The Relationship between Translocal Chinese and their Hometowns (1920s–40s): The View from “Shining” Monthly of Jushan, Quemoy (跨境華僑及其僑鄉社會∶以顯影僑刊為中心的考察(1920s–40s))

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-292
Author(s):  
Bo-wei Chiang (江柏煒)
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Overseas Chinese ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
News Reports ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of

Quemoy is a famous overseas Chinese hometown in modern China. Since the 17th Century, Western colonial power expanded to South Asia, Southeast Asia, China and Japan, and drew these areas into the network of the global economy. The Quemoy Islands, situated outside Xinmen (Amoy)-port, were influenced by external and internal factors that shaped the region’s history of overseas migration. Emigrants from Quemoy brought radical changes back to their hometown, including social, economic, cultural and architectural impacts. These historical phenomena, usually described as expressions of “transnationalism,” are important foci of current research. This research tries to study the modernization of one overseas Chinese native hometown by investigating “Shining,” a monthly publication of Jushan village in Quemoy. “Shining” is one of the most comprehensive overseas Chinese publications and news reports in the world, however, it has received little academic attention. “Shining” published its first issue in September 1928, but publication was interrupted by the Second Sino-Japan War, between 1937–45. In April 1946, the publication resumed until the kmt retreated to Taiwan in 1949. The monthly publication had 21 volumes in total and recorded many historical materials, such as social life, overseas Chinese remittances, events, cultural changes and architectural activities during the 1920s–30s. It also reported political conditions and made criticisms of political issues between 1945–49. “Shining” conveyed progressive ideas and values to the people of Quemoy at that time. This paper will use “Shining” to study social change in the native hometown, including the economic connection between Quemoy and overseas areas, the formation and characteristics of overseas Chinese families, the interaction between folk society and colonial culture, the modification of everyday life and values, the changes in landscape and architecture. I attempt to examine the use of overseas Chinese newsletters to develop a new field of social history in the study of modern overseas Chinese native hometowns. 閩粵為近代中國著名的僑鄉，海外移民及歸僑眾多。華僑的出洋主要是經濟上的因素，他們匯款返鄉支持了家鄉家眷生計、教育、剬益、實業等層面的發展，促成了僑鄉社會的近代化。在昔日交通不便捷的情況下，海外僑居地與僑鄉之間的聯繫，經常必須仰賴僑刊或鄉訊的報導。這些刊物一般由各僑鄉宗族所辦，刊行於海外，讓華僑得以了解家鄉動態與相關事聞。不過由於國共戰爭、文化大革命之故，多數僑刊沒有保存下來。 本文擬以保存完整的僑刊福建金門珠山《顯影》（Shining）為例，一方面深入分析1928至1949年間（1937–45年間因戰爭停刊）《顯影》史料，一方面也從刊物內容中理解1920s–40s年代金門社會生活、治安狀況、海外鄉僑事蹟、僑匯經濟、實業發展、政治時局、文化變遷等主題。最後，進一步探究《顯影》的史料價值及其侷限，說明其對於僑鄉研究的重要性。 (This article is in English.)

The Social Life of Opium in China, 1483–1999

2003 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yangwen Zheng
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Modern China ◽  
The Political ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Major Theme ◽  
Opium Trade ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Opium Wars

The history of opium is a major theme in modern Chinese history. Books and academic careers have been devoted to its study. Yet the question that scholars of the opium wars and of modern China have failed to ask is how the demand for opium was generated. My puzzle, during the initial stage of research, was who smoked opium and why. Neither Chinese nor non-Chinese scholars have written much about this, with the exception of Jonathan Spence. Although opium consumption is a well-acknowledged fact, the reasons for its prevalence have never been fully factored into the historiography of the opium wars and of modern China. Michael Greenberg has dwelt on the opium trade, Chang Hsin-pao and Peter Fay on the people and events that made armed conflicts between China and the West unavoidable. John Wong has continued to focus on imperialism, James Polachek on Chinese internal politics while Opium regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839–1952, the latest work, has studied the political systems that controlled opium. But the political history of opium, like the opium trade and the theatre of war, is only part of the story. We need to distinguish them from the wider social and cultural life of opium in China. The vital questions are first, the point at which opium was transformed from a medicine to a luxury item and, secondly, why it became so popular and widespread after people discovered its recreational value. It is these questions that I address. We cannot fully understand the root problem of the opium wars and their role in the emergence of modern China until we can explain who was smoking opium and why they smoked it.

