Struggling: Living Conditions of Ordinary Civil Servants of Tianjin Special Municipality during the Period of the Japanese Occupation

Abstract

During the period of the Japanese occupation, ordinary civil servants were the main force keeping the puppet municipal government of Tianjin functioning. In the first years of the occupation, the puppet municipal government mainly hired former civil servants who had served under the Nanjing National Government. After the situation was stable, the puppet municipal government also recruited civil servants by civil service examinations. The ranks of civil servants and the rules and regulations they observed were basically the same as those of the former National Government. Most ordinary civil servants came from the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and were relatively young and well educated. They mainly relied on their salaries for their livelihood. For the first three years of the Japanese occupation they lived comfortably, because of their relatively high and stable incomes and the slow rate of inflation. After that, inflation soared, but their salaries did not increase correspondingly, therefore the living conditions of civil servants declined constantly. The Japanese puppet government exercised strict control over civil servants, physically and psychologically, and forced them to receive enslaving education. In short, they were in a distorted and struggling state both in their material life and their spiritual world.

Keywords

Japanese-occupied areas / Tianjin Special Municipality / ordinary civil servants

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