A Pictorial Autobiography by Zeng Jifen (1852-1942) and the Use of the “Exemplary” in China’S Modern Transformation

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NAN N Ü A Pictorial AutobiographyNan By Nü Zeng 19 (2017) Jifen 263-315 (1852-1942) 263

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A Pictorial Autobiography by Zeng Jifen (1852-1942) and the Use of the “Exemplary” in China’s Modern Transformation

Binbin Yang The University of Hong Kong [email protected]

Abstract

Zeng Jifen (1852-1942), a daughter of the distinguished Qing official Zeng Guofan (1811- 72), incorporated rich visual materials into her self-edited nianpu or chronological autobiography (1931; 1933) for the purpose of modelling the “ancients’ practice of incorporating pictures and texts concurrently.” The effect was a pictorial autobiography that launched a social critique through an exemplary life story and the art of “praise and blame” inherent in the Chinese biographical and artistic traditions. In highlighting the mechanisms Zeng employed to construct her personal history and engage in conversations on familial and national levels across several decades, this study illuminates her ongoing efforts to capitalize on her family heritage and the Confucian ritual tradition for social and political reform. During the process, what may appear to be her tenacious grip on the ritual restraints on women, as previously interpreted, initiated a sea change in women’s education and expanded the authority of women from the domestic sphere to the nationalist state.

Keywords

Zeng Jifen – pictorial autobiography – the “exemplary” – social and political reform – women’s education

Introduction

Zeng Jifen 曾紀芬 (1852-1942) was the sixth daughter of Zeng Guofan 曾國藩 (1811-72). She married Nie Qigui 聶緝槼 (1855-1911) in 1875, and like him came

©Nan koninklijke Nü 19 (2017) brill 263-315 nv, leiden, 2017 | doi 10.1163/15685268-00192P03Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 12:58:33PM via free access 264 Yang from one of Hunan province’s most powerful gentry families. Both the Zengs and the Nies played key roles in China’s political and economic transformation at the turn of the twentieth century, and provided a crucial driving force for national industrialization in the following decades. Having put down the Taip- ing Rebellion in 1864, Zeng Guofan became part of the leadership of a series of reforms focused on the military, industry, and foreign relations, and generally referred to as the Self-Strengthening Movement or Ziqiang yundong 自強運動. His eldest son Zeng Jize 曾紀澤 (1839-90) received solid training in both the Chinese classics and Western learning, and served as a diplomat to Britain, France, and Russia during the 1870s and 1880s.1 Nie Qigui, on the other hand, directed the Jiangnan Arsenal (Jiangnan zhi- zhao zongju 江南製造總局) in Shanghai during the 1880s. Developed as part of the Self-Strengthening Movement, the Arsenal was a major site for the manu- facture of modern arms and ships, and for the translation of Western knowledge and technologies. In 1904 Nie Qigui pooled his political and economic resources to establish the Futai 復泰 Company, with his third son Nie Qijie 聶其傑 (1880-1953) acting as manager. In 1909 Nie Qijie became the major stock- holder of the New Huaxin Cotton Mill (Huaxin fangzhi xinju 華新紡織新局) and expanded it into the New Hengfeng Cotton Mill (Hengfeng fangzhi xinju 恒豐紡織新局). Seizing the “golden opportunity” offered by the withdrawal of foreign capital during and following World War I, Nie Qijie purchased and developed textile, iron, and agricultural industries on a grand scale. In 1920 his career as the leading “national industrialist” peaked when he was elected as Chairman of the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce.2

1 For a brief history of the Self-Strengthening Movement and China’s foreign relations during the late nineteenth century, see Immanuel C.Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China, sixth edition (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 261-312. For Zeng Guofan’s leadership in the Movement, see pages 267, 278-79, and 283. For Zeng Jize’s contributions as a diplomat, see pages 322-24. Also refer to the roles that Zeng Guofan played in the emergence of the modern firm in China: David Faure, China and Capitalism: A History of Business Enterprise in Modern China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006), 49-50. 2 For a brief introduction of Nie Qijie and his family enterprises, see Zhang Zhigao 張志高, ed., Haishang mingren lu 海上名人錄 (Shanghai: Shanghai huabao chubanshe, 1991), 157-58. Faure lists the Hengfeng Mill among the privatized government enterprises that grew into modern firms during the late Qing and early Republican periods. See Faure, China and Capitalism, 45-46. For more detailed discussions of the Nie family in relation to the rise of the gentry-merchant class, see: Wellington K.K. Chan, Merchants, Mandarins and Modern Enterprise in Late Ch’ing China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press East Asian Center, 1977), 9; 55-58; 89-92. Marie-Claire Bergère, The Golden Age of the Chinese Bourgeoisie, 1911-1937, Janet Lloyd, trans. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 45; 71; 74; 124-78.

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Familial ties to these key figures in modern Chinese history offered Zeng Ji- fen the vision of engaging with the seismic changes occurring at this time. Raised as a guixiu 閨秀 (translated variously as gentry woman, genteel lady, or, literally, talent from the inner quarters) and well-trained in traditional female virtues and domestic skills, Zeng Jifen at the same time had the opportunity of learning about the world from her father Zeng Guofan. She also studied West- ern knowledge with her eldest brother Zeng Jize.3 In 1903 she adapted Jiazheng xue 家政學 (Domestic science) by the Japanese female educator Shimoda Uta- ko 下田歌子 (1854-1936) for the use of Chinese readers. She specified the purpose of her publication as training Chinese women on practical domestic skills as part of a larger scheme of strengthening the Chinese families and, in turn, the Chinese nation. Hers was among the earliest adaptations of Shimoda’s work in China.4 Scholars have shown that Zeng Jifen played a vital role in creating cohesion within the Nie clan in Shanghai, and sustaining the family enterprise during the financial crises of the 1920s.5 She headed weekly “family meetings” during 1926-27, which she and her son Nie Qijie intended to use as a means of incul- cating kinship values among family members. In 1927, Nie Qijie published a collection of the minutes of these meetings at the Nie family press.6 In 1931, Zeng dictated her life experiences to her son-in-law Qu Xuanying 瞿宣穎

3 Qu Xuanying 瞿宣穎, Xu 序, in Zeng Jifen, Chongde laoren bashi ziding nianpu 崇德老人八十自訂年譜 (hereafter, Chongde nianpu) (Shanghai: Nieshi jiayan xunkanshe, 1933), 2:2a. Also see Zeng Jifen’s own account of her education: Zeng Jifen, Chongde nianpu, 6b. 4 Zeng Jifen, Xu, in Zeng Jifen, Nieshi chongbian Jiazhengxue 聶氏重編家政學 (Hangzhou: Zhejiang guanshuju, 1903), 1b-2a. The Nanjing Library has two copies of this work. For discussions of the introduction of Jiazheng xue into China and the crucial role Shimoda played in educating overseas Chinese female students, as well as in shaping educational reforms for Chinese women, see Joan Judge, “Talent, Virtue, and the Nation: Chinese Nationalisms and Female Subjectivities in the Early Twentieth Century,” American Historical Review 106.3 (2001): 765-803. See particularly pages 773-94. Also see Huang Xiangjin 黃湘金, “Cong jianghu zhi yuan dao miaotang zhi gao – Shimoda Utako Jiazheng xue zai Zhongguo” 從江湖之遠到廟堂之高—下田歌子《家政學》在中國, Shanxi shida xuebao 山西師大學報 34.5 (2007): 88-92. 5 Zhou Lin 周琳 and Li Xujia 李旭佳, trans., Jindai Zhongguo shangye de fazhan 近代中國商業的發展 (Hangzhou: Zhejiang daxue chubanshe, 2010), 141-42. This work is a Chinese translation of Faure, China and Capitalism. In addition to the original contents, the translated version incorporates a number of essays by Faure. Here I cite from “Qingmo Minchu Zhongguo xiandaihua qiye de zichan kongzhi” 清末民初中國現代化企業的資產控制. See pages 134-54. 6 Nie Qijie 聶其傑, Nieshi jiating jiyihui jilu 聶氏家庭集益會記錄 (Shanghai: Nieshi jiayan xunkanshe, 1927).

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(1894-1973), and directed her sons to join him in compiling her chronological autobiography, Chongde laoren bashi ziding nianpu 崇德老人八十自訂年譜 (A self-edited chronological autobiography of the Elderly Lady who admires virtue, completed at the age of eighty; hereafter referred to as Chongde nianpu). Publications of this work and its amended version in 1931 and 1933, respectively, at the Nie family press in Shanghai honored Zeng’s eightieth birthday. The circulation of this work was not limited to the Nie clan or family networks. Rather it reached a more general reading public through sales agencies, including the distribution department of the Dagong Bao 大公報 (The Public) in Tianjin and publishing houses in Beijing and other cities.7 In her hand-copied preface (see Figure 1), Zeng Jifen introduces herself as the central figure coordinating a collaborative family project featuring crucial records of her life:

When I was a child I regularly received instructions from my late father the Illustrious and Upright. As I grew older and experienced hardships, I meticulously followed these instructions and dared not cross boundaries. All of a sudden I find myself reaching the age of eighty. As I look back upon my life experiences, many feelings well up in me. Descendants of my family asked me to record my past experiences. Thus I dictated this volume to my son-in-law Duizhi [Qu Xuanying] and directed my sons to join him in compiling it. I am not good at remembering things from the distant past and therefore have forgotten many. Those noted down here are what have left lasting impressions on me and what I cannot forget. I have not included anything that I have not personally experienced or seen with my own eyes.

余幼蒙先文正公之彝訓，長歷世事之艱難，業業兢兢，常以隕越為懼。今八十之齡，忽焉已屆，追憶一生經歷，感不絕心。子姓群從多以記述舊聞為請，因口授此編，令兌之壻為之詮次具稿並敕諸兒同為參訂。余素乏彊記之能，歲月悠遠，忽忘已多。凡茲所記，皆余心目中所長在而不忘者。自非身歷目睹，悉不羼入。8

7 Copies of the 1931 edition were distributed by the Nie family press at the price of one silver dollar, plus ten cents for postal orders (Shishou dayang yiyuan, youji shifen 實售大洋壹元，郵寄拾分). Copies of the 1933 edition were published at a printing house in Beijing, and distributed through various channels, including: Simalu zuozhe shushe 四馬路作者書社 in Shanghai, the Dagong bao in Tianjin, and publishing houses in other cities. The price rose to one silver dollar and twenty cents. See publication information at the end of the two editions. 8 Zeng Jifen, Xu, in Zeng Jifen, Chongde nianpu, 1:1a-2a. The quoted part appears exactly the same in both editions of 1931 and 1933. In the later edition Zeng Jifen added two paragraphs concerning the incorporation of visual material.

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Figure 1 First page of Zeng Jifen’s hand copied preface, 1933. Courtesy of the University of Hong Kong Library.

Both editions of Chongde nianpu incorporate rich visual material in the forms of photographs and pictures. They provide a clue to Zeng Jifen’s life course, which she records in the ensuing texts as entries of major events in chronological order. The purpose, as she states in her preface in both editions, is to model guren tushu bingxing zhi yi 古人圖書並行之意 (the ancients’ practice of

Nan Nü 19 (2017) 263-315 Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 12:58:33PM via free access 268 Yang incorporating pictures and texts concurrently).9 The entire work hence has the effect of a pictorial autobiography. Chongde nianpu opens a window into the Zeng and Nie family sagas situat- ed in China’s dynamic transformation. Thomas L. Kennedy’s richly contextual- ized translation of Zeng’s autobiography has introduced the work to the Western reader as a remarkable personal history, as well as a social document that reflects social changes from the author’s perspective.10 While Kennedy ob- serves that Zeng Jifen demonstrates flexibility and acumen in coping with the tension between inherited family values and the “pressures of social, economic, and political upheaval,” he finds no intention on her part to address or intervene in these social changes – as she “neither embraces nor dismisses” them.11 Moreover, he perceives Zeng Jifen as the epitome of conservative Confucian- ism who did not support further emancipation of women.12 I would suggest, by contrast, that Chongde nianpu reveals in many ways how Zeng capitalized on her family heritage and the Confucian ritual tradition as precisely a means to address social changes. Instead of labeling her emphasis on traditional values as part of the conservatism characterizing the 1930s, the present study contex- tualizes its prominence within an extended conversation that she initiated in

9 Zeng Jifen, Xu,1b. For a brief introduction of Zeng Jifen’s chronological autobiography within the trends of the Qing gentry women’s visual self-representations, see Binbin Yang, Heroines of the Qing: Exemplary Women Tell Their Stories (Seattle: University of Washing- ton Press, 2016), 53-54. 10 Thomas L. Kennedy, trans. and ed., Testimony of a Confucian Woman: The Autobiography of Mrs. Nie Zeng Jifen, 1852-1942 (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 1993). Also, both Zeng Jifen’s adaptation of Jiazheng xue and her autobiography provide valuable sources for Joseph P. McDermott’s pioneering study of women as “domestic bur- sars” in Chinese families. Focusing on the wife’s managerial skills – with which Zeng endowed great moral authority – McDermott reflects on the questions of social mobility and family strategy in the light of the wife’s crucial contribution. Joseph P. McDermott, “The Chinese Domestic Bursar,” in Masayoshi Uozumi 魚住昌良 ed., Dentō to kindaika: Chō (Takeda) Kiyoko Kyōju koki kinen ronbunshū 伝統と近代化: 長 (武田) 淸子敎授古稀記念論文集 (Tōkyō: Kokusai kirisu Tokyō daigaku Ajia Bunka Kenkyūjo, 1990), 267-84. As I demonstrate below, my approach differs from their reading this work in the context of social change, or extracting from it information about women’s managerial skills at home. 11 Kennedy, “Translator’s Afterword,” in Kennedy trans., ed., Testimony of a Confucian Woman, 108. 12 Kennedy, “Translator’s Afterword,” 107-10. Kennedy does not specify how Zeng Jifen’s life exemplified the positive influence of tradition – except that Zeng’s actions sometimes contradicted her “self-proclaimed conservatism,” or the “familiar image of traditional Chi- nese women.” See pages 108-9.

