Survival of Urbanite Culture in the Mao Era Ping

Journal of and Urbanism

2019 Volume 1 Issue 1: 1-18 Research Article

Survival of Shanghai Urbanite Culture in the Mao Era: Bourgeois Aspirations and Practice of Longtang Everyday Life

Lei Ping

The New School, New York, United States

Corresponding author: Lei Ping, 66 W12th Street 6th Floor, New York NY 10011, USA. Email: [email protected].

Citation: Ping L, 2019, Survival of Shanghai Urbanite Culture in the Mao Era: Bourgeois Aspirations and Practice of Longtang Everyday Life. Journal of Chinese Architecture and Urbanism, 1(1): 710. http://dx.doi.org/10.26689/jcau.v1i1.710

ABSTRACT

This essay studies an often overlooked and understudied topic – the survival of Shanghai vernacular longtang (alleyway house) urbanite culture in the Mao era (1949-1976). It discovers how bourgeois sentiments embodied by the Shanghai national bourgeoisie were aspired to and inherited by the longtang petty urbanites (xiaoshimin) and their quotidian practices of Shanghai- styled () everyday life. By delving into archives, newspapers, and urban cultural studies, the essay particularly examines how urbanite culture was revitalized by the mode of Shanghai everyday living and how it resiliently co-existed with socialist revolutionary culture through a type of distinctive material culture particularly manifested in housing and food. It investigates the dialectical and conflictual relationship between the discourse of revolution and that of everyday life. It challenges the problematic incompleteness of Socialist Transformation project and searches for a new understanding of historical viability and sustainability of Chinese socialism, as Chinese socialism did not succeed in eradicating bourgeois sensibility as an oppositional historical force in Shanghai in the Mao era. In this context, the essay argues that Shanghai maintained a privileged urban center while its urbanite culture persisted by means of self-preservation of the longtang everyday life and fetishized bourgeois materialism and aspirations under Maoist Chinese socialism.

Keywords: longtang, urbanite culture, Mao era, everyday life, Shanghai, haipai

Copyright: Ping L. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited.

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Survival of Shanghai Urbanite Culture in the Mao Era Ping

1. INTRODUCTION unequivocally distinctive tradition as the The entrenched resilience of Shanghai cradle of Chinese communism in 1921 and bourgeois ideology, culture, and value the left-wing radicalism during the Cultural system under Maoist socialism has largely Revolution, Shanghai remained to be a city remained as an intellectual conundrum. that had been entangled with the historical Socialist Transformation of the Shanghai development of capitalism since forced open Capitalist Industry and Commerce project in as one of China’s five treaty ports after the the socialist transition period (1949-1956) first Opium War (1839-1842). This kind of might have profoundly remolded the mode Shanghai’s relation to bourgeois sensibility and force of production, it however, left the lies at the core of what I call the “myth of task as to how to fundamentally transform Shanghai.” The tension-charged combat the residual bourgeois thought and life- between the two oppositional and world unfinished. Mao Zedong’s profound antagonistic cultures, traditions, beliefs, rejection of capitalism and growing fear that value systems, and political discourses, China would suffer a “bourgeois restoration” namely, the bourgeois vis-à-vis the socialist, eventually led to the outbreak of political the mundane vis-à-vis the sublime, thus radicalism culminated by the Great requires critical scrutiny. Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966- As part of a larger research project on 1976).[1] His populist critique of capitalism the historical transformation of Shanghai and radical belief in the “advantages of vernacular architecture and urban identity, backwardness” theory greatly determined this essay studies an often overlooked and the direction of Chinese socialism. In other understudied topic – the survival of words, without achieving or simply Shanghai longtang (alleyway house) bypassing the prerequisite of orthodox urbanite culture in the Mao era (1949-1976). Marxist understanding of socialism – a full- It foregrounds the socio-spatial significance fledged capitalist mode of production and of the Shanghai longtang architecture, at the means of subsistence, China prematurely same time, discovers how bourgeois embarked on the practice of socialism. What sentiments embodied by the Shanghai believed was the moral and social virtue bourgeoisie were aspired to and inherited by inherent in the backwardness of Chinese the longtang petty urbanites (xiaoshimin) society precisely encountered the irony of and their quotidian practices of Shanghai- Chinese socialism vis-à-vis bourgeois styled (haipai) everyday life. By delving influence on the Eve of the founding of the into archives, newspapers, and urban People’s Republic. In contrast to the utopian cultural studies, the essay particularly prospect of Maoist socialism, capitalist examines how urbanite culture was modernity embodied by the lure of the revitalized by the mode of Shanghai Shanghai modern seemed to suggest a more everyday living and how it resiliently co- enchanting way of everyday life to the existed with socialist revolutionary culture Shanghai ordinary urbanites. through a type of distinctive material culture As a city fundamentally defined by its particularly manifested in housing and food. class-coded culture, bourgeois heritage, and It investigates the dialectical and conflictual quotidian everyday practice, Shanghai has relationship between the discourse of been labeled as a modern metropolis that is revolution and that of everyday life. It somehow culturally and ideologically semi- challenges the problematic incompleteness detached from its post-1949 socialist of Socialist Transformation project and Chinese nation-state. Despite the searches for a new understanding of

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Survival of Shanghai Urbanite Culture in the Mao Era Ping historical viability and sustainability of unscrupulous businessmen who directly or Chinese socialism, as Chinese socialism did indirectly make living under the power of not succeed in eradicating bourgeois foreign capital, swindlers who fraud western sensibility as an oppositional historical force medicine, whores, hooligans, pornographic in Shanghai in the Mao era. In this context, fictions,…there are only very few youthful the essay argues that Shanghai maintained a students who hold on to their idealism. privileged urban center while its urbanite Under this circumstance, [they] do not have culture persisted by means of self- power to conquer the external environment, preservation of the longtang everyday life but only the one to remain self-defensive.”[3] and fetishized bourgeois materialism and If the modern is aspirations under Maoist Chinese socialism. often overdetermined by the phantasmagoric lure of the modern, Chen’s diagnosis of the 1.1. Shanghai Modernity on the Eve dire social problems serves a timely of 1949 Revolution observation and critique of Shanghai While observing the dazzling Shanghai modernity – a type of modernity that is modern splendor in the Republican era, the tremendously entangled with feudalism, left-wing writer Mao Dun writes the colonialism, and imperialism. The encounter following passage in his realist novel of the “Old Shanghai” and the socialist Midnight, revolutionary forces on the eve of the “The sun had just sunk below the liberation day of the city in 1949 was bound horizon and a gentle breeze caressed one’s to carry the weight of an unprecedented face…Under a sunset-mottled sky, the course of history. towering framework of Garden Bridge was mantled in a gathering mist. Whenever a 1.2. Clashes between Communism and tram passed over the bridge, the overhead “A Big Dyeing Cat” cable suspended below the top of the steel In her studies of modern Shanghai history, frame threw off bright, greenish sparks. Marie-Claire Bergère insightfully points out Looking east, one could see the warehouses that Shanghai did not destroy communism of foreign firms on the waterfront of but was obliged to submit to it; and neither like huge monsters crouching in the gloom, did Communism destroy Shanghai, it simply their lights twinkling like countless tiny eyes. changed it.[4] The transformation of To the west, one saw with a shock of Shanghai from a colonial cosmopolitan wonder on the roof of a building, a gigantic metropolis was never an overnight magic. neon sign in flaming red and phosphorescent The austere socialist revolutionary culture green: LIGHT, HEAT, POWER.”[2] embodied by the Democratic Dictatorship of This kind of modern glamor, energy, the People (renmin minzhu zhuanzheng) and vitality notwithstanding, Shanghai, as ceaselessly battled with Shanghai urbanite early as in 1922, was denounced by the May culture. Once the policing was relaxed in an 4th New Culture Movement leader and co- already liberated city, the characteristics of founder of the Chinese Communist Party the bourgeois “Old Shanghai” immediately (CCP) Chen Duxiu. To Chen, the “Old reemerged almost unscathed. The Shanghai” (Lao Shanghai) appeared toxic historically rooted bourgeois “old habits” and contaminated by the bourgeois-colonial continuously prevailed through a unique social ethos, form of quotidian practices. Noted by “Shanghai society, if analyzed, [was Xinmin Evening Newspaper, in June 1950, composed of] many uneducated hard labors, about a year after the liberation of the city,

