua gewutuan Ё㧃℠㟲೬), on a successful tour of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia in 1928 and 1929, and it became immensely popular among overseas Chinese communities.13 Zhang, writing for Shanghai’s popular press in 1929, signals his inside knowledge of these contemporary stars and trends, rhyming many of his characters and their experiences with real-life figures. Zhang renames Li Jinhui as Li Xudong, and Li Minghui as Li Yueying. He fictionalizes their trademark work, The Immortal Fairy of the Grapes stage show, into one with a very similar name, The Immortal Fairy Maiden without Worries (Wuchou xianzi ⛵ᛕҭᄤ). Zhang even takes the mirroring one step further and suggests that his novel Two Stars could itself be transformed into film. He declares, in the opening pages of the story: “If, in the future, someone films this story and puts it out as a movie, it would make a fascinating romance of the silver screen.”14 Indeed, within just two years, the novel was adapted into a screenplay by Zhu Shilin ᴅ⷇味 (1899–1967) for the Lianhua Film Company. As an early production from Lianhua, studio head Luo Mingyou was actively 11

For examples, see Xin yinxing 4 (1928.11): 30; Yingxi shenghuo 17 (1931.5.8): 23. The sixteen-year-old Li Minghui was discovered by Shenzhou studio filmmakers while performing her “fairy maiden” dances for a school in Hangzhou. See Zhao Shihui, “Li Minghui zaonian hongtou getan” [Li Minghui’s early singing fame on the stage], Shijie zhoukan (New York), 25 September 1994, p. S-9; Jones, Yellow Music, 88, 91. 13 Li Jinhui’s troupe was known as the Zhonghua gewutuan in 1929, when it toured south China, Southeast Asia, and Beiping; the group also performed throughout north China, in March 1930, billed as the Mingyue gewutuan. See Zong Wei, “Jieshao Lianhua gewu xuexiao de jiwei biaoyanyuan,” Yingxi zazhi 1, no. 11/12 (1931.4.1): 58. On Li’s song-and-dance troupe tours, see Michael G. Chang, “The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful: Movie Actresses and Public Discourse in Shanghai, 1920s–1930s,” in Cinema and Urban Culture in Shanghai, 1922–1943, ed. Yingjin Zhang (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999), 147; Jones, Yellow Music, 80–83, 88, 91–93. 14 Zhang Henshui, “Yinhan shuangxing,” 2, 8–9. 12

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Figure 1. Li Minghui publicity photograph for the 1920s stage show The Immortal Fairy Maiden of the Grapes (Putao xianzi).

involved throughout.15 Luo wanted to move Lianhua into sound film production and saw Two Stars as ideal material since its main character was a singing and dancing star. The movie also capitalized on the popularity of Zhang’s novel and the similarities between the characters and esteemed contemporary figures in the entertainment world such as Li Jinhui and Li Minghui. The novel even served as a form of advance publicity, priming public attention for the motion picture: Two Stars came out as a standalone volume in September 1931 from the publisher Dazhong shuju, with a preface by Zhu about the adaptation process. Zhang’s name was also frequently mentioned in articles about the production and prominently listed in the film’s opening credits.16 Luo had heard members of Li Jinhui’s song-and-dance troupe in Hong Kong in 1930 or 1931 after the group had completed its Southeast Asia tour, and he decided to hire them in April 1931. Lianhua’s introduction of an in-house song-and-dance troupe was a public relations move, on the Hollywood model. Li’s group was now renamed Lianhua gewu ban 㙃 㧃℠㟲⧁ (Lianhua Song-and-Dance Troupe), known in English as “UPS 15 Zhu Shilin’s screenplay was edited by the Lianhua Drama Inspection Committee (Lianhua xiju shencha weiyuanhui), which removed any “inappropriate content” (Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 1 [1931.7]: 36). Producer Luo Mingyou’s name was mentioned more frequently and featured more prominently in advertisements than was Shi Dongshan’s name (Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 [1932.1.1]: 29). 16 Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 1 (1931.7): 36; Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 (1932.1.1): 29.

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Figure 2. Photo spread for the Lianhua Song-andDance Troupe (Lianhua gewu ban), also called the “UPS Follies.” (From Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 2 [1931.04].)

Follies,” or “United Photoplay Service Follies.”17 Li Minghui, who could have been a natural choice for the female lead, had already taken leave from motion picture acting in 1929,18 so instead, for this film, she was put in charge of training the UPS Follies for Lianhua. For the lead role of Li Yueying, Luo selected one of the talented young performers from the Bright Moon troupe, Zi Luolan ㋿㕙㰁 (also known as Violet Wong), who, as luck would have it, aspired to a movie acting career like Li Minghui’s.19 Scriptwriter Zhu observed at the time that Zi was so much like the “innocent young protagonist who gains fame through her distinctive singing and dancing” in Zhang’s novel that many people 17 See Zong Wei, “Jieshao Lianhua gewu xuexiao de jiwei biaoyanyuan,” 58. Also see Yingxi shenghuo 17 (1931.5.8): 23; Yongqing, “Cong dianying shuodao Li Jinhui,” 9; and Jones, Yellow Music, 96–97, 100–101. 18 Li Minghui later returned to film acting, in 1933 (Zhao Shihui, “Li Minghui zaonian hongtou getan,” S-9). 19 See Zong Wei, “Jieshao Lianhua gewu xuexiao de jiwei biaoyanyuan,” 58. Although Li Minghui did not play the lead role in Two Stars, she did train the Lianhua UPS Follies dancers; see Yingxi shenghuo 17 (1931.5.8): 23; Yongqing, “Cong dianying shuodao Li Jinhui,” 9.

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even thought the story was about her life.20 Further linking the film adaptation with the sphere of 1920s popular literature from which it had emerged, the actress’s stage name, Zi Luolan, was the same as the title of a magazine—Ziluolan/The Violet, which routinely published butterfly fiction by Zhang and other writers.21 By the time director Shi Dongshan ৆ᵅቅ (1902–1955) began shooting Two Stars in the summer and fall of 1931, all the ingredients were in place for an intriguing metafilm and a successful early sound film: he had a screenplay that built on the plot and central themes of a popular novel, especially the mirroring of art and life, and he had a crew with public personae and experiences that closely resembled those of the characters in the novel and the film. The Lianhua film added elements that played on these resonances in fresh and significant ways, introducing new layers to the film. In the close analysis of the film that follows, we will find that the film placed more emphasis on south China; that it began and ended in the countryside rather than in the city; that it depicted the filming of a traditional Chinese opera rather than a modern melodrama; and that it showed the individual characters confronting a more complex set of personal challenges. The film maintained the cosmopolitan, modern tone of Zhang’s original, but it eliminated explicit mentions of foreign culture and presented Chinese filmmakers explaining their patriotic mission to improve Chinese cinema. Lianhua capitalized on the new technology of sound in meaningful ways and also introduced details that would make the film more relevant to sociopolitical developments occurring in China by the time it was released in December 1931. Stage and Screen The film Two Stars dramatizes the intertwined development of stage and screen in the 1920s and 1930s, marked as a cultural interplay between East and West. The influence of cosmopolitan artists such as Li Jinhui and Li Minghui is clear from the very beginning of the film. Not only are they models for the main characters in the novel and the film, but they are even featured in the opening credits. Li Jinhui receives billing as one of the film’s four “musical advisers,” and he composed several of the film’s songs. His UPS Follies artists, who were being coached by Li Minghui at this time, were also boldly credited.22 This sense of cultural hybridity is 20

Zhu’s preface to the publication of the novel in book form; Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 (1932.1.1): 33. Ziluolan/The Violet was edited by Zhou Shoujuan and had a run during the late 1920s, from approximately 1925.12 until 1929.12. 22 The full list reads: Xiao Youmei xiansheng [㭁টṙ‫ ;⫳ܜ‬Mr. Y. M. Siao], Li Jinhui xiansheng [咢䣺ᱝ‫ ;⫳ܜ‬Mr. Li Jinhuei], Jin Qingyu xiansheng [䞥᪢ᅛ‫ ;⫳ܜ‬Mr. K. Y. King], and Mr. A. Richter [ᴢ຿䘨‫]⫳ܜ‬. According to Jones, Li Jinhui wrote the film’s title song “Shuangxing qu” (Twin star theme) as well as the song “Nuli” (Strive); see Yellow Music, 97. 21

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reinforced through the credits and intertitles, which are presented bilingually in Chinese and English, on cards depicting Chinese motifs (sketches of traditional pavilions with glazed tile roofs) superimposed on foreign patterns (a tartan background). The opening shot of the film presents a middle-aged composer working at a piano, surrounded by sheet music, who is introduced in the film’s first expository intertitle as “Li Kuk Tung, of Cantonese parentage, devoted to Occidental as well as to Chinese music (फ⍋䷇ῖᆊᴢᯁᵅ . . . 䝋ரЁ㽓䷇ᕟ).”23 Audiences following popular culture at the time would have recognized the allusion to Li Jinhui’s trademark fusion of Chinese folk songs and Western popular music. The southern orientation of the film was an important detail added by Lianhua, marking a departure from Zhang’s novel, which defined the main characters as northerners who start out in Beijing. The film’s emphasis on the musician’s “South Seas” (Nanhai) origins can be partly explained by developments in the careers of Li Jinhui, Li Minghui, and studio head Luo Mingyou after the original 1929 novel was published. Zhang’s novel had drawn on details from the early, Beijing-based phase in the careers of Li Jinhui and Li Minghui. By the time the film was made in 1931, the Lis had performed widely throughout China and Southeast Asia, and Zi Luolan was now being hailed as the “southern queen of song and dance” (nanfang gewu nüwang फᮍ℠㟲ཇ⥟).24 The film’s use of Cantonese music underscored the southern setting. When Li Xudong’s teenage daughter Li Yueying first appears at the start of the film, she sits beside her father and sings the classic Cantonese song “Raindrops on a Banana Leaf” (“Yu da bajiao 䲼ᠧ㢁㬝”). Contemporary descriptions praised this solo performance by Zi Luolan as a lyrical invocation of the romantic beauty of the south, where light rains patter on lush foliage as a young woman looks out her window, anxiously contemplating springtime.25 The novel had made no mention of southern tunes; this was a new development that shows the influence not only of Li Minghui but also of Luo Mingyou—both were southerners, and both played active roles in overseeing the music and sound recording for Two Stars.26 More23 The literal translation of the Chinese intertitle would be “Li Xudong, a South Seas musician . . . with a strong fondness for Chinese and Western tunes.” Note that in the English portion of the bilingual intertitles, the romanizations for Li Xudong, Li Yueying, Yang Yiyun, and the Yinhan Film Company appear as Li Kuk Tung, Li Yueh Ying, Yang Yee Yun, and Yen Han Producing Company, respectively. Hereafter, for brevity, I quote the original English intertitles, except in instances where the Chinese version offers other information salient to the analysis. 24 Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 2 (1931.10): 25. 25 Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 (1932.1.1): 33, with lyrics to “Yu da bajiao” on p. 32; Yinmu zhoubao 7 (1931.11.1): 8; and Hefu, “Zhongguo de Yinxing yanshi” [China’s Show People], Yinmu zhoubao 7 (1931.11.1). 26 Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 (1932.1.1): 33.

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over, Cantonese music was enjoying a vogue throughout China during the 1920s and 1930s.27 By including “Raindrops on a Banana Leaf” and other Cantonese music overseen by Jin Qingyu 䞥᪢ᅛ,28 Lianhua ensured that its first sound film, a costly venture, would profit from—and contribute to—this trend in popular culture. The film’s southern emphasis neatly enhanced Luo’s business plan for Lianhua in the early 1930s, as he aimed to reach the Southeast Asian film market, where mainland stage performers were highly popular with overseas Chinese audiences. Indeed, the publicity and press attention for the film prominently featured Li Jinhui’s troupe and highlighted the inclusion of southern music in Two Stars. In addition to moving the setting southward, the Lianhua filmmakers also chose to frame the urban narrative with a countryside setting for the opening and closing scenes. Recall that in the novel Two Stars, the settings are urban and cosmopolitan throughout. (Li Xudong and his daughter are living in early 1920s Beijing, a capital city that the author lauds for its modern cultural and educational influence. There, Li Yueying has ready access to imported movies and magazines, which inspire her performances. They then move to Shanghai, where popular fashions are set and trends copied through mass media like gramophone recordings and films, bringing Yueying fame and fortune.29 ) The film Two Stars, by contrast, opens with a bucolic landscape of grassy knolls, still lakes, and old-style pavilions, where the Lis live in a modest country villa. As Li Yueying sings “Raindrops on a Banana Leaf,” a movie production crew hears the music while they prepare for a location shoot along the waterfront. Attracted by her voice, the actors approach the house. The director, Gao, admires her beauty and singing talent, commenting that she would be perfect for the lead role of “Mei Fee” (Meifei) in the company’s next picture. Just when the lead actor Yang Yiyun (played by the northern matinee idol Jin Yan 䞥 ➘) arrives to prepare for his scene, he catches sight of Li Yueying. Their 27 Cantonese music had evolved rapidly during the 1920s and 1930s, not only in Hong Kong and Canton, but also in Shanghai, absorbing diverse influences (including Western musical instruments, Mandarin pop songs, and southern folk tunes), and growing even more popular through gramophone recordings. The song “Raindrops on a Banana Leaf” had gained a wide audience through gramophone recordings during the early 1920s. On Cantonese music during this period, see Cheng Meibao [Ching May-bo], “Jindai difang wenhua de kua diyuxing: 20 shiji ersanshi niandai Yueju, Yuele, he Yuedian zai Shanghai” [The translocality of local cultures in modern China: Cantonese opera, music, and songs in Shanghai, 1920s–1930s], Jindaishi yanjiu [Modern Chinese history studies] 2 (2007): 1–17; Virgil K. Y. Ho, Understanding Canton: Rethinking Popular Culture in the Republican Period (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); and Ruth Wingwu Yee, “Yueju (Cantonese Opera) in Hong Kong,” in Tradition and Change in the Performance of Chinese Music, ed. Pen-yeh Tsao (New York: Routledge, 1998), 33–52. 28 Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 (1932.1.1): 13. 29 Zhang Henshui, “Yinhan shuangxing,” 8–9.

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eyes lock in a shot-countershot eyeline match that lasts several seconds, as if to seal their romantic fate. Li makes such a strong impression on the filmmakers that they remember her after finishing their shoot and returning to the studio in Shanghai. Why does the film begin and end with the countryside as the site of Li’s origin and return? The change from Zhang’s version seems quite deliberate. By 1931, Beijing was no longer the nation’s capital and had lost some of the cultural influence it had enjoyed during the May Fourth era. Closer at hand was the picturesque landscape of the Jiangnan region, where Shanghai filmmakers famously enjoyed outings to scenic Hangzhou and the West Lake for location shoots.30 Using this countryside for the setting enabled Lianhua to depict the interesting process of how a movie crew works on location. The film presents scenic views that survey the traditional architecture and rolling landscapes, offering a nostalgic, even escapist, appeal to urban audiences. For the narrative, the countryside is also significant as a place closer to a state of nature than the city, reinforcing the impression that Li’s talent is innate and homegrown. Unlike Zhang’s protagonist, who imitates the stars and dancers she sees in imported magazines and movies, Li in the film sings a Chinese song in a regional dialect. (Foreign culture is certainly present in Li’s world—but it appears in a genteel form, translated into the film’s mise-en-scene and music: she wears a stylish yet modest qipao shift; her father dons a velveteen suitcoat and cravat and carries a briar pipe; their lakefront cottage contains a few rustic pieces of Western-style furniture, a piano, and a bust of Beethoven.) Li’s country home provides a greater contrast to the dazzling modernist-built environment of Shanghai, where the subsequent action will take place—highlighting the transformation our protagonist will undergo as she leaves behind her innocent childhood and enters the complex world of motion picture production. As in the novel, and as with the experience of real-life actresses Li Minghui and Zi Luolan, Li Yueying’s talents in singing and dancing lead to movie stardom. In the film adaptation, the Yinhan Film Company directors, having “discovered” Li in the countryside, persuade the studio to recruit her for their next picture by inviting fellow directors and executives from Yinhan to attend a benefit variety show at a nearby girls school, where Li will be performing. (A similar scene occurs in Zhang’s novel to mark the “discovery” of Li; however, the immortal fairy maiden performance of the novel is here replaced with two full dance numbers.) The Lianhua film presents this show in a Western-style theater, and the acts stand out as rather distinct from the surrounding action. In some ways, 30 For instance, Lianhua filmed the picture Peach Blossom Weeps Tears of Blood (Taohua qixue ji ḗ㢅⊷㸔㿬) in Hangzhou that October (Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 2 [1931.10.1]: 35).

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these scenes are reminiscient of those of other musical sound films circulating globally at this time, yet in terms of content, the scenes in Two Stars were also quite distinctive. A closer look at the two dance numbers reveals that the scenes reinforced the cosmopolitan style of the film, as well as some of its patriotic themes. The first stage number presents a chorus line of young majorettes marching in formation, costumed in military caps, metallic-cord-trimmed tops, shorts, and boots. They turn in time, saluting their commander, who inspects and directs her troops with a baton. At a front corner of the stage, a poster (barely visible) reads “Nuli ࡾ࡯” (Strive).31 At the end of this number, an insert shot gives a much closer view of another poster presenting the following information: “The Zhenhua Middle School for Girls Performs Women Soldiers” (Zhenhua nüzhong canjia biaoyan Niangzi jun ᤃ㧃ཇЁগࡴ㸼ⓨ࿬ᄤ䒡). Stylistically and thematically, this stage performance is set off from the rest of the film. The fixed proscenium shot of the stage stands apart from the film’s more mobile cinematic style elsewhere. The female soldier theme also has little, if anything, to do with the main narrative of the film or the original novel. (Zhang describes only Li’s immortal fairy maiden shows and the foreign silent films she enjoys.) As a self-contained musical dance spectacle, the scene showcased one of the first film performances of Lianhua’s UPS Follies and highlighted the talents of Li Lili, the commanding young dancer singing “Nuli.” Early sound films in both China and the West often inserted freestanding stage scenes much like this one into musical films, giving full play to the novelty of sound-on-film and focusing attention on the star. Not only did Lianhua, like its U.S. counterparts MGM and Warner Brothers, maintain dance troupes to perform spectacular stage numbers, but they also used the music in these performances to cross-promote their films via phonographic recordings, radio broadcasts, and publicity films.32 Lianhua also circulated photographs of the dancers in Two Stars, along with details about the prior fame of Lianhua’s song-and-dance troupe in their earlier incarnation as Bright Moon.33 31

Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 2 (1931.10): 8; Xin yinxing 33 (1931.10): n.p.; and Jones, Yellow Music,

97. 32 For a case study of how major Hollywood studios cross-promoted their film songs through phonograph records and radio, see Katherine Spring, “Pop Go the Warner Bros., et al.: Marketing Film Songs during the Coming of Sound,” Cinema Journal 48, no. 1 (2008): 68–89; see esp. 78–81. For an example of a Hollywood studio’s publicity film showing off its dance troupe, see 1925 MGM Studio Tour. 33 Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 2 (1931.10): 8; Xin yinxing 33 (1931.10): n.p. Some of these Lianhua dancers, including the spunky Li Lili and the playful Wang Renmei, became actresses for the studio in their own right, and others (including Wang Renmei, Han Guomei, and Hu Jia)

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Figure 3. The stage show “Nuli” (Strive), performed by the Lianhua Song-and-Dance Troupe. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

The UPS Follies gave a modern, cosmopolitan look to Two Stars, resembling popular Western acts like the Ziegfeld Follies of New York filtered through imported Hollywood musicals, White Russian nightclub acts in Shanghai, and Japanese Takarazuka shows. The high-angle shot of the stage displays the mechanically timed formations of dancing bodies that are, in turn, mechanically reproduced through the motion picture camera for the film Two Stars. (As Jones explains, Bright Moon performances had been inspired by the Takarazuka revues that Li Jinhui had seen in Shanghai; there is also a clear affinity among these stage shows, Busby Berkeley musicals, and synchronized dance follies like the 1920s Tiller Girls, which Siegfried Kracauer famously described as “the mass ornament.”34 ) Two Stars presents leggy dancers in symmetrical formations dancing with clockwork precision, wearing aestheticized military costumes and gestures, and performing a number that is apparently unrelated to the film plot. Yet even as Lianhua deployed the UPS Follies to attract Chinese movie audiences with its own version of these internationally popular stage acts, played for other film companies as well (for instance, in the song-and-dance numbers for the 1932 Tianyi film Youyi dahui); see Dianying yishu 1, no. 3 (1932.7.22): 31. 34 Jones, Yellow Music, 100–101; Siegfried Kracauer, “The Mass Ornament [Das Ornament Der Masse (1927)],” in The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays, ed. Thomas Levin (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995), 74–86.

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the studio also took pains to distinguish the Lianhua dancers from their foreign counterparts. After all, such troupes could be easy targets for conservative criticism. As Jones points out, Bright Moon dancer Wang Renmei felt the troupe’s performance style must have been shocking to some audiences, and a 1936 commentator who otherwise approved of children performing “innocent” song-and-dance shows nonetheless criticized performances featuring scantily clad teenage and adult women as “lewd,” “vulgar,” and “decadent.”35 Forestalling criticism of immorality or slavish foreign imitation, Lianhua focused attention on the youth and patriotism of its song-and-dance troupe. For Two Stars, the dancers were mostly schoolgirl age, ranging from fifteen to nineteen years old—often younger than their counterparts in American and European chorus-line acts. Their stage show is set to the song “Nuli,” one of Li Jinhui’s famous compositions for schoolchildren. And the poster inserted in the film just after this act identifies the fictional performers not as showgirls or “follies” but as girl students playing disciplined soldiers, from a school whose name, Zhenhua, literally means “Awaken China.” The emphasis on the dancers’ youth, modernity, and patriotism brought moral validation to the film and also appealed to students, who were major consumers in the Chinese movie market. The print media addressing Two Stars followed this lead, emphasizing the virtues, nationality, and timeliness of the Lianhua troupe and its performances. In the studio’s own magazine, Lianhua girls were celebrated for their “pure, healthy bodies” (chunjie ㋨┨); their song-and-dance shows were described as benefiting worthy causes such as patriotism, children’s education, and the national language (guoyu ೟䁲) movement. By contrast, imported U.S. musicals were criticized for their incomprehensible plots featuring dancers who were fleshy and carnal (rougan 㙝ᛳ).36 The female-soldier dance scene can be mesmerizing, with its stylized, symmetrically coordinated formations, but as a temporary departure from the rest of the narrative, it also has something of a distancing effect. The unexpected image of female soldiers marks a moment of disjuncture, taking the viewer away from the storyline. Punctuated with an insert shot of the poster placed rather awkwardly after the scene and bearing the words “Niangzi jun” in large boldface characters, the “female soldiers” turn our attention to military images and action beyond the world of the film. After all, modern female soldiers had recently become a visible phenomenon in contemporary China: just a few years earlier, young women donned uniforms to participate in the 1927 Northern Expedition to oust warlords and unite China, whereas others joined up with Communist forces during the 35 36

Jones, Yellow Music, 87–89, 91, 94–95. Yongqing, “Cong dianying shuodao Li Jinhui,” 9.