DownloadedNan fromNü Brill.com10/04/202119 (2017) 263-315 12:58:33PM via free access A Pictorial Autobiography By Zeng Jifen (1852-1942) 269 response to China’s changing relations to the world.13 Her call upon women ‘to save the nation’, in particular, echoed earlier efforts of reform-minded women and at the same time provided “a modern response to a modern situation” – to borrow from Arif Dirlik’s study of the New Life Movement (Xinshenghuo yundong 新生活運動) – namely, to the nationwide and worldwide crises during the early 1930s.14

Methodological Reflections

In developing my discussion here, I have benefited from the growing body of scholarship on pre-modern Chinese women’s writings, which goes beyond viewing the cultural tradition of China as the “subordination of women,” in Kennedy’s words, or the “ritual restraints on women” of which Zeng “thorough- ly approved.”15 While Kennedy astutely perceives Zeng and her family as “part of an internal dynamism that moved Chinese civilization forward,” it may also be argued that the cultural tradition to which he finds them “tenaciously cling- ing” generated new resources for them to launch social and political reform.16 The new biographical approach developed since the 1990s under the influence of Western feminism and postmodernism can shed light on Zeng Jifen’s construction of her personal history in response to historical changes. In brief- est terms, this approach assumes that the “performativity” of individual lives

13 For the conservatism of the 1930s, see Arif Dirlik, “The Ideological Foundations of the New Life Movement: A Study in Counterrevolution,” Journal of Asian Studies 19.4 (1975): 945-80; and particularly page 945. Also see Xu Huiqi 許慧琦, “Nuola” zai Zhongguo: Xin nüxing xingxiang de suzao jiqi yanbian 1900s-1930s “娜拉”在中國：新女性形象的塑造及其演變 1900s-1930s (Taibei: Guoli zhengzhi daxue lishixue xi, 2003), 262-86. 14 Dirlik, “The Ideological Foundations of the New Life Movement,” 945. 15 For the quotations see Kennedy, “Introduction: Cultural and Historical Setting,” in Ken- nedy trans., ed., Testimony of a Confucian Woman, xxviii-xxix. 16 For the quotations see Kennedy, “Introduction,” xxxiii-xxxiv. Since the 1990s, developments in the study of pre-modern Chinese women’s writings have emphatically drawn attention to the agency that women exercised in appropriating traditional values for self- empowerment and for social engagement. For pioneering studies, see: Dorothy Ko, Teach- ers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994); and Susan Mann, Precious Records: Women in China’s Long Eighteenth Century (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997). In terms of appropriating traditional values for “modern” purposes, see particularly: Nanxiu Qian, Politics, Poetics, and Gender in Late Qing China: Xue Shaohui and the Era of Reform (Stanford: Stan- ford University Press, 2015); and Hu Ying, Burying Autumn: Poetry, Friendship, and Loss (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2016).

Nan Nü 19 (2017) 263-315 Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 12:58:33PM via free access 270 Yang builds on, and changes, the ways cultural notions and power systems inter- wove in specific social and historical settings. Its “newness” lies particularly in the restoration of biography to the center stage of historical studies – as a form of historiography indicative of the intersections of individual lives and broader historical trends. In nineteenth-century France, for example, the “parade of femininities” that a number of elite women staged in public arenas indicated their strategies of exploiting fissures in the gender system, which had the potential of shattering prevailing gender notions over time. The shifting parameters of femininities revealed as such provide more prisms for mapping change in modern France. To the extent that these shifting parameters challenge the master narrative of a monolithic separation of gendered spheres in contemporary French society, they bring these women “from the margins of the historical record into history’s mainstream.”17 Recent scholarship on the various forms of life-writing by, or about Chinese women, greatly enriches this approach. Literature scholars probe the use of poetry as a predominant form of autobiography in pre-modern China and illuminate the strategies by which women poets during the late imperial era, especially during the Qing 清 era, established themselves as agents of literary and social changes.18 In re-constructing women’s lives in the context of their family histories, scholars have unveiled the social functions of their writings and a wide range of issues such as gender discourse, family system, social class, and the shifting relations between the state, local society, the family, and the person.19 A recent volume, moreover, perceives women’s biographies in Chi- nese history as social and cultural projects, which offer crucial insights into the “power mechanism in the production of historical knowledge.” As a way of

17 Jo Burr Margadant, ed., The New Biography: Performing Femininity in Nineteenth-Century France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 2-3, 9-10, 25. For comments on the use of the biography as a historical source, and a summary of the new biographical approach, see Lois W. Banner, “AHR Roundtable: Biography as History,” American Histori- cal Review 114.3 (2009): 579-86. 18 See: Grace S. Fong, Herself an Author: Gender, Agency, and Writing in Late Imperial China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008); and Xiaorong Li, Women’s Poetry of Late Imperial China: Transforming the Inner Chambers (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2012). 19 See particularly Susan Mann’s award-winning book: Mann, The Talented Women of the Zhang Family (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007). Also see a review of recent scholarly works in this field: Bret Hinsch, “Review Article: The Genre of Women’s Biogra- phies in Imperial China,” Nan Nü: Men, Women and Gender in China 11.1 (2009): 102-23. My later discussion will draw from several other studies on women’s lives in the context of their family histories.

DownloadedNan fromNü Brill.com10/04/202119 (2017) 263-315 12:58:33PM via free access A Pictorial Autobiography By Zeng Jifen (1852-1942) 271 engaging with debates in Western feminism and postmodernism, it proposes to excavate new sources that indicate a female autobiographical subject capa- ble of “resignifying the power discourse with subversive citations from within.”20 Also useful is the exploration, carried out in another recent volume, of a spectrum of Chinese life-writing practices spanning across over four centuries, from the seventeenth to the early twenty-first, and the interpretive tools for navigating this “textscape.” Reading life stories as primarily “social artifacts,” this volume uncovers the personal, social, and political interests driving life- writing practices while drawing attention to the authorial manipulations that overcame the social conventions shaping the self.21 My present study builds on these new insights gained from exploring the intersections of individual lives with historical trends, highlighting in particular the mechanisms that Zeng employed to construct her personal history and address these trends. Snap- shots from her family history will further illuminate how family heritage generated new resources and opportunities over the generations. In selecting the edition of Chongde nianpu for examination my present study also differs from Kennedy’s English translation. The 1942 edition on which Kennedy largely relies for his translation derives from the memorial volume Jinian ce 紀念冊 which Zeng Jifen’s family published shortly after her death.22 The memorial volume as a whole demonstrates a clear intention to place Zeng Jifen properly into the Nie (and Zeng) ancestral lines. It removes the original prefaces, photographs, pictures, and appendix from Chongde nianpu, and places the main corpus of texts after a selection of the writings by or about the Nie ancestors. A photograph of Zeng Jifan appears along with that of

20 Joan Judge and Hu Ying, eds., Beyond Exemplar Tales: Women’s Biography in Chinese His- tory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 282, 285. Also see page 7 of this book for a summary of the debates in feminism and postmodernism, and a citation from Judith Butler that draws on both trends. 21 Marjorie Dryburgh and Sarah Dauncey, eds., Writing Lives in China, 1600-2010: Histories of the Elusive Self (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). For the quotations, see pages 5 and 7. Particularly relevant here is a discussion on the changing norms bringing Chinese women’s lives “into” and “out of” the historical gaze. The ways in which early Republican intellectuals marginalized the mid-Qing woman scholar Wang Zhaoyuan testifies to the erasure of women’s roles as agents of change from the historical record. See Harriet T. Zurndorfer, “How to Write a Woman’s Life Into and Out of History: Wang Zhaoyuan (1763- 1851) and Biographical Study in Republican China,” in Dryburgh and Dauncey, eds., Writ- ing Lives in China, 86-109. 22 Kennedy uses the 1966 Taiwan reprint of the 1942 edition and draws on related materials from the memorial volume. See Note 1 in Kennedy trans., ed., Testimony of a Confucian Woman, 111.

Nan Nü 19 (2017) 263-315 Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 12:58:33PM via free access 272 Yang her father and those of two Nie ancestors, as an indication of her status in these ancestral lines.23 Though sufficient for memorial purposes, these changes take Chongde nianpu out of its original context of publication, and undermine the messages it conveys through the lively interplay between images and texts, and between the paratexts and the main corpus of images and texts. These changes also hide the links between Chongde nianpu and a “continuum” of conversations that Zeng Jifen conducted both on familial and national levels across the time span of several decades. The present study, therefore, ap- proaches the work in its original form and context of publication, especially by relying on the amended edition of 1933.24 But first of all, the re-arrangement of material in the English translation downplays the genre significance of Chongde nianpu, even though this re-arrangement renders the work in a more familiar narrative form by greatly re- ducing its “quasi-catalog” effect.25 It will become clear in this study that Chongde nianpu is by nature a work of social critique (as much as it is an autobiography), which builds on the art of “praise and blame” inherent in the Chi- nese biographical tradition. Far from indicating, in Kennedy’s words, Zeng Jifen’s “reserve” or “her Confucian sense of propriety,” this choice of genre was itself a means of asserting social and political power.26

23 Nie Qiying 煐, Nie Qiwei 煒, Nie Qichang 昌, Nie Qijie, Nie Qikun 焜, Nie Qijun 焌, and Qu Xuanying, eds., Chongde laoren jinian ce 崇德老人紀念冊 (Shanghai: Nieshi jiayan xunkanshe, 1942). Qiwei, Qichang, Qijie, and Qikun were among Zeng Jifen’s sons. Qiying and Qijun were sons by the concubine Zhang 章. See Kennedy’s useful chart of Zeng Jifen and Nie Qigui’s children: Kennedy, trans., ed., Testimony of a Confucian Woman, 67. 24 I have located a copy of the 1931 edition at the Nanjing Library, and copies of the 1933 and 1942 editions at the University of Hong Kong Library. There is also a modern reprint of the 1931 edition. See: Beijing tushuguan 北京圖書館, ed., Beijing tushuguan cang zhenben nianpu congkan 北京圖書館藏珍本年譜叢刊 (Beijing: Beijing tushuguan chubanshe, 1999), vol.182, 731-820. Texts from the 1933 edition are incorporated as an appendix in a modern reprint of the memoir by Zeng Baosun 曾寶蓀 (1893-1978), a granddaughter of Zeng Jifen’s elder brother Zeng Jihong 曾紀鴻 (1848-91). See: Zeng Baosun, and Zeng Jifen, Zeng Baosun huiyi lu, fu Chongde laoren ziding nianpu 曾寶蓀回憶錄附崇德老人自訂年譜 (Changsha: Yuelu shushe, 1986). Kennedy does not designate the 1933 edition as a revised edition; what he identifies instead as a 1935 revised edition should refer to the 1933 revised edition. See Note 1 in Kennedy trans., ed., Testimony of a Confucian Woman, 111. Unless otherwise specified, my quotations of Chongde nianpu are from the 1933 edition. 25 For an explanation to his re-arrangement of the material, see Kennedy, “Preface,” xiv. For the “quasi-catalog character” of the nianpu, see Note 2 in Kennedy trans., ed., Testimony of a Confucian Woman, 112. 26 Kennedy attributes Zeng Jifen’s choice of the nianpu to her “reserve” or “her Confucian

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Chongde nianpu and the Art of “Praise and Blame”

In format nianpu, or chronological biography, is a collection of entries on major events or life experiences of a person in chronological (year by year) order. As a subgenre of Chinese biography, nianpu records exemplary life stories – predominantly, of eminent men of letters – as witness of the past and evidence of conformity with state-promoted moral values and conduct. Scholars have traced its origins to the exegesis of the Confucian classic the Shijing 詩經 (Book of odes), particularly the practice of organizing a writer’s works in chronological sequence. The earliest examples appeared during the Song 宋 dynasty (960-1279), including those for the master poets Tao Qian 陶潛 (ca. 365-427) and Du Fu 杜甫 (712-70). Nianpu became especially popular during the late imperial period, and the Qing period alone produced over eight hundred of them.27 Its influence persisted into the early twentieth century, even while modern scholars such as Hu Shi 胡適 (1891-1962) manipulated its format in order to reorganize the national past and forge a new culture.28 The new surge of interest in chronological biography arose in part because this biographical subgenre seemed to allow more flexibility than official biography in the selection of material and the expression of opinions. Nonetheless,

sense of propriety” because he defines the nianpu as “a genre suited principally for historical writing rather than self-disclosure.” See Kennedy, “Translator’s Afterword,” 108. However, the key to understanding the nianpu (and by extension the Chinese biographical tradition) is not “self-disclosure,” but rather the genre’s moral weight, which empow- ered Zeng Jifen to launch a social critique. It should also be noted that it was very unusual for a woman to use nianpu for autobiographical purpose. 27 For a discussion of nianpu as a sub-genre of Chinese biography, and self-written nianpu as a form of autobiography, see Pei-yi Wu, The Confucian’s Progress: Autobiographical Writings in Traditional China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 32-41. Wu translates the term as “annalistic biography.” Also see Brian Moloughney, “From Biograph- ical History to Historical Biography: A Transformation in Chinese Historical Writing,” East Asian History 4 (1992): 1-30. See page 11. For a research guide to Chinese biographical writing, see Harriet Zurndorfer, Chinese Bibliography: A Research Guide to Reference Works about China Past and Present (Leiden: EJ. Brill, 1995), 137-69; and see particularly page 167 for references about nianpu. Also see a useful list of Chinese biographical genres: “Appen- dix A: Traditional Chinese Genres of Biographical Material,” in Judge and Hu, eds. Beyond Exemplar Tales, 287-89. See particularly page 288 for Zurndorfer’s definition of nianpu as a biographical form “typically reserved for successful men in public office.” 28 According to Zurndorfer, Hu Shi authored a chronological biography for the Qing scholar Zhang Xuecheng 章學誠 (1738-1801) as part of his project which included promoting “evi- dential research” (for which Zhang was renowned) as an indigenous Chinese “scientific tradition.” Zurndorfer, “How to Write a Woman’s Life Into and Out of History,” 91-92.

Nan Nü 19 (2017) 263-315 Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 12:58:33PM via free access 274 Yang as in almost all Chinese biographical writing chronological biography shared the “concern with the exemplary” and, by extension, the “art of praise and blame” that illustrated moral principles through individual lives.29 In the case of self-written or self-edited nianpu, the zixu / ziding nianpu 自敘 / 自訂年譜, it may be argued that the author used his own example to dispense praise and blame and to convey moral messages about his time.30 Thus, although a chronological autobiography does not offer an abundantly explicit life “narrative” with a clue to the disclosure of the self, as in the Western autobiographical tradition, it demonstrates coherence in its selection of material, and alerts the reader to the themes governing its selection.31 Paratexts such as prefaces and epilogues often highlight or reinforce these themes while at the same time engaging the autobiographical subject in a conversation with his contemporaries. The “concern with the exemplary” also found expression in visual art as early as the Han period, during which time official biography took hold. However, the fad for the concurrent use of text and image in representing exemplary lives was predominantly a late imperial phenomenon, with the mo- mentum provided by the boom of printed images and the resurging prominence of portraiture. Portraiture sets and illustrated chronological autobiographies rapidly became the social elite’s privileged sites for social avowal and cultural assertion.32 In terms of organizing personal memory by the geographical places the subject visited, there are a profusion of examples testifying the rise of pictorial autobiographies as a range of artistic and autobiographical practices for depicting “life’s journey.”33 Prominent examples include: handscrolls and albums of huanji tu 宦跡圖 (Paintings of my career path as an official) by Zhang Han 張瀚 (1511-93) and Xu Xianqing 徐顯卿 (1537-1602), respectively; Nianpu tu shi 年譜圖詩 (A personal chronology in pictures and verse) by You Tong 尤侗 (1618-1704); Pingsheng youli tu 平生遊歷圖 (Paintings depicting my

29 Moloughney, “From Biographical History to Historical Biography,” 11. Wu Pei-yi also argues that nianpu was the proper form for the recounting of exemplary lives. Wu, The Confu- cian’s Progress, 35. 30 Wu Pei-yi identifies Wen Tianxiang’s 文天祥 (1236-83) autobiography as the first self- written nianpu. Wu, The Confucian’s Progress, 32. 31 See Zurndorfer’s differentiation between Western biographical writing as investigation of personality, and Chinese biographical writing as the public record of a person used for didactic purposes. Zurndorfer, China Bibliography, 137. 32 For example, see: Wu Pei-yi, The Confucian’s Progress, 84-86; Richard Vinograd, Boundar- ies of the Self: Chinese Portraits, 1600-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Dietrich Seckel, “The Rise of Portraiture in Chinese Art,” Artibus Asiae 53.1 (1993): 7-26. 33 Hilde De Weerdt, “Places of the Self: Pictorial Autobiography in the Eighteenth Century,” CLEAR 33 (2011): 121-49.

