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Understanding Canton Rethinking Popular Culture in the Republican Period

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Anthropology

Sociology

Asian History

Understanding Canton

Rethinking Popular Culture in the Republican Period

Virgil Ho

Studies on Contemporary China

534 pages | 16 pp halftone plates | 234x156mm

978-0-19-928271-5 | Hardback | 22 December 2005

Price: £124.00

This item is printed to order. Items which are printed to order are normally despatched and charged within 5-10 days.

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Revises conventional wisdom on some aspects of popular culture in the city of Canton in the first three decades of the Republican Era
Broadens our knowledge of six specific aspects of urban life in South China in this period
Highlights the contrast between official rhetoric and reality

By studying six different aspects of culture in Canton in the period between the two World Wars, this book helps broaden our limited knowledge of the social and cultural lives of the common people in this largest city of South China. The author examines how the Cantonese in this period indulged in their imagined cultural superiority as "modern" citizens, ushering in a cult of the modern city. During this period, Cantonese opera was also emerging and evolving into a widely accepted form of commercialised mass entertainment. The process of social and cultural change and its impact on the development of this city and its people are revealed throughout the book.

This book also aims to redress some major misconceptions of the socio-cultural realities as seen in official rhetoric or academic discourse on the matters of patriotism and anti-foreignism, gambling, prostitution, and opium consumption. Contemporary non-official and folk materials reveal that the common people were much more pro-Western than xenophobic in attitude, and the alleged social and political "calamities" of gambling, opium consumption and prostitution were more rhetorical than real. Understanding Canton provides us with, not only a fuller and more comprehensive picture of city life and popular mentalities, but also an important clue to understand how and why the social history of this city was distorted and constructed in ways that suited the political ideology and nation-building agenda of the ruling regimes.

Readership: Undergraduates, postgraduates, researchers and academics who are interested in social and cultural history of modern China

The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.

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Understanding Canton

Rethinking Popular Culture in the Republican Period

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