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Figure 4. The Lianhua Song-and-Dance Troupe. (From Xin yinxing 33 [1931.10].)

late 1920s and early 1930s to defend “soviet” bases against Guomindang encirclement campaigns and were later immortalized as the “red detachment of women” (hongse niangzi jun ㋙㡆࿬ᄤ䒡). Moreover, the insert shot of the poster bearing the words “Niangzi jun” is framed differently from the other posters in this scene, suggesting that it may have been added later in the production process to appeal to the patriotic sentiments of film audiences. When the film was being shot in the fall of 1931, there was a renewed sense of military urgency in China, after Japan had made a sudden attack on the mainland in the northeastern city of Shenyang, sparking the “Manchurian Incident” of 18 September 1931. The inserted poster diverts attention from the sheer spectacle of the female dancing stars, if only for a moment, and reminds audiences of the need to raise China’s military defenses. Indeed, articles in the Lianhua studio magazine, Yingxi zazhi, called attention to the timeliness of the film and its music, with Li Jinhui’s song “encouraging us to strive onward, and increasing our spirit to struggle; this song-and-dance number responds to the needs of the times.”37 (This represents a significant departure from the original novel, where there is little to no mention of the military or national politics.) The second musical number follows the female-soldier dance show. After much applause, the Yinhan studio executives enter to take their seats, 37 Yefu, “Quhua,” Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 (1932.01.01): 32–33. On the song “Nuli,” and this review of it, also see Jones, Yellow Music, 97–99.

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and the next act is announced: Li Yueying will perform an “Egyptian dance.” Maintaining the high-angle proscenium shot from the previous performance, the curtain opens to present her in a sequined bodice and chiffon pantaloons dancing against a backdrop of arches, ziggurats, and other geometric motifs. By the time Li takes her curtain call, the stage is festooned with floral arrangements from the Yinhan Film Company. Her dance has drawn a tremendous response from the audience, and she is hired for the next Yinhan picture. This highly stylized “Egyptian” stage scene, like the “female soldier” show just before it, stands apart from the rest of the film’s naturalistic acting style and dramatic narrative, focusing our attention on the actress herself. Spotlighting the solo performance of Li Yueying (and the starlet playing her, Zi Luolan), the camera shifts to a closer shot of the hieroglyphic choreography as she moves across the plane of the stage, her costume and jewels shimmering with each angular gesture and step. There is a certain voyeurism to the scene: intercut with the young woman’s ritualistic, almost otherworldly dance are shots of the Yinhan filmmakers seated in the theater alongside other admiring spectators, intensely focused on the stage actress. The Egyptian theme added to the cosmopolitan look of the film, and, as in musical dance movies from the West, the female figure was presented as spectacle. Zi Luolan’s elegant dance and even her name—“Violet Wong” in the English credits—echoed those of the internationally known, Chinese-American film star Anna May Wong. Both Wongs became known for their talents in acting and dancing and had performed overseas. Violet Wong’s dance performance in Two Stars recalls some of the gestures in Anna May Wong’s tantalizing nightclub show for the 1929 British film Picadilly. And, both actresses put on performances that appear to be fantasy collages of orientalist motifs. Anna May does her “yellow yellowface” dance in Picadilly,38 whereas Violet does an “Egyptian” dance that evokes the 1920s worldwide craze for Egyptology—linked in other ways with colonialism and Orientalism.39 The Lianhua film presented Violet as a safer, homegrown Chinese alternative to the Chinese-American actress. Whereas the Chinese press 38 Here I am referring to Yiman Wang’s insightful analysis, “The Art of Screen Passing: Anna May Wong’s Yellow Yellowface Performance in the Art Deco Era,” Camera Obscura 60 20, no. 3 (2005): 159–192. 39 Jones comments on the Egyptology connection in his discussion of Two Stars; see Yellow Music, 99. William Schaefer, in discussing 1930s fiction by Shi Zhecun, notes that motifs of Egyptian mummies are associated with a sense of haunting and dread. Schaefer sees Chinese authors as replicating the racial ideologies of European colonialism and Orientalism, ironically, perhaps, in semicolonial Shanghai (“Shanghai Savage,” positions 11, no. 1 [2003]: 95–97).

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Figure 5 (top). Li Yueying in an “Egyptian” dance (Aiji wu), performed by Zi Luolan. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.) Figure 6 (bottom). Shosho as a nightclub dancer, performed by Anna May Wong. (From Picadilly, 1929.)

famously rebuked Anna May for accepting stereotypical “Oriental” roles in American and European films, and for giving seductive performances that were perceived as a kind of prostitution for foreigner audiences, Lianhua’s studio magazine rhapsodized about Violet in a three-page photo spread for Two Stars: “Zi Luolan does an immortal performance;

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her beautiful singing and lithe dancing will give audiences a visual and aural pleasure they have never had before, leaving their spirits feeling drunk with delight.”40 The placement of the Egyptian dance in the context of a benefit performance by schoolgirls, and directly following a patriotic number depicting “female-soldiers,” would have helped defuse the possibility that this alluring, foreign-style performance might be criticized as immoral or “dangerous.” Although Zhang Henshui’s novel never mentions “Egyptian” dances, his protagonist (and her real-life inspiration Li Minghui and the Bright Moon troupe) gains recognition for her ethereal performances as an immortal fairy maiden. Within the film narrative, Li Yueying’s shift from Cantonese songs to Egyptian dances seems designed to showcase the versatility of both the protagonist and the actress playing her, Zi Luolan. The shift in settings, from the open countryside to the artifice and confines of stage space, frames Li’s new journey from innocence to experience. Based on her stellar stage performance, Li is hired by the Yinhan Film Company, moves with her father to a modest Western-style apartment in Shanghai, and begins acting in the movies, where she rises to stardom. This plotline in Two Stars—innocent, talented maiden begins performing for stage or screen and eventually becomes a star—was fairly common in “behind-the-scenes” films and backstage musicals of the 1920s and 1930s, whether Western or Chinese. In fact, Zhang and Lianhua clearly drew inspiration for the concept of Two Stars from the 1928 American film Show People, which had run in China under the title Yinxing yanshi 䡔᯳㡋 ৆ (Romance of the silver screen). Directed by King Vidor, Show People told the story of a Southern belle, Peggy Pepper, who arrives in Hollywood with her father, hoping for a chance at a movie career, meeting famous actors and directors, and ultimately starring in a film directed by none other than King Vidor.41 Just as Show People’s Peggy starts out as a starstruck aspiring actress, so too does Zhang’s heroine begin as a movie fan herself (though, as we shall see, this detail was muted in Lianhua’s film rendition). The studio where Peggy gets her first break is Comet—neat40

Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 (1932.1.1): 13; also see Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 2 (1931.10): 16. The plot of Show People is as follows. A young aspiring actress from the American South named Peggy Pepper (played by Marion Davies) comes to Hollywood with her father to break into show business. The first roles she is given are all comedies, but she aspires to art film. With the help of her male costar she becomes a better performer who gets noticed by a prominent director. In her new “artistic” roles, Peggy transforms herself into Patricia Peppoire, but as a pretentious artiste, she soon loses her fan base. The American film has a comic yet bittersweet tone, which is matched by some of the more lighthearted moments in Two Stars. However, where the American film ends happily, with Peggy and her original costar reunited on the set of a King Vidor film, Two Stars ends more darkly. 41

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ly analogized in Two Stars as Yinhan, or Milky Way. In both Show People and Two Stars, the female protagonist falls in love with her male costar. And both films—silent accompanied by musical soundtracks—show the behind-the-scenes process of filmmaking—putting direction, crew, camera, lighting equipment, and props on display. When Lianhua released its film in 1931, the studio invoked the comparison in its own company magazine—calling Two Stars “China’s Show People.”42 Press releases, advertising, and reviews billed Two Stars as Lianhua’s first “sound film,” enumerating the various musical tracks within the film.43 At least one viewer expected a talking picture and felt shortchanged by the lack of spoken dialogue, but others waxed poetic about the music.44 Studio head Luo Mingyou justified the decision to make Two Stars as a partial-sound film, noting that the silent intertitles would enable audiences in distant locales to follow the film’s meaning, while the expertly performed recorded music could move and affect people even more broadly and directly than words.45 Sound Film and Opera Film As a leading example of films that called attention to the links between the technology, the industry, and the art of music recording and cinema in the 1920s and 1930s, Two Stars presented the making of a musical film as its centerpiece. In the film Two Stars (as in the original novel), the female protagonist gains recognition for her singing voice and cutting-edge dance performances. Her musical talents and innocent charm enable Yinhan filmmakers to envision her as the perfect romantic lead in their next sound film and recruit her to work in Shanghai. But while the novel has Li Yueying starring in contemporary melodramas and thoroughly modern productions inspired by American movies like Way Down East,46 the Lianhua film presents Li’s movie-acting debut in the form of a distinctly Chinese genre of motion picture, a Cantonese opera film. The presentation of an opera film within Two Stars capitalized on the popularity of historical costume dramas in the Chinese market. Classical 42

Hefu, “Zhongguo de Yinxing yanshi,” 8. Hefu, “Zhongguo de Yinxing yanshi,” 8; Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 (1932.1.1): 33, with lyrics to “Yu da bajiao” on p. 32. 44 Disappointment at partial sound in Two Stars: Yinmu zhoubao 15 (1931.12.27): 24–25. Praise for the recorded music in Two Stars: Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 (1932.1.1): 34. 45 Luo Mingyou’s preface to ten-page special magazine feature on the film published shortly after Two Stars was released; Yingxi zazhi (1932.1.1): 29, 32–33. 46 The novel’s Li Yueying and her father do enjoy the occasional opera show; as northerners, they have a preference for Peking opera, but everything else about their lifestyle is quite international, and at no point does Li act in a Chinese opera. 43

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subjects had undergone a popular revival during the 1920s in a wide range of media, from modern advertising posters depicting “ancient themes” to postcards commemorating the building and restoration of traditionalstyle architecture in modernizing metropolises such as Shanghai.47 This phenomenon was also part of the broader “national products movement” (guohuo yundong ೟䉼䘟ࢩ) to promote Chinese industry and consumer goods in the new Republic. Following on from the historical drama trend in silent cinema, sound film technology offered fresh opportunities to bring classic operas to the screen, complete with their dimensions of song and music. At the same time, Chinese studios were beginning to shift their attention to more contemporary narratives during the early 1930s. These two trends resulted in an interesting amalgam, where opera scenes would be embedded within films set in the present day.48 Leading into this crucial scene in the film Two Stars, we see the Yinhan Film Company busily preparing for the screen debut of Li Yueying. Backstage, she readies her gown, headdress, and makeup, while in an adjacent room the actor Yang Yiyun dons an emperor’s cap and robe. A gramophone player between the two dressing rooms implicitly reminds the viewer that Lianhua’s Two Stars is a modern film about China’s modern film industry, in which recorded music plays a significant part. Li has been cast in a classic role from imperial China, the famous Concubine Mei. An expository intertitle announces the upcoming scene: “Part of the play ‘Love’s Sorrow in the Eastern Chamber’ [Loudong yuan ῧᵅᗼ] depicting the deserted Empress Mei Fee [Meifei], first Consort of Tang Minghuang.” As the classically inflected title implies, Love’s Sorrow was a historical opera based on one of the most famous romances of the imperial era. Because the story of Concubine Mei is about the attractive power of song, it was an apt choice for inclusion in Lianhua’s first sound film. And because her story ended in tragedy, this particular historical role for the protagonist 47 For instance, the Huxinting Pavilion in the Yu Gardens (Yuyuan) of Shanghai was renovated in 1926 to great fanfare. On modern advertising posters, see Ellen Johnston Laing, Selling Happiness: Calendar Posters and Visual Culture in Early-Twentieth-Century Shanghai (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004), 174–175, 119. 48 When Two Stars was in production, other Chinese companies were similarly incorporating Chinese opera segments into their new films using a variety of methods, though, unfortunately, those films are apparently no longer extant. In spring 1931, the Mingxing Company made the first Chinese singing and talking picture, Genü hongmudan ℠ཇ㋙⠵Ѝ (Singsong girl Red Peony), starring Hu Die, containing, with sound-on-disk, four extended scenes from popular Chinese operas, including Yutangchun ⥝ූ᯹ and Silang tanmu ಯ䚢᥶↡; see Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 2 (1931.10): 24–25. That autumn, the Tianyi Film Company produced, with Fox Movietone, the first sound-on-film in China, Romance of the Opera (Gechang chunse ℠ଅ᯹㡆). In it, Tianyi employed some of the same talent showcased in Two Stars, with music composed by Li Jinhui, and Zi Luolan as a member of the all-star cast (Xin yinxing 33 [1931.10]: 54–56).

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in the film-within-the-film creates a feeling of foreboding, adding to the sense of constantly shifting ground in this metafilm. This Cantonese opera segment in Two Stars lasts a full ten minutes and appears to be a portion from the conclusion of the sad tale.49 The abandoned Concubine Mei is presented in a long shot, sitting trapped among the carved marble balustrades and heavy wood columns of the Cuihua Garden of the Eastern Palace. Hoping to win back the emperor’s affections, she has composed a ballad (fu), singing of her sorrow. The song describes the young woman’s countryside origins as Jiang Caiping, and how the emperor selected her as his first concubine, renaming her Concubine Mei. Surrounded by a shimmering artificial pond, galleries of wood latticework and carvings, and garden rockery, Concubine Mei sings of her loneliness in the palace compound and ponders the music of “rainbow skirt and feathered dress” dances that she hears coming from beyond the walls of her chamber. The shots of Concubine Mei are reframed from various distances and angles, showing off a lavish set in which the pensive, ornately costumed concubine sings like a bird in a gilded cage. Concubine Mei’s exquisite voice soon draws Minghuang to her garden, taking her by surprise. She is sullen, but the emperor tries cheering her up, pointing out a pair of mandarin ducks swimming together in the pond. Highlighted with a close shot, the ducks conventionally symbolize romantic love and devotion and seem to affirm their mutual bond. But Concubine Mei quizzically points out a third duck swimming alone, as if to suggest that she knows something is amiss. After some awkward laughter, Concubine Mei shyly turns away from the emperor, engulfed in sadness. Just at this moment, the emperor receives a warning from an attendant and then hides, while a mysterious figure emerges from another corner of the garden rockery. It appears to be Precious Concubine Yang, the emperor’s second, newly exalted concubine. In her silk cloak and hood, she kneels respectfully to Concubine Mei and departs; when she is out of sight, the emperor steps out from behind a column, signaling to Concubine Mei that he must take his leave. Once more, Precious Concubine Yang passes by, this time spotting him with Concubine Mei; she stares for a moment and then continues on her way. The emperor, apparently embarrassed, hurriedly follows Concubine Yang out of the garden, leaving Concubine Mei alone to sing of her sorrow in the Eastern Chamber. The opera scene concludes on this ominous note. Movie-going audiences in 1931 would already have been familiar with the tragic story of Concubine Mei enacted in Love’s Sorrow in the Eastern Chamber. This was a fragment of the many tales told about the eighth-century 49

Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 (1932.1.1): 32–33.

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Figure 7. Li Yueying as Concubine Mei with Yang Yiyun as the Tang emperor Minghuang in Love’s Sorrow in the Eastern Chamber (Lou dong yuan), performed by Zi Luolan and Jin Yan. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

Tang emperor Minghuang and his romantic exploits, which included the rise to fame of his first love, Concubine Mei; the emperor’s desertion of Mei for his subsequent great love, Precious Concubine Yang (Yang Guifei); the jealousy and conflict between them; the despair and suicide of Concubine Mei; the mysterious death of Yang during the An Lushan Rebellion; and eventually the emperor’s everlasting grief at losing Yang. These dramatic stories were immortalized in literature, art, and theater, most famously in Bai Juyi’s poem “Changhen ge” (Song of everlasting regret). In the early Republic of China, Concubines Mei and Yang had become fashionable subjects once again, celebrated for their romance, intrigue, and cosmopolitan glamour. Images and stories of these Tang dynasty figures appeared in the decorative arts, clothing design, advertising posters, and, of course, opera and film. Since both concubines were known for their performing talents—Concubine Mei for her singing voice, and Concubine Yang for her spectacular “rainbow skirt and feathered dress” dance invoking immortal fairy maidens—their story was especially suited for the stage. It was dramatized in at least ten different works and interpreted in a wide range of regional styles, including Kun, Peking, Zhejiang, Sichuan, and Cantonese opera, many of which were being performed in the 1910s and 1920s when Two Stars was forming.50 And for the screen, 50 One of the most celebrated operas about Minghuang and Precious Concubine Yang, Changsheng dian 䭋⫳↓ (Palace of Eternal Life), was performed in Shanghai in 1913. The opera

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Dan Duyu directed Yang Guifei ἞䊈བྷ for the Shanghai Film Company in 1927, and the following year saw the release of Tang Minghuang ૤ᯢⱛ (Emperor Minghuang of the Tang dynasty).51 The idea of incorporating an opera film such as Love’s Sorrow into Two Stars was likewise a modern, self-conscious reinvention of tradition, invoking a former imperial era of romance, splendor, sorrow, and loss for film screens in the new Republic. The popular music accompanying this partial sound film further underscored the contemporary classicism of Two Stars. One of the film’s highlights was a modern rendition of the famous dance music from Tang Minghuang’s court titled “The New Song of the Rainbow Skirt and Feathered Dress” (“Xin nishang yuyi qu ᮄ䳧㻇㖑㸷᳆”), a 1923 work by May Fourth composer Xiao Youmei 㭁টṙ (ca. 1884–1940) inspired by Bai Juyi’s poem.52 All in all, Lianhua’s dramatization of Meifei’s story within Two Stars presented an enduring story instantly recognizable to local audiences, while building on current trends in opera, film, and music. The musical genre, historical mise-en-scene, and long duration of this film-within-a-film clearly stand apart from the naturalistic mode and modern setting in the rest of Two Stars. The sorrowful tone, gently paced musical exposition, and long takes and dissolves here likewise contrast with the cheerful optimism and faster editing that characterize the more contemporary action up to this point. By presenting the female figure singing in isolation, the film focuses much of this scene on the talents of the fictional actress Li Yueying in playing Concubine Mei—and, by extension, on the talents of real-life actress Zi Luolan playing her. Lianhua promoted Two Stars by invoking the aura of the star and her unique musical talents. Showcasing its own emerging star with musical scenes like these, the studio publicity lionized the actress for “breathing

was staged again in August 1923 by the Xinwutai theater, starring the great dan actor Ouyang Yuqian as Yang Guifei. From 1925 to 1928, a popular Peking opera rendition of the story of Concubine Mei, simply titled Meifei ṙབྷ, appeared on the stage. See, respectively, Kunqu cidian ዤ᳆䕸‫݌‬, ed. Hong Weizhu ⋾ᚳࡽ (Yilan: Guoli chuantong yishu zhongxin, 2002), vol. 1, entry on Changsheng dian; Zhongguo jumu cidian Ё೟࡛Ⳃ䖁‫݌‬, ed. Wang Senran and Zhongguo jumu cidian kuobian wei yuan hui (Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 1997), 368, 590. 51 Dianying yuebao 2 (1928.5.1): n.p. 52 The Tang emperor Minghuang delighted in the “rainbow skirt and feathered dress dances” performed by his favorite, Precious Concubine Yang. The dances are said to have been inspired by music and images from Central Asia. Although the original tunes are lost, the music was immortalized in Tang poems such as “Song of the Lute” by Bai Juyi, and new ones were composed after the tenth century. Xiao Youmei’s composition was a modern recasting based on Bai’s descriptions. Print sources suggest that Xiao’s music would likely have occurred early on in the film as a background track, or as diegetic music during the tantalizing “Egyptian” dance scene, the opera scene, or the tango scene later in the film. See Hefu, “Zhongguo de Yinxing yanshi,” 33.

