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NOTES

1. Leo Oufan Lee, "In Search of Modernity: Reflections on a New Mode of Consciousness in Modern Chinese Literature and Thought," in Ideas across Cultures: Essays in Honor of Benjamin Schwartz, ed. Paul A. Cohen and Merle Goldman (Cambridge: Harvard East Asian Monographs, 1990), 110–11.1 [BACK]

2. The term wenming is included in appendix D, "Return Graphic Loans: Kanji Terms Derived from Classical Chinese," in Lydia Liu's Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity—China, 1900–1937 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 308. [BACK]

3. Benjamin Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), 238–39. [BACK]

4. Rengong [Liang Qichao], "Hanman lu," Qingyi bao 35 (1899): 2275–78. [BACK]

5. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1983). [BACK]

6. Ibid., 31–36. [BACK]

7. Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989), 40–41, 50–51. [BACK]

8. But this is not the same as Habermas's "public sphere," as China did not share the same preconditions as Europe in the eighteenth century. Thus I differ from those who believe there was a Chinese public sphere or civil society. Still, the concept of a reading "public" does open up notions of the "public space" as well as urban space, which may constitute a "semipublic sphere" within the framework of urban society. But even so, some of the standard manifestations Habermas sees in eighteenth-century French salons or English pubs and journals did not take place in China. [BACK]

9. Homi K. Bhabha, "Dissemination: Time, Narrative, and the Margins of the Modern Nation," in Nation and Narration, ed. Homi K. Bhabha (London: Routledge, 1990). [BACK]

10. Robert Darnton, The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopedie [sic] (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968). [BACK]


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11. There has already been scholarly treatment of both Dongfang zazhi and the Commercial Press in Western languages. Thus, I do not intend to go into their backgrounds. For a comprehensive study of the latter, see Jean-Pierre Drege, La Commercial Press de Shanghai, 1897–1949 (Paris: Institute des hautes etudes chinoises, College de France, 1978). See also the valuable collection of reminiscences Shangwu yinshugan jiushinian (Ninety years of the Commercial Press) (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1987). [BACK]

12. Ma Xuexin, Cao Junwei, et al., eds., Shanghai wenhua yuanliu cidian (A dictionary of cultural sources in Shanghai) (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1992), 199. [BACK]

13. Jing Cang, "Jinhou zazhi jie zhi zhiwu" (The duty of the magazine world from now on), Dongfang zazhi (hereafter DZ) 16, no. 7 (July 1919): 3–5. [BACK]

14. Lu Lu, "Jiqi yu rensheng" (Machines and life), DZ 16, no. 10 (October 1916): 47–54. [BACK]

15. DZ 8, no. 1 (March 1911): 38. [BACK]

16. Apparently English-Chinese dictionaries were in great demand, and the Commercial Press had to make every effort in order to beat other publishers to the market. Most dictionaries were patchworks stitched together from English and Japanese dictionaries. In the case of publishing Webster's Dictionary, the Commercial Press had to pay a sizable sum as a result of the lawsuit brought by the original company. See Xie Juzeng, Shili yangchang de ciyang (Silhouettes on the Bund) (Guangzhou: Huacheng chubanshe), 50. [BACK]

17. Actually, Mrs. Zhu was editor in name only; the real editor was a man, Zhu Yunzhang, a member of the press's staff, who nominally consulted her and wrote some articles under her name. See Xie Juzeng, Shili yangchang de ciyang, 38. [BACK]

18. See "Jiaokeshu zhi fakan gaikuang" (The general situation of the publication of textbooks), in Zhongguo jindai chuban shiliao chubian, ed. Zhang Jinglu (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1957), 220. [BACK]

19. Ibid., 228. The Japanese connection proved to be a mixed blessing; the press eventually severed it. This may have been the reason, though an undocumented one, why the Japanese bombarded and destroyed the press's printing plant and other buildings during the air raid on January 28, 1932. [BACK]

20. This announcement and the advertisements for the photo and postcards can be found in DZ 8, no. 11 (November 1911). [BACK]

21. Zhongguo jindai chuban shiliao chubian, 243–44. [BACK]

22. Zhongguo jiaoyu daxi (The grand compendium of Chinese education) 2 (1994): 2221–22. [BACK]

23. Zhongguo jindai chuban shiliao chubian, 242–43. [BACK]

24. Ibid., 246. [BACK]

25. Ibid., 221. [BACK]

26. I am indebted to my student Mr. Chen Jianhua for these statistics and for other research assistance. [BACK]

27. Wang Yunwu, "Wangyou wenku di yierji yinxing yuanqi" (The background for the publication of the first and second series of the Wanyou wenku), in Zhongguo xiandai chuban shiliao yibian (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1954), 290–91. Drege discusses Wang Yunwu's reorganization efforts (Drege, Commercial Press, 89–94), and in the appendix section of Commercial Press are listings of the periodicals distributed by the press, as well as congshu and dictionaries (185–98), but not textbooks. [BACK]

