Early Twentieth-century China Research Articles

Struggling with exactitude in a fragmented state: Intelligence testing in early twentieth-century China.

This article examines the rise and decline of the enthusiasm for intelligence testing in early twentieth-century China, focusing on the appeal, the challenges, and the critiques revolving around this psychological instrument. The introduction of intelligence testing reflected not only China's urgent needs in modernizing its merit system, but also Chinese psychologists' aspirations for pursuing exactitude and redefining the racial characteristics of their compatriots against foreign interpretations. But despite psychologists' endeavors, the political and geographical fragmentation of Republican China troubled the epistemic imperative of uniformity demanded by Euro-American psychometrics and therefore undermined the validity of measurement. Subsequently, the legitimacy of intelligence testing began to be questioned by several influential Chinese psychologists in the late 1920s and 30s. The difficulties in standardization and the hostility within the psychology community formed a vicious cycle, impeding the progress of nationwide testing. Through this history, the article demonstrates not only the elevation of measurement to epistemic authority in modern China, but also how its promise was challenged by a diverse and rapidly changing society.

“THE NUMBER ONE CHINA-JAPAN CAMERA HOUSE”: CHIYO YOKO PHOTO SUPPLIES AND THE BUSINESS OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN INTERWAR SHANGHAI

Chiyo Yoko Photo Supplies emerged as a leading specialty store catering to the highly international population of photographers in the international treaty port of Shanghai, the beating heart of art, culture, and commerce in early twentieth-century China. Drawing on Chinese, Japanese, and English-language period sources, this essay reconstructs the profile of this influential Japanese retailer, examining its committed investments in the business and culture of photography during this formative period of amateur photography in China. The store’s multifaceted retail marketing strategies, ranging from advertising in multiple languages to its backing of a photographic society and organization of a large-scale international exhibition, cultivated a cosmopolitan clientele base spanning the diverse communities of Chinese and foreign nationals in the city. This case study recaptures the transnational dynamics and cross-border movements of people and goods that empowered photography as a business, which in turn galvanized the popularization of amateur photography during this period of heightened national consciousness in modern China.

A New Discourse on Fengjian: the Redefinition of Fengjian and the Demonization of Federalism

This article examines the evolution of the vocabulary “feudal (fengjian)” in early twentieth-century China. Despite having served as a symbol of local autonomy and countervailing against imperial authority as emphasized in the Confucian tradition, the term had descended into an object of scorn, oppression, and retrogression in the latter half of the twentieth century until today. An alternative interpretation toward the modern misuse of fengjian may be found by focusing and comparing the two seemingly unrelated and radically different portrayals of fengjian by: political thinker Zhang Taiyan’s federalist ideology; and Marxist historian Guo Moruo’s manipulation of Chinese classics. Under the historical context surrounding the turmoil of 1920s China, this article argues that much more than a mistranslation, the redefinition of fengjian was an intentional slander to, through the ambiguity surrounding its definition, destroy the Chinese tradition of liberty and local autonomy, further justifying a unified, highly centralized Chinese nation-state.

What Kind of Cosmopolitanism? Transplantation and Displacement in the (Re)construction of Theatrical Nationality in Early Twentieth-Century China and Japan

What Kind of Cosmopolitanism? Transplantation and Displacement in the (Re)construction of Theatrical Nationality in Early Twentieth-Century China and Japan

From Modern to Feudal

Abstract Using a special issue of the Chinese journal Gaizao published in 1921 as a starting point, this article intends to trace some conceptual articulations of federalism (lianbang) and self-government (zizhi) promoted by intellectuals and activists in early twentieth-century China. The analysis will show how Chinese federalists shaped their arguments through a series of historical and philosophical references, translating a prevalently “Western” concept into Chinese discourse, at the same time transplanting it into the traditional political debate and traditional historical narrative. Part of the argument will also be concerned with the identification of the conceptual reasons behind the failure of federal projects in China especially at the turning point of the mid-1920s, as the “modern” federal blueprint eventually fell under the category of “feudalism” and “warlordism,” thus deteriorating into an “anti-modern” nemesis.

