Modernity East and West: Melodrama and yanqing in Shanghai’s popular culture*

Abstract

The rise of the melodrama as a literary and theatrical genre appears to have had a co-relation with the rise of industrial cities in modern times around the globe from Europe, North America, to East Asia. In China, this phenomenon manifested itself in the yanqing (lit. speaking of feelings) genre that dominated the popular culture scene in Shanghai in the most part of the twentieth century. While the yanqing genre was an expression of particular Chinese modern experiences, it also provided a channel for these local experiences to partake in and enrich a global experience of modernity. This study shows how yanqing arts helped ordinary Shanghai residents deal with changing patterns of gender, love, and family relations in the fast-growing and modernizing city. Through such re-examination of the yanqing culture this study tries to shed new light on some important questions in modern Chinese history and help correct traditional elite views of this history.