DownloadedNan fromNü Brill.com10/04/202119 (2017) 263-315 12:58:33PM via free access A Pictorial Autobiography By Zeng Jifen (1852-1942) 275 life’s journey) by Hong Liangji 洪亮吉 (1746-1809); Fancha tu 泛槎圖 (Drawings of myself floating in a raft, 1831) by Zhang Bao 張寶 (1763-ca.1833); and Hong xue yinyuan tuji 鴻雪因緣圖記 (Drawings of fleeting memories and karma, 1849) by Wanyan Linqing 完顏麟慶 (1791-1846).34 Recent studies have examined how these authors negotiated their self-representations by reproducing normative roles. In the case of Hong Liangji, the surviving textual material of his paintings suggest that he manipulated, and defeated, the expectations raised by conventional scenes or cultural fiction such as those found in You Tong’s work.35 Chongde nianpu provides an example of a chronological autobiography that incorporates text and image concurrently to “dispense praise and blame,” to convey moral messages, and to make social and cultural assertions – in sum, a pictorial autobiography rooted in the biographical and artistic traditions of exemplary lives. Yet it also grew out of the broadening cultural trends of women’s engagement with the visual means of self-representation. A massive corpus of textual material in the forms of colophons and inscriptions from the Qing period testify to the prominence of gentry women’s portraits, self-portraits, paintings and painting sequences for autobiographical purposes. What used to be perceived as a male privilege now increasingly served women’s social and cultural purposes, including that of self-promotion as moral exemplars. Surviving examples of these paintings also indicate the lively interplays or “semiotic continuums” wherein text and image echo, enrich, or complicate each other.36 In the context of the sea change that had been transforming print culture since the late nineteenth century, Zeng Jifen’s publication of Chongde nianpu in the early 1930s calls for an inquiry into the continuities of the above artistic and biographical traditions and the purposes they served in a new era. Recent studies have examined the technological developments in the print industry during these decades and the ways they changed the nature of knowledge and

34 For reproductions of the huanji tu by Zhang Han and Xu Xianqing, see Yang Xin 楊新, ed., Ming Qing xiaoxianghua 明清肖像畫 (Shanghai: Shanghai kexue jishu chubanshe, 2008); and (Hong Kong: Shangwu yinshuguan, 2008), 24-31, 33-46. For discussions of You Tong’s and Hong Liangji’s works, see De Weerdt, “Places of the Self,” 121-49. For a recent study of Wanyan Linqing’s work, as well as Zhang Bao’s, see Binbin Yang, “Drawings of a Life of ‘Unparalleled Glory’: Ideal Manhood and the Rise of Pictorial Autobiographies in China,” in Kam Louie, ed., Changing Chinese Masculinities: From Imperial Pillars of State to Global Real Men (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016), 113-34. 35 De Weerdt, “Places of the Self,” 122-23. 36 Yang, Heroines of the Qing, 39-86; and page 51 for the “semiotic continuums” in women’s visual self-representations.

Nan Nü 19 (2017) 263-315 Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 12:58:33PM via free access 276 Yang education.37 Women’s artistic creations and self-representations through new media, such as photography and oil painting, began to appear in newspapers.38 Moreover, the rise of modern autobiography has led scholars to dismiss traditional forms of life writing as historical documentation lacking particularly in women’s autobiographical practices.39 I argue below that Chongde nianpu plays out the mechanisms of earlier forms of pictorial autobiography as a means of addressing social changes. An introduction to the contents of Chongde nianpu, its structure and inner mechanisms, and the major differences between the 1931 and 1933 editions is now in order. The 1931 edition includes a sequence of six portrait photographs featuring Zeng Jifen at the ages of 22, 40, 50, 65, 75, and 80, followed by a family photograph featuring her in the center of the big Nie clan in Shanghai during the celebration of her eightieth birthday. The portrait photographs follow the conventions of formal portraits, with Zeng Jifen appearing in the center and facing the viewer frontally. Together with the family photograph, they make a formal statement of her changing status in her husband’s family across time.

37 For a summary of these studies, see Cynthia J. Brokaw and Kai-wing Chow, eds., Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 3-54, and see pages 32-33. Also see: Joan Judge, Print and Politics: “Shibao” and the Culture of Reform in Late Qing China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996); Judith T. Zeitlin and Lydia H. Liu, eds., Writing and Materiality in China: Essays in Honor of Patrick Hanan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003), 317-447. Judge examines the new- style press as a site where “new cultural meanings were negotiated and age-old political practices transformed” during the late Qing period (see page 2).Zeitlin and Liu refer to the emergence of daily newspapers and an “imagined community” of a homogenous reader- ship created by serialized fiction in the newspapers (see page 18). 38 See for example Zhang Mojun’s oil paintings and photographs published in Funü shibao 婦女時報 in the 1910s. Judge, “The Fate of the Late Imperial ‘Talented Women:’ Gender and Historical Change in Early-twentieth-Century China,” in Beverly Bossler, ed., Gender and Chinese History: Transformative Encounters (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015), 139-60. See particularly pages 144-48. 39 For example, see Janet Ng, The Experience of Modernity: Chinese Autobiography of the Early Twentieth Century (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 2003); and Jing Wang, When “I” Was Born: Women’s Autobiography in Modern China (Madison: University of Wis- consin Press, 2008). Wang bases her study on the premise that women’s autobiography emerged in China as late as the 1920s-40s, as “part of the development of autobiography as a modern form of writing in general” (pages 5 and 15). She further argues that modern women writers had no precedence to follow in terms of “writing on their own behalf” (page 12). Similarly, Ng generalizes traditional autobiographical writings in such a way as to highlight “the defiance and innovation of the May Fourth generation” (page 4).

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A sequence of fifteen pictures then follow, depicting her in a variety of domestic roles and situations. The 1933 edition adds a copy of Zeng Guofan’s Gongke dan 功課單 (Instruc- tions on daily work) for women in the Zeng household, and also a portrait photograph of Zeng Jifen at the age of 82. But the major difference lies in the pictures. In the former edition a grandson of Zeng Jifen, Nie Guangkun 聶光堃 (1901-?), drew fifteen pictures in a casual manner, whereas in the latter Zeng Jifen asked her son-in-law Qu Xuanyin to commission sixteen formal paintings by Chen Junzeng 陳君增 (fl. early 20th century) a professional painter in Bei- jing. According to Zeng Jifen, the 1931 edition was so popular that it soon ran out of copies. In the summer of 1933, when she considered making reprints, she decided that tuhui bixu qiehe jiuri shenghuo shikuang 圖繪必須切合舊日生活實況 (the pictures must closely fit with the actual situations of [her] past life). Therefore, she again gave detailed accounts (in writing) of her experiences for her son-in-law to commission the paintings.40 In short, her revisions focused on highlighting the precise life situations she wished to portray. More- over, the 1933 edition emphasizes her family relations and heritage in the paintings, and incorporates an additional painting (Figure 3) portraying her and her brother Jize looking at a huge model globe under the supervision of their father. (For comparison, see chart 1 for lists of contents in the two editions, and see Figure 2 for sample pictures from the two editions.) A brief comparison of the two sample pictures illustrates the messages Zeng intends to convey through revisions.41 The key here is not the degree of formal- ity. That is, the painting by Chen Junzeng (Figure 2.b, 1933) not only looks more “formal” than that by Nie Guangkun (Figure 2.a, 1930) but also switches to the painting conventions of an earlier era. Chen highlights Zeng’s status by casting her in an elite household instructing maids and servants to concoct medicine. Status accorded by age is also clear in Chen’s representation. The added details of the setting and dynamics between people engaged in different tasks – as indications of their statuses – echo the emphases on social status and relation in the Qing group portraits.42 Nie demonstrates no such emphases, and his

40 Zeng Jifen, Xu, 2a. 41 For painting 10 as an example of Qing gentry women’s medical knowledge, see Yang, Her- oines of the Qing, 129. All the following illustrations are from the 1933 edition of Chongde nianpu. 42 For such emphases, see for example Vinograd, Boundaries of the Self, 9-13. Vinograd refers variously to the elements of cultural communion, social roles, the affirmation of group affiliation, and the boosting of familial reputation in the Qing portraits, including both formal (e.g. family portraits) and informal types (e.g. xingle tu 行樂圖, or pictures of enjoyment).

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Chart Lists of Contents in the 1931 and 1933 editions of Chongde nianpu

1931 edition 1933 edition

“Xu” 序 (Preface) by Zeng Jifen, hand copied by “Xu” by Zeng Jifen, hand copied by herself; with herself reprinting information “Xu” by Qu Xuanyin “Xu” by Qu Xuanyin, same as 1931 “Gongke dan” 功課單 (Instructions on daily work) by Zeng Guofan “Xiang” 像 (Portrait photographs) of Zeng Jifen, at “Xiang” of Zeng Jifen, at the ages of 22, 40, 50, 65, 75, the ages of 22, 40, 50, 65, 75, and 80, followed by a 80, and 82, followed by a family photograph family photograph Picture 1, “Xue pengren tu” 學烹飪圖 (Learning to Painting 1, “Sui Ouyang Taifuren xue pengren tu” 隨 cook) 歐陽太夫人學烹飪圖 (Learning to cook from [my mother] Grand Lady Ouyang) Picture 2, “Xue yilu tu” 學製衣履圖 (Learning to Painting 2, “Sui Ouyang Taifuren xue zhi yilü tu” 隨歐 make clothes and shoes) 陽太夫人學製衣履圖 (Learning to make clothes and shoes from Grand Lady Ouyang) Picture 3, “Chizhai lifo tu” 持齋禮佛圖 (Following Painting 3, “Shi Wenzhenggong kan diqiu tu” a Buddhist diet and paying tribute to the Buddha) 侍文正公看地球圖 (Serving [my father] the Illustrious and Upright and looking at a globe) Picture 4, “Kezi dushu tu” 課子讀書圖 (Teaching Painting 4, “Dushuzhong gusao fangji tu” 督署中姑 my son to read) 嫂紡績圖 (Weaving together with my sister-in-law in [my father’s] official abode) Picture 5, “Kezi xisuan tu” 課子習算圖 (Teaching Painting 5, “Chizhai lifo weimu qiushou tu” my son to use abacus) 持齋禮佛為母求壽圖 (Following a Buddhist diet and paying tribute to the Buddha to pray for longevity for my mother) Picture 6, “Shuzhong fangsha tu” 署中紡 Painting 6, “Kezi xisuan tu” 課子習算圖 (Teaching 紗圖 (Weaving in [my father’s] official abode) my son to use abacus) Picture 7, “Cong xiyou xue shouzhi tu” 從西友學手 Painting 7, “Xue jiaotache fangsha tu” 學腳踏車紡紗織圖 (Learning hand-knitting from a Western 圖 (Learning to use foot pedal spinning wheel) friend [Mrs. Fryer]) Picture 8, “Fodan fangsheng tu” 佛誕放生圖 Painting 8, “Cong xiren xue zhenzhi yiwa tu” (Releasing fish into the water on Buddha’s birthday) 從西人學鍼織衣襪圖 (Learning to knit sweaters and socks from a Westerner [Mrs. Fryer]) Picture 9, “Zhiyao tu” 製藥圖 (Concocting Painting 9, “Fangsheng tu” 放生圖 (Releasing fish medications) into the water [as a good deed to honor Buddha’s birthday]) Picture 10, “Zaowan daotian tu” 早晚禱 Painting 10, “Zhiyao tu” 製藥圖 (Concocting 天圖 (Praying [as a Christian] at dawn and night) medications) Picture 11, “Jiaobi dushu tu” 教婢讀書圖 (Teaching Painting 11, “Fengji zhiyi tu” 縫機製衣圖 (Making my maid to read) clothes by using a sewing machine) Picture 12, “Jiating jihui tu” 家庭集會圖 (Family Painting 12, “Jiating jihui tu” 家庭集會圖 (Family meetings) meetings)

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1931 edition 1933 edition

Picture 13, “Fengji zhiyi tu” 縫機製衣圖 (Making Painting 13, “Jiaobi dushu tu” 教婢讀書圖 (Teaching clothes by using a sewing machine) my maid to read) Picture 14, “Xie Jingang jing tu” 寫金剛經圖 (Hand Painting 14, “Weiqi tu” 圍棋圖 (Playing Go) copying the Diamond Sutra) Picture 15, “Weiqi tu” 圍棋圖 (Playing Go) Painting 15, “Xie Jingang jing tu” 寫金剛經圖 (Hand copying the Diamond Sutra) Painting 16, “Zaowan daotian tu” 早晚禱天圖 (Praying [as a Christian] at dawn and night) Main corpus of texts Main corpus of texts, same as 1931. Appendix: “Lianjian jiuguo shuo” 廉儉救國說 Appendix: “Lianjian jiuguo shuo” 廉儉救國說 (Saving China through integrity and thrift), dictated (Saving China through integrity and thrift), dictated by Zeng Jifen to Nie Qijie; with preface and by Zeng Jifen to Nie Qijie; with preface and com- comments by Nie Qijie. ments by Nie Qijie. Same as 1931.

Figure 2 A. Picture 9, “Zhiyao tu” 製藥圖 (Concocting medications), by Nie Guangkun 聶光堃, 1931. Reprinted in Beijing tushuguan 北京圖書館, ed., Beijing tushuguan cang zhenben nianpu congkan 北京圖書館藏珍本年譜叢刊 (Beijing: Beijing tushuguan chubanshe, 1999), vol. 182, 731-820. See page 753 for the reprinted image.

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Figure 2 B. Painting 10, “Zhiyao tu” 製藥圖 (Concocting medications), by Chen Junzeng 陳君增, 1933. Courtesy of the University of Hong Kong Library.

simplified and lively brushstrokes remind us of the sketches of characters by the modern painter Feng Zikai 豐子愷 (1898-1975), which obtained broad attention through the new media during the 1920s and 30s.43 Zeng, in short, was consciously opting for the earlier painting conventions in 1933 – in the same sense that she opted for the biographical tradition of nianpu to make social assertions. Viewed in a sequence, the paintings of 1933 complement the portrait-photographs by delineating Zeng’s life in specific domestic roles and relations. More- over, they provide structuring devices for the ensuing textual entries. Those emphasizing her fulfillment of domestic duties, in particular, anticipate the textual elaborations on qinjian 勤儉 (thrift and diligence) as family values which guided her lifelong fulfillment of domestic duties. On the other hand,

43 For Feng Zikai’s painting style and works, see for example Shanghai shi meishujia xiehui 上海市美術家協會, ed., Feng Zikai 豐子愷, 1898-1975 (Shanghai: Shanghai shuhua chubanshe, 2013).