Practical Christianity in Practice: Chinese Youth Culture and the Scouting Movement as Seen by British Missionaries at the Griffith John College, Hankou, 1915–1925

ABSTRACT This article, which highlights the religious origin of early Chinese scouting, scrutinises the connections between scouting, Christianity, and cultural exchange in early twentieth-century China. It provides insight into the history of Chinese youth by examining how British missionary scoutmasters, highly critical of Chinese parenting, introduced an alternate model of adolescence with a ‘civilising’ mission at Griffith John College – a mission school founded by the London Missionary Society in Hankou for Chinese male adolescents. This article contends that Chinese scouting was initially designed as an effective means to practice Christianity in evangelical ministries which equipped Chinese scouts with ‘fine virtues’ – elements that shaped them to become ‘good citizens’ and help them ‘overcome’ superstitious social customs. Apart from studying the role of scouting in China, this article also examines the effects of Christian missions on Chinese society in the cultural exchange influenced by the ‘civilising’ perspective that upheld by missionary scoutmasters. The cultural imperialism inherent in scout training hindered the development of a thorough Chinese citizenship at the national level. But the ways foreign evangelists educated their boy scouts did bring some positive impacts on Chinese youth culture, enlarging the scope of Christian missions to different possibilities and creative potential in cultural interaction between the colonisers and the colonised.

Modernizing Sculpture: Print Culture and the New Discourse on Sculpture in China, circa 1880–1929

Abstract Much of the current scholarship on the art of China in the 1910s and 1920s focuses on artworks, art academies, and art groups that were associated either with traditional Chinese painting (guohua 國畫) or with oil painting (youhua 油畫). By contrast, other mediums such as sculpture have rarely been discussed by scholars of modern Chinese art. Similar to guohua, the association of which with lofty literati values and imperial eras was hotly debated at the beginning of the Republic of China (1912–1949), the art of sculpture – a category that has long been considered as funerary art, craft, or decorative art – and its relevance to modern China was also discussed by artists and intellectuals at that time. In early twentieth-century China, sculpture eventually gained a new status within the fine arts. This article argues that one important factor that promoted the changing perception of sculpture in the public sphere was the blossoming print culture and its connections with photography and exhibitions in Republican China. Print materials such as newspapers, newspaper supplements, pictorial magazines, and exhibition catalogs/pamphlets promoted the process of modernizing sculpture.

Modernist Visions Beyond the Horizon of History: The Theatricality of Bai Wei’s Rarely Staged Plays

Abstract: This article explores the theatricality of the works of Bai Wei 白薇 (1894–1987), one of the most prolific women playwrights in early twentieth century China. Her play scripts garnered huge popularity and were frequently reprinted, but were rarely staged. Due to the lack of staging opportunities, their unconventional modernist style, and the paucity of production records, these scripts have been largely deemed unproducible and low in theatricality by scholars and critics both now and then. Through a detailed production analysis of three aspects of Bai’s plays (acting, set design, and stage effects), I argue that Bai’s rarely staged scripts are embedded with rich theatrical intentions and implications. The correlation between the number of staging records and the plays’ intrinsic theatrical value is completely arbitrary, and Bai’s scripts envision a modernist theatre with artistic potentials ahead of her time.

The making of a naturalist in Manchuria: Arthur de Carle Sowerby, 1885–1922

This article examines the professional identity-building of Arthur de Carle Sowerby (1885–1954), a China-born explorer of Anglo descent who was a versatile hunter-sportsman aspiring to become a naturalist. Existing work on Sowerby acknowledges his role as the founder of the China Journal of Science and Arts and as president of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in Shanghai; yet his pre-Shanghai life and career prior to 1922 has received scant scholarly attention. Between 1907 and 1922, Sowerby joined several expeditions exploring the terrain and collecting animal specimens in the Manchurian and Sino-Mongolian borderland before taking up residence in Shanghai in 1923 until his departure from China in 1946. Sowerby's zoological expedition in Manchuria is discussed as a backdrop against which his subsequent Shanghai career is portrayed. Sowerby's roles as an explorer and fieldworker have not been subject to independent examination. I argue that the making of Sowerby's naturalist identity reflects a career route for amateur practitioners to build a scientific identity via expeditionary fieldwork, writing natural history for popular audiences and curating biological specimens in early twentieth-century China.

Rewriting a foreign novel through a collaborative approach between an interpreter and a writer: the translation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the Chinese landscape

ABSTRACT Whether readers decide to accept or reject the translation of foreign literary works depends on a variety of linguistic, literary, cultural and social factors. This paper attempts to explore how the collaborative approach between an interpreter and a writer can effectively address these interrelated factors that constrain the reception of translations of foreign literary works through a case study of Wei Yi and Lin Shu’s translation of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the early twentieth-century China. By leveraging their respective expertise as an interpreter and a writer, they rewrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the linguistic, literary, cultural and social landscape of China through various translation strategies such as additions, deletions, abridgments and adaptations. The paper argues that Wei Yi and Lin Shu’s collaboration as an interpreter and a writer facilitated a more appropriate contextualisation and reception of the Chinese translation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin among the target readership in the early twentieth-century Chinese landscape. By studying the collaboration between an interpreter and a writer in rewriting a foreign novel, this research is expected to provide some valuable insights into literary translation across different countries.