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Survival of Shanghai Urbanite Culture in the Mao Era Ping

Shanghai somehow “changed again.”[5] Not emphasized the continued class struggle in only did restaurant and café business begin the ideological field in his speech “On the to revive, theaters continuously catered Correct Handling of Contradictions Among Hollywood movies to anxious local the People”: audiences. All sorts of financial news “The class struggle between the reported prices were increasing. The proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the class “Anecdote of Shanghai” column in Xinmin struggle between the various political forces, Evening Newspaper recorded that the and the class struggle between the proletariat market appeared active and the price of meat and the bourgeoisie in the ideological field bounced back to eight thousand yuan.[6] will still be protracted and tortuous and at Walking in the city streets, one felt like old times even very sharp. The proletariat seeks bourgeois sentiment in actuality returned to to transform the world according to its own wage a cultural and ideological guerilla world outlook, and so does the bourgeoisie. warfare against the fruitions of the socialist In this respect, the question of which will revolution.[7] win out, socialism or capitalism, is not really Although in the meantime Shanghai settled yet.”[10] was also the revolutionary bastion and The ideological battle took a dialectical birthplace of the Chinese Communist Party turn in 1963 when socialist revolutionary (CCP), it was labeled as a “big dyeing vat” culture was propagated through the (darangang), namely, a serious social campaigns of “Emulating Good Eighth epidemic whose conjured-up urban Company of ” (Nanjing lu phantasmagoria was believed fatally harmful shanghai hao balian) and “Learning from to socialist revolutionary conduct, morale, Comrade Lei Feng.” While both offered a and fighting spirit established as early as national role model in the 1960s, the former 1921 and culminated by the Long March of represented a self-disciplined People’s the Red Army (1934-1935) during the Civil Liberation Army unit stationed in downtown War. The CCP’s initial reaction as to how to Shanghai, and the latter became a symbol of remold and rebuild urban centers like the selfless, dedicated, and sacrificing Shanghai was noted by the metaphor that socialist revolutionary culture.[11] However, Mao used in 1949 – a city that was the dramatic and ironic embourgeoisment contaminated by seemingly insurmountable story of a Good Eighth Company soldier in sugar-coated bourgeois-colonial legacy.[8] Shanghai was vividly captured by the stage During the socialist transition period, a play and film Sentinels under the Neon series of campaigns known as “Three-anti” Lights in 1963 and 1964 respectively – just a and “Five-Anti” were launched by the CCP few years before the outset of the Cultural to address the growing concerns and Revolution and intensified class struggle. problems among the Communist party The soldier who came from the rural area officials as well as the bourgeoisie, such as was portrayed as unexpectedly infatuated by corruption, waste, bureaucratism, bribery, the dazzling urban commercial ambiance on tax evasion, fraud, theft of state property, Nanjing Road in Shanghai. Although he was and leakage of state economic secrets.[9] eventually re-educated by the CCP, his path Shanghai continued to be at the center of to re-searching and returning to his socialist condemnation and Socialist Transformation revolutionary identity remained hugely of Capitalist Industry and Commerce (1952- impacted by the “corrosive” Shanghai 1956). In February 1957, after the bourgeois urbanite culture and material life- campaigns gradually drew to an end, Mao world. One then would ask, what exactly

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Survival of Shanghai Urbanite Culture in the Mao Era Ping made Shanghai such a “big dyeing vat” that started to define the Shanghai urban space in seemed to possibly undermine and unravel the 1870s. It was a dwelling space that socialist revolutionary tradition? looked like a cluster of two, three-storied houses connected by shared front and back 2. SHANGHAI IDENTITY: alleys that led to broader commercial streets. LONGTANG PETTY URBANITES There were mainly four types of Shanghai AND HAIPAI longtang – , new-styled, apartment After Shanghai was forced open (kaibu) as a and garden house-styled. Among all the treaty port after the First Opium War, in residential structures, traditional shikumen November 1845, Daotai Gong Mujiu and the (“wooden door within a stone framework”) first appointed British Consul George longtang was built in 1870s and regarded as Balfour signed the agreement on “Shanghai the most common.[16] At first, shikumen Land Regulations” and announced the appeared to facilitate the overgrown Chinese principle of “separation between the Chinese population in the concessions. The early- and the foreigners.”[12] Due to the flooded stage shikumen was tinged with the refugee population that fled from the integration of both Chinese and Western Chinese quarter to the International architectural elements. Its re-formed settlement and French concession, it wasn’t traditional Chinese courtyard interior and after Small Swords Uprising and Taiping European row-house exterior were designed Rebellion that the British, American and for the rapidly increased housing demand French consuls revised “Land Regulation” and compact living space in the foreign and legalized the real-estate trade inside and concessions at that time.[17] The new-styled outside concessions in 1854. As a result, longtang, equipped with more modern both the Chinese (hua) and foreigners (yang) sanitary fixtures and better kitchen facilities, were gradually allowed to co-habit in the was popularized in the 1920s, followed by concessions.[13] The population of Shanghai the more westernized garden and apartment- was around 200,000 in 1843, it reached 1 styled longtang in the 1930s that became million in 1900, 2 million in 1915, 3 million residences of foreign adventurers, in 1930, 4 million in 1947, and 5,460,000 in compradors, and wealthy Chinese merchants. 1949. [14] At the beginning of the twentieth The longtang became the backdrop of century, almost three-quarters of Shanghai’s Shanghai’s vernacular cityscape. The inhabitants were not natives of the town. breathtaking rows and rows of longtang They arrived from other regions of the embodied a distinctive habitus of Shanghai country, as well as Europe, the United States, and its urbanites. According to Shanghai and toward the end of the century, Japan. Statistic Bureau, by 1949 almost three- The image of “patchwork” or “mosaic” quarters of Shanghai’s residential dwellings therefore was often applied to Shanghai were built in the form of longtang.[18] It is during that time.[15] well known that multiple spatial layers of the longtang extended from public space 2.1. Shanghai Longtang as Defining (streets), semi-public space (main lanes), Vernacular Architecture and semi-private space (sub-lanes) to private In order to tackle with the vast population space (residential interior), which created a growth in Shanghai resulted from the war strong sense of community, home, and refugees of Small Swords Uprising and belonging. The unique traditional Chinese- Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864), a type of styled front courtyard meets with the rooftop architecture longtang alleyway houses sundeck, creating a flow of well-purposed

