Paradigms of Chinese Urbanism Traditional and Modern

Joseph W. Esherick, ed.. Remaking the Chinese City: Modernity and National Identity, 1900-1950. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000. x + 278 pp. $65.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8248-2148-7.

Yinong Xu. The Chinese City in Space and Time: The Development of Urban Form in Suzhou. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000. xi + 361 pp. $47.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8248-2076-3.

Reviewed by Peter Carroll

Published on H-Urban (April, 2001)

Paradigms of Chinese Urbanism Traditional banism a key component of traditional and mod‐ and Modern ern political, economic, and social ideology. Xu Yinong's rich and solidly researched study In light of the dearth of recent English-lan‐ of the political and cultural import of imperial guage work on ancient, medieval, and early mod‐ Suzhou's urban morphology and Joseph Esher‐ ern city planning and development, Xu Yinong's ick's edited volume of 13 lively essays on cities as meticulous book on Suzhou is particularly signif‐ the discursive and material site for the coales‐ cant: it joins the select body of core English-lan‐ cence of modernist regimes in twentieth century guage "technical" works on traditional cities. [1] China both contribute boldly to the current fuo‐ Celebrated since the Song period (960-1279 CE) as rescence of scholarship on Chinese urbanism. an embodiment of economic plenty and cultural Considered together, these two works highlight richness and possessing a history of two and a the diversifcation of thematic and geographic foci half millennia, Suzhou was arguably the tradition‐ within Chinese urban history scholarship, which al city par excellence. (Recent transformations has, to cite the title of the 1996 conference that have fundamentally altered the city's surviving initiated the latter book, moved "beyond Shang‐ classical structure and neighborhoods of pic‐ hai". These two valuable volumes reappraise ur‐ turesque, though woefully unhygienic and incon‐ H-Net Reviews venient, late imperial dwellings; nonetheless, the nese cities were "open institutions", attesting to city still enjoys the reputation as a classic "tradi‐ the essential continuum, as opposed to a strict di‐ tional" city.) Suzhou was never a typical city, but chotomy, between city and countryside. 3) The an anomaly that represented the leading tenden‐ elimination of the walled urban ward system dur‐ cies of urban development. In many ways, howev‐ ing the Tang/Song "transition" period led to a reor‐ er, Suzhou, as a non-imperial though highly emi‐ ganization of the cityscape and social and com‐ nent regional center, is arguably more represen‐ mercial life, a fundamental albeit protracted "me‐ tative of urban development patterns than well- dieval urban revolution". studied imperial capitals such as Beijing, Nanjing, Starting with a detailed analysis of the origi‐ and Chang'an, whose roles as "cosmological cen‐ nal city purportedly built in 514 BCE by the ambi‐ ters" has long provided the basic template for our tious Wu king Helu, for whom the majesty of the understanding of traditional city planning. De‐ city was a testament to his ambition and power, spite the indisputable infuence of ritual texts on Xu shows how cities exemplifed China's singular‐ basic notions of urban design, the layout and ly humanist cosmology. Chinese cosmogony de‐ function of non-capital cities were guided by an‐ nied an original creator but posited that humans other related but distinct logic, the demonstration and the physical world were both constituent of the state's ordering power. As such, Xu estab‐ components of a spontaneously self-generating lishes Suzhou as an exemplary case study with cosmos. The paradigm of city building thus was the dual virtue of chronicling the pattern develop‐ not divine creation of the universe, but imitation ment common to most Chinese cities while also of the form of the universe. Given human society's showcasing fascinating, unique aspects of the essential involvement in universal processes, cos‐ city's singular development. mic patterns formed the basis for ideals of city Through enviable command of a wide variety and greater state order. Xu underscores this rela‐ of primary materials, Xu's seven chapters and tion with a close and provocatively original inter‐ brief introduction and conclusion ofer a critical, pretation of the function and symbolism of dis‐ if sometimes overly schematic, overview of crete structural elements such as gates, walls, Suzhou's two and a half millennia development. canals, and bridges. Walls, Xu argues, were func‐ The book also provides an excellent examination tional and conceptual markers of state power. of scholarly approaches to pre-modern urban Walls delineated Suzhou as a city, chengshi, that is morphology. The author helpfully underscores the cheng, wall, and shi, market. More importantly, uses and limits of comparisons with European they declared the state's capacity to order society models by providing a nuanced reappraisal of within and without their span. Furthermore, the several classic characterizations of Chinese cities: remarkable stability of the city's walls, which 1) Unlike their European counterparts, Chinese were repeatedly rebuilt on old foundations in the cities were not integrated corporate political enti‐ face of great fux in the size and distribution of ties but centers of imperial administrative power, the population and commercial activity, attests to a situation partly responsible for the relative a predilection among conservative literati to view dearth of civic identity and consciousness, the the wall integument as a semi-natural element of parochial nature of urban social institutions, and the environment and permanent testimony to the the striking absence of large open public spaces power of the state. The striking continuity of within the city. (These questions remain much Suzhou's macro-urban form over a longue duree more contentious than the author acknowledges; does support these conclusions. Nonetheless, Xu more detailed case studies would help support his could more fully consider the novel social mean‐ interpretations.) 2) Socially and culturally, Chi‐ ings and uses that urban space acquired through

