To discuss this topic, I will focus on new technologies within three main themes: transport in the city, housing and appliances, and mass media. Firstly, I will examine the new technologies of transport around the city and the changing landscape of the city itself. New transport technologies helped people commute, travel and socialise, as well as giving urban residents access to imported goods. We must use “technologies” loosely; it is hard to imagine today that a bicycle, for example, was once “new technology”. However, its introduction to China revolutionised daily life, allowing people to roam beyond their neighbourhoods. Technologies like the rickshaw, bicycle and public transport developmentation helped city centres become hubs for department stores and black market market traders alike. For “housing” I will examine how new technologies, particularly quickly-built prefabricated apartment buildings, provided warmer and safer housing from the 1950s onwards. Many in Shanghai, for example, lived in straw huts and slums until easily-built concrete social housing transformed their daily lives, along with plumbing and household goods like the clock or radio. Finally I will examine the impact of mass media, particularly the printing press and the radio; the latter more expensive, but perhaps more “accessible” due to China's low literacy rates. Media (print and audio) modernized life, offering urban residents daily news and entertainment and “connecting” the masses. Furthermore, media offered new ideas, such as the transformation and introduction of the concept of China's “new woman”.

I will begin by examining “transport” in the city. Primarily, because transport was a feature in all aspects of urban life: commuting, travelling, shopping, and for rickshaw drivers “transport” was the source of income. However, in examining the changing and ever-modernizing dynamic of transport, we must begin by looking at Chinese cities themselves and their modernizing infrastructures. Escherick documents how in “city after city” a process of infrastrucutre and layout modernization began in the late Qing period, well into the twentieth century. The primary goal was economic in nature, yet modernized daily life in many ways. The objective was to ease the flow of commerce and make trading more efficient; this was done by tearing down city walls, building tramway and rail infrastructure, and widening roads. What this change and modernization represented, however, was “a shift from controlling to facilitating the movement of goods and people”.¹ Although a tertiary, perhaps unintended outcome, modernizing cities gave urban residents more freedom to move and travel the city in their daily lives. For example, in the past, “dirt roads with centuries of accumulated dust and debris became impassable quagmires in the rainy season”. The modernization of the cityscape largely fixed this problem in bigger cities.² In terms of transport technology, the modernizing of city layout and infrastructure allowed the rickshaw to become increasingly popular. Tramways, buses and rail became increasingly more prevalent in Beijing and Shanghai from the 1920s, but the rickshaw had a far bigger impact on daily life for most residents. The rickshaw affected daily life in virtually all cities in two ways: it was a mode of daily transport and as an occupation for those who could not find work elsewhere (e.g. in factories). Following the rickshaw, one of the most critical (if not the most critical) examples of “new technologies” in twentieth century Beijing and Shanghai was the bicycle. From the early-mid twentieth century, urban life in China increasingly featured and benefited from the use of the bicycle. For many urban residents (aside from the wealthiest), a bicycle was a prized possession and widely sought after. Bicycles costly and took a long time to save up for, but gradually became cheaper and more available later in the twentieth century. With this increasing availability, bicycles became a larger and larger feature of life; enabling travel, trade and a modern sense of personal freedom.

A secondary impact of the bicycle's development was that traditional rickshaws became less popular. Seemingly this would mean less employment opportunities for the lower working classes in cities; one of the few clear downsides of the advancement of transport technologies.³ However, as the bicycle (and later the automobile) became increasingly available, an opening was provided for less physically strenuous (and arguably, humiliating) employment. Through the newer transport innovations, jobs involving the bicycle (e.g. market trading, bicycle or automobile taxi services) would become popular. Particularly in the case of illegal/ black market trading, a bicycle allowed “pedallers” to quickly move from area to area within a city, as to reach new customers and to avoid law enforcement. To this day this remains the case in Chinese cities, particularly Beijing, where the bicycle is widely used by market traders and commuters alike.^{4 5}

What both transport by rickshaw and bicycle allowed, however, was for “centers” (of commerce, trade and socialising) to appear and explode in cities like Shanghai. Escherick's work uses the case study of Nanjing Road in Shanghai, which began to explode as a major thoroughfare in the early twentieth century, and became a model district that other Chinese cities treated attempted to emulate. The model-district of Nanjing road as “a wide, clean, orderly center of commerce and entertainment” was a product of innovative city planning. New technology (rail and bus) meant that railway and large bus stations would become hubs for shopping and socialising as well as “civic rituals”.⁶ Importantly, hubs like Nanjing Road became accessible only through new transport technologies. Starting with rickshaws, the development tramways, buses and bicycles allowed urban residents to travel to these gathering-points. These new technologies meant that people in cities could travel outside of their own neighbourhoods, and experience new opportunities. Restaurants, department stores and cinema would become a key feature of the more wealthier urban residents' daily lives. The development of transport logistics combined with the development of city centres meant that foreign goods, for example, became available in marketplaces and department stores. This offered new experiences, and products such as Western clothing for residents to purchase and foreign culture to engage with. For the wider urban-public, “huiguan” (native place association centres) became an important aspect of their lives. Many residents of big cities like Shanghai and Beijing had come from elsewhere; the huiguan become a place where people could visit for social reasons (e.g. finding a partner or friends), or for help with issues such as dialect translations or employment. Overall, new transport technologies were crucial: all of this could now be easily accessed through these new means of transport. The bicycle in particular, along with the development of public transport, allowed the daily lives of urban residents to involve their entire city rather than being “stuck” in their own neighbourhoods. Socially and economically, new transport technologies were crucial in allowing these changes in Chinese cities. This modernization of transport has accelerated in recent decades with the increasing availability of the automobile. This has come with negatives, such as pollution and traffic, but has further transformed urban life. Much like the technologies of the bicycle and public transportation, the widespread availability of cars and motorcycles has made travel and longer distance commuting more possible. The latter, allowing cities like Shanghai to “grow” as residents can live in the suburbs yet easily travel into the centre, with over four million car owners in Beijing as of 2013. ^{7 8}

