The National Palace Museum Research Quarterly 37: 3, 2020
The present study examines the musical instruments recorded in Illustrated
Regulations for Ritual... more The present study examines the musical instruments recorded in Illustrated Regulations for Ritual Paraphernalia of the Imperial Court. It shows how, in the name of victory, the Qianlong court incorporated the ethnic music of various peoples from recently conquered areas into the banquet music at the Qing dynasty court. By the recording it in books and stylized repetition of acts, a musical expression symbolizing communal harmony between peoples was integrated with Centered Harmony ceremonial music, forming another step in the dynastic and imperial building of the Great Qing. The present study deals, first of all, with court music and instruments that were added in 1760 and 1761 as a result of the Qing court’s victory over Muslim peoples in the western regions. They include the new additions of “Military Song of Triumph” and “Victory Song of Triumph” in 1760. Second, in the eleventh lunar month of 1761, a set of ancient Zhou bells unearthed in Jiangxi was displayed in the specially established Rhyming-the-Old (Yungu) Hall, and bells newly cast after the Zhou set were incorporated as part of the Qing Centered Harmony ceremonial court music. The newly-cast bells were also accompanied by chimes made of jade from the western regions to celebrate the court’s victory over rebellious peoples in its western regions and serve as an example of the sound and music capturing the idea of triumph in the west. Finally, the submission of Muslim performers and instruments allowed the music of Islamic peoples from those areas to be officially become one of the court banquet music of various peoples. On the one hand, the Qianlong emperor sought to trace Centered Harmony ceremonial music in the name of reviving the rituals of Zhou by establishing the Rhymingthe- Old Hall to display ancient bells and also adding new sets of tuned bells and chimes. On the other hand, to illustrate the Qing idea of supremacy in the land, it projected the banquet music of other peoples outwards in terms of time and space by also establishing the Purple Brightness (Ziguang) Pavilion as a memorial hall of victory in wars. Every year, foreign peoples were invited to Purple Brightness Pavilion for the court’s New Year’s banquet. Furthermore, to commemorate military triumph in the Ten Great Campaigns, the music of other peoples was added and performed at official ceremonies at the court. As this juncture of time and space, a coordinate system of rites and music was thus formed that could be continually expanded and extended.
In 1908, with the support of the Empress Dowager Cixi, the Agricultural Experiment Station of the Ministry of Agriculture and Industry (農工商部農事試驗場), or the “Wanshengyuan” (萬生園, Garden of Ten-thousand Lives), was officially opened to the public. As the first central-level experimental station, besides agricultural fields, the entire complex also included laboratories, botanical gardens, a natural history museum, and a zoological garden. All were the first such cultural facilities in the empire. This article analyzes how the captive wild animals in imperial menageries that Qing sovereigns had maintained for more than two centuries were gradually de-contextualized from imperial ceremonies and then re-contextualized into the new agricultural experimentation station.
Since the early Qing, the Imperial Household Department (內務府) managed menageries around the Forbidden City, including the Imperial Bestiary (baishofang 百獸房), the Imperial Aviary (bainiaofang 百鳥房), elephant stables, tiger rings, and so forth. Many of beasts performed important ceremonial roles in imperial rituals related to hunting, killing, and exhibiting furs. However, after the mid-nineteenth century, the number of animals kept in imperial menageries rapidly declined. At the same time, the ceremonies of hunting and killing were no longer conducted in the Nanyuan (南苑) or Royal Southern Hunting Park in Beijing, and the Qing empire stepped into the age of the zoological garden with the help of the global trade in animals and the demands of modern urban public space. Imperial animals and their mounts became collections of the zoo andmuseum. The imperial stages that had provided animals with the roles of power, control, dominance, and domestication were gradually turned into scenes of daily entertainment and recreation. The Garden of Ten-thousand Lives became one of several key media to visualize Cixi’s preparatory movement for constitutional monarchy.
