The Presented Spatial Dynamics of Chinese Communes During the Cultural Revolution

‘People’s Communes’, or ‘人民公社’ were one of the key elements of the ill-fated Chinese Great Leap Forward of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Alongside the ‘Four Pests Campaign’  (除四害) and the ‘Backyard Furnaces’ (土法炼钢), the People’s Communes are one of the most well known aspects of the Great Leap Forward. An ambitious project of collectivization, it consisted of combining small agricultural communities into communes, eradicating private ownership and basing life around communal facilities and work. While the economic failings of the People Communes – both in their theory and practice – are well understood, one the most interesting, yet understudied elements of these Communes are their spatial dynamics.

Using a small sample of contemporary posters based around the subject, I want to explore two key themes that seem to be common in the presented spatial dynamics of the People’s Communes.

The first theme – one that is overwhelmingly present in nearly every propaganda poster relevant to the People’s Communes – is that of material plenty, of bountiful harvests and overflowing stores of foodstuffs. This theme is evident even in posters that are disconnected from agricultural topics. For example, the poster ‘When the dining hall is well-run, the production spirit will increase’ designed by Hu Yuelong, which focuses on the communal dining halls of the People’s Communes, features a large platter of food being brought to the already eating denizens of the hall.[1] However the poster which emphasizes this aspect of the People’s Communes the most is ‘The people’s commune is good, happiness will last for ten thousand years’, created by an unknown designer.[2] While the band of people takes prominence in the foreground of the image, they are physically dwarfed by agricultural produce, which dominates the background of the poster.[3] Huge, overflowing baskets of wheat and wool tower towards the sky, while the ground itself is obscured by a swarm of pigs and chickens.[4] The image’s sense of perspective also gives the sensation of the barrels continuing beyond the confines of the poster – creating an overall impression of boundless plenty, of an environment that can provide the many with even more.[5]

‘The people’s commune is good, happiness will last for ten thousand years’ 

‘When the dining hall is well-run, the production spirit will increase’

 

The second theme is that of generational harmony and cooperation – of the old and the young living and working together in harmony. This is a slightly more subtle theme, rarely if ever the primary point of the singular poster, but is near ever present, a consistent element throughout many of the posters. Hu Yuelong’s ‘When the dining hall is well-run, the production spirit will increase’ once again provides an example – with young children in the background, an older man in the middle ground, and a young adult woman in the foreground of the image.[6] Of particular note is the older man and the young adult woman, who appear to be both workers in the dining hall, with the older man carrying food, and the young adult woman carrying a tea cloth – creating an impression of the generations working, eating and living together.[7] The poster ‘The future of the rural village’ created by Zhang Yuqing provides another example of this theme, showcasing a future where farmers work in tandem with mechanized equipment in a rural setting.[8] The image creates an impression of old and new working together in multiple ways – the first being the rural, almost traditional setting of the image, with rolling hills under blue skies – being populated by artifacts of modernity – an electrical pole, a telephone, and mechanized farming equipment.[9] Another way in which the image furthers this theme is in the clothing of the people depicted in the image. Their clothing is for the most part modern – with jeans, overalls, and patterned shirts being prominent – but stands in contrast with their hats, which appear to be more traditionally styled, resembling ‘dǒulì’ or ‘斗笠’ style hats.[10] Theme of harmony between generations is more esoteric in its presentation in ‘The future of the rural village’, but is still present, speaking more to concepts of older traditions and new innovations working harmony, while ‘When the dining hall is well-run, the production spirit will increase’ is more concerned with harmony across human generations.

 

‘The future of the rural village’

 

Obviously, it would be foolish to take the presented themes discussed here at face value – not only because it is just a small slice of the larger concept of the People’s Communes, but because the lived experience of these Communes differed tremendously from the ideas that drove them. Still, there is use in examining the presented spatial dynamics of them as it allows us to assemble a more complete image of the planning and mindset that informed the Great Leap Forward as a whole – something, that in my opinion, requires further investigation.

[1] Hu Yuelong. When the Dining Hall Is Well-Run, the Production Spirit Will Increase. December 1958. Print, 53×77 cm.

[2] Unknown. The People’s Commune Is Good, Happiness Will Last for Ten Thousand Years. 1960. Print, 75×54 cm.

[3] Unknown. The People’s Commune Is Good, Happiness Will Last for Ten Thousand Years.

[4] Unknown. The People’s Commune Is Good, Happiness Will Last for Ten Thousand Years.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Hu Yuelong. When the Dining Hall Is Well-Run, the Production Spirit Will Increase.

[7] Hu Yuelong. When the Dining Hall Is Well-Run, the Production Spirit Will Increase.

[8] Zhang Yuqing. The Future of the Rural Village. April 1959. Print, 53.5×76.5 cm.

[9] Zhang Yuqing. The Future of the Rural Village.

[10] Ibid.

Educating Japan: How the Public Health Train was able to Meet the Demands of a Time Conscious Population.

Trains within Japan are an important factor in life because they meet cultural standards which ensure efficient time and promote a work lifestyle. However, due to how integrated trains have become in the everyday life of Japan, they have become spaces which people use for socializing and practicing social etiquette. Trains are also a vital source of advertising and educating, therefore, therefore, allowing the idea of the ‘Public Health Train’ to be established. In 1947, the public health train was used as an exhibit to educate people on issues such as nutrition, dental hygiene, and how diseases can spread. What this train also provided were details of employment within the medical field.1 This train would tour Japan, which allowed an estimated number of 900,000 people to view the exhibit and be granted a better understanding of their own health. Although this train only toured Japan for two years, it changed how space within trains can be used, not only for transportation, but as a source of vital information.

