Social history

The research on modern social history in the past ten years has basically continued the development pattern and trend after the discipline revival. According to the academic system previously constructed, scholars carried out in-depth research on social strata, social groups, social life, social transformation, social customs and popular beliefs, and made considerable progress.

Rich research results were achieved on social strata and social groups. In terms of monographs, Yang Xinsheng explored the causes, process, result and impact of the evolution of Hunan gentry class in modern times;²⁷¹ He Wenping investigated the relationship between the bandit and the social order in Guangdong in the late Qing and early Republic of China;²⁷² Wang Qin provided a perspective on the evolution of the gender pattern of modern traditional cities, and interpreted the role and function of women in modern urban transformation;²⁷³ Fan Tiequan and Wang Juguang (2011a, 2011b) investigated the origin, development and historical role of modern scientific societies and educational societies during the period of the Republic of China;²⁷⁴ Zuo Furong studied the activities of Buddhism, Taoism, Islamic societies and Christian societies in Beijing during the Republic of China;²⁷⁵ Xu Maoming examined the changes of Suzhou cultural clans since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and argued that Suzhou cultural clans changed from “family for imperial examination” to “family for modern science”, thus transformed into modern education;²⁷⁶ Luo Huijin held that “Cultural Adherents” at the beginning of the Republic was a special group, which obviously showed the continuation of the tradition, and its cultural contribution should be affirmed;²⁷⁷ Feng Jianhui and Wang Fengshan studied the characteristics of Anhui merchants and Ningbo merchants respectively.²⁷⁸

In terms of research papers, Yang Guoqiang analyzed the entanglement and connection between the gentlemen and the power of the state in the late Qing Dynasty;²⁷⁹ Ma Jianbiao studied the collective identity and political turn

Chinese history studies 2009 to 2019 303 of students during the May 4th Incident, and held that the construction of students’ collective identity and their consciousness of national identity were the process of government training and elite enlightenment at top level and self-construction at the bottom;²⁸⁰ some scholars inspected the establishment of women’s property rights, and argued that the thought of women’s liberation formed during the May 4th period, but it was not until the Kuomintang came into power that laws for the realization of equal property rights between men and women were finally promulgated; some scholars studied the hostility of male intellectuals to female intellectuals, pointing out that female intellectuals in Hunan adopted both counterattacks and silent coping strategies toward the joint siege of male intellectual elites, which revealed the embarrassing situation faced by professional women during the Republic of China and the struggle between two genders; some scholars discussed the funeral process of Huizhou women in the Qing Dynasty and revealed the widespread religious beliefs and fengshui concept; some scholars studied gender violence between women and pointed out that women usually resorted to language attack and indirect attack toward their fellows of the same sex, and sexual insults and uglifying their appearance were the two most common method; some scholars studied the relationship between female survival and urban spatial layout, and pointed out that Beijing’s eight major hutongs, a place where prostitutes and brothels gathered, were located in the bustling city and adjacent to many commercial and entertainment facilities, thereby having special symbolic meaning in Beijing’s spatial structure during the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, and the formation of such a layout was mainly due to the “seperation of Manchu and Han residence” in the early Qing Dynasty and the removal of urban entertainment facilities from the inner city, which was inherited by the Beijing Municipal government during the Republic of China afterwards; some scholars studied the women’s rescue association in various anti-Japanese base areas in North China, pointing out that the women’s rescue association in North China struggled to maintain the stability of the rural society and ensure the smooth progress of the Anti-Japanese War.²⁸¹

The research on urban and rural social life is also very rich. In terms of general monographs, Li Changli studied the changes of social life due to the influence of the Western tide, new ideological trends and war, especially how Chinese society accepted and integrated into the modern civilization.²⁸² In terms of monographs about social life in a certain place, Zhang Sheng disclosed reasons and response measures for the housing shortage since Shanghai opened as a commercial port;²⁸³ Wang Min described the public space of modern Shanghai, and the coexistence of the city’s cosmopolitan and local, modernity and tradition, advancement and backwardness, colonial and patriotic feature;²⁸⁴ Ye Zhongqiang, Song Zuanyou, Ge Tao and Shi Dongxu presented the life of Shanghai literati and workers and their changing values;²⁸⁵ Yang Ke investigated the daily life of women at the bottom of society in Beijing, including handicraftswomen, maids, female beggars, actresses and other female laborers, and contended that urban women had successfully occupied public spaces and increased their opportunities and influence, but also suffered discrimination and oppression;²⁸⁶ Du Lihong discussed the evolution and socialization of Beijing’s public health system in the early 20th century;²⁸⁷ Long Wei investigated medical disputes during the Republic of China, and held that the state system and social groups intervened and affected the doctor-patient relationship.²⁸⁸

