Synopses & Reviews
This pioneering work examines prostitution in Shanghai from the late nineteenth century to the present. Drawn mostly from the daughters and wives of the working poor and declassand#233; elites, prostitutes in Shanghai were near the bottom of class and gender hierarchies. Yet they were central figures in Shanghai urban life, entering the historical record whenever others wanted to appreciate, castigate, count, regulate, cure, pathologize, warn about, rescue, eliminate, or deploy them as a symbol in a larger social panorama.
Over the past century, prostitution has been understood in many ways: as a source of urbanized pleasures, a profession full of unscrupulous and greedy schemers, a changing site of work for women, a source of moral danger and physical disease, a marker of national decay, and a sign of modernity. For the Communist leadership of the 1950s, the elimination of prostitution symbolized China's emergence as a strong, healthy, and modern nation. In the past decade, as prostitution once again has become a recognized feature of Chinese society, it has been incorporated into a larger public discussion about what kind of modernity China should seek and what kind of sex and gender arrangements should characterize that modernity.
Prostitutes, like every other non-elite group, did not record their own lives. How can sources generated by intense public argument about the "larger" meanings of prostitution be read for clues to those lives? Hershatter makes use of a broad range of materials: guidebooks to the pleasure quarters, collections of anecdotes about high-class courtesans, tabloid gossip columns, municipal regulations prohibiting street soliciting, police interrogations of streetwalkers and those accused of trafficking in women, newspaper reports on court cases involving both courtesans and streetwalkers, polemics by Chinese and foreign reformers, learned articles by Chinese scholars commenting on the world history of prostitution and analyzing its local causes, surveys by doctors and social workers on sexually transmitted disease in various Shanghai populations, relief agency records, fictionalized accounts of the scams and sufferings of prostitutes, memoirs by former courtesan house patrons, and interviews with former officials and reformers.
Although a courtesan may never set pen to paper, we can infer a great deal about her strategizing and working of the system through the vast cautionary literature that tells her customers how not to be defrauded by her. Newspaper accounts of the arrests and brief court testimonies of Shanghai streetwalkers let us glimpse the way that prostitutes positioned themselves to get the most they could from the legal system. Without recourse to direct speech, Hershatter argues, these women have nevertheless left an audible trace. Central to this study is the investigation of how things are known and later remembered, and how, later still, they are simultaneously apprehended and reinvented by the historian.
Review
and#8220;A landmark in womenand#8217;s history and the history of China.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Remarkable. . . . Hershatter has a complicated story to tell about womenand#8217;s experiences in mid-twentieth-century China.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;If you want to be reminded of how moving history can be, then read this book.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;The Gender of Memory is not only a story of Chinaand#8217;s past but a gift of restless questions for the present.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Hershatter offers a breathtaking interrogation of her sources and methods, rendering elegantly transparent the thought processes behind her bookand#8217;s production.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Arresting and engaging. . . . The Gender of Memory is a work of outstanding scholarship and significance.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;This book should be on the reading list of global historians interested in China.and#8221;
Review
“[A book] to refer to, to argue about, and one you cannot ignore.”
Synopsis
What can we learn about the Chinese revolution by placing a doubly marginalized groupand#151;rural womenand#151;at the center of the inquiry? In this book, Gail Hershatter explores changes in the lives of seventy-two elderly women in rural Shaanxi province during the revolutionary decades of the 1950s and 1960s. Interweaving these womenand#8217;s life histories with insightful analysis, Hershatter shows how Party-state policy became local and personal, and how it affected womenand#8217;s agricultural work, domestic routines, activism, marriage, childbirth, and parentingand#151;even their notions of virtue and respectability. The women narrate their pasts from the vantage point of the present and highlight their enduring virtues, important achievements, and most deeply harbored grievances. In showing what memories can tell us about gender as an axis of power, difference, and collectivity in 1950s rural China and the present, Hershatter powerfully examines the nature of socialism and how gender figured in its creation.
