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Abstract
This article focuses on the extravagant funeral procession of Sheng Xuanhuai (1844–1916) in November 1917. This mile-long procession attracted over a million spectators and, thereby, lent the residents and sojourners in Shanghai of the day a unique visual sensibility of the modern urban milieu. Various parties to the funeral procession—namely the colonial authorities, the bereaved family, businessmen, and lower-class spectators—developed various tactics to manipulate the spectacle of the procession for political control, commercial gains, and visual pleasure. The author argues that the spectacularization of daily life, as exemplified by the 1917 funeral procession, and a collective will to look and to be looked at in early twentieth-century China, contributed to binding together otherwise segregated people, thus restructuring interpersonal relationships in the modernized city of Shanghai.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Jiang Jin of East Normal University, China, Ning Jennifer Chang of Academia Sinica, Taiwan, Kristin Stapleton, and two anonymous reviewers for help and comments. This article is a tribute to Mr. Sheng Xuanhuai, who founded the Nanyang College (later renamed Jiaotong University, my alma mater) 120 years ago.
Notes on Contributor
Qiliang He teaches history at Illinois State University. His main research interest is cultural history of the twentieth century. He is the author of Gilded Voices: Economics, Politics, and Storytelling in the Yangzi Delta since 1949 (2012) and other articles.
Notes
1 “Sheng Kung-pao's Funeral,” North China Daily News, November 19, 1917.
2 For example, Albert Feuerwerker, China's Early Industrialization: Sheng Hsuan-Huai (1844–1916) and Mandarin Enterprise (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958) and Xia Dongyuan, Sheng Xuanhuai zhuan (Shanghai: Shanghai Jiaotong daxue chubanshe, 2007).
3 James L. Watson, “The Structure of Chinese Funerary Rites: Elementary Forms, Ritual Sequence, and the Primacy of Performance,” in James L. Watson and Evelyn S. Rawski, eds., Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 12–15.
4 Tang Weikang and Du Li, Hucheng fengsu ji (A note on the customs in Shanghai) (Shanghai: Shanghai huabao chubanshe, 1990), 108–15.
5 Gu Jiegang and Liu Wanzhang, Suyue de hunsang (Wedding and funeral ceremonies in Suzhou and Guangdong) (Taipei: Huiwen chubanshe, 1959), 31–3.
6 Jiqun, “Da chusang zhi zhongzhong” (All sorts of great funeral processions), in Yuan Jin, ed., Zhipian zhanzheng: Hong zazhi Hong meigui cuibian (War on paper: selected essays from Scarlet Miscellany and Scarlet Rose) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1999), 12.
7 Meng Yue, Shanghai and the Edges of Empires (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 88.
8 In this sense, the capacity of China's funerary rituals to “interweave” differing cultural elements (Confucian, Daoist, Buddhist, popular religious, and, in the context of late Ming and early Qing, Christian), as Nicolas Standaert's study on the Ming-Qing rituals shows, continued to ring true in this period. See Nicolas Standaert, The Interweaving of Rituals: Funerals in the Cultural Exchange between China and Europe (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008).
9 Wang Yingbin (1897–1971), an American-trained journalist, considered that “the formal announcements of marriage and deaths” constituted a unique type of advertisement in newspapers in 1920s China. See Wang Yingbin [Wang Ying Pin], The Rise of the Native Press in China (M.S.J. thesis, Columbia University, 1924; repr. Whitefish, MT: Literary Licensing, 2013), 45.
10 Bryna Goodman, “Improvisation on a Semicolonial Theme, or, How to Read a Celebration of Transnational Urban Community,” Journal of Asian Studies 59, no. 4 (November 2000): 897.
11 Meng, Shanghai and the Edges of Empires, 67.
12 Goodman, “Improvisation on a Semicolonial Theme,” 912–13.
13 Walter Benjamin, The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006), 69.
14 Chris Jenks, “The Centrality of the Eye in Western Culture, An Introduction,” in Chris Jenks, ed., Visual Culture (London: Routledge, 1995), 2.
15 Laikwan Pang, The Distorting Mirror: Visual Modernity in China (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2007), 1.
16 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 201.
17 Nicholas Mirzoeff, The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 23.
18 Mirzoeff, Right to Look, 1–2.
19 Chucang, “Buku Sheng Xuanhuai er ku Minguo” (I don't cry for Sheng Xuanhuai, but for the Republic), Minguo ribao, November 19, 1917.