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life and voice into the show,” praise that was echoed in reviews.53 Moviegoers at the time would have recognized Zi Luolan from her appearance in another new sound film, Romance of the Opera (Gechang chunse ℠ଅ᯹ 㡆), which similarly contained opera sequences.54 Zi explained in a press interview that she had worked “night and day” studying and researching Cantonese opera techniques with its “top masters and stars.”55 Surviving descriptions of the film indicate that the Cantonese opera music was played by the master Gao Shupeng 催↧ᕁ and others.56 Yet for all this emphasis on authenticity and expertise, the opera performance was clearly a modern composite for film. Zi intimated that she had brought her own style to this interpretation, a method that was “secret, studiously engraved in my mind.” Explaining that the rhythms, phrasing, style, and intonations for Love’s Sorrow are “entirely different from the mainstream trend,” she commented that “other Cantonese opera singers, including some female stars, have tried to replicate the Love’s Sorrow song but failed to imitate it successfully.” Indeed, the interviewer noted that Zi’s singing voice “possesses the highest ‘frequency’ of a Western ‘soprano,’ quite distinct from the cloying songs in vogue.”57 Lianhua’s choice of Cantonese opera for its “film within a film” capitalized on the popularity of Cantonese opera in Shanghai at the time. If the Love’s Sorrow scene presents what may appear from today’s perspective to be an indigenous, even old-fashioned, medium of sung drama, it is worth noting that in the 1920s and 1930s, Cantonese opera mixed traditional instruments and narratives with diverse new influences such as Western music, film, backdrops, and props.58 Seen from this perspective, Lianhua’s film took part in an ongoing cross-medial cultural engagement between stage and screen, opera and film. Today, without the benefit of the original music and lyrics, viewers might feel that this opera segment is too long and insufficiently woven into the film.59 However, even though Love’s Sorrow in the Eastern Chamber 53

Hefu, “Zhongguo de Yinxing yanshi,” 33. Romance of the Opera was released by Tianyi studios in fall 1931 (Xin yinxing 33 [1931.10]: 54–56). 55 Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 (1932.1.1): 34. 56 Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 2 (1931.10): 8; Yinmu zhoubao 7 (1931.11.1): 8; Hefu, “Zhongguo de Yinxing yanshi,” 8; and Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 (1932.1.1): 33. 57 Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 (1932.1.1): 34. 58 Cheng Meibao, “Jindai difang wenhua de kua diyuxing”; Ho, Understanding Canton, 315–316. 59 See, for instance, Tang Xiguang, Cong dianying de geming dao geming de dianying: 20 shiji Zhongguo wenxue shiyezhong de zuoyi dianying [From the revolution in film to revolutionary films: Left-wing films in the horizon of twentieth-century Chinese literature] (Beijing: Zhishi chanquan chubanshe 2004), 174. 54

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may appear to be stylistically distinct from the rest of the film, the song conveys crucial plot elements of the film, and there are important continuities in staging and themes that make the opera central to Two Stars. The full impact of this scene depends on the film audience knowing the story of Concubine Mei, hearing the words of her aria, and understanding how her legend relates to the larger narrative transpiring in Two Stars. As Li Yueying sings Concubine Mei’s lament at a garden balustrade in this Cantonese opera, we recall the opening scene of Two Stars, when Li, at her lakeside terrace, sang the lonely Cantonese love song that prompted the film crew to envision her as Concubine Mei. Audience foreknowledge of Concubine Mei’s story, reinforced by the audible song lyrics, meant that contemporary viewers were more likely to recognize the strong, metonymic connections between Love’s Sorrow and the story of Two Stars. Both are about a country girl who is recruited for her beauty and talent and transplanted to a glamorous place; both are about the powerful attractions of song and music. Concubine Mei’s story appears to mirror the story of Li Yueying in the film and novel, while Li Yueying’s story in turn seems to mirror the story of the real-life singer, dancer, and movie star Li Minghui, along with her colleague Zi Luolan. This metafilmic scene of the actress performing in Love’s Sorrow also heightens the plot tension of Two Stars for those familiar with the Tang dynasty story. Since the origins, talent, and beauty of Concubine Mei correspond to the qualities of Li Yueying who plays her, the scene raises the possibility that the female figures might encounter the same fate. If a romance like the one between Concubine Mei and the Tang emperor ensues between Li Yueying and Yang Yiyun, will Li later be deserted by Yang and left alone to sing of her sadness? Will the modern woman be a victim of the same tragic ending or will she find a new path? Concubine Mei’s sorrowful ending adds a sense of anxiety and foreboding to the remainder of Two Stars, and indeed, for much of the remainder of the film, the characters play and replay the drama of Concubine Mei in their own lives. At the conclusion of the Love’s Sorrow scene, past and present converge. From the deserted Concubine Mei, the camera pulls back to present a closing long shot of the palace garden set—and then pulls back even further, to reveal the Yinhan Film Company in the process of filming the opera. A reverse shot on the crew shows Director Wang (played by Wang Cilong) standing alongside his cameraman, supervising the final moments of Love’s Sorrow with great satisfaction. These new shifts in camera position accomplish several things at once. In a momentary overlay of past and present, Love’s Sorrow is shown to be an old story being reconstructed for film. When the camera of the fictional director Wang is revealed, we

Figure 8. The traditional set for Love’s Sorrow in the Eastern Chamber, framed by modern production apparatus. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

Figure 9. “Cut!” Yinhan director Wang and the crew of Love’s Sorrow in the Eastern Chamber (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

Figure 10. Shi Dongshan’s camera pulls back from Love’s Sorrow in the Eastern Chamber to reveal the crew of the Yinhan Film Company wrapping up the shoot. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

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Figure 11. Li Yueying, in her dressing room, gazes at the mirror and a publicity still of herself and Yang Yiyun in Love’s Sorrow. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

Figure 12. Close-up of Li Yueying holding the publicity still of herself and Yang Yiyun in Love’s Sorrow (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

become conscious of another invisible presence—the camera of Director Shi Dongshan, shooting this entire scene for Lianhua. When Director Wang shouts “Cut!,” the film’s tone and pace immediately shift from the individual personal lament of the stylized historical opera back to the rapid collective effort and technological expertise of industrial production methods in filmmaking. In another long shot of the classical imperial garden, the historical set is now framed by modern lighting, cameras, and equipment of the Yinhan studio. The makeup crew rushes toward Li and Yang, and photographers shoot some production stills of the two leads in costume. Li and Yang return to their adjoining dressing rooms after performing their romantic, sad scene; while removing stage makeup at their mirrors, each receives a copy of the publicity still, showing their two costumed figures side-by-side. The contrast between past and present may seem clear-cut at this point: The opera is, after all, an artifice, a construct, the work of professionals. The film still of the actors in their roles is simply a publicity shot. In the larger narrative, this might be reassuring: the tragic story of Concubine Mei is but a performance by actors, set in another time that looks utterly different from present-day reality.

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As a self-reflexive film about filmmaking, Two Stars presents us with an infinitely recurring hall of mirrors, a mise-en-abîme. Two Stars exposes the apparatus, showing how it helps create this fictional world. In displaying the camera and crew mediating between stage and screen, Two Stars was markedly different from most other Chinese “opera” films of the era. Whereas all the major Chinese studios in the early 1930s—Lianhua, Mingxing, Tianyi—heavily publicized the achievements of their sound films and used opera segments to draw in local audiences, Lianhua took the rare step of incorporating the film production process and technology itself into the frame, presenting opera as an integral part of Chinese modernity. From Historical Opera to Chinese Modern Two Stars turns from the movie set back to the lives of the movie actors, yet the film-within-a-film remains like an afterimage, imparting a strange sensation of temporal compression in Two Stars. As both actors, seated before their dressing room mirrors, gaze privately and lovingly at the other in the film still, the past persists into the present as though reflected, replicated, and reenacted across time. Just as Li Yueying resembles Meifei in her countryside origins and her rise to fame in the cultural center of the time, so she becomes the object of Yang Yiyun’s affection, and their romance gradually parallels the historical romance they have played on the silver screen. But there’s a cryptic twist: Yang’s bright expression as he gazes at the film still and the mirror quickly darkens to a look of consternation. Lost in thought for a moment, he is soon interrupted by Li asking for help with the cold cream. For the audience, the mystery hangs in the air for two more scenes, while Li is altogether unaware of Yang’s worries. A look of modernity is reasserted in the two scenes after the Yinhan Film Company wraps up the shooting of Love’s Sorrow. The characters move through an array of spaces, leisure activities, and the latest fashions that contrast in many ways with the imperial palace set. Yet they are no less dazzling—and a closer look reveals that each of these scenes contains miniaturizations or details from the historical opera. In the first of these two scenes, Li and Yang take a day off with other members of the film company and visit a miniature golf course.60 Women 60 Treaty port Shanghai already had, for many years, standard-size golf links in the suburbs with modern- or foreign-sounding names such as the Metropolitan (໻䛑᳗) and the Hollywood (ད㧞ึ). See Hao Wu ᯞਈ et al., Chinese Woman and Modernity: Calendar Posters of the 1910s–1930s (Duhui modeng: Yuefen pai 1910s–1930s), trans. Frank Li (Hong Kong: Sanlian shudian/Joint Publishing, 1994, 1996), 115. Yet as imported and novel as golf seemed to be in twentieth-century Shanghai, one might also note that a millennium earlier, Song dynasty Chinese had a game called chuiwan that was played by hitting a small ball with clubs that look like those used in putting. The modern form of miniature golf began in Scotland

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Figure 13. Li Yueying joins the Yinhan Film Company cast and crew for a day off at the mini golf course of the Cathay Sports Club. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

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Figure 14. Hang Zhiying, “Double Minigolf” (“Shuang kao’erfu qiu tu”). A 1930s cigarette advertising poster. (From the author’s collection.)

in trendy dresses and qipao gowns meander through the greens, pausing as if posing for a magazine photo shoot on location. Many details from the mise-en-scene here—including the female figures displaying their floral qipao and high-heeled pumps, surrounded by pavilions, pagodas, ponds, bridges, and rock gardens—appear elsewhere in urban leisure, fashion, popular fiction, cinema, magazines, and advertising prints. They are visible, for instance, in an advertising poster by Hang Zhiying called “Double Minigolf” (“Shuang kao’erfu qiu tu 䲭㗗㗠໿⧗೪”), which was widely reproduced by various companies for circulation throughout China in the early to mid-1930s. The film may have inspired the poster (or vice versa), since one of the female figures wears a gown and shoes much like Li’s. The two female figures in the poster evoke the same auspicious “double” trope that was so ubiquitous in visual culture, in film, in opera, and in popular butterfly fiction, including Zhang’s novel Two Stars.61 The film’s lively miniature golf course scene presents further instances of this doubling, as it moves the romantic narrative forward while during the late nineteenth century and became a popular game in the gardens, parks, hotels, and rooftops of cities throughout Europe and the United States during the 1910s and 1920s. It was imported to Shanghai around 1930 and quickly became a fashionable urban novelty. 61 See K. Harris, “Reflecting on ‘Double Films’ in China,” paper presented at the Visual Culture in Modern China workshop, University of Washington-Seattle, May 2003.

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referring back to the historical drama of the previous opera scene. As Yang and Li make their way through the course together, their golf balls land in the same hole—“after having traversed all along that uneven, zigzagging path,” Li gleefully comments, as if interpreting the game and its outcome as symbolic of their eventual union. A close shot on the pair of golf balls reminds us of the earlier close shot of two mandarin ducks swimming in the garden pond during the Eastern Palace scene. But now, the couple’s affectionate game is interrupted by a vampish woman named Chunping who has arrived on the scene and now competes for Yang’s attention.62 (Fans of the original Zhang novel would have recognized Chunping as the prostitute who fawns over Yang, luring him away from his work and Li.) The tension culminates with Chunping driving a golf ball toward Li, striking her leg and starting an argument between the two women. When Yang tries to draw Li away, she reproaches him for favoring the other woman. Here, again, we are reminded of the triangle established in Love’s Sorrow of the Eastern Chamber, where Concubine Mei laments that the emperor’s attentions have turned to the interloper Concubine Yang. Love’s Sorrow focuses our sympathies on Concubine Mei, and now, as Li turns into a modern-day double for the historical character she plays, we are prompted to wonder about the male protagonist’s sincerity. Underscoring the parallels between the previous historical romance and the contemporary one are several design elements that carry over from the earlier scene. Just as the actors once played their motion picture roles on a lavish imperial palace set, they now traverse another kind of constructed version of old China, enacting a similar drama in their own lives. In each case, the imported medium, whether motion pictures or a game of mini golf, is tempered and domesticated with classical design and Chinese players. The trendy, foreign golf game could have easily prompted associations with the glamorous “Hollywood” links in Shanghai for local audiences at the time, but Lianhua very deliberately shifted the associations by setting the scene in a place that is also partly domesticated as Chinese. The bilingual sign over the entryway gate, prominently visible at the beginning of the scene, reads “Cathay Sports Club / ‫؛‬ቅ”— simultaneously invoking an old Western moniker for imperial China and a central design element of classical Chinese gardens: the fantastical rockery known as jiashan (literally, “artificial mountains”). This miniature golf course is thus presented to the spectator as a hybrid space for the Chinese filmmakers who populate it. The miniature golf course becomes a kind of synecdoche for the filmset and even the nation, populated by Chinese filmmakers wending their 62

The name “Chunping” is romanized as “Chuen Ping” in the film’s bilingual intertitles.

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Figure 15. The Cathay Sports Club. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

way along a path punctuated with Chinese and Western design elements inspired by traditional gardens and architectural forms—even as the placement of these motifs in a mini golf context renders them as kitsch. The quaint icons of old China and treaty port Shanghai—a pagoda here, a steeple there—are shrunken in scale, clustered together, compressed and frozen in time. No foreigners or emperors rule here; in this fantasy Cathay Club tableau, the terrain is reclaimed by the stylish, modern Chinese filmmakers who freely roam it.63 Notably, the miniature golf scene appears only in the film adaptation and not in the original novel. Certainly, the scene conveys the spirit of the original novel, which details certain foreign trends that the protagonists enjoy at the height of their romance, even as Zhang also anatomizes Li’s growing suspicions about Yang’s infidelity. The choice of the miniature golf course as a key setting for the film functions on even more levels. The 63 In many ways, this scene of Chinese performers moving through a theme park of miniatures could be considered a precursor to a more recent film, The World, directed by “sixth-generation” filmmaker Jia Zhangke. The twenty-first-century film is, of course, more expansive, presenting not just a microcosm of old Cathay and a few treaty port staples, but an entire array of global monuments, all shrunk to navigable size and assembled for ready access to modern-day visitors and residents of Beijing. Still, both films delve beyond the dazzling surface of the foreign-inspired amusement park or “sports club” to offer an uneasy glimpse of the tensions lived and experienced by the modern-day actors within them. Both Jia Zhangke and Shi Dongshan present us with the miniature park, the theatrical performance, the fantasy world created by cinema as analogous enterprises.

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intriguing backdrop—part location, part constructed set—solicits the film viewer’s attention and concentrates the impact of the scene as a narrative turning point halfway through the film. The constructed artifice of contemporary urban leisure appears to mirror the historical opera film space, adding another metafilmic layer to Two Stars. What begins as a playful, even frivolous day of play becomes ominous—as the “two stars” align uneasily with the characters they play, as life imitates art, and as the present converges with the past. Susan Stewart, in her book On Longing, contemplates the varieties of miniatures and their effects—whether tiny books, toys, models, amusement parks, or even literary narratives such as Gulliver’s Travels. She finds that miniatures, rendered as timeless idealizations, offer a kind of spatial and temporal transcendence.64 Stewart concludes that “the miniature, linked to nostalgic versions of childhood and history, presents a diminutive, and thereby manipulable, version of experience, a version which is domesticated and protected from contamination.” Extending these insights to Two Stars, we may discern another layer of meaning in the film. The tableau of tiny pagodas, temples, mountains, and lakes in this urban leisure ground nostalgically recalls the beauty of China’s countryside at the beginning of Two Stars, evoking the site of Li’s origins, the site of Concubine Mei’s innocence, and the site of idyllic freedom for the filmmakers. But their romantic reverie will always be transient and illusory (jiashan rockery is, after all, just that: jia, fake, imitation). The young Li, far from her bucolic country villa, falls in love with her costar Yang in Shanghai, only to encounter a perceived rival in Chunping—just as Concubine Mei, taken from her countryside home to the palace, gains the love of the emperor, only to lose him to Concubine Yang. Even as the film doubles back to the past, narrative time flows inexorably forward; the lead actors’ innocence is rudely interrupted, giving way to experience. At the climax of Two Stars, audiences flock to the opening of Love’s Sorrow in the Eastern Chamber, and Yinhan hosts a gala banquet and dance party celebrating its successful completion of the film and Li’s rise to stardom. Li has already secured Yang’s promise not to spend time with women like Chunping, and he now calls at the apartment of Li and her father to escort them to the gala. In an interesting detail that once again invokes the historical romance, the couple takes a moment to stand at the terrace balustrade looking out over the rooftops of Shanghai, and Yang points up to two stars in the evening sky. While Li swoons, Yang suddenly seems uncomfortable, as if he has noticed the uncanny parallels with the Eastern Chamber scene, when the couple posed romantically at the balustrade, 64 Susan Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1993), 60, 65.

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Figure 16. Billboard for Love’s Sorrow in the Eastern Chamber, based on the publicity still, heralds opening night. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

gazing at the two mandarin ducks later joined by a third. Yang’s disquiet passes unnoticed by Li, as they promptly set out for the party along with her father. The ensuing gala scene consolidates some of the main themes in the film—romance, modernity, stardom, and sound filmmaking—while moving toward answering the question of whether the contemporary movie actors will become the historical characters they play on screen. A fast tracking shot into the ballroom celebration brings us straight to the bustling cast and crew, now attired in trim tuxedos and elegant gowns, toasting Director Wang, Li Yueying, and Yang Yiyun. The two stars are entreated to perform “an exhibition tango dance” for everyone, garnering applause all around. This dance sequence functions, literally and metaphorically, in the service of the narrative: it is a choreographic representation of the romance developing between Li and Yang, intercut with shots of appreciative audience members surrounding the dance floor and comments by Director Wang and Li’s father that the two stars would make an ideal pair. Stylistically, even more is going on here. The mise-en-scene conveys the modernity and flair of the Shanghai film world: long shots exhibit the ballroom’s monumental art deco design, shimmering light fixtures, and big band on the stage, along with the pageantry of guests in contemporary Western fashions and Chinese qipao gowns, clustered around cocktail tables and streamers, drinking champagne. The ballroom scene demonstrates, in medium and full shots, the enticing moves of the tango, as the two actors dip and step gracefully in

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Figure 17. Yang Yiyun and Zi Luolan perform a tango at the Yinhan party on the opening night of Love’s Sorrow. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

time—offering audiences of Two Stars a practical guide to one of the most soigné and exotic dances enjoyed in 1931 Shanghai. Moreover, this long tango scene, a full five minutes in duration, was shot in a presentational mode that solicits and sustains the spectator’s focus on the real-life stars Zi Luolan and Jin Yan performing the dance. As the couple glides across the glossy, confetti-strewn floor, we are reminded of the earlier stage dance scene featuring Zi Luolan, as Li Yueying, doing her Egyptian number. This glamorous party scene also served as publicity for Lianhua’s talent roster and contributes to the metafilmic quality of Two Stars. Here and elsewhere in the film, the Lianhua actresses Chen Yanyan, Wang Renmei, Zhou Wenzhu, Tang Tianxiu, and Li Lili appear in small cameo roles, playing themselves, and we get a glimpse of some of Lianhua’s key directors and cameramen, including Cai Chusheng, Sun Yu, Wang Cilong, Zhou Ke, and Huang Shaofen. Although their appearances within the film are subtle and brief, they are billed in the film’s opening credits as “honorary guests”—as if to challenge filmgoers to an amusing game of star spotting. Lianhua’s movie magazine likewise called attention to the real-life personalities appearing in the film and compared this aspect of Two Stars to the American picture Show People, a film in which MGM featured its own directors and stars (as themselves) in several scenes, most prominently a luncheon at the studio canteen.65 The original Two Stars novel 65 Yingxi zazhi (1932.1.1), 31, offers this comparison. The Show People canteen scene presented Mae Murray, John Gilbert, Norma Talmadge, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Marion Davies (in character), William S. Hart, and others in a long tracking shot along an extended dining table.

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Figure 18. Lianhua talent at the Yinhan banquet, including the director Sun Yu. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

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Figure 19. MGM talent in the studio canteen, including Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Marion Davies. (From Show People, 1928.)

had itself dropped plenty of Hollywood names—Zhang mentions Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, and Mary Pickford as figures that Li Yueying idolizes and copies. But Lianhua’s film rendition shifted the emphasis. Two Stars presents Li as innately talented, and no foreigners appear in the film. Even as the film deliberately invoked the style of glamour and stardom found in American films such as Show People, Lianhua emphatically turned the focus to Chinese actors and filmmakers making Chinese films. As the action proceeds, the mise-en-scene draws our attention to the significance and centrality of sound. As an accompaniment for the tango, the band plays Western instruments, bringing popular music straight into the film diegesis.66 When the dance concludes, the master of ceremonies proudly announces that the film premiere is underway at that very moment. In a short speech directly addressing the film spectator, as well as the people in the scene, the M.C. urges everyone to celebrate their achievement in producing a sound film: “Ladies and Gentlemen! The Chui Wah Garden scene is now on the screen. To prove what I say, let us turn on the radio and listen to the song of the Empress, Mei Fee.” Gesturing toward a large wireless unit at the base of the stage, the M.C. continues: “The reproduction of this voice on the screen is what we must congratulate ourselves on for our success.” As he turns on the radio, the entire cast and crew pause in stillness, listening appreciatively to a replay of Li Yueying’s aria in the Eastern Palace. The somewhat unusual appearance of a large radio 66 The recorded Western music for the film was played by the Carlton Theatre Orchestra and supervised by A. J. Richter, as listed in the opening credits, publicity, and articles such as Hefu, “Zhongguo de Yinxing yanshi,” 8, and Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 (1932.1.1): 29, 33. (Elsewhere, in an apparent typographical error, the band leader is referred to as Mr. Richsler.)

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Figure 20. The wireless radio is showcased with the live band at the cast party, broadcasting the soundtrack for Love’s Sorrow from the opening night screening. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

sharing the stage area with a live band in a ballroom gala commands attention. The wireless unit and the sound it emits become the main attraction here, spotlighting the new technology as a curiosity for the public. (Shortwave and medium-wave wireless broadcasting were still a novelty, having developed in Shanghai’s foreign concessions over the prior decade, concurrent with the emergence of China’s recording industry.) This scene does two competing things at once. On the one hand, it presents, with a sense of delight and pride, the fictional Yinhan Film Company’s celebrating its accomplishments in recorded music and broadcasts— which are, in turn, the achievements of the Lianhua studio in producing Two Stars as the studio’s first musical film. Yet on the other hand, the rather incongruous placement and use of the radio, beside a live band and live actors, foregrounds the strangeness of the technology, having a kind of distancing effect—intensifying our awareness of the convergence of media here and the self-reflexive qualities of Two Stars. Not only is the technology capable of recording and reproducing voices, but it broadcasts them from one space into another at the same time.67 The simultaneity brought about by this modern technology—bringing the past into the 67 For an insightful discussion of this scene as an instance of “acoustic horror,” see Zhen Zhang’s chapter on Song at Midnight in Zhang, An Amorous History of the Silver Screen, 308–309.

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present, and preserving sound into the future—renders a sense of awe, but also of anxiety and even fear, which simmers beneath the surface of the rest of the film. The radio broadcast also accentuates this moment as a narrative climax in the film. Li, hearing her own voice singing this sorrowful tune, is reminded of the tragic opera role she played as the abandoned Concubine Mei. (Even the dress she wears for this gala scene, while modern in design, features details that evoke Li’s role as a Tang dynasty beauty. The sophisticated 1920s silk charmeuse gown, with its shimmering brocade tunic, beaded overskirt, and long fluid sleeves, amalgamates modern flapper fashion with stylistic elements that hark back to Tang dynasty “rainbow skirt and feathered dress” dances.) Li tells Yang, “This singing makes one feel sad.  .  .  . Don’t listen to it anymore.” As they exit to a moonlit garden, Yang asks, “Why don’t you like to listen to that song?” and Li replies shyly, “Is it not a song of disappointed love?” Yang tries to comfort her, and gazing into each other’s eyes, the two embrace. At this moment, Assistant Director Liu approaches the garden from one of the massive doors and spots the couple. He gleefully reports back to Li’s father that they are most certainly in love, and the two men happily talk about marriage arrangements. It seems that the modern actors have finally broken free of their historical characters and the sorrowful past, to enjoy happiness, love, and devotion. Yet ominous echoes of the past persist: the dolorous soundtrack from Love’s Sorrow continues in the background, while a long shot of the Western-style garden outside the ballroom suddenly evokes eerie parallels to the Eastern Palace garden set. In both scenes, the lovers tryst beside an artificial pond, surrounded by sculptural stone carvings, geometric patterns, and oversized doors. Moongates are modernized to art deco fixtures, and the parrot and cranes that oversaw the lovers in the eastern garden are now replaced with an equally exotic statue of Cupid. The angle replicates an important shot in the Eastern Palace scene, when palace attendants enter the garden as Emperor Minghuang comforts Concubine Mei. All these reminders of the historical drama once again seem to haunt Yang. He stands up suddenly and self-consciously, but Li draws him back to her side. The two stars return to the modern ballroom arm-in-arm, and Li’s father joyfully shakes hands with Yang as a “future-father-in-law.” Yang is taken by surprise and can only respond awkwardly. These two scenes at the Cathay Sports Club and in the ballroom are emphatically modern, even as they contain details that remind us of the historical opera—as if suggesting that the contemporary figures will reenact not only the famous romance of the past, but also its tragic ending of abandonment. Audiences who had read Zhang’s book would certainly

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Figure 21. The banquet hall garden, a Westernized counterpart to the Eastern Palace set. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

Figure 22. Li Yueying and Yang Yiyun in the banquet hall garden; the composition echoes the publicity still for their film Love’s Sorrow. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

have had this expectation, since Yang in the novel eventually abandons Li for a courtesan named Chunping. However, the 1931 film takes another approach and reveals to us at the end of the ballroom scene a surprisingly different reason for Yang’s mysterious anxieties. Urban Love and Countryside Honor The conclusion of the film Two Stars complicates the intoxicating tale of urban romance by introducing sober reminders of countryside origins, filial duty, and arranged marriage. When Li Xudong shakes hands with his future son-in-law in the ballroom, Director Gao casts a penetrating look at his cousin Yang Yiyun and pulls him aside for a private conversation: Director Gao: “You are a married man. How dare you go and kiss another girl?” Yang Yiyun: “Don’t believe a word of it. It is not true.”