Not only was the space within the train used for education, but by placing this type of exhibit within Japanese train stations, it ensured that it was within the route of workers and students who would have perhaps missed the opportunity to view the exhibit if the exhibit had been placed elsewhere. Therefore, what can be argued is that the public health train was only successful because it met the cultural demands of Japan. By placing the exhibit within a train station, it became accessible to busy workers and students who were expected to comply with strict time schedules.

‘An impressive and colourful ceremony was held November 1 at Harajuku Station, Tokyo, Japan, in commemoration of the opening of the Public Health Train exhibits. The train then moved out to its first three-day stand at Tokyo Central Station and was host to more than 15,000 persons during this period.’2

Alisa Freedman’s Tokyo in Transit: Japanese Culture on the Rails and Road highlights what could be referred to as the waiting culture within Japanese train stations because of how accustomed people had become to using train stations as meeting points and primary methods to get to work or school.3 Therefore, what can be noted is why features such as shops, restaurants, and exhibits were normalized within this space. The notion of waiting allowed this space to be used in a way that would occupy people who were waiting.

Train stations within Japan were and still are a space that occupies perhaps the largest amount of people waiting and this is perhaps why using an exhibit within the form of a train seemed most appealing to its audience. This type of exhibit might have worked within America’s subways or Paris’s metro stations, but not as successfully as in Japan and this is because spatial factors have ensured that cities have room to accommodate the popularity of cars as a means of transport, therefore creating a decline within the usage of trains. Whereas Japan’s narrow streets disenable the prospect of cars becoming high in demand. Therefore, allowing trains, buses, and bicycles to remain the main mode of transport.

  1. Public health and welfare in Japan (1939-1949) p.77. [↩]
  2. Weekly bulletin, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. Public Health and Welfare Section (1947) p.7. [↩]
  3. Alisa Freedman, Tokyo in Transit: Japanese Culture on the Rails and Road (Stanford University Press, 2011) p.11. [↩]

Peaceful Competition at the Panama Pacific International Exposition

This blog post will investigate the Chinese pavilion at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915 to illustrate how as David Raizman and Ethan Robey explored in their book, Expanding Nationalisms at World’s Fairs, during the 20th century, nations began to focus on forms of soft power such as design and production rather than arms to demonstrate their power.1 This post explores the expense, positioning, and critique of the Chinese pavilion at the Panama International Exposition to illustrates how nations used their pavilions at expositions as emblems of themselves in formal politics and general society.

The international political context of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915 was characterised by the opening of the Panama Canal. The canal’s opening shifted global power dynamics by increasing competition in the Pacific. It had made the Pacific easily accessible to China and a space China could begin to compete in. This change in China’s position in the world power standings was subsequently reflected through the excessive grandeur of Chinese pavilion at the Panama exposition. The opening of the pavilion was filled with exorbitant pageantry featuring Qing officials giving various opening day speeches to an extensive crowd.2 As the exposition souvenir guide points out, China ‘appropriated $750,000 and her native artisans to build her pavilion’.((The Souvenir Guide Publishers, Panama-Pacific International Exposition 1915 Souvenir Guide, San Francisco, 1915, 15.)) This expense notably exceeded what other nations, excluding the host, spent on their pavilions. This immense effort that China put into their pavilion illustrates how the Chinese considered the international exposition a crucial place to demonstrate their new power and increasing global presence. This is further implied by how this pavilion contrasted significantly to the previous Chinese pavilion at the international exposition at St Louis in 1904. This was critiqued for the lack of Chinese national symbols and poor exhibition technique and management. It held such minimal significance in China that it was not even organised by Chinese officials but by European and American Chinese Customs Service employees.3This striking difference between the two China pavilions reflects the difference in China’s international position reinforcing how pavilions had become an emblem for nation power within the realm of international politics.

Figure 1. The Souvenir Guide Publishers, Diagram showing Exposition ground plan, Palaces, Courts, Pavilions and Concessions 1915, map, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31175035173163&view=1up&seq=3&q1=diagram, 20.

The importance of international expositions as a place to display national prestige is also evidenced by how the spatial organisation of expositions reflected the global standings of nations. As Raizman and Robey emphasise, in other expositions, the placement of nations represented the ‘sliding scale of humanity’, and physical objects, such as the central transept at the Great Exhibition in London in 1951, were used to resemble the ‘equator’ and the divide between the West and the East.4The ground plan of the Panama exposition shows the China pavilion in an area characterised by Western nations. It is opposite the pavilions of significant American states such as New York City and is neighboured by Canada. This location aligns with China’s desire to be seen by the international community as a state that held power equivalent to that of the US. Furthermore, the size of the Chinese pavilion is comparable to that of other Western nations, whilst nations that would be defined as being in the ‘East’ such as India and Persia, had smaller spaces. This highlights how the size of pavilions was also used to represent for a nation’s power reinforcing how increasingly not only weaponry represented global power.

The final feature of the Chinese pavilion at the Panama expositions that illustrated how pavilions came to represent nation’s global reputation is seen through the criticism towards the pavilion’s attraction of the Underground Chinatown. At the Underground Chinatown, visitors could view caricatures of opium addicts, performances in opium caves and gambling halls.5 The attraction was met by protests from Chinese officials and the Chinese American community before it was eventually shut down. The critique focussed on the racial and cultural humiliation and, most significantly, how the attraction risked China’s reputation within the international community.6  Within the exposition, they did not want to be considered a ‘lost nation’ for fear of the broader global implications this would create.6 This concern on the impact of China’s international reputation was broadcast in both local American Chinese-language newspapers and Western newspapers. This extensive critique not only from Chinese officials but also, the expatriate community and Western journalists and its focus on the international reputation illustrates how pavilions had become seen as an emblem of the nation.

