The Hibiya Riot is famous for being the first major social upheaval in modern Japanese history. Angry at what was perceived to be the disappointingly minor concessions gained following the end of the Russo-Japanese war in 1905, a heterogenous group of lower and middle class rioters brought Tokyo to a standstill for three days, at the end of which 311 people had been arrested, and 17 people were killed.

Japanese propaganda had obscured a Pyrrhic ending to the conflict. Japan had suffered 80,000 fatalities in a drawn-out, attritional war, with total costs incurred coming to 1.7 billion yen; eight times the cost of the Sino Japanese War of 1894-1895. Andrew Gordon’s account hence demonstrates clearly how public fury was directed at visible signs of Government authority. For example, nearly three quarters of all the neighbourhood police boxes were destroyed in the city, whilst clashes resulted in injuries to 450 policemen and 50 firemen.

However, the roots of this riot can be found in more than just anger over tainted national pride. There is also evidence for a more subtle, economic dimension to this groundswell of popular protest. Besides the police boxes, the other public institution to be specifically targeted was the recently opened streetcar system. Tokyo had invested heavily in its tram system as a potent symbol of the new Imperial and democratic Japan. However, they were expensive, and beyond the means of many of the city’s lower classes. They were also a disruptive presence, threatening the livelihoods of thousands of rickshaw drivers in the city. Nor indeed was this a one-off occurrence. Upon the anniversary of the riots, a rise in streetcar fares spurred a new rally in Hibiya Park, which again ended with the smashing of dozens of streetcars, as well as an attempt to storm the streetcar offices. [1]

Image from The Tokyo Riot Graphic, No. 66, Sept. 18, 1905, (Kinji Gahō Company, Tokyo)

Such a case therefore illustrates the simmering tensions between the ‘old’ city of Edo and the ‘new’ metropolis of Tokyo. The transition between the two is discussed by Henry Smith in the ‘Edo-Tokyo Transition’. He refers to the distinction in Japanese intellectual thought between the shitamachi and the yamanote. Whilst they began as geographical designations (shitamachi referred to the lower class Eastern downtown of the city, whilst yamanote was associated with the elite Western upland areas), Smith argues that by the early 20^th century, they had come to embody two competing ideological frameworks, with the former representing the old, traditional ‘plebeian’ ethos of Edo, whilst the latter instead heralded the new, modern and Imperial Tokyo.[2]  

What conclusions can be drawn from this? In terms of the destruction of modern technology, there are obvious parallels between the Hibiya Riot and the 19^th century Luddite movement in Britain, where textile workers attempted to destroy textile machinery that threatened their employment.[3] What is interesting about the Japanese case though, is how this struggle against streetcars formed part of a deeper, ideological battle for the very soul of the city; with competing notions of modernity versus tradition helping to shape urban social protest in early 20^th century Japan.

[1] Andrew Gordon, ‘Social Protest in Imperial Japan: The Hibiya Riot of 1905’, MIT Visualising Cultures, < https://visualizingcultures.mit.edu/social_protest_japan/trg_essay01.html> (accessed 9/12/2019)

[2] Henry Smith, ‘The Edo-Tokyo Transition: In search of Common Ground’, in Marius Jansen and Gilbert Rozman (eds.), Japan in Transition: From Tokugawa to Meiji, (Princeton, 1986), pp. 370-374

[3] Evan Andrews, ‘Who Were the Luddites’, in History Today, (26.6.2019), <https://www.history.com/news/who-were-the-luddites> (accessed 9/12/2019)

The history of foreign concessions in Chinese treaty-port cities like Tianjin pose a strikingly unique take on colonialism in China. Foreign entities, namely those from Britain, France and Germany constructed their concessions in treaty ports for the purpose of physically separating themselves from the Chinese community that they deemed as lesser and often as unclean. However, the initial purpose of the foreign concessions did not last. As Zhang Chang and Liu Yue note in the chapter “International Concessions and the Modernisation of Tianjin” the concessions, particularly those in Tianjin, became conductors of cross-cultural confluence – between China and the outside world but also between the colonial powers themselves. The cosmopolitan, ostensibly harmonious nature of early 20^th century Tianjin seems to contradict the serious conflict that occurred between the colonial powers and within China itself.