As for research papers, Du Peihong investigated how Qipao became a model of the Republic of China in the complex interactions between Manchu and Han, Chinese and West and influenced by such factors as women’s liberation and business culture;²⁸⁹ Zhang Wei and Wang Ying discussed the generation logic and organization mechanism of female heroes in the anti-Japanese base areas in North China and Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia, which showed the life of female heroes from multiple angles;²⁹⁰ Yue Qianhou and Wang Yali studied the marital problems of anti-Japanese soldiers in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia border area, and pointed out that the wives of anti-Japanese soldiers were a special group of rural women in the border area, whose marital disputes affected the anti-Japanese soldiers’ confidence in the war and might endanger the stability of the rural society, so the Communist Party of China followed the principle of “freedom of marriage” and protecting the interests of the soldiers as well, and the border government shaped the soldiers’ wives as a model who were dedicated selflessly to their husbands and working hard to build their family, which eased the contradictions in soldiers’ families and achieved good social effects;²⁹¹ Geng Jing examined the marital status of rural women in counties of Taihang area and how they used revolutionary discourse to fight for interests, which reflected the complex aspects of the rural women’s liberation process during the revolutionary period;²⁹² Jiang Pei and Wang Wei studied the situation of rural women’s foot-binding and their marital status in the base areas, showing the complex situation of remote rural women’s physical liberation in northern China during the war;²⁹³ Xu Zhimin studied the issue of Chinese students from Japanese occupation areas studying in Japan, pointing out that as Japan was involved in the Chinese battlefield and the Pacific War broke out, some policies of the Japanese government seriously affected the students’ study in Japan, who also experienced disasters such as hunger, air raids, evacuations and even atomic bomb explosions;²⁹⁴ Zhan Xiaobai studied the popularization of the weekly rest system in modern China, a result of Chinese people’s rational cognition and active choice rather than mere folk custom and passive adaptation, which reflected the confrontation between conservatism and innovation, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, standpoints of the mainland and metropolis in modern China;²⁹⁵ Wei Bingbing explored the intricate conflicts of diverse interests in the evolution of urban public space under the modern Shanghai semi-colonial municipal system;²⁹⁶ Zheng Huixin studied the living conditions of civil servants in the rear areas during the Anti-Japanese War, including various aspects of clothing, food, housing, transportation and entertainment,

Chinese history studies 2009 to 2019 305 and further analyzed the reasons for the decline in living standards and the impact of poverty on China’s political ecology in the future.²⁹⁷

Regarding the study of social transformation, major monographs are: Wang Xiaosi examined the reality of the rural society in transition in regions south of the Yangtze River;²⁹⁸ Huang Hongshan revealed the actual operation and transformation process of modern China’s philanthropy;²⁹⁹ Wang Guangyi examined the political control, farmers’ lives and development of agricultural economy in the rural areas of Northeast China in modern times;³⁰⁰ Xiong Yaping studied the start of railway, industrial and mining industries, urban and rural market reconstruction, industrial structure changes, society structural changes and the development of urban cities in North China from 1880 to 1937, arguing that the railway effectively promoted the transition of the rural economy from traditional to modern;³⁰¹ Wu Libao studied the role of university presidents in modern education;³⁰² Bi Yuan investigated the birth and development of modern textbooks and evolution of textbook editing and reviewing system;³⁰³ Zuo Yuhe investigated the problems faced by traditional Chinese civilization and confusion encountered in the process of reconstruction in modern China, contending that the modern revival of Chinese civilization was the modern transformation of Confucianism rather than resurrection, and integration and communication of Chinese and Western civilization rather than complete Westernization;³⁰⁴ Xia Bang reflected on the diverse factors of the modernization of the legal system and the inevitability of its failure in the late Qing Dynasty;³⁰⁵ Liu Xinjie found that different traditional civil rights had different manifestations in the grassroots judicial practice after the promulgation of the Civil Code and pointed out that modern Chinese grassroots civil judiciary maintained the operation of local social relations and interpersonal relationships;³⁰⁶ Tang Shichun studied how such factors as the concept of judicial independence and concept of republic, movement of legal recovery and political separation, judicial funds and talents promoted or restricted the separation of justice and administration in different historical contexts;³⁰⁷ Feng Xiao investigated the issue of township autonomy under the framework of state power construction;³⁰⁸ Yu Xinzhong explored issues related to epidemic prevention and urban environmental sanitation in the Qing Dynasty;³⁰⁹ Xia Xiaohong explored intellectual elites’ practice of imparting common sense to females in the late Qing Dynasty.³¹⁰