Since Yang’s cousin sees through his denial and pretense, the actor admits plaintively, “But honestly I do love her.” Cousin/Director Gao is adamant that Yang break off the relationship: “You love her? That is the embarrassing part of it. Your country-bred wife will never survive in the event of a divorce, and your mother before her death repeatedly warned you against ever taking such a step.” He continues, “Divorce is absolutely out of the question. Do you think Miss Lee will condescend to be your second wife (ᇣ㗕ယ)? And would that be fair to her?” With this mention

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Figure 23. Li Yueying and her father departing the ballroom, caught in the modernist mise-en-scene. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

of a second wife or concubine, the audience now understands why Yang looks so troubled by the many parallels between the historical drama and the present. Medium and close shots of Yang convey the male protagonist’s emotional distress. Gao sees that his younger cousin is truly in love with Li—but he counsels Yang to protect Li from a future as a concubine by leaving the gala at once before anything more develops: “You must sacrifice your dream of happiness for the sake of honor. Be prudent, my dear cousin! Give her up and don’t spoil her innocent life.” Yang finally agrees, hastily leaving the gala while others continue to dance away on the ballroom floor. The film’s tone shifts decisively with this revelation and cousin Gao’s mention of “honor” (rendered in Chinese as xinjiu lijiao ᮄ㟞⾂ᬭ, or “new and old ritual teachings”). The urban modernity of the Shanghai film world, which seems to promise stardom, glamour, individual romantic love, and a happy ending, is not really such a straightforward, lighthearted enterprise. The streamlined Western-style art deco design of the mise-en-scene now appears much larger, dominating the frame, even becoming expressive in tone, conveying the internal tensions experienced by the protagonists as they confront the conflicts between love and duty, new and old, present and past. The figures, meanwhile, seem to shrink in this new scale, caught between angular fixtures, geometric lines, and zigzag patterns as though ensnared and consumed by modernity itself. Away from the busy, frenetic pace of the contemporary motion picture world, the still photographic image now dominates. Yang, alone in his modern study, slumps over a photograph album. Over his shoulder, we see the page where he has pasted the publicity photograph of himself and Li together in their Tang dynasty costumes, as Emperor Minghuang and Concubine Mei. Forlorn, he turns the page back to reveal a photograph of a different couple: himself in a Western suit, posed formally beside his country wife clad awkwardly in a Chinese bridal dress and sunglasses.

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Figure 24. Yang Yiyun revisits his photograph album after abandoning his inamorata Li Yueying. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

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Figure 25. The photograph album reminds Yang Yiyun that he has a country wife. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

The images of the two women, each in traditional garb, reinforces the narrative parallels between Love’s Sorrow and Two Stars. Fixed on the album page, the still images haunt him, both reminders of the persistence of the past. The photographs within the film serve as pieces of visual evidence for the spectator, too—exposing a truth that Yang has been hiding from the other characters, and even from himself. A brief, jarring shot reinforces the male protagonist’s internal conflict between romantic love and filial duty. As Yang stares at the frozen image from an earlier time, his facial expressions and gestures become contorted with frustration, and the screen momentarily blacks out. Then, an image of an elderly woman appears, commanding: “You should never part with the wife that your parents have selected to be your companion for life.” More than a flashback, this is a ghostly afterimage lurking in his psyche. Filling the frame, the figure of the mother looms large against a stark gray backdrop, speaking down to her son in the foreground. Yang himself is barely visible—we see only the back of his head at the bottom of the frame. The mother’s image fades away just as quickly as it had appeared. Yang is left alone and distraught, compressed between the art deco trappings of his modern life, an album filled with competing dreams and realities, and his mother’s memory. The linear progress of the motion picture narrative seems to have come to a halt; the apparition and still photographs from the past even seem to have the power to reverse time. What is the impact of this love-duty conflict for Li Yueying? Will she and her father learn the truth that Yang already has a wife? The Lis are still at the gala and notice that Yang is missing. Gao simply informs them that Yang felt unwell and went home. Their worry is palpable, as a series of

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Figure 26. Apparition of Yang Yiyun’s deceased mother commanding him to stay faithful to the wife arranged for him by his parents. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

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Figure 27. Distraught at the conflict between romantic love and filial obligation, Yang Yiyun appears trapped in the mise-en-scene. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

fast-paced shots ensue: Li phones Yang’s home and reaches only the butler; she and her father hurriedly take the car there. However, back in the stillness of his modern home, Yang is taken by surprise by the unexpected arrival of Chunping. Having been informed by the butler that Li and her father are on their way over, he anxiously struggles to find a solution. As the Lis enter, they discover Yang kissing Chunping and stare at the scene horrified. Witnessing only this, the father and daughter leave in shock. But as soon as the Lis exit, Yang lets go of Chunping and shuts the door on her. The scene plays on a dramatic irony: the spectator knows more than the Lis know about Yang’s true situation. From Li Yueying’s perspective, the confrontation appears to replay the sad tale of Love’s Sorrow in the Eastern Chamber in which the emperor abandons her character for another woman. But we know that Yang is putting on an act. For whatever reasons—an overwhelming filial obligation to follow his parents’ wishes and remain married to the wife they had arranged for him; a modern renunciation of concubinage; or a cowardice about revealing the truth that he has deceived everyone—Yang has chosen to reenact the historical drama to end the relationship immediately, as if the roles are so internalized and hardwired that he and his audience will believe them entirely real for a brief moment. After the crisis has passed, he concludes the performance. Believing the performance, the Lis now equate the movie actor and even the city itself with deception and weak morals, and they decide to return to the countryside. Li Xudong declares, “The city is full of evils. We cannot live in it. We will go home and lead the life we used to lead.” As if

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coming full circle, Two Stars closes in the countryside where it began. For Yang, the countryside represents oppressive reminders of filial duty, but for Li Xudong and his daughter, withdrawal to the countryside seems to offer a reassuring return to innocence, purity, and honor. In Zhang’s novel there was no mention of the countryside. The film, however, introduced the dichotomy of urban and rural, associated with various attractions and challenges—a common trope in Chinese fiction and film. A brief coda to the film, however, quietly questions the assumption that the countryside might offer refuge and salvation. Some years later, the aging Yang ambles through a bucolic landscape, now aided by a cane. He approaches Li’s villa and hears her singing as he once did long ago, when they first met. He listens respectfully from a distance. Inside, Li sits alone beside an empty chair where her father had once sat, now singing the sorrowful song of Concubine Mei, with even more sadness than before, as if exiled to the Cuihua Garden.68 She is unaware of Yang’s true feelings and does not know he is standing just outside. A close-up of Yang shows him trying to restrain his anguish. In the closing shot, he turns to leave slowly, as the film fades to black. The countryside has apparently provided neither freedom nor escape; returning to an idyllic past is impossible. The conflicting demands experienced by well-intentioned modern young women and men can end only in sorrow. Both the film and the novel end mournfully: the young woman, feeling she has apparently lived out the same role of abandoned victim that she played on screen, finally relinquishes her career and stardom to lead a quiet life in seclusion. In the film Two Stars, as in the novel, the female protagonist is a focal point, and in each she is presented as a sympathetic figure throughout. But the male protagonist in the film differs significantly from Zhang’s original in his character, motivation, and actions. In the novel, the male movie star is enamored with Li for a time, but he also dallies with other women who shower him with attention and admiration, spending the night in hotels with actresses and patronizing prostitutes, including Chunping. These scenes, rendered in whole chapters, seem designed to titillate the reader, even as they expose Yang as a libertine. But once Li’s stardom and wealth begin to exceed his own, Yang gradually abandons her. The particular conflicts and unhappy ending in the novel Two Stars are caused by the male actor’s failings—his basic lack of conscience, and his insecurity when a female costar surpasses him in hard work, fame, and fortune. For Zhang, the problem is not the city itself, but the loose morality and heartlessness of a few individuals in the entertainment world. In the novel, 68 As indicated by an article in the Lianhua studio magazine: Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 (1932.1.1): 32–33.

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urban life has many attractions, yet success in this world is a fleeting illusion. Ending on a melancholy note with Li abandoned by Yang for another woman, the final outcome of Zhang’s story seemed designed to illustrate the dangers for unsuspecting girls entering the world of motion pictures. The film retains—yet heightens and complicates—the morality-tale quality of Zhang’s novel. Whereas the male protagonist may appear to be a Casanova figure in a city that is “full of evils” (as Li’s father finally declares), the film ultimately shows him in a different light. All references to Yang frequenting prostitutes in the novel were eliminated for the film, and the character of Chunping is described merely as a former girlfriend. These changes would have satisfied the Nanjing government censors, and they also supported a cleaner star image for Jin Yan. Scriptwriter Zhu Shilin also made the character of Yang into a more complex, sympathetic, and tragic figure by adding the plot twist of arranged marriage. Even Zhu’s summary of the Two Stars scenario published in Lianhua’s magazine devotes much more attention to the angst of the male lead than the original novel did.69 The film depicts the couple’s final separation as a consequence of circumstances beyond his control, rather than as a result of immorality or philandering. Yang is a victim of conflicting expectations, caught amid three competing lives: he is a handsome movie star with a modern city life; he develops genuine love and affection for Li; but he has a wife far away in the countryside, chosen by his parents. The film adaptation also ended on a much nobler note than the novel. An expository intertitle introduces the coda in which Yang quietly pays homage to Li: “Love versus honour. Great is the power of Love, but greater still his sense of duty (ᛯ㟛⾂ᬭⳌ⠁, ᛯП࡯ᵰ໻, Ԛࢱ߽㌖ቀ⾂ᬭ).” The conflict of love and honor was a staple in Chinese fiction and film at the time and would continue to define wenyi pian ᭛㮱⠛ melodramas for decades to come.70 By incorporating this topic of intense social debate in China from the May Fourth era onward, the film adaptation of Two Stars solicited the attention of the young men and women who made up the vast majority of movie-going audiences. The addition of this arranged marriage plot and the narrative turn toward the conflict between love and duty also enabled Lianhua to present all its top stars—male and female— in a sympathetic light. Both the film and the novel Two Stars end in melancholy, with the two stars separated. But Lianhua’s ending added more layers to the narrative, 69

Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 (1932.1.1): 36. For a discussion of another 1931 Lianhua film with this theme, see Kristine Harris, “1930s Chinese Film: The Case of Love and Duty,” in The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas, ed. Carlos Rojas and Eileen Cheng-yin Chow (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). 70

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calling attention to the art of performance and playing on the apparent parallels between the opera characters in Love’s Sorrow and the actors in Two Stars. Yang is such a skilled actor that he manages to convince Li he is deserting her the way that Tang Minghuang abandoned Concubine Mei. His final performance is motivated not by insincerity, but rather by the recognition that he must sacrifice his own love for Li in order to honor his parents’ wishes. With these parallels and twists, the film causes the spectator to think about the connections between tradition and modernity. Do the weight of history and myth wield an irresistible force or can modern individuals take a new path? Does life endlessly replay historical narratives or will some things change? Does the past forecast the present or does modernity transcend the past? Metafilm The screen adaptation of Two Stars was a kind of metafilm that staged the self-knowledge of film. By invoking the self-reflexive qualities of Zhang’s original novel and adding new episodes—the opening location shoot, the opera filming scene, the miniature golf game, the ballroom gala and radio celebration of sound film, the power of still photographs—Two Stars explored the capabilities and limitations of cinema. In fact, the Lianhua filmmakers added to the original story an important new scene, which explains directly to the spectator what Chinese films should be. The scene occurs very early on, just after the Yinhan filmmakers have been shooting in the countryside. An expository intertitle boldly announces a shift in locale from the previous location to a modern industrial production site: “The Yen Han Film Producing Co / 䡔⓶ᕅ⠛݀ ৌ.” Then, a painting of the film studio backlot offers an aerial view of the soundstage buildings, a series of identical, boxlike structures. We move inside a boardroom, where Yinhan Film Company producers and directors are meeting to articulate their mission. At the head of the table, a Mr. Ho speaks passionately to his colleagues: “Who says there is no future prospect for Chinese films? We should always bear in mind the importance of our mission to the community at large and the necessity of perseverance in the study and perfection of this art; we must try to improve the standard of Chinese films and to battle to the very end against evil environments.” The men listen intently. As Mr. Ho speaks, he is presented in frontal shots that seem to directly address the camera, breaking down the fourth wall and soliciting our attention. Notably, the English intertitles broadly refer to artistic standards here, while the Chinese intertitles explicitly call upon filmmakers (and, by extension, the film’s Chinese spectators)—to strive toward a “proper artistic track” and “commit themselves to the front line of arts revolutionaries” (া㽕ৠҎ‫ץ‬ᢅ䉴⼒᳗ⱘ㊒⼲, ࡾ࡯৥㮱

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Figure 28. The Yinhan Film Company’s Western-style boardroom. (From Yinhan shuangxing, 1931.)

㸧ℷ䒠Ϟ䍄এ, 㞾䁧԰㮱㸧䴽ੑᆊⱘࠡ䢦, এ੠ᚵࢶ࡯ག價). He continues: “We must not follow the steps of some opportunists. We must build up a good name for our company and strive to win the confidence of the public. We must look beyond for bigger successes.” Director Wang then concurs: “I agree entirely with what Mr. Ho has just said. We of the film industry have our mission to fulfill, that of propagation of the virtues of our people and of imparting knowledge to the public through the screen.” The series of wordy intertitles commands special notice. Presented textually and didactically, the filmmakers’ declamations are conspicuously interpolated into Two Stars. (No such episode occurs in the original novel, and Zhang makes little, if any, mention of nationalistic goals or company policies.) The boardroom, decorated in sleek materials such as steel and glass, with furnishings in various imported styles (art deco, Arts and Crafts, even Victorian) and a painting depicting its standardized facilities, identifies the Chinese film company as cosmopolitan and modern, like its foreign competition. The Yinhan Film Company serves as a stand-in for the Lianhua Film Company, whose own mission is conveniently ventriloquized in the intertitles for this fictional scenario. Lianhua was a brand-new company, established just a year earlier, in 1930, and aspired to legitimate itself as a major studio, promising to raise the status of Chinese cinema through patriotic and “artistic” films that would display high production values, modern themes, and talented performers with impeccable morals.71 The message certainly came across. One review of Two Stars reported that Lianhua ded71 See, for instance, Yingxi zazhi 1931.10.1, back cover; Huang Yizhuo, “Chuangban Lianhua yingye zhipian yinshua youxian gongsi yuanqi” [The reasons for founding the Lianhua Film Production and Printing Company], Yingxi zazhi 1, no. 9 (1930), reprinted in Zhongguo wusheng dianying [Chinese silent film], ed. Zhongguo dianying ziliao guan (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1996), 67–69.

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Figure 29. “Process for Moving Pictures Production,” Liangyou 61 (1931.09): 44–45.

icated 6,000 yuan to the sets alone for Two Stars, a figure that exceeded the usual budget for an entire film at the time.72 Other articles published in late 1931 and early 1932, when the film was being produced and distributed in Shanghai, used the Lianhua Film Company as an example for illustrating the steps in producing “film art” (dianying yishu), including script, set design, and cinematography.73 As a self-reflexive film about selfaware filmmakers improving the quality of Chinese cinema, this metafilm doubled as kind of an advertisement for itself. The nationalism expressed in the boardroom discussion was timely, given the events that were unfolding during the months when Two Stars was in production. Zhu Shilin had completed the script by summer 1931, and many of the scenes were being shot in late summer and early fall; Japanese forces attacked north China on 18 September. It is very likely that Two Stars was modified to include more patriotic messages in the wake of these attacks (as other films most certainly were). Just weeks after the film 72

Hefu, “Zhongguo de Yinxing yanshi,” 8. Yinmu zhoubao 16 (1932.1.3): 22–23; “Process for Moving Pictures Production,” Liangyou 61 (1931.09): 44–45. 73

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opened in December 1931 and during its run into January 1932, the city of Shanghai was bombed by Japan. The scene asserts the importance of movie studios as enterprises that can help in the struggle to save the nation. The lofty rhetoric in the boardroom scene invokes patriotic feelings, community service, and artistic quality, while repudiating, in a rather Confucian way, any kind of pecuniary motives or financial profit (which figure so prominently in Zhang’s novel). Lianhua augmented the Two Stars story of individual stardom with episodes that demonstrated the collective effort and shared rewards of filmmaking. Mr. Ho’s vigorous, if oblique, exhortation to “battle to the very end against evil environments” (literally, “struggle against evil forces”) and to “propagate the virtues of our people” was both a patriotic call-to-arms in the military conflict with foreign powers and a galvanizing challenge to Chinese filmmakers to compete with the foreign films, increasingly sound films, that were flooding the Chinese market from the United States by the early 1930s. At this time, the national products movement was well underway, buoyed by nationalist sentiment accompanying the establishment of the Nanjing government in 1927. It is noteworthy that all explicit references to Hollywood films and stars in Zhang’s novel were eliminated in the Lianhua film, and instead the screen was filled exclusively with Chinese stars and filmmakers. Even so, the film company was not afraid of using foreign technology or models, domesticated with a Chinese twist, to promote its business. As we have seen, the Two Stars film protagonists Li Yueying and her father, Li Xudong, like their counterparts in the novel, have a kind of hybrid cultural orientation that the film celebrates, and Lianhua’s publicity called attention to the parallels with MGM’s Show People. The company even styled much of its advertising on MGM’s, highlighting the roster of stars, while adding patriotic motifs including soldiers and aeroplanes. Film magazines of the late 1920s and early 1930s discussed sound filmmaking as a possible means for reviving (fuxing ᕽ㟜) the Chinese film industry (guochan dianying ೟⫶䳏ᕅ) or as a way of promoting popular education (tongsu jiaoyu 䗮֫ᬭ㚆).74 Lianhua Film Company head Luo Mingyou declared in several magazine articles at the time that the fate of Chinese cinema depended on sound, on the support of the media, and on creating a “pure art” and employing “pure performers.”75 One article in the Lianhua studio magazine applauded sound technology as a tool that could help “promote Chinese cinema.”76 74 Yingxi zazhi 1, no. 9 (1930.8.1): 30–31, 34–35; also see Yingxi shenghuo 1, no. 15 (1931.4.24): 7–8; Yingxi shenghuo 1, no. 25 (1931.7.4): 6–7; and Yingxi shenghuo 1, no. 38 (1931.10.3): 26–27. 75 Yingxi zazhi 1, no. 9 (1930.8.31): 43–45; Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 (1932.01.1): 29. 76 “Zi Luolan yu yousheng guopian,” Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 1 (1931.7): 36.

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Figure 30. MGM advertisement featuring stars and patriotic motifs. (From Yingxi zazhi 1, no. 10 [1930.10.31].)

The film suggests that if the mission of Chinese cinema is to propagate the “virtues of our people,” the project of filming the historical opera Love’s Sorrow in the Eastern Chamber is one way to achieve the company’s goal through touching base with China’s own indigenous past and its stories. Indeed, the popular costume drama films of the 1920s were often celebrated as a positive phenomenon that could offset over-Westernization and set the stage for an economic and cultural regeneration of Chinese films as national products (guochan yingpian ೟⫶ᕅ⠛).77 The coming of sound, especially, was seen as an ideal opportunity to produce local opera films with classic themes, further enhancing the distinctive qualities of Chinese cinema. The long opera scene in the Two Stars film, and its resonance with the present-day narrative, suggests the magnetic pull of the native past and its continuities into the present. Indeed, when the Peking opera star 77 See, for example, Dianying yuebao 2 (1928.5.1). Also see Kristine Harris, “The Romance of the Western Chamber and the Classical Subject Film in 1920s Shanghai,” in Cinema and Urban Culture in Shanghai, 1922–1943, ed. Yingjin Zhang (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999), 51–73.

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Figure 31. Lianhua advertisement featuring stars and patriotic motifs. (From Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 2 [1931.10.1].)

Mei Lanfang toured the United States, just a year before the film Two Stars was made, he witnessed the audience’s fascination with Chinese opera and concluded that sound film productions of Chinese operas could revive Chinese cinema and bring China’s five-thousand-year heritage to the world.78 If the fictional Yinhan Film Company achieves these goals of cultural regeneration by making the opera picture Love’s Sorrow, the larger plot of Lianhua’s film Two Stars is much more complex, framing the classic opera story inside a contemporary story about modern, cosmopolitan actors. Lianhua’s publicity magazine stressed that whereas other sound films simply inserted brief snippets of old operas (laoxi) or singing girls (genü), Chinese sound films should present longer opera scenes the way Two Stars incorporated Love’s Sorrow in the Eastern Chamber, as examples of the “improved, beautified, artistic, new thought” that could help the domestic film industry “sweep away bad habits and innovate (ᥗ䰸䰟㖦, ᥼ 䱇ߎᮄ).”79 In Two Stars, the opera is just one piece of a film that offers up 78 79

Yingxi zazhi 1, no. 9 (1930.8.1): 26, 35; see also Yeh’s chapter on Mei herein. Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 2 (1931.10): 24–25.

