Ac know ledg ments

But he is worst, who (beggarly) doth chaw Others’ wits’ fruits, and in his ravenous maw Rankly digested, doth those things out- spew, As his own things; and they are his own, ’tis true, For if one eat my meat, though it be known Th e meat was mine, th’ excrement is his own. — John Donne, ca. 15951

I worked on this book, on and off , for the better part of a de cade. Readers will decide for themselves whether or not the fruits of others’ wits have come out well digested. What began as a literary study soon grew into a more omnivorous pro ject of tracing comic ideas across genres and identifying conventions and outliers. Cartoons, joke books, fi lms, biographies, scholarly studies, dictionar- ies, advertisements, and vari ous print culture ephemera together, I’ve come to believe, off er a more comprehensive picture of early twentieth- century comedy than do literary works alone. Th is is particularly true in China, where periodical publishing enabled much of the proliferation of humor and shaped some of the forms it took. Note that, with the exception of a few diaries and letters, this study is mostly confi ned to what people put into print. Research involved a fair amount of treasure hunting. I sought out original edi- tions when possible, since these give a better and more accurate sense of context than later anthologies. I had a lot of help with research leads; these and other scholarly debts I credit in the notes. Th e notes are also the place to look for addi- tional details on some of the stories behind this story, including the cut and thrust of ongoing scholarly debates. I hope that you, like me, enjoy a book that can be read in more than one way. Here I would like to thank Monty Python, an inspiring companion since child- hood, and an amusing muse to this day. One of the highlights of a year I spent at the Australian National University was an eve ning show at the Canberra Th eatre featuring John Cleese. Eric Idle I thank for permission to use lyrics from his song (performed in the Pythons’ 2014 reunion show) in the epigraph.