As for research papers, Zhang Qing studied the compilation of “Western learning” in the late Qing Dynasty, and contended that compilation was the recreation of Western learning and analyzing the debugging and response of local culture was the main aim of examining it;³" Xing Zhaohua investigated the regulation of social disputes in Guangzhou in the early 20th century and pointed out that government and civil organizations were complementary in responses to disputes, but the mediation showed the characteristics of disorder and multi-party game;³¹² Zhu Yu studied the issue of mass education, pointing out that the Jiangsu Provincial Mass Education Museum, serving as an official agent and civil organization as well, coordinated the relationship between the grassroots and local government from 1928 to 1937, thereby unblocking the grassroots political track;³¹³ Liang Chen studied the enrollment of universities and colleges in the Republic of China, pointing out that the seemingly open and fair enrollment implied such requirements as geography, knowledge and economy, which reflected the differences of universities and colleges in terms of education itself, thus resulting in a certain mode of students’ selecting schools, and from the perspective of education and social interaction, those thresholds caused differences in students’ education from different regions and families, and thus college admission was a way of selecting talents and also reflected education stratification, hence educational privileges;³¹⁴ Li Changli investigated the relationship between “popularization of foreign goods” and changes in consumer attitudes, and found that after the opening door in the late Qing Dynasty, “foreign goods” began to be imported in large quantities and gradually became popular in common people’s daily life, thereby forming a practical consumption atmosphere;³¹⁵ Li Hengjun discussed the spread of stethoscopes and auscultation in China which played a vital role in the establishment of Western medicine in modern China;³¹⁶ Zhang Yuan analyzed the editorial in Shenpao about the dispute between Chinese and Western medicine, whose view on medicine was similar to that of Westernization;³¹⁷ Zhao Xudong and Zhang Jie analyzed the re-commissioning process of social order in rural areas at the theoretical level, arguing that in the context of cultural transformation, the social order of rural areas changed from “differential pattern”, “civilization difference” to “descending of state power”;³¹⁸ Li Xianming took the dispute case of Changyuan County as an example and investigated the dispute caused by “selling Confucian temples to run schools” around the 1930s, arguing that the case highlighted the complicated relationship between different parties involved, and the old culture and power order maintained by “Confucian Temple” was gradually replaced by the new order established by local governments.³¹⁹

Regarding the study of social customs and popular beliefs, major monographs are: Wang Gewei sorted out the transformation of marriage legislation from tradition to modern, from family-based to individual-based in modern China, and investigated the reform process of Chinese marriage customs;³²⁰ Sheng Meizhen discussed the trend and laws of modern social fashion in Yunnan;³²¹ Sun Shunhua revealed the laws of communication between heterogeneous cultures;³²² Zhou Donghua discussed how Zhejiang Christian education changed from “foreign” to “local”, from church-control to government-control, from a tool for imperialist invasion of Chinese culture to a powerful promoter of Chinese education modernization;³²³ Lan Xifeng discussed the social service activities of Christianity during the Republic of China;³²⁴ Fan Zhengyi investigated the conflict between Christianity and folk deity beliefs in Fujian during the late Qing Dynasty and early Republican period;³²⁵ Wang Xiaofeng discussed Japan’s control and use of Protestantism,

Catholicism and the Orthodox Church to rule people in Northeast China during the Manchukuo period;³²⁶ Xie Zhuyan analyzed the school-running activities of presidents of 13 foreign Protestant universities in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and found two school-running features: integration of science and religion, Christianity and Confucianism.³²⁷

Major research papers are: Che Honglan sorted out the background and process of the introduction of Christianity into Northeast Korean society, and analyzed the basic situation of anti-Japanese struggles by organizing Christian groups;³²⁸ Hou Jie and Wang Xiaolei investigated the close relationship between Christianity and the anti-foot-binding movement, which further accelerated the spread of Western civilization in modern China;³²⁹ Wu Yanling studied a Christian magazine The Women’s Messenger and found its role in promoting women’s liberation and fighting for women’s rights;³³⁰ Tao Feiya reviewed the evolution of the relationship between government and Christianity in the late Qing Dynasty from the perspective of state governance, and contended that it was the cooperation between government and Christianity that eased the dilemma of the latter;³³¹ Li Chuanbin discussed the rural health construction activities carried out by Christianity throughout China from 1927 to 1937 and believed that these activities played a certain role in the spread of Western medicine and rural transformation;³³² Ren Yi analyzed the roles and position of the French Concession authorities and the Catholic Church in Shanghai’s refugee relief in the 1930s, and believed that although their rescue work was for the sake of protecting their own interests, they still played a considerable role in protecting refugees;³³³ Liu Qingyu investigated the contributions made by Catholic missionaries and the Catholic Church in Inner Mongolia during the Anti-Japanese War;³³⁴ Wang Miao sorted out the patriotic salvation activities of the Chinese Christian Church in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War;³³⁵ Zhao Xiaoyang argued that the agricultural missionaries who came to China in modern times have effectively promoted the modernization of traditional Chinese agriculture;³³⁶ Liu Yi outlined how grassroots academy of classic learning was reorganized into schools in Sichuan in the late Qing Dynasty;³³⁷ Zhaluo investigated the marriage between the King of Sikkim and the Lamo family in the 19th century, as well as the role of the minister in Tibet and the Kasha government in the marriage.³³⁸