Grafted onto Qing imperial harvest ritual ceremonies, the Garden of Ten-thousand Lives modernized the classical political rhetoric of “raising all things and nourishing all the people” into the context of zoo and museum by transforming and reconnecting animal participants. The royal ploughing ceremony and silkworm-feeding ceremony were converted into scientific experiments for improving agricultural productivity. No longer being sacrificed, those beasts in spring and autumn royal hunting ceremonies, together with other species, become domesticated zoo animals under the public gaze. By gradually integrating “ritualized nature” with more “modernized nature,” the birth of the Agricultural Experiment Station reflected the political change of the Qing imperial way to cooperate with nature.
Keywords: Wanshengyuan, Agricultural Experiment Station, zoological garden, museum, Empress Dowager Cixi
本文以蒙古獨立運動過程中，在中華民國境內舉辦的3個包含蒙古展件之大型展覽為主題，進行跨年代的展示文本分析。一是1914年，在中華民國直隸省天津，由嚴智怡團隊策展的「直隸省巴拿馬賽會出品預展」上，... more 本文以蒙古獨立運動過程中，在中華民國境內舉辦的3個包含蒙古展件之大型展覽為主題，進行跨年代的展示文本分析。一是1914年，在中華民國直隸省天津，由嚴智怡團隊策展的「直隸省巴拿馬賽會出品預展」上，所展出的一組特殊蒙古包展件—「蒙古風景」。二是1924年，由陶行知策展，南京東南大學教育科主辦的「全國教育展覽會」，其中的「蒙古生活及教育出品」展區。三是1936年，由馬鶴天等開發西北協會成員籌劃，在南京國貨展覽館舉辦的「西北文物展覽會」上之蒙古文物。藉由這3個展覽的蒙古展件及策展論述，分析蒙古獨立運動過程中，具有政治主導地位的漢族文化官僚，如何以展覽為媒介，透過蒙古包這類最足以代表蒙古遊牧生活特色的文化物件，在民國建立之初，建構「五族共和」的展示文本，並隨著國族運動的發展，到了1930年代的展覽中，蒙古人逐漸被再現為西北「少數民族」之一。
This paper examines three large-scale exhibitions held in the Republic of China with special reference to exhibits and objects from Mongolia so as to highlight the process of latent Mongolian independence movement. The first exhibition organized in 1914 by the curatorial team of Yan Zhiyi, was called the Zhili Province Pre-exhibition of Panama-Pacific International Exposition, in which a Mongolian yurt and two Mongols were in display. The second exhibition entitled National Education Fair, was organized by Tao Zhixing and held in 1924 at the Southeast University, Nanjing. The third named Northwest Heritage Exhibition, was held in 1936 at Nanjing, under the auspices of Ma Hetian and the members of the Northwest Development Association. From the various representations of Mongols in these three exhibitions, this paper enquires into the political discourse on the “republic of five nationalities,” and its shift from the conception of “nationbuilding” to the function of racial classification and minority group status.