28. Ibid., 290–91. [BACK]

29. Ibid., 293–94. [BACK]


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30. "Wanyou wenku bianyi fanli" (The guidelines for the compilation of Wanyou wenku), Wanyou wenku diyiji yiqianzhong mulu (Catalogue of one thousand titles of Wanyou wenku, 1st ser.) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1929), 2. [BACK]

31. The relevance was noted by Li Shizeng, a renowned intellectual of the time, who is reported to have remarked that he admired two historical figures: Ji Xiaolan, the Qing dynasty compiler of the Siku quanshu, and Diderot, the French philosophe of the Encyclopedie. See Qian Huafo and Zheng Yimei, Sanshinian lai zhi Shanghai (Shanghai of the past thirty years) (1946; reprint, Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 1984), 46–47. [BACK]

32. Ma Xuexin et al., Shanghai wenhua yuanliu cidian (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1992), 379. For an analysis of the making of the Compendium of New Chinese Literature, see Lydia Liu, Translingual Practice, 214–38. [BACK]

33. Liangyou huabao, 6 (July 15, 1926): 18. [BACK]

34. Huang Kewu, "Cong Shenbao yiyao guanggao kan minchu Shanghai de yiliao wenhua yu shehui shenghuo" (Shanghai's medical culture and social life as seen in Shenbao's medicine advertisements), Zhongyang yanjiu yuan Jindai shi yanjiu suo jikan (Quarterly journal of the Modern History Institute, Academia Sinica), no. 17 (December 1988): 141–94. [BACK]

35. Liangyou huabao 6 (July 15, 1926): 18. [BACK]

36. Liangyou huabao 11 (December 15, 1926). [BACK]

37. Mark Elvin, "Tales of Shen and Xin: Body-Person and Heart-Mind in China during the Last 150 Years," Zone 4: Fragments for a History of the Human Body, pt. 2 (New York: Zone, 1989), 275. [BACK]

38. Ibid., 277. [BACK]

39. Ibid., 295. [BACK]

40. This is from a talk given at the Workshop on Chinese Cultural Studies, Fairbank Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, March 9, 1995. [BACK]

41. Ibid., 268. [BACK]

42. See, for instance, Henri Lefebvre, Everyday Life in the Modern World, trans. Sacha Rabinovitch (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1990). But Lefebvre's interpretive scheme is too contemporary and Western to be relevant to the Chinese materials treated in this essay. [BACK]

43. Liangyou huabao 85 (1934): 14–15. [BACK]

44. Liangyou huabao 103 (1935): 34–35. For sampling these photos I am grateful to my student Ezra Block, whose senior thesis at Harvard (June 1996), "Modeling Modernity: The Liangyou huabao in the 1930s," is also on the journal. [BACK]

45. Zhang Yanfeng, Lao yuefenpai guanggao hua (Advertisement paintings in old calendars), vol. 1 (Taipei: Hansheng zazhi, 1994), 65. [BACK]

46. Cai Zhenghua and Fan Zhenjia, "Yuefen pai" (Calendars), in Bainian Shanghai tan (The Shanghai treatyport during the last one hundred years), ed. Ye Shuping and Zheng Zu'an (Shanghai: Shanghai huabao chubanshe, 1990), 120–22. [BACK]

47. This is a gift from William Tay, who purchased it in Hong Kong. A photo reproduction of it is included in Zhang Yanfeng, Lao yuefenpai guanggao hua, 1:18. Apparently a widespread nostalgia for such old artifacts is now sweeping Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China. [BACK]

48. Zhang Yanfeng, Lao yuefenpai guanggao hua, 1:10. [BACK]

49. Ibid., 42. [BACK]

50. Francesca Dal Lago, at New York University, has written a master's thesis on the subject. Contrary to my sedate and "conservative" reading, her argument states that the


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central figure on the poster is the "New Woman," who looks morally loose; hence the figure is associated with concubines or high-class prostitutes. See her paper "Modern Looking and Looking Modern: ‘Modern Woman’ as Commodity in 1930s Shanghai Calendar Posters" (paper delivered at the symposium "Visual Cultures and Modernities in China and Japan," Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, October 26, 1996). [BACK]

51. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 30. [BACK]

52. For a perceptive discussion, see Lydia Liu, Translingual Practice,chapter 4. [BACK]

53. These remarks are indebted to Charles Taylor, who spoke of the "social imaginary" at several conferences that I also attended. [BACK]

54. As advertised in Liangyou huabao 87 (April 1934) in the second printing; the first printing of three thousand copies quickly sold out. [BACK]

55. It would be intriguing to see whether Chiang Kai-shek's conservative "New Life Movement" had a visible impact on the pictorial contents of Liangyou huabao. I have glanced through the issues from 1930 to 1937, but I did not find any definite changes, except that there were no more pictures of nudes after 1934, and the more alluring portraits of the urban pleasures of Shanghai were toned down. [BACK]


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