Hamaya Hiroshi, the renowned photojournalist, began his career documenting Tokyo in the 1930s.  In the 1940s and 50s, he traveled extensively in rural Japan, photographing the landscape, the people, and their daily lives.  In the 1960s he returned to Tokyo and captured students protesting the U.S.-Japan security treaty.¹ While his work is wide-ranging, much of his photography focuses on the human experience and the social spaces which serve as a backdrop for daily interactions.

In his early photography, Hamaya captured the urban life of Tokyo in the 1930s, with a focus on dancehalls and social dancers. The Ginza district, in particular, was renowned for its vibrant nightlife, including dancehalls, jazz bands, and taxi-dancers, women who could be hired as dance partners. One of Hamaya’s 1934 photographs depicts a line of taxis at night, waiting for customers in Ginza, suggesting the similarities between hiring taxis and dance partners, both of which lined up to wait for paying customers.² Beyond depicting life in the city, Hamaya’s photographs also document the rise of consumerism. The commercial nature of the dancehalls was a stark reality the women who worked there.  For men, they were social spaces of leisure, but for women they were often spaces of labor.³

The rise of consumerism was evident in the popularity of dancehalls as well as the emergence of a new type of woman: the “modern girl” who could be recognized by her western style, short dresses, and bobbed hair.  She was not only defined by her appearance but also the places she visited, such as “the café, the cinema, the theater, the department store, the ocean liner, and the dancehall.”⁴ In Japan, the modern girl was a symbol of progress, but she was also relentlessly attacked by the media.  In popular culture, she was often sexualized to represent her threat to morality and “her daring bob stood out as a graphic illustration of the rise of consumerism.”⁵ The modern girl demonstrated that women could be financially independent, but the self-commercialization of taxi-dancers undercut this progressive image by associating the modern girl with the negative aspects of consumerism.

Hamaya’s dancehall photography presented alternative views of the spaces and the dancers.  While dancehalls were places of female labor, male socialization, and venues that presented the opportunity for men and women to be in close proximity, Hamaya’s photograph of revue girls at Nichigeki Theatre in 1938 shows the women at rest, socializing with each other.⁶ Photographing the women in between performances reveals another side of the social space of dancehalls outside their intended purpose.  Similarly, Hamaya’s photograph of a woman looking at herself in a mirror in the Florida dancehall in 1935 reveals a moment of rest and solitude in a space designed for constant activity and crowds.⁷ These photographs humanize their subjects and present an alternative to the highly sexualized image of the “modern girl.”

His later photographs capture social spaces that are uniquely Japanese, like bathhouses, festivals, and tea ceremonies.⁸ His photographs of the rural labor of rice farmers, fishermen, and folk dancers reveal a fascination with “social customs that some would consider quintessentially Japanese,” and he “pictured the Japanese folk as a way of typifying human responses to the environment their work practices for survival necessitated.”⁹ The social spaces, customs, and labor of rural Japanese people in these photographs were essential aspects of rural life, if not survival.  Like these rural spaces and practices, the dancehalls of the 1930s were an important aspect of Japanese life in the city and the labor of social dancers was simply one way of surviving in an urban environment.  While critics of the modern girl targeted her morality and sexualization, “Their elitism mirrored their hostility toward consumerism and their inability to see the modern girl in her role as a modern construct.”¹⁰ Hamaya humanized their labor and presented an alternative view of the modern, working woman.⁹