Since the Opium Wars in the mid-19^th century, foreigners had maintained a history of violence and oppression in China. The actions of colonial powers like Britain, France and later Japan helped to instigate nation-wide conflict like the Boxer Rebellion but also smaller incidents like the Tianjin Massacre of 1870. Decades long turbulence, in combination with racism and jingoism, constituted some of the main reasons why foreign entities established isolated areas or “concessions” within Chinese cities. The concessions were walled communities that were meant to separate the poor Chinese from colonial residents and provide the same general amenities they could find back in their home countries. The physical and social barriers set up through foreign concessions created a distinctive spatial layout in China’s largest mercantile cities like Tianjin and Shanghai. The history of the foreign presence in Tianjin is not totally absolved from animosity with local Chinese, but Zhang and Liu’s chapter indicates that the first decades of the 20^th century saw a productive relationship between foreigners and Chinese flower.

The foreign presence in Tianjin helped to spread new ideas to Chinese elites. Arguably the most import foreign export in Tianjin was local democratic government. The foreign concession was run by an elected council and their systems inspired local Chinese authorities in Tianjin to establish China’s first democratically elected governing body that was officially recognised by the Qing government. (94) Perhaps even more consequently, the move to adopt democratic provincial institutions in Tianjin was directly endorsed by Yuan Shikai, the future President and self-declared Emperor of China. Neither foreigners nor Chinese were immune to the effects of cross-cultural confluence. Foreign children who were nannied by Chinese amahs often spoke Chinese as their first language and didn’t fully absorb their home country’s language until they attended school in the concession. Language skills in Chinese and various European languages were also important for career advancement. Foreign subjects working in customs houses were required to learn Chinese. As the foreign presence in Tianjin grew, Chinese citizens could become a part of the “social elite”  by learning European languages and studying abroad. (99)

The wealth and modernisation that flowed through Tianjin as a result of its bustling trade and significant colonial presence saw western-style materialism spread to wealthy Chinese outside of the concessions. Wealthy Tianjin businessmen adopted western-style exuberance. Some of these businessmen built European-style estates but added touches of traditional Chinese culture, such elaborate gardens. Through cultural exchange with foreign entities, Tianjin turned into a diverse, thriving city where cross-cultural confluence became a part of the urban fabric.

Zhang Chang and Liu Yue could engage further with this period in Tianjin’s history by discussing how the events of the First World War and the Sino-Japanese conflict affected the concessions and the citizen’s willingness to engage with those from other countries and absorb cultures. Despite this gap, they make it clear that Tianjin became a site of positive confluence between China and the outside world.

Bibliography:

Chang, Zhang, and Liu Yue. “International Concessions and the Modernization of Tianjin.” In Harbin to Hanoi: The Colonial Built Environment in Asia, 1840 to 1940, by Victoir, Laura, and Victor Zatsepine, eds., edited by Laura Victoir, and Victor Zatsepine. Hong Kong University Press, 2013. Hong Kong Scholarship Online, 2014.

Following the bubonic plague that struck Hanoi in 1903, the colonial administration was forced to recognise its failures to both destroy the rat problem endemic in Hanoi. Hanoi, expected to be the hygienic triumph of French colonialism was in fact a medical crisis. Furthermore, the Vietnamese had begun to ‘experiment with a form of collective labour action’ and by 1904 had quadrupled their pay. In addition to this Vietnamese residents not in the extermination teams were able to exploit the bounty system put in place by the colonial administration by cutting the tails off rats and allowing them to continue to breed. As Michael Vann concludes, it is ‘one of the rich ironies that characterize the history of French colonialism. However, similar ironies and resistance to colonial medicine were not limited to the history French colonialism.

In colonial Hong Kong, the Chinese residents of Hong Kong rioted when the British imposed house-to house inspections during plagues and over a third of the Chinese population left Hong Kong because of the anti-plague measures. Another notable example can be seen in the turmoil created in Korea following Japanese attempts to ‘sanitize’ Seoul whereby the Seoul Sanitation Association (SSA) attempted to monopolise the collection of night soil, garbage and took responsibility for the ‘overall salubriousness’ of the urban environment. However, despite the best intentions of the Japanese, the venture was a disaster. Koreans uprooted willow trees meant for sanitation due to their need for firewood, garbage and waste was not removed and the new sanitation system was so disruptive that by 1909 the SSA was forced to allow displaced Korean fertiliser merchants to use its equipment to help alleviate the massive shortage of night soil needed by farmers in the vicinity of Seoul. Despite the draconian measures such as harsh fines and imprisonments put in place to attempt to force Koreans to comply to the system of reform, the Japanese were unable to make the Koreans ever fully commit to their hygienic reforms and practices. The problem of epidemics remained an issue throughout the occupation, and arguably indicates another example of a failed attempt at sanitation that in face worsened the sanitation of Koreans in Seoul at the time.

