“THE NUMBER ONE CHINA-JAPAN CAMERA HOUSE”: CHIYO YOKO PHOTO SUPPLIES AND THE BUSINESS OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN INTERWAR SHANGHAI

Abstract

Chiyo Yoko Photo Supplies emerged as a leading specialty store catering to the highly international population of photographers in the international treaty port of Shanghai, the beating heart of art, culture, and commerce in early twentieth-century China. Drawing on Chinese, Japanese, and English-language period sources, this essay reconstructs the profile of this influential Japanese retailer, examining its committed investments in the business and culture of photography during this formative period of amateur photography in China. The store’s multifaceted retail marketing strategies, ranging from advertising in multiple languages to its backing of a photographic society and organization of a large-scale international exhibition, cultivated a cosmopolitan clientele base spanning the diverse communities of Chinese and foreign nationals in the city. This case study recaptures the transnational dynamics and cross-border movements of people and goods that empowered photography as a business, which in turn galvanized the popularization of amateur photography during this period of heightened national consciousness in modern China.

Acknowledgment

The author thanks Douglas Fix, Christine I. Ho, Michelle H. Wang, and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback at different stages in the writing of this essay.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Dent, “The Photographic Trade,” 56.

2. Zhongguo jiu haiguan shiliao bianji weiyuanhuai ed., Zhongguo jiu haiguan shiliao 1859–1949 [Historical records from old maritime customs in China 1859–1949]. The equivalent of Haikwan tael fluctuated between 0.65 and 1.39 American gold dollar between 1911 and 1920. The net import total figures eventually began to include cinematographic materials.

3. In Japanese sources from the period, the founding date of Chiyo Yoko is given variously as 1903, 1907, or 1911. See Zenshi shōkō torihiki sōran [All China business directory], 50; Koa sangyo keizai taikan: Jitsugyō no sekai tokubetsu rinji daizōkan [Overview of Koa industry economics: Jitsugyo Sekai special extra edition], 117. In Shina zairyū hōjin jinmeiroku [Directory of Japanese residents in China], published annually from 1913 into the 1940s by Kinpūsha in Shanghai, and from which I draw some the store’s addresses, Chiyo Yoko’s founding year is given as 1903; see, for example page 52 of the 1930 edition.

4. The image on the poster hanging above the Rolleicord poster is identical to the advertisement for Contax II in the 1937 Shanghai Exhibition checklist booklet.

5. Yi Chang, established in 1915, is perhaps the first Chinese-owned photography specialty store in Shanghai. Its founding year of 1915 is stated in an advertisement about its twentieth anniversary, “Shanghai Yi Chang zhaoxiang cailiaohang qianyi ershi zhounian jinian” [Shanghai Yi Chang Photo Supply Company celebrates its twentieth anniversary after relocation], Shenbao, March 1, 1935, 12.

6. For a classic study on the unique urban culture that flourished there, see Lee, Shanghai Modern; on exterritoriality and its expressions through architecture in treaty-port Shanghai, see Roskam, Improvised City.

7. Scholarship on operations of studios and professional photographers in late-nineteenth century Japan, for example, include Fukuoka, “Selling Portrait Photographs,” 335–74; and Fraser, “Studio Practices in Early Japanese Photography,” 132–44. Part two of Moore’s Photography in China focuses on studios. On Beato’s marketing strategies, see Hockley, “Packaged Tours,” 66–85; and Wu, “Photography’s Subjugation of China,” 47–83.

8. See Edwards, “Why Pictures?” Ross’s Photography for Everyone offers an exemplary study of aspects of the business of photography in the Japanese context. Gartlan’s “Samuel Cocking and the Rise of Japanese Photography” also examines the important role of an Anglo-Australian merchant as importer, distributor, and manufacturer of photographic goods.

9. Edwards, “Why Pictures?”

10. Examples of these efforts include the Kinhwa camera and Xiaofang photo papers, see Tong, History of Photo Studios in China, 61–63.

