East Asian History NUMBER 28 . DECEMBER 2004 Instit ute of Adva nced St ud ies Australia n Na ti onal Uni ve rsity Ed ito r Ge re mie R. Ba rm e Associate Ed ito r Mi riam Lang Business Manage r Ma ri on We eks Edito ri al Boa rd B 0rg e Bakken Jo hn Cl ark Louise Ed wa rds Ma rk Elvin (Con veno r) Jo hn Fi tzge ra ld Co li n Je ffcot t Li Tana Kam Louie Lewis Mayo Ga va n Mc Cormack Da vid Ma rr Tessa Mo rris-Suzuki Benjamin Penny Kenneth We lls Design and Production Oanh Co llins, Ma rion We eks, Max ine McA rthu r, Tristan No rman Printed by Go anna Prin t, Fyshwick, ACT This is the tw en ty-e ig hth is s ue of East Asian History, prin ted in Decembe r 2005, in the se ries pre vi o us ly entit le d Papers on Far Eastern History. Th is ex te rn ally re fe re ed journa l is pub li shed twi ce a ye ar Co nt rib utions to The Ed it or, East Asian History Division of Pacific and Asian Histo ry Resea rch Sc hoo l of Pacific and Asian St udies Aust ralian Na ti onal Uni versi ty Ca nbe rra ACT 0200, Aust ralia Phone +6 1 26125 3140 Fax +6 1 26125 5525 Em ailma rion.weeks @anu.ed u.au Su bsc ri pt ion En quiries to Su bsc riptions, East Asian History, at the abo ve add ress, orto ma rion.weeks @an u. ed u.a u Annua l Su bsc ription Aust ralia A$50 (including GST) Overseas US$45 (GST free) (fo r two issues) ISSN lO36 -6 008 iii CONTENTS 1 A St inki ng Tr adi tion: Ts ud a S6kichi 's View of Chi na JoelJoos 27 Dr ur y's Oc cupati on of Ma ca u and Chi na's Resp onse toEarly Moder n Imperialis m Frederic Wakeman, Jr. 35 On the Sheng-wu Ch 'in-cheng lu �:lttiHlE� Igor de Rachewiltz 53 Th e Press and the Rise of Peki ng Op era Si ng ers toNa ti onal St ard om: Th e Case of Theater Illustrated 09 12-1 7) Catherine V Yeh 87 Comp lia nce, Disse nt and the Contai nme nt of Chi na Timothy Kendall iv Cover ca lligra phy Ya n Zhenqi ng �1�gJlll, Ta ng calligrap her and statesma n Cover illustratio n Qia n Bi nghe, "Saoc hu zha ng 'ai" 1W��� [R emovi ng Obsta­ cles], subtitled "N ew drama ofth e Republic." A sweeper in Republica n army uniform clears away all that is co nnected to the Qi ng dy nasty. TheaterIll ustrated, 18 No vember 19 12 Er rata Inth e previous issue ofEast Asian History(N o. 27) anin correct character was give n onp. 57 fo r We n-hsi n Ye h. The characters should read : �tX{,\ THE PRESS AND THE RISE OF PEKING OPERA SINGERS TO NATIONAL STARDOM: THE CASE OF THEATER ILLUSTRATED (1912-17) � Catherine V Yeh The Press and the Actor Inth e first decades ofth e twe ntiet h ce ntury, a ne w ki nd ofpublic per­ 1 For one of the pioneer studies on the so nality and eve n na tio nal ico nemerged: the Pe ki ng Opera si nger , fo rmerly opera singer as star, see Isabelle Duchesne, 'The Chinese Opera Star: role and identity," regarded as the lowliest member ofsociety. The most fa mous example is Mei rall75'.l Boundaries in China, ed.John Hay (London: La nfa ng Crucial to this developme nt , interms of bot hth e co nceptio n Reaktion, 1994), pp.217-331. and the receptio n of the actor as a star, was the press. The most importa nt 2 For studies on thexiaobao, see A Ying (Qian role was played by the entertai nment ne wspapers know n as xiaobao !J\¥�, Xingcun), Wa n Qing wenyi baokan shulue [A which ha d spru ng up inth e Sha ng ha i Inte rna tio nal Se ttleme nt just be fo re survey of late Qing literary journalsl (Beijing: the tur n ofth e ce ntury and soo n spread throug h the larger urba n ce nters. Zhonghua Shuju, 1959), pp.53-89; Zhu Junzhou, "Shanghai xiaobao de Iishi yange" Represe nted by Entertainment (Youxi bao �JtX¥�) (1 897 -191 0? ) and World [The historical development of Shanghai Vanity Fair (Shijiejanhua bao t!t �HU�W ) (19 02-191 O?), these early xiaobao tabloidsl, Xinwen yanjiu ziliao [Materials for marked out their specialty and territo lY wit hinth e market ofcommercial the study ofjollrnalisml 42 (988): 171-5; Zhu ne wspapers by maki ng the world ofen tertai nment inge neral, and the leadi ng Junzhou, "Shanghai xiaobao de 'dingsheng shiqi'" [The peak of the Shanghai tabloidsl, courtesa ns and actors inparticular, their fo cus. By introduci