Overall, the excessive expense of the Chinese pavilion, central positioning and concern that the failings of the pavilion would change the world’s perception of China, illustrate how during the early 20th century new ways to present international power had been created. National pavilions at international exhibitions became representations of countries’ global standings that impacted nationals at home and abroad.

  1. David Raizman and Ethan Robey, Expanding Nationalisms at World’s Fairs: Identity, Diversity, and Exchange, 1851-1915 (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2018), 8. [↩]
  2. Ibid., 185. [↩]
  3. Raizman and Robey, Expanding Nationalism, 176. [↩]
  4. Ibid., 28 [↩]
  5. Ibid., 188. [↩]
  6. Ibid. [↩] [↩]

Protests Against Modernisation: How Japanese Authors Document Transportation Infrastructure

Trains and rail lines feature prominently in Japanese literature on modernization and growth, but writers are often critical of the ways in which new modes of transportation transform the areas around them.  In Murakami Haruki’s introduction to Sanshiro by Natsume Soseki, he describes the parallels between his life and the novel’s namesake, sixty years apart.  In 1908, Sanshiro travels for two days to reach Tokyo by steam train, while Murakami makes a similar trip in under four hours on the bullet train.1 Despite the difference in time and circumstances, their reactions to trains and descriptions of them in literature are strikingly similar.  Both Soseki and Murakami associate trains with the perils and confusion of modernity and the challenges posed by rapid technological change.  These literary depictions are not only allegorical, but reflect the reality of political protest against the consequences of modernizing transportation.

In Murakami’s 2014 novel, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, the train-obsessed Tsukuru sees trains and stations as spaces of possibility, beginnings, and endings, but the theme of transport is also associated with the character’s personal trauma and struggles with living in a modern world.  In the novel, trains provide snapshots of “modern” life and the struggles which come with it: “There was still some time before the train opened its doors for boarding, yet passengers were hurriedly buying boxed dinners, snacks, cans of beer, and magazines at the kiosk. Some had white iPod headphones in their ears, already off in their own little worlds. Others palmed smartphones, thumbing out texts, some talking so loudly into their phones that their voices rose above the blaring PA announcements… Everyone was boarding a night train, heading to a far-off destination. Tsukuru envied them. At least they had a place they needed to go to.”2 While trains symbolize the character Tsukuru’s internal turmoil, Murakami also uses physical proximity to trains to describes his own personal experiences of living in poverty.  He remembers that “ the National Railways’ Chūō Line ran by just below the window, which made it horribly noisy… We used to have long freight trains running by until the sun came up.”3 Not only do trains represent inner emptiness in his novel, but in his own life they are a physical manifestation of his financial circumstances in the 1970s.

Despite the separation between Murakami and Soseki, both authors associate the noise of trains with modernity, and characterize it as an unwanted inconvenience.  In contrast to Murakami’s noisy home, Sanshiro describes his University campus as being “extraordinarily quiet. Not even the noise of the streetcars penetrated this far.”4 While the expansion of transportation is often presented as a symbol of progress in historical accounts, Murakami and Soseki question whether the benefits of modernized transportation are truly positive for all.  In Sanshiro, a member of the University faculty exclaims, “They’ve built so damned many lines the past few years, the more ‘convenient’ it gets, the more confused I get.”5 His comment reveals the conflict between the convenience of modernization and the disorientation it generates.

The metaphorical associations between new modes of transportation and “confusion” in literature not only reflect the attitudes of certain communities towards government efforts of modernization, but are also effective forms of political protest.  In Nishiguchi Katsumi’s semi fictional account of the Japanese National Railway’s proposal of a new line connecting Tokyo and Kyoto, he describes the reactions of Kyoto residents who “are drawn in at first but gradually realize that they are about to lose their homes.”6 This is a process that repeats throughout history from the introduction of steam trains in 1872, street cars in 1903, and bullet trains in 1964, all of which rapidly changed the areas they connected and crossed.7 These continuous efforts to modernize transportation heavily impacted communities, but often their negative effects are overlooked in official discourse and historical narratives.8

Literary representations of transportation not only demonstrate its symbolic power, but they also document the impact on communities and the attitudes of citizens, serving as a form of protest.  In Sanshiro, “One streetcar line was to have run past the Red Gate, but the University had protested and it had gone through Koishikawa instead.”4 The University’s ability to lobby the government into redirecting the train line demonstrates the influence of powerful organizations to shape infrastructure, while also revealing the places which are powerless to avoid the disruption of their communities.  While the University remains quiet and undisturbed, other communities will be transformed and perhaps destroyed by the “noise” of modernization.  Nishiguchi’s account provides a case study of this situation fifty years later in 1958.  JNR’s plan for the proposed the line connecting Tokyo and Kyoto overlooked those “for whom the personal costs would be highest: people evicted from their homes and workplaces or condemned to life under the shadow of busy elevated tracks.”9 

While literature often seems detached from reality, the views of Soseki, Murakami, and Nishiguchi reveal that negative attitudes towards modern transportation networks existed for more than a century.  Rather than criticizing “modernisation” itself, their works address the human costs which exist in any fast-paced movement of modernisation. They provide insight into the effects of rapid technological advancement on communities with little political power and document the perspectives of those who don’t feature in historical narratives.

