Sheng Cheng's Ma Mère (1928): An Interwar Period Search for Unity Between East and West

ABSTRACT

Following World War I, and what many perceived as China's unfair treatment in the Treaty of Versailles, numerous Chinese intellectuals joined the influential May Fourth Movement (1919–1932) to protest social and cultural conditions in their country, and promoted study abroad in France through the Work-Study Scheme (or “Diligent Work-Frugal Study” movement) as a means to acquire technical skills like engineering while learning to strengthen China politically. Through participation therein, they began to view revolutionary France as a wellspring for inspiring political reform within Republican China (1912–1949). Sheng Cheng (1899–1996) was one such patriotic student who called for revolutionary change in his society, and in his writings connected China's contemporary political struggles with France's own revolutionary past. A nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) supporter traveling to France for this initiative, Sheng joined the Société Franco-Chinoise d'Éducation, and staying there for ten years wrote and lectured as a public intellectual.

The article examines Sheng's writing of personal history to engage in political activism, and in particular, his key work, the allegorical Ma Mère, in the wider context of the interwar period Franco-Chinese relations and the heritage of the French Revolution.

KEYWORDS:

• Work-Study Scheme
• Chinese intellectuals
• May Fourth Movement
• Franco-Chinese relations

Notes

1. Sheng, Cheng. Mayn muter. Warsaw: Bibliyotek M. Rakovski, 1929.

Sheng, Cheng. Mijn moeder. The Hague: Servire, 1929.

Sheng, Cheng. Wode muqin. Shanghai: Zhonghua shu-ju, 1933.

Sheng, Tcheng. (Sheng, Cheng). Mi Madre. Madrid: Lagasca, 1929.

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Notes on contributors

Annika A. Culver

Dr. Annika A. Culver is Associate Professor of East Asian History at Florida State University, where she also serves as Faculty Advisor (Pacific War) to the Institute on World War II and the Human Experience. Professor Culver's research investigates questions of intellectual engagement and politics amongst East Asian writers and artists during the prewar and wartime period. Her most recent book monograph is Glorify the Empire: Japanese Avant-Garde Propaganda in Manchukuo (U of British Columbia P, 2013).