There are often product names, company names, slogans, and calendars merged into the frame of CSCP. The juxtaposition of Chinese and Western characters is actually the manifestation of a mixed culture that blends Chinese and Western, traditional and modern components into Shanghai society in the early twentieth century. “The frame,” in the narrow sense, means the composition of art design and a technique to confine the visual realm. In the broad sense, “the frame” signifies the multi-cultures hidden in its contents. Besides the visual signs, the linguistic signs especially indicate the dimension, Shanghai, the Paris of the East, in the early twentieth century. In other words, “the frame” symbolizes a limitation of signification and a confinement of the tempro-spatial and cultural context of the poster as in the following Figure 9.
Fig 9 British American Tobacco (Wu & et al, 1994)
This “British American Tobacco” (BAT) poster in 1916 can be a perfect example to see how Shanghai in the preliminarily modern China is illustrated and depicted by the “the frame.”
The style of the picture in the BAT poster is under the influence of Renaissance portraits. The human figure is against the background of perspective scenery. The picture is firmly framed mostly by linguistic message. Calendars are placed on two sides, one as “Western Calendar 1915-1916” on the left hand side, the other as
“Republic of China 4th year, Lunar Calendar year of Yi Mao (已卯)” on the right hand side. Both calendars are put in Chinese characters. The company name “British American Tobacco” in Chinese is on the top of the poster, and various kinds of
cigarette pack, “The Three Castles,” “Atlas,” “Peacock,” “Pin Head,” and “Pirate” are painted at the bottom.
The opposed Western and lunar calendars though stands for the clues of Western
culture in daily life, the use of Chinese characters and the Chinese style of calendar layout imply that Western calendar is actually subordinate to Chinese lunar calendar.
Since the opening of Five-Treaty-Ports and English Concessions in 1843, Western culture had been introduced to Shanghai for quite a while by 1916. However, people still lived their lives according to the lunar calendar as in the agricultural society. It indicates that, at that time, during the period of World War One, the life in southern China was still economically agricultural and ideologically feudalistic.
The company name in Chinese helps people who do not know any foreign language to figure out what kind of product is promoted. Nevertheless, the co-existing Chinese and Western characters prove that Shanghai people are used to foreign objects and exotic cultures in their daily life. Since 1845, following the English, the Western powers began to establish concessions in Shanghai. “Countries within the country” became an idiosyncratic phenomenon of Shanghai. After 1890, mass production and capitalism resulted from the Industrial Revolution and the idea of stimulating consumption by means of advertising had already rooted in Shanghai.
British American Tobacco introduced the first offset printing machine to China and initiated the circulation of numerous color printing pictures in 1911. Henceforth, Shanghai was framed by the capitalism from the West. In the mean time, Shanghai, though still agricultural, was surrounded by Western culture and Western commodity.
Thus, capitalism as well as Chinese tradition and feudalism build “the frame”
around “the female image” of CSCP. As moving onward to a modern society, Shanghai cultural and social context was so depicted, in spite of that “the female image” in 1916 was a still foot-bound Chinese woman.
On June 1st, 1901, the Governor-General Office established Taiwan Sotokufu Monopoly Bureau. At first, it monopolized the business of selling opium to Taiwan.
crops, including tea, banana, sugar, camphor, cigarette and wine. By 1910, the profit of Sotokufu Monopoly Bureau was up to 40% of the colonial government’s income.
The Japanese economic exploitation of the colony, Taiwan, is obvious and planned.
The Oolong tea trade, for example, has been a major export product since 1860 and owns its major customers in North America. However, by maneuvering the monopoly and tax policies, the Governor-General Office eventually took over the business. Only Japanese or Government-favored Taiwanese traders and no more foreign (mostly English and American) businessmen were allowed to run the Oolong tea business.
Actually, everything of the whole colony, crops, business, and even labor of people, is under the control of and exploited by the colonial government. Women’s labor is certainly not an exception. In Figure 5 and Figure 6, we may see the typical scene of tea-picking women in the tea farm. These women belonged to the lowest rank within the whole tea business. It was impossible for women to own a tea farm (women are not entitled to inherit any possession); and it was also impossible for them to appear in public to run a business (women were subordinate to men in Chinese feudalistic patriarchy); and it was definitely impossible for them to play a role and utter opinions in the political sphere (women were to obey the policies made by men). The Office above the Japanese traders, and then the tea farmer, and finally the tea-picking women, this was the hierarchy of the tea business in Taiwan during the Japanese Occupation. These women were severely and multiply exploited by both the capitalism and patriarchy; at the bottom of the business, they labored for the production of the whole colony. They were subject to the male farm owners, businessmen, and politicians. These obedient and diligent women though were at the bottom, built the most solid basis of the colonial economy and indeed created the
subjectivity. Obedience and diligence were the virtues of Taiwanese women. They promised the customers a perfect taste of Oolong tea.