Synopsis
"I was swept into the world of Hershatter's
Gender of Memory. Each of these oral histories is riveting and astonishing, giving a human -- and often, heartbreaking -- dimension to history. As this book shows, history is not simply recorded facts, but what is remembered by those who were once silent." and#151;Amy Tan
and#147;Gail Hershatterand#8217;s book transforms our understanding of Chinaand#8217;s Communist revolution. Organizing women and raising their status was a central goal of Communist leaders from the start. But what difference did that commitment make to the course of modern Chinese history? Hershatterand#8217;s answers and#150; framed in the language of her rural informants -- are stunning. In her moving and often wrenching interviews with rural women, she comes to understand that womenand#8217;s active support, sacrifice, and engagement ultimately gave the Communist leadership its authority at the household level.and#8221; and#151;Susan Mann, author of The Talented Women of the Zhang Family
"One of the most important works on Chinaand#8217;s much-neglected 1950s, and a very significant contribution to the literature on historical memory and methodology. There really is something for everybody here." and#151;Kenneth Pomeranz, author of The Great Divergence
and#147;This book is in a league of its own: a meticulous, thoughtful and sensitive interrogation of sources about an understudied aspect of China's revolutionary history, a critical exploration of how gender mediates personal recollections of the past, and a beautifully written narrative about women's experiences of China's land reform and collectivisation in the 1950s.and#8221; and#151;Harriet Evans, author of The Subject of Gender: Daughters and Mothers in Urban China
"Hershatter's ethnographically rich and original analysis of time and gendered periodization is revelatory and her powerful account of the early basis for genuine utopianism is utterly convincing." and#151;James C. Scott, author of The Art of Not Being Governed
"This book is an event." and#151;Andrew Barshay, author of The Social Sciences in Modern Japan: The Marxian and Modernist Traditions
Synopsis
Rich with details of everyday life, this multifaceted social and cultural history of China's leading metropolis in the twentieth century offers a kaleidoscopic view of Shanghai as the major site of Chinese modernization. Engaging the entire span of Shanghai's modern history from the Opium War to the eve of the Communist takeover in 1949, Wen-hsin Yeh traces the evolution of a dazzling urban culture that became alternately isolated from and intertwined with China's tumultuous history. Looking in particular at Shanghai's leading banks, publishing enterprises, and department stores, she sketches the rise of a new maritime and capitalist economic culture among the city's middle class. Making extensive use of urban tales and visual representations, the book captures urbanite voices as it uncovers the sociocultural dynamics that shaped the people and their politics.
Synopsis
"What a fine and illuminating book!
Shanghai Splendor is an important and captivating work of scholarship."and#151;David Strand, author of
Rickshaw Beijing: City People and Politics in the 1920s"This in an outstanding work. Although Shanghai has been among the most popular subjects for scholars in modern Chinese studies, one has yet to see a project as impressive as this. Yeh tells a most fascinating story."and#151;David Der-wei Wang, author of The Monster That Is History: History, Violence, and Fictional Writing in 20th Century China
Synopsis
This indispensable guide for students of both Chinese and womens history synthesizes recent research on women in twentieth-century China. Written by a leading historian of China, it surveys more than 650 scholarly works, discussing Chinese women in the context of marriage, family, sexuality, labor, and national modernity. In the process, Hershatter offers keen analytic insights and judgments about the works themselves and the evolution of related academic fields. The result is both a practical bibliographic tool and a thoughtful reflection on how we approach the past.
Synopsis
An important and much-needed introduction to this rich and fast-growing field. Hershatter has handled a daunting task with aplomb.” Susan L. Glosser, author of Chinese Visions of Family and State, 19151953
Synopsis
These translations of eighteen classical Chinese texts from the mid-ninth century (Tang dynasty) through the late nineteenth century (Qing dynasty) offer a comprehensive collection of primary sources focusing on gender issues in medieval and late imperial China. The book's title reflects the sometimes ironic relationship between Confucian viewpoints and women's visibility in Chinese historical documents. The texts, written by both men and women, show that Confucian values and scholarly practices produced a rich documentary record of women's lives.
Includes a brief guide for use by students and teachers
Synopsis
"This important volume adds a significant number of new and unique materials for teachers at all levels of higher education to use in classroom and seminar discussion about the issues of gender, society, and religion in imperial China."and#151;Benjamin Elman, author of
A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China"The eighteen primary documents in this anthology, all of them translated for the first time, provide a rich array of sources on the lives of women in China's past. The anthology is important not only for the selection of documents but for the ways it suggests we can think about, and find sources about, women in China. It is must reading for scholars and students alike."and#151;Ann Waltner, author of The World of a Late Ming Visionary: T'an-Yang-Tzu and Her Followers
Synopsis
What can we learn about modern Chinese history by reading a marginalized set of materials from a widely neglected period? In
Republican Lens, Joan Judge retrieves and revalorizes the vital brand of commercial culture that arose in the period surrounding Chinaand#8217;s 1911 Revolution. Dismissed by high-minded ideologues of the late 1910s and largely overlooked in subsequent scholarship, this commercial culture has only recently begun to be rehabilitated in mainland China. Judge uses one of its most striking, innovativeand#151;and continually mischaracterizedand#151;products, the journal
Funand#252; shibao (The womenand#8217;s eastern times), as a lens onto the early years of Chinaand#8217;s first Republic. Redeeming both the value of the medium and the significance of the era, she demonstrates the extent to which the commercial press channeled and helped constitute key epistemic and gender trends in Chinaand#8217;s revolutionary twentieth century.
