Hygienic Modernity and China’s Semicolonialism In China today, slogans on public hygiene are everywhere, restaurants, subways, road sides, to name just a few. Literally, it is one of the priorities of the Chinese government to promote public hygiene and to encourage people to behave civilized in public. Yet here comes the question: why is personal hygiene associated with public in China, and why does it have to do with being civilized? Ruth Rogaski’s Hygienic Modernity provides perceptive answers to these questions. It traces the history of the word weisheng, hygiene in Chinese, through the late-Qing Tianjin, its Republican period, Japanese occupation, and until the first few years of New China. Rogaski argues that the changing meaning …show more content…
The key is weisheng, or hygienic modernity. It is after the occupation of the foreign powers in 1900 that the meaning of weisheng in China was transformed into the synonym of hygienic modernity that associates individual hygiene with the health of the public and the nation. And it is through how weisheng was managed, appropriated, rejected, absorbed, or compromised that the unruly semicolonialism of Tianjin became hypercolonial, representing a “fragmented, shifting, and sometimes paradoxical experience” (192). Chinese elites suffered from anxiety to distinguish themselves from the bu(no) weisheng, the discourse they internalized as the mark of China’s deficiency vis-à-vis the West/Japan, such as their lower-class counterparts who could not afford the modern water and sewage system in the British settlement (204-5). Facing the rupture of weisheng brought by the imperialist, the native Chinese way in managing public hygiene such as the Dark Drifters, on the other hand, symbolized the constant rejection on the Chinese side to be absorbed into the practice of hygienic modernity. The imperial powers themselves were not a unified group, either. Japan, as the mediator of modernity, self- proclaimed as the leader in Asia to bring other neighboring countries to modernization, itself stood on an ambiguous ground in relation to other Western powers. Japanese residents in Tianjin were urged to distinguish themselves from the native Chinese through the discourse of hygienic modernity. This shows the “complex matrix of relationships among competing and cooperating colonizers” in the treaty port (183). Weisheng, or hygienic modernity, was created by and brought to China by imperialism, “but then it worked against the creation of a comprehensive public administration that could make a difference to the health of the city” because of hypercolonialism of the treaty port (223). The complex
Throughout the nineteenth century China’s emperors watched as foreign powers began to encroach closer and closer upon their land. Time after time, China was forced to make embarrassing concessions. Foreign militaries more modernly armed would constantly defeat the imperial armies. As the dawn of a new century was about to begin, Empress Tsu Hsi of the Ch’ing Dynasty searched for a way of ridding her empire of the foreign invaders.
In the middle of the 19th century, despite a few similarities between the initial responses of China and Japan to the West, they later diverged; which ultimately affected and influenced the modernizing development of both countries. At first, both of the Asian nations rejected the ideas which the West had brought upon them, and therefore went through a time period of self-imposed isolation. However, the demands that were soon set by Western imperialism forced them, though in different ways, to reconsider. And, by the end of the 19th century both China and Japan had introduced ‘westernizing’ reforms. China’s aim was to use modern means to retain and preserve their traditional Confucian culture. Whereas Japan, on the other hand, began to successfully mimic Western technology as it pursued modernization, and thus underwent an astounding social upheaval. Hence, by the year 1920, Japan was recognized as one of the world’s superpowers, whereas China was on the edge of anarchy.
Japanese immigration created the same apprehension and intolerance in the mind of the Americans as was in the case of Chinese migration to the U.S at the turn of the 19th century. They developed a fear of being overwhelmed by a people having distinct ethnicity, skin color and language that made them “inassimilable.” Hence they wanted the government to restrict Asian migration. Japan’s military victories over Russia and China reinforced this feeling that the Western world was facing what came to be known as “yellow peril”. This was reflected in the media, movies and in literature and journalism.4 Anti-Oriental public opinion gave way to several declarations and laws to restrict Japanese prosperity on American land. Despite the prejudice and ineligibility to obtain citizenship the ...
China has gone through many changes in its history. Changes include economic, political, and social. In the early 1500 and throughout history, mostly all social classes followed Confucianism. Confucianism is a type of religion based on an ideal society (Chang 2012, 22). China was molded though Confucianism but that slowly deteriorated as years went on. One main group that has been a main part in these changes is the Chinese literati. The Chinese literati include the higher-class people such as officials and scholars. The Chinese literati were the dominant social class during the 1500’s but their power slowly decreased throughout history. Throughout my paper, I will explain the Chinese literati involvement as centuries passed.
In this Treatise have discussed China's classical age and how they influenced all of east Asian culture for over two thousand years. And How Buddhism spread throughout east Asia and evolved into several different schools each embracing the host nations principle and beliefs. I have discussed Confucian teachings and texts have influenced Chinese and Eastern Asian culture and government for centuries. How China overcame invaders from all sides and managed to emerge as a world economic power. And finally how Japan developed its own culture and founded a new social class the Samurai. East Asian History is compelling, deep and complicated. A history that will sound differently each time as their history continues to grow and influence other non Asian cultures.
