The life of a gangster is never simple or pleasant. Not least the life of the ‘Godfather’ of Shanghai, a city crawling with endless opportunities for ambitious criminals. Du Yuesheng’s life of lawlessness was borne out of a troubled childhood, with the early loss of his parents and his sister being sold into slavery. From an early age, Du grew an appetite for gambling and gaming, an aspect of his personality that Martin claims, ‘instilled in him a certain self-discipline that curbed his natural outbursts of violent temper.’¹ This is likely a trait that aided his rise to leadership of the Green Gang, one of the world’s most infamous secret criminal organisations. This blog aims to consider the life of the gangster against the unique backdrop of extraterritoriality and Japanese occupation. Whilst his full story is worthy of a full and extensive biography (see Zhang Jungu and Xu Zhucheng’s accounts), this post will highlight his rise to prominence and maintenance thereof in the labyrinthine political environment and dark and murky spaces of Old Shanghai.

²

After a childhood of petty hooliganism, theft and mischief, he impressed the then ‘bigshot’ of the Green Gang, Huang Jinrong, whose power derived from his illustrious and efficient career as the leader of the Chinese detective squad in Shanghai’s French Concession. His ability to negotiate and extort from his network of informants and contacts was paramount to his power. Wakeman’s depiction of these detective squads highlights their inescapable association with the criminal underworld.³ Whilst supposedly ‘solving crimes’, they were also assisting their allies in trafficking opium, running brothels, casinos and protection rackets.⁴ Having impressed Huang, Du swore the oath of brotherhood to the Gang and quickly began to make his impression. Martin notes how his full embracing of secret society values  and rituals and ‘rags to riches’ story helped generate influence of ‘legendary proportions’.⁵Indeed, power over the Green Gang was his after Huang Jinrong’s arrest in 1924. It is extremely important to note this ‘reputation’, which, comparably to Chicago’s Al Capone won him political clout and influence in elite government circles. His dominance of the opium trade, which remained rife throughout the Nanjing Decade, drew him close to General Chiang Kai Shek, leader of the Republic. Images like the one below, have in many ways come to crystallise the social space of Shanghai as decadent, debauched and rife with vice. The narco-economy was seen as a vital source of income for the Republic, and it is characteristic that Du was put in charge of the ‘Shanghai Opium Suppression Bureau’, which ultimately gave the Green Gang a monopoly of the market and extra income from tax and license fees.⁶ Such a bureau indeed simply acted as a guise for the government to control and earn more revenue.

⁷

The spaces Du Yuesheng controlled and operated were spaces of shade and criminality and in a city like Shanghai this made him important to the invading Japanese force in 1937. By 1939, the Japanese had offered Du safe passage and protection to Shanghai (having fled after backing the Kuomintang Army), to mobilise the Green Gang and operate the opium trade on their behalf.⁸Perhaps in a move out of character, he turned down the opportunity, instead favouring to find his own ways of smuggling opium into Japanese territory. Why he did this is unclear, however it is likely he was still ideologically committed to Chiang and Dai Li and preferred to supply his narcotics to the Nationalists. This puzzling decision is perhaps representative of the complex network of relationships between gangs, their rivals, businesses, municipal councils and invading forces in Shanghai. Indeed, Du himself could not conquer all of Shanghai. The Shanghai Municipal Police were a constant foe in his battle to deal opium legally in the International Settlement.⁹

A key aspect of Du’s administration of power was his extensive network of secrets and his control over hierarchy. An example of this was his ‘Endurance Club’, which was a smaller collective of individuals with social standing considered useful to Du. Elites such as industrialists, financiers, police and government officials were all brought into a clandestine arrangement which Du administered personally.¹⁰The operation of such a club relied on the practice of secrecy. Sworn oaths, rackets and protection payments kept the Endurance Club running. One can imagine the teahouses and mansions such meetings Du would have held and the spatial practices that would have characterised them. A meeting with Big-Eared Du would have been intimidating and daunting. Those to displease him or speake out of turn would have been few and far between.

