Understanding Canton Rethinking Popular Culture in the Republican Period [Hardcover]

This book broadens our understanding of the culture and society of Canton, the largest metroplois in South China, in the period between the two World Wars. It redresses serious misconceptions of the extent of damage inflicted by gambling, prostitution and opium consumption on the Cantonese society and its people. There is abundant evidence that common Cantonese were more receptive to a pro-Western mentality, despite their reputation for being jingoistic and anti-foreign. Tracing the rise of Cantonese opera as a major form of mass entertainment, and the emergence among the citizens a strong sense of pride in being a part of the modern city, help us learn more about the transformation of social and cultural life in this city in the modern era.

Introduction
1. City Versus Countryside: The Growth of an Urban Identity and its Meanings in Canton
2. The Limits of Hatred: Popular Attitudes Towards the West in Republican Canton
3. The Problems of Opium Smoking in Canton
4. Gambling in Canton in the 1920s and the 1930s
5. The Worlds of Prostitution in the Early Republic
6. Cantonese Opera as a Mirror of Society
Conclusions
Glossary

This is a very rich picture of the making of modern Canton, in all its complexity. --American Historical Review

Dr. Vergil Howas a Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology, University of Gothenburg, in Sweden, before joining the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology where he now teaches modern Chinese history.