11. Zhongguo jiu haiguan shiliao bianji weiyuanhuai, unpaginated.

12. Tong, History of Photo Studios in China, 54–55.

13. Wright, Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, 654.

14. Advertisement in Shanhai nichinichi shinbun, March 14, 1931, 1.

15. While there appears to be no extant copies, Chiyo Times was publicized in the store’s advertisements in Shanhai nichinichi shinbun, for example, on March 14, 1931.

16. Such prizes were mentioned in reports such as “China Photographic Society,” 16.

17. The Minimum Photography Club, Pearlette Photography League, and Uzuki Club were informally backed by Konishi Roku; see Ross, Photography for Everyone, 103–116.

18. “Jiaru huashe sheying zhanlanhui you you duoren” [More join Huashe’s photographic exhibition], 14.

19. Based on the names listed, waiguoren referred to Westerners. I thank Hsueh-Sheng Chen for sharing the exhibition’s ‘Result of Examination’ list in the personal collection of the photographer Deng Nanguang in Taiwan.

20. Shanhai nichinichi shinbun, November 11, 1934, 1.

21. “Rishang zhuban suowei Shanghai wanguo yingzhan” [Japanese store organize the so-called Shanghai international photography exhibition], 29.

22. “Jujue canjia riren zhuban zhi Shanghai wanguo sheying zhanlanhui” [Refuse to participate in the Shanghai international photography exhibition organized by the Japanese], 28.

23. This number appears in an announcement about the next Shanghai Exhibition a year later, see “Shanghai wanguo erjie yingzhan jingxun” [Recent news on Shanghai second international photography exhibition], 13.

24. Taisheng, “Wanguo yishu sheying zhan” [International photographic art exhibition], 12.

25. “Photo Exhibition Draws Interest,” 9. The report specifically mentions ‘this year pictures from Japan are not included’; Shen, “Gailiang jiating zhanlanhui, wanguo sheying zhanlanhui” [Home improvement exhibition, international photographic exhibition], 1.

26. Jing, “Wanguo sheyingzhanlanhui zhi jiangping” [Prizes from the international photographic exhibition], 1550.

27. Shen, “Gailiang jiating zhanlanhui, wanguo sheying zhanlanhui” [Home improvement exhibition, international photographic exhibition], 1.

28. Ibid.

29. Some of Chiyo Yoko’s price lists from the 1930s can be found in the documents section of www.chinesecamera.com

30. The price of five fen is noted in “Shanghai wanguo sheying yishuhui de sheying zhanlan” [Photographic exhibition of Shanghai international photographic art society], 69. The booklet includes advertisements from the Eastman Kodak Company in Shanghai and Carlowitz & Co., a German import-export firm of chemicals, medical and optical instruments.

31. “Fuxi zishu” [Fuxi, in his own words], in Guangyuan zhanshi zongpu [Genealogy of the Zhan of Guangyuan], kept in the genealogy records section at the Shanghai Library.

32. “You yi rishang huayuan cizhi” [Another Chinese staff resigns from Japanese firm], 13.

33. Du, Sheyingshu guwen [Guide to photography], 129.

34. Chen, “Wo sheying de jingguo” [My experience in photography], 51.

35. Du, “Fang laosheyingjia Jin Shisheng jian tan Feiying zazhi” [Interview with the senior photographer Jin Shisheng and a discussion of Feiying], 8.

36. “Shanhaishi gaisen daiippō” [First report on Shanghai street battle], Tokyo nichinichi shinbun, January 31, 1932, 1.

37. “Kokusanhin no shinshutsu matsu shina: da ga mondai wa kagaku taisaku: Chiyo Yōkō no ryō kataru” [The wait for the expansion of national products in China; but the problem is pricing strategy; conversation with two staff from Chiyo Yoko], 3; Shashin gyōkai nijū nen no kiroku [Records of twenty years of the photography industry], 104.

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H. Tiffany Lee

H. Tiffany Lee is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Art & Art History at Swarthmore College.