The remainder of Du’s story, outlined in detail by his biographers, is one of relative anti-climax. After the conclusion of Japanese occupation, he was not welcomed back to Shanghai, bringing an end to his premiership as the City’s mob boss. He appears to have travelled to Taiwan and Hong Kong, but much of this period remains unclear.

A fascinating spatial history of his houses and meeting places is waiting to be written. One suspects it may lack the glitz, glamour and romanticism of his American counterparts; however, his operation was remarkable and had a profound effect on Shanghai’s reputation as the Asian capital of vice.

1. Brian G. Martin, “The Shanghai Green Gang: Politics and Organized Crime, 1919–1937” (Berkeley, 1996) p. 41 [↩]
2. Du Yuesheng, c. 1930, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Yuesheng#/media/File:Du_Yuesheng2.jpg [↩]
3. Frederic Wakeman Jr., “Policing Modern Shanghai”, The China Quarterly, No. 115 (Sep. 1988), p. 415 [↩]
4. Zou Huilin, “Du, the godfather of Shanghai”, Shanghai Star, (June, 2001), Accessed 7 March 2023, https://web.archive.org/web/20070821130553/http://app1.chinadaily.com.cn/star/2001/0607/cu18-2.html [↩]
5. Martin, “The Shanghai Green Gang”, p. 40 [↩]
6. Zheng Yangwen, “Shanghai Vice”, in The Social Life of Opium in China, (Cambridge, 2012), p.191, Frederic Wakeman Jr., The Shanghai Badlands: Wartime Terrorism and Urban Crime 1937-41, (Berkeley, 1996), p.11 [↩]
7. Opium Den,1932, https://audiovis.nac.gov.pl/obraz/236216/ecf2fad8b7dbbd753701f03be2bbef34/, [↩]
8. Wakeman Jr., The Shanghai Badlands, p.12 [↩]
9. Martin, “The Shanghai Green Gang”, p. 180 [↩]
10. Ibid, p. 181 [↩]

In 1949, Sir John Forsdyke, Director of the British Museum, lectured to the Royal Society of Arts on how ‘the most important educational service, common to all museums is the entertainment and instruction of children’’.¹ He explained how museums could feature two forms of popular entertainment; ‘music and the cinema’.² Forsdyke’s lecture reflected Gareth Knapman’s observation that during the 19^th century, museums were ‘as much about entertainment as research’³ , and the audience that museums attracted ‘was looking for entertainment’.⁴ I found this shift towards museums becoming spaces for popular entertainment instead of practices for solely academically important topics interesting, as this shift also occurs within Singapore’s Botanic Garden. This blog post focuses on how the development of the museum into a space of entertainment also occurs in Singapore’s Botanic Gardens. This is an important focus as it is a useful contribution towards my broader long essay idea that the Singapore Botanic Gardens was Singapore’s first museum. The Singapore Botanic Gardens strayed from its defined purpose of a space for ‘the scientific study of plants’ as it increasingly accommodated entertainment practices.⁵ The specific entertainment practices in the Singapore Botanic Garden that this blog post will examine are the Gardens’ weekly band performances.

The significance of band performances within the Singapore Botanic Gardens is immediately apparent through their mention in the first by-law published in the Official Guide to the Gardens, printed by the Singapore government in 1889.⁶

‘The Botanical Gardens shall be open to the public daily from sunrise to sunset, and, on nights when the Band plays, to 11 p.m.’⁷

This specific mention highlights the importance of entertainment to the Gardens because the by-laws represented the official rules of governance and conduct indicating that entertainment was a formally approved function of the Gardens. Furthermore, extending the opening hours from their regular timings illustrates the Garden purposely catering to the performances and their audiences, suggesting entertainment practices were not only approved but encouraged. The official guide served as the principal medium by which the government communicated to visitors how they wanted the gardens to be viewed and used. Thus, this reference to band performances within the first page publicised not only to officials but also to ordinary visitors that the bands, and other entertainment events, were an integral, standard, and unquestioned service of the Gardens despite their lack of relation to the Gardens’ traditional focus on scientific research. The performances were also a focus of the Garden’s Annual Reports, which featured a section for ‘concerts’.⁸ This section recorded the number of performances that year and other shows, such as ‘variety shows’ staged in the Gardens.⁹ This official practice of recording the entertainment practices further emphasises how the entertainment function of the Gardens was considered important because it was monitored in the same way and within the same medium as the Gardens’ scientific practices. This illustrates how similar to museums, the Singapore Botanic Gardens developed into a space that was ‘as much about entertainment as research’.