  1. Natsume Soseki, Introduction to Sanshiro (United Kingdom: Penguin Books Limited, 2009). [↩]
  2. Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (London: Random House, 2014), 285. [↩]
  3. Soseki, Introduction to Sanshiro. [↩]
  4. Soseki, Sanshiro, Chapter 2. [↩] [↩]
  5. Ibid. [↩]
  6. Jessamyn Abel, “Invisible Infrastructures of Protest in Kyoto,” in Dream Super-Express: A Cultural History of the World’s First Bullet Train (Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 2022), 20. [↩]
  7. Ailsa Freedman, “Introduction,” in Tokyo in Transit : Japanese Culture on the Rails and Road (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011), 5-6; Abel, “Invisible Infrastructures of Protest in Kyoto,” 34. [↩]
  8. Abel, “Invisible Infrastructures of Protest in Kyoto,” 20-21. [↩]
  9. Abel, “Invisible Infrastructures of Protest in Kyoto,” 39. [↩]

Coffee Evenings in the Hong Kong MTR

The Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway, or MTR, seems to have been rapidly integrated into the day-to-day life of the city since the opening of the Modified Initial System route in 1979. The MTR Corporation’s Annual Report from 1979 is proof enough of this, giving the impression in no uncertain terms that the Corporation was pleased with how the system had been received by the general public.[1] Since then, the system has continued to expand both in size and popularity, with the Modified Initial System being expanded into the Tsuen Wan and Island lines over the course of the 1980s, and the Tseung Kwan O and Airport Express lines over the course of the 1990s, and so on going into the 21st century. One curious, and underreported element of the MTR’s expansion during this period is their method of gathering customer feedback. Instead of the more conventional approaches to gathering feedback, the MTR made use of so-called ‘Coffee Evenings’ hosted at MTR stations, starting in 1991.[2] These took the format of sit down events, taking part in the early evenings, where members of the public would be able to offer their opinions on the MTR to management staff.[3] The issues described as being commonly raised are not especially surprising or of particular interest – being matters such as air conditioning, cleanliness, and service announcements.[4]

What is of particular interest to me is how these events were specifically conducted – what atmosphere they carried, and how the management of the MTR corporation attempted to present themselves with. Unfortunately, the available information on these events is sparse at best – the only information on them that I could find online is documentation from the MTR Corporation itself, in the form of press releases transcribing announcements relating to the events, and the ‘Staying On Track With Your Views’ series, which are annual reports where the MTR responds to the feedback they have received. The limitations of these sources in finding out what these events looked and felt like are obvious – including especially negative or dramatic experiences would not be in the interest of the MTR Corporation, and positive feedback is likely to be focused on disproportionally. Still, these booklets are still useful in presenting the idealized image of the MTR’s Coffee Evenings.

An example of this image can be found in the 1993 edition of Staying On Track With Your Views, which uses a photo of a Coffee Evening as its front page.[5] The atmosphere presented in the photo is friendly, calm, and approachable – with what appears to be relaxed conversations taking place[6]. Plants are scattered around the area, and people of all ages – from children to businessmen – are present, creating an environment not unlike that of a coffee shop.[7] This relaxed and approachable tone is also conveyed in the letter included in the booklet – it ‘cordially invite(s)’ the public to provide feedback, and even includes a phone number that can be used to this end.[8]

As previously mentioned, any further analysis of the MTR’s Coffee Evenings is unfortunately hampered by the lack of available material, especially with regards to material that provides alternative viewpoints – to put it in short, only half of the story has been told. Further investigation is absolutely warranted – given how quickly the MTR seems to have embedded itself into Hong Kong, a more thorough examination of these feedback sessions would perhaps shine a light on the dynamics and lived experience of the MTR in this period, and how the corporation and the public engaged with each other.

[1] Mass Transit Railway Corporation. Annual Report of the Mass Transit Railway Corporation, 1979. 6.

[2] Mass Transit Railway Corporation. Press Release, 1995. 5.

[3] Press Release, 1995. 2.

[4] Ibid. 6.

[5] Mass Transit Railway Corporation. Staying On Track With Your Views, 1993. 1.

[6] Staying On Track With Your Views, 1993. 1.

[7] Ibid. 1.

[8] Ibid. 22.

The Ideology of Architecture

“The design of urban space was no less than a project to socially engineer humanity: architects and urban planners saw the built environment as an instrument to shape the moral values and practices of the populace.”1 

The idea that architects use physical space to shape habits, values, and ideologies is a powerful claim.  In Vietnam, French colonial architecture and socialist architecture took opposing approaches to this manipulation of space.  From the earliest stages of colonial activity in Vietnam, hygiene went hand in hand with colonial authority.  More than half a century later, in the aftermath of the Vietnam war, East German architects were similarly concerned with health, but their approach to designing built environments was very different.

In colonial Indochina, health was a primary concern for the French.  Early manuals written for French settlers promoted hygiene through housing and “offered systematic rules to tropical living.”2 They not only dictated the orientation, materials, and layout of houses, but insinuated the superiority of western sanitation practices through their pseudo-scientific claims about tropical diseases.  Houses built according to these manuals were not only meant to be physically distanced from the indigenous populace for “hygienic” reasons, but to symbolize their distinctiveness through their outward appearance.  As the population of French colonialists grew, the “hill station” of Dalat was established in the mountains of central Vietnam in order to promote the health of colonial soldiers, officials, and elites.  The justification for this project relied on assumptions about the dangers of “tropicality” (which included the inhabitants of the tropics), and allowed the French to build a segregated European area designed to improve (European) health.3 Segregated facilities existed not only in the mountains, but in the infrastructure of cities as well.  The sewer system of Hanoi, a project spurred by the same prejudiced assumptions about tropical diseases, only served the “European quarter” demonstrating how “colonial sewers were part of a larger urban system in which race dictated access to the blessings of modernism.”4 Sanitation, and assumptions about the superiority of western hygiene practices, became a symbol of colonial power asserted through infrastructure and architecture.  