The changing technologies of housing in the twentieth century represented a gradually improving standard of living for urban residents. This was particularly the case after the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, after which programs were developed to create large blocks of social housing flats/apartments. CCP (Chinese Communist Party) policy allowed this program of a transformation of living space, but the technological advancement in building and architecture was just as much of a contributing factor.⁹ Dikoetter's work on “dwellings” before 1950 gives us an insight into the shockingly antiquated style of housing that many urban residents lived in, and the low quality of life that the poor housing promoted.¹⁰ Certainly, it was not entirely a lack of technological advancement that caused millions of Chinese residents to live in “mud huts” or crude dwellings that would collapse in monsoons or heavy rain. Dikoetter notes how in imperial China, low initial cost with high maintenance style housing was preferred; housing was built to be flexible, temporary and cheap. In this sense, it was an issue of economics and a widespread mindset of “immediate gratification” rather than purely a consequence of technological underdevelopment. However, the daily lives of those living in crude shelters were horribly impacted by the poor quality of housing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In Shanghai for example, “urban outcasts” lived in slums or “shantytowns”. The residents were often unemployed and were financially and geographically excluded; the latter being because these slum dwellings were often located on the outskirts of the city (something which advancing transport technologies have come to fix in more recent times).¹¹ Hanchao Lu refers to the glamour and modernity of Shanghai (particularly the international settlements and along the Bund) as a “cover picture” which did not represent daily urban life for many.¹² Residents of more deprived parts of Shanghai (such as Zhabei) in the first half of the twentieth century lived in poor conditions; dwellings such as Penghu (shacks made from straw) or crude shacks made from overturned boats were common. In this dwellings, diseases were commonplace and living conditions often abhorrent. Therefore, in reference to the essay question, modernizing in this case refers simply to improvement of living conditions – something which advancing standards and technologies of residential infrastructure allowed.¹³

During the Republican era it became a priority of the government to create affordable housing for those living in the slums; yet little progress was truly made for decades.¹⁴What allowed the newly found communist China from 1949 to build social housing and drastically improve the standard of living for former slum-dwellers was, largely, technological advancement. Social, subsidised housing was provided to virtually all living in cities from the early 1950s. This was because large concrete apartment buildings could now be prefabricated and quickly built. New building technology (along with Maoist policy) “modernized” daily urban life in the sense that it improved living standards. What were formerly outcast shantytown dwellers now had warmer, safer and more structurally sound housing. Technological advancement did not completely eradicate slum housing, but drastically modernized and improved life for urban residents.¹⁵

Some have pointed to the downsides of social housing and perhaps the negatives of “modernization”; particularly towards the end of the twentieth century. Dong, speaking of returning to Beijing in 1995, described how “the intimate city (the “courtyard” housing that many formerly lived in) disappeared within a decade's time”. In her perspective “living conditions seemed to be improving” yet tall apartment buildings had replaced the formerly intimate communities. Further, she describes how the recent widespread availability of the automobile had led to large amounts of traffic and pollution.¹⁶ These are all arguably negative (perhaps unavoidable) consequences of recent technological modernization in Chinese cities. However, we must remind ourselves of the appalling living conditions in the slums of Shanghai; the residents of which “success” meant “simply to survive”.¹⁷ Overall, technological advancements in housing, plumbing and electricity meant that lives were modernized in the city; “modernized” in the sense that their lives were transformed and improved. Access to clean water, warmer and safer housing (and housing which in many cases was nearby to residents' place of employment) improved the daily living standards of urban residents. Furthermore, household appliances (such as clocks and radios) becoming increasingly more available to the urban public throughout the twentieth century have modernized and transformed daily life. In the case of clocks, a new sense of “time” has been created through China's unified time-zone, allowing people to live by time schedule rather than an antiquated reliance on the sunrise/sunset. Household appliances like the radio modernized life by offering the public news and other audio entertainment; this was particularly beneficial for less literate people.^{18 19}