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Zeng Jifen describes such “thrift and diligence” as a result of her particular financial situation, and delves into a lengthy account of the Nie family’s changing fortunes. This strategy for self-representation allows her to convey the message that it was her admirable (natal) family heritage that sustained her, and her husband’s family, through the great vicissitudes across the decades.44 The remaining textual entries quickly span across the years between 1920 and 1931 before wrapping up her life story with a detailed discussion of the changes in women’s fashion (see figure 3).45 This extended ending throws light on Zeng Jifen’s intention to employ her life story in order to dispense praise and blame. Namely, by again “praising” the simple lifestyle carried to the extreme in her natal family, she “blames” women’s pursuit of luxurious fashion since 1900. She further launches a critique on the elite’s extravagant habits in general as a grave problem with potential political and social consequences. The Changsha 長沙 rice riots in 1910, according to her, stemmed in part from the extravagance and greed of the local elites and officials. However, “what was considered extravagant then is hardly worth mentioning today.”46 In her present day, she pinpoints automobiles – newly introduced to Shanghai – as the archetypal extravagance that “expends the en- ergy of millions for the momentary enjoyment of a single person.” The use of gasoline, a labor-intensive product, carries potential consequences on a national scale: “At present, China has no prospect of opening oil wells. Why should we contribute great sums of money to the foreign powers to indulge personal tastes for travel?”47 A continuum of messages generated by images and texts, as quickly sur- veyed above, evolves from the family values of “thrift and diligence” into personal and family histories vis-à-vis social changes at the turn of the twentieth century which, in turn, gives rise to critique on these changes. The rich corpus of images and texts no doubt cast Zeng Jifen in a diverse range of roles and situations beyond what I present here. And yet, it is the paratexts that exert control over this rich material by initiating a lively conversation.

44 For examples of this recurring theme, see Zeng Jifen, Chongde nianpu, 10b-11a, 12b-14b, 17a-19a, 22a-23a. Because of space limitations, here I do not go into the details of these accounts. 45 Zeng Jifen, Chongde nianpu, 29b-30a. 46 Zeng Jifen, Chongde nianpu, 30a. For the quoted translation, see Kennedy trans., ed., Tes- timony of a Confucian Woman, 98-99. Also see his useful note on the Changsha rice riots in 1910: Note 27 on pages 172-73. 47 Zeng Jifen, Chongde nianpu, 30a-b. For the quoted translation, see Kennedy trans., ed., Testimony of a Confucian Woman, 99-100.

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Figure 3 A discussion of women’s fashion in Chongde nianpu, 1933. Courtesy of the University of Hong Kong Library.

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Figure 4 Zeng Guofan, “Gongke dan” 功課單 (Instructions on daily work), reprinted in Chongde nianpu, 1933. Courtesy of the University of Hong Kong Library.

The front matter invites the expectation of coherence in the theme of the volume. In her preface Zeng Jifen emphasizes from the beginning her lifelong fulfillment of her father’s instructions. The preface by her son-in-law Qu Xu- anying glorifies every aspect of her life and attributes her achievements spe- cifically to her early training. Most of all, Zeng Guofan’s Gongke dan in the 1933 edition – his handwriting reprinted on a piece of paper three times the size of the other pages – figures as an intruding presence between the front matter and the main corpus of images and texts (see figure 4). The list specifies the tasks for the women in the family according to the categories of food, clothes, shoes, and works of embroidery, which Zeng Guofan promises to personally check on a regular basis. And the list closes with a motto, jiaqin ze xing, renqin zejian; nengqin nengjian, yongbu pinjian 家勤則興，人勤則健；能勤能儉，永不貧賤 (families and individuals thrive on diligence; poverty never befalls those who are diligent and thrifty).48 Zeng Jifen’s incorporation of the list (and her full quotation of the list on pages 6a-b) provides proof of how much weight

48 Zeng Guofan, “Gongke dan” 功課單 (Instructions on daily work), in Zeng Jifen, Chongde nianpu, frontmatter.

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“Saving China”: Critique Further Expanded

The appended essay, “Lianjian jiuguo shuo” 廉儉救國說 (Saving China through integrity and thrift), carries the conversation further while reinforcing the overall framework.49 The essay opens with Zeng Jifen’s statement of her intention to use her life experience as the basis for social critique:

A look at thousands of years of history suggests that social customs such as habits of extravagance or thrift are symptoms of peace or chaos, prosperity or decline. In general, habits of extravagance indicate unrestrained indulgences of human desires, and habits of thrift indicate the regulation of self-interests and, by extension, a return to the ancient rites.... What may appear to be minor symptoms have, without exception, proved to be true [to this general rule]. When it comes to what I have personally experienced, there are examples on which I can elaborate.

歷觀數千年治亂盛衰之跡，每與一時風尚之奢儉為消息。大抵社會奢侈，則縱欲肆志之表現也；風俗儉樸，則克己復禮之表現也。……其消息甚微，而徴諸事實證驗，未有或爽者也。就一身所閱歷，亦有可述者。50

Above all Zeng Jifen cites the example of her father as the apotheosis of thrift. Her reiteration of the theme governing her life story soon develops into a critique of the late Qing politics, namely, the corruption, hypocrisy, and indulgences prevailing in the court and in the entire bureaucracy. Political maladies

49 Zeng Jifen dictated her points to her son Nie Qijie, who also authored a short preface and two pieces of comments. By this means the mother and son engaged in a conversation on matters in relation to China and the rest of the world. In his preface, Nie Qijie expresses his fear that the essay’s emphasis on traditional values may incite criticism and therefore, he asks the reader to put the blame on his own elaborations, instead of Zeng Jifen. See Zeng Jifen, “Lianjian jiuguo shuo 廉儉救國說,” in Zeng Jifen, Chongde nianpu, “Ap pendix,” 1a. I read this essay as part of the family project, which Zeng Jifen took the leading role in coordinating and to which she gave her final endorsement. 50 Zeng Jifen, “Lianjian jiuguo shuo”, 1a. Translations of passages from this essay are mine.

DownloadedNan fromNü Brill.com10/04/202119 (2017) 263-315 12:58:33PM via free access A Pictorial Autobiography By Zeng Jifen (1852-1942) 285 entailed chaos; so much so that when Zeng Guofan was first assigned to put down the Taiping rebels in 1851, he had neither an army to fight with him nor sufficient funds to train an army. Moreover, Zeng Jifen explicitly condemns those in the highest echelons of political power for causing such prevailing corruption. In 1894 officials in the capital and in the provinces exhausted the treasuries – including funds allocated for national defense – to please the Em- press Dowager Cixi when she indulged in grand celebrations for her sixtieth birthday. The immediate consequence of such extravagance, according to Zeng Jifen, was China’s loss in the 1894-95 Sino-Japanese War, which in turn drove China onto the path of irrevocable decline. She cautions, “A single person’s extravagance nonetheless had such extraordinary consequences – how dread- ful it [extravagance] is Yiren shaocun chitai zhi xin er yingxiang ruci qi ju, xi ke wei yi 一人稍存侈泰之心而影響如此其鉅，嘻可畏矣 !”51 It follows that thrift, as a valued family tradition, not only ensures the prosperity of the (Zeng and Nie) families and lineages, but also provides the remedy for national decline. Zeng Jifen attributes Zeng Guofan’s integrity to his frugal habits by which he managed his family. As general in chief for the Qing troops, he led by his own example and succeeded in eradicating corruption and saving the country from catastrophe. Indeed, “How big an impact one or two persons in power can make if they can restrain their personal desires “Yi’er zai shangwei zhe keji zhiyu, er qi chengxiao you ruci zhe 一二在上位者克己制欲，而其成效有如此者 !”52 By the same token, women’s cultivation of frugal habits not only benefits their own families but has a potential impact on society. Zeng Jifen invokes her own example:

… I am eighty-one years old now. Any yet, I still find pleasure in doing needlework. This habit grows out of my training [in domestic skills] at a young age. The reason that I have gone into every detail [about my frugal habits] is that social customs such as extravagance or thrift are always swayed by a few people’s preferences. The wives and daughters of those in high status are particularly responsible for [the prevalence of] extravagance and they often undermine men’s integrity and careers. This is why my late father insisted that we cultivate frugal habits. I have remained frugal all my life due to such early training. When I need to purchase fab- rics [for clothes], I always pick those that have gone out of fashion because their prices are lower. I recall that in the year Jiawu [1894] my late sister-in-law, the wife of my brother Jize, visited me in my husband’s

51 Zeng Jifen, “Lianjian jiuguo shuo,” 2a. 52 Zeng Jifen, “Lianjian jiuguo shuo,” 1a.

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official abode in Shanghai. Seeing some old-fashioned laces I had bought, she said, “No one would use things like this today. The imported laces are in fashion now and their patterns and colors are ten times prettier.” And I said, “I have seen those and have bought some for others. But their prices are several times higher. What I bought are indeed out of fashion, but I am delighted to have them and to know that the money I paid will stay in China, instead of going to foreign countries.” My sister-in-law laughed, “How much money can one person like you save [for China]?” I replied, “That’s true. But if everyone is as frugal as I am, and, if the empress dowager has a vision like this and can give up her preferences for imported goods and treasures, we would be able to save so much more!”

今八十一歲矣，猶以女紅為樂，皆少時所受訓練之益也。余所以瑣瑣述此者，蓋社會奢侈之風，皆由少數人所提倡。貴人妻女，實為奢侈作俑之尤，且每為男子操行事業之累。故先公對於予等，督責如是之嚴也。余既早受此等訓育，終身以為習慣。選購衣料，常取過時貨，因其廉也。憶甲午年在滬道署中，先嫂曾惠敏公夫人來署，見余所買花邊式樣陳舊，因言，“此物無人用矣。今所行洋花邊，花色鮮美，勝此十倍。”予曰，“予已見之，且代人買過，然價視此數倍。余所買者，雖已過時，余自愛之，且喜其價為中國所得，金錢不外流也。”嫂笑云，“靠你一人所省，能有幾何？”余曰，“雖然，若人人能如是著想，或皇太后能見及此，而不愛洋貨珍玩，則所省多矣。”53

Such a proclaimed correlation between extravagance and national decline, or, thrift as a remedy, provides the basis for Zeng Jifen’s ensuing broad-ranging social and political critique. First of all, according to her, the past decade (i.e., 1922-1932) in particular witnessed people going to all extremes in indulging in imported luxuries and following the Western styles. They tried to look and be- have exactly like the rich people in the West, and felt ashamed of everything Chinese. The immediate consequence was the loss of the national integrity. Unlike the Japanese people who held onto their national values, these (rich) people in China completely abandoned the rites and virtues – and most important of all, jiande 儉德 (the virtue of thrift), which had been central to the Confucian polity – and, thus, undermined the independent status of China as a nation.54

53 Zeng Jifen, “Lianjian jiuguo shuo,” 1b-2a. 54 Zeng Jifen, “Lianjian jiuguo shuo,” 2a-b.

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Financial consequences also became clear – with further damage done by the misleading theorists:

… [Catering to such prevailing extravagance] scholars put forward theories that had devastating effects on society, so much so that the nation is now beyond remedy. The impact [of such theories] on the society and economy is that people have abandoned Chinese products and are importing everything from the West. Indigenous Chinese handicrafts as a result went extinct. And, losing their jobs, many people were driven into poverty. Last year, China spent 2.2 billion silver dollars on importing goods, which resulted in a trade deficit of 8 hundred million silver dollars. This is the consequence of following the West and developing the desire for consumption…. Nowadays, people often attribute this [trade deficit] to the economic invasions of the imperial powers. This may be true. How- ever, was Japan not in the same situation and suffering from the economic invasions of the Western powers? Why was it that Japan was able to maintain its national strength and became a feared competitor of the Western powers?

學者且從而為之說，風氣乃大壞，而國事不可為矣。其影響及於社會經濟者，一切器用，拾中取西，我國舊有之工藝，逐漸歸於淘汰，而失業貧苦之人多矣。去歲進口貨價洋二十二萬元之钜額，出入不敷者達八萬萬元之钜。此為提倡歐風、發展欲望之效驗……今人動曰，此帝國主義者經濟侵略之咎也。固矣。然日本從前非居於同等地位、同受歐美各國之經濟侵略者乎？何為而彼能自固自強，為列雄所憚如此也？55

Underlining Zeng Jifen’s critique of China’s failing indigenous handicrafts and trade deficits was her continued condemnation of imported luxuries and her wish to “let money stay in China,” namely, to restore the trade balance through

55 Zeng Jifen, “Lianjian jiuguo shuo,” 2b. Zeng Jifen’s concerns over trade deficits reflected the broader guohuo yundong 國貨運動 (national products movement) of the 1920s and 30s. Karl Gerth argues that the consumption of commodities defined as “national products” helped create the concept of modern China and the ways by which people perceived themselves as citizens of a modern nation. Entrepreneurs who had a huge financial stake in protecting their businesses against foreign competition became the backbone of this movement. Karl Gerth, China Made: Consumer Culture and the Creation of the Nation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Asia Center, 2003). For the entrepreneurs’ par- ticipation in this movement, see pages 10-13. For the movement’s role in shaping the anti- imperialist boycotts during the 1920s and 30s, see pages 158-200.

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… The current theories that the development of human desire stimulates the development of science and culture are sheer speculations…. Coun- ter-examples abound in Chinese and foreign histories: a time of peace and prosperity would invariably plunge into catastrophe due to growing human desire. Take the examples of the recent European War, the dangerous stalemate between the Western powers, and the domestic strife in our country during the past two decades – are they not the symptoms of growing human desire? Their damages have been extremely severe. And their byproducts of ingenious inventions serve nothing but the ends of devastation and antagonism. When on earth has human desire stimu- lated the evolution of the world?

今人言發展欲望，所以促進科學與文化者，純屬臆說……求其反證，則中外歷史，凡由治安時代而至於破壞，皆欲望發展之效，事證昭

56 Hsu, The Rise of Modern China, 566. 57 Zeng Jifen, “Lianjian jiuguo shuo,” 3a. Here Zeng targets the iconoclasts of the May Fourth generation, who viewed the Confucian ritual tradition as nothing more than cannibalism. In terms of restraining human desire, the mother and son disagreed over the example of the Soviet Union. Zeng Jifen attributed the Soviet Union’s completion of its first “Five-Year Plan” to the frugal habits of its people, while Nie Qijie in his comments condemned its economic policies. See pages 4a and 6b.

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昭，不可勝述也。乃至近年歐戰之大戰，現今列國相持之危局，我國二十年來之內爭，亦何一非發展欲望之表現乎？其破壞程度，至可慘傷。其所產生之奇巧發明，亦無非為破壞與爭欺之用。欲望豈嘗有補於世界之進化哉。

… The worldwide financial crisis today throws countries into panic. Any country boasting of its imperialistic forces and economic invasions of other countries will inevitably collapse. Those that for the moment have not collapsed feed on the wealth of the countries they have economically invaded. At least half of the two billion silver dollars that China pays annually for imported goods have funded the enemy countries’ navy and land and air forces, as well as their purchases of arms. No one would take the blame for funding enemy countries, and yet this is exactly what people are doing. It is precisely human desire that is driving them to do so.

