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China's World's Fair of 1910: Lessons from a Forgotten Event

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Michael R. Godley
Michael R. Godley
Affiliation:
Clark University
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Extract

From before the turn of the century, the great powers held large commercial, industrial and technological exhibitions to show off the fruits of progress and to give their citizens a glimpse of where civilization was headed. World fairs thus provided one window into the future. But it must be remembered that such events also constructed monuments to their own era—an age when jingoism and a paradoxical recognition of the shrinking nature of the globe coexisted before the road to war. In the final analysis, the grand exposition, with its curiosity about other peoples and nations and its faith nonetheless that mechanical invention would soon make everyone much the same, was a place where imperialists met in thinly disguised competition. How strange it must seem, then, to learn that the last Chinese dynasty, having just discovered the power of nationalism, attempted an international exposition of its own in the summer of 1910 at the same time that the ‘Festival of Empire Exhibition’ was booked into London's famed Crystal Palace.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , July 1978 , pp. 503 - 522
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

1 This account of the Nanking fair is based largely on Chinese periodical and documentary sources, particularly: Tung-fang tsa-chih (Eastern Miscellany), Shun t'ien shih pao (Peking Times) and the Shih pao (The Eastern News) (Shanghai). There are also two first-hand monographic reports: Nan-yang ch'uan-yeh hui lu chi (A Description of the Nanking Exhibition) (Shanghai, 1910) and Nan-yang ch'uan-yeh hui Chih-li ch'u-p'in lei tsuan ho p'ien (the display of Chihli exports at the Nanyang Exhibition) (Tienstin, 1911). Available English-language sources include periodicals, particularly: ‘The Nanyang Exhibition: China's First Great National Show,’ The Far Eastern Review (April 1910), 503–7, and ‘China's First World's Fair’ in The American Review of Reviews (June 1910), 691–3. A number of other scattered references will be acknowledged below.Google Scholar

2 Holmes, Ernst Raymond, ‘The First Exposition in China,’ The World To-Day: A Monthly Record of Human Progress (August 1910), 916.Google Scholar

3 Tuan Fang's copious memorials can be found in a variety of places. For example, Tuan Chung-min-kung tsou kao (draft memorials of Tuan Fang), 13:16b–18b and 14:41b–45. Conveniently, many of the major memorials dealing with the exhibition were reprinted in contemporary newspapers and government publications. Early proposals therefore appear in Shang-wu kuan-pao (commercial gazette) 6 January 1909, 33:7–8b, and Cheng-chih kuan-pao (government gazette) 22 December 1908, 417:8–10. The most readily available source is probably Ch'ing-ch'ao hsu wen-hsien t' ung k'ao (encyclopedia of the historical records of the Ch'ing dynasty continued [CCHWHTK]) (Taipei reprint, 1963), Vol. 4, 11410. There was also a very much belated summary in The North China Herald, 3 June 1910.Google Scholar

4 For the career of Tuan Fang, see Hummel, Arthur W., Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1944), Vol. 2, 780–2.Google Scholar

5 Tung-fang tsa-chih, 6:3 (15 April 1909) reports, 8.Google Scholar

6 Hummel states that Tuan was cashiered because of ‘disrespect to the funeral procession of the Empress Dowager, by taking photographs,’ 781. Tuan did, however, manage to regain some authority before his death in 1911.Google Scholar

7 See, for example, the Western accounts cited above or Tung-fang tsa-chih, 6:6 (12 July 1909) reports, 157–8, and 6:7 (10 August), 189.Google Scholar

8 Tung-fang tsa-chih, 6:3 (15 April 1909) reports, 8–9.Google Scholar

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10 Ibid.

11 Cheng is described as a ‘Manchu loyalist’ in Boorman, Howard (ed.), Biographical Dictionary of Republican China (New York, 1967), Vol. 1, 272.Google Scholar

12 Tung-fang tsa-chih, 6:3 (15 April 1909) reports, 8.Google Scholar

13 The Ministry's increasing role can be traced in several documentary sources. The early concern about taxation and organization also appear in Cheng-chih kuanpao, 671 (9 September 1909), 3–5Google Scholar, and in Tung-fang tsa-chih, 6:5 (12 June 1909) reports, 103–5; 6:9 (8 October) memorials, 86–8, and also 6:4 (14 May) regulations, 5–8; 6:6 (12 July) regulations, 9–13 6:8 (9 September) regulations, 19–22, and 6:12 (January 1910) regulations, 31–46.Google Scholar

14 There is certainly abundant information about lower level activities in local newspapers. Tung-fang tsa-chih, however, provides handy monthly summaries: 6:6. (12 July 1909) reports, 57–8; 6:7 (10 August) reports, 189; 6:8 (9 September), 219–20, and 6:9 (8 October), 268–70.Google Scholar

15 Tung-fang tsa-chih, 6: 10 (7 11 1909) reports, 314 and 6: 11 (7 December) reports, 354–5.Google Scholar

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17 Tung-fang tsa-chih, 6: 6 (12 07 1909) reports, 157–8, and 6:7 (10 August) reports, 189.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., 6:8 (9 September 1909) reports, 219, and 6:9 (8 October) reports, 269.

