S14: Urban Modernity
History of China Since 1800
February 6, 2026
Harlem in Shanghai
Key questions
- Semi-coloniality: How did the treaty port system work?
- Chinese modernity: What is “haipai (Shanghai style)”?
- Women and the city: How did gender shape urban space and power?
Shanghai: Gateway to Modern China
Map of Shanghai (1918)
Unequal foundations: Extra-territoriality
- Foreign settlements under jurisdiction of representative consul, not Chinese gov
- Disjointed and irregular development among several powers
- Shanghai as three cities within a city: International Settlement, French Concession, and Chinese city
- Source of growth or Seed of destruction?
From fishing village to metropolis?
Shanghai was nothing but a swamp through which flowed innumerable creeks connecting the large fertile plains beyond and forming a breeding place for the mosquito and malaria. With true British characteristics this place was turned from a useless swamp until to-day, boasting magnificent roads, and every modern convenience, except sewerage, priding itself on its local government and the modernity seldom excelled either in Europe or America.
Far Eastern Review, 1919
Playground for foreigners?
- Shanghai in Yangzi Delta: Long commercial tradition with dense trade networks controlled by local guilds
- Chinese domination of inland commercial circuits
- Shanghai as gateway to Chinese market, bridging int’l market and inland provinces
WWI: Golden Age of Chinese capitalism
- Exit of foreign firms and decline of Western import
- Demand from Western front: minerals, etc.
- Continued demand for post-war reconstruction
- Growth of Chinese industries: copper and flour milling as major national industries
- Rise of Chinese banks
Capitalism with Chinese characteristics
- Embrace of Western methods: tech innovations, rationalized management, entrepreneurial culture
- Centrality of family firms: family members as investors and managers
- Lineage and native place essential due to poor development of legal environment and capital markets
- Entrepreneurship not only as a source of income, but a vocation ennobled by service to society and nation
Selling modernity: Wing On Company
- Founded by brothers James Gock Lock (Kwok Lok/Guo Le) and Philip Gock Chin (Kwok Chuen/Guo Quan)
- Emigrant entrepreneur: Business in Sydney, Hong Kong, Shanghai
- Limited company and division of business into different apartments
- No sale of shares or share holders meetings
- Power in the hands of director general, appointments based on kinship and geographical origin
Selling desire
- Symbol of modernity: Elegant women in qipao dress
- Consumer culture oriented by desires of women
Selling culture: Shanghai-style (Haipai) cosmopolitan
- Print capitalism: 86% Chinese publishers in Shanghai in 1937
- Cinema as most popular forms of entertainment:
- New literary societies: rebellious romanticism
Auden on China
In this city the gulf between society’s two halves is too grossly wide for any bridge …And we ourselves though we wear out our shoes walking the slums, though we take notes, though we are genuinely shocked and indignant, belong, unescapably, to the other world. We return, always, to Number One House for lunch. In our world, there are garden-parties and the night-clubs, the hot baths and the cocktails, the singsong girls and the Ambassador’s cook.
WH Auden and Christopher Isherwood, Journey to a War, 1939.
Auden on China, continued
In our world, European business men write to the local newspapers, complaining that the Chinese are cruel to pigs, and saying that the refugees should be turned out of the Settlement because they are beginning to smell. And the well-meaning tourist, the liberal and humanitarian intellectual, can only wring his hands over all this and exclaim: ‘Oh dear, things are so awful here – so complicated. One doesn’t know where to start.’
WH Auden and Christopher Isherwood, Journey to a War, 1939.
Fragile Prosperity
- The Great Depreciation between 1928 and 1931 stimulated Chinese export
- After 1932, appreciation of silver tael drained metal and led to depression
- Structural weaknesses of Chinese economy: agriculture unable to keep up with growth in modern industrial sector
- Political crisis: Japanese annexation of Manchuria
Borrowed time
- 1931-09-18: Mukden Incident
- 1932-01-28: Shanghai incident, Japanese aerial attack of Zhabei District
Prelude to War
- January 28–March 3, 1932: Conflict between China and Japan in Shanghai, triggered by mob attack on Japanese monks; Japanese rioted, burned factory, killed 2 Chinese.
- Heavy fighting; China appealed to League of Nations.
- Truce on May 5: Japan withdraws troops, China ends boycotts.
- First modern city war between equipped armies.
- Led to assassination of Japanese PM Inukai on May 15, 1932.
Harlem meets Shanghai
Roar, China! Roar, old lion of the East! . . . Even the yellow men came To take what the white men Hadn’t already taken. The yellow men dropped bombs on Chapei. The yellow men called you the same names The white men did: Dog! Dog! Dog! Coolie dog! Red! . . . Lousy red! Red coolie dog!
Langston Hughes (1901-1967) 29 August 1937
The Goddess
The Goddess Director/screenplay: Wu Yonggang Studio: Lianhua (first studio) Date of release: December 7, 1934 85 minutes
The Goddess: The Characters
- A “fallen” woman
- Her child
- A male oppressor
- A male savior
The Goddess: Gender and the City
The Goddess: Shanghai
Discuss: The Goddess
- Explain the main character of the film: Why is she called a “goddess”?
- How is Shanghai portrayed? Is the city a character?
- What is the film’s genre?
Fallen women: Fixtures of silent cinema
- Sexually transgressive and suffering female characters, often facing social ostracism, poverty, abuse, disease, and death.
- Moral message: women’s sexuality should be restricted to marriage.
- Social critique: Women as victims of unfair socio-economic order.
A Fallen Woman in a Fallen City
- Shanghai’s neon nightscape vs the woman’s domestic scenes: individual woman’s struggle, adrift in a vast city.
- The shift between interior and exterior scenes reflects the goddess’s double life.
- The city as a sexually inviting woman, personifying its allure and danger.
The Goddess and Idealized Motherhood
- Ancient philosopher Mencius’s mother changed homes three times to protect him from negative influences.
- The plot of “Goddess” follows this idealized model of womanhood as a “virtuous wife and good mother.”
- Maternal paragon vs. Paternalistic authority: “Education is our responsibility, and we must rescue this child from adversity.” (School principal)
Chiang on tradition and revolution
Loyalty, filial piety, humaneness, charity, righteousness, peace and harmony are one and the same as our nation’s traditional virtues of propriety, righteousness, integrity, and frugality. Our traditional national essence (jingshen) is the spirit of wisdom, benevolence, and courage. Our nation’s one and only revolutionary principle is the Three People’s Principles. And all of these spirits and principles come back to the single principle of sincerity (cheng).
Chiang on tradition and revolution, continued
Therefore, as members of the revolutionary party we must dedicate ourselves sincerely to the preservation of the traditional virtues and the traditional spirits. Only by doing so will we be able to revive the highest culture of our nation, to restore our nation’s very special standing in this world, to create a glorious and radiant world order for mankind, and in achieving this noble and great enterprise thereby save mankind and save the world.