The Rise of Normative Judaism. I. To the Reorganization at Jamnia

1924 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 307-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Foot Moore
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Small Extent ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Complete Development ◽  
Great Achievement ◽  
The People ◽  
Distinctive Type ◽  
History Of

The centuries which we designate politically by the names of the dominant powers of the age successively as the Persian, Greek, and Roman periods of Jewish history constitute as a whole an epoch in the religious history of Judaism. In these centuries, past the middle of which the Christian era falls, Judaism brought to complete development its characteristic institutions, the school and the synagogue, in which it possessed, not only a unique instrument for the education and edification of all classes of the people in religion and morality, but the centre of its religious life, and to no small extent also of its intellectual and social life. Through the study of the Scriptures and the discussions of generations of scholars it defined its religious conceptions, its moral principles, its forms of worship, and its distinctive type of piety, as well as the rules of law and observance which became authoritative for all succeeding time. In the light of subsequent history the great achievement of these centuries was the creation of a normative type of Judaism and its establishment in undisputed supremacy throughout the wide Jewish world.

scholarly journals THE SILENT HALF SPEAKS

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 203-210
Author(s):  
Shellen Wu
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Chinese Revolution ◽  
Late Qing ◽  
Liang Qichao ◽  
History Of ◽  
Kang Youwei ◽  
History Of Modern China ◽  
Qiu Jin

It wasn't so long ago that histories of China's rocky transition to modernity featured a small and entirely male cast of characters. In the works of the first generation of American Sinologists, from John King Fairbank to his most famous students such as Joseph Levenson, a few men, from late Qing statesman Li Hongzhang 李鴻章 to reformers and revolutionaries like Kang Youwei 康有為, Sun Yatsen 孫中山, and Liang Qichao 梁啟超, loomed large over the narrative of the Chinese revolution. Into this lacuna Mary Rankin's rediscovery of the late Qing female martyr Qiu Jin 秋瑾 came as a thunderbolt. Her work opened up the possibility that perhaps the problem wasn't the absence of women in China's revolution but the failure of scholars to look for their contribution. Rankin's 1968 article on “The Tenacity of Tradition,” and her subsequent bookEarly Chinese Revolutionariespaved the way for a far more nuanced and complicated new social history of modern China.

The Bowery and Its Bars

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard E. Ocejo
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Fundamental Aspect ◽  
Community Life ◽  
Multiple Generations ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Gathering Place

This chapter provides a brief social history of the Bowery as told through the transformation of its bars and nightlife. It first examines how bars and nightlife corresponded to and helped along the Bowery's eventual gentrification before discussing how new bars and contemporary nightlife development have shaped community life in downtown neighborhood bars. A vignette of the people at Milano's Bar, a bar that has evolved alongside the changes occurring in the Bowery and the nightlife scene, is presented. Through an analysis of its multiple generations of customers, its bartenders, and its owners, the chapter reveals the tensions that have arisen from the bar's own transformation as a refuge for the homeless to a public gathering place for residents to a “dive bar” for young visitors. The reactions of the people at Milano's to these changes illustrate how urban forces have shaped a fundamental aspect of life for people in these downtown neighborhoods, namely, community socializing.

The Oral History of Royal Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate: An Interview with Sallama Dako

2001 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 273-291
Author(s):  
Sean Stilwell ◽  
Ibrahim Hamza ◽  
Paul E. Lovejoy
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sokoto Caliphate ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Royal Slavery ◽  
Official Sources

A powerful community of royal slaves emerged in Kano Emirate in the wake of Usman dan Fodio's jihad (1804-08), which established the Sokoto Caliphate. These elite slaves held administrative and military positions of great power, and over the course of the nineteenth century played an increasing prominent role in the political, economic, and social life of Kano. However, the individuals who occupied slave offices have largely been rendered silent by the extant historical record. They seldom appear in written sources from the period, and then usually only in passing. Likewise, certain officials and offices are mentioned in official sources from the colonial period, but only in the context of broader colonial concerns and policies, usually related to issues about taxation and the proper structure of indirect rule.As the following interview demonstrates, the collection and interpretation of oral sources can help to fill these silences. By listening to the words and histories of the descendents of royal slaves, as well as current royal slave titleholders, we can begin to reconstruct the social history of nineteenth-century royal slave society, including the nature of slave labor and work, the organization the vast plantation system that surrounded Kano, and the ideology and culture of royal slaves themselves.The interview is but one example of a series of interviews conducted with current and past members of this royal slave hierarchy by Yusufu Yunusa. As discussed below, Sallama Dako belonged to the royal slave palace community in Kano. By royal slave, we mean highly privileged and powerful slaves who were owned by the emir, known in Hausa as bayin sarki (slaves of the emir or king).

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