2 H-Net Reviews social practice within the integument of the city activities. This begs the largely unexplored ques‐ wall. For instance, Craig Clunas has demonstrated tion, what were the contours of the street as an how the social uses and meanings of urban gar‐ organized or ostensibly anarchic social site? How dens in Suzhou were transformed during the ff‐ did the street and temple difer as public spaces in teenth to seventeenth centuries even as their traditional cities? makers endeavored to "recreate" ancient forms.[2 Xu also explores the signifcance of cultural Xu notes that continuity of form did not hinder constructions of space by examining fengshui the development of suburbs (indeed, it probably ("wind and water"), or geomancy, on urban plan‐ encouraged it), or the reorganization of the popu‐ ning. Fengshui focuses on the relationship be‐ lation and commerce into three distinct areas tween land, water, human built structures, and during the Ming and Qing dynasties. What mean‐ energies animating the earth in order manipulate ings did people assign to these novel areas, how their interaction to forestall potential negative ef‐ did they view their relation to the "ancient" city? fects or foster positive consequences on humans. Given Xu's mastery of sources and analytic Though now enjoying a vogue among urban strengths, I hope he may consider some of these American glitterati concerned that the placement social geographic questions in the future. of their furniture may foster harmful energies, The structural and symbolic importance of fengshui has more traditionally been applied to walls is also key to Xu's analysis of public space. the siting of buildings, graves, and other struc‐ The ubiquity of walled courtyards and relative tures. Despite its connection to certain fundamen‐ lack of broad, open squares used for commercial tal conceptions of city planning and ostensibly and social purposes in European cities was not a universal use in the construction of buildings, the sign that public spaces were any less needed. actual infuence of fengshui on urban growth re‐ Rather, the conception and ordering of public mains unclear. Xu argues that fengshui, on the space was diferent. Citing urban memoir litera‐ macro level at least, probably exercised minimal ture, Xu suggestively argues that unenclosed spa‐ infuence on the city's physical development. As ces were viewed as unordered and therefore in‐ support, he cites the surprising infrequency with appropriate for social intercourse and commerce. which it is mentioned in the voluminous extant Rather, he argues that temple courtyards, such as writings of Suzhou elites. This is in stark contrast that of the massive Xuanmiao Guan (Daoist tem‐ to the south, where the use of fengshui in the ple) complex at the center of the city, served as building of individual structures and arrange‐ sites of worship, association, business, entertain‐ ment of cities as a whole is well-documented. Xu ment, and other aspects of social life. They were notes that this reticence on the importance of geo‐ at the center of social life. As such, these enclosed, mancy among Suzhou elites may stem from the hence ordered, spaces, provided suitable venues close supervision of classically educated peers, for public life and could be seen as analogous to which may have enforced more orthodox intellec‐ city squares in Europe. Though enlightening and tual strictures, if not actual practice and belief. He suggestive, this discussion would be enriched also stresses that at the very least elites were re‐ with more detailed examination of the various so‐ luctant to carry out large scale alterations to the cial uses of temples and their implications for the city's essential layout lest their actions have un‐ shape and functions of "public" space in imperial foreseen negative consequences on Suzhou's for‐ Suzhou.[3] Xu tantalizingly remarks that the city's tunes. Thus, while perhaps not a cardinal princi‐ streets may have held more variety in the types of ple driving urban planning and development, activities which took place there, but that temples were nonetheless the locus for organized social