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Figure 32. Magazine photo spread for Two Stars. (From Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 [1932.1.1].)

a variety of styles and values, including Western-style dances and modern urban leisures such as miniature golf. The wide range of forms and styles woven together in Two Stars mirrored the variegated experience of the crew and the complexity of the Lianhua Film Company itself. Lianhua had been created through a merger of four companies with diverse talents and different specializations.80 Two Stars director Shi Dongshan had made family melodramas for the Shanghai Film Company and costume dramas for Dazhonghua baihe in the 1920s, and he had worked with Zhu Shilin in the early 1930s on stylish cosmopolitan films as well. The cinematographer for Two Stars, Zhou Ke, had a similar range of experience. One of Lianhua’s studio heads was the ardent nationalist Li Minwei, who had documented the Northern Ex80 Lianhua, also known by its English name United Photoplay Service, was formed at the initiative of Luo Mingyou, who merged his North China Studio with the Minxin (China Sun) Company, headed by Li Minwei, and the Da Zhonghua (Great China) studio in 1930. A year later, the film production company Shanghai, headed by Dan Duyu, became part of Lianhua. Lianhua set up a sixth production studio in 1931 (in Hong Kong, headed by Li Beihai), and a seventh in 1933.

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Figure 33. The still photo from Love’s Sorrow recycled into publicity for Two Stars. (From Liangyou 64 [1931.12.30]: 5.)

pedition on film just a few years earlier, in 1927. And of course, the key musical adviser for Two Stars, Li Jinhui, was well known for his popular stage shows and promotion of the national dialect movement. As a film that drew on all these disparate elements, Two Stars served as a kind of metonym for Lianhua, itself a collage of talent and styles. Structurally, Two Stars shifts between the dualities of East and West, Chinese and foreign, tradition and modernity—presenting Cantonese music in the opening scene; then moving to a Western-style studio boardroom and stage show; then into a Chinese costume opera; then returning to the modern filmset, Cathay Club mini golf, and Western ballroom dancing; then playing the Cantonese soundtrack through the wireless; and, finally, back to photographic reminders of filial duty and the sounds of Cantonese music at the closing. The film negotiates between the promises of modern media and anxieties about foreign cultural values. It celebrates and interrogates local forms and traditions, offering up Cantonese music, filial piety, and parallel romances in the historical opera and the modern film plot. These may offer some sense of cultural continuity with the past. Yet with the painful outcomes for the protagonists, the film never lets us forget the human cost of upholding those traditions. It keeps us fully aware of the complications and nuances of the issues through to the closing shot. Two Stars is arguably far more unsettling and complex than a stand-alone opera film or contemporary feature might be. If, as Mitchell explains, metapictures “elicit not just a double vision, but a double voice, and a double relation between language and visual

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experience . . .as if the image could speak and the words were on display,”81 then the metafilm Two Stars did all these things and more. The uncanny, recursive layers in the film displayed the uneasy tensions and anxieties for urban Chinese at a pivotal time. The film moved between fiction and film, art and life, opera and film, motion pictures and still photographs, tradition and modernity, past and present—constantly blurring the lines between them. Even after the production was complete, the Lianhua Film Company duplicated the Love’s Sorrow publicity film still produced by the fictional Yinhan Film Company within the diegesis and circulated this opera still as part of the Two Stars press kit distributed to the print media.82 Two Stars on the Silver Screen not only adapted a compelling “star is born” tale rooted in the lives of gifted singers, whether contemporary, historical, or fictional, it also self-referentially dramatized the array of aspirations and possibilities envisioned by Chinese filmmakers themselves at this critical moment in 1931. If the metafilm prompts us to ask “Who is behind the camera?,” the answer offered by Two Stars is emphatic: Chinese are behind the camera.

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Mitchell, Picture Theory, 68. This image stood out vividly in the print media because it was reproduced in full-page photo features and, rather unusually for the time, as a full-color full-page plate in magazines. For examples, see Yingxi zazhi 2, no. 3 (1932.1.1): n.p.; The Young Companion/Liangyou 64 (1931.12.30): 5. 82

NINE

Alternative History, Alternative Memory: Cinematic Representation of the Three Gorges in the Shadow of the Dam

SHELDON H. LU

This chapter presents a selective analysis of several films: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (also called Balzac et la Petite Tailleuse; Xiao Caifeng ᇣ㺕㏿; 2002; dir. Dai Sijie ᠈ᗱᵄ), In Expectation (also called Rainclouds over Wushan; Wushan yunyu Ꮏቅ䳆䲼; 1996; dir. Zhang Ming ゴᯢ), Still Life (Sanxia haoren; 2006; dir. Jia Zhangke 䊜ῳ᷃), and the documentary Dong ᵅ (2006; dir. Jia Zhangke). What is common to all these films is the pending submergence of life under water at the completion of the Three Georges Dam project. Villages, towns, cities, and historic relics will all be wiped out in the relentless flood of modernization. Together, these films explore the last moments of life before the disappearance and burial of memories, lives, and history. The Three Gorges Dam has had a huge impact on citizens along the Yangzi River and has caused massive migration within China. These films bear testimony to the collective consequence of China’s decision to flood traces of its own history and memory, and they compel us to rethink the dilemma and dialectics of enlightenment. A central argument of mine is that these films amount to “memoryin-the-making” or “history-in the-making” in regard to the fate of the people living in the Three Gorges area. Because the construction of the Three Gorges Dam is a state-sponsored project of the highest level, voices of opposition to this megaproject have been silenced or ignored in China. There is an official verdict or official history about the potential benefits of the Three Gorges Dam to the Chinese nation. Contemporaneous with the construction of the dam, these films and their makers rush in to offer

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alternative visions, tales, and histories about the dam and the people living near it that differ from the grand official narrative. They make their own claims to truth and authenticity. The relationship between feature films and independent documentary, on the one hand, and official pronouncements, on the other, in this instance is very much analogous to the relationship between xiaoshuo (little talk, minor discourse, fiction, unofficial history) and zhengshi (official historiography) throughout Chinese history.1 As these films about the pending inundation of the Three Gorges area were made when the dam construction itself was not yet completed, the films themselves were creating the memories and histories of an unfolding process. Again, contrary to the official national ideology about the positive results of hydraulic modernity, the films are little stories (xiaoshuo) that focus on the lives, struggles, love, and hate of ordinary people. In other words, the films bring a personal, human dimension to a grand, impersonal process of dam building and nation building. Since we are talking about “memory-in-the-making,” existing theoretical tools seem inadequate for our task. Historians and film critics sometimes describe a compelling dialectic of history on film and film on history.2 However insightful such scholarship is, it does not solve our problem at hand. The films under our scrutiny are not “history films” or dramatizations of past historical events. Rather, they allude to and are simultaneous with the present moment. In our case, film is thus contemporary history or history-in-the-making. It is the construction of the history of the not-yet-past. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is a Sino-French coproduction based on Dai Sijie’s novel. Set in a remote village in Sichuan Province in the early 1970s, the film unfolds the story of two Chinese “rusticated” youths (zhishi qingnian ⶹ䄬䴦ᑈ, or zhiqing ⶹ䴦) from the city with “reactionary” family backgrounds—Luo Ming (Chen Kun) and Ma Jianling (Liu Ye)—and their encounter with a local peasant girl, Little Seamstress (Zhou Xun). It is a time when Western “bourgeois” thought and books are banned in the ultraleftist political climate of China. By chance, these youths discover books of Western literature that have been hidden by another “sent-down” youth, Four Eyes (Wang Hongwei). They secretly read these translated masterpieces of nineteenth-century European literature 1 I elaborated on this point in my book From Historicity to Fictionality: The Chinese Poetics of Narrative (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994), 161–164. 2 See, for instance, Robert A. Rosenstone, History on Film/Film on History (Harlow, U.K.: Pearson Education, 2006); Robert Rosenstone, Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995); and Marc Ferro, Cinema and History, trans. Naomi Greene (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1988).

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Figure 1: Little Seamstress (Zhou Xun) and Luo Ming (Chen Kun) in Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress.

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Figure 2: Little Seamstress, Luo Ming, and Ma Jianling (Liu Ye) in Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress.

by authors such as Stendhal, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, and Kipling. Among the European classics that they read are Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le Noir (Red and black), Gustav Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, and Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. But Little Seamstress’s favorite author is Balzac, and her favorite book is Balzac’s Ursula (Ursule Mirouët). She becomes enamored of the dress of French ladies as seen in the book illustrations, and she even tries on a bra so as to enhance her body’s sensuality. When her lover Luo Ming asks who has changed her, Little Seamstress gives a simple, straightforward answer: “Balzac.” Despite Honoré de Balzac’s antimodern inclinations and his nostalgia for the past, to the Chinese readers who were lucky enough to have access to his books, he represents the opposite of the backward, enclosed, repressed life in the last years of the Mao era. The novels of this Western writer embody enlightenment, modernity, and civilization. The works of Balzac and other European writers are secretly read in the Chinese dark age of cultural deprivation, or what is officially called the “Cultural Revolution.” The young people’s taste of forbidden fruits of knowledge soon leads to forbidden love. Luo and Little Seamstress fall in love, and as a result Little Seamstress becomes pregnant and has to go through an abortion (illegal at the time for unmarried women). Little Seamstress decides to change her life by leaving the primitive town of Phoenix Village. She has learned from Balzac that “a woman’s beauty is a priceless treasure.” With nothing else in her possession except a youthful body, she embarks on a physical journey to a brave, new, unknown future. Western literature has served as the catalyst for the awakening of selfconsciousness in an era of profound political and intellectual oppression.

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With all the humor, comedy, and fascinating local color, the film is nevertheless an apparent criticism of the stifling atmosphere of a particular historical era of Chinese socialism. The legacy of Balzac and other towering European writers is conveniently appropriated by the director as a vital source of humanism for which the Chinese people thirst. Balzac has been lionized as one of the greatest writers of nineteenth-century realism by a long list of literary critics and social theorists, including a figure as influential as Karl Marx. But Balzac’s political stance and artistic style cannot be simply characterized as belonging to a straightforward progressive humanist agenda. For those who have been denied knowledge, however, anything Western that they can grab is intrinsically different, interesting, enlightening, and liberating. The one-sided linear humanist discourse of enlightenment reaches a moment of critical, dialectical self-reflection toward the end of the film. The consequences of modernity come under question. Time cuts to two decades later, the 1990s. This is the historical moment when a capitaliststyle market economy is fully legitimized in China. The country has subscribed to an economic open-door policy and a developmentalist logic as formulated by Deng Xiaoping, whom Mao Zedong once denounced as a “capitalist roader” (zouzi pai 䍄䊛⌒). China is in the process of incorporating itself into the order of global capitalism.3 The former rusticated youths are now middle-aged men living in Shanghai and France, respectively. Luo is a well-established professor of dentistry in Shanghai, whereas Ma is a successful violinist in France. Ma has lived in France for many years and has performed with the Lyon Symphony Orchestra. One day, Ma watches a French TV report about the construction of the Three Georges Dam and the imminent destruction of the village in Sichuan where he and Luo had lived. This prompts him to take a trip to the old mountain village and search for the unforgettable village girl, Little Seamstress. Filled with nostalgia for the past, he especially buys a bottle of French perfume to bring to Little Seamstress. At his arrival in Phoenix Village, Little Seamstress is nowhere to be found. The villagers will be soon be relocated, as the whole place will be submerged. The villagers prepare sacrifices to the village and their ancestors by making paper boats and floating them in water. Ma swims amid the paper boats. Twenty years ago, he came of age in this place. His revisit is homage to the disappearing past as well as mourning for lost youth. 3 For book-length critical discussions of the social, economic, and cultural transformations of China in the 1990s in the context of globalization, see Sheldon H. Lu, China, Transnational Visuality, Global Postmodernity (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001); Kang Liu, Globalization and Cultural Trends in China (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004).

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Figure 3: Dai Sijie (born 1954).

The two old friends Luo and Ma reunite in Shanghai. Postcardlike images of Shanghai’s Bund and Pudong betoken another face of China—the showcase of economic prosperity as a result of China’s “reform and openness” (gaige kaifang). The neon signs and glitzy images of cosmopolitan Shanghai toward the end of the film form a sharp contrast to the primitive mountainous village, which is the predominant setting in the early part of film. Luo and Ma reminisce about their youth in the early 1970s, the years they spent together as rusticated youths in a village in Sichuan. They watch a video that Luo shot during his recent tour of the region. The footage includes the old, nearly toothless village chief who was a powerful authority in the old days. In fear of him, Ma, who brought a violin with him to the village, renamed Mozart’s “Concerto for Violin in G” with the absurd and yet felicitous title “Mozart Thinks of Chairman Mao.” Luo and Ma had dreamed about returning to the city and leaving this backward place in the early 1970s. However, as the whole area will be inundated in the construction of the Three Georges Dam, they now cast an elegiac, nostalgic look at the fast disappearing past. In the final shots of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, the whole village is submerged, and a sewing machine goes under water while the soundtrack plays the beautiful notes of Mozart’s Concerto in G for Violin. The film produces an overpowering mourning for and remembrance of things past. As a coming-of-age story in part, this film reminds the viewer of another film—Sacrifice of Youth (Qingchun ji 䴦᯹⽁; 1985; dir. Zhang Nuanxin). That film is also about city youths who are sent down to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. It is set in village where these young people mature and discover their sense of self and sexuality. The village years are their “rite of passage.” As the Cultural Revolution ends, these rusticated youths leave the village and return to the city. At the end of the film, the narrative voice states that the village is destroyed in a landslide. The young people’s past is physically erased from the planet, but the memory of their youth persists.

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Figure 4: Li Chun, played by Li Fengxu, in Sacrifice of Youth (Qingchun ji).

In the rush to modernize, Chinese leaders hope to transform, tame, and conquer nature.4 This is indeed the flip side of modernization and enlightenment. As defined in plain words by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno in their book Dialectic of Enlightenment, “Enlightenment’s program was the disenchantment of the world. It wanted to dispel myths, to overcome fantasy with knowledge.”5 Socialist modernity is, then, the dispelling of superstition, myths, and feudal traditions. Hence, modernization itself has become a mythology and a grand metanarrative in modern China. In Expectation is the title of a 1996 film by a young Chinese director, a graduate of the Beijing Film Academy, Zhang Ming. This story is also set against the background of the pending flooding of a town along the Yangzi River due to the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. In the town itself, signs are posted that the water level will rise to 175 meters. The whole town will be submerged once the hydraulic project is completed. People must disperse and move to higher ground. Chinese tourists from faraway places come to the town in order to see the Three Gorges area before it disappears from the map. The sexual connotation of the title (rainclouds being a traditional Chinese euphemism for sexual liaison) is brought into full play in the film. The story of the film centers on a signal operator along the Yangzi River waterway, Mai Qiang, and his sexual encounter with a single mother, Chen Qing. Mai is a solitary, quiet, introverted character living and working by himself at a signal station that directs traffic on the Yangzi River. His buddy Ma Bing wants to change Mai’s lifestyle, and one day brings 4 See Judith Shapiro, Mao’s War against Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Elizabeth Economy, The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China’s Future (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005). 5 Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, ed. Gunzelin Schmid Noerr, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002), 1.

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Figure 5: Mai Qiang and Lili in In Expectation (Wushan yunyu).

with him a shady young woman, Lili, during a visit. Although Mai refuses to have sex with Lili even after they are set up by Ma, Mai’s sexual desire is aroused by Lili nevertheless. After the departure of Ma and Lili, Mai cannot contain his desire anymore and roams into the nearby town. He meets Chen, a single mother, sleeps with her, and leaves money with her at the end of their sexual liaison. Chen works at a hotel and has had an ongoing affair with the head of the hotel, Lao Mo. Lao Mo is jealous of Chen’s relationship with the newcomer Mai and reports a case of “rape” to a young local police officer, Xiao Wu, or Wu Gang. Xiao Wu investigates and interrogates the people possibly involved—Mai Qiang, Chen Qing, and Ma Bing. Chen does not admit that she was raped by Mai; he is thus left free. At the end the film, he revisits Chen, for a possible long-term relationship. Throughout the film, there is a very thin line between law and crime, between prostitution and intimacy, between the law-enforcing police and the civilians. The police officer Xiao Wu, an all-too-human figure, is himself busy with the preparation of his marriage. Xiao Wu’s personal interest is perked by Ma Bing when the latter tells Xiao Wu that he can help him buy a refrigerator at a cheaper price even as Xiao Wu is interrogating him for possible complicity in crime. Lao Mo, the head and leader of the stateowned hotel, could have committed a criminal act himself when he falsely reported a rape. After the sexual act, Mai gives money to Chen, who accepts it. The amount of money is excessively larger than the usual fee for a prostitute. It is not clear whether this constitutes an act of prostitution or is an act of generosity toward a struggling single mother. The entangled relationship among Ma Bing, Lili, and Mai Qiang is also not clear. Is Lili a friend of Ma’s? Or is she hired by Ma as a prostitute for his friend Mai? Moral boundaries are blurred throughout the film. What one notices is daily necessity and acts of contingency in the ordinary lives of citizens along the Yangzi River.

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Early on in the film, there is a scene when Mai’s TV is turned on in his signal station. The TV broadcasts the news of the opening ceremony of the Three Gorges Dam project, with the presence of Premier Li Peng and other high-ranking Chinese leaders. In the second half of the film, when the center of action moves from the isolated signal station to the hustle and bustle of life in the town, “doomsday” looms larger and larger. In the back of the mind of each resident is the thought that the town will be eventually flooded and destroyed by the Three Gorges Dam. This ominous prospect affects every aspect of their life and future plans. The grand project that is supposed to help the local residents will eventually uproot them from their habitual place of living. Is this boon or bane?6 The film that most directly tackles the issue of the Three Gorges Dam is Jia Zhangke’s Still Life, which won the Golden Lion Award at the 2006 Venice Film Festival. The setting of the film is the two-thousand-year-old town Fengjie ༝㆔, located near the Three Gorges. Predictably, the town is being gradually erased as the completion of the dam nears. Two characters from Shanxi Province go to Fengjie to look for their long-separated loved ones. The coal miner Sanming (Han Sanming) looks for his wife, whereas the nurse Shen Hong (Zhao Tao) hopes to find her husband. When Sanming arrives and tries to locate the old address of his wife, he is informed that the place is already underwater. While waiting for a reunion with his wife, he lands on a temporary job as a demolition worker. The daily task of the demolition team is to chip away and tear down the remaining buildings of Fengjie. What the viewer sees by following Jia’s characteristic slow horizontal pan is an endless landscape of rubble, ruins, and destruction against the background of the natural beauty of the Three Gorges. The immense magnitude of this state-engineered physical destruction is beyond imagination and amounts to what might be called the “ugly sublime.” As one critic puts it, “It is precisely the spectacular ugliness of the physical devastation of the urban environment around the Three Gorges that captures the camera’s gaze: an anti-still life that monumentalizes destruction, giving it an awful, sublime grandeur normally reserved for scenes of natural beauty.”7 6 Nick Kaldis offers a detailed analysis of the film in his essay “National Development and Individual Trauma in Wushan yunyu,” The China Review 4, no. 2 (2004): 165–192. 7 Shelly Kraicer, “Chinese Wasteland: Jia Zhangke’s Still Life,” Cinema Scope 29, available at http://asianart.posterous.com/cinemascope-shelly-kraicers-take-on-still-lif (accessed 7 February 2012). More detailed studies of Jia Zhangke’s film aesthetics prior to the release of Still Life are given in Xiaoping Lin, “Jia Zhangke’s Cinematic Trilogy: A Journey across the Ruins of Post-Mao China,” in Chinese-Language Film: Historiography, Poetics, Politics, ed. Sheldon H. Lu and Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2005), 186–209; Jason McGrath, “The Independent Cinema of Jia Zhangke: From Postsocialist Realism to a

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Figure 6: Advertising poster of Jia Zhangke’s Still Life (Sanxia haoren).

The unfathomable magnitude and magnificence of the Three Gorges, especially Wu Gorge, has long been celebrated in Chinese literature and culture. This sense is captured in the memorable lines of the Tang poet Yuan Zhen: “Having experienced the sea, it is difficult to be impressed by ordinary water; / No cloud appears appealing after Wu Mountain (᳒㍧⒘ ⍋䲷⚎∈, 䰸ैᎿቅϡᰃ䳆).” The unparalleled natural beauty is matched only by an equally unparalleled degree of destruction. The Three Gorges Dam boasts of being the largest dam in the world. It is also the greatest man-made ecological disaster and human destruction of nature and culture. As Sanming and Shen Hong navigate through the bureaucracy and local customs in search of their respective spouses, the viewer gets to see other ugly side effects of the dam project, namely, the negative social aspects. Corruption, theft of public assets by the local relocation office, insufficient compensation for dislocated residents, and the omnipresence of gangsters are the order of the day. The film reveals these abhorrent problems with a Transnational Aesthetic,” The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century, ed. Zhen Zhang (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2007), 81–114.

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candid camera that is unusual for a Chinese filmmaker who must struggle with strict film censorship in the People’s Republic of China. In the film, Shen Hong, while trying to find her husband, runs into Dongming (Wang Hongwei), a former colleague of hers and her husband’s, just when he is working on an archeological site, a tomb from the Western Han dynasty.8 This brief passing detail is nevertheless a significant allusion to the brute fact that precious historical relics will be swept away and buried by the Three Gorges Dam. Tourists from all over the country go to this town to catch one last glimpse of the Three Gorges. In a cruise leaving Fengjie for Shanghai, the tour guide broadcasts to the tourists about the beauty and historical importance of the area. The guide recites a famous poem by Li Bai (Li Po) that all Chinese schoolchildren learn titled “Departing from Baidi City in the Morning (ᮽⱐⱑᏱජ)”: In the morning I bade farewell to Baidi amid colorful clouds, And crossing a thousand li I returned to Jiangling in a single day. While gibbons on the riverbanks cried endlessly, My light boat already passed by myriad mountains. ᳱ䖁ⱑᏱᔽ䳆䭧, ग䞠∳䱉ϔ᮹䙘DŽܽኌ⤓㙆୐ϡԣ, 䓩㟳Ꮖ䘢㨀䞡ቅDŽ

Baidi cheng ⱑᏱජ (lit., City of the White Emperor) is a city famous to readers of Tang poetry and lovers of The Romance of Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi ϝ೟ⓨ㕽). It is the place where Liu Bei, emperor of the state of Shu㳔, entrusted his toddler son/would-be orphan (tuogu ᠬᄸ) to the tutelage and care of his loyal minister Zhuge Liang before his death. The city has been ingrained in the Chinese consciousness as the locale of an exemplary, eternal tale about the relationship between a loving sovereign and a loyal minister. The benefit that the Three Gorges Dam will bring to this legendary ancient place is that the city will be flooded and surrounded by water, becoming a tiny island! One of the most vivid and charismatic characters in the film is perhaps none other than a gangster, Mark (Xiaomageᇣ侀હ), a Chow Yun-fat fan. He strikes up a friendship with Sanming and transforms from an extorter of his money to his protector. In one scene, Sanming and Mark are eating and drinking together. Mark indulges in facetious yet earnest nostalgia for the past (huaijiu ់㟞) in a manner reminiscent of Chow’s stellar performances as heroic gangsters in A Better Tomorrow (Yingxiong bense 㣅䲘ᴀ㡆) 8 The intertextual relationship here is rather interesting. Wang Hongwei is the actor who portrays Four Eyes in Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. He is the lead actor in several Jia Zhangke films: Xiaoshan Goes Home (Xiaoshan huijia), Xiao Wu, and Platform (Zhantai). He also briefly appears in Jia’s Unknown Pleasures (Ren xiaoyao) as a hawker of bootlegged DVDs, asking the buyer whether he needs a copy of Xiao Wu.

