Writers from Anhui and provinciality in modern China

Abstract

This article discusses the problems of Chinese local and national identity in relation to Anhui province in the twentieth century. It begins with Anhui's contradictory image as both the location of some of the country's most esteemed cultural sites and a place currently perceived as backward and impoverished. After explaining the social uses of local affiliation in the Republican era, it then focuses on the attempts of aspiring young writers from Anhui to join the national literary scene in Beijing during the early 1920s, and analyzes their subsequent reception. It looks at the personal and professional choices that these writers made and, following a selective survey of developments in Anhui since the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC), concludes with a consideration of the evolving self-image and changing realities in the province today.     

New Perspectives on the Chinese Rural Economy, 1885-1935

Abstract

In 1929 a nationa "uproar" erupted over the "Confucius Saw Nanzi Case" (Zi jian Nanzi an). It was sparked by Confucius' meeting Nanzi, the Duchess of Wei, on stage in the June 28, 1929 student performance of Lin Yutang's "one-act tragicomedy" Confucius Saw Nanzi at the Second Normal College at Qufu, Shandong Province, the birthplace of Confucius. Examined in detail in this study are both the "tragicomedy" and the "uproar," both the modern creative project and the social and political forces that shaped its text and reception.     

The Legislative Process in Republican China: The 1930 Nationalist Family Law and the Controversy over Surnames for Married Women

Abstract

This article investigates the legislative process that produced the 1930 Nationalist Family Law Book of the Republican Civil Code, focusing in particular on the debate over married women's surnames. In the accompanying discussion, Guomindang (GMD) lawmakers, legal experts, educators, women's rights advocates, and others grappled in a remarkably open manner over how best to address the surname question in light of their concerns with Party consolidation, legal modernisation, gender equality, social stability, and individual identity. Although the outcome of the legislative process affirmed customary surname practices (albeit with progressive overtones), the process itself was uniquely radical, with participants thoroughly reevaluating one of the oldest and most fundamental patriarchal institutions in Chinese society. The legislative and post-legislative debate over surnames illuminates the Nanjing Decade as a singular transitional period in the history of Chinese law and gender during which law was subject to revision and amendment rather than orthodoxy, and GMD policy toward women was subject to deliberation rather than dictated by ideology.     

Flights of Fancy from a Sedan Chair: Marketing Tourism in Republican China, 1927–1937

Abstract

This article examines how the first Chinese-run travel agency, China Travel Service (Zhongguo luÈxing she) and its travel magazine (luÈxing zazhi) marketed the new idea of pleasure travel, the new roles of service industry and client, and the new location of a modern tourist site during the Republican era. Two populations were targeted: middle-class mainland Chinese and Asian overseas Chinese. The article first explores how the China Travel Service created a service industry and a network of services, and then uses magazine travelogues to examine the marketing process and site development in two sites with different characteristics: (1) Huangshan, a traditional site visited by mainland Chinese, and (2) South and Southeast Asia, places few mainland Chinese visited.