Alongside the band performances featuring in the Gardens’ official publications, multiple Singapore newspapers published articles on the performances and advertised when they would occur. For example, the Singapore Monitor included a column covering the time and specific band that would be performing that week in the Gardens.¹⁰The bands performed ‘every Sunday’, and the types of bands ranged from school bands, such as the ‘Bartley Secondary School Band’, to official police bands, such as the ‘National Police Cadet Corps Combo’.⁹ This inclusion of school bands demonstrates the Garden’s spatial practices again aligning with Forsdyke’s focus on museums entertaining children indicating how the themes within the development of museums’ spatial practices are also applicable to Singapore’s Botanic Gardens. Moreover, newspapers detailing the time and type of bands reveals how the public were interested in attending the Botanic Gardens for these events. This again suggests how not only in official discourses such as the by-laws and annual reports was the Garden considered a space for entertainment purposes, but within general society, the Garden was consistently advertised and considered as a space of entertainment.

Overall, the process of entertainment activities becoming an increasingly central spatial practice within museums also occurs in Singapore’s Botanic Garden. The Gardens hosted weekly music performances that it would stay open longer than usual for, and ‘concerts’ were tracked and monitored in official government reports on the Gardens. These characteristics reveal how, within official discourses, entertainment was considered a dominant spatial practice within the Gardens. Furthermore, national newspapers continuously informed the public of these performances highlighting how the Gardens were also becoming known in popular society through these entertainment practices signalling how entertainment became a critical service within a space, that similar to the museum, was traditionally confined to non-entertainment services. This similarity between the two spaces demonstrates a characteristic that indicates the Singapore Botanic Gardens should be considered Singapore’s first museum.

 

1. John Forsdyke, “The Functions of a National Museum,” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 97 (1949): pp. 506-517, https://doi.org/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41363863, 513. [↩]
2. Ibid., 514. [↩]
3. Sarah Longair and John McAleer, Curating Empire (Manchester University Press, 2012), 91. [↩]
4. Ibid., 82. [↩]
5. John William Purseglove, “History and Functions of Botanic Gardens with Special Reference to Singapore,” Gardens’ Bulletin Singapore, 1959, pp. 125-154, 125. [↩]
6. Guide to the Botanical Gardens (Singapore: Government Printing Office, 1889). [↩]
7. Ibid., 1 [↩]
8. Annual Report of the Botanic Gardens Department (Singapore: Government Printer, 1950), 4. [↩]
9. Ibid. [↩] [↩]
10. “Miscellaneous Column,” Singapore Monitor, March 9, 1985, 18. [↩]
11. Singapore Listens, Malaya Tribune, November 29, 1948, 8. [↩]
12. Ibid [↩]

The unique political status of extra-territoriality meant the treaty-port city of Shanghai was split into three settlements which were each policed independently by four different police agencies: the Shanghai Municipal Police (SMP) for the International Settlement, the Concession Police for the Frenchtown and the Nationalist Garrison Command’s military police and the Chinese Special Municipality’s public safety bureau.¹ Isabella Jackson explores how policing within the SMP was shaped by the opinion that ‘all anticipated threats were Chinese’.² Police forces partly act to enforce social norms, and this is significant in colonial contexts when social norms were new and artificial.³ Thus, this post argues that the SMP’s heavy-handed tactics towards the ordinary Chinese population evidences an attempt to consolidate Britain’s unofficial influence within Shanghai through reproducing a colonial social hierarchy. The post will demonstrate this by examining the Sikh branch of the SMP. It will use a letter to the editor of the North-China Daily News concerning the behaviour of a Sikh constable towards a Chinese coolie, to evidence the everyday role of the SMP within the Settlement and the everyday low-level violence towards the Chinese population.