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and Killer (Diexue shuangxiong ୟ㸔䲭䲘): “We do not fit in contemporary society. We are too nostalgic for the past.” He continues: “There are no good people left in Fengjie anymore.” Throughout the film, there is a jarring juxtaposition between beautiful natural landscapes and ugly man-made ruins. As the camera pans horizontally, the stunning scenery of the Three Gorges unfolds like a scroll of classical Chinese landscape painting, shanshui hua ቅ∈⬿ (lit., “pictures of mountains and rivers”). All the beautiful natural scenery of such paintings stands in sharp contrast to unsightly human-induced destruction. As the viewer follows the meanderings of the characters, the word chai ᢚ (demolition, tearing down) appears on walls and buildings marked for demolition. Indeed, demolition has been the physical reality of the Chinese nation as well as the trauma of individual citizens.9 Mammoth statesponsored modernization plans often disregard the feelings and needs of individual residents. A companion work to Still Life is Jia Zhangke’s documentary Dong, which also won major European awards for documentary film. The feature and the documentary were shot in Fengjie at the same time. Dong (East) refers to the protagonist of the film, Liu Xiaodong ࡝ᇣᵅ, a painter, who goes down to Three Gorges from Beijing to paint.10 The first half of the film is set in Fengjie, where Liu hires a dozen demolition workers as his male models for painting. The second half of the film moves to Bangkok, Thailand, where Liu hires a dozen Thai prostitutes as models for his painting. What is common between the two halves of the documentary is the concern with the fate of human beings against anonymous social forces beyond their control. Both groups, Chinese and Thai, have been reduced to the state of homelessness. They are migrants in search of jobs and dignity. In the first part, there is a section where Liu visits a family and consoles the mother and young daughter whose father died in a workrelated accident. The human toll of the Three Gorges project is clearly felt in the tragic lives of local people: the girl will never see her father again. Once in a while, the protagonist-narrator Liu Xiaodong speaks directly to the camera about a general, unnamable “great sadness” (da bei) as an 9 This issue is taken up in Sheldon Lu, “Tear Down the City: Reconstructing Urban Space in Contemporary Chinese Popular Cinema and Avant-garde Art,” in Zhang, The Urban Generation, 137–160; Yomi Braester, “Tracing the City’s Scars: Demolition and the Limits of the Documentary Impulse in the New Urban Cinema,” in Zhang, The Urban Generation, 161–180. 10 Liu Xiaodong regards himself as a participant in the New Chinese Cinema Movement. He and his wife Yu Hong, another painter, were the main characters in the first film directed by Wang Xiaoshuai, The Days (Dongchun de rizi), based on their personal lives. Liu and Wang also had cameo appearances as upstarts in Jia’s film The World (Shijie).

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Figure 7 (above): New Immigrants of the Three Gorges (Sanxia xin yimin), by Liu Xiaodong.

Figure 8 (right): New Immigrants of the Three Gorges, detail.

artist and an observer of society. Yet, he is interested in life, vital forces, and human bodies as the subjects of his painting. He finds the bodies and muscles of the young worker-models attractive and wants to paint them. Liu has visited and painted at the Three Gorges several times. One of his paintings is New Immigrants of the Three Gorges (Sanxia xin yimin), a gigantic oil painting that is 10 meters wide and 3 meters high. The private collector of this painting auctioned it off at the Poly Autumn Art Fair in Beijing in November 2006, selling it at the price of 22 million yuan (about 3 million U.S. dollars). The buyer is a female entrepreneur, Zhang Lan, a tycoon in the Chinese food industry. The exorbitant price of Liu’s painting is an index of the public’s concern with the Three Gorges and the plight of the dislocated locals. All these films and visual images revolving around the building of the Three Gorges Dam bear testimony to the ruthless physical eradication of cities, towns, villages, and communities. This is the result of reckless modernization under the reign of instrumental rationality that treats nature as a “standing reserve” awaiting human appropriation. The moving

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images of the cinema speak to a model of enlightenment and a vision of modernization that have become increasingly problematic in the age of global warming, or global environmental destruction. Fictional feature film paradoxically achieves something that is the purported opposite: history. Film becomes alternative history vis-à-vis official historiography. It offers glimpses of life and reality shunned and buried by the grand official ideology of modernization. Film bears witness to contemporary history that is in turn stored as memory for the future.

Index

Note: Bold page numbers indicate major discussion or illustrations. Illustrations are indicated by “f” or “ff.” Maps are indicated by “m.” Notes are indicated by n or nn. Discussion that continues across pages of unrelated illustrations is indicated by a forward slant, as in “83/85.” Abbot, Bernice (art photographer), 64 Adorno, Theodor W., 250 advertisement. See movie advertisements; publicity aesthetics: of China and Japan integrated in Chun jiang yi hen, 145–146; importance relative to social engagement and documentary accuracy, 64–67, 70–71, 74, 124; of Peking opera recontextualized within a Western aesthetic value system, 93–96, 109; and the presentation of peddlers in photographs, 121; preservation of the six elements of literati ink painting in photography, 63; role in social harmony and cultural development, 62, See also art photography All for the Nation (Gongfu guonan; Lianhua film): advertisement for, 173, 173f4; limited screening of, 9, 188 All Quiet on the Western Front (dir. Lewis Milestone; 1930), 168 amateur photography/photographers: consumer access to cameras, 1–2, 16–18, 62; photography societies, 62, 67, 68; random photographs taken by, 17, 21–22 Anderson, Marston, 56n3

art photography: imitation of painting as a feature of, 63–64, 65f3, 75; and the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial style, 75; mimetic faithfulness and technical perfection as a goal of, 65; mimetic faithfulness downplayed by leftist photographers, 63, 70–71; refutation of recognizably manipulated images by leftist artists, 56, 56n3; and social responsibility, 64–71, See also aesthetics; Sha Fei (art photographer) atrocities: abandoned corpses made visible by photodocumentation, 46–53, 48f33, 49m5a–b, 50ě34Ȯ3ś, 51f36, 52ě3ŝȮ3ş, 53f40; and documented memory, 166–168, 170; framed and positioned in photographs, 76–77, 77n72. See also Boxer Rebellion atrocities Baglio, Joseph (American airman), 73, 73fś Bai Juyi (Tang dynasty poet), 214, 215 Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Balzac et la Petite Tailleuse; Xiao Caifeng; dir. Dai Sijie; 2002): actor Wang Hongwei’s appearance in, 246, 254n8; and the cinematic representation of the Three Gorges Dam project, 245

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Bando Tsumasaburo (Japanese film star), 145, 146, 154 barbers: head shaving during the summer, 127–128, 138; instruments used to attract business, 133; street barbers, 114f1, 117, 130 Barthes, Roland, 55n1, 77 Beiping chenbao (Peking newspaper), 140 Benjamin, Walter, 3–4, 64 Berger, John, 24n19 Bethune, Norman (Canadian communist medical surgeon), 56, 74 Birns, Jack (photographer), 50–51, 50–51ě3śȮ36 Black-and-White Photo Society (Heibai sheying she), 62, 67, 68 Bloody Battle of Shanghai against the Japanese (Shanghui kang Ri xue zhanshi; dir. Zhang Huizhong), 169–170 Boxer Rebellion atrocities, 77n72 “Bright Moon Song-and-Dance Troupe” (Mingyue gewutuan): and foreign inspiration, 205–206; and Lianhua’s song-and-dance troupe, 204; organized by Li Jinhui, 196 British American Tobacco Company poster-calendars, 2 Brown, Shana, 6, 22n17, śśȮŞ0 Cai Chusheng (Lianhua filmmaker): cameo appearance in Two Stars, 226; Fifth Brother Wang (Wang laowu), 186–188, 187ě1şȮŘ0; and the National Salvation Association of Shanghai Cinema, 186 California College in China, 122 cameras: 120-format cameras, 73; allowing instant shots, 21; consumer access to, 1–2, 12, 16–18, 62; Kodak Retina of Sha Fei, 56–57, 73; Leica carried into the battlefront by Ye Ting, 60; as weapons of revolutionary photographers, 69–70; Zeiss Ikon of Michael Lindsay, 78, See also photographers; photography

Index

Capa, Robert (photographer), 21, 76 Cartier-Bresson, Henri (art photographer), 21, 57, 64 censorship: and access to materials in the Film Archive of China, 18, 159, 160; applied to words and not visuals, 178; banning of Western “bourgeois” thought and books during the Cultural Revolution, 246–248; discrimination against film personalities who rose to fame in the occupation-era film industry, 159–160; of films mentioning the Shanghai war, 167, 176–177, 182; Japanese pressure on Chinese film studios, 176; Jia Zhangke’s boldness in the face of, 254; Lianhua Drama Inspection Committee (Lianhua xiju shencha weiyuanhui), 198n15; of memory, 181; National Film Censorship Committee, 176n44; self-censorship by the Lianhua Film Company, 178n49; of the Shanghai Incident of 1932, 178, 180–181, 188–190, See also documented memory; history/tradition; immorality; moral rectitude; “reality” reporting; representation Censorship Committee, and the Central Department of Propaganda, 176 Central Department of Propaganda, and the Censorship Committee, 176 Chen Jiru (Zengbu Wanbao quanshu, Expanded comprehensive compendium of countless treasures), 92n30, 93f16ŠȮ‹ Chen Yanyan, 157–158 Chen Yunshang (Cantonese actress/ female star of Mulan cong jun), 156 Cheng Jihua (film historian), 143–144, 159 Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi), 60, 171, 182, 186 children: corpses of, 49–śŠ, 50–53, 50–52ě3śȮ3ş; nostalgic versions of childhood, 224; performing songand-dance shows, 206; playing with

Index

war toys, 179, 179fś; of refugees, 33, 36, 36n10, 46–54, 46f31; shown dying in war movies, 186–187, 187fŘ0; story of Liu Bei’s orphaned toddler son, 254; targeted by peddlers, 114–115, 115fŘ, 126; transported by peddlers on shoulder poles, 130; working as peddlers, 125, 140 China Reconstructs (English-language pictorial magazine), 6, 79 Chinese/foreigner distinction, picturetaking perspectives of, 22–23 Chow Yun-fat (actor), 254–255 Chun jiang yi hen (Remorse in Shanghai; dir. Xu Xinling, Inagaki Hiroshi; 1944): compared to Wan shi liu fang, 156–157, 158; and transnational filmmaking, 161; and Wang Danfeng (film star), 145, 150, 154, 158, 159–160 Chunping (fictional character), as a vampish woman in Yinhan shangxing, 221 cinematographic production: the complementary vision provided by feature films, 174–175; and historical issues, 8–9, 173; Lianhua Film Company as exemplary, 238, 238fŘş; and the re-visioning of the past, 171–172, 173–174; and self-reflexivity, 217–220, 218ěŞȮ10, See also documented memory; newsreels Claremont Graduate School (Claremont Graduate University), 122 collaboration: globalization compared to, 161; Shanghai film stars accused as traitors for, 155–161 communication: across cultures, 7, 81; bi tan (brush conversation), 147; communicative powers of Mei Langfang’s hands/body gesture, 89–90, 98–100, 99ě1ŝȮŘ0, 100ěŘ1ŠȮŒ, 104–105, 108; convergence of media in the cast party scene from Love’s Sorrow, 228–229, 228fŘ0; mechanically reproduced images as a feature of

261

modernity, 1–3, 5, 11, 12; photographs as a central element of emerging mass media, 12–13; of unwitnessed events via newsreels, 170, See also media Communists: and the support of leading personalities, 157–158, See also Cultural Revolution; People’s Republic of China concubinage, 230–231, 233 Concubine Meifei, played by Li Yueying, 212–215, 232–236 Concubine Xi Shi (patriotic beauty), 103–104, 105n39 Confucian values: and filial piety, 230–236, 243; and the lofty rhetoric in boardroom scene of Two Stars, 239; orchids as symbols for the beauty and fragility of women, 93, 110; orchids as symbols for the behavior of Confucian “gentleman” (junzi), 92 Constant, Victor Samuel (photographer): about, 122–123; on the “audible color” of peddlers’ advertising, 139; and Morrison’s photographs compared, 121, 125–126; on the omnipresent walls in Peking, 132; and Qi Rushan, 123–124; records of peddlers’ songs/ instruments, 135–137; seasonal organization of peddler images by, 127–128, 137–138 corpses: of children, 47–53, 48f3, 49–śŠ, 50–52ě3śȮ3ş; cremation of, 51–53, 52–53ě3ŞȮ40 countryside: equated with tradition and morality, 233–234; Mao Zedong’s rural line policies, 58–59, 74–75 courts, and peddler disputes, 120 cultural heritage: bi tan (brush conversation), 147; Cantonese music, 201–202, 202n27, 216, 243; Chinese inkstones, 150; classical poetry, 215, 215n52, 254; Li Bai’s “Departing from Baidi City in the Morning”; evoked in modern advertising posters, 212; Japanese

262

cultural heritage (continued) appreciation of Chinese culture, 147, 148, 149, 151–153; jiashan (rockery, artificial mountains), 222, 224; landscape painting (sanshui hua), 255, See also dan (Peking opera female roles) cultural regeneration: dan actors as cultural ambassadors, 7, 81–82, 109–110; recasting of the image of China in Vandamm’s photographs, 85; and the remembrance of things past, 228–230, 230fŘ1, 247–249, See also May Fourth Movement Cultural Revolution: banning of Western “bourgeois” thought and books during, 246–248; portrayed in Sacrifice of Youth (Qinchun ji), 249; sent down/ rusticated/reeducated youths, 10, 246–247, 249, See also Communists; People’s Republic of China Dai Sijie (movie director/novelist of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress), 249f3 dan (Peking opera female roles): and the image of China in the West, 7, 81–82, 109–110; photography as an interpretive tool in the evolution of, 102, See also cultural heritage; gender; Mei Lanfang (Peking opera actor, dan interpreter); Peking opera; women Deng Tuo (editor of Mao’s Collected Works), and Jin-Cha-Ji propaganda and news efforts, 59 Diansheng ribao (Radio movie daily news), 176; analysis of Japanese movies on the Manchurian and Shanghai wars, 168; on the cancellation of The History of the Battle of Shanghai, 167 displaced people: homeless Thai prostitutes, 255, 256, 256f8; peddlers forced to move, 113; sent down/rusticated/ reeducated youths, 10, 246–247, 249; and the Three Gorges Dam project, 10, 253, 255–256, 256ěŝȮŞ; wartime

Index

Shanghai refugees, 5–6, 1ŘȮś4, 164, See also refugees documented memory: cinematic “memory-in-the-making,” 245–246, 256–257; diary accounts, 146, 170–171, 170–171n25, 172; emergence of war photography as a genre, 12–13; and the institutional conditions of partisan media, 56; and Internet technologies, 24, 24n20, 53; liberties taken with the historical record for dramatic effect, 150–152; newsreels of the Shanghai war, 170–172, 174–175, 179, 180fŞ; and the reduction of the scale of the Shanghai war, 9, 180–181, 189–190; and the relationship between xiaoshuo (unofficial history) and zhengshi (official historiography), 246, See also cinematographic production; memory; “reality” reporting doublings: “Double Minigolf” (“Shuang kao’erfu qiu tu”) advertising poster by Hang Zhiying, 221, 221f14; image shown twice distinguished with different meanings, 180, 181fş; mandarin duck pairs, 213, 222, 225; recursive layers of Two Stars, 192–193, 236, 243–244, See also intertextual relationships; self-reflexivity Egyptology: Egyptian dance performance, 208–210, 209ěśȮ6, 226; and “Orientalism,” 208–210, 208n9, 209ěśȮ6 Eighth Route Army: films of, 61–62; and Resist the Enemy (Kangdi bao), 72 Emperor Minghuang (Tang dynasty): dance music from the court of, 215, 215n52; romance of, 212–215, 229, 233 Emperor Xuanzong (Tang dynasty), 104 Empress Dowager Cixi, 2 Empress Mei Fee. See Concubine Meifei entertainment culture: peddlers as street theater, 111–112, 131–142; and photographic images, 2–3, 112; and

Index

Wang Jingwei’s Ministry of Propaganda, 144–145 ethnographic reports: and photography featured in Republican-period pictorial magazines, 66; produced by historians working with images, 20–23 exoticism, as a feature of photographs of peddlers, 124 facial expression: coordinated with hand gestures in photographs, 76, 89, 105, 107–109, 107–108ěŘŞȮ33; and Peking opera developments in the 1920s and 1930s, 102; revealing internal conflict of Yang Yiyun, 232, 233fŘŝ; static expression in photographs of The Life of Yang Guifei from 1926, 104; Taiping rebels superimposed on facial shot of Takasugi Shinsaku, 154 Feng Yi, 7–8, 111–142 Fifth Brother Wang (Wang laowu; dir. Cai Chusheng; 1938), 186–188, 187ě1şȮŘ0 Fifth Generation (Chinese films) and international coproduction, 161 filial piety: and arranged marriage, 230–236, 233fŘ6; and cultural continuity with the past, 243 Film Archive of China: access to, 18, 159; and Chun jiang yi hen, 144, 149f1, 160 film industry: portrayed in self-reflexive films, 191–192; Shanghai as a media center, 164; studios destroyed during the Battle of Shanghai, 166, 166nn8–9, See also Lianhua Film Company; MGM Fogel, Joshua, 146–148 food: and public health regulation, 119; for refugees during the attacks on Shanghai, 40, 42–43, 43n32; sold by peddlers, 111, 116, 118, 126, 130; sounds associated with food peddlers, 137 foreign culture: banning of Western “bourgeois” thought and books

263

during the Cultural Revolution, 246–248; Chinese fascination with Hollywood, 194, 227; emulation of Life magazine by Lianhe huabao (United pictorial), 60; fusion of Chinese folk songs and Western popular music by Li Jinhui, 201; golf links with modern- or foreign-sounding names in Shanghai, 220–223, 220n60, 223f1ś; viewed as superficial and decadent, 149, 206, 210, See also Western aesthetic value system foreigners: negative views of the British, 151–152, 208; picture-taking perspective of, 22–23; and selfcensorship by the Lianhua Film Company, 178n49 framing of pictures, photographs of Boxer atrocities, 77n72 French Concession: fortifications against refuge-seeking Chinese, 39–42, 39–40ě1ŘȮ16, 42–43ě1şȮŘ1; French Concession, body collectors patrolling streets of, 48/50, 50f34 Fu, Poshek, 143, 144n4, 160 Gamble, Sydney D., 17, 22 gazing/the gaze: actors gazing at publicity stills, 219–220, 219ff11–12, 231–232, 232ěŘ4ȮŘś; directed by the framing and position of photographs, 76–77, 77n72, 121; exposure of refugees to, 46, 46ěŘşȮ31; of tourists, 67, 112, 250, 254; of Westerners directed by photographed images, 7, See also spectacle gender: associated with “opening of the hand” gesture in Peking opera, 97–98; and the coded language of orchids, 92–93, 110; male power overcome by the female force of softness (yi rou ke gang), 110; “reason” and “clarity of political vision” as female traits, 151, See also dan (Peking opera female roles); women

264

globalization: the 1990s cultural transformation of China, 248; Chun jiang yi hen as exemplifying, 161; the hybrid cultural orientation of Two Stars, 200–201, 239–244, 242f3Ř golf: “Double Minigolf” (“Shuang kao’erfu qiu tu”) advertising poster by Hang Zhiying, 221, 221f14; golf balls evoking pairs of mandarin ducks, 222; golf links with modernor foreign-sounding names in Shanghai, 220, 220n60, 222–223, 223f1ś; miniature golf as a synecdoche for the filmset and even the nation, 10, 220–224, 221ě13Ȯ14, 223n63 Gongfu guonan. See All for the Nation Green-Lewis, Jennifer, 55n1 Guangxi Daily, 70 Gudu shiyue tukao (A pictorial study of city music in the ancient capital) by Qi Rushan, 123–124, 135–136 guohuo yundong (national products movement), 212 Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist government): censorship of films mentioning the Shanghai war, 177, 182; Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi), 60, 171, 182, 186; crisis of legitimacy caused by the Japanese attack on Shanghai, 164, 171, 176; film personalities supported by, 157–158; and the Lianhua Film Company, 185; and Mao Zedong’s urban line policies, 59n7, 74–75; resisted by the “red detachment of women” (hongse niangzi jun), 207; return to power in Nanjing and Shanghai, 155, See also propaganda hallucination: as an act of commemoration and hope, 183–185, 184ě11Ȯ14; and censored memories, 181, 181f10 Hallucinations of a Crazy Man (Fengren kuangxiang qu), 186, 187ě1ŝȮ1Ş hand gestures, and the expression of emotion/individualism, 76, 108–109

Index

Harris, Kristine, 9–10, 1ş1ȮŘ44 Henriot, Christian, 1Ȯ11, 5–6, 1ŘȮś4 Hine, Lewis W., 64 historical progress: explored in Two Stars, 224, 236; history-in-the-making on film, 245–246, 256–257, See also history/tradition historical research: access to original collections in the PRC, 18, 159; and the challenges of war photography, 13; and cinematographic production, 8–9; pictorial materials as encoded bodies of significance, 2–5; placement of singular images in conversation, 6; source/narrative tensions confronting historians, 14–21, 45, See also history/tradition; “visual narrative” creation The History of the Battle of Shanghai (Shanghai zhanshi; Lianhua newsreel), 166–169 The History of the Battle of the Nineteenth Route Army against the Japanese (Shijiu lu jun kang Ri zhanshi; Lianhua newsreel; three reels), 169, 169f3, 171–172 history/tradition: 1980s revisionist history of the Japanese occupation, 25–26; associated with the countryside, 233–234; and the convergence of past and present in Love’s Sorrow, 219, 227–229, 233; historical invention in Hollywood interpretations of the past, 174, 174n37; history-in-themaking on film, 245–246, 256–257; liberties taken with the historical record for dramatic effect, 150–152; and the relationship between xiaoshuo (unofficial history) and zhengshi (official historiography), 246; revival of historical costume dramas, 211–212; self-conscious reinvention of, 173–174, 211–213, 214–216; Zi Luolan’s interpretive reinvention of Cantonese opera singing, 216, See also censorship; historical progress; historical research; representation