1. John Clark, “Hamaya Hiroshi (1915–1999) and Photographic Modernism in Japan,” Self and Nation, Vol. 7, Issue 1 (Fall 2016). [↩]
2. “Taxis Waiting for Customers, Ginza, Tokyo, 1934,” Michael Hoppen Gallery, https://michaelhoppen.viewingroom.com/content/feature/47/artworks-6748-hiroshi-hamaya-taxis-waiting-for-customers-ginza-tokyo-1934-printed-1960/. [↩]
3. Vera Mackie, “Sweat, Perfume, and Tobacco: The Ambivalent Labor of the Dancehall Girl,” in Modern Girls on the Go: Gender, Mobility and Labor in Japan, eds. A. Freedman, L. Miller & C. Yano (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), 68. [↩]
4. Mackie, “Sweat, Perfume, and Tobacco,” 71. [↩]
5. Barbara Sato, “The Modern Girl as a Representation of Consumer Culture,” in The New Japanese Woman: Modernity, Media, and Women in Interwar Japan, eds. Rey Chow, Harry Harootunian, & Masao Miyoshi (New York: Duke University Press, 2003), 77. [↩]
6. Hamaya Hiroshi, “Revue girls, Nichigeki Theatre, Yurakucho, Tokyo, 1938,” Michael Hoppen Gallery, https://www.michaelhoppengallery.com/artists/125-hiroshi-hamaya/overview/#/artworks/9804. [↩]
7. Hamaya Hiroshi, “Dancer Looking Herself in a Mirror, Ballroom Florida, Akasaka, Tokyo, 1935,” from Alexandra Lange, “‘Deco Japan’ + Designing Women,” Design Observer, March 26, 2012. [↩]
8. Hamaya Hiroshi, “A Woman Performing the Tea Ceremony,” Michael Hoppen Gallery, https://michaelhoppen.viewingroom.com/content/feature/47/artworks-2544-hiroshi-hamaya-a-woman-performing-the-tea-ceremony/. [↩]
9. Clark, “Hamaya Hiroshi (1915–1999) and Photographic Modernism in Japan.” [↩] [↩]
10. Sato, “The Modern Girl as a Representation of Consumer Culture,” 68. [↩]

Richard Holttum stated, ‘a botanic garden is essentially a museum of living plants’.¹ Its position as a museum is a result of the garden’s double function; it is a place where plants can be studied by experts for science and a place where exhibits occur for the education and recreation of non-experts. Museums are also seen as having a political function and traditionally, the political function of botanic gardens originates from the garden’s position as a colonial construction. However, as this blog post will explore, in the aftermath of World War II and on the advent of Singapore’s independence, the Singapore Botanic Gardens took on a further political dimension as the garden’s award-winning orchids stemmed the beginning of ‘orchid diplomacy’. The prestigious reputation of orchids grown in the Singapore Botanic Gardens allowed the plant to provide a visible, unique symbol of nations’ friendship that was and still is today used as a tool of diplomacy.²

Holttum, who was took on the position as Director of the Gardens from 1925, is credited with the popularization of the technique of orchid hybridisation that facilitated the orchid becoming prestigious.³ However, itwas the international flower shows and exhibitions that placed Singapore’s orchids on the world map. Timothy Bernard explains that when Tan Chay Yan’s hybrid orchid the Vanda won the highest honour in the horticultural world at the Chelsea Flower Show in 1954 it placed ‘Singapore as a powerhouse on the world map of orchid cultivation.’⁴ The presence of the orchids within international diplomacy soon became national interest with the Sunday Standard reporting that Queen Elizabeth was presented with a bouquet of orchids flown from Singapore to London cultivated at the Botanic Gardens in Singapore.⁵The gifting of them to one of the most important diplomatic figures of the time, marked by the Queen’s position as Head of the British Empire that ruled over Singapore, evidences how the garden’s orchids had begun to be recognized as an important symbol for the nation within international diplomatic circles. The New Nation also reported how Singapore’s leaders were ‘saying it with orchids’ when welcoming New Zealand’s governmental visitors on their visit to the botanical gardens.⁶ Again, this exemplifies the plant being used as an offering of friendship within international politics. Alongside orchids being given to important foreign dignitaries, in 1956 following the nation’s independence, Singapore’s Botanic Gardens began the “VIP Orchid Naming” Program at the Gardens. This was an official government practice that named orchids for visiting dignitaries and celebrities such as Michael Jackson.⁷The timing of this program is also significant it began in the same year Singapore received independence, as Bernard argues the program thus exemplifies an effort from Singapore to ‘enter complex, scientific, economic and diplomatic networks’ that were not controlled or overlooked by their previous colonial rulers.⁸ The focus on orchids as a symbol that embodied honour and prestige not only in the Gardens but internationally continued into the late 20^th century. In 1990, in an interview with The Strait Times, the Chief Executive Director of the new board at the Botanic Gardens, Dr Tan, emphasised that an ‘immediate goal was to get the Orchid Garden at the Botanic Gardens going’.⁹ The directors believed that this achievement would turn the botanic garden into a ‘national asset’.⁸This reinforces how still forty years later, the orchids were an emblem that added an additional political function into the Garden, one that impacted within national and international realms.