In 1892, the North China Herald published a letter from an ‘eyewitness’ addressed to the editor of the North-China Daily News. ((“The Sikh Police,” The North-China Herald, September 16, 1892, 416.)) It recounted the author witnessing a

‘Sikh constable on duty at the corners of Chekiang and Nanking Roads called to the ricsha coolie to stop, walked up to him, struck him with a full blow on the breast, turned him round, kicked him from behind, and then pointed to him to go on the Chekiang road.’ ((Ibid.))

Firstly, the letter evidences the routine police work of the SMP’s Sikh branch. All police have the principal priority of maintaining social order, and the Sikh branch, because of their intimidating physical stature, were tasked with bringing order to the heavy and disorganised traffic within Shanghai’s urban space.⁴ This spatial distribution of the Sikh constables resulted in them having a constant physical presence in all the busiest areas within the International Settlement. This was significant as they became the most visible and interacted with symbol of British presence in Shanghai.

Alongside the letter exemplifying Sikh constables’ traditional policing roles, the letter’s description of the constable’s violent actions supports Jackson’s observation that ‘Indian constables had a particular reputation for violence’.⁵ The author expands in their letter to write that they ‘have seen several instances of Sikh policemen maltreating natives’,⁶evidencing the significant tensions between the Chinese population and the Sikh police. However, unlike the letter suggests, the tension should not be only considered a result of the Sikhs’ nature, as Jackson noted the Sikhs ‘were encouraged [by the SMP] to employ corporal punishment against Chinese.’⁷This reinforces this post’s exploration of how the SMP had an aggressive attitude toward the Chinese populace; thus, it is unsurprising that their officers replicated this attitude. The SMP’s entrenched discrimination towards the Chinese reflects an attempt to replicate official colonial societies where local populations were subdued to create a social hierarchy to establish urban control. As Jackson explores, there was a ‘racist logic operating in Africa and India that force was required to prevent crime among colonial population’.⁸ Furthermore, the violence not only being shown by the Sikh branch but also the wider SMP emphasises how the British were attempting to create this social hierarchy and secure their uncertain presence. This is also implied by how the letter was sent by an ‘eyewitness’ suggesting the author wanted to hide their identity, implying unjust violence towards ordinary Chinese was not uncommon within the Settlement, and it may have even been frowned upon for a non-Chinese to find an issue with it.

Furthermore, the letter notes, ‘it is a disgrace to the Model Settlement to have Sikhs knocking people about as they do.’⁹This suggests how the eyewitness was concerned with the actions of the constable impacting the broader reputation of the Settlement. It illustrates how the police represented the public face for both the Settlement and the British empire, reinforcing how police were considered to embody and enforce the desired social norms of the governing nation. Thus, it is evident why even within the everyday roles of SMP’s officers, there was a significant focus on recreating a colonial hierarchy within society to achieve urban control.

Overall, the letter published in the NCH exemplifies Sikh police brutality towards a Chinese coolie. The violence, as the author indicates was not a unique event. This blog post’s examination of the letter, in conjunction with Jackson’s conclusions on policing in Shanghai, supports how violence towards ordinary Chinese was a common event. However, it more significantly helps to reveal how the violence towards the local population was not only confined to Sikh constables; the SMP encouraged and held an unofficial policy of active discrimination against the local population. This policy reflects a desire to create an illusion of colonialism by replicating the social hierarchy of official colonialism which helped achieve urban control.