Paul Doumer, L’Indo-Chine Française, Souvenirs (Paris: 1905), https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb34137199k, 70.

Paul Doumer, the Governor-General of French Indochina from 1897 to 1902, published an account of his travels which contrasts the built environment of French areas with other parts of Indochina.  His description of the hospital in Hanoi (a physical monument to modern western medicine) describes its “construction mixte” (mixed construction), neither tropical nor European architecture designed to promote airflow and provide sun protection.5 He includes an image showcasing the the “Palais du Gouvernement” in Saigon which he describes as ideally constructed for “un climat ou il faut pour vivre beaucoup d’air, beaucoup d’espace” (a climate where, in order to live, one needs a lot of air and space).6 His architectural account aligns with assumptions that tropical climates were inherently dangerous to Europeans and that indigenous sanitation practices, infrastructure, and architecture were inferior to western ones.  As a result, colonial houses, hill stations, sewer systems, hospitals, and government buildings physically and symbolically separated French and indigenous forms of hygiene.  The built environment was not only a symbolic assertion of colonial sanitary superiority, but excluded the Vietnamese populace from benefiting from these allegedly superior practices.   

Christina Schwenkel, “Traveling Architecture: East German Urban Designs in Vietnam,” in International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity 2, no. 2: (2014), 164.

In contrast to colonial architecture, in the aftermath of the Vietnam war, “soviet block” architecture dictated hygiene in different way.  In her study of urban Vietnam and East German architecture, Christina Schwenkel compares the the destruction of the Vietnamese city of Vinh to that of Dresden during WWII, and argues that the strategies for rebuilding East Germany were later used in Vietnam.7 In response to vast housing shortages resulting from extensive bombing, complexes like the Quang Trung “Wohnkomplex” in Vinh used the concept of prefabricated housing and Soviet style uniform blocks to provide safe, clean, and modern housing for those whose homes had been destroyed.  In contrast to colonial architecture which was designed to symbolize European superiority, mass housing complexes and “socialist architecture” designed housing in collaboration with Vietnamese architects with the immediate needs of Vietnamese residents in mind.  Despite differences in historical context and approach to design, the goals of socialist German architects reflected those of colonial French architects.  Like the French, German architects saw “modernity” as buildings which “facilitated the flow of air and natural light through the apartments,” and shifted “away from communal living in cramped spaces with shared, outdoor facilities.”8 While complexes like Quang Trung were developed with Vietnamese experts and designed for Vietnamese people, they reflect the same hygiene principles as those emphasized by French colonial architects.  Schwenkel notes that while the project was a collaboration, German architects, “like their colonial predecessors, were the latest in a historical trajectory of non-indigenous architectures and foreign styles of dwelling.”9 Unlike traditional Vietnamese housing which typically separates the “service area” from the “living area,” the layout within the complex followed more Western styles which promoted a more utilitarian use of space.10 

Despite the focus on the immediate needs of Vietnamese citizens and the creation of living spaces designed to promote the health of its residents the Quang Trung “Wohnkomplex,” like French colonial architecture, reflected the agenda of socialist urban planners.  “The state’s social engineering of living space thus focused on the intimate materialities of dwelling to produce new moral and urban socialist citizens.”11 Both the Palais du Gouvernement and the “Wohnkomplex” come with ideological associations built into their very appearance.  

  1. Christina Schwenkel, “Traveling Architecture: East German Urban Designs in Vietnam,” in International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity 2, no. 2: (2014), 159. [↩]
  2. Laura Victoir, “Hygienic Colonial Residences in Hanoi,” in Harbin to Hanoi: The Colonial Built Environment in Asia, 1840-1940 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2014), 234. [↩]
  3. Eric T. Jennings, “Health, Altitude, and Climate,” in Imperial Heights: Dalat and the Making and Undoing of French Indochina (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011). [↩]
  4. Michael G. Vann, “Of Rats, Rice, and Race: The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre, an Episode in French Colonial History,” in French Colonial History 4: (2003), 193. [↩]
  5. Paul Doumer, L’Indo-Chine Française, Souvenirs (Paris: 1905), https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb34137199k, 115. [↩]
  6. Doumer, L’Indo-Chine Française, 70. [↩]
  7. Schwenkel, “Traveling Architecture,” 163. [↩]
  8. Ibid., 165-168. [↩]
  9. Ibid,. 166. [↩]
  10. Ibid., 167. [↩]
  11. Ibid., 161. [↩]

Chinese Domestic Spaces: an analysis of how washing machines liberated women and raised living standards

The domestic space within Chinese households has changed drastically because of socialism and communism, but not all credit can be given the to the change of politics. Instead, credit must be given to the washing machine, which significantly reduced the time in which household chores took women in particular to complete. Although the introduction of the washing machine was an economic development created by the government, the extent in which it allowed women to become liberated could arguably not have been a part of the economic plan. However, consumption overpowered the gender dynamic set out within Chinese households and the washing machine and other household products such as the sewing machine and electric cooker succeeded in making households less restrictive.1

These types of changes became more common within East Asia because of the west’s consumerism influencing countries such as Japan, China and even the Philippines. These new inventions were not only taking over the world but also the domestic roles within households.  ‘The daily American newspapers, such as the Manila Daily Bulletin, Manila Times, and Cable news quickly delivered new ideas to Philippine cities through foreign products and lifestyles.’2 Change was beginning to take root within private spaces, a place which had been somewhat difficult to change through colonisation, but western products had unintentionally shifted the foundations of domestic spaces. Through the use of advertisements these western products enabled households to normalise the convenience and necessity of buy washing machines because they were labelled as sanitary and affordable.