今日各國金融恐慌，皆有不可終日之象。凡恃武力稱霸及經濟侵略之國，早晚有崩潰之可能。其暫得不潰者，恃其所侵略之國以資財供給之耳。即如我國每年購外貨二十萬萬元之巨欵，其中至少有半數為供敵國海陸空軍之餉源及炸彈軍械之材料也。夫以錢供敵國，人皆不欲居此惡名，而竟有此事實者，欲念所驅使也。58

The catastrophes that Zeng Jifen referred to here were by far unprecedented in human history: namely, World War I (1914-1918), the devastating impact of which was still fresh in the 1920s and 30s; as well as the arms races following World War I, which had by this time reached a “dangerous stalemate,” predi- cating the verge of another global catastrophe. New forms of weaponry such as the submarine, war plane, and tank had been used during World War I. Yet these “ingenious inventions,” according to Zeng Jifen, had caused nothing but unprecedented destruction.59 These catastrophes, Zeng Jifen argued, testified to the bankruptcy of social theories of evolution. Driven by growing desire, the human society accelerated its own destruction – instead of “evolving” towards better forms on the basis of inventions of new technologies or, for that matter, of new luxuries for consumption.

58 Zeng Jifen, “Lianjian jiuguo shuo,” 4b-5a. 59 For the new weapons used in World War I and the atrocities committed, see: Jay Winter and Charles J. Stille, eds., The Cambridge History of the First World War, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 561-84.

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On the other hand, endless civil warfare among the warlords in China paralleled worldwide catastrophes during 1916-27. Domestic turmoil increasingly intertwined with the re-balancing of power in international politics led to the upsurge of nationalism in China.60 At the very moment when Zeng Jifen launched her critique, moreover, the Great Depression had reached its height – the fact of which she referred to as the worldwide financial crisis throwing countries into panic. While she did not perceive China in imminent financial danger during the depression, she cautioned against “funding enemy countries” through imports of luxury goods. In this context, the blame she put on the growing human desire echoed the surging nationalistic concerns over Chi- na under imperialistic and economic invasions. In the face of intensifying tension in international relations, Zeng Jifen emphasized, it was urgent that China should strengthen its guofang 國防 (national defense). However, the means by which to achieve this aim lay not in participating in arms race – or, obtaining ten times the arms of the Western powers. Rather it lay in the virtue of thrift, which was by her definition synony- mous with the regulation of human desire and the limitations of the pursuit of personal interests. This virtue would in turn encourage the return to the ritual tradition of liyi lianchi 禮義廉恥 (propriety, righteousness, integrity, and sense of shame). In time the merchants would feel ashamed of making profits from importing luxury goods, and people in general, ashamed of craving for these luxuries. It was thrift, then, that figured as the ultimate bilei 壁壘 (defense) against all forms of invasions.61 In other words, she perceived the worldwide crises confronting China in the 1920s and early 30s as parallel to what had dis- rupted the Qing dynasty during its last years. To address these imminent crises she re-asserted the correlation that she had established earlier, by the example of her father, between thrift and national salvation. Most of all, Zeng Jifen counted on women to take the initiative to save China because, in her view, it was women who swayed the social customs in terms of choosing between domestic and imported goods, or between frugal habits and the pursuit of luxuries in general. She therefore called on wo nüjie 我女界 (our women’s sphere) to achieve national salvation by inspiring and admonishing their male family members. She ended her essay by reiterating the great hopes she put in her nü tongbao 女同胞 (female compatriots) to strengthen the nation and maintain world peace. And she exhorted: “Please do not take these

60 Hsu, The Rise of Modern China, 482-86, 531-36. 61 Zeng Jifen, “Lianjian jiuguo shuo,” 5a.

DownloadedNan fromNü Brill.com10/04/202119 (2017) 263-315 12:58:33PM via free access A Pictorial Autobiography By Zeng Jifen (1852-1942) 291 words as clichés and ignore them Wu yiqi laosheng changtan er hushizhi ye 勿以其老生常談而忽視之也 !”62 “Clichés” or not – a question I will pursue further – Zeng Jifen’s perception of China connected politically and economically to the world calls into play a number of images and texts in Chongde nianpu and beyond.

National Salvation in the Context of Jiazheng Xue and the 1898 Reform

“Lianjian jiuguo shuo” throws light on the significance of the many textual entries emphasizing Zeng Jifen’s thrifty habits. What may otherwise appear to be suosuo 瑣瑣 (trivial) details – in her own words – is a spin into a rich supply of evidence in support of her call for national salvation.63 In this sense the seemingly repetitive emphasis on thrift figures as a key mechanism which Zeng em- ploys to construct her personal history into a social critique and a scheme for national salvation. The images also come more fully into play. Painting 3 of the 1933 edition is highly evocative (see figure 5). It features Zeng Jifen as a little girl looking at a huge globe together with her elder brother Zeng Jize and by the instruction of their father Zeng Guofan. The painting justifies her claim to knowledge about the world. Received as part of her family learning, such knowledge shaped her vision of China’s changing relations to the world, and provided the basis for her broad-ranging critique. More importantly, the transmission of knowledge from the father to the son and the daughter highlights the family’s continued commitment to the mission of “saving China.” Evoking Zeng Guofan’s leadership in the reforms aimed at learning Western technologies for national strengthening, as well as Zeng Jize’s contributions made as a diplomat to reshaping Chi- na’s foreign relations, the painting confers authority on Zeng Jifen to further lead in the mission of “saving China.” The corresponding textual entry enriches these messages by providing such details as the time (the winter of 1868), and the place (a room built in imitation

62 Zeng Jifen, “Lianjian jiuguo shuo,” 5a-b. Zeng Jifen’s mobilization of women here arose out of the “national products movement,” which encouraged women to consume nationalisti- cally, and which portrayed them as potential national saviours. See Gerth, China Made, 285-332. As for blaming “modern women” as cause of tremendous trade deficits, as well as the campaign for domestic goods in major journals and newspapers in Shanghai and Bei- jing, see Xu Huiqi, “Nuola” zai Zhongguo, 273-5. 63 Zeng Jifen, “Lianjian jiuguo shuo,” 1b.

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Figure 5 Painting 3, “Shi Wenzhenggong kan diqiu tu” 侍文正公看地球圖 (Serving [my father] the Illustrious and Upright and looking at a globe), 1933. Courtesy of the University of Hong Kong Library. of a ship chuanting 船廳, in Zeng Guofan’s official abode in Nanjing). In this entry, Zeng Jifen also specifies the Nanjing Arsenal – established during the Self-Strengthening Movement led by Zeng Guofan – as the producer of the huge globe. This record situates the moment when Zeng Jifen was training in a variety of domestic skills and developing interests in geography, history, arith- metic, and algebra.64 These details justify her claim to a broad vision that

64 Zeng Jifen, Chongde nianpu, 6a-b.

DownloadedNan fromNü Brill.com10/04/202119 (2017) 263-315 12:58:33PM via free access A Pictorial Autobiography By Zeng Jifen (1852-1942) 293 provides the basis for her social critique. Here the “disjunction” between image and text is further illuminating. Zeng indicates that she was seventeen at this time. The painting, however, portrays her at a much younger age – thus highlighting how early she had obtained the knowledge necessary for developing a broad vision. Paintings 8 and 11 stand out from the rest of the paintings featuring Zeng Ji- fen’s fulfillment of domestic duties. Both emphasize her conscious efforts to incorporate Western techniques – in these cases, knitting and using the sewing machine – into women’s domestic skills. (See figure 6 for painting 8.) The “Westerner” in painting 8 refers to the wife of John Fryer (1839-1928). The corresponding textual entry describes how the two women became friends while their husbands worked in the Jiangnan Arsenal:

… Mrs. John Fryer and I enjoyed each other’s company from time to time. Mr. John Fryer was then an editor and translator of new books at the arsenal. His wife was refined and sincere, and we got along very well. She told me everything about her way of doing things. At that time Western women placed great emphasis on household handicrafts. Later, I taught what I had learned from her to many in Hunan and Shanghai. When Mrs. Fryer saw the cotton spinning wheel I had purchased, she told me that the hand-operated machines in America were constructed very similarly to those in China.

與傅蘭雅君之夫人時相過從。傅君即為製造局編譯新書者。其夫人嫻雅篤厚，與余相得，因悉傳其法。彼時歐西婦女亦深重家庭手工，後余又傳授湘滬多人學習。傅夫人見余所購紡棉機，因為余言彼邦手搖紡機之制與吾國相仿也。

[As a result of my contacts at the arsenal,] I felt that foreign languages and science were important fields of knowledge. Consequently, I directed my two sons, Qichang and Qijie, to study English with Mrs. Fryer daily. Since they still had to study Chinese, they could not devote themselves wholeheartedly to English until after 1898 [and the beginning of educational reform].

余感於外國語文與科學之重要，因命其昌、其傑兩兒逐日從傅夫人學英文。然其時以須習中文，不能專心。直至戊戌以後始認真研習耳。65

65 Zeng Jifen, Chongde nianpu, 16a-b. For the quoted translation, see Kennedy, trans. and ed.,

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Figure 6 Painting 8, “Cong xiren xue zhenzhi yiwa tu” 從西人學鍼織衣襪圖 (Learning to knit sweaters and socks from a Westerner [Mrs. Fryer]) 1933. Courtesy of the University of Hong Kong Library.

At the heart of the two women’s friendship was the significance that they both put on domestic skills. By Zeng Jifen’s account such significance paralleled that of Western languages and science.66 And she represented her friend as the me-

Testimony of a Confucian Woman, 61. Also see note 16 on page 147 for a brief introduction of the educational reform. I put the translator’s additions to the original text in brackets. 66 See Joan Judge’s discussion of how early twentieth-century intellectuals valorized women’s everyday practices and elevated household knowledge to the level of formal

DownloadedNan fromNü Brill.com10/04/202119 (2017) 263-315 12:58:33PM via free access A Pictorial Autobiography By Zeng Jifen (1852-1942) 295 dium through whom she, and by her request her sons, came into contact with these forms of Western skills and knowledge. Emphasis on learning from the West was part and parcel of the Self-Strengthening Movement, of which Zeng Jifen had obtained a sound knowledge through her father and her elder brother. Yet in the context of the 1898 reform, it was women’s education in relation to the scheme of national salvation – including their training in domestic skills – that came under the spotlight. A look at this context reveals Chongde nianpu to be continuing an earlier conversation that Zeng Jifen initiated in response to the Wuxu bianfa 戊戌變法 or 1898 reform movement. A recent book-length study by Nanxiu Qian proposes a corrective to the “pa- triarchal nationalism” that has emphasized male leadership in the 1898 reform movement. She sees that women’s agency and women’s interactions with their male counterparts in shaping the reform were central. Xue Shaohui 薛紹徽 (1866-1911), a leading female reformer, and her female associates took advan- tage of their cultural heritage, intellectual networks, and the opportunities occurring in this era to fulfill their political ambitions and engage in public debates. A focal point in these debates was how “useless,” as alleged by leading male reformers, traditional forms of women’s learning were. Xue Shaohui and her fellow reformers countered the attack by demonstrating how “useful” skills such as sericulture, needlework, housekeeping, and cooking had always been part of women’s domestic duties. And, “trivial” as they might seem, these skills of regulating the family had nonetheless continued to assist the governing of the state. They further put forward a new educational curriculum for women, drawing widely from both Chinese and Western forms of learning. By this means they at once asserted their leadership in the reform and greatly expanded the scope of education aimed at a great population of women.67 New-style media provided public forums for these women to launch their reformist ideas. Xue and her female associates were the founders and contribu- tors of the first Chinese women’s journal, the 1898 Nü xuebao 女學報 (Chinese girls’ progress). Their more radical followers debated and campaigned for women’s education in the “daughter” publication Nü xuebao during 1902-03.68

pedagogy and science. Judge, “The Fate of the Late Imperial ‘Talented Women’: Gender and Historical Change in Early-Twentieth-Century China,” in Beverly Bossler, ed., Gender and Chinese History: Transformative Encounters (Seattle and London: University of Wash- ington Press, 2015), 139-60. See page 150. 67 Qian, Politics, Poetics, and Gender, 123-84. For the rethinking of the 1898 reform, also see: Rebecca E. Karl and Peter Zarrow, eds., Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period: Political and Cultural Change in Late Qing China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2002). 68 Qian, Politics, Poetics, and Gender, 123-24, 264.

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In 1903, Lü Bicheng 呂碧城 (1883-1943) became the first female contributor of Dagong bao. From that time onwards, she published a series of editorials advo- cating a comprehensive education for women with the aims of, on the one hand, nurturing nü guomin 女國民 (female national citizens), and on the other hand cultivating women’s independent character and the skills needed for their self-determination.69 Female authors also resorted to various forms of publications aside from the new-style media to intervene in the educational reform. In 1902 Shan Shili 單士釐 (1858-1943) translated and published Jiazheng xue 家政學 (Domestic science) by Shimoda Utako, proposing to inspire Chinese women to emulate Japanese women in nurturing national awareness. Shan’s was the earliest translation of Shimoda’s work. In 1903 the “Guimao xuezhi” 癸卯學制 (Educa- tional system) put forward by officials in charge of establishing a new educational system, including Zhang Baixi 張百熙 (1847-1903), Rongqing 榮慶 (1859-1917), and Zhang Zhidong 張之洞 (1837-1909), incorporated Shimoda’s ideas into the reform on women’s education.70 In 1903 Shan published Guimao lüxing ji 癸卯旅行記 (1903 Travelogue), in which she encourages Chinese wom-

69 For recent studies on Lü Bicheng and her reformist ideas on women’s education, see: Xia Xiaohong 夏曉虹, “Lü Bicheng de geren wanzu ‘nüxue lun’” 呂碧城的個人完足 “女學論”, Han yuyan wenxue yanjiu 漢語言文學研究 2 (2015): 4-10; Qin Fang 秦方, “Wan Qing cainü de chengzhang licheng – yi Anhui Jingde Lüshi zimei wei zhongxin” 晚清才女的成長歷程—以安徽旌德呂氏姊妹為中心, Jindai Zhongguo funüshi yanjiu 近代中國婦女史研究 18 (2012): 259-94. 70 Shan Shili 單士釐, trans., Jiazheng xue 家政學 (1902). Shan’s other influential works include: Guixiu zhengshi zaixu ji 閨秀正始再續集 (1911-18), Yifan wenjian lu 懿範聞見錄 (1933), and Qing guixiu yiwen lüe 清閨秀藝文略 (1944). For Judge’s and Huang’s discussions of the translations of Jiazheng xue, see note 4. At least one more translation can be located: Zuoxin she 作新社, trans., Xinbian Jiazheng xue 新編家政學 (Shanghai: Zuoxin she, 1903). The National Library of China has a copy of this work. According to Judge, Shimoda’s ideas on women’s education were meant to achieve two objectives: “to tie the fate of China to Japan through a pan-Asian appeal to the survival of the ‘yellow race’ and to link women to the nation indirectly through their biology rather than directly through their intellect.” Judge, “Talent, Virtue, and the Nation,” 776. Shimoda did not approve women’s cultivation of new public talents or their direct political action. As a consequence, tensions arose between her and the overseas female Chinese students. In 1905 these female students participated in protests against the Japanese government’s effort to control the activities of the Chinese students in Tokyo. In 1908 Shimoda enacted stricter school regulations to control the activities of her Chinese students. See pages 786- 94. Also see Paul Bailey, Women and Gender in Twentieth-Century China (Basingstoke: Pal- grave Macmillan, 2012), 39, 43.