19 Ibid., 6:10 (7 November 1909) reports, 314; 6:11 (7 December) reports, 355–6; 6:12 (6 January 1910) reports, 406–7, and 6:13 (4 February), 461–2.

20 Ibid., 6:10 (7 November 1909) reports, 314.

21 Ibid., 6:11 (7 December 1909) reports, 356.

22 Ibid., 6:8 (9 September 1909) reports, 220.

23 See the author's ‘Late Ch'ing Courtship of the Chinese in Southeast Asia,’ Journal of Asian Studies (February 1975), 361–85Google Scholar, and ‘Chang Pi-shih and Nanyang Chinese Involvement in South China's Railroads, 1896–1911,’ Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (March 1973), 16–30.Google Scholar

24 Ibid. See also Tung-fang tsa-chih, 6:8 (September 1909), reports, 220.

25 Tuan Chung-min-kung tsou kao, 14:47b and 15:43–44b.

26 Straits Times (Singapore), 17 July 1908 and Lat Pau (Singapore), 16 June 1908.Google Scholar

27 Straits Times, 3 and 17 September 1908.Google Scholar

28 Tung-fang tsa-chih, 6:11 (7 December 1909) reports, 355; 6:13 (4 February 1910), 463.Google ScholarSee also Shih lu, HT 17:24b–25, and Cheng chih kuan-pao, 987 (29 July 1909), 5.Google Scholar

29 Cheng-chih kuan-pao, 987 (29 July 1910), 5.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., 1140 (4 January 1911), 4, and 1179 (13 February 1911), 14. See also Shih lu, HT 49:8, or CCHWHTK, Vol. 4, 11417.

31 For Yang's relationship with the Nanyang Chinese, see ‘Late Ch'ing Courtship,’ 381–4.Google Scholar

32 Shun t'ien shih pao, 14 June 1910; also North China Herald, 10 June, and as far away as Straits Times, 15 June 1910.Google Scholar

33 Information about the exhibition's opening is from reports in Shih pao, 7 and 8 June, and Shun t'ien shih pao, 7 June 1910. An official government statement is in Cheng-chih kuan-pao, 987 (29 July 1910), 5–8. Other sources include: The North China Herald, 10 June, and The Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal (Shanghai), July 1910.Google Scholar

34 The Times (London), 7 June 1910.Google Scholar

35 Shih pao, 7 July 1910;Google ScholarTung-fang tsa-chih, 7:6 (31 July 1910) chronology, 31–3 and 7:7 (29 August) chronology, 517.Google Scholar

36 The serious nature of the situation is revealed in various government documents. See, for example, Shih lu, HT 34:24; 35:20 and 36:1. Western fears can be seen in The Times (London), 1 June 1910, or the Straits Times, 7, 15, and 20 June. Japanese skepticism is in Shun t'ien shih pao, 22 May 1910.Google Scholar

37 Straits Times, quoting a Hankow paper, 8 July 1910.Google Scholar

38 North China Herald, 10 June 1910.Google Scholar

39 Shih pao, 12 July 1910.Google Scholar

40 Holmes, , in The World To-Day, 916.Google Scholar

41 The Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal (March 1910), 193.Google Scholar

42 Ibid. (June 1910), 383–4; also 441–2 and 501–2. There is a photo of the Christian headquarters on page 569.

43 Nan-yang ch'uan yeh hui lu chi, 1–7. See also Shih pao, 3, 4, 5, 9 and 22 August 1910.Google Scholar

44 For Industry and other large exhibits, see Nan-yang ch'uan-yeh hui lu chi, in the book's entirety and the supplementary material available in newspapers during the summer months of 1910.Google Scholar

45 Nan-yang ch'uan-yeh hui lu chi, Pt II, 1–4.

46 Ibid., 4–6. Great details are also preserved in the two-volume commemorative, Nan-yang ch'uan-yeh hui Chih-li.

47 Nan-yang ch'uan-yeh lu chi, I, 2, and II, 22–5.Google Scholar

48 Ibid., II, 27–8.

49 Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal (November 1910), 697.Google Scholar

50 Ibid., 698.