3 H-Net Reviews fengshui played a role in the astonishing continu‐ of novel cosmopolitan identity and entrepreneur‐ ity of the city's morphology. ship, the section could be retitled "Planning the By navigating such a broad swath of critical Modernity City," as the four other essays gloss dif‐ issues, Xu efectively demonstrates how urbanism ferent aspects of city planning. was implicated in core political, social, and cultur‐ In their respective chapters, Michael Tsin and al processes in traditional China. His book should Kristin Stapleton explore attempts by radically therefore be welcomed by all interested in imperi‐ diferent Chinese nationalist regimes, the Guo‐ al China, regardless of their academic feld. His mindang in Canton (Guangzhou) and the violent rich research and consideration of broad historio‐ yet quirkily progressive warlord Yang Sen in graphic issues should also attract the attention of Chengdu, to remake their cities as national exem‐ non-area specialists interested in comparative an‐ plars of modernity. Tsin nicely characterizes the cient, medieval, and early modern urban studies. Guomindang's ambition to reorder Canton as part While Xu's monograph explores the classical of an epistemic "rise of the social", which viewed urban paradigm par excellence, the 13 varied es‐ human and material resources as an intercon‐ says that constitute Remaking the Chinese City: nected totality. In Canton (and several other Modernity and National Identity, 1900-1950 pro‐ cities), planners trained in Western urbanism vide an expansively complex survey of various found the city's classical layout overly restrictive ways in which the city, as individual places and a and deleterious to the development of modern in‐ genus, has been central to the conception and dustry and commerce. They aimed to invigorate practice of modernity and nationalism. As Joseph the urban body by increasing circulation of com‐ Esherick notes in his introduction, the core con‐ modities, people, and air throughout the city. Tsin cepts and technics of modernist urbanism were shows how road-building and the demolition of appropriated and developed in startlingly difer‐ the city wall were viewed as both essential practi‐ ent fashions, giving rise to a series of diferent cal means and symbols of progressive govern‐ modern urban types: 1) treaty port, 2) capital city, mentality. He also discusses the establishment of 3) interior city, 4) tourist city, 5) railway city, 6) in‐ Canton's municipal government, one of China's dustrial city, and 7) frontier city. While not dis‐ frst and a key institutional moment in the recon‐ crete analytic categories, this typology provides a ceptualization of urban space. 1920s Sichuan was stimulating introduction to the essays, which ex‐ viewed as immiserated in backwardness and con‐ plore various facets of the frst six, by highlighting fict, some of which Stapleton ascribes to Yang how exigencies of local geography, economy, and Sen's ambitious, hence contentious, attempt to re‐ politics produced distinctive formations of mod‐ make Chengdu during his brief yet efective ernist development. Given the diversity of ways 1924-25 municipal regime. Stapleton provides a that urban communities made themselves mod‐ complex sketch of a Chengdu animated by difer‐ ern and related to the nation, this volume nicely ent reform currents: progressives commemorated surveys the diferent valences between local and the death of Lenin with a mass meeting in a pub‐ national modernity. lic park (interestingly presided over by the war‐ lord's chief of police) while many elites worked to The fve diverse and intriguing chapters in secure the government's promise to preserve the Part I, "The Modernist City", critically survey the city's Confucian temple. In addition to the disrup‐ infuence of modernist city planning and econom‐ tive and universally fraught project of road-build‐ ic technologies on remaking cities throughout Chi‐ ing, Yang Sen's city administration sponsored a na. Were it not for Brett Sheehan's informative broad set of popular reform initiatives, e.g., hold‐ study of Tianjin banking networks as an example ing fairs and exhibitions in conjunction with long-

