Living with the Party: How Leisure Shaped a New China

278 Pages·2023·6.744 MB·English

by  Yifan Shi

Living with
the Party
How Leisure Shaped
a New China
Yifan Shi
Living with the Party
Yifan Shi
Living with the Party
How Leisure Shaped a New China
Yifan Shi
East China Normal University
Shanghai, China
ISBN 978-981-99-0207-1 ISBN 978-981-99-0208-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0208-8
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
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Acknowledgments
My first thanks go to Jeremy Brown and Timothy Cheek for their support
and encouragement. They are the best mentors and critics that I can
imagine. They have also set up a model for thesis supervision that I can
follow in my own academic career. This book cannot be finished without
help from other senior scholars. During my field research in Beijing,
Chen Donglin, Wang Haiguang, and Yin Hongbiao offered me advice
on my project and helped me find interviewees. At conference panels,
Han Gang, Jan Kiely, Xin Yi, Yang Kuisong, and Zhang Jishun provided
their comments and feedback on early drafts of my chapters.
A lot of people also helped me navigate my project. During my
first field trip, a librarian at the Peking University Library, an archivist
at the Peking University Archives, and a staff member at the Peking
University Alumni Association kindly introduced to me their collections,
which precipitated my decision to give up an immature project about the
everyday life of Peking University students under Mao. I would also like
to thank staff members at the Universities Service Centre at the Chinese
University of Hong Kong, archivists at the Beijing Municipal Archives,
librarians at the National Library and the Capital Library, vendors at
Panjiayuan Flea Market, and people who helped me digitize all materials.
I thank the institutions that provided financial support for my book.
The research was supported by a Simon Fraser University Graduate Inter-
national Travel Award and an Esherick-Ye Family Foundation Fellowship.
Writing during my final year at SFU was supported by a Simon Fraser
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
University Community Trust Endowment Funds Graduate Fellowship,
a Simon Fraser University President’s Ph.D. Scholarship, and a Simon
Fraser University Graduate Fellowship.
Chapter 3 is derived in part from “Temporal Politics and the Collec-
tivization of Young People’s Leisure Time in Early Maoist Beijing,”
Politics, Religion & Ideology 22, no. 3–4 (2021): 329–350 © Taylor &
Francis, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/
21567689.2021.1995715. Portions of Chapter 6 are from “Exiting the
Revolution: Alternative Ways of Life in Beijing, 1966–1976,” Modern
China 48, no. 6 (2022): 1238–1264 © SAGE Publications, Inc.,
available online: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/009
77004221106101.
Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 A Happy New World: The Communist Takeover
of Leisure 29
3 Temporal Politics in Beijing, 1949–1956 67
4 Youth Subcultures, Leisure Regulation,
and Community Life, 1955–1962 107
5 Anxiety About Difference: Politicization
and Stratification in Leisure, 1962–1966 151
6 Exiting the Revolution: Alternative Ways of Life
and the Institutionalization of Leisure, 1966–1976 193
7 Epilogue 235
References 249
Index 269
vii
Acronyms
BMA Beijing Municipal Archives
CCP Chinese Communist Party
RMRB Renmin Ribao [People’s Daily]
YSD Youth Service Department
ix
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 Cover page of American Way of Life 34
Fig. 2.2 Back cover of American Way of Life 35
Fig. 2.3 Cover page of Tan Youshi’s How to Ballroom Dance (1951) 47
Fig. 2.4 Cover page of How to Learn Ballroom Dancing (1953) 48
Fig. 2.5 “Balance Movement” 49
Fig. 2.6 Promoting Officials, New Society Version 56
Fig. 2.7 “Resist America and Aid Korea” chess 58
xi
List of Tables
Table 2.1 Private Ball Game Clubs in Beijing, 1950–1952 42
Table 2.2 Schedule for Dancing Club Activities in the Summer
Vacation of 1951 52
Table 2.3 Schedule of Beijing People’s Radio Station No. 2, January
1952 55
Table 3.1 Activities planned by the committee for summer vacation
life in June 1950 76
Table 3.2 Weekly schedule of leisure activities in Beijing Knitting
Mill (1956) 89
Table 3.3 Revised weekly schedule of leisure activities in Beijing
Knitting Mill (1956) 100
xiii