‘The pasig river laundry is bound to go out of business. No one can afford to be without the Boss washing machine. It does the work, saves the clothes, is sanitary and economical.’3

By the 1980’s washing machines and televisions became an expected gift within wedding ceremonies because they were classed a essential products for a newly weds first home. This meant that even rural communities within China were experiencing the western influence and the extent of which this influence was modernising China. Not only that but by introducing televisions to the household, there would be no escape from advertisements. Newspapers, magazines, and televisions would become an essential product for the government to boost their economy through ensuring that people would be convinced to buy these products. However, as stated, it could be argued that the result of promoting these products was not to influence a change within the domestic space, which would shift the expectations placed on women. The washing machine was intended to benefit women and make their housework less time consuming, but the free time in which it provided enabled women to create lifestyle changes. They became restless and looked for employment and because they were able to watch television, a whole new world opened up to them.

‘The need for increased production and availability of consumer durables has been overtly linked by the political leadership to women’s liberation and to the widespread desire among the Chinese citizenry to raise their standard of living.’4

The issue that China perhaps did not predict by boosting their economy through western products was that by allowing households to purchase and watch television, they were enabling them to observe other lifestyles within different spaces throughout the world. This enabled a new demand for better living conditions and social standards. Therefore, the changes presented within the domestic space caused people to become restless because they wanted the same changes to happen outside the home. Furthermore, was even more predominant during Chinas decollectivization period which resulted in less work for villagers because of their work being mostly farm based. The lack of social activity outside of the home resorted in villagers remaining in the home. ‘Noticeably, Xiajia residents spent their increasingly abundant spare time almost entirely in their homes, either in front of the television or at a mahjong table, because there was so little to do in the community.’5 The lack of activities within communities caused households to become dependent on televisions and therefore, this enabled the influence of consumerism to take hold of households which would change not only the expectations place on gender, but also the traditional layout of Chinese homes. How they cleaned, cooked and socialised shifted because products such as the washing machine, television and electric cooker changed the dynamic of housework.

  1. Jean C. Robinson, Of Women and Washing Machines: Employment, Housework, and the Reproduction of Motherhood in Socialist China (The China Quarterly, 1985) pp.40-43. [↩]
  2. Kiyoko Yamaguchi, The New “American” Houses in the Colonial Philippines and the Rise of the Urban Filipino Elite (Philippine Studies, 2006) p.419. [↩]
  3. The Cablenews (1905) p.3. [↩]
  4. Jean C. Robinson, Of Women and Washing Machines: Employment, Housework, and the Reproduction of Motherhood in Socialist China (The China Quarterly, 1985) p.45. [↩]
  5. Yunxiang Yan, Private life Under Sosialism: Love, intimacy, and family change in a Chinese village 1949-1999 (Stanford University Press, 2003) p.29. [↩]

Denechofu as the Blueprint for the Modern Garden City in Japan: What made it different?

Today it is known as the “Japanese Beverley Hills”, but the city of Denenchofu was originally founded on socialistic principles of Ebenezer Howard and realised through the Japanese perspective of developer Eiichi Shibusawa. The city itself is synonymous with words like modern and high quality but how did it reach this star status? Are there aspects of its planning, construction and birth that set it apart from its peer suburbs such as Sakura Shinmachi (Sakura New Town), Meguro Bunkamura (Meguro Cultural Village)?

Within this blog post, I will explore these questions and attempt to answer how the socialistic notions of Howard’s Garden City invariably heightened the success of the city in addition to the instrumental job that Eiichi Shibusawa, played in its creation. Thus, allowing it to reach champion status. I will begin with a dissection and analysis of unique points of interest within Howard’s notion of a Garden City.

“The Garden City is not a suburb, but the antithesis of a suburb: not a mere rural retreat but a more integrated foundation for an effective urban life.”(1)

Howard’s concept of a garden city came into play in 1898 as a socioeconomic planning strategy with the central aim of combatting the ills of the industrialized city(2) . Within this theory, it is clear that Howard and his theory are heavily indebted to a socialist ideology in which the economic viability of the city comes far behind the social and personal fulfilment that its residents should enjoy. His utopian ideas of the Garden City were heavily inspired by Edward Bellamy and his publication ‘Looking Backway (1888)(3). Thus, the garden city was intended to provide an alternative to the suburbs economic and social homogeneity by representing all classes and values(4) .

In the map below, some noteworthy features of Howard’s Garden City are evident.
Firstly, the ratio of city to greenbelt is rather unique; 1,000 acres at the centre for 5,000 of green space. This shows how highly Howard valued parkland space to a low urban population, similarly this is shown in his estimation of a population of 32,000. Historians can also take note of the concentric circles and wedges that form an economic arrangement between producer and consumer: cow pastures, fruit farms, brickfields and asylums/homes show a balance, rather than an overwhelming commercial city.

