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Shanghai's “Dogs and Chinese Not Admitted” Sign: Legend, History and Contemporary Symbol*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
Extract
This article examines the potency and persistence of myth and language in the context of the dispute, now over 80 years old, about the officially-sanctioned wording of regulations in the municipal parks of foreign-administered Shanghai. Specifically, it examines the potent symbol of the sign placed in Shanghai's Huangpu Park that allegedly read: “Chinese and Dogs Not Admitted.” This symbol has secured a totemic position in the historiography of the Western presence in China before 1949 and is deeply embedded in contemporary Chinese and Western perceptions and representations of that era, and of the whole question of Western imperialism in China. It is the subject both of popular discourse and official fiat in China today. Drawing on a series of revisionist writings and new archival research this article shows that the true facts of the case are both beyond dispute and irrelevant, but that the legend survives undiminished.
For over 60 years before June 1928 most Chinese certainly were barred from the parks administered by the foreign-controlled Shanghai Municipal Council (SMC) of the International Settlement in Shanghai. As shown below, the enforcement of the ban varied over time but for the first three decades of the 20th century it was rigidly administered. Dogs, ball games, cycling and picking of the flowers were also forbidden, but the alleged juxtaposition of the bans on dogs and Chinese became notorious. The potency of “dog” as an insulting and dehumanizing epithet in China undoubtedly exacerbated the insult, and also made the story of the sign's outrageous wording seem all the more plausible.
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References
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2. In Chinese it has also been known as the Gongjia huayuan (Public Garden) and Xiren huayuan (Westerners' Garden).
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11. The issue had been politicized to such an extraordinary extent that we will refrain here from citing any of these pieces, but any search through the recent historical literature emanating from Shanghai will turn up examples.
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26. The text of the plaque is provided in Ted Thomas, “Keeping a myth alive,” South China Morning Post, 22 January 1987, p. 12. The version of the sign's history recounted on the plaque, which has disappeared during the recent renovation of the park and the building of the Martyrs Memorial, is very similar to that provided in PRC publications such as Xiang, Hua, (ed.), Shanghai shihua (An Informal History of Shanghai) (Shanghai: Wuwen shuju, 1971), pp. 138–142.Google Scholar
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32. It is interesting to note, in fact, that the lawns and benches on the Bund Foreshore, alongside the Huangpu but not in the Public Garden, and barred to Chinese use from the turn of the century onwards do actually appear to have been “reclaimed” by Chinese users after May 30th, despite SMC policy. Parks Committee, 16 December 1927, Minute Book No. 2, SMA.
33. Xin Shanghai bianlan (A Handy Guide to New Shanghai) (Shanghai: Dagong bao, 1951), pp. 415–16; see also Shanghai ji jinbu yiri you (A Day's Travels in Shanghai and Neighbouring Parts) (Shanghai: Shanghai wenhua chubanshe, 1957), pp. 24—25. An exact reprint of the latter work was published in Hong Kong in 1972 by the Luyou chubanshe.
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36. Ibid. pp. 142–47; for a similar view, which includes a reproduction of the Malone photograph as evidence, see Shanghai waitan Nanjinglu shihua (An Informal History of Shanghai's Bund and Nanjing Road) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1976), pp. 46–49.
37. A sample brief account from the early 1980s, one of many, may be found in Shanghai youlan {Shanghai Guidebook) (Shanghai: Shanghai wenhua chubanshe, 1980), p. 24.
38. Shanghai Cidian (Dictionary of Shanghai) (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1989), p. 435; Shanghai Cidian (Dictionary of Shanghai) (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 1989), pp. 473–74; Zhang, Xuelin (ed.), Yuanlin jiqu (Record of the Parks) (Shanghai: Shanghai huabao chubanshe, 1991), pp. 23–25.Google Scholar
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43. Shanghai youlan zhinan (Shanghai Touring Guide) (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1923), p. 29; Xiuzhen Shanghai zhinan (Pocket Guide to Shanghai) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1911), p. 65; Shanghai zhinan (Shanghai Guide) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1909), part 8, p. 2; Shanghai zhinan (Shanghai Guide) (Shanghai: Shanghai yinhang luxingshe, 1925), p. 23.