Index

Hollywood: actresses idolized in novel and film version of Two Stars, 194, 227, 239; historical invention/interpretations of the past, 174, 174n37; Lianhua Film Company’s emulation of, 166; as a name for Shanghai golf links, 220–221n60; self-reflexive films imported to China, 192; Show People (Mervyn LeRoy film), 192, 192n3, 210–211, 210n41 Homecoming (Guilai; dir. Zhu Shilin; 1934), 177–178 Hong Kong, and occupation-era Shanghai stars, 157–158 Hongkou (area of Shanghai): evacuation to the International Settlement of, 27–39, 28–29–1ȮŘ, 30f1, 53; in the lost movie Sange modeng nüxing, 177; and “North Hongkou,” 37, See also refugees Hu Shi (scholar and cultural critic), 82 Hua bei ying hua (Shanghai occupationera film monthly), 154 huaijiu. See nostalgia Huang Shaofen (cinematographer): cameo appearance in Two Stars, 226; filming of battle zones, 172; work on Chun jiang yi hen declined by, 143 Huaying (Zhonghua dianying lianhe gongsi; film company), 144–145, 157, 159–160 hutong: theatrical/operalike nature of, 139–142; and the urban structure of Peking, 131–132 hybridity: the collage of styles and values in Two Stars, 200–201, 239–244, 242f3Ř; historical opera scenes embedded in film set in the present, 212; integration of Chinese and Japanese aesthetics in Chun jiang yi hen, 145–146; miniature golf/theme parks as hybrid spaces, 222–223, 223f1ś, 223n63, 243; silent and sound filmmaking techniques combined in Two Stars, 193

265

illusion, rockery (jiashan, artificial mountains), 222, 224 images and texts: censorship applied to words and not visuals, 178; and the conditions of production, 18; doublings in “Two Stars” emphasized by its title, 192; “image-driven” vs. “text-driven” narratives, 24–25, 47–48, 53–54; and the party ideology of the wartime CCP, 57; reading photographs, 20–23, 27; and the recursive layers of Two Stars, 243–244; visual data and historical research, 3–4; the witness of newsreel images compared with diary accounts, 170–172, 170–171n25, See also intertitles; pictorial materials; “visual narrative” creation immigrants, as peddlers, 111 immorality: of foreign-style performance, 206, 209–210; and philandering in the entertainment world, 234–235, See also censorship; moral rectitude The Immortal Fairy Maiden of the Grapes (Putao xianzi): as a source for the film Two Stars, 197–198, 203–204, 210, 214; stage show with Li Minghui, 197, 198f1 In Expectation (Rainclouds over Wushan; Wushan yunyu; dir. Zhang Ming; 1996): blurring of moral boundaries, 250–251, 251fś; and the cinematic representation of the Three Gorges Dam project, 245, 251, 252 International Settlement: and the memory of the Shanghai war, 188; number of camp inmates in, 44 Internet technologies: and documented memory, 24, 24n20, 53, See also Virtual Shanghai Project (on-line platform) intertextual relationships: created by Wang Hongwei’s appearance in various films, 246, 254, 254n8; evocation of heroic gangster by Chow Yun-fat, 254–255, See also doublings

Index

266

intertitles: cultural hybridity of Two Stars reinforced by, 201, 201n23; and the description of the Shanghai war under censorship rules, 177; image shown twice distinguished with different meanings by, 180, 181fş; and the patriotic mission of the Lianhua Film Company, 236–237; reinforcing filial piety, 235; and Two Stars as a partial-sound film, 193, 211, 212, See also images and texts invisibility: abandoned corpses made visible by photodocumentation, 46–53, 48f33, 49–śŠȮ‹, 50–51ě34Ȯ40; and the “blank side” of photographs, 19–20, 27; and the burial of historical relics, 245, 254; censorship of the Shanghai Incident of 1932, 180–181, 188–190; the itemization of what photographs show and do not show, 20; of the past vs. persistence of memory, 249; and the politics of ideology that govern the seen and the unseen, 3–4; and the preservation of images of ordinary people (pingmin), 7, 10, 13, 26, 112, 115, 246, 251; and the ruthless physical eradication of the Three Gorges Dam project, 10; of the war experience of the population of Zhabei, 9 Japanese Atrocities against Hu [Shanghai] (Bao Ri hua Hu ji; two reels). See The History of the Battle of Shanghai Jia Zhangke (sixth-generation filmmaker): actor Wang Hongwei’s appearance in films by, 254, 254n8; capturing of the spectacular ugliness of the Three Gorges project, 252; Dong (East) directed by, 245, 255–256; miniature parks as a theme in The World by, 223n63; Still Life (Sanxia haoren) directed by, 245, 252–255 jiashan (rockery, artificial mountains), 222, 224

Jin-Cha-Ji Base Area (Shanxi-ChaharHebei region): and communist-led Chinese resistance against Japan, 6; map of, 58f1 Jin-Cha-Ji huabao (Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial; Communist Party–sponsored photojournal): emphasis on action and people doing productive things, 75–77, 75f6; merged with Renmin huabao (People’s pictorial), 78; response to the challenge of “stereotypical images,” 78; and Sha-Fei’s photography, 6, 73–75, 73fś, See also pictorial materials Jin-Cha-Ji Provisional Committee, rural line propaganda efforts of, 58–59, 74–75 Jones, Andrew, 196–197, 205, 206 Kates, George, 139 Kerlan, Anne, 9, 163Ȯ1ş0 Kracauer, Siegfried, 3, 205 Lang Jingshan (photojournalist and advertising professional), 62–63 Lange, Dorothea (art photographer), 64, 68 Leyda, Jay, 143 Li Bai (Li Po), “Departing from Baidi City in the Morning,” 254 Li Hua (wood-block artist, creator of Roar, China!), 67 Li Jinhui (composer/Lianhua Songand-Dance Troupe leader), fusion of Chinese folk songs and Western popular music by, 201 Li Lihua (occupation-era film star): accused as a Western collaborator, 156, 157; performance in Chun jiang yi hen, 145, 149–150, 149f1, 151, 155–156 Li Lili (Lianhua actress), 204, 226 Li Minghui (film actress/daughter of Li Jinhui): career of, 196–197, 199, 200–201; as a fairy maiden, 197, 198f1, 204; portrayal of Li Yueying

Index

(fictional actress), 194–200, 210, 215, 217–219ě11Ȯ1Ř Li Minwei (Lai Man-wai, Linhau Film Company manager) diary entry, 172 Li Yueying (fictional actress): and real-life actress Li Minghui, 194–200, 210, 215, 217–219, 219ě11Ȯ1Ř; as Yang Yiyun’s lover, 195–196, 219ě11Ȯ1Ř, 230–231ěŘŘȮŘ3, 230–231 Liangyou (Young companion), 2, 238fŘş, 243f33 Lianhua Film Company (Lianhua yingye zhipian yinshua youxian gongsi, United Photoplay Service): advertisement featuring stars and patriotic motifs, 241f31; emulation of Hollywood, 166, 204–205; formation of, 242–243; and the Guomindang, 185; The History of the Battle of Shanghai (Shanghai zhanshi; Lianhua newsreel), 166–169, 171–172; The History of the Battle of the Nineteenth Route Army against the Japanese (Shijiu lu jun kang Ri zhanshi; Lianhua newsreel; three reels), 169f3, 171–172; Three Modern Women (Sange modeng nüxing; dir. Bu Wancang; 1933, written by Tian Han), 170–171, 171n25, 177–178, 178n49; social division in the distribution of newsreels by, 188; sound filmmaking by, 193, 193n6; The Struggle (Fendou), 174, 174n38; and the war effort, 166–172, See also Two Stars on the Silver Screen (Yinhan shuangxing; 1931 Lianhua film) Lianhua National Defense Group (Lianhua tongren kangri quiguodui), 10 Lianhua Song-and Dance Troupe (Lianhua gewu ban, “United Photoplay Service Follies”): emulation of Hollywood, 198–199, 199fŘ; stage show “Nuli” (Strive) performed by, 205f3 Lianhua studio magazine. See Yingxi zazhi

267

The Life of Yang Guifei, Mei Lanfang in the role of Yang Guifei in, 104fŘ4 Lindsay, Michael, 78 Little Toys (Xiao wanyi; dir. Sun Yu; 1933), 178–182, 179–181ěśȮ10, 183–186 Liu Lianrong (Peking opera actor, dan interpreter), as a Tiger General, 86f5 Liu Xiaodong (painter), 255–256, 255n10, 256ěŝȮŞ Love’s Sorrow in the Eastern Chamber (Lou dong yuan; opera film within the film Two Stars): photos of Li Yueying and Yang Yiyun from, 214fŝ, 219ě11Ȯ1Ř; photos of the Yinhan Film Company depicted in, 218ěşȮ10; radio broadcast featured in, 227–229, 228fŘ0 Lu, Sheldon H., 10, Ř4śȮŘśŝ Lu Xun, 6, 64–65, 67–69 Lu Xun Art Institute, 72 Luo Mingyou (Lianhua Film Company studio head): and the Chen clique of the Guomindang, 185; and the film adaptation of Two Stars, 197–198, 198n15; and the formation of the Lianhua Film Company, 242n80; sound technology exploited by, 198–200, 211, 239; and the southern emphasis of Two Stars, 201–202 Major, Ernest (Shenbao founder), 1 male power: and the challenge of successful women, 234; overcome by the female force of softness (yi rou ke gang), 110; and Western views of China’s civilization, 102 Manchuria, Battle of Shanghai fused with Japanese invasion of, 186, 187ě1ŝȮ1Ş Mao Zedong: on art as a component of the revolutionary machinery, 66; and Deng Xiaoping, 248; individualism captured in Wu Yinxian’s photographs of, 76; photographers assigned to shadow him, 60; rural line policies of, 58–59, 74–75

268

maps: distribution of exposed corpses in the foreign settlements, 48, 49–śŠȮ‹; initial position of Chinese and Japanese troops in August 1937, 28, 29m3; Jin-Cha-Ji Base Area (ShanxiChahar-Hebei region), 58f1; population density in Shanghai after August 1937, 27, 29mŘ; population density in Shanghai before August 1937, 27, 28m1; the territories of Shanghai, 28m4, 37 March, Benjamin: Orchid Hand Patterns of Mei Lan-fang, 85, 87–88; photographs of Mei Lanfang’s hand gestures, 90–91, 91f10Ȯ13, 93–96, 94f14, 100fŘ1ŠȮŒ, 108–109 marketing: cross-promotion of music/ songs with phonograph records, radio, and publicity films, 204, 211; national products movement (guohuo yundong), 212, 239–240; and self-censorship by the Lianhua Film Company, 178n49, See also movie advertisements; publicity martial arts: niangzi jun (female soldiers) as spectacle, 205–207, 205f3, 207f4; subdued reverence of valiant females portrayed by Mei Lanfang, 110; use of weapons in Peking opera performance, 105–106, 105fŘś, 106ěŘ6ȮŘŝ, 107ěŘŞȮ31 May Fourth Movement: associated social debate included in Two Stars, 235; Beijing’s cultural influence during, 196, 202–203; confinement of women prior to, 114; and “Xin nishang yuyi qu” (The new song of the rainbow skirt and feathered dress) by May Fourth composer Xiao Youmei, 215, See also cultural regeneration McPharlin, Paul (puppeteer/wood engraver), 87–88, 87n17, 88ě6Ȯş, 93 media: convergence of media in the cast party scene from Love’s Sorrow, 228–229, 228fŘ0; photographs as a

Index

central element of emerging mass media, 12–13; pictorial representation as a feature of public communication in modern cities, 10–11, See also communication; newsreels Mei Lanfang (Peking opera actor, dan interpreter): communicative powers of hands/body gesture of, 89–90, 98–100, 99ě1ŝȮŘ0, 100ěŘ1ŠȮŒ, 104–105, 108; as cultural ambassador, 7, 81–82, 101–102, 109–110; hand gestures in wood engravings by Paul McPharlin, 87–88, 88f6Ȯş; as Fan Lihua, 106, 107f31; as Heavenly Maiden, 84fŘ, 86f3, 108f33, 109; as Lady Fei, 86fś; as Lian Jinfeng, 105, 107f30; as Luo shen, 105, 107fŘş; as Mu Guiying, 105, 107fŘŞ; photographed by Florence Vandamm, 83/85, 86ě3Ȯś, 101ěŘŘȮŘ3, 109; photographs of hand gestures by Benjamin March, 90–91, 91f10Ȯ13, 94f14, 100fŘ1ŠȮŒ, 108–109; on a stage set designed for his U.S. visit, 86f4; as the White Snake, 108f3Ř, 109; as Yang Guifei, 84f1, See also dan (Peking opera female roles) memory: censorship of, 181; cinematographic memory, 165–166, 245–246, 256–257; persistence of, 232, 233fŘ6, 249; visual memory of the Shanghai Incident of 1932, 164–165, 170, 173, 188–189, See also documented memory MGM: advertisement featuring stars and patriotic motifs, 240f30; films imported to China, 192, 192n3, See also Hollywood military, Mao Zedong’s rural line policies, 58–59, 74–75 Mingxing Film Company: Battle of Shanghai (Shanghai zhanshi) produced by, 172–174; and the formation of Yan’an Film Group, 61–62; “sound-ondisk” process used by, 193n6 miniature golf: “Double Minigolf” (“Shuang kao’erfu qiu tu”)

Index

advertising poster by Hang Zhiying, 221, 221f14; as a synecdoche for the filmset and even the nation, 10 mise-en-abîme. See doublings; self-reflexivity Mitchell, W. J. T., definition of metapicture, 9, 191, 243–244 “Miya-san, Miya-san” (Japanese marching song), 153 modernity: and aesthetics/style, 64; asserted in the radio broadcast featured in Love’s Sorrow, 227–229, 228fŘ0; China’s vulnerability in the face of Western industry and war machines, 179–180; Chinese opera as integral to, 217–220, 218–219ěŞȮ1Ř; as a consuming menace, 231, 231fŘ3; and the contrast between country wives and urban lovers, 230–236; and decadence, 85, 149, 206, 210; and the dialectics of enlightenment, 245, 247–248, 250, 257; mechanically reproduced images as a feature of, 11; miniature golf as a modern urban leisure, 243; and the persistence of the past, 229–230; and Western nightclub acts and musicals, 205–206; in Zhang Henshui’s novel Two Stars, 200, 234–235 modernization: gaige kaifeng (reform and openness), 249; and human subjugation of nature, 250, 252–253, 255, 256–257; as mythology and grand metanarrative, 250; national products movement (guohuo yundong), 212, 239–240, See also urban/rural dichotomy moral rectitude: countryside equated with, 233–234; female figures as morally superior in Peking opera, 96, 101–102, 110; and the inclusion of youth and patriotism in Two Stars, 206; and nostalgia for the past, 254– 255; and the role of movie studios in the “struggle to save the nation,” 10,

269

81–82, 174–175, 236–239; sincerity as the heart of Asian morality, 153; and the thin line between law and crime in Expectation (Wushan yunyu), 251, See also censorship; immorality Morrison, Hedda (photographer): photographs by, 114f1, 129f4ŠȮŽ; study of photographs by, 4, 8, 17n12, 120–121, 124–126, 130–131 movie advertisements: actors gazing at publicity stills, 219, 219ff11–12, 221, 231–232, 232ěŘ4ȮŘś; billboard for Love’s Sorrow from Two Stars, 225f16; “Double Minigolf” (“Shuang kao’erfu qiu tu”) advertising poster by Hang Zhiying, 221, 221f14; and the expression of shared national destiny, 174–175; Lianhua advertisement featuring stars and patriotic motifs, 241f31; Lianhua Film Company as an advertisement for itself, 238, 238fŘş; metafilmic contribution of the publicity for Two Stars, 226f1ŝ; MGM advertisement featuring stars and patriotic motifs, 240f30; publicity still of Li Minghui as a fairy maiden, 198f1; for Still Life, 253f6, See also publicity movie houses. See theaters movie industry. See film industry Munkácsi, Martin (photographer), 57 music: Cantonese music, 201–202, 202n27, 216, 243; celebration of recorded music in the cast party scene of Love’s Sorrow, 227–229, 228fŘ0; as emotionally more effective than words, 211 Nanshi (district of Shanghai), refugees moving into the French Concession, 33, 33fś, 42fŘ0 national products movement (guohuo yundong), 212, 239–240 Nationalist government. See Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist government)

270

newspapers: first modern mainland Chinese newspaper founded, 1; newspaper photographs as historical material, 17–18; and the propaganda power of images, 59–60; Shi bao (Reality; Peking newspaper), 119, 119f3, 124–125; as sources for private details about peddlers, 113, 120; and the topic of abandoned corpses, 48, See also Shenbao (Shanghai daily) newsreels: and the documented memory of the Shanghai war, 170–172, 174–175, 179, 180fŞ; images as witness compared with written diary accounts, 170–171, 170–171n25; reporting of reality contrasted with dramatized memory, 174–175, See also cinematographic production; media niangzi jun (female soldiers), 206–207, 207f4 Nie Er (musician), 170–171, 170–171n25 Nie Rongzhen (political commissar under Li Biao): and the Jin-Cha-Ji Provisional Committee, 58–59; propaganda photo with rescued Japanese girl, 60, 61fŘ; and Sha Fei, 72 North China Daily News (newspaper), image of a dead baby from, 48, 48f33 North China Herald (newspaper): on foodstuffs required to be admitted to the International Settlement, 42–43, 43n32; French Concession fortifications reported by, 40–42; images from, 34f6, 44fŘ4, 45fŘŞ; refugees referred to as “hordes” by, 32; Shanghai Municipal Police praised by, 38 nostalgia: and the association of morality with the past, 253–254; and cultural regeneration, 228–230, 247–249; images of peddlers taken in the mid-1930s, 121–122; nostalgic versions of childhood, 224; photographs used to convey a “sense of things past,” 14

Index

ordinary people (pingmin): exclusion in the everyday life of Shanghai residents, 37; preservation of images of, 7, 10, 13, 26, 112, 115, 246, 251; social status/mobility of, 115–116 patriotism: of art workers, 68–71; heroism of the Nineteenth Route Army, 169, 171–172, 174, 179–180, 189, 189n64; and Lianhua’s production of Two Stars, 200, 206, 236–239, 241f31; MGM advertisement featuring stars and patriotic motifs, 240f30; the role of movie studios in the “struggle to save the nation,” 10, 81–82, 174–175, 236–239 peddlers (xiaofan): calls of placed on par with the Peking opera, 140; chapter devoted to, 7–8, 111–142; demographic of, 111–118, 125; difficult life of, 116–117, 119–120, 141; earnings of, 115–116; musical instruments used by, 135–137, 139; as ordinary people, 115, 115fŘ, 131; regulation of, 114, 118–119, 118n33, 119f3; seasonal peddlers, 127–128, 137–139; social status of, 115–116, 141; terms for, 113, 115; transportation tools used by, 128–130, 129fŠȮŽ; vocal advertising of, 139–140; “year-end rush” (gannian bao), 138 Peking (Beijing): and the College of Chinese Studies/North China Union Language School, 122; fruit markets, 118; as a locus of Zhang’s novel Two Stars, 201, 202–203; peddlers in Republican Peking, 111Ȯ14Ř; publishers on Liulichang and Qianmen damochang, 138; walls of, 131–132 Peking opera: calls of peddlers rated on par with, 140, See also dan (Peking opera female roles) People’s Republic of China: Chun jiang yi hen discredited by, 162; and occupation-era films, 158–159; resistance to censorship in, 253–254, See also Communists; Cultural Revolution

Index

photographers: local practice affecting created images, 55, 55n1; as subjective interpreters, 18–19, 19n13, See also cameras; photography photographs, film development/processing, 60, 73 photography: cameras; photographers; as a central element of emerging mass media, 12–13; and consumer access to cameras, 1–2, 16–18, 62; emergence of war photography as a genre, 12–13; immediacy of, 18–19; as an interpretive tool in the evolution of the art of dan, 102; manipulation of photographic images via digital processing, 55, 80; placement of singular images in conversation, 6, 24–25, 45–53, 45–47ěŘ6Ȯ3Ř, 48f33, 50–52, 50–52ě34Ȯ40; random photography taken by amateurs, 21–22; and the re-contextualization of Peking opera within a Western aesthetic value system, 93–96, 109; reading photographs, 19–23, 27; as a “realityengraving” medium, 5, 16, 55–56, 55n1, 79–80; as a source rather than merely illustrating the past, 14–17; staged photography distinguished from posed photography, 21; targeted photography in newspapers, 21, See also pictorial materials Picadilly (1929 British film), 208–209f6 Pickowicz, Paul G., 8, 143Ȯ16Ř pictorial materials: as encoded bodies of significance/forms of communication, 2–5; growth of the prewar pictorial press, 56, 60–62; and the perspective of “picture-takers,” 22–23, See also images and texts; Jin-Cha-Ji huabao (Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial; Communist Party–sponsored photojournal); photography pingmin. See ordinary people portraiture: obscuring of faces in photographs of Boxer Rebellion

271

atrocities, 77n72; photographs of Manchu nobles, 1–2 promotion. See marketing; movie advertisements propaganda: army photographic services during World War I, 13; growth of the prewar pictorial press, 56–57, 60–62; and Jin-Cha-Ji Base Area photographers, 57–62, 74–75; and the politics of ideology that govern the seen and unseen, 3–4; produced by Hua bei ying hua (film magazine controlled by Shanghai cultural authorities), 154; and the production of Chun jiang yi hen, 8; realist idiom of the CCP, 57; Sha Fei’s success as a propagandist, 80, See also Guomindang (GMD, Nationalist government) prostitution: Anna May Wong’s acceptance of “Oriental” roles, 209; barely distinguished from intimacy, 251; Yang’s carousing with prostitutes in Two Stars, 22, 196, 234–235 public health: and food regulation, 119, 119f3; regulation of peddlers, 119, 119f3 publicity: actors gazing at publicity stills, 219, 219ě11Ȯ1Ř, 221, 231–232, 232ěŘ4ȮŘś; billboard for Love’s Sorrow based on the publicity still, 225f16; British American Tobacco Company poster-calendars, 2; the glamorous party scene for Love’s Sorrow from Two Stars, 226, 226f1ŝ; photographs of Mei Lanfang, 86ě1Ȯś; showcasing of opera sequences, 215–216; still photo from Love’s Sorrow recycled into publicity for Two Stars, 243–244, 243f33; Yang and Yi in a pose that echoes the publicity still for their film Love’s Sorrow, 230fŘŘ, See also marketing; movie advertisements puppeteering, 87, 87n17, 141 Qi Rushan: and Mei Lanfang’s U.S. tour, 82; Morrison’s photographs compared

