Beidaihe beach: leisure culture and modernity in Republican China

Abstract

This article examines the transition of Beidaihe Beach in China from an elite, private enclave of sea bathers to a commercialized, modern, and leisure resort during 1920s and 1930s. The most famous of Chinese beaches, Beidaihe's modern recasting occurred through heavy magazine, newspaper, and cinematic portrayal of powerful political figures, artistic, and entertainment stars at play. Clad in ever-more scanty bathing suits, such celebrities inspired the Chinese masses to emulate the star's beach clothing and seek moments at Beidaihe's sunny beaches and warm, gentle ocean waters. With growing public patronage, Beidaihe soon sported a full array of hotels, amusement parlors, restaurants, and fashionable stores. For those unable to bath at its beach, powerful modern media provided a constant flow of images and stories about its fashionable world. These cultural changes occurred within the hard fist of international conflict as first European nations and then the Japanese vied with Chinese warlords for control of Beidaihe. The first such historical study of beach culture in China, the article recreates in China the rise of bathing and swimming as leisure sports mixed with sensual fashion of beach culture and the hard, military realities of the era.

Notes

¹ Beidaihe is in the northeast of Hebei Province, 279 km east to Beijing. Its beach of 15 km long and 15 m wide averagely is a natural spot for sand and sun bathing. Beidaihe Zhi, 2.

² Dao, ‘Beidaihe jiahua’, Beiyang huabao, August 29, 1929, 2–3. Erlang, ‘Daihe suoyu’, Beiyang huabao, August 17, 1929, 2; August 29, 1929.

³ Around the same time period, beach culture emerged at Gaoqiao of Shanghai and Qingdao, both treaty ports, in China. However, Beidaihe beach was the most popular and legendary as an independent modern tourist resort with comprehensive functions.

⁴ On Chinese tourism, see Ryan and Huimin, Tourism in China; and Oakes, Tourism and Modernity in China. On the evolution of the swimming suit in this era, see Warner, When the Girls Came out to Play, 61–84. For xiaoshimin see Yeh, Shanghai Splendor, 129–52.

⁵ Wu Chuanyu first won men's 100-m free style swimming in the Seventh National Games in China in 1948. Zhao, Shanxing, ‘Jiu Zhongguo yi zhi qi jie quanguo yundong hui jieshao’, Tiyu shiliao, no. 1, August 1980, 30.

⁶ For the 2008 Olympics, see Gao, ‘2008 Olympics’.

⁷ Morris, Marrow of the Nation, 89–93, 115, 134, 156–57, 239; For Yang Xiuqiong, see Gao, Sporting Gender, Chapter V.

⁸ Corbin, The Lure of the Sea, 163–87. Lencek and Bosker, The Beach; See also Gillis, ‘Being Coastal’, 1–15. On clothing, see Finnane, Changing Clothes in China, 92; Garrett, Chinese Clothing. On global modernity, see Mendes and de la Haye, Fashion Since 1900, 66–7.

⁹ Ye, Ping, ‘Ming Qing haijin lifa zhi bijiao’, Fazhi yu shehui, November 2008, 55–6; Beidaihe zhi, 3–14.

¹⁰ The first recreational centre at Beidaihe opened in 1893. Xu, Tourism and Local Economic Development in China, 49–50.

¹¹ Beidaihe zhi, 16–27.

¹² Erlang, ‘Daihe suoyu’, Beiyang huabao, August 17, 1929, 2; August 29, 1929; September 16, 1930. Bei, ‘Ji haibing liang tongxin shi’, Beiyang huabao, September 6, 1930.

¹³ Beidaihe zhi, 17–8, 600–2.

¹⁴ Beiyang huabao, August 7, 1930.

¹⁵ Beiyang huabao, September 6, 1930. Daosheng, ‘Haibinsuopie’, Beiyang huabao, July 21, 1931.

¹⁶ Beiyang huabao, July 24, 1926, 2; July 20, 1929; June, 1931.