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Survival of Shanghai Urbanite Culture in the Mao Era Ping spatiality. The longtang were designed and hsien Yeh, Hanchao Lu, and Marie-Claire built in various aesthetically appealing Bergère state that the term petty urbanite forms, each with colors and sounds of usually referred to a group of lower or vernacular and cosmopolitan spirits. As lower-middle residents who led more or less scholars Luo Xiaowei and Wu Jiang a temporary immigrant life and lived in delineate, “The decoration of the hardship due to their non-elite socio- [traditional-styled shikumen] houses showed economical status in Shanghai. The majority the special feature of residence in the of them worked as employees, minor regions south the Yangtze River. The gate of officials, schoolmasters, qualified out-of- shikumen house at the early stage was very work students.[22] In a different but simple. It was framed with stone, and the comparable account, Zhang Zhen elaborates gate itself was made of thick wood painted the complexities of this social group, “Their black. Attention was given to the decoration [petty urbanites’] cultural taste and on the eaves and pediment of the gate later commercial acumen, a conspicuous marker on. The pediment, triangular, rectangular or of the Shanghai social character, were arched in shape, with carved or molded eclectic, curious, and worldly (shisu) in both ornament made of brick or cement, its senses of the word. The petty urbanites pattern and design were influenced by approached the middlebrow. Their Western architectural styles.”[19] participation in the production and However, after the CCP took over the consumption of a burgeoning mass culture city in 1949, the entire longtang housing gave rise to a distinctive metropolitan stock was turned into largely state-owned culture, which voraciously mixed popular properties and redistributed among the entertainment with cultural aspirations, original local residents and new comers of cosmopolitan yearnings with everyday varying socio-political classes and concerns.”[23] backgrounds who were assigned into a The dialectic of cosmopolitanism and single unit of a longtang house. This kind of quotidian sentiment well captured the main overcrowded housing condition continued characteristics of this social group. The until many longtang architectural structure renowned life-style and cosmopolitan beliefs gradually became dilapidated throughout the of these Shanghai urbanites influenced the Mao and early post-Mao eras.[20] Further making of a consolidated urbanite class discussion of this phenomenon will be made (shimin jieceng) in the early twentieth in section 3.2. century, all of which determined the formation of the city’s social norm and 2.2. Longtang Petty Urbanites cultural ideology. These socio-cultural From the modern labyrinthic longtang, sensibilities gradually grew into something Shanghai urbanite everyday life unfolded. almost completely local and regional, and in Its passion for trivial details of mundane the meantime, western and outward-looking gratification was rooted in a social class- in the era was highly self-enclosed and coded culture.[21] The residents who dwelled socialist revolutionary – a so-called in the longtang were often associated with way of life and native-place the term “petty urbanite” (xiaoshimin). It is identity (vis-à-vis migrant waidiren identity). believed that this social group appeared as With various professional backgrounds and early as the end of the nineteenth century. social statuses, the majority of petty Many lived in the longtang and spoke a urbanites resided in a heterogeneous and typical “ah la” Shanghai dialect. Some diversified (za) urban space, namely, Shanghai Studies scholars such as Wen-

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Survival of Shanghai Urbanite Culture in the Mao Era Ping longtang, from which a distinctive urbanite about Shanghai. It was said that Shanghai culture emerged over the course of modern Travel Guide was continuously re-published Shanghai history.[24] If the longtang were the seven times within three years after it first backbone of Shanghai, then the petty came out in 1909. Much of the book was urbanites were the backbone of the longtang. also to introduce the Shanghai dialect and In the post-1949 Mao’s Shanghai, it was way of life to the readers. The dialect through these petty urbanites that everyday originated from the two dialects of Ningbo life was constituted and established. and Suzhou, and developed into its own The implied pejorative and under- distinctive form after the Opium War. It was defined term “petty urbanite” was precisely not only spoken by native-born captured by a Xinmin Evening Newspaper Shanghainese but also by those migrants essay “Petty Urbanites Carrying Old Habits who were from provinces such as Zhejiang, When Taking a Bus” on January 17, 1950: Jiangsu, Guangdong.[27] It is worth noting “The possessive desire that petty urbanites that this native-place identity became further possess is completely revealed in the city. stabilized after the implementation of the Considering taking a bus or a tram as an housing registration system (hukou) in the example, the ordinary petty urbanites have Mao era. The hukou system was at first such thoughts on their minds – they either promulgated in 1958 in order to control wish to be the first person to get on the bus overpopulated rural-to-urban migration. or the tram or likely to have no one else Migration from the rural to the urban was sharing the space except for their beloved then largely prohibited. The relatively ones.”[25] The rather satirical tone suggested immobile and insular environment catalyzed that as a socially, culturally, and historically the making of a type of Shanghai identity. determined group, Shanghai petty urbanites or perhaps all “Shanghainese” 2.3. Haipai Culture (Shanghairen) continuously lived on with What cannot be overlooked is that the their petty limitations after the socialist making of the urban identity concurrently revolution. To these Shanghai petty occurred with the rise of haipai culture urbanites, quotidian gain and loss seemed to (Shanghai style) in the late Qing dynasty.[28] supersede many other sublime subjects and The word haipai originally appeared to refer aspects of daily life, thus became daily life to a fine art style definitively oppositional to as such. what was known as jingpai culture (Beijing “Shanghainese” as a social identity and style). It was derogative to jingpai cultural concept appeared around 1904. Cai advocators who believed that haipai Yuanpei and other eminent editorial betrayed the Chinese Confucian scholar- members of Jingzhong Daily officially official tradition. The heterogeneous (za) introduced the term “Shanghainese” and modern characteristics of haipai were (Shanghairen) in the essay “New often relentlessly critiqued in the late Shanghai.”[26] In 1905, a group of late-Qing nineteenth and early twentieth century as local scholar-officials led the Shanghai Self- contaminated by foreign influences and governing Movement in hope of developing subordinated to commercial interests, thus, the physical infrastructure of the Chinese neither Chinese nor quite yet Western.[29] quarter and gaining political self-autonomy Despite the inconclusive criticisms and under the semi-colonial ruling. Attempts of debates orienting around the characteristics place-making also pertained to the ever- of haipai, the particularity of the cultural growing domestic and international curiosity formation was recognized. Most

