Urban Splendor
City Life in East Asia over the Past 1500 Years

Sponsored by:
National Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, Fudan University
Department of East Asian Languages & Civilizations, Harvard University

The international conference on Urban Splendor: International Conference on City Life in East Asia over the Past 1500 Years, jointly organized by Department of East Asian Languages & Civilizations, Harvard University and National Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, Fudan University was held in Shanghai, Hangzhou and Fuyang from March 26 to 29, 2009.  Those attending included some 30 scholars from United States, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Czech Republic and China Mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Their in-depth discussion covered various aspects of life in East Asian cities.

The conference focused more on main body of the city that is different from previous urban history studies, and gave emphasis to represent people in the city, namely their daily life, space structure and group identity in order to make the urban “space” in history become a “place” for human politically, culturally, and livingly.  Therefore, it demonstrated an approach of social or cultural history.  The meeting also concentrated on diversities of historical urban life in China, East Asia and Europe, for example, it seems that the Oriental attach greater importance to get along together.  Owing to historical and cultural differences, Chinese nowadays hold quite different urban imagination from the Western’s.  Yet obviously, there are still some distinctions among East Asian nations and regions.  It will probably show the significance of particular urban life styles in Chinese and East Asian historical tradition.

Observation of the Other in Urban History Studies

The conference pinpointed new historical materials, new approaches and new horizons.  It is the common focus of those scholars’ attention how to progress in urban history studies on the basis of previous researches and retrospect and look forward to East Asian urban life from various angles under the circumstance of multi-culture.  Wang Zhenzhong (Fudan University) analyzed Ryukyuan written texts toward urban life in Fuzhou, Qing Dynasty through extant textbooks in Ryukyuan official language and, argued that materials of this sort are authentic for people to understand China on the other side.  Stephen H. West (Arizona State University) suggested that in reading and studying written and visual texts, one must always be skeptical of the special tendency behind texts to distinguish between “narratives about a supposed truth” and “representations of particular places about a fact”.  William Nienhauser (University of Wisconsin) probed into Lu Zhaolin’s impression of Chang’an in his “Chang’an, Thought on Antiquity”, considering the distinction mentioned above.  Ronald Egan (University of California) offered some reflections on the sources, treatises on urban life and biji literature that scholars commonly use.  He underscored it necessary to identify and assess the texts to find out the value of reconstructions, which is also a kind of new horizon.

Representation: New Aspects in Urban Life

Compared with Rural China from agricultural tradition, cities springing up later brought about another living space beyond the social one connected with families, clans and villages that led to new life style and new economic culture.  It had a profound effect upon life in ancient China.  Accordingly, scholars highlighted that life as well，putting it in such a new space to study economically, socially and culturally.

From the view of politics, system and city: Rong Xinjiang (Beijing University) discussed Jiadi (rich and powerful families’ residences) in Chang’an, the convergence of multi-culture and a variety of people, and its symbolic meaning of the promotion of urban culture.  Kubota Kazuo (Nagano National College of Technology) found out that the rise and fall of urban constructions was attached to the establishment of political system by studying the state of Yuqing Gong (a Taoist temple) after its burnt-down and the process to form political culture with Song’s characteristics.

From the view of society, economy and environment: Fan Jinmin (Nanjing University) examined upon the historical materials and made the collation of industrial and commercial stores’ titles, styles, features, layouts and proprietors in Suzhou during the period of Kang Xi and Qian Long.  Qiu Zhonglin (Academia Sinica) discussed the relation between using coal and surroundings in Beijing, Qing Dynasty.  Zhou Zhenhe (Fudan University) explored the course of different transformations that Shanghai underwent since Song Dynasty, especially the later life style from sheer Chinese traditional to East-meets-West or even Westernized.

From the view of life, ritual and belief: Li Zhuoran (National University of Singapore) took the City-God cult in Anxi, Quanzhou as a case study to probed into the relation between the City-God cult and urban activities.  Zhao Shiyu (Beijing Normal University) studied a Manchu’s living space and his ritual life in Beijing according to an anonymous document Diary in Early Republic of China, moreover, he raised some questions about the relation between temples and ritual life, and the religious impact on city etc.  Chen Xiyuan (Academia Sinica) was of the opinion that the City-God cult was particularly brought into “Tan-Miao” (altar and temple) system in official rituals in Ming and Qing, which reflected the interaction between official rituals and folk believes at festivals.

From the view of communication, travel and entertainment: Wang Hongtai (Taiwan National Chi Nan University) centered on urban mobility, literati’s social communication and “Shemeng” the systematized form in Ming China Kim Moonkyong (Kyoto University) discussed the activities and merits of “Shanren” in late Ming.  According to the description in Yanxinglu about tea house (Chayuan) commercial opera in Beijing, Ge Zhaoguang (Fudan University) probed into the implication and reasons why Korean emissaries imagined Chayuan as a special space for Han people to preserve their ethnic memory from the aspects of social history, history of Chinese opera, and political and intellectual history.

Further Studies on Urban Space

Scholars are exploring the origin and development of cities, making their efforts to the rehabilitation of urban layout, structure and economic culture through documents and relics.  Ihara Hiroshi (Josai International University) talked about his project of rehabilitation of Jiankang Fu by unscrambling urban maps in Song China.  Tang Xiaofeng (Beijing University) considered that the rebuilding outer city walls of Beijing during Ming and Qing resulted in two different societies; enhanced and enriched the urban secularization.  Li Xiaocong (Beijing University) discussed the transition of urban layouts, the function of city walls, and features of ritual constructions and public space in terms of ancient maps.  Wang Caiqiang (National University of Singapore) displayed the rehabilitation of Yongning Fang as a whole in Chang’an, Tang Dynasty, taking advantage of the digital technology.  It was an unusual and fresh experience apparently to the audience.

In a word, scholars have noticed the fact that the city brings different people and cultures closer to each other with the rise of Chinese ancient cities, and the development of cities and civil society in East Asia, which extended the space in history and created a favorable cradle of new culture.  Meanwhile, it connects “city” with “life” as well to represent the urban life and its feature in Chinese and East Asian history in a long-term way, standing out new historical materials, new approaches and new horizons to mine more sources such as paintings, maps, even movies, videos, and oral historical materials and eliminate boundaries of different fields such as social history, intellectual history, cultural history, political history, history of architecture and art history.  Consequently, we do have great expectations in future.

Written by Wang Yonghao
Translated by Zhao Siyin