DownloadedNan fromNü Brill.com10/04/202119 (2017) 263-315 12:58:33PM via free access A Pictorial Autobiography By Zeng Jifen (1852-1942) 297 en to venture beyond the inner chambers and learn more about the world.71 It was also in 1903 that Zeng Jifen modified Jiazheng xue to provide her female compatriots with practical examples of household management. Like her work on the the publication of Chongde nianpu, she played a central role in coordinating a family project and published the volume anew as Nieshi chongbian Jiazheng xue 聶氏重編家政學 (Domestic science recompiled by Mrs. Nie).72 Furthermore, in 1906 Xue Shaohui and her husband completed and published their collaborative work, Waiguo lienüzhuan 外國列女傳 (Biographies of foreign women). Through their literary imagination, they created a new womanhood located in an ideal women’s republic as a model for the Chinese female readers to expand their spaces for life and work.73 In 1907 Zeng Yi 曾懿 (1852-1927) published Nüxue pian 女學篇 (Treatise on women’s learning), proposing a curriculum that harnessed traditional family learning, particularly medical knowledge as a form of domestic skill, for political and national purposes.74 In 1908, Liu Jian 劉鑑 (1852-1930), an affinal sister-in-law of Zeng Jifen and daughter-in-law of Zeng Guoquan 曾國荃 (1824-90; brother of Zeng Guo- fan), published Zengshi nüxun 曾氏女訓 (Precepts for daughters in the Zeng family). Here, on the one hand, she consolidated her family tradition of learning as precepts for women within the Zeng lineage, and on the other hand, as a jiaoke 教科 (textbook) and an amendment to the proposed reforms on women’s education.75 The timeline above suggests that Zeng Jifen, when recompiling Jiazheng xue, was consciously responding to the 1898 reforms and was joining in a lively discussion on women’s education among reform-minded women. This discussion, in turn, was connected to the nationwide debates involving both male

71 Shan Shili, Guimao lüxing ji 癸卯旅行記 (1903). For a recent study on Shan’s travelogue, see Ellen Widmer, “Foreign Travel through a Woman’s Eyes: Shan Shili’s ‘Guimao lüxing ji’ in Local and Global Perspective,” The Journal of Asian Studies 65.4 (2006): 763-91. 72 In her preface, Zeng Jifen states that she asked her sons Qichang, Qijie, Qiwei and an affinal relative Liu Run 劉潤 to carefully revise the work according to her directions, and that she meticulously reviewed the revisions and ensured that they fit exactly with her intentions (Huihuan shenshen, po yu yuzhi wenhe 迴環審慎，頗與予旨吻合). Zeng Jifen, “Preface,” in Zeng Jifen, Nieshi chongbian Jiazheng xue, “Preface,” 2a. Also see Zeng Jifen’s recollections in her autobiography: Zeng Jifen, Chongde nianpu, 21b. The copy is currently held by the Nanjing Library. 73 Qian, Politics, Poetics, and Gender, 159-84. 74 Zeng Yi 曾懿, Nüxue pian 女學篇 (1907). For a recent study of this work, see Yang, Her oines of the Qing, 139-47. 75 Liu Jian 劉鑑, Zengshi nüxun 曾氏女訓 (1908). Two copies of the work are currently held by the Nanjing Library.

Nan Nü 19 (2017) 263-315 Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 12:58:33PM via free access 298 Yang and female reformers. In sum, she was among the first generation of women who took the initiative to address national crisis through educational reform. Thus the celebration of the empress dowager’s sixtieth birthday, and the Si- no-Japanese War in 1894 figured as important “nodes” in Zeng Jifen’s memory. Her social and political critique expanded from these nodes of memory – namely, extravagance, defeat, and national humiliation, which triggered the 1898 reform and her engagement in the reform. The seemingly “trivial” details revolving on domestic skills in Chongde nianpu nonetheless generate a dynamic interplay of images and texts reaching back to this time. Zeng Guofan’s Gongke dan provides a crucial link between the two works. This list of instructions figures as an appendix at the end of Jiazheng xue recompiled by Zeng Jifen and, as I argued earlier, as an intruding presence in the front matter of Chongde nianpu. In the former case it concludes Zeng Jifen’s efforts to incorporate foreign knowledge of women’s domestic skills into Chi- nese women’s daily work.76 And, in the latter, it invokes her family heritage as the basis from which to launch a broad-ranging critique. It thus binds the two works into a “continuum” of conversations across several decades. During the long interval multiple voices from Zeng Jifen’s extend families joined in the discussions on social and educational reform. Liu Jian’s 1908 publication was as much a response to Zeng Jifen’s 1903 re-publication of Jiazheng xue as an amendment to the proposed educational reform. The Nie family press in Shanghai published and distributed an extensive series of Nieshi jiayan 聶氏家言 (Works of the Nie family; see figure 7 for the catalogue). A work from this series, Nieshi jiayan xuankan 聶氏家言選刊 (Selected publications of the Nie family discussions), reveals ongoing discussions on matters of familial and social importance at weekly “family meetings” during 1926-27 (see figure 8 for the painting depicting a family meeting). Attendants of these family meetings ranged between 25 and 36, and major themes included jiazheng 家政 (domestic work) and jiajiao 家教 (family education).77 Nie Qijie acted as the main speaker and organized discussions on classical learning as well as contemporary affairs. Zeng Jifen typically commented on Nie Qijie’s reports by invoking her family values.78 The series kept alive an earlier culture of jiake 家刻 (family publishing), which boosted a family’s social and cultural reputation by publishing the works of its members. The incorporation of women’s writings into their fami-

76 See this list and Zeng Jifen’s explanatory note at the end of the volume: Zeng Jifen, Nieshi chongbian Jiazheng xue, vol.2, 56b. 77 Nie Qijie, Nieshi jiating jiyihui jilu, 1-3. 78 See particularly Nie Qijie, Nieshi jiating jiyihui jilu, 43-45; 83-85; 89-90.

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Figure 7 Catalog of the Nie Family Press, in Chongde nianpu, 1933. Courtesy of the University of Hong Kong Library.

lies’ publishing projects and “repertoire of cultural capital” was crucial to the rise of women authors during the late imperial period.79 The Nie family’s publication series opens with six titles of Zeng Guofan’s works of calligraphy, namely, his own hand copies of his essays, and masterpieces of poetry and prose from earlier ages. The very first title, “Jinling zhaozhongci ji” 金陵昭忠祠記 (An account of the Memorial Hall for glorifying loyalty in Jinling [Nan- jing]) refers to three essays Zeng Guofan wrote to glorify those who died in retaking Nanjing in 1864.80 The Qing troops thereby won the final victory over

79 Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers, 37-9. Also see a brief introduction of the major forms of publishing in pre-modern China: Brokaw and Chow, eds., Printing and Book Culture, 17. 80 These essays include “Jinling junying guanshen zhaozhongci ji” 金陵軍營官紳昭忠祠記, “Jinling Xiangjun lushi Zhaozhongci ji” 金陵湘軍陸師昭忠祠記, and “Jinling Chu- jun shuishi Zhaozhongci ji” 金陵楚軍水師昭忠祠記. Zeng Guofan glorifies, respectively: the officials in the Jinling military camps and the local gentry supporters from Nanjing and Yangzhou; officials and soldiers in the Hunan army, including his brothers Zeng Guoquan and Zeng Guobao 曾國葆 (1829-62); and those serving on the battleships

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Figure 8 Painting 12, “Jiating jihui tu” 家庭集會圖 (Family meetings), 1933. Courtesy of the University of Hong Kong Library.

of the Hunan military force. See Peng Jing 彭靖, Yin Shaoji 殷紹基, Zhang Jiguang 章繼光, Shen Jiazhuang 沈家莊, and Xu Shanhe 許山河, eds., Zeng Guofan quanji 曾國藩全集 (Changsha: Yuelu shushe, 1985), vol.6, 290-2; 298-301; 327-8. The following three titles refer to the epitaphs that Zeng Guofan authored for two officials, Mo Youren 莫猶人 and Ji Yunshu 季雲書, and for his father Zeng Linshu 曾麟書. See Peng Jing, Yin Shaoji, Zhang Jiguang, Shen Jiazhuang, and Xu Shanhe, eds., Zeng Guofan quanji, vol. 6, 235-8; 261-3; 279-82. The fifth title refers to Zeng Guofan’s hand copies of literary masterpieces. The sixth refers to his instructions on the daily work of the Zeng women.

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Educational Reforms for Women and Snapshots from the Zeng Family

I have referred to the publications of Chongde nianpu and Nieshi chongbian Jia- zheng xue as “family projects,” in which Zeng Jifen took a leading coordinating role. It should be clear from my earlier introduction that her education at home benefited from the broad visions of her father and elder brother, and that she, in turn, played significant roles in her sons’ education. Although a detailed examination of her family histories is way beyond my scope, a sketch of the educational reforms proposed by her and by Liu Jian, together with snapshots of the education that the Zeng women received, will offer further insights into the continuums of conversations in which Chongde nianpu was embedded.82

81 See note 7. 82 There are several recent studies of Chinese family histories as micro-history for the late Qing and Republican eras, including women’s changing lives in the context of their family histories. See: Joseph W. Esherick, Ancestral Leaves: A Family Journey Through Chinese His- tory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011); Judge, “The Fate of the Late Imperial ‘Talented Women,’” 139-60; Yan Wang, “Moving to Shanghai: Urban Women of Means in the Late Qing,” in Bossler, ed., Gender and Chinese History, 161-81; Ellen Widmer, Fiction’s Family: Zhan Xi, Zhan Kai, and the Business of Women in Late-Qing China. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2016). The autobiography of the eminent modern scholar Feng Youlan 馮友蘭 (1895-1990) also provides a wealth of information of how individual lives – including those in Feng’s family, such as his daughter Zongpu 宗璞 (1928-) –

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At the beginning of her preface to Nieshi chongbian Jiazheng xue, Zeng Jifen specifies the family instructions she has received.83 Benefits of this training then expand from the personal and the familial to the national:

… I received these instructions since young. After being married into the Nies, I felt anxious every morning and night that I might incite criticism and humiliation [for not properly performing my duties] and, as a result, bring disgrace to my parents. Fortunately, during the past over thirty years while I served my parents-in-law, assisted my husband, and got along with my sisters-in-law and also in recent years with my daughters- in-law, concubines of my husband, and the maids, I never had the tiniest trouble. No doubt I have been blessed by the heaven with a peaceful life; yet this is also because I have benefited tremendously from [the instructions of] my ancestors. It occurred to me occasionally that the welfare of the state is founded on the family, and the fortune of the family stems from education. Although I dare not believe that my limited experience reflects the common laws [of the world], the principles embodied therein never in the slightest sense vary across times or between China and foreign countries. [My emphasis.] People often attribute the [national] decline in recent decades to changing fortunes. Yet in fact the reasons lay in the decline of education and [people’s] continuing lack of spirit. I feel deeply concerned.

予自幼承家訓，及歸聶氏，昕夕惶悚，常懼黜辱，以貽父母訾。差幸三十餘年來，上侍姑嫜，內相夫子，處妯娌姑嫂間及近年兒媳妾婢輩，從無纖芥齟齬，固賴天錫平安，亦身被先人遺澤，獲益良匪淺也。間嘗論之，國脈之隆盛，基乎家庭，而家道之振興，關乎教育。

changed during the turbulent times of modern Chinese history. See Feng Youlan, Sansong tang zixu 三松堂自序 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1998). Family as a microhistorical vantage point (see particularly Judge, 150) highlights the family dynamics and networks contextualizing women’s lives on the one hand, and the intersections of family history with broader historical trends, on the other. For the purpose of my present discussion, family history offers a crucial angle for viewing Zeng Jifen’s personal history in the context of her extended family’s commitments to educational reform and national strengthening. 83 She refers to those from her grandfather, her father and mother. They include, on the one hand, diligently performing various domestic tasks, and on the other hand maintaining proper relations to the ancestors (by performing ancestral rites), among the family members, and between the family and their neighbors. Zeng Jifen, Nieshi chongbian Jiazheng xue, “Preface,” 1a.

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予雖不敢以身受之區區，信為必然，要其理勢之常，亙古今而塞中外者，固未有毫髮乖爽者已。晚近世道陵夷，論者輒推原於運會，究其所極，實亦以教育不講，萎靡成習，深用隱憂。84

My emphasis above, in particular, reveals Zeng Jifen’s intention to draw from her personal experience the lessons for the nation. Precisely because “the principles embodied therein” apply at once to China and foreign countries, recompiling Jiazheng xue provides her the opportunity for combining Chinese and foreign forms of women’s domestic skills. Zeng further perceives herself in the role of popularizing the curriculum among a female population:

As the Book of Changes says, women establish their proper places in the inner quarters – this illuminates the fact that the [Confucian gentleman’s] mission of maintaining the household depends on [the wife’s] management of domestic affairs. As I have personally seen and experienced how changes in family fortune responded to changes in the Wom- anly Way, I cannot help but delight in sharing my humble thoughts with the talents of the inner quarters under heaven. Thus I have written them down.

《大易》有言，女正位乎內，明齊家之繫乎內政也。予以親更世故，竊見夫家道之替興，實與婦道之臧否為消息，因不禁效其一得之愚，而喜為天下之閨彥告也。於是乎書。85

In her Zonglun 總論 (General remarks), Zeng develops what she perceives as the crucial links between the Womanly Way, family fortune, and the Confucian gentleman’s responsibility of maintaining his household (connected in turn to that of governing the state) – into a parallel between the governing arts of the wife and the minister. McDermott’s perception of the ‘domestic bursar’ views Zeng’s use of this parallel as a means of asserting authority in household management. While his interest lies in rethinking questions of social mobility and family strategy in the light of the housewife’s contribution, at issue here is how Zeng uses this parallel to advance educational reforms for women – encourag- ing the “wives in hundreds of millions of households” to participate in these reforms so as to contribute to their nation.86 The long-term aim, as she further

84 Zeng Jifen, Xu, in Zeng Jifen, Nieshi chongbian Jiazheng xue, “Preface,” 1a-b. 85 Zeng Jifen, Xu, in Zeng Jifen, Nieshi chongbian Jiazheng xue, “Preface,” 2b. 86 Zeng Jifen, “Zonglun” 總論 (General remarks), in Zeng Jifen, Nieshi chongbian Jiazheng xue, “Zonglun,” 2a-3a. See particularly page 3a.