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Survival of Shanghai Urbanite Culture in the Mao Era Ping significantly, the birth of haipai and its 3. LIVING LONGTANG EVERYDAY affinity with the imagined and sometimes LIFE: “PRACTICING DAOIST deviant forms of bourgeois aspirations RITES IN A SNAIL SHELL”[32] fundamentally shaped the socio-cultural 3.1. Iconic Longtang Pastime unconscious of Shanghai. It was the very Despite change of political milieu or expression of the commercial and turbulence of history, this ordinary Shanghai cosmopolitan culture of modern China, and longtang everyday life was meticulously simply a “double betrayal at once of deployed in its so-called “practicing Daoist traditional culture and its foreign models: rites in snail shell” (luosike li zuodaochang) the richness of Shanghai culture stemmed – an almost self-indulged exquisite form of from its fertilization through its cross- life lived and enjoyed with its particular cultural influences.”[30] The clashes between daily routines, rituals, and rites. It was in the the traditional, provincial, mundane, far less than spacious “snail shell,” in other modern, and cosmopolitan converged into words, the compact physicality and something both Chinese and Western, mundane spirituality of the individual resilient and porous. longtang dwelling space, that everyday life A key aspect of haipai culture was that offered a kind of haven for the ordinary it was grounded in the class-conscious Shanghai urbanites. As if the mundane, everyday life of the ordinary Shanghai quotidian, and everyday was the raison urbanites. The sense of class distinctions d’être of life itself. was well displayed in the interior of the One of the most definitive daily scenes longtang – a discrete world that was of the petty urbanites would be nothing wondered with gossip and embroiled with more than gossip (liuyan). Shanghai urbanite localized bourgeois life-style. In Wang culture lay in the landscape of gossip. Anyi’s literary imagination, the prevalence Gossip perhaps did not necessarily qualify of bourgeois sensibility was impeccably as history, however, carrying over the retained in Shanghai domestic space during shadows of time, it entered into a the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in Baudelairean understanding of modernity – the 1960s, “Newly waxed brown wood floor transient, fleeting, nonetheless, eternal. It shines elegantly, leather sofas surround was this dialectical movement that allowed themselves at the corner…a grand piano gossip to be read as both fiction and reality, standing at the other corner of the room, in life and death for the Shanghai longtang between there is a dining table.” [31] The petty urbanites. Although gossip seemed secluded, detached, and self-absorbed living trivial, fragmented and after all, full of space was exquisitely arranged and imagined narratives, heresies, and rumors, it decorated, representing a particular taste and was one of the definitive highlights of the preference in the middle of a radical daily events for the longtang petty urbanites. political time, a meticulous reminder of the Modern urban space implies, contains and bygone lure of the modern, as well as a dissimulates social relations.[33] The fatalistic sense of nostalgia. In search of the quotidian and mundane was the cradle of lost modern splendor, the Shanghai endless gossip and imagined relationships urbanites tenaciously led their everyday life between longtang neighbors. Flying around in between imagined opulence and austere the maze-like longtang, gossip frugality, urban sophistication and restrained communicated and interacted with living spaces. individuals and neighbors, knitted and shaped both fiction and reality. It was

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Survival of Shanghai Urbanite Culture in the Mao Era Ping produced and reproduced in temporal and children chasing after one another and spatial dimensions. Following its own playing jumping rubber-bands and flipping scripts and plots and traveling through its cigarette cards, with talkative housewives own time and space, gossip made socio- standing around in circles knitting innocent historical time fade away from the center to and serious rounds of gossip while keeping the backstage. All the joyous and sorrowful eyes on their warm kitchen stoves, and with drama of life lay in gossip, without which half-asleep grandparents carrying the longtang were bodies with hollowed handcrafted fans and listening to beloved souls. Without gossip, it became impossible shaoxing regional operas on the radio during to decipher the immediate social relations the years of tumultuous political campaigns. and the unconscious of the city. It was only This sense of enjoyment and through the self-reproduced mundanity and obliviousness never seemed disrupted by the self-reinforced vulgarity that Shanghai transformation of the socio-political world everyday life found a sense of home. There outside of the longtang. Noted in Xinmin was a moment of eternity born out of all the Evening Newspaper, on an unusually hot worldly transient and fragmentary, its urban summer day June 30, 1950, a year after the fabric and quotidian density emerged from liberation of the city, many longtang the exceptionally ordinary. The quotidian dwellers “migrated” to the neon-lit evening took a leap of faith with gossip whose self- city commercial streets to escape the heat sufficiency and self-autonomy overwhelmed wave. Nanjing Road and Xizang Road and discomforted the utopian ideology of intersections were immediately stuffed with socialist revolutionary culture. gigantic “human flesh walls.”[35] In June Mu Mutian depicts this kind of 1957, besides going to parks for leisurely longtang gossip with a sense of humor, strolls and rooftop gardens of the department “Housewife of this house, maid of that stores on for evening window- house, [are both] broadcasting longtang shopping, the Shanghainese picked up their news, and propagating longtang public straw mats searching for breezy shades.[36] opinions. If you are able to understand their Streets were turned into a spacious longtang ‘nong ah nong’ dialect, you would hear tons neighborhood after sunset, with the rounds of precious happenings. Even if [you] do not of gossip carried out as summaries of the understand the language, you could also day. The main theme of gossip rarely went appreciate them as endless silent dramas.”[34] beyond trivial, self-absorbed daily matters. There seemed no other languages more Disputes over occupancy of shared suitable than the Shanghai dialect for the shikumen kitchen or townhouse hallways creation and circulation of the longtang could be life-and-death struggles for many gossip. Its soft, brisk, down-to-earth, and husbands and wives. The highlight of each sometimes shrewd tones were the quarrel did not arrive until one started impeccable catalyst of gossip. The referring to the other as “petty urbanite” everyday-oriented topics stretched from (xiaoshimin), for the magic word meant to mahjong and poker invitations to husbands characterize all the most infamous next door who returned home later than reputation of the Shanghainese – vulgar, expected. Whenever there was a fine day, calculative, and narrow-minded. the longtang dwellers would bring their wooden or plastic stools to alleyways for a leisurely chat. Festive noise intermittently filled up the alleyways, with running