1. Frederic Wakeman, “Policing Modern Shanghai,” The China Quarterly 115 (1988): pp. 408-440, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741000027508, 408. [↩]
2. Isabella Jackson, “Policing and Conflict in Shanghai,” in Shaping Modern Shanghai Colonialism in China’s Global City (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 113-163, 114. [↩]
3. Robert A. Bickers and Christian Henriot, “Who Were the Shanghai Municipal Police, and Why Were They There? The British Recruits of 1919,” in New Frontiers: Imperialism’s New Communities in East Asia, 1842-1953 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012), pp. 170-191, 173. [↩]
4. Isabella Jackson, “The Raj on Nanjing Road: Sikh Policemen in Treaty-Port Shanghai,” Modern Asian Studies 46, no. 6 (2012): pp. 1672-1704, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0026749x12000078, 1690. [↩]
5. Jackson, “Policing and Conflict”, 119. [↩]
6. “The Sikh Police,”NCH. [↩]
7. Jackson, “The Raj”, 1691. [↩]
8. Jackson, “Policing”, 114. [↩]
9. “The Sikh Police,” NCH. [↩]

Andrew Gordon’s monograph: Fabricating Consumers: The Sewing Machine in Modern Japan covers the introduction of Western-style sewing machines into Japan, in first half of the twentieth century. Within the book, Gordon uses two figures to display how the sewing machine company Singer advertised its products towards a Japanese audience (Gordon, 2011, p. 63).

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first image shows a traditional Japanese extended family, within a traditional room, crowding round a modern sewing machine. However, the second image displays a similar size family, taking similar positions around an identical sewing machine in an American-style room. Gordon uses these two images to make two arguments. The first is that “Singer… marketed the machine in Japan, as elsewhere, as an emblem of modernity in two senses: that of rational investment on the one hand, and of freedom, style and the pursuit of Western-linked pleasure on the other” (Gordon, 2011, p. 62) . The second argument Gordon offers is that Singer used this “iconographic translation” to appeal to the same demographics as they had in America – a middle-class family, anxious to embrace modernity but still being susceptible to ideas of traditional values when shown within advertisements like this. However, the two advertisements also display a phenomenon visible in East Asian nations at this time, where culture and ideas of modernity were becoming more transnational in nature, specifically oriented to the West.

During the interwar period, debates on modernity in Japan became linked to the positives and negatives surrounding perceptions of the West. On the one hand, modernity inspired by the West often promised increased affluence and liberation, as shown through rapid economic growth and the rise of department stores, where a vast array of items could be purchased at once. However, the growth of modern spaces in Japan was also linked to fears of moral degradation, and the loss of traditional culture (Tipton, 2013). The image of the ‘modern girl’, sporting a Western-style outfit and with hair cut short, represented both the liberation and loss associated with modernity in Japan. As such, while members of the Japanese middle-classes held many aspirational feelings towards items of modernity, they also experienced fear at the rapid pace of change which items such as sewing machines – which struggled to work on Japanese clothing – represented.

This Singer ad shows a potential way to navigate a Western country through this debate, while ensuring that their products still sold well in a Japanese market. The family itself is inspired by modern ideas, as shown by the original source picture the Japanese ad was based on. However, by emphatically placing the sewing machine within a traditional background, Singer attempted to market their product as a symbol of all of modernity’s virtues, with none of the vices which had become the centre of debate. Other companies also mixed Western and traditional symbols to expand their markets. Mitsukoshi, a Japanese department store, advertised many cosmetic products using Western styles and symbols in its journals, which also promoted Japanese culture, and worked closely with the government in its coverage of the colonial developments of the 1930s. Overall, Singer’s sewing machine, like many artefacts symbolising modernity, marketed themselves to East Asian audiences as representing smaller cultural and technological steps than they perhaps did. This helped to avoid such items being tied to ideas of degeneracy or a loss of traditional values, making them more marketable in the inter-war period.

Sources

Gordon, Andrew, Fabricating Consumers: The Sewing Machine in Modern Japan (2011, Berkeley).

Mitsukoshi: Opening Up, in Ambaras, David and McDonald, Kate, Bodies and Structures 2.0: Deep-Mapping Modern East Asian History. Available at: https://bodiesandstructures.org/bodies-and-structures-2/mitsukoshi-opening-up?path=in-the-pages-of-mitsukoshi [Accessed 20/02/2023].

Tipton, Elise, ‘Moving Up and Out’ in Freedman, Alisa, et al., Modern Girls on the Go: Gender, Mobility, and Labour in Japan, (2013, Stanford), pp. 21-40.