This paper examines Yan Zhiyi’s curatorship during the “museum movement” in the newly developed B... more This paper examines Yan Zhiyi’s curatorship during the “museum movement” in the newly developed Beiyang downtown area (北洋新區) in early twentieth century Tianjin. Under the national campaigns of “revitalizing China through industry”(實業救國) and “guarding our national culture” (文化救國), Yan Zhiyi (嚴智怡, 1882-1935), the Chair of the Industrial Commerce Section of Industry Department of Zhili Province (直隸省實業廳工商科), had directed Zhili Commercial Museum since 1912. He then founded and had curated Tianjin Museum since 1918, as well as laid the foundation for the Tianjin Museum of Fine Arts in 1930. In 1915, Yan led a team to San Francisco for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. After this major event, Yan and his team traveled to several major cities in the U.S. They visited museums, had conversations with curators, and brought many museum materials and new ideas back to Tianjin. Then, Yan and his colleagues organized a new museum, the Tianjin Museum, based on what they had learned in the U.S. In 1923, the Tianjin Museum was officially opened to the public. All its objects were collected or donated from all over the province. In order to fulfill the objectives of national modernization and sustainable development, Yan curated not only objects exhibited in museums, but also the social connections as well as cultural productions related to these museums. Keywords: Yan Zhiyi, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, Tianjin Museum
The National Palace Museum Research Quarterly 37: 3, 2020
The present study examines the musical instruments recorded in Illustrated
Regulations for Ritual... more The present study examines the musical instruments recorded in Illustrated Regulations for Ritual Paraphernalia of the Imperial Court. It shows how, in the name of victory, the Qianlong court incorporated the ethnic music of various peoples from recently conquered areas into the banquet music at the Qing dynasty court. By the recording it in books and stylized repetition of acts, a musical expression symbolizing communal harmony between peoples was integrated with Centered Harmony ceremonial music, forming another step in the dynastic and imperial building of the Great Qing. The present study deals, first of all, with court music and instruments that were added in 1760 and 1761 as a result of the Qing court’s victory over Muslim peoples in the western regions. They include the new additions of “Military Song of Triumph” and “Victory Song of Triumph” in 1760. Second, in the eleventh lunar month of 1761, a set of ancient Zhou bells unearthed in Jiangxi was displayed in the specially established Rhyming-the-Old (Yungu) Hall, and bells newly cast after the Zhou set were incorporated as part of the Qing Centered Harmony ceremonial court music. The newly-cast bells were also accompanied by chimes made of jade from the western regions to celebrate the court’s victory over rebellious peoples in its western regions and serve as an example of the sound and music capturing the idea of triumph in the west. Finally, the submission of Muslim performers and instruments allowed the music of Islamic peoples from those areas to be officially become one of the court banquet music of various peoples. On the one hand, the Qianlong emperor sought to trace Centered Harmony ceremonial music in the name of reviving the rituals of Zhou by establishing the Rhymingthe- Old Hall to display ancient bells and also adding new sets of tuned bells and chimes. On the other hand, to illustrate the Qing idea of supremacy in the land, it projected the banquet music of other peoples outwards in terms of time and space by also establishing the Purple Brightness (Ziguang) Pavilion as a memorial hall of victory in wars. Every year, foreign peoples were invited to Purple Brightness Pavilion for the court’s New Year’s banquet. Furthermore, to commemorate military triumph in the Ten Great Campaigns, the music of other peoples was added and performed at official ceremonies at the court. As this juncture of time and space, a coordinate system of rites and music was thus formed that could be continually expanded and extended.
In 1908, with the support of the Empress Dowager Cixi, the Agricultural Experiment Station of the Ministry of Agriculture and Industry (農工商部農事試驗場), or the “Wanshengyuan” (萬生園, Garden of Ten-thousand Lives), was officially opened to the public. As the first central-level experimental station, besides agricultural fields, the entire complex also included laboratories, botanical gardens, a natural history museum, and a zoological garden. All were the first such cultural facilities in the empire. This article analyzes how the captive wild animals in imperial menageries that Qing sovereigns had maintained for more than two centuries were gradually de-contextualized from imperial ceremonies and then re-contextualized into the new agricultural experimentation station.
Since the early Qing, the Imperial Household Department (內務府) managed menageries around the Forbidden City, including the Imperial Bestiary (baishofang 百獸房), the Imperial Aviary (bainiaofang 百鳥房), elephant stables, tiger rings, and so forth. Many of beasts performed important ceremonial roles in imperial rituals related to hunting, killing, and exhibiting furs. However, after the mid-nineteenth century, the number of animals kept in imperial menageries rapidly declined. At the same time, the ceremonies of hunting and killing were no longer conducted in the Nanyuan (南苑) or Royal Southern Hunting Park in Beijing, and the Qing empire stepped into the age of the zoological garden with the help of the global trade in animals and the demands of modern urban public space. Imperial animals and their mounts became collections of the zoo andmuseum. The imperial stages that had provided animals with the roles of power, control, dominance, and domestication were gradually turned into scenes of daily entertainment and recreation. The Garden of Ten-thousand Lives became one of several key media to visualize Cixi’s preparatory movement for constitutional monarchy.