However, the clash between predominantly Western notions of sanitation and health with traditional thought was not always resisted as was the case in the treaty port of Tianjin. Rogaski observes that with the arrival of imperialism Chinese notions of Weisheng or ‘hygiene’ shifted from ideas of diet, meditation and cosmology to encompass more ‘modern’ conceptions such as cleanliness of bodies, Western practices of hygiene and medicine. Although this is possibly due to the unique position of the treaty port as a space when compared to a colonised city, it is nonetheless a notable case in which Western ideals were largely accepted by the Chinese elites in the city.

Ultimately, if one were to examine additional colonial undertakings in order to improve the hygiene or sanitation of the colonial cities, it is likely that resistance and failure were the primary outcomes. However, in cases where Western interpretations of Hygiene are not imposed upon the colonised, the same strategies and developments can be seen as an important form of modernisation.

The Craft guilds of the 19th century played an important role within Shanghai’s urban space, combining a multitude economic, social, and religious functions. The centre of these urban networks was the guildhall, a building which would come to symbolism the power and prestige of Shanghai’s guilds. Unlike in Europe, the guilds of Shanghai were based off of native place as well as occupation, operating as the focal point for migrant communities. The social makeup of the city was altered, perpetuating a sense of separation within the city due to the discriminatory nature of the guilds’ geographic outlook. This sense of separation was not just limited to the mental sphere of collective identity, manifesting itself within the physical parameters of the city, as seen in the preference of guild members to only frequent tea houses within the vicinity of their guildhall.[1] It can, therefore, be seen that socially the guildhall influenced the habits and perceptions of Shanghai’s urban craftsmen.

Yet, the guildhall didn’t just operate as a social nexus, it also possessed a spiritual role. Temples could be found within most guildhall complexes, dedicated to a patron saint or deity, with active worship still being recorded within guildhalls in the 1920’s.[2] John S. Burgess and Niida Noboru have challenged the religious role of Chinese guild. However, Timothy Bradstock states that this is because they misunderstood certain sources, leading them to believe that a lack of religious practice within certain guilds indicated an unconformity when it came to possessing a spiritual purpose.[3]  Instead, Bradstock explains that a lack of religious practice was often associated with a lack of funds. A problem which does not seem to apply to Shanghai when the supposed architectural splendour of the guildhalls are considered.[4]

The architectural design of these buildings was important, as it was a testament to the power and influence of a guild, becoming a rallying post for the community that the guild had created. The importance of the guildhall as a rallying post is reflected in the decisions made within it, such as to protest or to strike, decisions which would shape Shanghai as the guilds were often surprisingly effective when they chose to mobilise around a cause. For example, the Siming gongsuo guild was able to resist attempts by the French concession to seize its land in 1874 and again twenty years later.[5] Guildhalls acted as the nerve centre within a web of influence, not only acting as rallying points but also as a bastion of protectionism. Economic activity within craft industries was controlled through the guilds. Price and wages were regulated as well as materials, labour and training. Guilds, for instances, often fixed apprenticeships to a three year period, limiting workshops to just one apprentice at a time.[6]

Guildhalls impacted Shanghai on multiple levels, defining the lives of the urban craftsman as well as the city itself. Guildhalls were not just symbols of guild power but also a vital apparatus in their system of control. The conclusions of the revisionist historian, S. Oilgive, seem to be, therefore, entirely invalid as these guilds were neither ineffective nor inflexible.[7] In fact, guildhalls were so significant to the guild members themselves, that when painters in 1914 got locked out of their guild by the Chinese government, a city wide strike was organised by other guilds in support.[8]

[1] Elizabeth J. Perry, Shanghai On Strike: the Politics of Chinese Labor (Stanford,1993), p. 37.

[2] J. S. Burgess, ‘The Guilds and Trade Associations of China’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 152 (1930), pp. 75-76.

