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In June 1920, a homicide case in Shanghai sent shock waves through society: Yen Ruisheng, the client of a prostitute named Wang Lianying, murdered Wang and absconded with her jewelry. Wang's body was discovered in a nearby field a few days after her death, leading to the exposure of this killing. From the moment Wang's body was found to Yen's capture and subsequent execution (a time period lasting from June to November) the public was engrossed in every step of the investigation, pursuit, trial, and execution. Seizing upon this opportunity, theater owners capitalized on these sensational events by producing a play about them. This drama became an instant hit, attracting large audiences. The use of topical events is one features of Shanghai style Peking Opera. However, topical drama had struggled to find its footing when it first emerged during the late Qing dynasty. With the debut of Executing Yen Ruisheng in 1920, this particular genre of Peking Opera experienced an unprecedented surge in popularity due to its being highly entertaining. Topical drama features two concepts: current time/recent time and actual events. Through watching this type of drama, audiences could not only fulfill their voyeuristic desires to pry into others' privacy but also better empathize with the story since it resembled their daily lives. These resonations could be converted into both profit and public opinion. This article provides an overview of performances of Executing Yen Ruisheng based on the study of news reports, theater advertisements, drama reviews, and recordings. Through analyzing the contents of this work, the author considers how its creators combined true story materials and the imagination, and then went beyond the boundary of real and fiction to create a new reality on stage. Lastly, the article discusses the potential roles that this work played in the public sphere and its unique place in the history of Peking Opera while exploring aspects of topical drama's emotional expressions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From his arrival in China in 1888 to his departure in 1930, Canadian missionary, Donald MacGillivray (季理斐), was in China for more than 40 years. According to changes in the Chinese missionary situation, the key target of his mission was frequently adjusted. From his initial work in the early days in North Honan, to his work with officials and intellectuals in Shanghai in the late Qing Dynasty, then to students, women, and children in the Republic of China, Donald MacGillivray continued to preach to both the masses and the elites. His approach was flexible, ranging from oral preaching to academic publications. Relying on his interpersonal network, MacGillivray paid close attention to the social changes occurring in modern China. An evaluation of his activities in China can not only reveal the impact of individual missionaries in the process of Western learning and the transformation of Chinese knowledge in modern times, but also provide insight into the integration of Christianity into the indigenization process of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the sixteenth century onwards, the Jesuit educational model, as well as the method of evangelization propounded by the same religious Order, have been relying on the mastery of certain rhetorical techniques and, notably, in strong linguistic competency. This contribution examines how the Jesuits in modern Shanghai understood and put into application their traditional focus on rhetoric in the semi-colonial context of the time. After having recalled how Jesuits engaged with Chinese language and discourse in the Ming and early Qing dynasties, we take the 1923 Catalogue of the Jesuit publications in the missionary enclave of Zi-ka-wei as a reference point so as to describe and assess a number of trends that we summarize as follows. A privileged relationship was maintained between Latin and ancient Chinese and a growing interest in the "margins" and the way to address them efficiently triggered a renewal of ethnographic and linguistic studies; specifically, the expertise developed in dialectology testifies to the change that was occurring in the way to rhetorically address hearts and minds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article locates one of the earliest charitable performances organized by prostitutes in 1907 in two cities, Shanghai and Beijing. It examines the ways in which each social group prostitutes in the name of jijie (prostitute circles)/huajie (circles of flowers), the male elites who helped them manage the performances, and the newspaper commentators who responded to these events in mass media reconceptualized the formation of their identities, the transformation of their businesses, and the negotiation of their relationship with the emerging society and the nation in the last decade of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911). It argues that the charitable performances not only cultivated the civic virtue of every group involved within a newly restructured society that prioritized public morals and nationalistic devotion, they also promoted person gain in terms of social status and reputation. To a large extent, these performances help us understand such bigger issues as female sexuality, the prostitution business, elite dominance, and the reform of China within the larger urban, social, and ideological contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from the perspective of shipping culture, sand junk culture in Shanghai during the Ming and Qing Dynasties was studied from the aspects of material, system, behavior and mentality. It is found that the change and development of sand junk culture in Shanghai during the Ming and Qing Dynasties are closely related to the convenient shipping conditions and economic activities. "Sand junk culture" runs through the development of shipping industry in Shanghai area, reflecting a pioneering and enterprising, compatible and inclusive spirit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]