¹⁷ Beiyang huabao, July 30, 1929, 2; August 28, 1930.

¹⁸ Beiyang huabao, July 30, 1929, 2–3; August 17, 1929; August 29, 1929, 2–3; September 6, 1930; June, 1931; August 27, 1931.

¹⁹ Daosheng, ‘Haibing suopie’, Beiyang huabao, July 21, 1931. Guiyuan, ‘Beidaihe youlan xiaozhi’, Beiyang huabao, July 30, 1929, 1. Beidahe haibing zhilue, Tianjin: Tianjin Renmin Chubanshe, 1925.

²⁰ Erlang, ‘Daihe suoyu’, Beiyang huabao, August 17, 1929, 2; August 29, 1929. Guiyuan, ‘Beidaihe youlan xiaozhi’, Beiyang huabao, July 30, 1929. Daosheng, ‘Haibinsuopie’, Beiyang huabao, July 21, 1931. Bei, Lin, ‘Beidaihe haibin fandian lu’, Beiyang huabao, July 13, 1931.

²¹ Beiyang huabao, September 10, 1929; September 13, 1930; August 2, 1931. Liangyou huabao, no. 70, October 1932, 10. Hahn, China to Me, 21–2.

²² Beiyang huabao, August 17, 1929, 2.

²³ Beiyang huabao, June, 1931.

²⁴ Weilai de baba, ‘Rushi wowen de haibing’, Beiyang huabao, July 30, 1929, 3. ‘You Beidaihe haibing de xinde’, Beiyang huabao, August 17, 1929, 2.

²⁵ Dao, ‘Beidaihe jiahua’, Beiyang huabao, August 29, 1929, 2–3.

²⁶ Miuzi, ‘Liaozhiza xianhua: luoyou guan yu nϋguan’, Beiyang huabao, August 14, 1926, 2; July 30, 1929, 2–3; August 29, 1929, 2–3; June, 193; August 2, 1931, August 29, 1931. Bei, Lin, ‘Beidaihe haibing fandian lu’, Beiyang huabao, July 13, 1931.

²⁷ Wu, Liang Qichao he tade ernu men, 73–7.

²⁸ Beiyang huabao, September 10, 1929; September 13, 1930.

²⁹ Beiyang huabao, July 1930.

³⁰ Beiyang huabao, September 10, 1929.

³¹ Shuyun, ‘Youyong hui jiqu’, Beiyang huabao, August 14, 1930.

³² Beiyang huabao, September 6, 1930. Daosheng, ‘Haibinsuopie’, Beiyang huabao, July 21, 1931.

³³ Beiyang huabao, July 30, 1929, 3; October 10, 1929.

³⁴ Beiyang huabao, April 1, 1928; Sept. 13, 1931. Liangyiou Huabao, no. 49, Aug. 1930.

³⁵ Qu, ‘Bi shu suibi’, Beiyang huabao, August 27, 1931.

³⁶ Liangyou huabao, no. 62, October 1931, 35.

³⁷ Shen, ‘Rusheng’, 233–56.

³⁸ Buhuan deshi zhaizhu, ‘Haibing quwen’, Beiyang huabao, July 30, 1929, 3.

³⁹ Bei, ‘Haibing wu meng lu’, Beiyang huabao, September 11, 1930.

⁴⁰ ‘You Beidaihe haibing de xinde’, Beiyang huabao, August 17, 1929, 2.

⁴¹ Weilai de baba, ‘Rushi wowen de haibing’, Beiyang huabao, July 30, 1929, 3. ‘You Beidaihe haibing de xinde’, Beiyang huabao, August 17, 1929, 2.

⁴² Shidai Manhua, no. 7, July 20, 1934.

⁴³ Qu, ‘Bi shu suibi’, Beiyang huabao, August 27, 1931.

⁴⁴ Ibid.