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Survival of Shanghai Urbanite Culture in the Mao Era Ping

3.2. Dilemma of Longtang Housing crammed into the old villas, whose reception Condition rooms were divided and subdivided and The irony lied in the dilemma of the whose garages and annexes were converted Shanghai longtang everyday life itself. The into apartments, Shanghai did not contain Shanghai petty urbanites internalized their enough bourgeois residences to lodge all the self-entitled sense of privilege as city’s inhabitants living in shocking Shanghairen on the one hand; on the other conditions.”[39] Rather than increasing the hand, their pride constantly was ridiculed by investment in residential construction, on the what I would term “loopholes of the contrary, the central government decreased Shanghai modern.” Housing shortage the investment scale. In 1957, the average contributed much to the problem. As living space in Shanghai dropped to 3.1 previously mentioned, the shortage was not square-meters per person, which became the new to Shanghai, in fact it started in the late lowest since the founding of the nation. The Qing-Republican era. The condition problem was only slowly taken into exacerbated in the 1950s and was gradually consideration by the city municipal labeled as a comical phenomenon called government. In order to relieve the housing “house of seventy-two tenants.”[37] The pressure, downgrading construction reason of the sudden shortage was due to the standards for residential space was the most lack of awareness of drastic population immediately effective solution between the increase in the macro-level planning.[38] late 1950s and 1970s. However, from 1958 During the socialist transition in the 1950s, and 1962, the investment in Shanghai the confiscation and redistribution of private housing construction again decreased by housing previously occupied by those 1.84% than the previous five years. The foreigners or “bourgeois project was disrupted by political campaigns counterrevolutionaries” did not greatly and economic turmoil during the years of improve the housing shortage situation in the Great Leap Forward and the Great the city. Bergère sharply observes, Proletarian Cultural Revolution.[40] “Although many households were then

Table 1. Statistics of Housing Investment in Shanghai from 1949 to 1975 [1]

Year Total Investment in Investment in Housing Increase or Living space Infrastructure (ten thousand RMB) decrease per person (ten thousand RMB) (Sq M) 1950-1952 24,541 3,262 - 3.6 1953-1957 164,437 18,364 +462.97 3.3 1958-1962 529,625 18,026 -1.84 3.8 1963-1965 179,363 13,342 -25.43 3.8 1966-1970 302,066 7,765 -42.23 4.0 1971-1975 870,309 27,669 +256.32 4.3 1976-1980 1,349,506 115,321 +316.79 4.4

Crowded living space became the first (guorizi). Rooms in shikumen were and foremost daily concern for the Shanghai infamously known as sizes of pigeon cage or longtang urbanites. Disputes over space and prison cell.[41] In the 1970s, out of survival gossip about privacy took the center stage of instinct, dwellers in shikumen attempted to Shanghainese “living everyday life” maximize every corner of their living space.

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“Creative scenes” could be spotted heterogeneity of Shanghai cuisines created a everywhere – more and more roof-top attics rich spectrum of regional flavors to cater to were built; kitchens were turned into the Shanghai diners.[47] The Shanghai way additional bedrooms; livable spaces were of life would hardly be complete without extended from shared balconies to mentioning its affection for Shanghai snacks. courtyards; public hallways became private No urban dwellers could resist anything storage space.[42] delicious to the palate. The delicacy and In addition, the Shanghai longtang abundance of the snacks could be petty urbanites encountered more dilemmas overwhelming for the eye. The sophisticated on a daily basis. According to Shanghai long list of names could easily exhaust a Statistic Bureau, even until 1986, 51.8% of person whose native tongue was novice to the longtang residents were still using public the city. Simply differentiating gao, bing water supply, 31.2% did not have kitchens, from bao, tuan in the Shanghai dialect could and 74.1% households did not have private be a challenge.[48] From crab-apple cake to shower or bath facilities.[43] Among all the tiaotou cake, cream cake to coconut yoke inconvenience, what used to be most “losing cake, the Shanghainese philosophy of face” (embarrassing) for many Shanghai naming its traditional and Western cakes and shikumen dwellers was the fact that there Chinese buns was reminiscent of the was no private sanitary facility in the typology of naming the city streets.[49] house.[44] This kind of spectacular scenery is Stories of each snack were meticulously reminiscent of Mu Mutian’s comments on noted in the Xinmin Evening Newspaper, the 1930s shikumen longtang, “Seen from with lively, observant, and diary-styled the backdoors, as if every household has one reports by the local journalists throughout or two red portable spittoon on display. It the years in the Mao era. From oil chicken to reminds me of a grand military review.”[45] fried pork bun, sweet rice wine glutinous Mu’s satirical tone echoes with Hanchao rice dumpling to radish pancake, sour-plum Lu’s depiction of this morning ritual of the juice to Russian borscht, cinnamon sugar longtang, “A typical day in these taro to stir-fried sugar chestnut, Shanghai neighborhoods started with the rumble of the found itself almost hedonistic in the era led two-wheeled night soil cart rolling along the by socialist frugality. back alleys.”[46] In the 1960s and 1970s, with more shikumen longtang gradually 4.1. Longtang Snacks provided with manure pits and public urinals, Eileen Chang’s definitive line about the emptying and cleaning night-soil rendered enchantment is by no means well-known, quite a cacophony. The “genetic deficiency” “Eating is such a crucial thing [for the of Shanghai everyday life, nevertheless, did Shanghai urbanites], the rest all became not interrupt the daydreams of the petty jokes.”[50] The sound of selling tasty goods urbanites. Rather, it grew into a norm that from peddlers in the Shanghai longtang never made the Shanghairen identity less alleyways was also extensively written by snobbish and proud. Lu Xun, “Cream of pearly-barley, almonds and lotus-seeds...sugared rose 4. SHANGHAI FOOD CULTURE cakes...noodles with shrimp and pork UNDER MAOISM wonton...spiced eggs boiled in tea…”[51] Lu Food culture was an equally important Xun’s love-hate relationship with Shanghai criterion of Shanghai urbanite everyday life during his stay in the 1930s was reflected in ever since the mid-nineteenth century. The his satirical delineation of the Shanghai