The gradual development of the printing press in China gave urban residents access to news, magazines and entertainment, particularly from the 1920s onwards (yet becoming more state controlled from 1949). It should be noted however that even in the city, illiteracy rates were high and thus only the wealthier educated could “access” this new technology. Regardless, the “efflorescent bourgeois press” in 1920s Shanghai shaped public opinion; bringing foreign ideas and culture along with news and entertainment to the literate public.²⁰ Goodman used the example of the “new woman” becoming a phenomenon through (at least partially) the printing press. The story was told in Shanghai of a young woman committing suicide, shocking many readers but also encouraging many women to evolve and “modernize” away from China's patriarchal past.²¹ Magazines and pamphlets also delivered modern fashion and culture ideas as well as entertainment to the literate residents of cities in this era. Rather than just focus on the printing press, the case study of the radio provides an interesting example of a technological innovation that modernized daily life in the city. This is particularly important due to the (until very recently) high rates of illiteracy in China; around 80% in 1950.²² The radio offered news and entertainment in a very similar manner to print media, but was “usable” by all but the deaf. A radio was not easy to obtain for many poorer residents; it is however an important example of a technology that gradually impacted more and more daily lives in urban China. Both print media and the radio, overall, modernized daily life in the city by entertaining and informing the public on a daily basis.

Overall, new technologies played a crucial role in modernizing and transforming daily life in the city. New technologies like the bicycle, tramways and railways both encouraged and allowed all trade, from street peddling to high fashion, to flourish. Evolving transport technology simultaneously grew cities (by allowing residents to live further from the centre) and encouraged travel. New housing technologies enabled the CCP's social housing program to rapidly improve the living conditions of millions of urban residents, virtually ending slum dwellings. Here, lives were “modernized” by virtue that living conditions drastically improved. Finally, media technology offered the public news and entertainment (in print and audio) on a daily basis, “connecting” and informing urban society. Urban residents' lives were modernized, by exposure to new ideas of feminism, fashion and culture through the development of print and radio media. Overall, new technologies sheltered, educated, transformed, entertained and enabled fuller lives for those living in Chinese cities throughout the twentieth century.

~

Bibliography

Chen, Janet, Guilty of Indigence: The Urban Poor in China, 1900-1953, (USA, 2012).

Dikoetter, Frank, Mao's Great famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62 (London, 2010).

Dikoetter, Frank, Things Modern: Material Culture and Everyday Life in China (London, 2006).

Dong, Madeleine Yue, Republican Beijing: The City and Its Histories (London, 2003).

Esherick, Joseph W., Remaking the Chinese City: Modernity and National Identity, 1900-1950 (Hawaii, 2000).

Goodman, Bryna, “The New Woman Commits Suicide: The Press, Cultural Memory and the New Republic”, The Journal of Asian Studies, 64:1, 66-101.

Lean, Eugenia, “The Making of a Public: Emotions and Media Sensation in 1930s China”, Twentieth-Century China, 29:2 (2004), 39-61.

Lu, Hanchao, Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century (London, 2004).

Lu, Hanchao, “Creating Urban Outcasts: Shantytowns in Shanghai, 1920-1950”, Journal of Urban History, 21:5 (1995), 563-596.

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1Joseph W. Esherick, Remaking the Chinese City: Modernity and National Identity, 1900-1950 (Hawaii, 2000), 7.

2Ibid, ch. 1.

3Madeleine Yue Dong, Republican Beijing: The City and Its Histories (London, 2003), chs. 1-3.

4http://www.scmp.com/tech/start-ups/article/2110210/there-are-24-million-rental-bicycles-beijing-and-city-says-enough , accessed 20 February 2018

5Dong, Beijing, ch. 4.

6Esherick, Remaking the Chinese City, 9-10.

7http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-24566288 , accessed 20 February 2018

8Dong, Beijing, chs. 1-4

9Frank Dikoetter, Mao's Great famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62 (London, 2010), chs. 20-22.

10Frank Dikoetter, Things Modern: Material Culture and Everyday Life in China (London, 2006), ch. 7.

11Hanchao Lu, “Creating Urban Outcasts: Shantytowns in Shanghai, 1920-1950”, Journal of Urban History, 21:5 (1995), 563-596.

12Ibid, 563-564

13Ibid, 536-596

14Janet Chen, Guilty of Indigence: The Urban Poor in China, 1900-1953, (USA, 2012), ch. 3.

15Dikoetter, Mao's Great famine, chs. 21-22.

16Dong, Beijing, Preface.

17Lu, “Urban Outcasts”, 563

18Eugenia Lean, “The Making of a Public: Emotions and Media Sensation in 1930s China”, Twentieth-Century China, 29:2 (20044), 39-61.

19Hanchao Lu, Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century (London, 2004), ch. 4.

20Bryna Goodman, “The New Woman Commits Suicide: The Press, Cultural Memory and the New Republic”, The Journal of Asian Studies, 64:1, 65-68.

21Ibid, 66-101.

22http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/12/news/chinas-long-but-uneven-march-to-literacy.html , accessed 20 February 2018