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ABSTRACT
Scholars of modern China have overlooked the role environmental policy played in early Republican efforts to promote both modernization and national unity. Beginning in 1916, the national government in Beijing mandated that each province and county throughout the Chinese nation celebrate “Arbor Day” in order to foster a modern Chinese environmental culture. This change was made in response to global discourses that linked forest cover to a modern nation’s moral and economic health. Arbor Day coincided with the Tomb-Sweeping Festival, a day traditionally reserved for ancestor worship. Due to the vast climatic disparities within China, many governments planted Arbor Day trees under conditions that made it impossible for them to thrive. Nevertheless, officials throughout China continued to celebrate Arbor Day as proof of their loyalty to the government in Beijing. Arbor Day thus served more as an exercise in promoting national unity than in creating a viable reforestation campaign.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Glossary
| Acheng | = | 阿城 |
| Beiyang | = | 北洋 |
| Cui Hu | = | 崔湖 |
| dian | = | 典 |
| Dongning | = | 东宁 |
| Dongting | = | 东亭 |
| Fengtian | = | 奉天 |
| gengzi | = | 庚子 |
| Hainan | = | 海南 |
| Han An | = | 韩安 |
| Han Yanhuan | = | 韩廷焕 |
| Imagawa Tadashi | = | 今川唯市 |
| Jiangxi | = | 江西 |
| Jilin | = | 吉林 |
| Kang Nongman | = | 康农满 |
| Laoye | = | 老爷 |
| Li Shunqing | = | 李顺卿 |
| Ling Daoyang | = | 凌道扬 |
| Lu Xun | = | 鲁迅 |
| Nahan | = | 《呐喊》 |
| Nanjing | = | 南京 |
| Nobuaki Makino | = | 牧野伸顕 |
| Nongshangbu | = | 农商部 |
| Majin | = | 马金 |
| Qi Yang | = | 齐阳 |
| Qingmingjie | = | 清明节 |
| Shengjing | = | 盛京 |
| Wanlu | = | 万鹿 |
| Wuyue | = | 五岳 |
| Yalüjiang | = | 鸭绿江 |
| Yuan Shikai | = | 袁世凯 |
| Yuan Ying | = | 袁瀛 |
| Yushu | = | 榆树 |
| Zhang Jian | = | 张謇 |
| Zhang Ziping | = | 张资平 |
| Zhishujie | = | 植树节 |
| Zhou Jingxi | = | 周敬熙 |
Notes
1 Schwarcz, The Chinese Enlightenment; Schwartz, Wealth and Power; and Nedostup, Superstitious Regimes.
2 Harrison, Republican Citizen; and Rogaski, Hygienic Modernity.
3 Brain, Song of the Forest.
4 Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity, 9.
5 Liang Mingwu, Mingqing shiqi, 7.
6 “China Restoring Forests.”
7 Bailie, Bailie’s Activities in China, 16; and Stross, The Stubborn Earth, 67.
8 Stross, The Stubborn Earth, 82.
9 Laqueur, The Work of the Dead.
10 Bailie, Bailie’s Activities in China, 17–18.
11 Stross, The Stubborn Earth, 69–70.
12 Ibid., 83.
13 Armitage, “Bird Day for Kids.”
14 Stross, The Stubborn Earth, 83.
15 Ibid., 84–90.
16 The province of Fengtian no longer exists under the current administrative system of the People’s Republic of China. Its boundaries roughly correspond to those of today’s Liaoning Province.
17 Chouyi senlin xuetang banfa bing you Ji-Hei liangsheng kaosong xuesheng [A Proposal to Institute a Forest School and Ask the Two Provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang to Send Students], Sept. 1, 1906, Jilin Tixueshi dang’an [Jilin Commissioner of Education Archives], file no. 33-1-231.
18 Totman, The Green Archipelago, 50–80.
19 Iwamoto, “Development of Japanese Forestry,” 7.
20 Totman, The Green Archipelago.
21 Iwamoto, “Development of Japanese Forestry,” 7.
22 Dongsansheng linzheng guanli [Managing the Forest Policy in the Three Northeastern Provinces], Oct. 3, 1911, Jilin jiangjun yamen dang’an [Archives of the Office of the General of Jilin], file no. 1-37-4292.
23 Ibid.
24 Edgerton-Tarpley, Tears from Iron.
25 Cohen, History in Three Keys.
26 Perdue, Exhausting the Earth; Osborne, Barren Mountains, Raging Rivers.
27 Dongsansheng linzheng guanli [Managing the Forest Policy in the Three Northeastern Provinces], October 3, 1911, Jilin jiangjun yamen dang’an [Archives of the Office of the General of Jilin], file no. 1-37-4292.