Figure 1: Ebenezer Howard, diagram of the garden city with central park and rural belt. From Garden Cities of To-Morrow (1898)

Historian Ken Oshima makes it clear that although Denenchofu’s founders aimed to create a garden suburb as per Howard’s vision, it needed to be adapted to Japan. In many ways, what secured the success of Denenchofu was Shibusawa’s philanthropic intentions and concurrence that the development should not driven by economic forces. Thus, paralleling Howard’s social spirit and civic activism(5). Instead of the city being planned to depend on the economic interests of the land companies, lending institutions, or railways companies, it was dependent on a non-profit development company headed by Shibusawa. It was certainly a risk not to build a city based on its potential economic output, but that’s what made Denenchofu unique.

Shibusawa used his highly regarded reputation to raise capital and eventually support for the development. Moreover, Denenfochu’s success could also be attributed, at least in small weight to bursting population of Tokyo and the natural disasters occurring from 1900-1920s that increased the demand for housing outside the city of Tokyo. Nevertheless, the significance of the design of the city should not be overlooked: the coherent street pattern, and hybridization of Western-Japanese style gave the city a sense of urbanity without feeling like a foreign imposed model.

One may argue that Shibusawa did work against Howard’s vision in some ways. For instance: he sold plots of land rather than it being owned communally, in addition, it was less a mix of classes than a neighbourhood for the rising middle class. By 5th May 1928, the Denentoshi Corporation sold all land parcels, and the corporation slowly abandoned its idealistic values for more capitalistic ones(6). Howard’s original concept of an anti-suburb with a degree of self-sufficiency slowly transformed into an oasis of a capitalist society. Its initial success is what caused the demand to grow, which consequently caused the price of land in the city to rise – and so capitalism sang its song. Nevertheless, we can attribute Howard’s ideas to the early success of Denenfochu as a garden city; and Shibusawa’s success as a developer for making it an oasis that capitalism then transformed into the less pure form of a ’garden city’. At the very least, we can reflect on Denenchofu as an actualized fusion of East and West that is still relevant today.

 

(1) Lewis Mumford, “The Garden City Idea and Modern Planning,” in Ebeneezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-Morrow (London, 1945) p.35

(2) Ken Tadashi Oshima, Denenchofu: Building the Garden City in Japan p.140

(3) http://architectureandurbanism.blogspot.com/2010/10/ebenezer-howard-garden-cities-of-to.html

(4) Ken Tadashi Oshima, Denenchofu: Building the Garden City in Japan p.141

(5)Christensen, American Garden City, p.140.

(6) Ken Tadashi Oshima, Denenchofu: Building the Garden City in Japan p.149

Denver’s Chinatown: How Descriptions of Space Condemned a Community

In January of 1890, The Rocky Mountains News, a prominent Colorado newspaper, ran an article on the recent unrest, scheming mobs, and murder plots allegedly unfolding in Denver’s Chinatown.  The story revolved around John Taylor, a Chinese immigrant and the owner of the businesses which comprised Chinatown.  The events had apparently “attracted considerable attention all over the country,” not only for their intrigue, but because Chinatowns, and Chinese immigrants, across the U.S. were under attack by the media.1 Situated in Denver’s central business district, Chinatown covered less than a block, with one report claiming it was only 125×100 feet, and much of it was rebuilt from what had been destroyed in an anti-Chinese riot ten years earlier.2 The reporter from The Rocky Mountain News claims that readers were curious to know what the headquarters of “John Taylor and his murderous band” looked like, and the article recounts the author’s tour of the area.  It reveals how the characterization of space was used not only to reinforce intolerant attitudes towards the Chinese community, but how descriptions of space were employed to control where Chinese people were allowed to live and work.

The article is primarily concerned with criminality and a large portion of it focuses on the prevalence of opium, gambling, and prostitution in Chinatown.  The US Government’s attempts to control opium in the late 19th century — specifically an 1887 law passed by Congress which, “prohibited Chinese from importing opium and allowed only non-Chinese American citizens to manufacture smoking opium” — demonstrates the government’s intolerance of Chinese immigrants and its attempts to control Chinese populations.3 These policies increased opium smuggling, and created strong associations with Chinese immigrants and organized crime.  U.S. media also perpetuated fears of opium corrupting white women, and by extension, Chinese communities corrupting American society.  The reporter for The Rocky Mountain News drew on these fears in the article, claiming that “Many women were ruined by the Chinese in the old quarters,” and proceeds to give a description: “A celestial leads her through the dark hall. She is assigned a bunk, where she cooks her opium, smokes it while the police are outside vainly endeavoring to find them.”4 This account of the interior categorizes Chinatown as a place of corruption: impenetrable to light and the law.

Descriptions of dark hallways are prominent throughout the article and are repeatedly used to create ominous and threatening impressions.  According to the reporter, the very structure of Chinatown is designed for criminality.  He relates that smoking opium is prohibited, but “to elude the law these elevated smoking rooms have been built in such a manner that the front and rear door can be seen. It is so dark there it is impossible for a person coming in from the street to see exactly what is taking place, so that the occupants have ample time to hide their pipes in the event of a police raid on the place.”4 The rest of the buildings are described in a similar way.  False doors and narrow passageways suggest maze-like complexity with the clear objective of classifying space as criminal, dangerous, and impenetrable.  While dark hallways and false doors suggest criminal activity through the built environment, observations about the upkeep and cleanliness of the space are used to cast judgment on its inhabitants.  The reporter uses descriptors like “rickety roof,” “foul air,” “squatty buildings,” and “filth” to characterize it as uninhabitable.5 

All this precedes the reporter’s description of the businesses in West Denver owned by John Taylor’s rival and the object of his supposed murder plots, Chin Poo.  The article reads: “there are no alleys, no passages or dark hallways, the floors are kept clean, are scrubbed daily, and all the houses are well lighted and ventilated… The police permit the Chinese here to gamble and smoke opium, and will allow Taylor’s crowd the same privilege it they move over there, away from the business portion of the city, where no objection is raised against their presence.”5 The author makes no attempt to veil the true purpose of the article, and expresses no concern for Chin Poo despite his insistence that Taylor is a dangerous threat.  Instead, it’s revealed that the location of John Taylor’s businesses was the reporter’s main concern.  