20 Vanessa R. Schwartz, Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin-de-siècle Paris (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 5.
21 Meng Yue argues that Shanghai's cultural identity was found “somewhere between semicolonialism and cosmopolitanism.” See Meng, Shanghai and the Edges of Empires, vi.
22 Jeffery N. Wasserstrom, Student Protests in Twentieth-Century China: The View from Shanghai (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991), 80–1.
23 Mirzoeff, Right to Look, 1.
24 Eileen Cheng-yin Chow, “Spectacular Novelties: ‘News’ Culture, Zhang Hengshui, and Practices of Spectatorship in Republican China” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 2000), 6.
25 Rey Chow, Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 7.
26 Rey Chow, Primitive Passions, 7; Pang, Distorting Mirror; and Carlos Rojas, The Naked Gaze: Reflections on Chinese Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009).
27 Rey Chow, Primitive Passions, 9.
28 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 201.
29 Here, I follow Aaron Gerow's argument that “the shock of modernity may not have occurred when the cinematic apparatus arrived.” Gerow's analysis, though set in early twentieth-century Japan, raises a key question about what counted as “visual” in different geographical and temporal settings. See Aaron Gerow, Visions of Japanese Modernity: Articulations of Cinema, Nation, and Spectatorship, 1895–1925 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 28.
30 Vanessa Schwartz similarly argues that the word and the image were firmly linked for ordinary people in Paris in the late nineteenth century. See Schwartz, Spectacular Realities, 2.
31 Shanghai Municipal Archive, U1-2-526, 35–41
32 Mucai, “Shengzhai da chusang xuji” (An account of the Sheng family's grand funeral procession, part 2), Shibao, November 20, 1917.
33 Shen bao, November 4, 1917
34 Shanghai Municipal Archive, U1-2-526, 34
35 Qiuxin, “Shengshi chubin zhi neirong” (The contents of the Sheng family's funeral procession), Shibao, November 6, 1917.
36 Mucai, “Shengzhai da chusang xuji.”
37 “Sheng Kung-pao's Funeral.”
38 Qiuxin, “Shengshi chubin zhi neirong.”
39 Chen Cunren, Yinyuan shidai shenghuo shi (History of life in the age of silver dollars) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2000), 39.
40 Zheguang, “Da chusang zhong zhi suowen” (Some findings in the grand funeral procession), Shibao, November 17, 1917.
41 Wangzhusheng, Renhai chao (Waves in a sea of people) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1991), 264–65.
42 Sheng, “Shengzhai chusang zhi suowen” (Information about the funeral procession of the Sheng family), Shibao, November 15, 1917.
43 Qiuxin, “Shengshi chubin zhi neirong.”
44 Sheng, “Shengzhai chusang zhi suowen erze” (Two pieces of information about the funeral procession of the Sheng family), Shibao, November 16, 1917.
45 Hanchao Lu, Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 303.
46 Shanghai Municipal Archive, U1-2-526, 45.
47 Yanzi, untitled item, Xin shijie, November 18, 1917.
48 Standaert, Interweaving of Rituals, 134.
49 “Sheng Kung-pao's Funeral.”
50 “The Funeral Procession,” Shanghai Mercury, November 19, 1917.
51 “Sheng Xingsun chubin zhi shengkuang” (The grand occasion of Sheng Xingsun's funeral procession), Shen bao, November 19, 1917.
52 “Sheng Kung-Pao's Funeral.”
53 Wasserstrom, Student Protests in Twentieth-Century China, 80.
54 “Sheng Kung-Pao's Funeral.”
55 “Sheng Kung-Pao's Funeral.”
56 The Green Standard army was a Qing military force. Tiantai shannong, “Sheng chusang xin kaipian” (New opening ballads for Sheng's funeral procession), Xinwen bao, November 22, 1917.
57 Songsheng, “Da chusang shengzhong zhi jianwen” (Findings amid the noise of the grand funeral procession), Shibao, November 19, 1917.
58 “Sheng Kung-pao's Funeral.”
59 Tonghua, “Yingshi zhuzhi ci” (Lyric of bamboo shoots for the occasion), Xin shijie, November 18, 1917.
60 Bei, “Shengshi lingchen dao Su shi zhi luyou” (The itinerary of the arrival of Sheng's coffin at Suzhou), Shibao, November 14, 1917.