Grafted onto Qing imperial harvest ritual ceremonies, the Garden of Ten-thousand Lives modernized the classical political rhetoric of “raising all things and nourishing all the people” into the context of zoo and museum by transforming and reconnecting animal participants. The royal ploughing ceremony and silkworm-feeding ceremony were converted into scientific experiments for improving agricultural productivity. No longer being sacrificed, those beasts in spring and autumn royal hunting ceremonies, together with other species, become domesticated zoo animals under the public gaze. By gradually integrating “ritualized nature” with more “modernized nature,” the birth of the Agricultural Experiment Station reflected the political change of the Qing imperial way to cooperate with nature.
Keywords: Wanshengyuan, Agricultural Experiment Station, zoological garden, museum, Empress Dowager Cixi
本文以蒙古獨立運動過程中，在中華民國境內舉辦的3個包含蒙古展件之大型展覽為主題，進行跨年代的展示文本分析。一是1914年，在中華民國直隸省天津，由嚴智怡團隊策展的「直隸省巴拿馬賽會出品預展」上，... more 本文以蒙古獨立運動過程中，在中華民國境內舉辦的3個包含蒙古展件之大型展覽為主題，進行跨年代的展示文本分析。一是1914年，在中華民國直隸省天津，由嚴智怡團隊策展的「直隸省巴拿馬賽會出品預展」上，所展出的一組特殊蒙古包展件—「蒙古風景」。二是1924年，由陶行知策展，南京東南大學教育科主辦的「全國教育展覽會」，其中的「蒙古生活及教育出品」展區。三是1936年，由馬鶴天等開發西北協會成員籌劃，在南京國貨展覽館舉辦的「西北文物展覽會」上之蒙古文物。藉由這3個展覽的蒙古展件及策展論述，分析蒙古獨立運動過程中，具有政治主導地位的漢族文化官僚，如何以展覽為媒介，透過蒙古包這類最足以代表蒙古遊牧生活特色的文化物件，在民國建立之初，建構「五族共和」的展示文本，並隨著國族運動的發展，到了1930年代的展覽中，蒙古人逐漸被再現為西北「少數民族」之一。
This paper examines three large-scale exhibitions held in the Republic of China with special reference to exhibits and objects from Mongolia so as to highlight the process of latent Mongolian independence movement. The first exhibition organized in 1914 by the curatorial team of Yan Zhiyi, was called the Zhili Province Pre-exhibition of Panama-Pacific International Exposition, in which a Mongolian yurt and two Mongols were in display. The second exhibition entitled National Education Fair, was organized by Tao Zhixing and held in 1924 at the Southeast University, Nanjing. The third named Northwest Heritage Exhibition, was held in 1936 at Nanjing, under the auspices of Ma Hetian and the members of the Northwest Development Association. From the various representations of Mongols in these three exhibitions, this paper enquires into the political discourse on the “republic of five nationalities,” and its shift from the conception of “nationbuilding” to the function of racial classification and minority group status.