28 Kuga, Dr. Birdsey G. Northrop, 18–20.
29 Ibid., 30–31.
30 Dongsansheng linzheng guanli [Managing the Forest Policy in the Three Northeastern Provinces], October 3, 1911, Jilin jiangjun yamen dang’an [Archives of the Office of the General of Jilin], file no. 1-37-4292.
31 Ling Daoyang, Senlin yaolan, 1.
32 Lu Xun, “Preface,” 16.
33 Ling Daoyang, Senlin yaolan, 2.
34 Meisui Qingmingjie wei Zhishujie [The Annual Tomb-Sweeping Festival Shall Become Arbor Day], Aug. 30, 1915, Sheng zhengfu dang’an [Provincial Government Archives], file no. 101-4-413.
35 Ibid.
36 Arbor Day participants were almost exclusively male. However, in some places female schoolchildren also participated.
37 Harrison, Republican Citizen, 243.
38 “Zhishujie ji,” 6–7.
39 “Zunyi xingban,” 4.
40 Yeh, Provincial Passages.
41 Ni yi Qingming wei Zhishujie deng shiyi [A Proposal for Making the Tomb-Sweeping Festival Arbor Day and Other Matters], March 21–Apr. 11, 1916, Sheng zhengfu dang’an [Provincial Government Archives], file no. 101-5-605.
42 Gu Chao and Han An, Qingming zhishujie shuo lue [A Brief Description of Tomb-Sweeping Arbor Day] (Beijing: Nongshang bu, March 1916), Sheng zhengfu caizhengting dang’an [Archives of the Provincial Division of Political Economy], Mar. 31, 1916, file no. 109-5-482.
43 Ibid., 6–7.
44 Ibid., 7.
45 The text made sure to note that a procession was necessary even if the Arbor Day ritual began on the planting site. Ibid., 7.
46 Ibid., 11.
47 Ibid., 8.
48 Ibid., 11–13.
49 Ibid., 13.
50 Chen Yu, “Zhishu shi yu zhishujie” [Tree Planting Ritual and Arbor Day], 1–4, Yiban dang’an [General Archives], 1929, file no. 443/10.2.
51 Yanji daoyin cheng shengzhang [The Circuit of Yanji Memorializes the Provincial Governor], Sept. 6, 1917, Sheng zhengfu dang’an [Provincial Government Archives], file no. 101-6-1378.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid.
54 Binjiangdao daoyin cheng shengzhang [The Circuit of Binjiang Memorializes the Provincial Governor], June 11, 1918, Shengzhengfu dang’an [Provincial Government Archives], file no. 101-6-1378.
55 Ibid.
56 Ibid.
57 Ibid.
58 See Gu Chao and Han An, Qingming zhishujie shuo lue, 13, Sheng zhengfu caizhengting dang’an [Archives of the Provincial Division of Political Economy], Mar. 31, 1916, file no. 109-5-482.
59 Jiangxi xun’an shi, “Quan zhishu,” 1–5.
60 See Smith, Fortune-tellers and Philosophers. Smith notes a surprising unity in the language surrounding geomancy and cosmology throughout the late imperial period. Local variations tended to center around issues such as the factors used in site selection, as opposed to resistance to larger concepts such as earth veins.
61 “Zhishujie ji,” 6–7.
62 Ibid.
63 Ibid.
64 “Zhishu dianli,” 4.
65 Yushuxian cheng shiyeting [Yushu County Memorializes the Department of Industry], July 2, 1926, Shiyeting dang’an [Archives of the Department of Industry], file no. 111-2-1023.
66 Ibid.
67 Ibid.
68 Reisner, Reforesting China, 4.
69 Kang Nongman, “Qingming zhishujie,” 1.
70 Ibid., 2.
71 Yuan Ying, “Shuo zhishujie,” 5.
72 Zhang Ziping, “Zhishujie,” 22.
73 Chen Yu, “Zhishu shi yu zhishujie” [The Tree Planting Ritual and Arbor Day], 2, Yiban dang’an [General Archives], 1929, file no. 443/10.2.
74 Li Shunqing, “Shifansheng,” 1; emphasis mine.
75 Kang Nongman, “Qingming zhishujie,” 2.
76 Beiping shi zhishu zaolin [Beiping Reforests], Feb. 18, 1929, Jingji dang’an [Economic Archives], file no. 17-20-013-02.
77 Kang Nongman, “Qingming zhishujie,” 1.
78 Hou Jiaxing, 1930 niandai guomin zhengfu de zaolin shiye.
79 Zaolin yundong xuanchuan dagang.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Larissa PITTS
Larissa PITTS received her PhD in history with a specialty in East Asia: China from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2017. Her research focuses on the environmental history of late Qing and Republican China. She is currently assistant professor of East and Southeast Asian history at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut, USA.
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