⁴⁵ Chen Jinchu, ‘Xiangchun hua de youyong’, Tiynzhoubao, vol. 2, no. 15, May 20, 1933, 13.

⁴⁶ Qu, ‘Bi shu suibi’, Beiyang huabao, August 27, 1931.

⁴⁷ Beiyang huabao, August 14, 1930; June 20, 1931.

⁴⁸ Beiyang huabao, no. 29, August, 1928; August 20, 1931. Liangyou huabao, no. 62, October 1931, 19; no. 79, August 1933.

⁴⁹ Tiyu zhoubao, vol. 2, no. 10, April 15, 1933, 14.

⁵⁰ Liangyou huabao, no. 61, September 1931. I discuss the national development of jianmei in Gao ‘The Nationalist and Feminist Discourses’, 546–73.

⁵¹ Beiyang huabao, no. 502, July 24, 1930. For similar style contests in Shanghai cabarets see Field, Shanghai's Dancing World, 140–44.

⁵² Funü shibao, vol. 1, June 11, 1911.

⁵³ Beiyang huabao, July 21, 1930.

⁵⁴ Beiyang huabao, August 17, 1929; September 19, 1929.

⁵⁵ Daosheng, ‘Haibing suopie’, Beiyang huabao, July 21, 1931.

⁵⁶ Beiyang huabao, June 18, 1931.

⁵⁷ Linglong, Issue 62, Vol. 2, August 10, 1932, 548.

⁵⁸ Daosheng, ‘Haibing suopie’, Beiyang huabao, July 21, 1931.

⁵⁹ Furen huabao, no. 27, April 25, 1935.

⁶⁰ Furen huabao, no. 29, June 25, 1935.

⁶¹ Beiyang huabao, August 17, 1929; September 19, 1929.

⁶² Linglong, no. 19, 1931, 695; no. 20, 1931, 732–3; no. 21, 1931, 773; 101, 1933, 1057. Beiyang huabao, Nov. 26, 1927; Aug. 17, 1929; Sept. 19, 1929; no. 67, March, 1932, 24–5.

⁶³ Liangyou huabao, no. 107, July 1935, 54–55. Beiyang huabao, Sept. 19, Oct., 1931. On Yang see, Gao, Sporting Gender, Chapter 5.

⁶⁴ Furen huabao, no. 27, April 25, 1935.

⁶⁵ Daosheng, ‘Haibing suopie,’ Beiyang huabao, July 21, 1931.

⁶⁶ Beiyang huabao, Aug. 27, 1931.

⁶⁷ Shidai manhua, no 38, May 20, 1937.

⁶⁸ Beiyang huabao, Aug. 17, 1929; Sept. 19, 1929. Fabric was a major concern for western manufacturers and consumers of swimsuits. See Warner, When the Girls Came Out to Play, 80–81.

⁶⁹ Furen huabao, no. 29, June 25, 1935.

⁷⁰ Liangyou huabao, no. 103, March. 1935, 8; no. 111, Nov. 1935, 18–9. no. 117, June 1936, 54.

⁷¹ Liangyou huabao, no. 68, Aug. 1932, 39.

⁷² Tiyu Zhoubao, vol. 2, no. 16, May 27, 1933, 16; vol. 2, no. 23, July 15, 1933, 11.

⁷³ Qinfen tiyu yuebao, vol. 2, no. 12, Sept, 1935, 786.

⁷⁴ ‘Qingbang (Black Gang)’ is sometimes mistakenly translated as ‘Green Gang.’ Andrew D. Field, ‘Selling Souls in Sin City: Shanghai Singing and Dancing Hostesses in Print, Film, and Politics, 1920-1949,’ in Yingjin Zhang, ed. Cinema and Urban Culture in Shanghai, 1922–1943. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 99–127, quote at 106.

⁷⁵ Beidaihe zhi, 21–5.

⁷⁶ For decision see New York Times, August 4, 2003.

⁷⁷ Beidaihe zhi, 52–3.