The situation of Chinatown in Denver’s central business district combined with the threat of cheap labor provided by Chinese immigrants led to campaigns against the Chinese community and attempts to undermine their businesses.  The rivalry between Taylor’s “gang of cut-throats” and Chin Poo became an excuse to emphasize associations between Denver’s Chinatown and criminality through descriptions of the physical location.  While another report suggests that Chinatown was also home to three restaurants, fifty policy shops, a morgue, and a butcher shop, these legitimate businesses are conspicuously absent from the article (despite a brief reference to a restaurant which the reporter predictably describes as “filthy”).6 The Rocky Mountain News ran numerous articles arguing that Chinese businesses posed a financial threat to white businesses and warned of the social cost of the projected growth of the Chinese population in such a central part of Denver.  Chinese spaces were transformed by the media into places of corruption, criminality, and unsanitary practices which increased intolerance toward the Chinese community and ultimately led to the eradication of Denver’s Chinatown.

  1. “Three Chinatowns,” The Rocky Mountain News (Denver, Colorado), January 6, 1890, Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. [↩]
  2. “A Home for Plague,” The Rocky Mountain News (Denver, Colorado), July 13, 1889, Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. [↩]
  3. Jeffrey Scott McIllwain, Organizing Crime in Chinatown (Jefferson: McFarland and Company, 1969), 59. [↩]
  4. The Rocky Mountain News, “Three Chinatowns.” [↩] [↩]
  5. Ibid. [↩] [↩]
  6. The Rocky Mountain News, “A Home for Plague.” [↩]

The Truth is Duller than Fiction? Theories of Tropicality in the Perception of India in the 1800s

The history of ‘Tropicality’ is a long one, with the first writings dating back to Hippocrates, the ‘father of medicine’. In his Airs, Waters, Places, he outlines the climatic differences in Asian and the supposedly corresponding racial characteristics. Just as Galenic theories on humours were to dominate medicine until well into the early modern period, these perceived links between climate and character were held as fact in Britain and Europe throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and used to justify colonial expansion and control.

These theories are naturally now considered untenable to the modern reader. This does not mean that reading them is not without worth, not least because of the massive contradictions that they contain, and more so that this appears to be completely disregarded within them.

To take one of the greatest examples, look to Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws, specifically his ideas on the climate of Asia. His argument was that the ‘strength’ of Europe vs the ‘weakness’ of Asia could be entirely explained by Europe’s temperate climate compared to Asia’s lack of a temperate zone, whereby “the places situated in a very cold climate there are immediately adjacent to those that are in a very warm climate”, and so “the brave and active warrior peoples are immediately adjacent to effeminate, lazy and timid peoples; therefore, one must be the conquered and the other the conqueror.”1 He explains his reasoning as the fact that Asia had been ‘subjugated’ 13 times compared to Europe’s 4, which he gives as Roman, Barbarian, Charlemagne, and Norman2 He then gives the determining factor of Europe’s relative peace and stability as the broadness of the temperate zone, in that while there is a huge difference in temperature between the northern- and southernmost reaches of Europe, the climatic change is so gradual that “there is not a noticeable difference between them.”3. As such, “the strong face the strong”, and so one ‘race’ is unable to subjugate the other4.

This contradiction of temperature and racial characteristics can be further seen in later accounts of the Tropics, particularly with regards to India. In taking writers such as Hippocrates and Montesquieu as undoubted fact, the perception of Asia and India was that of a single and relatively unchanging climate. David Arnold then takes this further in his work Tropics and the Traveling Gaze: India, Landscape and Science, 1800- 1856 by showing how the perception of the Tropics was then muddled even further through the growth of popular fiction. This led to the creation of what he terms “a single impression of colour, light, exuberance, and elegance.”5 Arnold shows that when faced with the reality of India and Asia’s hugely varied climate and areas of seemingly dull, barren plains instead of the rich, Edenic visions made popular through stories such as the Arabian Nights, travellers could find themselves becoming weary and despondent. In particular, he gives the example of Victor Jacquemont, a French naturalist who travelled to India to study botany. Arnold argues that Jacquemont’s previous visits to Haiti, where his brother was a businessman (and possible plantation owner), had given him an idealised view of the Tropics which he then expected to see replicated in India. He was then “bitterly disappointed” to find out that this was not the case.

Rather than admit his own shortcomings or attempt to view India with a more benevolent eye, Jacquemont followed in the same tradition as Hippocrates and Montesquieu. He concluded that “the fault is not in myself: it lies with the things themselves, with the country.”6 Whether this was any consolation to him seems doubtful, but in this at least he was following in the footsteps of his predecessors, and those that followed after him kept his words in mind themselves, just as many travellers no doubt do the same today.

  1. Charles de Secondat Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws ed. Anne M. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller and Harold Samuel Stone, (Cambridge, 1989), pg. 280 [↩]
  2. ibid, pg. 281. [↩]
  3. Ibid, pg. 280 [↩]
  4. ibid. [↩]
  5. David Arnold, Tropics and the Traveling Gaze: India, Landscape and Science, 1800- 1856, (Washington, 2006), pg. 112. [↩]
  6. ibid, pg. 132. [↩]