The rise and fall of cabarets
- Source: Global Times
- [11:34 July 02 2010]
- Comments
The cover of Shanghai's Dancing World: Cabaret Culture and Urban Politics, 1919-1954. Photos: Courtesy of Andrew David Field
By Nick Muzyczka
Shanghai's Dancing World: Cabaret Culture and Urban Politics, 1919- 1954 is the title of a new book by Andrew David Field, an independent scholar of Chinese history and culture who has taught at several international universities.
Field was inspired to investigate this area after being introduced to some 1930s jazz music from Shanghai.
"I thought that it was a very interesting mix of Chinese and American pop music influences. The music motivated me to research that era more deeply, and that led me to the nightclubs of old Shanghai," he told the Global Times.
Writing this book was something of a journey into the unknown for Field: "Nobody really knew much or had written much about the city's 'Jazz Age' entertainment culture, at least not since it had died away in the 1940s and 50s," he related.
With official records of this cultural scene somewhat lacking, the author had to engage in extensive research, spanning many years.
"I had to read hundreds of newspapers and magazines, memoirs, novels, and other sources from the 1920s and 30s to put it all together. Not to mention all those archival and police files."
The book frequently delves into nuanced features of the social scene of this period, offering specific insights.
The reader learns, for example, how when the Shanghai elites were searching for new places to congregate after the closure during the 1930s of stately ballrooms such the Majestic, or the Carlton Café, they (unusually) began to frequent places that did not employ female hostesses.
Such places became a haven for elite women customers especially those "who did not have to compete with paid hostesses for the attention of their male customers."
Among the book's many interesting topics are discussions on the attempts to regulate and tax the cabaret industry, the livelihoods and backgrounds of the hostesses, the sometimes blurry line between the mafia and government of the period and the government's ban on cabarets (and the subsequent "Dancer's Uprising") of 1948.
The book closes with a look at the changing social relations brought about by the rise of the Communist Party of China (CPC), whose interest in purging class divisions was totally at odds with this highly stratified social scene.
Although somewhat longwinded at times, there is a pleasing balance to this work, with enough interesting anecdotes, contextual information and eccen-tric digressions to offset the more dry academic moments, such as the descriptions of the exact layout of particular ballrooms, something few readers will care about.