Hong Kong was one of the last British colonial holdings to be decolonized – with the handover of the territory to Chinese authorities taking place in 1997. With only around two and a half decades having passed since then, the legacies and memory of Hong Kong as a part of the British Empire still hold significant influence within the territory. One of the most dramatic displays of this influence could be seen in the 2019-2020 protests, where protesters could be seen waving British flags, and the flag of colonial Hong Kong.^[1] Outside of these political displays however, cultural legacies of Hong Kong’s past can be viewed in other places – including commercial settings.

 

The Tea WG company was founded in 2008 in Singapore, and has quickly established itself as a prominent multinational business within its area of tea, basing its brand identity around luxury.^[2] Within the 2010s, the business has expanded operations within Hong Kong, opening new stores and restaurants – of which the latter are especially interesting to examine from a spatial standpoint.^[3]

 

The stores themselves create a ‘colonial’ atmosphere through their aesthetics. They are bright and colorful stores, with large open windows and a golden-yellow tinted color palette. Rows and rows of tea caddy tins line the interior of these stores, some given evocative colors and names such as ‘Jade Dragon’ and ‘French Earl Grey’.^{[4], [5]} All of these elements serve to create an image of a kind of cosmopolitan, colonial and perhaps Victorian establishment, where one can experience the opulence associated with this romanticized picture. There are other elements that also contribute to the creation of this experience – for example, the staff of TWG outlets dress in formal, somewhat old styled attire that evoke Victorian images of butlers and maids.^[6] One of the key attractions of the outlet in the form of its afternoon tea also furthers this experience with its use of classic European-esque dishes and food.^[7]

 

One potential explanation about the unique set of arrangements that TWG restaurants utilize is that the atmosphere is appealing to the significant expatriate community of Hong Kong and the considerable number of non-Chinese tourists the city attracts. But other examples of similarly styled businesses – such as the Cova chain of coffee shops – the relative level of success and proliferation of the TWG business, and the previously mentioned cases of British flags being woven in political protests all suggest something more than simple appeals to tourism and expatriates. Rather, what this all suggests is that there is a sentiment amongst at least a significant portion of the Hong Kong populace that has a degree of nostalgia for the colonial period, a nostalgia that some businesses have attempted to take advantage of by theming themselves in an appropriate manner.

^[1] Sum Lok-kei. ‘Why Hong Kong Protesters Wave US and British Flags’. South China Morning Post, 22 August 2019.

^[2] La rédaction. ‘TWG Tea, the Best of Tea since 2008’. Luxe Magazine, 2017.

^[3] Castagnone, Mia. ‘Singaporean Luxury Tea House Aims to Win over Chinese Consumers’. South China Morning Post, 3 October 2021.

^[4] ‘Tea WG Boutique at Hong Kong International Airport (香港國際機場精品店)’, 2022. https://teawg.com/international-airport.html.

^[5] Yu, Helen. ‘Tea Time: 8 New Afternoon Tea Sets To Try In Hong Kong This Season’. Tatler Asia, 4 October 2019.

^[6] Tripadvisor. ‘TEA WG AT IFC MALL, Hong Kong – Central’, n.d. http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g294217-d3237777-Reviews-Tea_WG_at_IFC_Mall-Hong_Kong.html.

^[7] Yu, Helen. ‘Tea Time: 8 New Afternoon Tea Sets To Try In Hong Kong This Season’.

The British Museum has a surprising amount of space dedicated to Asia, and specifically China – aside from sections devoted to Chinese jade and its products, and a rather extensive and well cataloged section devoted to Chinese porcelain, there is a section devoted to the region itself. While the fact that entire sections are dedicated to Chinese jade and porcelain is in itself worth examining from a spatial standpoint – ascribing a large degree of focus on the categorization of these singular types of items – what is especially interesting is the framing of the Chinese history section around Buddhism.

The initial view of the section as one enters it is striking – red pillars flow from the front to the back of the area, separating the different subsections. The impression is almost like that of a temple – something that is strengthened by the display in the far back and center of the section. The display is that of three Bodhisattvas overlooking the entire area, dwarfing most of the exhibit physically. If there is a visual narrative created by the spatial layout of the section, it is one that places Buddhism at the center of Chinese history.