This blog post’s investigation using newspaper reports and Bernard’s in-depth evaluation of Singapore’s Botanic Gardens reveals how the Garden’s orchids became a symbol of friendship, prestige and honour that was recognized and respected internationally from the 1950s until the present-day. This exemplifies how the space and objects within the Garden took on many functions and how over time different functions were prioritised. If we look beyond the Garden’s traditional definition as an institution of science and consider the space as a ‘living museum’ it helps to discover and explain these differing functions. This specific case of orchid diplomacy suggests that a further investigation of the Singapore Botanic Gardens or other botanic gardens could reveal other examples of the space being used for purposes outside of the gardens traditional scientific role which suggests that it potentially providing an interesting space for a long-essay investigation.

1. R. E. Holttum, “The Historical Significance of Botanic Gardens in S.E. Asia,” TAXON 19, no. 5 (1970): pp. 707-714, https://doi.org/10.2307/1219283, 707. [↩]
2. Timothy P. Barnard, Nature’s Colony Empire, Nation and Environment in the Singapore Botanic Gardens (Singapore: NUS Press, 2016), 131. [↩]
3. Ibid., 127. [↩]
4. Ibid., 129. [↩]
5. “Malayan Orchids For The Queen,” Sunday Standard, May 27, 1951, 3. [↩]
6. “Saying It with Orchids,” New Nation, 1973, 3. [↩]
7. Barnard, Nature’s Colony, 132. [↩]
8. Ibid. [↩] [↩]
9. “Turning National Parks into ‘Global Asset’,” Strait Times, June 9, 1990, 8. [↩]

“At first, Guizhen was in the public school of Zhabei. When she was fourteen years old, she was about to graduate, however, due to some reason, she dropped out of school. From then on, she was unemployed and stayed at home. When she was sixteen years old, Shenxianshijie promoted feminism and also admired her name, and hired her to be a waitress.” ¹

— Xiao Yan, “Kuaile Shijie”.

The above paragraph is quoted from a story published in Kuaile shijie (Happy World) which was a newspaper established in Shanghai in 1927. The story is about two waitresses Wu Guizhen and He Zhenbao who worked for Shenxian Shijie, a cabaret. In the story of Wu, the author mentions that she was hired because Shenxian Shijie promoted feminism. Also, after she started to work for the cabaret, Wu was able to make twenty five yuan a month, in addition to the amount of tip she earned is the double of the fixed salary. Therefore, the whole family of Wu relied on her income.² The way the author phrased the life story of Wu implies the existence of feminist elements in her choice of work and the cabaret. However, the real life of the hostesses and waitresses may suggest the opposite. This newly appeared gender dynamic due to the appearance of a new gender interaction brought by cabarets and dance halls between males and females created a hallucination of the rise of feminism in Shanghai in the 1930s. This new gender dynamic could be viewed as a new extended form of the traditional male and female power dynamic outside of the domestic sphere, and the existence of the element of feminism which Kuaile shijie observed in the life stories of these two waitresses is questionable.

One of the reasons why there was considered to be a rising trend of feminism in Shanghai was because of the appearance and popularisation of cabarets and dance halls which created more job opportunities for women and a new form of gender relation which did not exist in China before the 1920s. The former is not hard to understand, just like the author of Kuaile shijie described that the whole family of Wu relied on her income, which somehow won women a more important status in their family. This new economic advantage of women also seems to lift the social status of women in the early half of the twentieth century in Shanghai. The latter requires more explanation. Dance halls and cabarets created a space where males and females could establish an intimate relationship without the intervention of senior family members which is unprecedented in Chinese society. The dance halls and cabarets were different from conventional prostitution and brothels. Hostesses and waitresses had more publicity and fame. Then when men went to cabaret, they did not simply seek sexual consumption. As Andrew Field argued in his book Shanghai’s Dancing World, male patrons sometimes do not aim for sexual activity while ‘courting’ a hostess. They use many ways, including treating her to dinner, taking her out to a show, or buying her gifts, to establish a relationship with the hostess.³ On a superficially level, it seems that a famous and influential hostess gained the power which could attract men to please her and somehow reversed the conventional gender structure of society.