[3] Christine Moll-Murata, State and Crafts in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) (Amsterdam, 2018), p. 330.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Perry, On Strike, pp. 45-46.

[6] Moll-Murata, State and Crafts, p. 329.

[7] S. R. Epstein, ‘Craft Guilds in the Pre-Modern Economy: A Discussion’, The Economic History Review 61:1 (2008), p. 159.

[8] Perry, On Strike, p. 23.

Bibliography:

Burgess, J. S., ‘The Guilds and Trade Associations of China’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 152 (1930), pp. 72-80.

Epstein, S. R., ‘Craft Guilds in the Pre-Modern Economy: A Discussion’, The Economic History Review 61:1 (2008), pp. 155-174.

Moll-Murata, Christine, State and Crafts in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) (Amsterdam, 2018).

Perry, Elizabeth J., Shanghai On Strike: the Politics of Chinese Labor (Stanford,1993).

In her article ‘The Raj on Nanjing Road’, Isabella Jackson illustrates the crucial role played by Sikh policemen in the Shanghai International Settlement during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.[1] This reflects the wider importance of Indians to the Imperial project, fulfilling myriad roles across British territories in East and South East Asia. I was therefore interested to read James Warren’s article ‘The Rangoon Jail Riot of 1930’, which details the unique role played by Indians in the prison administration of British Burma.[2] Whilst significant similarities exist between these groups of Indians abroad, it becomes clear that their experiences could vary hugely, according to the prestige of their respective occupations, as well as the local context of their employment.

At first glance, Indians serving abroad seem to have been united by their subjection to racist, derogatory attitudes from indigenous peoples. Certainly, this seems true of Shanghai Sikh policemen, who even today are vilified in much Chinese history as ‘hongtou asan’ (Red-headed monkeys), perceived as vicious stooges of oppressive colonial rule.[3] Sikh policemen were for example blamed by the Chinese for opening fire on Chinese protesters in 1925, in the now infamous May 30^th Incident.[4]

Fig. 1. Cartoon of a Sikh Policeman hitting a Chinese rickshaw puller. (Jackson, ‘The Raj on Nanjing Road’, p.1686

This is mirrored in the case of Burma, where, by the early 20^th century, the entire population of prison wardens was Indian. In 1930, a huge riot broke out in the Rangoon Central Jail, with the ostensible aim of killing the superintendent, Major Bharucha. This reflected a long history of Burmese racially aggravated attacks against Indian prison staff.[5] Nor was racism confined to native Burmese, with the British enquiry into the riot laying the blame squarely at the feet of major Bharucha. He was described as both a bully and a coward, unsubstantiated accusations were made of his brutality, and he was summarily dismissed from his position.[6]

Whilst superficially similar however, it would be wrong to homogenise the experience of Indians in British service abroad. Working conditions appear to have been relatively good for Sikh policemen in Shanghai, attracting mainly ex-sepoys with the promise of pay five times greater than the Indian army, as well as the offer of nine months leave upon completion of five years service.[7] In the Burmese case by contrast, becoming a prison warden remained an unappealing prospect, with very low pay and long working hours. Indeed, according to a report by the Indian Jails Committee, an Indian jail warden was ‘but little less of a prisoner than the inmates whom it is his duty to guard’.[8] It would be wrong therefore to claim that Indians had a single, universal reason for seeking British employment abroad, with different opportunities instead being marketed at different subcategories within Indian society.

Moreover, the racism directed at Indians could spring from very different roots. In the Shanghai case for example, Sikh police became a ‘surrogate target for Chinese resentment of Euro-American Imperialism’.[9] Whilst this was also surely true in Burma, attitudes towards Indians in Rangoon likely had an economic dimension as well. The early 20^th century had seen mass Indian immigration into Rangoon to work as unskilled labour. This led to growing competition with local Burmese, resulting in a huge race-riot in 1930 directed against Indian dock workers, resulting in over 500 deaths.[10] Seen in this context, anti-Indian sentiment could therefore spring from a number of locally derived sources, rather than exclusively from their association with the British.

Robert Bickers has concluded that Indians were employed by the British Empire for the three interlinked processes of ‘economy, defence, and display’.[11] Whilst this fundamentally seems to hold true, we should not let this obscure the very real differences in both how the British empire used its Indian subjects, as well as how such Indians were received by the local population. Whilst I have considered only two cases in this post, a more comprehensive study comparing the different experiences of Indian communities abroad would therefore be valuable.

