| Formatted abstract
|
Early twentieth century Shanghai was swept up in a wave of modernity. As the customs, traditions and social structures that had underpinned a nation for centuries were stripped away in favour of progression, popular pursuits were forced to evolve in an attempt to reflect and cater to the whim of a rising middle class elite. Entertainment, indeed the very conduct of leisure itself, in Shanghai became a symbol of modernization, a reflection of all it was, and all it was yet to be. This phenomenon was essentially born of the desire to be modem, was popularised by so-called "petty urbanites," and driven at it's most base level by economic necessity. From the birth of social dancing in the elitist environment of the extraterritorial concessions, to the sexual concoction of commercialised pleasures meandering through the streets, Shanghai was a city of popular, modernised excess, a fusion of modem and traditional, though rarely lawful, pursuits. This "den of iniquity" catered for all tastes, and all social classes, guided only by the vogues of the time, and the whim of it's benefactors.
|