This new gender relation brought by the appearance of the cabaret created the impression that feminism was rising and developing in Shanghai. However, it did not dismantle the traditional gender dynamic, because it did not change the underlying unequalness between males and females. The courting practices in a dancehall or a cabaret of a male patron did not imply a superior status of women but rather more explicitly reveal the demand of men to share a consensual experience shared among male patrons that facilitated a male-male relationship in contrast to heterosexual bond.⁴ Ueno Chizuko expressed a similar point in her book Misogyny that a man, by imitating other males’ sexual desires, becomes the subject in a heterosexual relationship. Having a sexual relationship with females is a way to imitate other males’ sexual desires and a way to be accepted by the group of the male gender.⁵  Then the practice of courting and ‘winning’ a waitress is a pass for males to enter the world of masculinity.

This demand for affirming one’s masculinity may originate from the fast development and urbanisation of Shanghai as a city that represents modernity where people come together in greater numbers than ever before. City destroyed the traditional social structure and hierarchy of ancient China, in which society was made up of many units of families. Without this traditional familial structure, men lacked the confirmation of traditional masculinity because they no longer played the role of the head of the family. In cities, a new power dynamic is constructed. These institutions were not family-centred, such as administrative institutions, gangs, and large enterprises, in these places, men automatically lost their given superior status in their own families, and the dominant positions were controlled by a limited number of men who might be considered to be the most capable, and in the case of Shanghai by westerners. Therefore, the cabaret and dancehall became a new place to either conspicuously show one’s masculinity or seek reconfirmation of it. Then the underlying narrative of the gender dynamic in a cabaret still objectifies women. The feminism which Shenxianshijie claimed to promote does not exist.

1. Kuaile Shijie, 1927. 02. 22, p. 3. [↩]
2. Ibid, p.3 [↩]
3. Andrew Field, Shanghai’s Dancing World: Cabaret Culture and Modernity in Old Shanghai, 1919-1954 (2010), p. 128. [↩]
4. Ibid,p. 128. [↩]
5. Ueno Chizuko, Misogyny (2015, SanLian). [↩]

It is a common sentiment that the internet age has brought on rapid and radical changes to the world in almost every aspect – creating new and commonly used methods of communication, information exchange, industry, and so on. Despite all of this, the spatial dynamics and history of the internet age remains woefully understudied in an academic context. In this short blog post, I wish to make the case for ‘virtual spaces’, or perhaps more accurately, spaces adjacent to the virtual as being worthy of dedicated study, and as being important in modern cultural history. In my opinion, South Korea offers some particularly rich examples that are worthy of academic attention.

While the PC Cafe exists as a concept and space in western culture, it is often associated with negative images. The PC Cafe is often conceived as being grimy, worn down, outdated and in general far from an appealing space – something that stands in stark contrast to the South Korean ‘PC방’ or ‘PC Bang’. The PC Bang is defined as a space that is appealing and unique from a PC Cafe, despite the fact that at the most basic level, both spaces offer similar services.^[1] This is a space that is obviously and unambiguously associated with the virtual – PC Bangs seen primarily as a place where people can play specifically online competitive video games, many of which involve teamwork and communication – an example being the ever popular League of Legends. While it would be a mistake to overemphasize the importance of these spaces in South Korean culture, their rise to prominence in the late 1990s and 2000s – long before video games, especially in a competitive context, would enter the ‘mainstream’ – and their alleged prominence amongst the younger generations in South Korea suggests that there is potentially unique spatial dynamics at play.^[2]

The PC Bang is also closely associated with another spatial construction relatively unique to South Korea – that of the esports ‘event’ – a broad analogue to a sports event, where organized leagues test the skills and abilities of the best players of a specific video game. The two key factors that in my opinion make these events worth analyzing from a spatial construction is their notable level of popularity and complexity. In the case of the latter, esports events and leagues in South Korea have been historically able to construct elaborate studios and stages to facilitate themselves. An example can be found in that of the permanent studio utilized by the Global Starcraft II League, or GSL – which is covered in lights and displays, seating for spectators, live commentators in both English and Korean, and an atmosphere that is analogous to that of a baseball stadium, but still unique.^[3] Regarding the point of popularity, esports events in South Korea have demonstrated the ability to draw in significant live crowds – one example can be found in the 2005 ProLeague finals, which saw over 100,000 people arriving live to watch two teams compete in Starcraft: Brood War.^[4] While esports events in the 2000s in the west mostly consisted of grass roots, community driven events, esports events in South Korea were considered popular enough to warrant the investment of large businesses such as SK Telecom and the KT Corporation, respectively responsible the successful and roughly two decades old esports teams known as T1 and KT Rolster.

