Journal of East-Asian Urban History
East-Asian Society for Urban History (EASUH)
- Semi Annual
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- 2713-9484(eISSN)
Volume 2 Issue 1
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Urban pollution has been a problem in China since ancient times. In modern times, pollution was aggravated by industrialization and urbanization and became closely related to people's lives. Shanghai was the industrial center and the most urbanized place of modern China. As a price, it needed to face extremely serious urban pollution, and the treatment of this problem involved all aspects of social life. Noise pollution let foreigners to interpret the Chinese people and the city of Shanghai from a cultural perspective, and let Chinese residents to understand Shanghai and the nation from a civilized perspective. Pollution regulation made Shanghai the first city in modern China to implement overall pollution control and levy environmental protection fees. It also enabled the Chinese to gradually fight for their rights in urban governance. Urban pollution also brought business opportunities; in the highly commercial city of Shanghai, it promoted the development of some industries. The experience of urban pollution and its treatment prompted the people of Shanghai to rethink and re-recognize modern civilization, and also promoted the formation of Shanghai urban community.
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The emergence of coffee shops and other public spaces in modern Shanghai shows the appearance of the "mass" centered on the middle class. Furthermore, we can further explore the different development paths of the publicity of modern Chinese urban society. The emergence of new public leisure spaces, such as cafes, provides a model of modern life style and a stage of daily publicity for the middle class in Shanghai. With the convenience provided by this kind of public space, people are able to clean up their old opinions and be better at accepting new ideas. A more sensitive and flexible public opinion of Enlightenment has gradually formed in urban life.
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Examining how the CCP operated social services in Shanghai neighborhood[linong] in early 1950s, this article reveals the hidden relation between social service and rectification of neighborhood organizations in 1954. One of the main purpose of 1954 rectification was to guarantee provision of grassroots level of the city by recruiting local cadres, the implementers of social services. Though series of social service, such as night patrol, cleaning and public charity were indispensable for residents' life and welfare(fuli)[福利] of neighborhood, the social services was the something most of the Shanghai residents were reluctant to do. The result was the shortage of human resource for social service, triggering the "nominal position(gua ming)[掛名] " phenomenon. During political rectification of neighborhood organizations in 1954 Shanghai Municipal government tried to solve this 'decline of human resource in social services' problem by attracting the unemployed to the position of basic level cadre. To be specific, it demanded jobless person in neighborhood to be registered in time if they want a job placement. And it used that registration as the nominee of cadre in re-election process of the rectification campaign. The government measures were closely related to Shanghai people's inclination to rely on party-state when they try to get a job. Hence political rectification in neighborhood organizations become the strategic tool of city governance to mobilize residents in operating social services. So this article suggests that the CCP's urban governance was a complex and nuanced process to induce urban residents' interest and voluntarism beyond the suppression-oriented totalitarian perspective.
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Since 1949, The first generation leader MAO zedong liked reading history books and historical biography, It led to criticism and evaluation of history and character be targeted in every movement, before the February Outline(er yue ti gang) had been revoked, the Shanghai society discussed "Hai Rui's Dismissal "basically" within the "learning and using Chairman MAO's works(huo xue huo yong mao zhu xi zhu zuo)" category, with the deterioration of the national political situation, based on the historical drama "Hai Rui's Dismissal" discussions, the dilemma of cultural propaganda and academic research appeared.
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Right before the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-1954), the Great Eastern Broadcasting Station (GEBS) was established in Shanghai under the aegis of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (MOFA). Prior to the launching of the GEBS, Japan had not owned similar radio stations in China for years. As a result, the Embassy of Japan in China held rounds of discussions on the plan and Japanese governments, ranging from the MOFA, the Navy, the Army, the Ministry of Communications (MOC), and NHK-Japan Broadcasting Corporation (Nihon Hoso Kyoku) provided financial, technological, and equipment support. In the mid-1930s when the Sino-Japanese relations became intensified, the GEBS assumed the primary role of disseminating government policies to over 30,000 Japanese expatriates in Shanghai to make sure that they could remain settled while supporting military endeavors of the Japanese army once the war between China and Japanese broke out. After 1937, the GEBS became an essential propaganda tool to advance imperial policies of Japan. Although the station differed from the Army-controlled Greater Shanghai Broadcasting Station (Dai Shanhai Hoso Kyoku) in many aspects, it was in line with the latter in terms of advancing wartime ideology of the Japanese empire. As the Japanese-occupied areas were enlarged, target audience of the GEBS also expanded to Chinese people and foreign nationals when Japanese, English, Russian, and Shanghai-dialect news was broadcast by the station. Suffice it to say that the GEBS was closely related to wartime propaganda of the Japanese imperial expansion.
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This study aims to inquire the sense of place. As an example, I present some conflicts over the right of coal spilled into the sea during coal loading which had occurred frequently in the formation and development period of the Chikuho coalfield (Chikuho-tanden) and Wakamatsu Port located in the northeastern part of Fukuoka Prefecture.
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This paper aims to introduce and understand critically the work of Edward Soja, mainly the First part of the
which develops his own concepts, such as 'synekism', 'trialectics of space', 'regionality' and 'geohistory'. Most of all, in explaining Geohistory, he emphasizes three 'Urban revolutions': First Urban revolutions in Jericho and ÇatalHüyük, which shows first synekism as proto urban society, Second in Ur and other Sumerian cities where appeared a concentrated power of central government and its transcendental ideologies, and Third in Manchester and in Chicago, typical capitalist cities. These three urban revolutions don't correspond to the established historical periodization. In order to understand these revolutions, it is necessary to comprehend the concept of 'machine' of G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, inspired, in fact, by Lewis Mumford - Primitive Territorial machine, Barbaric Despotic machine, and Civilized Capitalist machine. However, these periodization and concepts of E. Soja have to be applied very cautiously in accordance with concrete historical sources, avoiding theoretical distortion on positivity of historical facts.