xiii xiv Ac know ledg ments

David Der- wei Wang fi rst gave me the opportunity to pursue Chinese lit- erature as a career and has been a generous mentor ever since. Eugenia Lean, Anne Prescott (who introduced me to Donne), Shang Wei, and the late Pei-yi Wu shaped this book’s fi rst incarnation as a doctoral dissertation at Columbia Uni- versity. At Dartmouth, where I learned Chinese, I had an exceptional group of teachers, among them Sarah Allan, Susan Blader, Shelby Grantham, Lynn Higgins, Li Xueqin, Annabelle Melzer, the late Konrad von Moltke, Hua-yuan Li Mowry, and the late Peter Rushton. Friends and colleagues made the process of writing this book a joy. Huz- zah for Alexander Beels, Michael Berry, Sue Jean Cho, Eileen Cheng-yin Chow, Dong Xinyu (who introduced me to the work of Neil Harris), Linda Feng, Rivi Handler- Spitz, Michael Hill, Hui- Lin Hsu, Wilt Idema, Paize Keulemans, S. E. Kile, Liao Ping-hui, Hayes Moore, Th omas Mullaney, Shaw-yu Pan, Song Ming- wei, Song Weijie, Nicolai Volland, Wang Pin, Wang Xiaojue, Joe Wicentowski, Ellen Widmer, Wong Nim Yan, You Jingxian, Zha Mingjian, and Zhang Enhua. Special thanks to Enhua, Hayes, Joe, Michael, Mingwei, Nico, Paize, and Tom for commenting on individual chapters, as well as to H. Tiff any Lee for generously sharing her research on early Chinese photography. Markuz Wernli created the composite images in chapters 2 and 3. In Taiwan, Hu Siao- chen, Peng Hsiao- yen, and Yang Mu sponsored me on two occasions to spend a year doing research at the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy of the Academia Sinica, fi rst during gradu ate school and later during a faculty sabbatical. Mei Chia-ling and her students welcomed me into the aca- demic community at National Taiwan University in 2004. Dr. Wu Jing-jyi, Julie Hu and the staff of the Fulbright Foundation in Taiwan were generous hosts. Jen-Peng Liu and Ho Li-hsing made it possible for me to teach an undergraduate class on modern Chinese comic lit erature in the Chinese Department at National Tsing hua University in 2005—an extraordinary opportunity for an American graduate student. More recently, Professor Hsiao Feng-Hsien invited me to give a series of talks adapted from this book at Buddhist Tzu Chi University; thanks to her and her colleagues and students for hosting me in Hualien in 2014. In Suzhou, Fan Boqun introduced me to the works of Xu Zhuodai. Tang Zhesh- eng, who wrote the fi rst book on huaji literature, shared books from his collec- tion. “Dean” Ji Jin invited me to participate in multiple conferences at Suzhou University— the Deputy Dean salutes! I am grateful for the friendship and hospi- tality of Brenton, Jennie, Isabella, and Marguerite Smith, who hosted me during several research trips in Shanghai. Library staff members at the University of British Columbia, the University of Washington, the Australian National University, Columbia University, Har- vard University, the Academia Sinica, Fudan University, Suzhou University, the Shanghai Library, and the Suzhou Municipal Library went beyond the call of Ac know ledg ments xv duty to help me access research materials. I would like to thank in partic u lar Liu Jing at UBC’s Asian Library, Ouyang Dipin at the National Library of Australia, and Zhang Chengzhi of the C.V. Starr East Asian Library at Columbia for their assistance. Danke to Hans Harder and Barbara Mittler for including me in a workshop on Punch magazine at the University of Heidelberg in 2009 and to Barbara again for inviting me back to Heidelberg to give a seminar on early Republican satirical periodicals in 2011. Rudolf Wagner provided invaluable comments during both trips and in subsequent correspondence. I-Wei Wu shared rare late Qing and Republican periodicals and cartoons. My research was generously funded by Columbia University’s Gradu ate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University, the Chi- ang Ching- kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, the Fulbright Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China, the US Department of Education (FLAS), the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at UBC, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Australian Centre on China in the World. I have the great good fortune to work with fantastic colleagues at UBC. I would particularly like to thank Lonnie Chase, Timothy Cheek, Ross King, Christina Laffi n, Joshua Mostow, Anne Murphy, Maija Norman, and the members of the UBC China Studies Group. I appreciate the research assistance of Michelle Cheng, Xenia Chiu, Si Nae Park, and Wu Meng. I spent 2012 on a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University. I am grateful to Geremie Barmé, Gloria Davies, Benjamin Penny and the other members of the CIW man- agement group for aff ording me this opportunity. A conversation with Ben and Geremie inspired me to radically redesign (and— reader, take note— shorten) this book. Fellow postdocs David Brophy, Shih- Wen Chen, Johanna Hood, Elisa Nesossi, and Qian Ying were excellent companions. William Sima shared valu- able research materials and ideas during our collaboration on a special issue of China Heritage Quarterly devoted to Th e China Critic. Jessica Milner Davis was the fi rst to make my family welcome when we set foot on Australian soil. She also introduced me to the Australasian Humour Studies Network and invited me to speak at its symposium at the ANU. Equally welcoming was Jocelyn Chey, who hosted my family in Sydney. I’ve benefi ted greatly from Jessica and Jocelyn’s research expertise, especially their two edited volumes on Chinese humor. Gerry Groot and Claire M. Roberts at University of Adelaide; Gloria Davies at Monash University; Debra Aarons and Yu Haiqing at the University of New South Wales; and Bonnie McDougall at University of Sydney made it possi ble for me to give talks related to this book pro ject, and to meet Australian scholars who contributed xvi Ac know ledg ments to its development. While at the ANU, I also benefi ted from conversations with Duncan Campbell, John Makeham, Mark Strange, and Veronica Ye Zhengdao. Parts of chapter 5 originally appeared as an article in the journal Modern Chi- nese Lit erature and Culture; thanks to Kirk Denton for permission to reproduce them. Th anks to Jim Cheng, Anatoly Detwyler, and Eugenia Lean for helping me to obtain the image that appears on this book’s cover. I am indebted to Linda Jaivin, who reviewed a draft of the manuscript and im- proved its style considerably. Perry Link and three anonymous reviewers at the University of California Press I thank for their invaluable suggestions during the refereeing process. Reed Malcolm, an inspired editor, has been enthusiastic about this project since we fi rst met. Michael Bohrer-Clancy, Stacy Eisenstark, and Francisco Reinking ably saw the book through production. Looking for a good copyeditor? Her name is Robin O’Dell. With love and aff ection, I thank my family: Pat, John, and Alexander Rea, Jin and Tsui- yen Wang, Emily Wang, Chris Crew, and Malcolm Wang. I dedicate this book to Julie Ming Wang, and to our children, Peregrin and Permenia, from whom I’ve learned that the age of irreverence is between two and six—no, seven . . .