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By studying six different aspects of culture in Canton in the
period between the two World Wars, this book helps broaden our
limited knowledge of the social and cultural lives of the common
people in this largest city of South China. The author examines how
the Cantonese in this period indulged in their imagined cultural
superiority as "modern" citizens, ushering in a cult of the modern
city. During this period, Cantonese opera was also emerging and
evolving into a widely accepted form of commercialised mass
entertainment. The process of social and cultural change and its
impact on the development of this city and its people are revealed
throughout the book. This book also aims to redress some major
misconceptions of the socio-cultural realities as seen in official
rhetoric or academic discourse on the matters of patriotism and
anti-foreignism, gambling, prostitution, and opium consumption.
Contemporary non-official and folk materials reveal that the common
people were much more pro-Western than xenophobic in attitude, and
the alleged social and political "calamities" of gambling, opium
consumption and prostitution were more rhetorical than real.
Understanding Canton provides us with, not only a fuller and more
comprehensive picture of city life and popular mentalities, but
also an important clue to understand how and why the social history
of this city was distorted and constructed in ways that suited the
political ideology and nation-building agenda of the ruling
regimes.
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