The subsections of the area also place an emphasis on Buddhism – for the most part, these sections divide China along temporal lines, by constructions such as ‘early’ and ‘modern’ China, and along dynastic lines. One of the few exceptions to this is the subsection completely devoted to Buddhism in China.

The focus that the section places on Buddhism is noteworthy because while Buddhism is important in Chinese history, it is far from the most important or only element in the history of Chinese religion, culture and spiritualism. Taoism and Confucianism go nearly unmentioned throughout the entire section, while displays that contain artifacts relevant to non-Buddhist religious and spiritual practices are discussed outside their respective contexts.

It is difficult to ascertain exactly why the British Museum decided to frame its China exhibit around Buddhism. One possible reason is due to material limitations – perhaps the Museum simply did not have access to as many artifacts related to Taoism and Confucianism as they did Buddhism. Perhaps the Museum decided that centering the section around the display of the three Bodhisattvas would make for a striking and dramatic image, and themed the section to match. Regardless, it is an interesting example of how a museum can construct narrative through spatial arrangement.  

One might think on the surface that the history of department stores would be pretty dull stuff. On the contrary, it is a fascinating topic, with an almost unlimited scope to draw from. In particular, Brian Moeran’s paper on the history of Japanese department stores reveals a wealth of information about the changing nature of shopping and consumerism in Japan. Having studied modernism and consumer culture for my long essay last year, focusing especially on the flagship companies of Mitsukoshi and Shiseido, I was eager to learn more about department stores, this time taking a look not at the goods on display inside, but from a conceptual stance on how the very concept of a department store was seen as a site of contradiction and control.

In discussing the way that the department store brought modernity to Japan, Moeran states that it “personified the new intelligentsia’s aspirations for enrichment, self-fulfilment and gracious living during the period of Taishou democracy.”¹. In contrast, Jina Kim’s work Urban Modernities in Colonial Korea and Taiwan shows how this was no less true in Korea and Taiwan, but that it came with an inherent contradiction for those living under colonial control. In her chapter on consuming modernity, Kim takes a different angle of analysis in looking at how department stores were viewed in literature, taking two specific short stories as her basis. Like Moeran, she begins by giving a historical overview of department stores in Japan, but then turns her attention to how they were brought over to Korea and Taiwan as part of the Japanese occupation. She shows how what is now such a staple part of daily life was viewed with fear and conflicting feelings for those living under colonial control, as it was a symbol of modernity, but a forced modernity, brought not by their own wishes but as the coloniser’s desire to shape Korea and Taiwan according to their own view of what a ‘modern’ nation ought to look like.

Kim’s work is fascinating for showing how literature can be used as a contemporary source for historical analysis. She notes that the decades of the 1920s and 30s saw heavy crackdowns on political and activist groups, and so literature allowed authors to “spiritedly engage with the changing attitudes toward modern life and the best possible way to make sense of the often insensible modern world.”² By depicting scenes of modern life replete with vivid descriptions of western clothes, shops, food and goods of all kinds, authors were able to make “subtle yet strong leftist critiques” which “[made] the reader question the conditions of urban life.”³ By contrasting authors in Korea and Taiwan, Kim shows the similarities and differences in attitudes in the two countries. Although her analysis on Taiwan is far shorter and could benefit from further examples, her detailed discussion on Korea and the work of Yi Hyosǒk shows how fiction can reveal a wealth of information about daily life and the contradictory views of the time. While the historian has to keep in mind issues with straying into literary analysis, Kim’s work is a brilliant example of how it can be done while keeping a firm historical focus and bringing a new perspective into the existing work on imperialism and colonialism.

1. Brian Moeran, ‘The Birth of the Japanese Department Store’ in Kerrie MacPherson (ed) Asian Department Stores, (Honolulu, 1998), pg. 142 [↩]
2. Jina E. Kim, Urban Modernities in Colonial Korea and Taiwan, (Boston, 2010), pg. 100. [↩]
3. ibid. [↩]