[1] Isabella Jackson, ‘The Raj on Nanjing Road: Sikh Policemen in Treaty-Port Shanghai’, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 46, No. 6 (2012), pp.1672-1704

[2] James Warren, ‘The Rangoon Jail Riot of 1930 and the Prison Administration of British Burma’ in South East Asia Research, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2002), pp.5-29

[3] Jackson, ‘The Raj on Nanjing Road’, p.1675

[4] Ibid.

[5] Warren, ‘The Rangoon Jail Riot of 1930’, p.21

[6] Ibid., pp.13-14

[7] Jackson, ‘The Raj on Nanjing Road’, p.1680

[8] Warren, ‘The Rangoon Jail Riot of 1930’, p.22-23

[9] Jackson, ‘The Raj on Nanjing Road’, p.1691

[10] Warren, ‘The Rangoon Jail Riot of 1930’, p.11

[11] Jackson, ‘The Raj on Nanjing Road’, p.1676

‘Book pirating in Shanghai, an infringement of copyright’, not the most gripping title in the world. However, the task for this week’s tutorial was set, we had to find source material on law and order in Shanghai, and I thought this may offer an interesting alternative to the other material my classmates would be producing. As soon as I opened up the document I was rewarded, on its first page the word ‘confidential’ was stamped across the report, on the next page more stamped lettering, this time spelling out ‘secret’. At this point my interest was piqued and so I delved further into the document, the report revealed a conspiracy in which an anonymous member within the higher echelons of the international settlement had stepped in to cover up the actions of the British Women’s Association. The Association had pirated a first aid manual from the St. John’s Ambulance, printing 240 copies.

The source could be easily explained as a powerful man exercising his authority to protect a wife, friend or relative who was part of the association. However, this fails to explain the concern of the writer of the report, who states that if the Chinese were to find out there would be an international incident. Instead the source underscores the conflict between the racial views of the British, the state of the international settlement and the Chinese opinions of it. Firstly, the actions of these women contradict the prevailing ideas of racial superiority held by the British. The Chinese were considered to be ‘racially unequal’ when compared to Europeans and so required European overlordship so as to civilise them.[1] The actions of the Women’s Association undermined this, offering evidence of immoral activity among the British, a double standard to do with the implementation of law, as well as presenting men of status within the colony as being unable to control their women (within the confides of the patriarchal society they were operating in).  These thoughts would have trouble the British authorities who were trying to navigate an increasingly politically complicated Shanghai, with Chinese nationalist, Chinese communists and Japanese nationalists all fighting for control.

This concern mirrors constant attempts by the Chinese to undermine the International Settlement. Chiang Kai-shek had made it clear in 1927 that the purpose of new Shanghai municipal government was to bring law and order to one of the most crime ridden cities in the world.[2] A city which had been failed by the International community. These opinions by the 1930’s had spread throughout Chinese society, with literary scholars in Beijing accusing writers from Shanghai of interlacing their stories with sex and decadence.[3] It can, therefore, be seen that the British establishment saw it as prudent to suppress this incident so as to not provide the Chinese with evidence of perceived inequalities and inefficiencies within the government of the International Settlement.

[1] Robert Bickers, ‘Shanghailanders: The Formation and Identity of the British Settler Community in Shanghai 1843-1937’, Past & Present 159 (1998), p. 184.

[2] Frederic Wakeman, Jr., ‘Policing Modern Shanghai’, The China Quarterly 115 (1988), pp. 419.

[3] David Koren, ‘Shanghai: The Biography of a City’ in Jan Kolen, Johannes Renes, Rita Hermans (ed.), Landscape Biographies (Amsterdam, 2015), p. 267.

Bibliography:

Bickers, Robert, ‘Shanghailanders: The Formation and Identity of the British Settler Community in Shanghai 1843-1937’, Past & Present 159 (1998), p. 161-211.

Koren, David, ‘Shanghai: The Biography of a City’ in Jan Kolen, Johannes Renes, Rita Hermans (ed.), Landscape Biographies (Amsterdam, 2015), pp. 253 – 282.

Wakeman,Frederic, Jr., ‘Policing Modern Shanghai’, The China Quarterly 115 (1988), pp. 408 – 440.