4 H-Net Reviews established festivals, forcing women to undertake sparking a crisis of "hygienic modernity" that the painful process of unbinding their feet, and highlighted the incommensurability between ad‐ exhorting the adoption of "modern" short clothing vanced disciplined systems of sanitation and the in contrast to long, voluminous "traditional" Chinese, whose ostensibly backward nature made dress. Unlike other cities, Chengdu did not have a them a source of constant danger to foreigners strong organized business community to negoti‐ and to modernity itself. This anxious condescen‐ ate changes in Yang's plan. Thus, Stapleton pro‐ sion combined with concerns for political autono‐ vides an interesting case study of the ambition my and public health led local Chinese elites to and potential achievement of an inspired (if po‐ promote sanitation as key to their own adminis‐ tentially cruel and violent) municipal regime. tration. Although open to many foreign medical In contrast, David Buck's chapter on practices, Chinese doctors and ofcials occasional‐ Changchun (a.k.a. Xinjing or "New Capital", the ly criticized what they saw as excessive reliance city's name after the Japanese military ofcially on germ theory to the neglect of pathogenic fac‐ occupied Manchuria in 1931 and established the tors in the spread of illness. Others viewed quar‐ puppet state of Manchukuo) examines a Japanese antine epidemic controls as an attack on the Chi‐ imperialist vision of modernity. The Japanese saw nese race. Given the coexistence of analogous Chi‐ Changchun as a showplace that would allow them nese and Western concepts of pathogenesis as a to display their benevolent tutelage to the rest of source of contagion, the creation of modern pub‐ China and Asia. As in other colonial situations, lic health administration was not a simple case of Changchun provided a space for experiments in Western practice displacing Chinese science. urban planning and design not possible in the Rather, she argues that hygienic modernity saw metropole. Thus, Japanese architects and plan‐ the commingling and contestation between Chi‐ ners remade the city in a grand style reminiscent nese and foreign conceptions and practices of san‐ of earlier twentieth century planned capitals such itation. as New Delhi and Canberra. Despite the survival In Part II, "Tradition and Modernity", the fo‐ of much Japanese modernist architecture, includ‐ cus shifts to the role of architectural and histori‐ ing the "developing Asia" style later criticized as cal heritage in the distillation of urban and na‐ militarist, this Japanese experiment in colonial tional identity. In their respective chapters on the planning has largely been erased from Chinese attempt to redefne Beiping ("Northern Peace", as historical and architectural works due to nation‐ Beijing, "Northern Capital", was renamed when alist sensibilities. However, as Buck points out, Ja‐ Nanjing ("Southern Capital") became the Republi‐ panese Changchun provides a fascinating com‐ can capital in 1927) as a national cultural metrop‐ parison to contemporary Chinese city planning. olis attractive to tourists in the wake of the na‐ Ruth Rogaski focuses on another aspect of tional capital's move to Nanjing, and the develop‐ city planning in her essay, which explores the sig‐ ment of Hangzhou and its scenic West Lake as a nal emphasis on sanitation in Tianjin. In the early mass tourist destination, Madeline Dong and twentieth century, Tianjin was a hypercolony, Wang Liping examine how in light of rapid social with the populace and territory under the rule transformation, which made the imperial era (sometimes simultaneously) of several diferent seem ever more distant, historic sites and literati foreign powers, all of which competed to demon‐ culture acquired the authority of "tradition". Fur‐ strate their administrative prowess to the Chinese thermore, as urban economic planners recog‐ and to one another. Yet disease, especially nized, tradition commodifed could provide an cholera, permeated administrative barriers, economic basis for modern commercial growth and city administration. Enabled by advances in