The book develops a cross-genre and inter-media method for reading the periodical press and gaining access to the complexities of the past. Drawing on the full materiality of the medium, Judge reads cover art, photographs, advertisements, and poetry, editorials, essays, and readersand#8217; columns in conjunction with and against one another, as well as in their broader print, historical and global contexts. This yields insights into fundamental tensions that governed both the journal and the early Republic. It also highlights processes central to the arc of twentieth-century knowledge culture and social change: the valorization and scientization of the notion of and#147;experience,and#8221; the public actualization of and#147;Republican Ladies,and#8221; and the amalgamation of and#147;Chinese medicineand#8221; and scientific biomedicine. It further revives the journaland#8217;s editors, authors, medical experts, artists, and, most notably, its little known female contributors. Republican Lens captures the ingenuity of a journal that captures the chaotic potentialities within Chinaand#8217;s early Republic and its global twentieth century.
and#160;
Synopsis
"
Republican Lens presents an innovative method of analyzing the commercial press and a sophisticated study of the tensions between the epic and the everyday in the early years of Republican China. Joan Judge gives us a deeper understanding of social changes and the link between gender and modernity through analyzing the subtle changes in everyday life."and#151;Julia F. Andrews, coauthor ofand#160;
The Art of Modern China "This study is a remarkable achievement. Judge's methodology sets a new standard for scholars studying the commercial press in other periods and countries."and#151;Louise Edwards, author ofand#160;Gender, Politics, and Democracy: Women's Suffrage in China
About the Author
Wen-hsin Yeh is Richard H. and Laurie C. Morrison Professor in History at the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. She is author of
The Alienated Academy: Culture and Politics in Republican China and
Provinical Passages: Culture, Space, and the Origins of Chinese Communism (UC Press) and editor of
Becoming Chinese: Passages to Modernity and Beyond, 1900and#150;1950 (UC Press).
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Editorsand#8217; Introduction
Guide for Students and Teachers
1. Biography of the Daoist Saint Wang Fengxian by Du Guangting (850 - 933)
Translated by Suzanne Cahill
This biography of an important Daoist female saint of the mid-ninth century chronicles her life from childhood through her spiritual self-cultivation, culminating in her ascension to heaven.
2. Biography of the Great Compassionate One of Xiangshan by Jiang Zhiqi (1031 - 1104)
Translated by Chand#252;n-fang Yand#252;
The earliest documentary evidence of the legend of Miaoshan, this stone inscription shows how the local story of a Chinese princess became identified with a universal Buddhist deity, the Bodhisattva Guanyin.
3. The Book of Filial Piety for Women Attributed to a Woman Nand#233;e Zheng (ca. 730)
Translated by Patricia Buckley Ebrey
The excerpt from this classic appears opposite corresponding passages from the original Book of Filial Piety to highlight the differences gender makes in the text and its messages.
4. Funerary Writings by Chen Liang (1143-1194)
Translated by Beverly Bossler
These three funerary odes describe how the funeral tablets of Chen Liangand#8217;s motherand#8217;s family came to be in his care, how his mother and her sister decided to marry their children together, and how his sister sustained her natal household during a period of family calamity. Along with the commemorative biography that follows, they open important windows on domestic life and family values during the period following the fall of the Northern Song.
5. "The Customs of Various Barbarians" by Li Jing (1251 - ?)
Translated by Jacqueline M. Armijo-Hussein
This description of minority peoples from a Yuan dynasty officialand#8217;s record of his experiences in Yunnan province illustrates how views of gender relations and especially sexual practices served as a measure of the level of civilization among non-Han populations.
6. Selected Writings by Luo Rufang (1515 - 1588)
Translated by Yu-Yin Cheng
In these writings scholar and philosopher Luo Rufang celebrates women who pursue intellectual and philosophical interests. He also champions the virtue of motherly nurturance and love, which he considered as important as the central Confucian virtues of filial piety and brotherly respect.
7. Final Instructions by Yang Jisheng (1516 - 1555)
Translated by Beverly Bossler
Composed in prison, these notes instruct Yangand#8217;s wife and sons how to get along without him. His foremost concerns are three: that his family not become the subject of ridicule, that his sons get along with one another, and that his wifeand#151;who had already proven herself the moral conscience of the familyand#151;not commit suicide.