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Survival of Shanghai Urbanite Culture in the Mao Era Ping snacks and petty urbanite culture. For “a improving the taste of dishes.”[56] The rustic newcomer to Shanghai” like him, delicate variety of the Shanghainese favorite these chants of vendors were more piquant daily items was continuously made available than he could ever have dreamed of at that after the 1949 revolution, ranging from oil time. For him, snacks were not only for chicken, roast duck, fried bun biting away time, but also for nourishment (shengjianbao), Russian borscht and cultivation.[52] Sometimes, however, (luosongtang), to coffee, coca-cola, milk and those chants “could have one bad effect on traditional Guanming brand ice cream.[57] those who lived by the pen, for unless one For the Shanghai urbanites, the nostalgic had achieved the perfect serenity and thus time machine brought back all the one’s ‘heart is like a stagnant well.’ One temporarily disrupted daydreams. Dining would otherwise be too distracted by these and snacking offered a type of shelter and cries all day and all night to produce anchor. The banal, harsh, stoic, and anything.”[53] Lu Xun’s dilemma seemed unpredictable were placed aside for the sake only to witness the charm of material of living the everyday (guorizi). Indulging consumption and mundane gratification that oneself in savoring the mundane might be those scrumptious Shanghai snacks against the spirit of socialism and revolution, reminded one of. but for the Shanghai urbanites, it was The revolution did not change the certainly a coping mechanism by which they Shanghai appetite. Life went on in the form could alleviate immediate sufferings, live in of oblivious blissfulness. In 1950, shortly the materialistic now, and be oblivious about after the 1949 revolution, Shanghai ordinary all the precarious. urbanites already began to express their Even during the heavily criticized sense of nostalgia. Eating itself took the Three Years of Natural Disasters (1958- center stage of everyday life, without which 1961), the Shanghai Food Department life would have been dull and dreadful. The continuously managed to provide the joy was unveiled like a sumptuous feast, Shanghai residents dining and snack tempting and irresistible, “Buy it, vouchers so that they could resume the daily watermelon!” “Want it? Green beans!”[54] food consumption tradition.[58] Fixed- The blasting sound of peddlers making amount and local food vouchers were popcorn in the front entrance of the longtang required when purchasing snacks after July was usually the event of the day. It made the 1963.[59] In addition to the regular vouchers, adults compulsively checking their bike tires small-amount monthly food vouchers such in the longtang, and the children drooling as 100g, 50g, and 25g were issued to cater to while eagerly waiting for their popcorns.[55] the special “delicate taste” of the Shanghainese.[60] The tremendously favored 4.2. Exceptional Food Consumption and Shanghai traditional breakfast items, such as Shanghainese Taste soymilk, fried dough stick, peach shortcake, The longtang snack saga extended itself macaroon, sesame cake, saltine, and sponge further to the streets. Despite food shortage cake were exchanged with only half-liang and rationing under the socialist planned food vouchers. In 1965, right before the economy, Shanghai ordinary urbanites Cultural Revolution, monthly vouchers were carried on with their cosmopolitan passion replaced by the fixed-term ones. This for culinary consumption. As Shen Jialu initiative was known as carried out in writes, “No matter how poor they were, the consideration for the variety and Shanghainese liked sesame oil, for “sophistication” of the Shanghai diet.[61] In

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June 1972, the long-term city food vouchers Changzhou style sesame pastry, Hangzhou were widely issued, whose face value style bread, and pigeon egg rice dumplings amounted from half liang to five liang. swiftly resurfaced in the market.[65] Another What is particularly worth noting is the interesting phenomenon was the dichotomy between “normality” and consumption of pork. Shanghai was under “abnormality” that occurred during the the protection of the central state during the Cultural Revolution.[62] Situated in the time of nation-wide food scarcity. It was one middle of material scarcity and austere of the cities that were offered special revolutionary will, Shanghai was discovered allocations and supply policies on pork. The as a city privileged with abundance and idea pertained to Mao’s practices of relying prosperity of material consumption. Pastry on and privileging cities for state building sales in Shanghai food stores and and industrial advancement. In purchasing delicatessen sales in eateries reached 80,000 pork it was not required to present any food tons and 110,000 tons respectively, and vouchers in Shanghai. Between 1969 and daily sales reached 10 to 100 tons.[63] The 1974, the annual supply of pork ranged from supply of delicatessen and pastry began to 120,000 tons to 170,000 tons, most of which increase rapidly especially after 1972. was allocated from provinces outside of According to Liberation Daily (Jiefang Shanghai.[66] The retail sales price for pork Ribao), local snacks such as Nanxiang juicy was discounted at 0.85 yuan per 500 grams soup dumpling, sugar rice porridge, gluten throughout the entire decade of the Cultural bean curd sheet, chicken and duck blood Revolution. Meanwhile, the consumption soup, ligao candy, five-spice bean were rate steadily increased from about 2 jin per widely welcomed in Shanghai person per month to about 4 jin toward the market.[64] Even the once out-of-market end of the revolution.[67]

Table 2. 1966 – 1976 Shanghai Deli and Pastry Supply Statistics

Year 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 Deli 87,965 88,595 93,090 90,425 82,090 87,305 93,605 96,990 98,965 104,340 111,335 (ton) Pastry 25,290 22,270 22,270 28,080 29,775 28,945 29,435 30,685 34,775 40,895 48,395 (ton)

Source: Shanghai Food Gazette [1]

The seemingly unusual prosperous wok; yellow fish and hairtail fish were fried consumption of food by the ordinary in the pan. Meanwhile, hot dishes were Shanghai households amid the political being prepared, such as steamed gluten radicalism in the 1970s was also noted in (kaofu), vegetable chicken (suji), enoki Xinmin Evening Newspaper, mushroom, black fungus, peanuts, cabbage “During Chinese New Year’s Eve in the with sliced pork, yellow sprouts, fried tofu, 1970s, looking from afar at the shared house tofu with garlic and scallion,…One kitchens of the new-styled Shanghai would ask, isn’t this already a ‘moderately longtang – cold appetizers such as roasted well-off society’ (xiaokang)? In fact, the meat, salty meat, original flavor sliced meat, Shanghainese prepared these New Year and white cut chicken were displayed; goods (nianhuo) for months at that time. braised pork with preserved vegetable and This kind of scene of ‘abundant meat and dried bamboo shoots were cooked in the fish’ (dayu darou) came from one’s monthly