While the examples discussed in this short post are based in South Korea, there are similar cases of unique and influential virtual spaces across East Asia as a whole, which only further emphasizes the unmined potential in this area of research. Virtual spaces are also interesting in my opinion due to their very modern origins and fast rate of development. While this does pose challenges in terms of research, with an overload of available information making separating the useful information from noise difficult, the entrenchment of the internet in modern life means that is almost certainly going to be a problem that historians will have to deal with at some point.

^[1] Tae-gyu, Kim. ‘`PC Bang’ Emerges as New Way of Promotion’. The Korea Times, 23 July 2007.

^[2] Tae-gyu, Kim. ‘`PC Bang’ Emerges as New Way of Promotion’.

^[3] Olsen, Creighton. ‘GSL Studio: The Heart And Seoul Of Starcraft’, 13 January 2020.

^[4] Erzberger, Tyler. ‘Beaches of Busan Awash in Esports History’. ESPN.Com, 28 July 2017.

Tourist handbooks act as useful primary sources when studying nineteenth century East Asian history. Since they were written for outsider, they are usually in Western languages, making them more accessible than most other sources. Furthermore, these guidebooks can offer insight into messages those behind the books wished to send, regarding their own country, the region in question, or the success of colonial projects. A Handbook For Travellers in Japan was written by Basil Hall Chamberlain, a British academic studying Japanese language and culture. Therefore, while not being directly influenced by the Japanese government, Chamberlain was likely tuned in to current event surrounding the nation, specifically around the island of Taiwan, which had been annexed by Japan in 1895. Between his handbook published in 1901 and a new edition published in 1907, subtle changes help show how the colonial government was consolidating control across the island, and how from a European perspective this impacted the potential for tourism in Taiwan.

In both versions, the general description of the island remains unchanged. However, in the 1907 edition a small passage had been removed. This described Taiwan as “a very unsettled state, owing to frequent risings of the Chinese”. Its removal could indicate that the Japanese government was eager to display the success of its actions in Taiwan to Western nations. Later in the 1907 guidebook, Chamberlain says that both the West and North of the island are fully accessible, “though in some parts it is advisable not to travel after dark”. This represents a significant change from just 6 years earlier, where Chamberlain noted that “practically only the capital and the larger ports are accessible”. That these are two of the most obvious edits between the guidebooks shows that the Japanese government wanted to make it clear that their operations on “civilising” Taiwan had been successful, and that more of the island was safe for travellers to visit.

The greatest difference between the two editions is an entirely new section on rail travel in Taiwan. While completely absent from the 1901 edition of the guidebook, the 1907 edition mentions that rail travel now connects Taipei in the North with other cities in the South of the island. The addition signifies the rapid construction of land routes across the island, likely constructed to provide additional security for Japanese administrators. Nevertheless, this method of travel had now become open to the public, and represented a new way to experience the island compared to travel by steamer, frequently complained about in both editions for missing the most scenic parts of the island.

Aline Demay argued that “tourism is a major and indispensable player in colonial policies”. Chamberlain’s guidebooks seem to indicate that the opposite is also true. Upon annexing Taiwan, the Japanese government’s aims were to open up the island to travel by colonial authorities, and to remove the threat of attack from both Chinese rebellions and from the indigenous people living in the highlands. By doing both of these, Taiwan also became an achievable destination for European travellers, though some intrepid spirit would still be necessary to visit much of the island. The creation of rails, vital for colonial policy, would turn out to be equally vital for enabling European tourism across the island.

Sources

Chamberlain, Basil Hall, A Handbook For Travellers in Japan, (1901, London).

Chamberlain, Basil Hall, A Handbook For Travellers in Japan, (1907, London).

Demay, Aline, Tourism and Colonization in Indochina (1898-1939(, (2014, Cambridge).