8. "Record of Past Karma" by Ji Xian (1614 - 1683)
Translated by Grace S. Fong
This autobiographical essay by the woman poet Ji Xian , with its powerful descriptions of dreams, visions, and personal illness, is unusually self-revelatory of the tensions between her personal religious desires and her obligations to her family.
9. "Letter to My Sons" by Gu Ruopu (1592 - ca.1681)
Translated by Dorothy Ko
Having seen to it that both sons married capable and learned wives, Hangzhou poet Gu Ruopu, virtuous widow and matriarch of the Huang family, decided to divide the family property and establish separate households for them. In this letter Gu outlines her support for the Confucian ideal of familism, but admonishes her sons to recognize womenand#8217;s indispensable roles in the male-centered kinship system.
10. Personal Letters in Seventeenth-Century Epistolary Guides
Translated by Kathryn Lowry
The large number of epistolary guides and collected letters published in the late Ming include models for letters to family members as well as a few examples of love letters and provide a unique view of the social universe of that period. The love letters translated here show how this genre can be read as a sort of epistolary fiction and raise questions about how people might have consulted letter-writing manuals for reasons beyond social etiquette.
11. Letters by Women of the Ming-Qing Period
Translated by Yu-Yin Cheng
These short letters, written in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, reveal the erudition and wit as well as the spiritual and aesthetic sensibilities of highly educated upper-class women.
12. Selected Short Works by Wang Duanshu (1621 - after 1701)
Translated by Ellen Widmer
These short selections from the works of one of the earliest anthologists of womenand#8217;s writings display the extraordinary range and breadth of her learning, while revealing her personal, aesthetic, and scholarly sensibilities.
13. Two Ghost Stories from Liaozhaiand#8217;s Records of the Strange by Pu Songling (1640 - 1715)
Translated by Judith T. Zeitlin
The ghost story, authored by men and narrated from the male point of view, is one of the privileged spaces in Chinese literature for exploring fantasies of gender and sexuality. Such tales often involve a passionate affair between a young scholar and a beautiful female ghost who possesses a surprising degree of corporeality. The two late imperial tales translated here share two related themes: the power of love to triumph over death and the cosmic power of male generativity.
14. Two Biographies by Zhang Xuecheng (1738 - 1801)
Translated by Susan Mann
These biographies by one of the most distinguished scholars of the Qing period breathe life into views of women that are sometimes dismissed as mere conventions or stereotypes. In both texts we see, through menand#8217;s eyes, how women took responsibility for setting the standards to measure and criticize menand#8217;s behavior.
15. Poems on Tea-Picking
Translated by Weijing Lu
These poems about women at work, written mostly by men and spanning the dynasties from Tang through Qing, display the varied meanings of womenand#8217;s work in the poetic imagery of elite writers and point to the ways in which women as literary subjects supplied a ceaseless range of possibilities for inventive poets over time. The poems also show the subtle relationship between poetry as social criticism and poetry as aesthetic performance in the culture of the late imperial elite.
16. Drinking Wine and Reading "Encountering Sorrow": A Reflection in Disguise by Wu Zao (1799 - 1862)
Translated by Sophie Volpp
In this dramatic tableau the playwright casts herself as the sole speaker. She poses before a portrait of herself cross-dressed as a male scholar and sings to the portrait a sequence of lyrics describing her frustrations as a woman of talent. The text concludes that none but her cross-dressed self-image is a match for the writer herself. Hangzhou poet and official Chen Wenshu, a noted patron of female writers, wrote a collection of poems celebrating this work.
17. A Brief Record of the Eastern Ocean by Ding Shaoyi (fl. 1847)
Translated by Emma Jinhua Teng
During his eight-month stay in Taiwan in 1847 Ding Shaoyi wrote the Brief Record, which treats sixteen topics, among them: taxes, schools, coastal defense, local products, "savage" villages, "savage" customs, and marvels. When he returned to Taiwan in 1871 he appended new material to each item in his original account. The passage translated here is Dingand#8217;s 1871 supplement to his original entry titled "Savage Customs."
18. The "Eating Crabs" Youth Book
Translated by Mark C. Elliott
This anonymous bilingual text, in Manchu and Chinese, reflects the complex ethnic picture in late imperial China, particularly in and around Beijing. Youth books were a form of oral performance very popular in the Qing capital. In this particular one, the story is told of a hapless Manchu bannerman and his shrewish Han Chinese wife who run afoul of a pot of feisty crabs.
Glossaries and References
Contributors
Index