Source:

‘During 1937-1941, “island Shanghai,” momentarily neutral like wartime Casablanca or Lisbon, was a haven for spies, intelligence agents, and provocateurs.’[1]

In the book The Shanghai Badlands: Wartime terrorism and Urban Crime, 1937-1941, Frederic Wakeman combines disparate narratives about crime and terrorism in Shanghai and attempts to present an account that not only demonstrates the ambiguity of Chinese resistance and collaboration, but that also helps to emphasise the chaotic nature of the Shanghai badlands and settlement from 1937 to 1941[2]. However, although a successful book, Wakeman’s work remains contained within its own body of sources and does not engage with any secondary works. Although this is unsurprising given the nature of Wakeman’s research, there are a number of other cities such as Casablanca and Lisbon that had similar wartime experiences to Shanghai that arguably warrant comparison. This has been studied in Neill Lochery’s Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light, a work which in many ways is remarkably similar to Wakeman’s in its use of sources, anecdotal nature and in its demonstration of Lisbon as a fundamentally complex and chaotic space[3]. Like Wakeman, Lochery used a vast amount of primary sources when conducting his research, including António De Oliveira Salazar’s (The Portuguese dictator from 1932 to 1968) official correspondence and the PIDE (Portuguese Secret police) archives[4]. However, unlike Wakeman, Lochery also attempted to used additional sources from the external forces acting in Lisbon, including British Foreign office correspondences and documents on the various intelligence agencies operating in Lisbon, arguably giving a fuller perspective to the activities than Wakeman’s work[5].

During the Second world war, Lisbon was the only European city in which Allies and Axis openly operated simultaneously. However, unlike Shanghai, barely a shot was fired in Lisbon. The city itself remained a space in which Allies and Axis powers vied for control whilst Portugal itself strove to maintain its neutrality. Lisbon also had its fair share of unusual activities, including a foiled German plot to kidnap the Duke and Duchess of Windsor[6]. Both Allied and German operatives were dispersed throughout the city, including a young Ian Fleming[7]. However their activities were predominantly non-violent and these agents were in turn monitored by the PIDE. This three-way relationship over the contested space of Lisbon is arguably not dissimilar to the relationship between Chinese, Japanese and Westerners found in Shanghai[8]. Although both cities received a large contingent of refugees, the numbers heading to Lisbon were incredibly marginal in comparison to the volume who fled to Shanghai during the war[9]. Furthermore, as a result of the harsh dictatorship of Salazar Lisbon remained tightly controlled and thus crime remained largely at its usual levels during this period. Despite this resistance and collaboration was still prevalent in wartime Lisbon, with numerous officers on the Portuguese side repeatedly changing sides to help either the Axis or Allies based on offers from the respective sides[10].

Unlike Shanghai, Lisbon and Portugal ultimately emerged from the war much wealthier than it had been at the wars instigation. Despite this, the cities ultimately faced very similar problems. However, whereas in Shanghai, ‘[it became] increasingly difficult to distinguish crime from conspiracy as the two converged to pulverize whatever shreds remained of Shanghai’s civic society’, for the Portuguese the war of subterfuge ‘represented as great an existential challenge [to the Portuguese] as it was a literal battle for [what] their lives would be’[11]. This was a battle that the Portuguese were able to successfully navigate, through subterfuge, double-crossing and scheming[12]. The volume of refugees, relative power of each political force and the volume of crime and methods used undoubtedly played a large role in the differences between Shanghai and Lisbon; two neutral cities which operated under ostensibly similar circumstances. It is arguably Salazar’s control over the political situation and the city itself that enabled it to avoid a similar fate to Shanghai, although further research would undoubtedly reveal additional factors that would also have led to differences within the cities themselves.

[1] Frederic Wakeman, Shanghai Badlands: Wartime Terrorism and Urban Crime, 1937-1941, First Edition (Cambridge University Press, 1996), p10.

[2] Ibid.  


[3] Neill Lochery’s Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light, (New York, 2012), p.

[4] Ibid, pp237-238.

[5] Ibid, pp237-238.

[6] Ibid, pp54-59.

[7] Ibid, p137.

[8] Wakeman, Shanghai, p10.

[9] Lochery, Lisbon, p44; Wakeman, Shanghai, p7.

