Description
Book SynopsisTo understand a city fully, writes Di Wang, we must observe its most basic units of social life. In The Teahouse under Socialism, Wang does just that, arguing that the teahouses of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, are some of the most important public spacesperfect sites for examining the social and economic activities of everyday Chinese.
Wang looks at the transformation of these teahouses from private businesses to collective ownership and how state policy and the proprietors' response to it changed the overall economic and social structure of the city. He uses this transformation to illuminate broader trends in China's urban public life from 1950 through the end of the Cultural Revolution and into the post-Mao reform era. In doing so, The Teahouse under Socialism charts the fluctuations in fortune of this ancient cultural institution and analyzes how it survived, and even thrived, under bleak conditions.
Throughout, Wang asks such questions as:
Trade Review
Written in plain language, this book is easily accessible to non-professionals interested in Chinese urban culture. Meticulously researched, it also offers new material and insights to scholars in modern Chinese history, urban studies, cultural anthropology, and the sociology of leisure.
* Journal of Interdisciplinary History *
This book is clearly indispensable reading for anyone interested in modern Chinese social history, but given its accessibility and entertaining narrative style it will appeal to a general audience with concerns about the ways in which urban public space enhances everyday social and cultural experience.
* China Review International *
The Teahouse Under Socialism is a captivating account of the way in which broad political changes are manifested in small urban spaces. [A] deeply-researched and trans-disciplinary study, [it] makes a valuable contribution not only to Chinese and global urban history but to our understanding of civil society and the public sphere in non-Western contexts.
* awards citation from Urban History Association, co-winner of Best Book in Non-North American History, 2017-2018 *
Anyone who studies or is interested in PRC history or modern Chinese society should not miss the chance to read this book.
* China Review *
The Teahouse under Socialism is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand political and cultural change in Mao-era and post-Mao China.
* History Reviews of New Books *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Urban Political Transitions under Socialism
Part I. The Decline of Public Life, 1950–1976
1. The Demise of the Chengdu Teahouse Guild and the Fall of Small Business
2. State Control and the Rise of Socialist Entertainment
3. The Decline of Public Life under Mao's Rule
Part II. The Return of Public Life, 1977–2000
4. The Resurgence of Teahouses in the Reform Era
5. Urban Residents and Migrant Workers in Public Life
6. The Power of Mahjong
Conclusion: The State, the Teahouse, and the Public Sphere
