Garden of Grand Vision: Economic life in a flophouse complex Harbin, China 1940

During the Second World War Harbin was a major city in the puppet-state ofManzhouguo, the industrial heart of the Japanese war effort in East Asia.The Garden of Grand Vision was a flophouse complex located in the Chineseslums of Harbin. The 2,000 drug addicts, gamblers and prostitutes who madethe Garden their home were mostly migrants from North China who had fallenon hard times. In 1940 the Japanese police conducted a detailed survey oflife in the Garden, portraying it as a swamp of disorder and immorality.In contrast, this paper describes the residents of the Garden as theyvaliantly participated in a vigorous underground economy and arranged theirlives for survival.