Billiards, Bicycles, and Charity Fairs: Courtesans Staging the Fashionable in Public Gardens in Semi-colonial Shanghai (1880s-1910s)

After the defeat of the Qing government (1644-1912) in the First Opium War in 1842, Shanghai was opened up as a treaty port to facilitate international trade. New arrivals from Britain, France, the U.S., Russia, and Japan brought Western practices and ideas to the increasingly diversified society. These unprecedented changes triggered local Chinese residents’ insecurity and desire at the same time. Nonetheless, certain social groups, mostly notably courtesans as argued by Catherine Yeh, emerged as pioneer cultural ambassadors, mediating between traditional culture and Western-style innovations. Equally important was the evolving hybrid built environment of the cosmopolitan Shanghai. My paper proposes to look at Shanghai courtesans in the spatial context of one of their most frequented, but largely overlooked, venues—public gardens. I will focus specifically on Zhang Family Garden (1885-1910) known for its hybrid architectural and landscape design, including an expanse of lawn and a hybrid Western-style building—Acadia Hall. Through analyzing photographs, illustrations, and newspaper reports, my paper will explore the various activities that courtesans took part in Zhang Family Garden, including playing billiards, riding bicycle and roller coasters, organizing protests, and even attending "world's fairs." This case study will address how the hybrid architectural design style of the garden and its positioning as an entertainment garden gave courtesans freedom to stage their bodacious display of the novel, and how the presence of courtesans in those gardens rendered the threatening aspect of Western culture “curious, fascinating, and exotic,” and, therefore, acceptable or even shimao (fashionable).