Nan Nü 19 (2017) 263-315 Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 12:58:33PM via free access 304 Yang states in her Fanli 凡例 (Editorial principles), is to popularize education for women through women’s schools, which she expects to appear in great num- bers as the reforms come into force.87 Shimoda’s work fits into this reformist scheme because Zeng finds its detailed and systematic instructions for women to perform their domestic duties useful for her aim of zhengchi kungang 整飭坤綱 (restarting the Womanly Way).88 She indicates her clear intention to revise the contents to the extent that they fit exactly with this aim.89 Her reformulation of Shimoda’s instructions on hygiene, in particular, throws new light on how she and her generation of reform-minded women politicized and harnessed women’s domestic duties for national purposes.90 Zeng’s interest in hygienic issues arises partly from her intention to revive the Chinese tradition of motherly duties, which she traces to the taijiao 胎教 (fetus education) practiced by the mother of King Wen 文王 (1152 -1056 BCE).91 To avoid the dangers associated with pregnancy and delivery she adds sections on the skills of domestic caregiving, including the use of Chinese medicine formulas.92 But the most extensive changes she makes to Shimoda’s work lie in the two chapters on treating illness and guarding health.93 In terms of providing medical care, selecting physicians, and stocking medications for household use, she draws attention to widely-circulating medical texts where the wives should look for useful formulas:

87 Zeng Jifen, “Fanli” 凡例 (Editorial principles), in Zeng Jifen, Nieshi chongbian Jiazheng xue, “Fanli,” 1b. I agree with Huang Xiangjin that, although elsewhere Zeng Jifen emphasized that the aim of her publication was not to make profits but rather to facilitate the work’s circulation among family networks, the work reached a reading public through its circulation in a commercial market. See Huang Xiangjin, “Cong jianghu zhi yuan dao miaotang zhi gao,” 91. Moreover, it is clear from the quotations here that she was targeting a much broader social strata of female readers. 88 Zeng Jifen, Xu, in Zeng Jifen, Nieshi chongbian Jiazheng xue, “Preface,” 1b. 89 Zeng Jifen, “Fanli,” 1b. 90 McDermott spots “startling details” in Zeng’s revisions. These relate again to family finances, including Zeng’s claim that a wife may disobey her husband’s wishes or censure him for his dissipation to preserve the family’s wealth. My interest here is in Zeng’s emphasis on medicine and hygiene. Also see Huang Xiangjin’s brief comparison of the orders of contents in Shan’s and Zeng’s translations. Huang Xiangjin, “Cong jianghu zhi yuan dao miaotang zhi gao,” 90-91. 91 Zeng Jifen, Nieshi chongbian Jiazheng xue, vol.1, 4a. 92 Zeng Jifen, Nieshi chongbian Jiazheng xue, vol.1, 5b-6a. 93 Zeng Jifen, Nieshi chongbian Jiazheng xue, vol.1, 6b-37b.

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Medical books such as the following are crucial to household management: Bencao beiyao (Materia medica for household use), Yanfang xinbian (A new collection of efficacious formulas), Bihua yijing (Precedents for the physicians, authored by Bihua), Baihouzheng shu[lun] (On the treatment of diphtheria), and, in so far as treating children’s diseases, Youyou jicheng (A selection of useful formulas for caring young children). The formulas they provide have all proved to be easy to use and efficacious. [Housewives] should keep a copy of each and obtain a thorough knowledge of them in order not to be deluded by quacks. Moreover, those living in the villages or distant areas may not be able to find doctors in time for emergencies – they should especially refer to these books for urgent use.

治家不可不看醫書，如《本草備要》、《驗方新編》、《筆花醫鏡》、《白喉症書 [ 論 ]》，治小兒如《幼幼集成》，皆切實可行，確有效驗。平時宜各置一部，以便時常看熟，或可不為庸醫所誤。且鄉村僻壤，倉猝不及延醫者，尤可藉行方便。94

Following this passage are the complete citations of nine formulas, which Zeng deems especially useful for treating various common diseases. She further urges wives and also government officials to prepare large stocks of these medications for charity purposes, especially in the case of epidemics.95 In the following chapter Zeng elaborates on imported ideas on hygiene and sanitation, and at the same time incorporates Chinese medical treatments as a means of guarding family health. In the latter respect she defines weisheng zhi dao 衛生之道 as the way of “guarding lives” and relates this concept to the wifely duty of zhu zhongkui 主中饋 (preparing food for the household) as stipulated in the Shi- jing, the Yijing 易經 (Book of changes), and the Liji 禮記 (Book of rites).96 Zeng’s knowledge of Chinese medicine reflects a broader picture of the Qing gentry women’s increasing access to medical texts, which became possi- ble because of a flourishing print culture and the elite trend of book collecting. In an earlier study I have used Zeng’s picture, “Concocting Medications” (Fig-

94 Zeng Jifen, Nieshi chongbian Jiazheng xue, vol.1, 10a. For similar arguments, see pages 7a-8a. For the medical texts she refers to, see: Wang Ang 汪昂, Bencao beiyao 本草備要 (1694); Bao Xiang’ao 鮑相璈, Yanfang xinbian 驗方新編 (1846); Jiang Qiu 江秋, Bihua yijing 筆花醫鏡 (1882); Kong Xianxi 孔賢溪, Baihouzheng shu[lun] 白喉症 [ 論 ] (reprint; 1911-49); Chen Fuzheng 陳復正, Youyou jicheng 幼幼集成 (1750). 95 Zeng Jifen, Nieshi chongbian Jiazheng xue, vol.1, 15a-b. 96 See particularly her general remarks for the chapter, “Weisheng”: Zeng Jifen, Nieshi chongbian Jiazheng xue, vol.1, 16a-b.

Nan Nü 19 (2017) 263-315 Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 12:58:33PM via free access 306 Yang ure 2b), to illustrate gentry women’s incorporation of medical knowledge into domestic caregiving.97 In the picture, the detail of Zeng holding a piece of for- mula in hand when giving instructions to maids – who are weighing and mix- ing ingredients – echoes her emphasis here on the readily available formulas for household use. In the textual entries of her chronological autobiography, she also recalls her personal experiences of using popular medical texts such as Yanfang xinbian 驗方新編 (Newly compiled collections of efficacious formulas) to treat her mother’s illness and to distribute medication for charity purposes.98 Besides illustrating the continuities of gentry women’s domestic skills, Zeng’s two chapters here reveal how she took the initiative to reshape the discourse of weisheng in China’s pursuit of “hygienic modernity.” A recent study has examined in detail the transformation of weisheng from its original purpose as a set of techniques aimed at “guarding life,” based on Chinese cosmol- ogy and Daoism, into “public hygiene” in the treaty port city of Tianjin during the early twentieth century. Modernizing elites embraced the idea of regulating individual health through state intervention, and the imported measures for public hygiene took firm hold in the aftermath of the Yihetuan yundong 義和團運動 (Boxer uprising) and the foreign occupation of Tianjin during the 1900s.99 I have examined Zeng Yi’s 1907 publication of treatises on medicine and women’s learning in this context, with a focus on her twofold approach to “hygienic modernity.” That is, on the one hand, she tried to improve individual health by popularizing the medical knowledge available to her in the form of her family learning, and, on the other, she harnessed women’s domestic caregiving for educational and national purposes. Zeng Jifen’s adaptations of Jia- zheng xue figured as a source of inspiration for Zeng Yi.100 As modernizing

97 Yang, Heroines of the Qing, 128-9. 98 Zeng Jifen, Chongde nianpu, 18a. Zeng Jifen provides a compelling example of Qing gentry women’s involvement in making and distributing medicine for charity purposes. For studies on the organization of charities by the gentry during the Ming and Qing periods, see: Angela K.C. Leung, “Organized Medicine in Ming-Qing China: State and Private Medical Institutions in the Lower Yangzi Region,” Late Imperial China 8.1 (1987): 134-66; Liang Qizi 梁其姿 (Angela K.C. Leung), Shishan yu jiaohua: Ming Qing de cishan zuzhi 施善與教化：明清的慈善組織 (Taibei: Lianjing chuban shiye gongsi, 1997); Yu Xinzhong 余新忠, Qingdai Jiangnan de wenyi yu shehui: Yixiang yiliao shehui shi de yanjiu 清代江南的瘟疫與社會：一項醫療社會史的研究 (Beijing: Beijing shifan daxue chubanshe, 2014), 224-39. 99 Ruth Rogaski, Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty-Port China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). 100 To date there is no direct evidence that Zeng Jifen and Zeng Yi had knowledge of each

DownloadedNan fromNü Brill.com10/04/202119 (2017) 263-315 12:58:33PM via free access A Pictorial Autobiography By Zeng Jifen (1852-1942) 307 elites shifted toward the propagation of state intervention in regulating individual health, both Zeng Jifen and Zeng Yi emphasized women’s roles in the regulation of family health as key to national strengthening. By combining their heritages of family learning and domestic skills into a national discourse, they expanded their authority from the domestic – such as what McDermott perceives in Zeng Jifen’s management of family finances – to the national. The curriculum of Nieshi chongbian Jiazheng xue covers the topics of family education, domestic caregiving, family finances, family relations, socializing activities, precaution against natural disasters, and the management of servants. Under these general topics Zeng Jifen delves into the skills of performing specific tasks. It becomes clear that her emphases on these various skills in Chongde nianpu – e.g., cooking, making clothes, teaching the abacus, and preparing medications, among others – are as much recapitulations of the curriculum itself as snapshots of how she personally fulfilled the curriculum she put forward for women. In Zengshi nüxun, Liu Jian similarly proposes to share her yide zhi yu 一得之愚 (humble thoughts) with her “two hundred million [female] compatriots.”101 This voluminous work takes the form of a textbook that involves one hundred and twenty ke 課 (lessons) – as a means of responding to the new educational system aimed at nurturing exemplary [female] teachers and popularizing education among women.102 Subsumed under ten chapters, the lessons revolve around women’s duties as daughter, wife, and mother. It condenses the contents related to Shimoda’s work into the last chapter (including forty lessons), referring to them generally as “domestic science.” Though making an apparent division between Chinese and imported ideas of women’s domestic duties, Liu Jian shares Zeng Jifen’s intention to restart the Womanly Way through drawing eclectically from both.103 Similar also is Liu’s resort to her family traditions of learning – namely, lianwu zhi piaoxiang, chuanjia zhi dianze 連屋之縹緗，傳

other’s works. However, similarities in contents and emphases indicate the former’s influence on the latter. For discussions of the Qing gentry women’s increasing access to medical texts and Zeng Yi’s works on medicine and women’s learning, see Yang, Heroines of the Qing, 117-54. It will become clear later in my discussion that Zeng Jifen’s medical knowledge and her reference to the popular medical texts were due to her family’s rich collections of books, including medical texts. 101 Liu Jian, “Zonglun,” in Liu Jian, Zengshi nüxun, vol.1, “Zonglun,” 3a. 102 See Liu Jian’s conscious response to the new educational system: Liu Jian, “Zonglun,” 2a. 103 See Liu Jian’s reference to the Womanly Way: Liu Jian, “Zonglun,” 2b.

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家之典則 (the books filling the rooms and the principles inherited from the ancestors) – in compiling her textbook for women.104 Publishing in 1908, Liu Jian went further and expressed her concerns over the setbacks of the reform:

During the years xinchou [1901] and renyin [1902] of the Guangxu reign, our imperial court widely collected views to put forward a series of new policies. As a result the imperial family put a ban on foot-binding, and education for women became widespread among the gentries and the commoners. As initiatives taken [to implement the policies] in Shanghai and Guangdong became widely adopted in the other provinces, we women [literally, those of us from the inner quarters] finally had the opportunity to pursue studies. I had not expected, however, that the two or three girls’ schools in Hunan would abruptly close prior to the students’ completion of their studies. Although I was enthusiastic about women’s education, and my family had established a family school, the controversies over the new or the old [forms of education] made it diffi- cult for me to decide which to follow.

迨光緒辛、壬之際，我朝廷廣集群言，疊舉新政，於是乎天家有纏足之禁，士民有女學之興。創始於滬粵，效法遍行省，而吾輩閨閣乃有讀書之一日矣。不意湘中二、三女校，未及卒業，旋已奉停。雖熱心教育，家又有家塾之建，而攻新訐舊，莫定從違。105

Liu aimed to use her textbook to provide proper education for her granddaugh- ters, who had reached school entrance age just when the girls’ schools in Hu- nan were closing.106 Between 1902 and 1907 – the year when the Qing government formally sanctioned public education for girls – girls’ schools were appearing across the country. Public attitudes toward women’s education were, however, fraught with ambivalence and contradiction. Concerns over the proper behavior of the students gave rise to strict regulations on gender segregation, as well as the students’ dress and appearance. Some of the girls’ schools had to close because of lack of resources, malicious rumors about the students’ behavior, or political rivalries between government officials. At the

104 Liu Jian, “Zixu” (Preface by myself), in Liu Jian, Zengshi nüxun, vol.1, “Zixu,” 2b. Liu Jian’s grandfather was the Grand Councilor Liu Quanzhi 劉權之 (1739-1819). Here Liu likely refers to both her natal and marital families. 105 Liu Jian, “Zixu,” 2a-b. 106 Liu Jian, “Zixu,” 2b.

DownloadedNan fromNü Brill.com10/04/202119 (2017) 263-315 12:58:33PM via free access A Pictorial Autobiography By Zeng Jifen (1852-1942) 309 same time Liu was trying to redress these setbacks.107 Her reference to the “controversies,” in particular, reflects the doubt cast over the eclectic curriculum for women’s education. She counters the attack that she is promoting outdated forms of learning:

Following the completion of my manuscript, a guest posed a question: “You live in a time when novel forms of learning compete for attention, and yet you are following the outdated ones – can even your own family abide by them, not to mention the society as a whole?” I answered, “The ancients told us that the herbs [Artemisia argyi] stocked for seven years can be used for treating diseases for three years. I select from whichever sources that serve my purpose – would it not be better than failing to stock the herbs? Generally speaking, one cannot walk a thousand miles without doing it step by step, and it is the small streams that eventually converge into big rivers. If I trace what brings out the results and likewise plant the seeds for those results, I will eventually realize my aim.”

顧書既脫稿，客或訊之曰：“子居翻新逞異之秋，乃襲拘迂腐舊之說，姑毋論社會之取捨，即子之家人眷屬，其能遵循不越乎？” 曰：“古人云，七年蓄艾，用治三年之疾。予取予求，不差勝艾之不蓄耶？綜而言之，不積跬步，無以至千里，不積細流，無以成江河。見果思因，種因得果，終將達其目的耳。”108

Clearly Liu does not divide the sources into what were deemed as mutually exclusive, namely, the “old” and the “new” forms of learning. Rather she emphasizes her eclectic selections, which she expects to build together toward long-term developments in women’s education. Further addressing the question of women’s rights, Liu perceives these developments as integral compo- nents of a new cosmic order, in which women’s realization of their intellectual ambitions will contribute at once to national strengthening and gender equal- ity.109 This summary illuminates Zeng Jifen’s and Liu Jian’s interventions into educational reform at different stages. A memoir by Zeng Baosun 曾寶蓀 (1893-1978), a granddaughter of Zeng Jifen’s elder brother Zeng Jihong 曾紀鴻 (1848-91), is a valuable record of how educational opportunities further

107 Liu Jian, “Zonglun,” 2a. For discussions of girls’ schools in China during 1902-1907, see Paul Bailey, Gender and Education in China: Gender Discourses and Women’s Schooling in the Early Twentieth Century (London: Routledge, 2007), 25-33, 42-4. 108 Liu Jian, “Zonglun,” 2b. 109 Liu Jian, “Zonglun,” 2b-3a.