Review: American by Birth: Wong Kim Ark and the Battle for Citizenship, by Carol Nackenoff and Julie Novkov

Book Review| May 01 2023 Review: American by Birth: Wong Kim Ark and the Battle for Citizenship, by Carol Nackenoff and Julie Novkov Carol Nackenoff and Julie Novkov. American by Birth: Wong Kim Ark and the Battle for Citizenship. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2021. 304 pp. Paperback $34.29. Margaret Kuo Margaret Kuo MARGARET KUO is a professor of history at California State University, Long Beach. She is the author of Intolerable Cruelty: Marriage, Law, and Society in Early Twentieth-Century China (2012). Her current research examines gender and law in Asian and Asian American history. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar California History (2023) 100 (2): 115–117. https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2023.100.2.115 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Margaret Kuo; Review: American by Birth: Wong Kim Ark and the Battle for Citizenship, by Carol Nackenoff and Julie Novkov. California History 1 May 2023; 100 (2): 115–117. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2023.100.2.115 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentCalifornia History Search A list of landmark Supreme Court cases related to racial discrimination usually begins with Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), passes through the “separate but equal” finding of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), and ends triumphantly with Brown v. Board of Education (1954). A longer list might include Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), Korematsu v. United States (1944), and Loving v. Virginia (1967). The impressive book under review helps make the case for why United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) should be among these decisions of first-order historical significance. The case is duly celebrated as a major legal victory for Asian Americans. At a time when Chinese laborers were barred from entry to the United States and Chinese residents were denied naturalization rights, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Chinese born in the United States were entitled to birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment. Drawing upon past studies that situate Wong... You do not currently have access to this content.

The Dragon Daughter and Other Lin Lan Fairy Tales

The Dragon Daughter and Other Lin Lan Fairy Tales

Impact of Salome on Chinese Literature & Response to its Imagery in Early Twentieth-century China and Britain

Salomé, a classic one-act play created by Oscar Wilde born in the Victorian era, was adapted from Bible but given a new meaning under Wilde's secondary production. This richness of imagery contributes to a deeper understanding of the texts the exploration of the imagery in Salomé from different perspectives and in different historical and cultural contexts is an important way to expand the content and spiritual richness of the play, which offers an opportunity to explore both the characteristics of Victorian literature and the literary values derived from Salome over time. At the same time, Salomé’s one-act play was also well received in China in the early twentieth century, influencing many Chinese audiences. In short, Salomé has become popular around the world because the imagery in Salomé and its main themes have been able to give birth to different critical understandings and cultural values in different cultures and from different perspectives. This approach will facilitate the research and investigation about the similarities and differences in the cultural connotations of the work from different perspectives in the future.

The Hard Road to Reform: Curriculum Renewal for Muslim Education in Early Twentieth-Century China

Since the early twentieth century, Chinese Muslim elites have been engaged in a movement aimed at developing a new style of education for Muslim children. These Muslim elites traveled to the Middle East and were influenced by the modernizing movement in the broader Islamic world. The new-style schools were no longer attached to mosques, and their curricula emphasized the inclusion of modern secular subjects. Islamic knowledge and disciplines began to be transmitted as modern subjects when taught in modern institutions. Based on the detailed analysis of historical documents, this paper examines the trajectories of several prominent modern institutions in Beijing to illustrate the key aspects of Muslim educational reform. The Muslim elites in charge of this educational reform share the common goals of promoting education and improved livelihoods for the urban Hui Muslims; to date, however, these goals have been only partially met, and a mismatch has emerged between the new knowledge that students have learned and the occupational composition of the Hui people in Niujie (mainly small traders).

Electric Pioneers: Nationalist Lobbying, Technology Transfer, and the Origins of the Chinese Electric Lamp Industry, 1921–1937

This article uses the case of Oppel Electric Manufacturing Co. Ltd.—the most important Chinese manufacturer of light bulbs before 1937—to explore the early development of the Chinese electrical lamp industry. The article first explores the Chinese market for electrical lamps before the 1920s and shows how the market was dominated by imports and lamps locally manufactured by foreign firms. It then traces how Oppel was established in the 1920s and subsequently grew into a successful manufacturing business able to compete with foreign products. The article explores how the fact that government institutions were major purchasers of light bulbs allowed Oppel to engage in nationalist lobbying and thereby win government contracts. The article shows how the absence of Western-style intellectual property rights allowed Oppel to transfer technology cheaply, efficiently, and without needing to enter into Sino–foreign joint ventures. These discussions of nationalist lobbying and China’s intellectual property environment contribute to our understanding of China’s early industrialization, both in terms of the rapid industrial growth early twentieth century China saw and the leading role that Chinese firms played in this growth.