272

Qi Rushan (continued) with drawings by, 121; musical instruments of the Qing preserved by peddlers, 123–124, 135–136 race: racial difference and the Taiping Rebellion, 152; racial ideologies in European colonialism, 208, 208n39 radio broadcast: featured in billboard for Love’s Sorrow, 227–229, 228fŘ0; and the promotion of films, 204 Rainclouds over Wushan. See In Expectation “reality” reporting: emergence of war photography, 12–13; films shot almost “live” about the Sino-Japanese conflict, 9; mimesis downplayed by leftist art photographers, 63, 70–71; newsreels contrasted with dramatized memory, 174–175; photography as a “reality-engraving” medium, 5, 16, 55–56, 55n1, 79–80, See also censorship; documented memory; representation recursion. See doublings; self-reflexivity refugees: children of, 33, 36, 36n10, 46, 46–54, 46f31; estimated numbers of, 26–27, 32–33, 32–33ě4Ȯś, 44, 164; and foodstuffs required to be admitted to the International Settlement, 42–43, 43n32; French Concession fortifications against, 39–43, 39ě1ŘȮŘ1; and the segmentation and exclusion of Shanghai in crisis, 37–43, 38m4, 39–43ě1ŘȮŘ3; and the segmentation of Shanghai, 37–38, 38m4; transportation used by, 33–37, 34–36ě6Ȯ11; and “visual narrative” of wartime Shanghai refugees, 5–6, 1ŘȮś4; vulnerability of, 30–37, 30–34f1Ȯf6, 36ě10Ȯ11, 44–47, 44–47ěŘ4Ȯ3Ř; xiao shimin (petty urbanites) as, 27, See also displaced people; Hongkou (area of Shanghai); Shanghai; Shanghai war; Zhabei (area of Shanghai) Renmin huabao (People’s pictorial), 78

Index

representation: cinema as a fictionbased medium, 5; miniature golf/ theme parks as a synecdoche for the filmset and even the nation, 10, 220–225, 221ě13Ȯ14, 223f1ś, 223n63; photography as a “reality-engraving” medium, 5, 16, 55–56, 55n1, 79–80; toys as a symbol of China’s vulnerability, 179–180, 179fś, 180fŝ, See also censorship; history/tradition Reviers, Joseph de, 4–5, 17, 22 The Road (Dalu; dir. Sun Yu; 1935), 183–185, 184–185ě11Ȯ16 rockery (jiashan, artificial mountains), 222, 224 Rosenstone, Robert R., 174, 174n37 running land boat (pao hanchuan; theatrical performance), 141 rural conditions. See countryside Sacrifice of Youth (Qingchun ji; dir. Zhang Nuanxin; 1985), 249–250, 250f4 Schwartz, Vanessa, 3–4 self-reflexivity: actors gazing at publicity stills, 219, 219ě11Ȯ1Ř, 221, 231–232, 232ěŘ4ȮŘś; as a feature circulating through cinemas and print media globally during the 1920s and 1930s, 191–193; filmmakers and stars playing themselves, 193, 217–219, 218ěşȮ10, 226–227, 227ě1ŞȮ1ş; and the incorporation of film production process and technology, 217–220, 218ěŞȮ10; Lianhua Film Company as an advertisement for itself, 238, 238fŘş; Mitchell’s definition of metapicture, 9, 191, 243–244; radio celebration of sound in Two Stars, 227–229, 228fŘ0, 236; recursive layers of Two Stars, 192–193, 236, 243–244, See also intertextual relationships Senzaimaru (Japanese ship), 146–148, 154, 155 Sha Fei (art photographer): execution of, 79; introduced, 56–57; and Lu Xun, 6,

Index

68–69; and Nie Rongzhen, 60, 61fŘ, 72; and the photo realism of socialist China in the 1950s, 6, 78–79; poetry by, 71–72; on the political usefulness and social engagement of the arts/photography, 69–70; showing Joseph Baglio the production of the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial, 73, 73fś; staging of photographs by, 79–80, See also art photography Shagin, Ivan, 64 Shanghai: 1980s revisionist history of the Japanese occupation, 25–26; film stars as collaborators during Japanese occupation of, 155–161; segmentation and exclusion of, 37–43, 38m4, 39–43ě1ŘȮŘ3, 188; as a site of modern media/film companies, 164; unsettled nature of its historical status, 188–190, See also refugees; Shanghai war Shanghai Benevolent Cemetery (Pushan shanzhuang), 48/50 Shanghai Municipal Council, 28, 51, 176 Shanghai war: destruction of civilian areas, 164; invisibility in cinema of, 188–190; placed in the imagination of a worried woman, 189–190, See also refugees; Shanghai Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei. See Jin-Cha-Ji Shenbao (Shanghai daily): 18 April 1932, 176; 16 May 1932 advertisement for The History of the Battle of Shanghai, 167f1; 18 May 1932 announcement cancelling The History of the Battle of Shanghai, 167fŘ; 4 June 1932 Fu’an Theater advertisement, 170n24; 6 July 1932 advertisement for The History of the Battle of the Nineteenth Route Army against the Japanese, 169f3; 18 August 1932 advertisement for All for the Nation, 173f4; 10 October 1933, 182; advertisements for The History of the Battle of Shanghai, 166–167; established as the first modern mainland Chinese newspaper, 1, See also newspapers

273

Shenghuo Weekly, 2 Shi bao (Reality; Peking newspaper), 119, 119f3, 124–125, See also newspapers Shi Dongshan (director of Two Stars), 174n38, 198n15, 200, 242; cameo appearance as a fictional cameraman, 218f10, 219; cinema/miniature theme park analogy explored by, 223n63 Sino-Japanese relations: 1980s revisionist history of the Japanese occupation, 25–26; alliance against Western imperialism, 146, 148–149, 149f1, 154–155; bi tan (brush conversation), 147, See also Sino-Japanese War Sino-Japanese War: and Chinese photojournalism, 6; displacement of Shanghai residents, 26; and films shot almost “live,” 9; Guomindang defense of China against Japan, 164, 171–172, 171–172n27, 176; invisibility of the experience of the population of Zhabei, 9; and the Nineteenth Route Army, 171–172, See also Sino-Japanese relations Sixth Generation (Chinese films), and international coproduction, 161 Smedley, Agnes, 60 social engagement of the arts, importance relative to documentary accuracy and aesthetic pleasure, 65–66 social status/mobility, of pingmin (ordinary people), 115–116 Sorlin, Pierre, 173 sound film: and Chinese cultural regeneration, 239–243; silent and sound filmmaking techniques combined in Two Stars, 193; staged scene in, 204 spectacle: female figures presented as, 207–210, 207f4, 209ěśȮ6; film technology included in, 192; peddlers as street theater, 111–112, 131–142; the spectacular ugliness of the Three Gorges project, 252, See also gazing/ the gaze

274

stage scenes, in early sound films, 204 Stewart, Susan, 224 Still Life (Sanxia haoren; dir. Jia Zhangke; 2006): advertising poster for, 253f6; and the cinematic representation of the Three Gorges Dam project, 245; picturing of the Three Gorges location as an anti-still life that monumentalizes destruction, 252 story within a story. See doublings; self-reflexivity subjectivity: and the particular choice of illustrations of the past, 23–24; photographers as subjective interpreters, 17–19, 19n13; and the reading of photographs, 20 suicide: as a bad choice for scapegoated actors, 156; of Concubine Mei, 214; of a peddler, 120 Sun Yu (Lianhua filmmaker): biographical information, 170–171n25; cameo appearance in Two Stars, 226–227, 227f1Ş; censorship criticized by, 181–182, 186; Little Toys (Xiao wanyi; 1933), 178–184, 179–181ěśȮ10, 184, 186; and the National Salvation Association of Shanghai Cinema, 186; The Road (Dalu; 1935), 183–185, 184–185ě11Ȯ16 Taiping Rebellion: and Chun jiang yi hen, 144, 150–154, 161; and the Senzaimaru, 147; Shen Yizhou (officer in the Taiping rebel army), 150, 152–154, 155 Takasugi Shinsaku (Japanese samurai and Chōshū revolutionary): diary of the voyage of the Senzaimaru (Japanese ship), 146; perceptions of China, 147–148, 155; samurai sword as both a weapon and fine art, 152; and Shen Yizhou, 150, 152–153, 155; support for Taiping rebels portrayed in Chun jiang yi he, 150–151, 153–154; Taiping rebels superimposed on facial shot of, 154

Index

technological change: the camera and the printing press, 1–2, 11; cameras allowing instant shots, 21; Chinese domestication of foreign technology, 239; consumer access to cameras, 1–2, 16–18, 62; film medium as a form of cosmopolitan modernity, 192; Internet technologies, 24, 24n20, 53; and the introduction of the movie camera, 8; manipulation of photographic images via digital processing, 55, 80; photography’s displacement of previous modes of illustration in periodicals, 12; radio featured in Love’s Sorrow, 227–229, 228fŘ0; silent and sound filmmaking techniques combined in Two Stars, 193, See also sound film texts and images. See pictorial materials theaters: audience reception of movies, 9, 188; Black Cat Open-Air Film Plaza (Bali lutian yingchang), 172, 172n30, 176; Fu’an Theater, 166, 166n12; movie houses and presentation of historical narratives, 9; the Xinguang, 186n61 Tian Han (writer), and Sange modeng nüxing, 170–171, 170–171n25, 177, 178n49 Tianyi Film Company, “sound-on-film” process used by, 193n6 Tongren fuyuantang (benevolent society), 48/51, 50–51ě3śȮ36 tradition. See cultural heritage; history/ tradition treason, actors accused of, 155–157 Two Stars on the Silver Screen (1929 novel by Zhang Henshui): morality-tale quality of, 234–235; northern/ urban setting of, 201, 202–203; self-reflexive quality of, 192–193, 236, 243–244, See also Zhang Henshui (novelist/“butterfly fiction” writer) Two Stars on the Silver Screen (Yinhan shuangxing; 1931 Lianhua film): as China’s Show People, 210–211; compared with Zhang’s novel, 192–193; introduced, 9–10, 191; recursive layers

Index

of, 192–193, 236, 243–244; southern emphasis of, 201–202, 201n23, See also Lianhua Film Company United Photoplay Service Follies (UPS Follies). See Lianhua Song-and Dance Troupe University of California, Berkeley, 122 the unseen. See invisibility urban/rural dichotomy: as a trope in Chinese fiction and film, 233–234; urban artifice/rural purity, 224, See also modernization van de Ven, Hans, 57 Vandamm, Florence (stage photographer), 83/85, 86ě3Ȯś Vidor, King, Show People directed by, 192n3, 210–211, 210n41 Virtual Shanghai Project (on-line platform): as an alternative to textual narrative, 13, 13n4, See also Internet technologies Virtual Shanghai Project (on-line platform)—images, 30–33ě1Ȯś, 35fŝ, 36ě10Ȯ11, 40f16, 41ě1ŞȮ1ş, 43ěŘ1ȮŘŘ, 44–45ěŘśȮŘŝ, 46–47ěŘşȮ3Ř, 50f34, 52ě3ŝȮ3Ş Virtual Shanghai Project (on-line platform)—maps: distribution of exposed corpses in the foreign settlements, 48, 49mśŠȮ‹; initial position of Chinese and Japanese troops in August 1937, 28, 29m3; population density in Shanghai after August 1937, 27, 29mŘ; population density in Shanghai before August 1937, 27, 28m1; the territories of Shanghai, 28m4, 37 visual materials. See pictorial materials “visual narrative” creation: of the fate of refugees in Shanghai, 1937–1938, 6, 24–25, 39–44ě1ŘȮŘś, 45–51, 45–48ěŘ6Ȯ33, 49mśŠȮ‹, 50–53ě34Ȯ 40; photographs used as sources of information for, 5–6, 14–17, 45;

275

pictorial materials as encoded bodies of significance/forms of communication, 2–5, 14; “seeing the past” and “visualizing the past,” 15; and the source/narrative tension confronting historians, 5–6, 14–21, See also historical research; images and texts visualization, and the politics of ideology that govern the seen and unseen, 3–4 Wan shi liu fang (Shanghai film), compared with Chun jiang yi hen (Shanghai film), 156–157, 158 Wang Cilong (Lianhua filmmaker), as fictional Director Wang in Two Stars, 217–218ěşȮ10, 219, 225–226, 237 Wang Danfeng (film star), 145, 150, 154, 158, 159–160 Wang Jingwei government, pressure on the Chinese film industry to support the war effort, 144–145 war photography: by army commanders, 60; emergence as a genre, 12–13; images produced by photographers in the Jin-Cha-Ji Base Area, 58–62; Yan’an photographers, 62 weapons: cameras as weapons of revolutionary photographers, 69–70; in Peking opera performances, 105–106, 105–107fŘśȮ31; Takasugi Shinsaku’s samurai sword, 152; war toys representing China’s vulnerability, 179–180, 179fś, 180fŝ weather: seasonal peddlers, 127–128, 137–139; and the vulnerability of peddlers, 116, 141; and the vulnerability of refugees, 44–47, 44–47fŘśȮ3Ř Western aesthetic value system: and the Cultural Revolution, 246–248; and the re-contextualization of Peking opera by photography, 93–96, 109, See also foreign culture Western imperialism: Chinese and Japanese alliance against, 148–149,

Index

276

Western imperialism (continued) 149f1, 154–155; and Takasugi Shinsaku perceptions of China’s decline, 147–148; Western-dominated treaty ports, 37, 146 Western musical theater/opera, 153, 193, 205–206, 210 Winter, Jay, 173 women: abortion, 247; barred from working as peddlers, 125; country wives and urban lovers, 230–236, 232fŘś; and divorce, 230–231; female figures presented as spectacle, 207–210, 207f4, 209ěśȮ6; female soldier (niangzi jun) stage shows, 204–207, 207f4; morally superior female figures in Peking opera, 96, 101–102, 110; Shanghai war placed in the imagination of a worried woman, 189–190; singled out as traitors/collaborators, 157; targeted by peddlers, 114–115, 115fŘ, See also dan (Peking opera female roles); gender; Mei Lanfang (Peking opera actor, dan interpreter) Wong, Anna May (Chinese-American film star), 208–209, 209f6 words and images. See pictorial materials Wu Yinxian (photographer based in Yan’an): and the formation of the Yan’an Film Group, 61–62; landscapes by, 65, 68, 72–73, 79; Mao’s individualism captured in photographs of, 76 Wushan yunyu. See In Expectation Xi Shi (patriotic beauty), 103–104, 105n39 Xiao Caifeng. See Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress xiao shimin (petty urbanites), described, 27 Xiao wanyi. See Little Toys Xiao Youmei (May Fourth composer), 200n22, 215, 215n52 Xiaofang (photojournalist), 60, 70 Xin Peiping (Peking newspaper), 112, 115fŘ, 124–125

Xinmin bao (New people; Peking newspaper), 112, 124–125, 140 Yan’an Film Group, 61–62, 61n19, 72–73 Yang Yiyun (fictional actor): as Emperor Minghuang, 212, 214fŝ; as Li Yueying’s lover, 219, 219ě11Ȯ1Ř, 230–236; in novel by Zhang Henshui, 9 Yeh, Catherine, 7, Ş1Ȯ110 Yeh, Wen-hsin, 1Ȯ11 Yingxi zazhi (Lianhua studio magazine): on the “Egyptian” dance by Zi Luolan (Violet Wong), 209–210; Lianhua advertisement featuring stars and patriotic motifs, 241f31; MGM advertisement from, 240f30; photo spread for the Lianhua Song-and Dance Troupe (Lianhua gewu ban), 199fŘ; photo spread for Two Stars, 242f3Ř; and the timeliness of Two Stars, 207 Yinhan Film Company (fictional film company): and Love’s Sorrow in the Eastern Chamber, 218–219, 218ff9–10, 241, 244; as a stand-in for the Lianhua Film Company, 193; in Two Stars on the Silver Screen, 191, 207–208, 212 Yinhan shuangxing, stage show “Nuli” (Strive) performed by, 205f3 Yinhan shuangxing. See Two Stars on the Silver Screen yuzhoufeng (Universal wind; periodical), 140 Zhabei (area of Shanghai): aerial bombing of, 163, 170–171; depiction of the life of Zhabei residents, 174–175; memory of the war in, 188; residents evacuated to the International Settlement, 9, 27–30, 28–29m1ȮŘ, 30f1, 34f6; as the setting of Little Toys, 178–179, See also refugees Zhang Daqian (painter), 63 Zhang Henshui (novelist/“butterfly fiction” writer): and the 1928 American film Show People, 210–211, See also Two

Index

Stars on the Silver Screen (1929 novel by Zhang Henshui) Zhang Huizhong (martial arts filmmaker), 169–170 Zheng Jingkang (photographer), 71, 76 Zhou Ke (Lianhua cinematographer), 226, 242 Zhu Shilin (screenwriter), 197–198, 198n15

277

Zhuang Xueben, 66 Zi Luolan (a.k.a. Violet Wong; film star): celebrity of, 201–202, 203, 212n48, 214fŝ, 215–216; “Egyptian” dance performed by, 208–210, 209fś; interpretive reinvention of Cantonese opera singing, 216; and Yang Yiyun, 226, 226f1ŝ; and Ziluolan/The Violet magazine, 199–200

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY INSTITUTE OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES The Institute of East Asian Studies was established at the University of California, Berkeley, in the fall of 1978 to promote research and teaching on the cultures and societies of China, Japan, and Korea. The institute unites several research centers and programs, including the Center for Buddhist Studies, the Center for Chinese Studies, the Center for Japanese Studies, the Center for Korean Studies, the Group in Asian Studies, the East Asia National Resource Center, and the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies. Director: Associate Director: Executive Committee:

Wen-hsin Yeh Martin Backstrom Martin Backstrom, Patricia Berger, Thomas B. Gold, Jeffrey Hadler, Andrew Jones, John Lie, Kevin O’Brien, Kaiping Peng, Robert Sharf, Yuri Slezkine, Alan Tansman, Steven Vogel, Bonnie Wade, Wen-hsin Yeh

CENTER FOR BUDDHIST STUDIES Chair: Robert Sharf CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES Chair: Andrew Jones CENTER FOR JAPANESE STUDIES Chair: Steven Vogel CENTER FOR KOREAN STUDIES Chair: John Lie GROUP IN ASIAN STUDIES Chair: Bonnie Wade EAST ASIA NATIONAL RESOURCE CENTER Director: Wen-hsin Yeh INTER-UNIVERSITY PROGRAM FOR CHINESE LANGUAGE STUDIES Executive Director: Thomas B. Gold

KOREA RESEARCH MONOGRAPHS (KRM)

24. Lancaster, Lewis R., and Richard K. Payne, eds. Religion and Society in Contemporary Korea. 1997. 25. Shin, Jeong-Hyun. The Trap of History: Understanding Korean Short Stories. 1998. 26. Pai, Hyung Il, and Timothy R. Tangherlini, eds. Nationalism and the Construction of Korean Identity. 1998. 27. Hesselink, Nathan, ed. Contemporary Directions: Korean Folk Music Engaging the Twentieth Century and Beyond. 2001. 28. Choi, Byonghyon, trans. The Book of Corrections: Reflections on the National Crisis during the Japanese Invasion of Korea, 1592–1598. 2002. 29. Dilling, Margaret Walker. Stories inside Stories: Music in the Making of Korean Olympic Ceremonies. 2007. 30. Kim, Hyuk-Rae, and Bok Song, eds. Modern Korean Society: Its Development and Prospect. 2007. 31. Park, Hun Joo. Diseased Dirigisme: The Political Sources of Financial Policy toward Small Business in Korea. 2007. 32. Finch, Michael, trans. Min Yŏnghwan: The Selected Writings of a Late Chosŏn Diplomat. 2008. 33. Pettid, Michael. Unyŏng-jŏn: A Love Affair at the Royal Palace of Chŏson Korea. 2009. 34. Park, Pori. Trial and Error in Modernist Reforms: Korean Buddhism under Colonial Rule. 2009. 35. Patterson, Wayne. In the Service of His Korean Majesty: William Nelson Lovatt, the Pusan Customs, and Sino-Korean Relations, 1876–1888. 2012. RESEARCH PAPERS AND POLICY STUDIES (RPPS)

40. Hao, Yufan. Dilemma and Decision: An Organizational Perspective on American China Policy Making. 1997. 41. Wakeman, Jr., Frederic, and Wang Xi, eds. China’s Quest for Modernization: A Historical Perspective. 1997. 42. West, Loraine A., and Yaohui Zhao, eds. Rural Labor Flows in China. 2000. 43. Sharma, Shalendra D., ed. The Asia-Pacific in the New Millennium: Geopolitics, Security, and Foreign Policy. 2000. 44. Arase, David, ed. The Challenge of Change: East Asia in the New Millennium. 2003. 45. Kang, Sungho, and Ramón Grosfoguel, eds. Geopolitics and Trajectories of Development: The Cases of Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, and Puerto Rico. 2010. SPECIAL PUBLICATIONS

Han, Theodore, and John Li. Tiananmen Square Spring 1989: A Chronology of the Chinese Democracy Movement. 1992. Scalapino, Robert. From Leavenworth to Lhasa: Living in a Revolutionary Era. 2008. Thompson, Phyllis L., ed. Dear Alice: Letters Home from American Teachers Learning to Live in China. 1998. PUBLICATIONS WITH THE SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF EARLY CHINA

Loewe, Michael, ed. Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide. 1993. Qiu, Xigui. Chinese Writing. Trans. Gilbert L. Mattos and Jerry Norman. 2000. von Falkenhausen, Lothar, ed. Japanese Scholarship on Early China, 1987–1991: Summaries from Shigaku zasshi. 2002. For a complete catalogue and current prices, see http://ieas.berkeley.edu/publications/catalogue.html

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“This volume raises an important question that has not been addressed systematically by scholars: how can historians utilize more productively visual images produced through modern technologies, specifically, photographs and movies? Many chapters in this volume make laudable efforts to examine the nature of such materials and their benefits and limitations for historical research; their reflections on the methodologies historians can adopt to utilize such materials will be helpful to many in the field.” —Madeleine Yue Dong, University of Washington

INSTITUTE OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES

CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES

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Pictures Public Space Space Pictures and and Public in China in Modern Modern China

Editedby by Edited

Christian Henriot Henriot and and Wen-hsin Christian Wen-hsin Yeh Yeh

CRM 66

INSTITUTE OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ● BERKELEY

History in Images Images History in

Henriot and Yeh

“As I read the manuscript, I thought, ‘If a picture is worth a thousands words, these words about pictures are also highly illuminating. Bringing attention to the visual within history and as a means of thinking about history adds a fresh and artful dimension to the study of Republican China.’ Indeed, there is much to learn and to think with in the chapters that make up this volume.” —Timothy B. Weston, University of Colorado at Boulder

History in Images

“This is an extremely interesting and useful collection of essays presenting totally new interpretations of images in photography and cinema in twentiethcentury China. Essays herein demonstrate how, with proper analysis, significant information about material culture can be obtained from visual images. These essays in particular validate the notion that visual images are discrete sources of information and should not be relegated to mere illustrations to a written text.” —Ellen Johnston Laing, University of Michigan

CHINA RESEARCH MONOGRAPH 66 CHINA RESEARCH MONOGRAPH 66

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