Nan Nü 19 (2017) 263-315 Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 12:58:33PM via free access 310 Yang broadened for the Zeng women in the next two or three generations.110 Zeng Baosun was a daughter of Zeng Guangjun 曾廣鈞 (1866-1929) and Ms. Chen 陳, and granddaughter of Zeng Jihong and Guo Yun 郭筠 (1848-1916). In Chongde nianpu Zeng Jifen refers to Guo Yun as zhongsao 仲嫂 (wife of second elder brother). During the winter of 1868 Zeng Jifen and Guo Yun studied and engaged in discussions over a range of subjects included in the instructions of Zeng Jize and Zeng Jihong. Present also was Zeng Jize’s eldest daughter Guangxuan 廣璇. In the same textual entry Zeng Jifen refers to learning about the world through the model globe made by the Nanjing Arsenal.111 According to Zeng Baosun, Guo Yun started her education in her natal home, but it was not until she married into the Zengs that she had the opportunity to expand the scope of her studies. Training in the classics and history prepared Guo for the task of instructing her son Guangjun, who in time passed the civil service examination and gained entrance to the Hanlin Academy. In a way that echoed earlier generations of talented women, Guo Yun authored a collection of poetry, Yifangge shichao 藝芳閣詩鈔 (Collected poems from the Hall of Culture and Virtue [Guo’s study room]). But she also remained well- informed and politically aware through reading magazines and newspapers, and often discussed contemporary affairs – for example, she foresaw Yuan Shi- kai’s 袁世凱 (1859-1916) political ambitions.112 Baosun looked up to Guo Yun as role model and inspiration throughout her life. When she completed her modern style education and raised funds to establish a girls’ school in Changsha, she gave her school the name “Yifang.” Baosun’s life exemplified the modern transformation of women’s educational and vocational opportunities. Having received early education in the Zeng family school with her cousins, she embarked on new-style education in girls’ schools in Shanghai (1904-05) and Hangzhou (1906-07; 1909-11). At the Wuben 務本 Girls’ School in Shanghai she made friends with Zhang Mojun 張默君 (1883-1965), also a Xiangxiang 湘鄉 (Hunan province) native, and became influenced by Mojun’s revolutionary fervor as well as taste in literature.113 During 1912-17 she studied in Britain together with her cousin Zeng Yuenong 曾約農 (1893-1986). In 1916 she graduated from University of London with a

110 Zeng Baosun, Zeng Baosun huiyilu 曾寶蓀回憶錄 (Hong Kong: Jidujiao wenyi chubanshe, 1970). See note 24 for a different edition of the memoir. For an English translation and adaptation of the memoir, see: Kennedy, trans. and ed., Confucian Feminist: Memoirs of Zeng Baosun (1893-1978) (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2002). 111 Zeng Jifen, Chongde nianpu, 6b. 112 Kennedy, trans., ed., Confucian Feminist, 4-5. 113 Kennedy, trans., ed., Confucian Feminist, 24-25. See Judge’s study on the Zhang women, including Zhang Mojun. Judge, “The Fate of the Late Imperial ‘Talented Women’,” 139-60.

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Bachelor of Science degree, which made her the first Chinese woman to earn this degree. She pursued graduate studies at Oxford and Cambridge in the following year before returning home. In 1918, with the help of Yuenong and other Zeng family members, she established the Yifang Girls’ Middle School in Changsha, and served for nearly three decades as principal. During 1919-21 she also served as the principal for the First Women’s Normal School in Changsha.114 During the years she spent in Taiwan after 1949, she continued to advocate for women’s education, and represented the Nationalist Government in international forums, the most important of which was the UN Commission on the Status of Women in 1952.115 As much as Baosun drew from her overseas experience in developing Yi- fang, she continued the earlier Zeng women’s efforts to bridge the “old” and the “new” forms of learning. Her purpose was to promote students’ appreciation of traditional Chinese culture as well as their developing “a scientific outlook.”116 She associated “Yifang,” the name of her grandmother Guo Yun’s study room, with the liuyi 六藝 (six arts) defined by Confucius, namely: ritual, music, ar- chery, riding, writing, and mathematics.117 She enlisted help from her uncles Zeng Guangrong 曾廣融 (1875-1922) and Nie Qiying 聶其煐 (1897-?) to obtain permission from the Changsha authorities to open the school in the Zeng Wen- zhenggong ci 曾文正公祠 (Ancestral temple of Zeng Guofan) complex.118 This choice of location was itself a statement of how the modern-style education Yifang offered was built on the illustrious Zeng family tradition. Baosun’s early education at the Zeng family school was a constant source of inspiration for her to broaden the scope of Yifang’s curriculum and nurture the students’ political acumen. Here we also have a glimpse into the spectrum of knowledge available to the Zeng women. The Fuhou tang 富厚堂 (Prosperity hall) location of the Zeng family school in Xiangxiang was where Baosun pursued a wide range of subjects, including the Confucian classics, history, geography, poetry, essay composition, painting, English, Japanese, women’s classics, and domestic skills.119 The Fuhou tang also housed a large, three-story family

114 For a brief sketch of these events, see Kennedy, “Principal Events in the Life of Zeng Baosun and Related World Events,” in Kennedy, trans., ed., Confucian Feminist, xvii. For details see pages 35-95. For Baosun’s recollections of her science degree, see page 57. 115 Kennedy, “Translator’s introduction,” in Kennedy, trans., ed., Confucian Feminist, xiv. Also see page 143 for Zeng Baosun’s recollections of these experiences. 116 Kennedy, trans., ed., Confucian Feminist, 133. 117 Kennedy, trans., ed., Confucian Feminist, 74. 118 Kennedy, trans., ed., Confucian Feminist, 75. Together with Baosun’s father Zeng Guang- jun, Zeng Guangrong and Nie Qiying served on the Board of Directors for Yifang. 119 Baosun learned women’s classics and domestic skills together with her female cousins.

Nan Nü 19 (2017) 263-315 Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 12:58:33PM via free access 312 Yang library, where she explored works of Chinese literature and history together with rich collections of foreign-language books and translations – including those brought back by the diplomat Zeng Jize, such as the Encyclopedia Britan- nica and volumes in French. She also mentions the family’s collections of medical texts, which explains Zeng Jifen’s access to medical knowledge.120 Baosun developed a particular interest in science because of her family’s influence. Her grandfather Zeng Jihong was enthusiastic about mathematics and astron- omy, and her grandmother Guo Yun encouraged her to study foreign lang uages. Her father Zeng Guangjun was an avid reader of mathematics and translated works on acoustics, optics, chemistry, and electricity. He also introduced her to translations of Darwin and Social Darwinism.121 The study of science, moreover, suggested to Baosun a grand national purpose. She attributed this to the influence of her uncle Zeng Guangrong, who having served in the Sino-Japanese War in 1894 and witnessed first-hand China’s defeat, believed in the power of science and engineering to save China. Baosun emphasized that she was truly dedicated to this idea of using science to serve China when she later chose a science major at the University of London.122 With the completion of her science degree she built a variety of science subjects into Yifang’s curriculum. Yifang also featured weekly speeches by well-known figures and discussions on current affairs in China and elsewhere.123 Zeng Baosun attributed the success of her school to the “moral and material support” of her clan.124 Throughout the years of her overseas education she maintained close ties with the Nie family. For example, her uncle Nie Qijie strongly supported her idea of studying abroad and helped arrange her depar- ture in 1912. He also helped fund her study during the First World War. When she visited New York in 1917, her uncle Nie Qiying and his wife took her to Co- lumbia University and introduced her to Hu Shi and Chen Hengzhe 陳衡哲 (1890-1976).125 Together with the Zeng kin, Nie Qiying later helped her estab-

For details about Zeng Baosun’s early education at home, see Kennedy, trans., ed., Confu- cian Feminist, 14-22. 120 Kennedy, trans., ed., Confucian Feminist, 18. Zeng Baosun mentions that Guo Yun enjoyed reading in medicine as well. 121 Kennedy, trans., ed., Confucian Feminist, 16-19; also see page 51. 122 Kennedy, trans., ed., Confucian Feminist, 22, 40. 123 Kennedy, trans., ed., Confucian Feminist, 76. 124 Kennedy, trans., ed., Confucian Feminist, 73. 125 Zeng Jifen, Chongde nianpu, 25b-26a. Zeng Jifen records that Nie Qiying and his wife Ms. Li visited the USA during 1916-19. Their sons Guangtan 光坦 and Guangzhi 光址 were born during this time. In 1919 Zeng Jifen’s grandsons Guangjian 光堅 and Guangkun went to study in the USA. Other overseas experiences of her descendants include: Qiwei went

DownloadedNan fromNü Brill.com10/04/202119 (2017) 263-315 12:58:33PM via free access A Pictorial Autobiography By Zeng Jifen (1852-1942) 313 lish the Yifang school and served on the Board of directors. After returning to China in 1917, she was welcomed at the Nie family in Shanghai by Zeng Jifen, her great aunt, and stayed temporarily there before returning to Hunan. Dur- ing her stay Nie Qijie encouraged her to take over the operation of a girls’ middle school in Shanghai, although she eventually chose Changsha over Shanghai to establish her school. Even though Zeng Baosun does not go into details about her connection with Zeng Jifen, their opinions on World War I were similar.126 Though far from a complete “family portrait,” these snapshots throw light on the inter-generational links within the Zeng family, including the support of women’s education by male kin, and their contributions toward popularizing women’s education, as well as their commitment to national salvation through educational reform. While Zeng Baosun’s attitude on the role of science in China’s modernization falls within a more familiar picture of the country’s nation-building, the inter-generational links illustrated here open a window into how “traditional” values helped shape educational reform for women. We see here how family heritage generated new resources and opportunities over the generations for the Zeng women.

Concluding Remarks: “Saving China” in the Early 1930s

As a number of studies have shown, the various “conservatisms” of the 1930s disguised the Chinese political leaders’ fundamental radicalism.127 The Xin shenghuo yundong (New Life Movement) was shaped by concerns specific to the 1920s, namely, the profound cultural and social changes in Chinese society. Students and urban labor, for example, emerged as new political forces and led mass actions during the 1920s. The Nationalist government’s suppression of

to study in Japan in 1904, and Qijie visited Europe in 1920; see pages 21b and 26b. Zeng Jifen also records that the Nie family donated funds for the Gongbu ju 工部局 (Bureau of construction) to establish a public school in Shanghai in around 1918; see page 26a. 126 For Zeng Baosun’s recollections of her ties with the Nie family, see: Kennedy, trans. and ed., Confucian Feminist, 35, 48, 70-71, 74-75, 93. For her recollections of how she personally experienced World War I in Britain, see pages 59-62. For her comment on the War, see page 61. Like Zeng Jifen, she deplores the fact that scientific developments only produced more sophisticated instruments of death. 127 See again Dirlik, “The Ideological Foundations of the New Life Movement.” Also see: Lou- ise Edwards, “The Shanghai Modern Woman’s American Dreams: Imagining America’s Depravity to Produce China’s ‘Moderate Modernity’,” Pacific Historical Review 81.4 (2012): 567-601.

Nan Nü 19 (2017) 263-315 Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 12:58:33PM via free access 314 Yang student and labor movements created further social upheaval as well as public alienation from the government. The New Life Movement’s proclaimed aim of reviving traditional political conceptions served the ends of an “ideology of counterrevolution.”128 In a significant sense Chongde nianpu helped support the reinstatement of the Confucian ritual tradition which in turn paved the way for the New Life Movement. Leaders of the 1928 Nanjing Government envisioned themselves in the roles of the leaders of the Tongzhi Restoration 同治中興 of the 1860s, among whom Zeng Guofan was a central figure.129 Moreover, they urged officials to read Zeng Guofan’s writings to cultivate loyalty and dedication to public service.130 The Nie family press’ incorporation of Zeng Guofan’s works into its publication series during the 1920s converted Zeng’s loyalty and contributions to the Qing state into a new political resource. In this light Zeng Jifen’s invocation of this family heritage testified to her efforts to reshape the political trends of the early 1930s. I have read the appended essay, “Saving China,” in the light of the worldwide crises of the 1920s and early 1930s. Scholars have studied at length the Nie family enterprise in relation to the rise of new “official entrepreneurs,” and its grave financial losses in the crisis of the 1920s.131 At issue here is the interconnection between family vicissitudes and social upheavals, which underlies Zeng Jifen’s call for national salvation. Workers went on strike at the Heng Feng Cotton Mill in 1923, and the Chinese Communist Party set up a workers’ organization there to encourage further strikes during 1923-25. The Heng Feng workers were active during the May-Thirtieth Movement of 1925.132 The Red Army’s occupation of Changsha in 1930 was considered an even more severe form of upheaval than the rice riots of 1910, a situation Zeng Jifen implied in her comment, “what was considered extravagant then is hardly worth mentioning today.”133 Also, Zeng

128 Dirlik, “The Ideological Foundations of the New Life Movement,” 947. 129 For these broader trends see Dirlik, “The Ideological Foundations of the New Life Move- ment,” 960. 130 Hsu, The Rise of Modern China, 569. 131 Refer to Note 2. Chan discusses how Zeng Jifen glosses over her husband Nie Qigui’s trans- fer of official funds to his private capital. See Chan, Merchants, Mandarins, and Modern Enterprise, 89-90. 132 See Kennedy’s useful note on workers’ strikes at the Heng Feng Cotton Mill, Kennedy trans. and ed., Testimony of a Confucian Woman, 136 n27. For discussions of how change in social structure and the upsurge of nationalism led to social radicalism during the 1920s, see: Hsu, The Rise of Modern China, 426-37; Dirlik, “The Ideological Foundations of the New Life Movement,” 947. 133 In the fourth lunar month of 1930 she recorded family members and relatives fleeing from Changsha to Shanghai because of the threat of violence. She then referred to the riots

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Baosun established the Yifang Girls’ Middle School in Changsha in 1918. This school was vandalized by radicals in 1921 and taken over by Nongmin xiehui 農民協會 (Peasants’ association) in 1927. While it recovered in 1928, the School was forced to close during the occupation of Changsha in 1930, and did not open for another two years.134 In her reaffirmation of family values as the key to Confucian ritual tradition, Zeng Jifen was at once continuing an earlier mission of national salvation, and speaking for her family’s interests and commitments in a rapidly changing world. Debates over the validity of the Confucian ritual tradition to the modern transformation of China continue in recent studies on “New Confucianism.”135 My purpose here is not to advance Zeng Jifen’s vision of this ritual tradition, or to promote a teleological approach to its validity in the early 1930s. In highlighting the mechanisms Zeng employed to construct her personal history and engage in conversations on familial and national levels across several decades, this study illuminates an ongoing process wherein traditional values generated new resources for those at the center of the storm to launch reforms and reshape political trends.

Acknowledgements

I presented an earlier version of this article at the AAS Meeting in Toronto, March 2017. My sincere thanks go to the panel discussants, Professors Louise Edwards and Maram Epstein, and my panellists, for their thought-provoking questions and comments. During the revision process I benefited tremendously from Professor Harriet T. Zurndorfer’s insights and meticulous editing. She went through much trouble to help me reshape some of my key arguments. I would also like to thank the two anonymous readers for their critiques and suggestions of useful references.

sweeping across Hunan province afterwards. Zeng Jifen, Chongde nianpu, 28a. For a study of the Red Army’s occupation of Changsha, see Paul Clark, “Changsha in the 1930: Red Army Occupation,” Modern China 7.4 (1981): 413-44. For the quoted comment of Zeng Jifen, see note 47. 134 Zeng Baosun fled to Shanghai and resided temporarily with the Nies in April 1927. Ken- nedy, trans. and ed., Confucian Feminist, 88-95. 135 For example, see: John Makeham, ed., New Confucianism: A Critical Examination (Basing- stoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Daniel A. Bell, China’s New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); Jesús Solé-Farràs, New Confucianism in Twenty-First Century China: The Construction of a Dis- course (Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2014).

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