61 Bei, “Shengshi chubin zhi Suzhai yubei” (Preparation by the Suzhou household for the funeral procession of the Sheng family), Shibao, November 10, 1917.
62 Bei, “Shengshi lingchen dao Su shi zhi luyou.”
63 Peter J. Carroll, Between Heaven and Modernity: Reconstructing Suzhou, 1895–1937 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), 25–7.
64 “Sheng Gongbao lingjiu lai Su ji” (A note on the arrival of Sheng Xuanhuai's coffin at Suzhou), Shibao, November 24, 1917.
65 Bei, “Shengshi Suzhou chusang zhi zhuangkuang” (The situation of Sheng's funeral procession in Suzhou), Shibao, November 24, 1917.
66 Gu and Liu, Suyue de hunsang, 31–3.
67 “Sheng Xingsun fayin zhi yuwen” (More news about Sheng Xingsun's funeral procession), Shibao, November 20, 1917.
68 “Sheng Kung-pao's Funeral.”
69 Lüxi, “Da chusang zhongzhi quwen” (Interesting news about the grand funeral procession), Xinwen bao, November 23, 1917.
70 Yunfu, untitled item, Xin shijie, November 18, 1917.
71 Lüxi, “Da chusang zhongzhi quwen.”
72 Songsheng, “Da chusang shengzhong zhi jianwen.”
73 “Shengshi chubin zhi renao” (The excitement of Sheng's funeral procession) (1917), Xinwen bao, November 19, 1917.
74 “Sheng Xingsun fayin zhi qingxing” (The situation of Sheng Xingsun's funeral procession), Shibao, November 19, 1917.
75 Zhengqiu, “Kan chusang jianwen zhi (xu)” (A record of the information about viewing funeral processions, part 2), Xin shijie, November 21, 1921.
76 “Sheng Xuanhuai chubin jisheng” (A record of the grandeur of Sheng Xuanhuai's funeral procession), Minguo ribao, November 19, 1917.
77 “Shengshi chubin shengkuang yuzhi” (An advance notice of the grandeur of Sheng's funeral procession), Xinwen bao, November 16, 1917.
78 “Shengzhai chubin ri zhi chalou” (Teahouses on the day of Sheng's funeral procession), Shibao, November 8, 1917.
79 “Shengshi chubin zhi renao.”
80 “Sheng Xingsun fayin zhi qingxing.”
81 “Jinri Sheng Xingsun fayin” (Sheng Xingsun's funeral is held today), Shibao, November 18, 1917.
82 Zhengqiu, “Kan chusang jianwen zhi (xu).”
83 Songsheng, “Da chusang shengzhong zhi jianwen.”
84 Tiantai shannong, “Sheng chusang xin kaipian.”
85 Laobai, “Shengshi da chusang kaipian” (Opening ballads about Sheng's grand funeral procession), Xin shijie, November 20, 1917.
86 Wangzhusheng, Renhai chao, 264.
87 “Shengshi chubin zhi renao.”
88 Wangzhusheng, Renhai chao, 264.
89 Xue Liyong, Shanghai diangu cidian (A dictionary of anecdotes of Shanghai) (Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe, 1999), 484.
90 Meng, Shanghai and the Edges of Empires, 192.
91 Tiantai shannong, “Sheng chusang xin kaipian.”
92 Yaofeng, “Yu deng Xin shijie kan da chusang hu?” (Want to climb up on the new world and watch grand funeral processions?), Xin shijie, April 30, 1919. On Zheng Zhengqiu's career, see Li-Lin Tseng, “Electrifying Illustrated News: Zheng Zhengqiu and the Transformation of Graphic Arts into Dramatic Cinema, 1910–1935,” Twentieth-Century China 41, no. 1 (January 2016): 1–28.
93 Catherine Vance Yeh, “Shanghai Leisure, Print Entertainment, and the Tabloids, xiaobao,” in Rudolf G. Wagner, ed., Joining the Global Public: Word, Image, and City in Early Chinese Newspapers, 1870–1910 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007), 202–3.
94 “Sheng Xingsun fayin zhi yuwen” (More news about Sheng Xingsun's funeral procession), Shibao, November 20, 1917.
95 “Shengshi chubin zhi xiansheng” (The advance notice on Sheng's funeral procession), Xinwen bao, November 18, 1917.
96 “The Funeral Procession.”
