>> CHINESE CALENDAR ADVERTISEMENT of the 1920s
Advertiser’s name and location: Commerce and Shanghai
In the conventional style of calendar posters, the top banner gives the advertiser’s name, here also adding their location (Shanghai) and, in English, the source of their products. The bilingual information is notable, for though they advertised both foreign and local products and drew on Western as well as Chinese graphic design conventions, calendar posters were aimed at a primarily Chinese audience. The mixture of languages and highlighting of the Shanghai base of the company points at the special place that city held as both a center of commerce and a marketing tool in its own right. I: Shanghai as entrepôt Shanghai formed one of the initial core of “treaty ports” established in the wake of the Opium War – cities open to foreign settlement, trade, and, through extraterritoriality and other legal provisions, degrees of governance and fiscal control. Contrary to popular belief, Shanghai was not a mere fishing village prior to the arrival of the British and other foreign interests, but it is true that the treaty port era transformed the place from a regional town into a world city. By 1929 Shanghai was notable not only for attracting one of the most cosmopolitan mixes of any metropolis anywhere, but also an unprecedented number of migrants, artists, activists and refugees from across China. For more background on Shanghai’s history and development, browse the linked sites below. The result was an incredibly varied urban setting. Arguably, Shanghai actually functioned as several cities: foreign powers maintained control over different concession areas (French, Japanese, and the Anglo-American International Settlement), while the Chinese government governed yet other parts of the city as a special municipality and a number of adjacent counties. Understandably, the city became a complex symbol, changing color and complexion depending on the eye of the beholder. Strong currents for nationalism and self-determination chafed against imperialist control, but the concession system ironically allowed radical politicians and artists freedom from the reach of government authorities, both under the Qing and the Republic. Shanghai’s strength as a manufacturing center attracted both migrant workers and an organized labor movement that attempted to protect them, but its role as China’s economic stronghold drove an eventual bloody purge that forced the activists underground. The publishing, recording and film industries made Shanghai the source of new forms of commercialized popular culture in the early twentieth century, but this engendered resentment from cultural conservatives and Beijing literati alike. Yet by the late 1920s the commercial and cultural cachet of the city was well enough established that it in itself could serve as a marketing tool. II: Shanghai as product Calendar posters, as scholars such as Ellen Johnston Laing have pointed out, offered up complete and alluring worlds to those who viewed them. We will explore the specific appeals of the illustration of the female figure, of the calendar feature, and of the product itself in the other sections, but it is worth noting here the appeal of the mere name “Shanghai.” Of course, the fact that many of the companies that advertised through calendar posters were based in Shanghai (though not all – Hong Kong manufacturers used such ads as well, as did Taiwan-based Japanese companies) -- as were the advertising agencies that created the calendars -- lent the whole enterprise a certain parochial flavor. Yet these posters were marketed nationally, often through large publishing networks such as the Commercial Press. Thus “Shanghai” becomes the signifier of the entire world of presented in the advertisement: the sophistication and technical facility of the design, the allure of the “calendar beauty”, the practical appeal and reliability of the product, and so on. Or, to view it from another angle, the calendar poster becomes a window onto Shanghai itself. Other advertisements made conspicuous mention of their product’s origins as “British merchandise”, or, as patriotism became more of a concern, as “native product.” Seen in this context, then, the prominence of “Shanghai” – in characters almost as large as the name of the manufacturer itself – becomes less surprising, for it is the city and its image being marketed along with the kerosene. References: Print sources: The historical literature on Shanghai in both Chinese and English is voluminous, up to this point far exceeding studies of other Chinese cities. The following two review articles are good places to begin to get a sense of where Shanghai studies have been, and to collect bibliographic information. Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom. “Locating Old Shanghai: Having Fits about Where It Fits.” In Remaking the Chinese City: Modernity and National Identity, 1900-1950, edited by Joseph W. Esherick (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000), 192-210. Wen-hsin Yeh. “Shanghai Modernity: Commerce and Culture in a Republican City.” In Reappraising Republican China, edited by Frederic Wakeman, Jr. and Richard Louis Edmonds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 121-140. Parks M. Coble, Jr. The Shanghai Capitalists and the Nationalist Government, 1927-1937. Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1986. The key study of the relationship of the Kuomintang to the commercial world of Shanghai. Sherman Cochran, ed. Inventing Nanjing Road: Commercial Culture in Shanghai, 1900-1945. Ithaca, NY: East Asia Program, Cornell University, 1999. A useful starting place for exploring the role of Shanghai in Chinese production and consumption in the early twentieth century. Online sources: Shanghai-related online resources at the Institute d’Asie Orientale, Lyons:
Tales of Old China, SinoMedia, Shanghai http://www.talesofoldchina.com/. English-language print and photographic resources on China during the treaty port era, with special attention to Shanghai. Institute of History, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (上海社会科学院历史研究所) http://www.historyshanghai.com/. Information on ongoing research projects, publications and affiliated scholars, with a Shanghai history section that includes a select online photo archive (Chinese only.) Back to calendar advertisement main page
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