Touring China: A History of Travel Culture, 1912–1949 PDF
Preview Touring China: A History of Travel Culture, 1912–1949
TOURING CHINA A volume in the series Histories and Cultures of Tourism Edited by Eric G. E. Zuelow A list of titles in this series is available at cornellpress.cornell.edu. TOURING CHINA A History of Travel Culture, 1912–1949 Yajun Mo Foreword by Eric G. E. Zuelow CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London Copyright © 2021 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu. First published 2021 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mo, Yajun, 1980– author. Title: Touring China : a history of travel culture, 1912–1949 / Yajun Mo ; f oreword by Eric G.E. Zuelow. Description: Ithaca [New York] : Cornell University Press, 2021. | Series: Histories and cultures of tourism | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021007640 (print) | LCCN 2021007641 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501760624 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501761041 (paperback) | ISBN 9781501760631 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501760648 (epub) S ubjects: LCSH: Tourism—China—History—20th century. Classification: LCC G155.C55 M6 2021 (print) | LCC G155.C55 (ebook) | DDC 915.104/4—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021007640 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021007641 Cover image: “Liangyou photographers at the South Grotto Temple in Gansu Province, 1933.” Wu Liande, ed., Zhonghua jingxiang: quanguo sheying zong ji [China as she is: A comprehensive album] (Shanghai: Liangyou Printing and Publishing Company, 1934), n.p. For my parents, who made all this possible Contents Foreword by Eric G. E. Zuelow ix Acknowledgments xv Introduction: Tourism, Travel Culture, and the Making of the Chinese National Space 1 1. Travel as a Business: The Making of Modern Chinese Tourism 15 2. Travel as Narratives: Producing Quanguo through Travel Print Media 54 3. “Head to the Northwest”: Modern China’s Movement Westward 85 4. Facilitating the Exodus: Wartime Travel and the Southwest 132 5. Between Empire and Nation-State: Tourism and Travel in Manchuria and Taiwan, 1912–1949 167 Conclusion: Legacies of Republican-Era Tourism and Travel Culture 206 Notes 213 Bibliography 257 Index 287 Foreword I n 2012, China moved past the United States as well as every other country on earth to become the leader in outbound tour ism. It was a significant moment. Since World War II, the United States had easily led this category, so China’s arrival as the top tourist-producing nation represented a remarkable shift. China has only widened the gap since, send ing $277.35 billion abroad in 2018; the United States was a distant second with $144.47 billion. 1 If one were to rely on the current historiography of modern tourism, the appearance of Chinese as avid tourists evidently came from nowhere, as they only suddenly discovered a passion for leisure travel. In tourism his tory circles, aside from representing non-Western locales as potential desti nations, the narrative has largely been dominated by Europe and the United States. The majority of historians tell some version of the same story. Tour ism originated with the grand tour in the 1700s. In the century after, fueled by what they’d learned from travel writing, maps, paintings, and a new breed of guidebook, more and more people from across the social spectrum grew interested in seeing what they were told ought to be seen. Railways and steamships made scheduling easier and shortened travel times, making the pastime affordable. Working-class groups, especially in Britain, saw tour ism as a way to provide leisure for their members. At the same time, entre preneurs such as Thomas Cook, by far the most famous early travel agent, arranged package holidays and inexpensive day trips, both for profit and in pursuit (at least in the case of Cook himself ) of high-minded ideals about the potential of tourism to make people better. 2 A lthough most might not immediately think of it as such, tourism rep resents an important exercise of power that manifests in a variety of ways. It highlights particular historical narratives, rife with selective forgetting and remembering. Developers, politicians, and others point to specific locations said to embody an identity: vital destinations for community members as pilgrimage sites, but also for outsiders who are keen to know the “real” place that they are visiting. It can be used to improve underdeveloped regions, ix
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