5 H-Net Reviews transportation, the growth in "leisure" resulting capital was widely seen as flthy, lacking majesty, from the adoption of a Western-style calendar and backward. Nonetheless, the state was able to and work week and the spread of mass modern parlay the city's ostensible insufciencies into an entertainment media, historic tourism proved inspirational symbol of the nation at war. In con‐ that the medium was also the message. In addi‐ trast, Jefrey Wasserstrom elegantly surveys the tion to explaining the relevance of the hoary im‐ ways in which Shanghai's cosmopolitan moderni‐ perial past for self-consciously modern urban ty has been interpreted as variously making the dwellers, historic tourism in Beiping and city a foreign excrescence with little to do with Hangzhou also inculcated normatively modern "China" or a crucible of Chinese modernity, consumption and lifestyle habits that augmented among other readings. David Strand, in his closing the creation of novel Republican popular and po‐ summary commentary, muses on the diversity of litical culture. Concluding with Charles Mus‐ meanings urban experience and the roles that grove's chapter on the Guomindang state's at‐ cities have played in inspiring nationalist pas‐ tempts to create a modern yet distinctively Chi‐ sions among generations of modern Chinese. nese synthetic architecture in order to reconstruct Readers with any interest in twentieth centu‐ Nanjing in a manner beftting its status as the cap‐ ry China or comparative work on nationalism, ur‐ ital of a nascent republic/ancient nation, these es‐ ban studies, and modernity will fnd this book in‐ says elaborate the various ways that historicity tensely rewarding. In addition to the immediate became prime political and economic currency in pleasures of surveying the historiographic terrain the transaction of modern national identity. and gaining an array of insights, collections such The essays of Part III, "City and Nation", con‐ as this, which highlight work by recent or soon to sider the unique place that cities such as Wuhan, be Ph.D.s along with established scholars, hold the Chongqing, and Shanghai have occupied in con‐ promise of several forthcoming book-length stud‐ structions of the Chinese nation. Stephen MacKin‐ ies. Happily, two of these have already appeared. non analyzes the multi-valence of Wuhan's identi‐ Michael Tsin, Nation, governance, and modernity ty as a dual industrial and political center, which in China: Canton, 1900-1927 (Stanford: Stanford he inscribes in part to the discrete nature of the University Press, 1999) and Kristin Stapleton, Civi‐ tri-city's disparate parts, Hankou, Wucheng, and lizing Chengdu: Chinese urban reform, 1895-1937 Hanyang. He contrasts this to the unifed, heroic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, image that the city gained as a center of resistance Harvard University Press, 2000), both important to Japan in 1938 and how this played an impor‐ books, elaborate themes surveyed in their chap‐ tant role in attracting the attention of anti-fascist ters to this volume. I look forward to additional ti‐ sympathizers, already mobilized the civil war in tles, as well. As a long-term project, this volume Spain, to see the burgeoning war in China as part and its corollary works promise to transform our of a global struggle. Lee McIsaac efectively ex‐ appreciation of cities as the dual creation cum tends MacKinnon's piece by examining a later mo‐ substance of modernist nationalism in late Qing ment in the War of Resistance after the fall of and Republican China. Wuhan and establishment of Chongqing as the Notes: "alternate" wartime capital. (Unwilling to cede the [1]. E.g., Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, Chinese permanent loss of Nanjing and confdent of the Imperial City Planning (Honolulu: University of eventual defeat of the Japanese after the U.S. en‐ Hawaii Press, 1990); G. William Skinner, ed., The try into the war, the GMD government did not City in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford make the city a permanent capital.) McIsaac dis‐ University Press, 1977); and classic essays by cusses the dilemma facing the GMD as its new

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Frederick Mote and Arthur Wright with which Xu engages. Given the technical nature of Xu's book, non-specialists may wish to frst consult some of the above works, especially the elegant, brief es‐ says by Mote and Wright. [2]. Craig Clunas, -Fruitful Sites: Garden Cul‐ ture in Ming Dynasty China (Durham: Duke Uni‐ versity Press, 1996. [3]. Temples and their importance as a consti‐ tutive space for urban social life is explored in depth in Susan Naquin, Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400-1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). Copyright (c) 2001 by H-Net, all rights re‐ served. This work may be copied for non-proft educational use if proper credit is given to the au‐ thor and the list. For other permission, please con‐ tact [email protected].

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Citation: Peter Carroll. Review of Esherick, Joseph W., ed. Remaking the Chinese City: Modernity and National Identity, 1900-1950. ; Xu, Yinong. The Chinese City in Space and Time: The Development of Urban Form in Suzhou. H-Urban, H-Net Reviews. April, 2001.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=5081

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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