[10] Lochery, Lisbon, p44.

[11] Lochery, Lisbon, p4; Wakeman, Shanghai, p110.

[12] Lochery, Lisbon, p227-231.

     ‘There it was, spread out largely on both banks, the Oriental capital which had yet suffered no white conqueror; an expanse of brown houses of bamboo, of mats, of leaves, of a vegetable-matter style of architecture, sprung out of the brown soil on the banks of the muddy river (…) Some of these houses of sticks and grass, like the nests of an aquatic race, clung to the shores, others seemed to grow out of the water; others again floated in long anchored rows in the very middle of the stream.’[1]

Such was the view that greeted Joseph Conrad as he ascended the central prang of the Temple of Dawn in Thonburi, the royal district of 19^th century Bangkok. Located on the Chao Phraya river, 35 km north of the Gulf of Siam, this city, apocryphally dubbed the ‘Venice of the East’, captured Western imaginations with its unique spatial hierarchy between the land and the water. For the first 50 years of its existence, beginning with the movement of the capital to Thonburi under Rama II in 1782, the right to reside on land was almost exclusively granted to nobles or to Buddhist institutions. Accordingly, by the mid-19^th century, 350,000 members of the rapidly growing city lived in semi-permanent rows of houseboats, anchored several layers deep on the Chao Phraya’s riverbanks.[2]

This arrangement, unlike any other in SE Asia, allowed a fluid, impermanent version of urban life to dominate. Houseboats were multipurpose dwellings, incorporating verandas which functioned both as commercial shopfronts during the day, as well as social spaces during the evening, when wooden frontages could be put up. Houses hence formed ‘streets’ and communities roughly corresponding to trade and/or ethnicity, albeit with the added advantage of mobility. George Earl, writing in the 1820s and 30s, wryly noted indeed the advantages that such an arrangement had for avoiding the flooding caused by seasonal monsoon rains, as well as the added benefit of being able to eject troublesome neighbours or move away from commercial competitors.[3]

Such a fluid, decentralised urban layout, bears a striking resemblance to the utopian vision of cities famously articulated by Lewis Mumford. Rather than focusing on urban spaces as purely physical, essentially static entities, Mumford’s view of the city was primarily as a social institution; an organic, fluctuating entity that functioned as ‘a theatre for social action’.[4] He moreover argued that in order to counter the social disconnections caused by modern cities becoming ever more massive and chaotic, it would soon be necessary to build ‘polynucleated’ cities, with multiple social and commercial focal points enabling all to participate in the drama of local social networks.[5] This vision of cities as encompassing multiple independent systems of social, economic and cultural exchange, with opportunities for fluidity created by an ever changing urban layout, is illustrated well by the dynamism of early Bangkok. This is both due to the strength of local associations found in the many polynucleated ethnic and commercial communities, as well as the ever-changing spatial layout of the city permitted by movement of living and commercial spaces.

The Bangkok witnessed by Conrad was gone in a fleeting instant. The Bowring treaty, and the onset of large scale commercial shipping, largely sounded the death knell for mass floating communities, with almost all houseboats cleared by municipal authorities by the 1920s. One observer indeed remarked that by the 1890s, the so called ‘Venice of the East’ had become merely an ‘Eastern Rotterdam’, of factories and wharves.[6] Traces of the old ethos still survive in Bangkok’s layout however. Even today, the lack of any single commercial or historical centre demonstrates the cities postmodern characteristics, with skyscrapers haphazardly scattered randomly across the city. In the brief history of Bangkok’s houseboat communities therefore, it is possible to see an accidental forerunner in many ways of Mumford’s influential ideas on polynucleation, with streets of boats forming urban communities in microcosm, characterised by fluid social dynamics and ephemerality.