In 1914, the Chinese tradition of foot-binding was already banned by the Japanese colonial government, whereas the freed feet did not mean the liberation of women but the ruling class’s condescending attitude toward the “uncivilized” tradition of the colony and the need, embedded in this “civilized” policy, of female labor contributing to the economic growth of Japanese Empire. Economic exploitation, class oppression, female labor abuse, cultural discrimination, and sexism, providing the clues, the Oolong tea posters tell us the story and situation of women during the Japanese Occupation of Taiwan. The colonial government was the controlling hand behind these women and the society. This hand imposed the colonial, capitalistic and patriarchal desire on the female images of the print advertisements.
“A woman without talents is therefore virtuous.” Traditionally in Chinese feudalistic society, attending husband and raising children are women’s major responsibilities. Women are not allowed to show up in public. In 1903, the first law concerning women education, “Kindergarten and Family Education Law”
(monyiangyuan yu chiatingchiaoyu changcheng), was announced by the Ch’ing government. It stated that women should stay home learning Filial Obedience Book
for Women (nyu shiaoching), Four Books for Women (nyu seshu), and Biography of Virtuous Women (lieh nyu chuang) or some necessary knowledge about home
economy. Women education was officially banned because it conflicted to the traditional idea of “telling the difference between men and women [by literacy]” in China. Furthermore, it would encourage a woman to choose her own husband regardless of parents’ opinions. Till 1907, “Women Elementary School Law”emphasized that all the courses should not violate the convention of Chinese virtues
diligent” future wives and to keep them away from wild and vulgar customs.
Women students could not go to the same school with men and had no right for the higher education. Shanghai might be one of the earliest modernized and westernized cities in China. The Episcopal Church established Bridgman Memorial School for Girls in Shanghai, 1850. However, the first woman student was not accepted by Private Tatung College until 1916 (Chronology of Shanghai Women Editorial Council, 2000).
Then, in this conservative and feudalistic social context, who is the displayed foot-bound woman painted in the BAT poster (Figure 9)? She is definitely not an ordinary daughter or housewife whose appearance in public is forbidden. Her costume and appearance, on the other hand, imply she is not a westernized woman.
In the tempro-spatial context, it is very possible she is a famous prostitute who is used to show herself in public, and the public reckons her exhibition common and
unoffending.6
From some photographs of Shanghai in the same period, the study finds a picture, shown as Figure 10, of Ping-shiang Li, a famous poet prostitute, whose facial features, costume, and pose are similar to the woman in the BAT poster.
6 A research on the costume and fashion of late Ch’ing Dynasty indicates that the costumes of women in CSCP and of the famous prostitutes are quite alike (Juan, 2002).
Fig 10 Ping-shiang Li (Shieh, 1996)
The style of displaying the female image in two pictures is identical. Both the photographer and the painter arrange the same items for the portraits, such as flowers in hand, bonsais and splendor clothing. The same aesthetic choice confirms that the female image adopted by the Western advertiser is based on the value of local and popular culture. Even though the woman in BAT poster may not be Li, it is obvious this popular female figure was not a fine daughter or a virtuous housewife praised officially by the mainstream China. Subversively, this popular female image represented the culture and the value system that was positively identified by the contemporary Shanghai people.
In 1898, Tienshihchai Huabao printed a “Skirts Party” (ch’unch’aitahui)
covering Shanghai mayor’s wife invited both Chinese and foreign upper ladies for the establishment of a Shanghai women school. Attendees included wives of foreign ambassadors and lawyers, sisters of the church, wives of Chinese officers, and a
courtesan of a pharmaceutical businessman (Yieh, 1998). In 1903, an American missionary, Gilbert Reid restarted the International Institute of China in Shanghai.
Not only the socialites but also some famous prostitutes attended at the inauguration.
“Prostitutes appear as socialites and celebrities in public is unique in Shanghai” (Yieh, 1998: 144). Actually, in late Ch’ing Dynasty, high-class prostitutes are “the first group of working girls in Chinese society.” “They are few women who can show up in public and therefore are responsible for the public relations” (Hsu, 1998: 120).
Tabloids in Shanghai often treated these prostitutes as celebrities and gossiped the fashion of their costumes and writings. Ping-shiang Li, the poet prostitute, used to be described as “a modern Ch’ing-chao Li” (a famous woman poet in Soong Dynasty) and praised as a wonderful woman with writing talent (Hershatter, 1997). That is to say, these educated, economically independent, and out-going women had already found their position in the popular culture, and their popularity and charm was exactly the reason why the Western advertisers would choose them as models in CSCP. The female image in CSCP is the evidence of a powerful female subjectivity transgressing the conservative and moral frames built by the patriarchy and feudalistic tradition.
During 1910’s, women in Shanghai, a setting of the mixed Chinese and Western cultures, a transitional state between feudalism and capitalism, gradually seized the power and became aggressive. The traditional belief, “women without talents are therefore virtuous,” was finally overturned by the popular culture because of the opportunity offered by the capitalism from the West.
Hence, the female image of BAT in 1916 is no longer merely a foot-bound, feudalism-and-capitalism-framed, and conservative Chinese woman. This female image signifies the subjectivity that possesses the subversive power and ready to grow beyond the frame. Soon, after the May Fourth Movement in 1919, women were