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Survival of Shanghai Urbanite Culture in the Mao Era Ping savings of limited and rationed meat and frequenting those places was oftentimes a fish vouchers…”[68] privilege enjoyed by local and state political The unusual findings showed that the elites. Such officials were, after all, the main ceaseless socialist campaigns not only did patrons of these restaurants during the late not discourage the Shanghai urbanites from 1950s and early 1960s.[69] keeping their usual daily food consumption; The collective nostalgic remembrance on the contrary, there appeared to be a rather of the bygone bourgeois-colonial era offered ironic tacit agreement between the Shanghai some compensation for the overall material urbanites and the socialist state. The Chinese shortage and political austerity. Savoring Communist Party (CCP) took over the city traditional Shanghai snacks became a at the time it underwent the wartime symbolic action for the ordinary Shanghai economic stagnation and disorder that urbanites. It was this resilient practice of resulted from the aftermath of the Japanese savoring mundanity that lived itself in a occupation and the civil war between the hollowed-out shell through which the Guomindang (GMD) and the CCP. The enchantment with daily material importance of efforts to manage the crises gratification overshadowed a politically and restore the order was thus made clear by “absent-minded” present. However, the the new socialist state. One of the focal interesting irony was the interplay between points was daily food supply and the state controlled socialist economic consumption. Complete discontinuity or policies and the exceptions that were made radical deprivation of the former food and for the Shanghai urbanites in the Mao era. culinary practices was recognized as These “initiatives with Shanghai insufficient and detestable to the ordinary characteristics” in revitalizing local specialty Shanghai urbanites. food and upscale restaurants remained Continuity of everyday food controversial. consumption during the Mao era was coincidently sought through the idea of 5. CONCLUSION satisfying the local taste and culinary Based on the historical evidences manifested tradition. The Shanghai urbanites now particularly in the key aspects of ordinary participated in their everyday life as the so- Shanghai urbanites’ quotidian practices such called “ordinary people” (laobixing) and as housing and food, this essay discovers “great masses” according to the definition of often-overlooked research findings that the socialist revolution. As a result, savoring address the question as to the quintessential mundanity was in fact permitted if not role that the Shanghai longtang and urbanite encouraged. Numerous “memory discussion” material culture played in the Mao era. It sessions held at City God Temple argues that a distinctive type of Shanghai (Chenghuangmiao) by the Food and Drink longtang everyday life miraculously Company officials thus bespoke the persisted in the Mao era when it was opportunities to revisit the fond memories denounced and rectified by the CCP and about various tastes and flavors of the pre- Chinese socialism. Shaped by a worldly and revolutionary experience for the Shanghai cosmopolitan spirit, Shanghai’s historical urbanites. Revolutionary practices thus emphasis on culture over politics, city over synchronized with the unconscious of the nation, and its ideological detachment from worldly and quotidian. High-end restaurants the rest of the nation in fact facilitated and were also not dismantled until much later materialized the survival of a longtang- during the Cultural Revolution. Rather, based urbanite life-world.[70] What sustained

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Survival of Shanghai Urbanite Culture in the Mao Era Ping the Shanghai longtang urbanite everyday indicates modern Shanghai before the 1949 life during Mao’s ceaseless political socialist revolution. campaigns and “permanent revolution” was [4] Marie-Claire Bergère. Shanghai: China’s the urbanites’ resilient pursuit of Shanghai- gateway to modernity. 2009, Stanford styled material pragmatism and everyday- University: Stanford, California. oriented habitus. It was the rigorous and [5] Xinmin Evening Newspaper. June 6, visible practices and aspirations 1950. encapsulated in longtang urbanite [6] “Yuan” here refers to jinyuanquan or mundanity and bourgeois sensibility that “jinyuan paper currency.” It was first issued kept Shanghai an enchanting battlefield on August 20th, 1948 by the Nationalist constantly reclaiming its bourgeois and Party (GMD) and was phased out 10 months socialist heritage in the Mao era. If Maoist later due to inflation and economic crisis. Chinese socialism did not succeed in One jinyuanquan was equivalent to three eradicating the kind of bourgeois sentiments million fabi (legal currency). embodied by Shanghai urbanite everyday [7] Xinmin Evening Newspaper. June 6, life, then ironically enough, it was the 1950. arrival of the age of global capitalism that [8] Yomi Braester. A big dyeing vat: the the seemingly self-autonomous longtang vilifying of Shanghai during the Good everyday life unforeseeably encountered a Eighth Company Campaign [J]. Modern radical change of historical course – while China, 2005, 31(4): 411- 447. Also see the urban bourgeois sensibility was finally Richard Gaulton. Political modernization in legitimized through “socialism with Chinese Shanghai, 1949-1951. In Christopher Howe. characteristics” in the post-Mao market ed. Shanghai: Revolution and Development reforms, globalization, and urban in an Asian Metropolis.1981, Cambridge: gentrification, it was only to find the Cambridge University Press. sweeping demolition of the Shanghai [9] On December 1, 1951, the Central longtang and the un-making of the petty Committee issued “Decisions on Practicing urbanites radically taking place. Better Troops and Simpler Administration, Increase Production and Thrift, Anti- CONFLICT OF INTEREST Corruption, Anti-Waste and Anti- The author declares no conflicts of interest. Bureaucratism.” The Three-Anti Campaign (sanfan) officially began thereafter. It was FUNDING intended to remove the politically unreliable The research received no specific grant from state officials and party cadres, as well as to any funding agency in the public, correct the specific problems found in the commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. function of the administrative organs of the new state. On January 26, 1952, the central REFERENCES AND NOTES government further deepened the campaign [1] Maurice Meisner. Mao Zedong. 2007, scale by issuing “Instructions on Thoroughly Polity Press. Launching ‘Five-Anti’ Campaign during [2] Mao Dun. Midnight. Translated by Limited Period in the Cities.” The Five-Anti Sidney Schapiro. 1979, Beijing: Foreign Campaign against bribery, tax evasion, fraud, Languages Press. theft of state property, and leakage of state [3] Chen Duxiu. Shanghai society. In economic secrets. The target of the “Five- Selected works of Duxiu.1922, Shanghai Anti” extended from industrialists and Yadong Library. “Old Shanghai” is a term merchants to the national bourgeoisie in