[1] Joseph Conrad, ‘The Shadow Line’ (1917), in Maryvelma O’Neil, Bangkok: A Cultural History, (Oxford University Press, 2008), p.78

[2] Ibid., p.8

[3] George Windsor Earl, ‘The Eastern Seas of Voyages and Adventures in the Indian Archipelago in 1823, 1833 and 1834, in Ibid., p.79

[4] Lewis Mumford, ‘What is a city?’, in Richard LeGates and Frederic Stout (Eds.), The City Reader, (Routledge, 2003), p.94

[5] Ibid., p.96

[6] O’Neil, Bangkok, p.26

In his work, ‘The Bund: Littoral Space of Empire in the Treaty Ports of Asia’,  Jeremy Taylor attempts to examine the bund as a generic spatial form; analysing its importance in both sustaining the lifestyle of European residents and its significance to the Western residents of the treaty ports as space with military, commercial and lastly recreational functions[1]. He concludes by hoping that his work will stimulate further debate surrounding the questions of space and power within the treaty ports. Outside of treaty ports, Taylor’s work is part of a burgeoning field of historical discourse examining the importance of European urban expansion on cityscapes across the world. This can be seen in works such as Antony King’s Urbanism, Colonialism and the World-Economy: Cultural and Spatial Foundations of the World Urban System. Interestingly the Shanghai Bund arguably demonstrates King’s thesis that these colonial spaces are eventually integrated into what he calls the single world economy, transitioning from a colonial space with primarily military and economic functions to one that is largely recreational in its nature and ultimately part of the broader world economy[2]. Although Taylor demonstrates its importance to Westerners, he does not explore Chinese understandings or conceptualisations of the Shanghai Bund as a space[3]. However, a comparison of the Shanghai Bund with colonial buildings and Korea and Taiwan demonstrate that, despite fulfilling similar functions, most colonial spaces found in treaty ports and colonial cities have in fact been treated differently to the bund, which has arguably endured as an important space after the colonial period.

In Korea, the construction of the Japanese Western style colonial building in front of the Kwanghwa palace disrupted and challenged the ancient geomancy calculation known as Pungsu, which sought to enhance the vital energies of the ruler[4]. The intentions of the Japanese in overturning the cognitive map of the Koreans by constructing a modern western-style government building on this site is clear. In Taiwan, the central government building and redevelopment of downtown Taipei was finalised by the completion of the Sōtokufu in 1919. Although nothing was demolished to construct this building, the Japanese did raise the Yamen in 1931 to build the Old City Hall[5]. As with the bund, the construction of these sites was both conscious and deliberate. They were centrally located, western style buildings designed to convey both the modern and civilising intentions of the colonists as well as establish their dominance in the spaces in which they were created. Parallels with this can arguably be seen with the bund which remained a space of power through its use as an economic center and space which military might could be demonstrated. As these building were ultimately used as spaces that convey power, it is unsurprising that in many cases these buildings continued to be used until the end of the 20^th century. In Taipei, the Chinese were quick to occupy many of the buildings that were part of the Japanese colonial occupation, occupying the central colonial buildings and only bothering to switch on Chinese character in the name[6]. However, although they remained politically significant in both Korea and Taiwan these spaces continue to be contentious. In Taiwan the city government challenged the nationalist government’s building by moving ‘away from the downtown and into a new spatiality’[7]. Even with the demolition of the government building, restoration of the Kwanghwa gate and creation of the Kwanghwa square in 2009, the spatial configuration of  downtown Seoul remains intrinsically linked to their identity and history[8]. Ultimately the importance of these buildings as spaces of empire is now lost and unlike the Shanghai Bund, many are beginning to lose their significance as nations begin to recognise the colonial origins of these space’s associations with power.

Returning to an examination of the Bund, it is clear that perhaps the Shanghai Bund’s association with finance and business within the Chinese identity that has perhaps ensured its continued importance as a centre in Shanghai. In order to fully understand the typology of the Shanghai Bund as a space of empire, it is perhaps important to consider its perception amongst the Chinese in Shanghai, who have arguably enabled its transition from a space of empire to a space of economic entrepreneurialism.

[1] Jeremy E. Taylor, ‘The Bund: Littoral Space of Empire in the Treaty Ports of East Asia’, Social History, Vol. 27, No. 2 (May, 2002), pp. 125-142

[2] Antony D. King, Urbanism, Colonialism, and The World Economy: Cultural and Spatial Foundations of the World Urban System, (London, 1990), pp1-12.

[3] Talyor, ‘The Bund’, p128.

[4] Hong Kal, Aesthetic Construction of Korean nationalism: Spectacle, Politics and History, (Oxford, 2000), p45.

[5] Joseph R Allen, Taipei: City of Displacements, (Washington, 2012), p43.

[6] Allen, Taipei, p35.

[7] Ibid, p65.

[8] Kal, Aesthetic Construction of Korean nationalism, p1.