ng the no tionof Xinwen daxue OOllrnalism universityl 1988 entertai nment as a ne wswort hy field ofplay and by maki ng a li nk betwee n (summer): 57-75. For a study on the Yo uxi the star and the press, the xiaobao set into motio n the mec hanism that was bao and the ShijieJanhua bao, see Catherine to ge nerate a particular Chinese star culture and was to propel entertai ners Yeh, "Deciphering the Entertainment Press to na tio nal stardom.2 1896--1920: the Yo uxi bao, the ShijieJanhua bao and their descendants," in joining the The illustrated image was at the he art ofth is developme nt. Illustratio ns Global Public: word, image, and city in the ha d bee na traditio nal mea ns oftext enha nc eme nt, but inth e developme nt of early Chinese newspapers 1870-1910, ed. the ne w star the ne w image reproductio ntec hnologies ofth e time, especially Rudolf G. Wagner (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY, in press 2005), lit hograp hy and photograp hy, he lped the papers as well as the entertai ners themselves to impla nt this figurein to the imagery ofcommercial and popular culture. Entertai nm ent was amo ng the first to explore this optio n. It used the ne w and miraculous medium ofph otograp hy to enha nce the no tionof 53 54 CATHERINE V. YEH 3 Lu Xun, "Lun zhaoxiang zhi lei" [On photo­ marvel and exciteme nt already associated with the top courtesa ns (Figure 1). graphy and the likel, in Lu Xun, LuXunquan­ Later, photographs ofopera stars would be fo und inthe entertai nme nt papers ji [Complete works ofLu Xunl (Beijing: Remin (Figure 2) and ador nthe wi ndows ofphotography studios.3 Lithography was Wenxue Chubanshe, 1989), vol. 1, pp.l81-90; fora study on courtesans and photography, also very much in vogue. As the example of TheaterIll ustrated (Tuhua jubao see Regine Thiriez, "Photography and i1m��¥�)will show, it captured fo r the reader the ne w style ofPeki ng Opera Portraiture in Nineteenth-century China," East acti ng with its emphasis onactio n and moveme nt (Figure 3). Asian History 17/18 (1999): 77-102. Figure 1 Figure 2 The Shanghai courtesan Hua Lijuan1t:Jtf:l!lFl, who took Mei Lanfang in costume for the title role in the 'new' play Deng second place in YOllxi bao's "f lower competition" of 1898. Xiagu !1JlJil1!tiS.]ingbao :.fj'(,*, 12 April 1920, p2 To publicize the event, photographs of the top three contest­ ants were of fe red as glue-ins in the newspaper. Youxi bao, 3 October 1898, p.1 THE PRESS AND THE RISE OF PEKING OPERA SINGERS 55 The star actor became the point of convergence between the media and the Figure 3 newly formi ng urban mass culture. Pe rhaps Theater Illustrated IIIIUWi'�,fr ont page, 20 August 1913 inadve ltently, but effectively, the opera singers wit h their stage art challenged the supremacy of the traditional 'f amous literati' (mingshi 1S±) wit h their ac hievements in the ort hodox literary arts of poetry, essay writing, painting, and calligrap hy. The <:; xiaohao bot h instigated and re flected the dramatic social transformation that came wit hth e rise of the actor to stardom, whic h in itself is an intriguing sign of a society undergoing a cultural identity crisis. The close connection between this rise of the actor and the construction of China as a modern nation ha s been pointed out in an 4 important study by Jo shua Go ldstein His article on "Mei Lanfang and the nationaliz­ ation of Pe king Opera" brings out the role of Qi Rus han 'PfPD W in making Pe king Opera into a national drama form. He refers to the importance of the mass media in this pro­ cess } but does not offer a detailed analysis. The present study explores the question of why-of all the possible candidates the new Republ ic could ha ve chosen as its representative-it was the actor who came to the fore. The crucial factor, as I will try to show, was China's early press. The pre ss was first to invoke the no­ tion of the actor as a national personality, and it offered the only early forum for patronage culture to go public, for aest hetic appreciatio n to be debated, and for the notion of stardom to be explored.