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Survival of Shanghai Urbanite Culture in the Mao Era Ping general. On April 30, The Liberation Daily [16] Xiong, Yuezhi. ed. General history of newspaper announced that the Five-Anti Shanghai. 1999, Shanghai Renmin Campaign had secured an overall victory in Chubanshe. Vol.13. Shanghai. [17] Siheyuan is a type of traditional [10] Mao Zedong’s speech at the Eleventh Chinese style architecture that is a Session (Enlarged) of the Supreme State compound with houses on four sides. Conference. Mao went over the verbatim [18] Shanghai statistical year book. 1989, record and made certain additions before its China Statistics Press. publication in the People’s Daily on June 19, [19] Luo Xiaowei, Wu Jiang. Shanghai 1957. See reference from Selected works of longtang. 1997, Shanghai Renmin Mao Tse-tung. Vol. VII. Chubanshe. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/ [20] See history of longtang in G. Byrne mao/selected-works/volume- Bracken, The Shanghai alleyway house, vol. 5/mswv5_58.htm. 95. Routledge Contemporary China [11] See reference in Hanchao Lu, Beyond Series. 2013, New York: Routledge. the neon lights: everyday Shanghai in the [21] Also see Xudong Zhang. Shanghai early twentieth century. 1999, University of nostalgia: mourning and allegory in Wang California Press. Yomi Braester. Painting Anyi’s literary production in the 1990s. In the city red: Chinese cinema and the urban Postsocialism and cultural politics. 2008, contract. 2010, Duke University Press. Duke University Press. 181-212. [12] Xiong Yuezhi. Shanghai urban life in [22] “Ah la” means “we” in the Shanghai heterogeneous cultures. 2008, Shanghai dialect, it is used here to represent the Cishu Chubanshe. “Shanghai Land dialect itself. Wen-hsin Yeh argues that the Regulation” especially regulated land lease term “petty urbanite” first appeared in the policy and legalized separate co-existence of pages of popular 1930s Shanghai magazines. the Chinese and the non-Chinese. This notion of “petty urbanite” (xiaoshimin) Regulation item 15 indicated that the is also illustrated by Marie-Claire Bergère in Chinese could not negotiate rent among Shanghai: China’s gateway to modernity. themselves, nor could they build houses and 2009, Standford University Press, as well as rent properties to other Chinese businessmen. by Hanchao Lu in Beyond the neon lights: Regulation item 16 indicated that the everyday Shanghai in the early twentieth Chinese were allowed to trade in the public century. 1999, University of California Press. properties built by the British, but were [23] Zhang Zhen. An amorous history of the prohibited from renting them. silver screen: Shanghai cinema, 1896-1937. [13] Known as “huayang gongchu” in 2005, Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Chinese. Xiong Yuezhi. Shanghai urban life Press. in heterogeneous cultures. 2008, Shanghai [24] This is what Xiong Yuezhi calls Cishu Chubanshe. “wufang zachu.” Xiong Yuezhi. Brief study [14] Xiong Yuezhi. Brief study of the of the making of Shanghainese and their making of Shanghainese and their identity identity [J]. Academic Monthly, 1997: 10. [J]. Academic Monthly, 1997:10. [25] Xinmin Evening Newspaper. January [15] Marie-Claire Bergère. Shanghai: 17, 1950. China’s gateway to modernity. 2009, [26] Xiong Yuezhi. Brief study of the Stanford University: Stanford, California. making of Shanghainese and their identity [J]. Academic Monthly. 1997:10. [27] Ibid.

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[28] Please refer to Xiong Yuezhi. [43] Shanghai statistical yearbook. 1986, Miscellaneous notes on the Shanghai school. Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe. In Shanghai. Ma Fengyang. ed. 1996, [44] Ibid. Wenhui Chubanshe, 180-188. [45] Mu Mutian. Longtang [J]. Young [29] Marie-Claire Bergère, Shanghai: Companion, 1935:110. China’s gateway to modernity. 2009, [46] Hanchao Lu. Beyond the neon lights: Stanford University: Stanford. California. everyday Shanghai in the early twentieth [30] Ibid. century. 1999, University of California Press. [31] Wang Anyi. The song of everlasting [47] Marie-Claire Bergère. Shanghai: sorrow. Translated by Michael Berry and China’s gateway to modernity. 2009, Susan Chan Egan. 1995, Columbia Stanford University Press. University Press. [48] Qian, Nairong. Shanghai dialect. 2007, [32] Known as “luosike li zuodaochang” in Wenhui Chubanshe. Chinese. Metaphorically refers to a [49] Ibid. meticulous and enjoyable way of managing [50] Eileen Chang. Embittered women. 1987, everyday life in a compact living space. Haixia wenyi Press. [33] Henri Lefebvre. The production of [51] Lu Xun. Street vendor past and present. space. 1991, Oxford, Cambridge, In Selected works of Lu Hsun. Vol 4. 1964, Massachusetts, USA: Blackwell. Foreign Languages Press: Peking. [34] Mu Mutian. Longtang [J]. Young [52] Lu Xun. Snacks. In Selected works of Companion, 1935: 110. Lu Hsun. Vol. 4. 1964, Foreign Languages [35] Xinmin Evening Newspaper. June 30, Press: Peking. 1950. “Flesh screens” refers to the male [53] Lu Xun. Street vendor past and present. residents who tend to be topless in public In Selected works of Lu Hsun. Vol 4. 1964, when enjoying cool evening summer breeze Foreign Languages Press: Peking. in Shanghai. [54] Xinmin Evening Newspaper. August 4, [36] Xinmin Evening Newspaper. June 20, 1950. 1957. [55] Xinmin Evening Newspaper. [37] Also see Lu Hanchao. Beyond the neon September 4, 1950. The sound of making lights. 1999, University of California Press. popcorn is reminiscent of the one of broken This term comes from a Shanghai local tire. comedy also called “House of Seventy-two [56] Shen Jialu and Dai Dunbang. Shanghai Tenants” in 1958. lao weidao (The old Shanghai taste). 2007, [38] Xiong Yuezhi. General history of Shanghai wenyi chubanshe. Shanghai. Vol.13. 1999, Shanghai Renmin [57] Xinmin Evening Newspaper. May – Chubanshe. August, 1950. [39] Marie-Claire Bergère. Shanghai: [58] Jin Dalu. Normality and abnormality: China’s gateway to modernity. 2009, Shanghai social life in the Cultural Stanford University: Stanford, California. Revolution. Vol. 2. 2011, Shanghai Cishu [40] Xiong Yuezhi. General history of Chubanshe. Shanghai. Vol.13. 1999, Shanghai Renmin [59] Due to food shortage, the state issued Chubanshe. food vouchers based on monthly rations [41] It is also from the 1958 comedy “House between 1955 and 1993. of Seventy-two Tenants.” [60] Half liang equals 25 gram. Shanghai [42] Shen Jialu. Shanghainese ways of Food Bureau Archive. 1619-225. living. 2009, Shanghai Wenhua Chubanshe.

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[61] Jin Dalu. Normality and abnormality: [65] Liberation Daily. July 28, 1972. Shanghai social life in the Cultural [66] One of the state convictions was “the Revolution. Vol. 2. 2011, Shanghai Cishu entire nation was obliged to protect Chubanshe. In comparison, snacks from Shanghai, also known as quanguo bao cities like Beijing tended to be “big,” “hard,” Shanghai. Also see Jin Dalu. Normality and “thick” at that time. abnormality: Shanghai social life in the [62] Ibid. Cultural Revolution. Vol. 2. 2011, Shanghai [63] During the Cultural Revolution, pastry Cishu Chubanshe. stores in Shanghai often took urgent orders [67] Ibid. from the “revolutionaries” who organized [68] Wu Xiaoming, Taotie zhi ye. Xinmin rallies in People’s Square and Cultural Evening Newspaper. January 26, 2004. Revolution Square in Shanghai. Thousands [69] Mark Swislocki. Culinary Nostalgia. of jin (500 grams) bread and biscuits were 2009, Stanford University Press. produced for the rallies, including the most [70] Xudong Zhang. Shanghai nostalgia: popular ones such as “evergreen sweet mourning and allegory in Wang Anyi’s biscuits,” “sandwich biscuits,” “cream soda literary production in the 1990s. In biscuits”. Postsocialism and cultural politics. 2008, [64] Yu Garden market had a long history Duke University Press. 181-212. and tradition in Shanghai. Yu Garden was first built in 1559 during the Ming Dynasty.

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