Objective Humanities, Reflexive Humanities

Objective Humanities, Reflexive Humanities

Disease, Professionalisation, and Cosmopolitan Encounters: Anne Walter Fearn as a Woman Doctor in China

ABSTRACT Reading Anne Water Fearn’s memoir My Days of Strength (1939) as an empowering narrative regarding female professionalisation, this article explores the intersection of gender, race, and transcultural encounters in representing epidemic disease. Fearn (1867–1939), a Southern American physician in early twentieth-century China, strategically uses disease, particularly epidemics, as a significant agentic actor in conceiving a medical career which transgresses not just gender norms but also the imperialist ideology prevalent in western discourses regarding China. This article first teases out the historical backdrop in which Western medicine conveniently coupled with imperialism in American discourses on China, mapping epidemic disease onto popular imaginations of China and its people. It moves on to trace the ways in which Fearn turns to depictions of China’s epidemic disease and her daughter’s death to displace possible criticism of her professional choices. Furthermore, I demonstrate how gendered approaches to epidemics allow for curiosity in and respect for some local medical practices. As such, the memoir reveals a cross-cultural, cosmopolitan sensitivity regarding local medical traditions as much as a cultivated distance from western medicine’s perceived superiority and dominance that sustain imperialism.

From Timothy Tingfang Lew to Bing Xin: The Bible and Poetic Innovation at Yenching University

The sweeping spread of Christianity in China since the late Qing Dynasty contributed to the construction of modern Chinese literature. Among scholars, this view is widely recognized. However, how the Bible as literature crossed the linguistic boundary and specifically influenced modern Chinese literature, especially the study of Chinese vernacular poetry, has not been thoroughly researched. Yenching University (1919–1952), a legendary ecclesiastical university in Peking, is famous for producing many famous modern writers. In the 1920s, at this university, the Bible deeply inspired and influenced several key writers in the history of modern Chinese literature and culture. This paper will review the poetry of these writers and analyze the following three questions: (1) How did biblical poetry take root in a historically non-Biblical cultural context through Christian higher education? (2) How was biblical poetry inherited and recreated in early twentieth century China in the circumstances of Yenching University? (3) How did Bible-inspired poetry contribute to and change the creation of modern Chinese literature?

中華民國時期 兒童公育論의 變化- 아나키즘, 국가주의, 여성문제 -

Reformers and revolutionaries in early twentieth century China advocated for a system of “communal child rearing”(儿童公育) that assigned primary responsibility for child rearing to society and community rather than individual parents. This article discusses the idea of communal child rearing, how it changed over time, and how these debates have reverberated in post-1949 policy debates. Revolutionary anarchists in the 1900s believed communal child rearing could dismantle the hierarchical relationship between parent and child and thus would play a crucial role in their project to overthrow the existing social order and create of a more egalitarian society. In the 1920s, starting from 1919 to be exact, communal child rearing became a focal point of debate for social reform. Those who advocated for the program were radicals who also supported women’s liberation and criticized private property and family as an embodiment of traditional values. Newspaper articles published around and after this time show how their contemporaries understood communal child rearing as a necessary condition for women’s economic independence. However, the debates in the 1910s and 20s differed from those in the 1900s in terms of their utilization of scientific knowledge. Whereas radicals in the 1900s advanced their ideas based on revolutionary idealism, the 1910s and 20s groups (on both sides of the debate) grounded their arguments in the social scientific discourses of early child education and psychology. In the 1930s, nationalists gained more ground and argued for communal child rearing for the sake of the nation. While nationalists’ views on child rearing drastically differed from the anarchists and other radicals of earlier periods, they continued to support the feminist claim that communal child rearing was crucial for women’s economic activities and social participation. The wartime conditions in China from the mid-1930s also contributed to the increase of public child rearing facilities for war orphans. Public child care in wartime China owed much to the desperate material conditions of women and children. These policies prioritizing the needs of working women and children continued after 1949 and served as the basis of institutionalized child care facilities in the early years of the People’s Republic of China.

Who Is Mr. Science and Why Does He Matter?

This special issue is devoted to exploring the manifestations of Mr. Science in May Fourth China and to examining this icon’s significance not only to China’s modern era but also to our understandings of science and society beyond. In this introduction, the co-editors make a case for critically engaging Mr. Science and, by extension, questions of science in early twentieth century China, particularly in light of China’s emergence as a scientific and technological superpower today—a fact which has, incidentally, been framed by the current PRC government as a realization of May Fourth dreams. In concurrently reinvigorating Mr. Science’s idealism, critical edge, and cosmopolitanism while challenging his common association with scientism, the articles in this special issue offer new insights into topics from science and democracy to universality without Eurocentricism, which are of relevance and interest to both modern Chinese history and the global history of science.