97 Shanghai Municipal Archive, U1-3-30, 14.
98 Shanghai Municipal Archive, U1-3-30, 21.
99 Shanghai Municipal Archive, U1-3-30, 26.
100 Shanghai Municipal Archive, U1-3-30, 34.
101 Shanghai Municipal Archive, U1-3-30 30, 34.
102 Tang and Du, Hucheng fengsu ji, 118–20.
103 Tang and Du, Hucheng fengsu ji, 118–20.
104 S, “Sheng Xingsun yu Cao Songpo” (Sheng Xingsun and Cai Songpo), Shibao, November 19, 1917.
105 S, “Sheng Xingsun yu Cao Songpo.”
106 James L. Hevia, English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), 19.
107 Di Wang, Street Culture in Chengdu: Public Space, Urban Commoners, and Local Politics, 1870–1930 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), 50.
108 Joseph W. Esherick, “Modernity and Nation in the Chinese City,” in Joseph W. Esherick, ed., Remaking the Chinese City: Modernity and National Identity, 1900–1950 (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999), 10.
109 Alexander Des Forges, Mediasphere Shanghai: The Aesthetics of Cultural Production (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2003), 57.
110 Meng, Shanghai and the Edges of Empires, 88.
111 Samuel Y. Liang, Mapping Modernity in Shanghai: Space, Gender, and Visual Culture in the Sojourners’ City, 1853–98 (London: Routledge, 2010), 127.
112 “Kaipian” (Opening ballads), Xinwen bao, November 22, 1917.
113 Liang, Mapping Modernity in Shanghai, 121.
114 Tang Fang, Dushi jianzhu kongzhi: jindai Shanghai gonggong zujie fagui yanjiu (Controlling buildings in the concessions: a study of laws and regulations in the International Settlement of modern Shanghai) (Nanjing: Dongnan daxue chubanshe. 2009), 175–7.
115 Peter Hibbard, The Bund Shanghai: China Faces West (Hong Kong: Odyssey, 2007), 66–7.
116 Tang, Dushi jianzhu kongzhi, 242–3.
117 “Shen Kung Pao's Funeral.”
118 Yingshen saihui referred to a liturgical ritual whose participants march and display statues of deities in public.
119 David Johnson, Spectacle and Sacrifice: The Ritual Foundations of Village Life in North China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 8.
120 Gu and Liu, Suyue de hunsang, 32.
121 Xiaoqing Ye, The Dianshizhai Pictorial: Shanghai Urban Life, 1884–1898 (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2003), 197.
122 Ye, Dianshizhai Pictorial, 198–204.
123 Hibbard, The Bund Shanghai, 24–5.
124 Xiong Yuezhi, “Lüelun Shanghai ren xingcheng jiqi rentong” (Briefly on the making and identification of Shanghainese), Xueshu zhoukan 10, 58; Goodman, “Improvisations on a Semicolonial Theme,” 912.
125 Gu and Liu, Suyue de hunsang, 30–1.
126 Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, trans. and ed. Kurt H. Wolff, (Glencoe, IL, Free Press, 1950), 335.
127 Marie-Claire Bergère, The Golden Age of the Chinese Bourgeoisie 1911–1937, trans. Janet Lloyd (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 46.
128 Bergère, Golden Age of the Chinese Bourgeoisie, 99.
129 “Fugao buying jiaxu qianqing zhixian” (Ranks of former Qing should not be inserted into obituaries), Shen bao, January 12, 1921.
130 James R. Lehning, “Gossiping about Gambetta: Contested Memories in the Early Third Republic,” French Historical Studies 18, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 238.
131 Yu Muxia, Shanghai linzhua (Scales and nails of Shanghai) (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian chubanshe, 1999), 180.
132 Gu Bingquan, Shanghai Fengsu guji kao (A research about the customs and relics in Shanghai) (Shanghai: Shanghai huadong shifan daxue chubanshe, 1993), 436.
133 Mirzoeff, Right to Look, 1.
134 Meng, Shanghai and the Edges of Empires, 187.
135 Lu, Beyond the Neon Lights, 13–14.
136 Meng, Shanghai and the Edges of Empires, 66.
137 Richard Sennett, Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization (New York and London: Norton, 1994), 324.
138 Hanchao Lu, The Birth of a Republic: Francis Stafford's Photographs of China's 1911 Revolution and Beyond (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010), 142.
139 Xiong, “Lüelun Shanghai ren xingcheng jiqi rentong,” 59–60.