By 1938 Japan had invaded much of China and had taken over Nanking killing more than 42,000 civilians. The Chinese government never surrendered completely, and the war continued on a lower scale until 1945. During World War II, the Japanese military forced women from various different countries to work as comfort women to the Japanese soldiers. Trafficking in women is a form of sexual slavery in which women are transported across national borders and sold for prostitution, sex tourism, or migrant workers. Women were kidnapped or brought over under false pretenses thinking that they were being given jobs. The comfort women of the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II are an extreme case of this institutionalized sexual violence against women. Through research and testimonies from comfort women survivors during World War II and former Japanese veterans, I attempt to show the ways that this has affected the intersection of colonial power, gender and class. I argue that the development of gender contributes to the construction of Japanese colonialism and the system of comfort women helped Japan as an imperial state gain power. The ideas of masculinity and femininity is what helped the maintenance of the Japanese military system and comfort stations made an impact in which Japan expanded its colonies by military means.
I believe that the hygienist is guided by Virtue ethics which is based on certain types of characteristics. Dental hygienist poses traits of caring and selflessness driven by the sense of duty while serving the general public. Often times, placing the patients needs before financial gain. As a healthcare professional, the dental hygienist is morally and ethically obligated to provide equal care to every patient regardless of the patient’s financial and socioeconomic status. Unfortunately, the dentist in this case is looking after his business rather than the patients’ or population’s interest.
Hong Kong has always remained a very unique city, one which is said to have ‘a Western past, an Eastern future’. Since its colonisation by the British in the 1860s, it has maintained to a very large extent its Chinese identity and its connection to its Motherland, while at the same time, has frequent contact with the Western world, politically, economically, and culturally. Hong Kong’s unique position has made the city a vibrant international metropolis that acts as a bridge between East and West. Yet after it was returned to China in 1997, this former British colony has been constantly reassessing its British past, struggling to find its new position and redefining its identity.
Though it seems that it was the Western influence that set off this revolutionary change, a more scrutinizing look into Japanese society at the time reveals that Japan was in fact on the brink of supplanting the fixed, hierarchical Tokugawa order for one that was better suited for its fast evolving, capitalistic society. As historian David Lu states, “Our people began to discover [modern civilization’s] utility and gradually and yet actively moved towards its acceptance. However, there was an old fashioned and bloated government that stood in the way of progress.” (Lu, 351). Therefore in a way we can view the intrusion of Western powers in Japan on that infamous July day in 1853 as an event that occurred during a time when Japan was ready for a world renewal, and not a direct and complete cause of modernization of Japan; in fact it was Japan’s revaluation of modernization and what it meant to be Japanese amidst strong western influences that eventually ...
In the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, China at the time confronted impending risk of being parceled and colonized by colonialist powers...
The introduction of modernism to Australia is a more complex phenomenon than previously thought. Choose an aspect of Modernism, either Cubism or Surrealism or Expressionism or Modernist Design and Architecture and chart their development in Australia by focusing on the work of two artists, designers or architects.
The short story by Eileen Chang fully reflected the turmoil in China during the Japanese occupation in the 1940s. For decades, Japan has been trying to dominate China with incidents like the first Sino-Japanese war in 1894 where the two powers fought each other for the control of Korea. When Japan attacked Shanghai in what was known as the Battle of Shanghai in 28 January 1932, student bodies fought back and that resulted in the second Sino-Japanese war in history. Understandably the people of 1940s had extreme hatred for the Japanese due to the violence that Japanese military exercised on the country and its citizens. Strained political relationships in the city led to countless assassinations of Chinese government officials who worked ...
Retrieved March 21, 2001, from the World Wide Web: http://english.peopledaily.com. Chinatown Online is a wonderful site with an abundance of information about China. http://www.chinatown-online.com/. Henslin, J. M. (1999). The Species of the Species. Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach (4th ed.).
Douglas Reynolds, China, 1898-1912: The Xinzheng Revolution and Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.
Our preliminary class gave a brief, yet detailed outline of major events affecting the East Asian region. Within that class, prompted by our limited geographical knowledge of Asia, we were given a fundamental explanation of the geographical locations of the various events taking place in the region. In subsequent classes, we were introduced to the major wars, political shifts, and economic interests which shaped Japan, China and Korea to what they are today. We examined the paradigm of pre-modern Japanese governance, the Shogunate, and the trained warriors which defended lord and land, Samurai. In addition, we examined the socio-economic classes of Medieval Japan, which included the Samurai, peasants, craftsmen, and the merchants. We also examined pre-1945 Japan’s policies toward foreign entities, notably the Sakoku Policy, which sought to expunge all foreign presence and commerce in an effort to protect its borders and culture. 1945, however, saw ...