44. Parks Committee, 29 December 1911, Minute Book No. 1, SMA.
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53. A Mischievous Slander, p. 4. The 1943 Dark Side of the Shanghai Concessions notes that “one line of the regulations read ‘This park is reserved exclusively for foreigners,’ another line ‘Dogs not admitted to this park,’ put simply (jiandan shuoqilai) this is ‘Chinese and Dogs not admitted’” (p. 21).
54. Police Guide and Regulations (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1896), pp. 70–71.
55. Ye Xiaoqing, “Shanghai before nationalism,” p. 52.
56. NCH, 9 September 1911, pp. 651–52; Crow, Foreign Devils in the Flowery Kingdom, p. 197.
57. The number of Chinese residents of the International Settlement nearly trebled between 1890 and 1910, to 488,000 (SMC, Annual Report, 1890, p. 299).
58. Parks Committee, 25 October 1915, Minute Book No. 1, SMA; SMC, Annual Report 1903, map inside front cover.
59. Parks Committee, 16July 1915, Minute Book No. 1, SMA; GuZiren, who complained in London in 1925 about exclusion from the parks, was a St Graduate, John's, The Times, 4 February 1925, p. 16Google Scholar; Who's Who in China (5th ed., Shanghai: China Weekly Review, 1936), p. 291.
60. Parks Committee, 8 May 1914; 1 June 1921, Minute Book No. 2, SMA.
61. J. O. P. Bland to Public Garden Committee, 14 July 1899, Shanghai Municipal Council, Annual Report, 1901, pp. 421–22.
62. SMCG, 10 October 1908; 5 September 1908 (quoted in 29 June 1911, p. 166); 2 June 1910, p. 185.
63. The 1881 protest pointed out that “there is in view no official notification” (emphasis added) giving information on the rules; NCH, 13 May 1881, pp. 462–63.
64. SMCG, 2 June 1910, p. 185.
65. Ransome's piece first appeared in the Manchester Guardian, 2 May 1927, and was later reprinted in the author's book, The Chinese Puzzle (London: Allen and Unwin, 1927).
66. The diversity of Shanghai's foreign community and differences of opinion relating to the way Chinese residents should be treated are handled well in Nicholas Clifford, “A revolution is not a tea party: the Shanghai mind(s) reconsidered,” Pacific Historical Review, No. 59 (November 1990), pp. 501–526; and Huskey, James, “The cosmopolitan connection,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 227–242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Contemporary Western criticisms of exclusionary policies include Powell, J. B., “And the Municipal Band plays on!” China Weekly Review, 13 April 1927, pp. 194–95Google Scholar; and a letter to the editors of the North China Daily News entitled “Admission of Chinese into public parks,” which was reprinted in NCH, 1 May 1926, p. 208.
67. “Such things as forbidding the good class Chinese from entering the Jessfield Park, when any Japanese or fifth class Portuguese half-caste is allowed to do so, strikes me as an intolerable insult and one that does much harm,” Maj. Gen. J. Duncan to Sir Miles Lampson, S/O 16 January 1928, Great Britain Public Records Office Foreign Office files, FO228/3804/ 16 25a.
68. Quoted in SMCG, 19 April 1928, p. 159c.
69. Parks Committee, 21 December 1909, Minute Book No. 1, SMA.
70. The British Municipal Council in Tianjin only opened its parks to all residents in 1926, (Tientsin No. 37b, 2 April 1927, “Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of Ratepayers,” p. 2, FO228/3179/101 108c). Previously Chinese were only admitted with permits, and in effect this was intended to mean amahs (except “quarrelsome” ones) and their European charges, British Municipal Council Tientsin, Handbook of Municipal Regulations (Tianjin, n.d., c. 1923), pp. 69, 92–93.
71. Wu Guifang, “Informal discussion of old Shanghai,” p. 81.
72. “Guanyu ‘Huaren yu gpu bu de runei’ de erfang duzhe laixi” (“Two letters from readers concerning ‘Dogs and Chinese Not Admitted’”), Dang ‘an yu lishi (Archives and History), Vol. 2, No. 3 (1986), p. 106.
73. W. H. Trenchard Davis quoted in SMCG, 14 April 1927, p. 147. See also Powell, “And the Municipal Band plays on!”
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76. Pye, “How China's Nationalism was Shanghaied,” pp. 116–17.
77. The Jubilee of Shanghai, 1843–1893 (Shanghai: North China Daily News, 1893), pp. 38–39; Fairbank, John K., Trade and Development on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842–1854 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964), p. 466.Google Scholar
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