This paper examines Yan Zhiyi’s curatorship during the “museum movement” in the newly developed B... more This paper examines Yan Zhiyi’s curatorship during the “museum movement” in the newly developed Beiyang downtown area (北洋新區) in early twentieth century Tianjin. Under the national campaigns of “revitalizing China through industry”(實業救國) and “guarding our national culture” (文化救國), Yan Zhiyi (嚴智怡, 1882-1935), the Chair of the Industrial Commerce Section of Industry Department of Zhili Province (直隸省實業廳工商科), had directed Zhili Commercial Museum since 1912. He then founded and had curated Tianjin Museum since 1918, as well as laid the foundation for the Tianjin Museum of Fine Arts in 1930. In 1915, Yan led a team to San Francisco for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. After this major event, Yan and his team traveled to several major cities in the U.S. They visited museums, had conversations with curators, and brought many museum materials and new ideas back to Tianjin. Then, Yan and his colleagues organized a new museum, the Tianjin Museum, based on what they had learned in the U.S. In 1923, the Tianjin Museum was officially opened to the public. All its objects were collected or donated from all over the province. In order to fulfill the objectives of national modernization and sustainable development, Yan curated not only objects exhibited in museums, but also the social connections as well as cultural productions related to these museums. Keywords: Yan Zhiyi, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, Tianjin Museum
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Papers by Hui-chun Yu
Regulations for Ritual Paraphernalia of the Imperial Court. It shows how, in the name of
victory, the Qianlong court incorporated the ethnic music of various peoples from recently
conquered areas into the banquet music at the Qing dynasty court. By the recording it
in books and stylized repetition of acts, a musical expression symbolizing communal
harmony between peoples was integrated with Centered Harmony ceremonial music,
forming another step in the dynastic and imperial building of the Great Qing. The present
study deals, first of all, with court music and instruments that were added in 1760 and
1761 as a result of the Qing court’s victory over Muslim peoples in the western regions.
They include the new additions of “Military Song of Triumph” and “Victory Song of
Triumph” in 1760. Second, in the eleventh lunar month of 1761, a set of ancient Zhou
bells unearthed in Jiangxi was displayed in the specially established Rhyming-the-Old
(Yungu) Hall, and bells newly cast after the Zhou set were incorporated as part of the Qing
Centered Harmony ceremonial court music. The newly-cast bells were also accompanied
by chimes made of jade from the western regions to celebrate the court’s victory over
rebellious peoples in its western regions and serve as an example of the sound and music
capturing the idea of triumph in the west. Finally, the submission of Muslim performers
and instruments allowed the music of Islamic peoples from those areas to be officially
become one of the court banquet music of various peoples.
On the one hand, the Qianlong emperor sought to trace Centered Harmony
ceremonial music in the name of reviving the rituals of Zhou by establishing the Rhymingthe-
Old Hall to display ancient bells and also adding new sets of tuned bells and chimes.
On the other hand, to illustrate the Qing idea of supremacy in the land, it projected the
banquet music of other peoples outwards in terms of time and space by also establishing
the Purple Brightness (Ziguang) Pavilion as a memorial hall of victory in wars. Every
year, foreign peoples were invited to Purple Brightness Pavilion for the court’s New Year’s
banquet. Furthermore, to commemorate military triumph in the Ten Great Campaigns, the
music of other peoples was added and performed at official ceremonies at the court. As
this juncture of time and space, a coordinate system of rites and music was thus formed
that could be continually expanded and extended.
關鍵詞:萬生園、農事試驗場、動物園、博物館、慈禧
In 1908, with the support of the Empress Dowager Cixi, the Agricultural Experiment Station of the Ministry of Agriculture and Industry (農工商部農事試驗場), or the “Wanshengyuan” (萬生園, Garden of Ten-thousand Lives), was officially opened to the public. As the first central-level experimental station, besides agricultural fields, the entire complex also included laboratories, botanical gardens, a natural history museum, and a zoological garden. All were the first such cultural facilities in the empire. This article analyzes how the captive wild animals in imperial menageries that Qing sovereigns had maintained for more than two centuries were gradually de-contextualized from imperial ceremonies and then re-contextualized into the new agricultural experimentation station.
Since the early Qing, the Imperial Household Department (內務府) managed menageries around the Forbidden City, including the Imperial Bestiary (baishofang 百獸房), the Imperial Aviary (bainiaofang 百鳥房), elephant stables, tiger rings, and so forth. Many of beasts performed important ceremonial roles in imperial rituals related to hunting, killing, and exhibiting furs. However, after the mid-nineteenth century, the number of animals kept in imperial menageries rapidly declined. At the same time, the ceremonies of hunting and killing were no longer conducted in the Nanyuan (南苑) or Royal Southern Hunting Park in Beijing, and the Qing empire stepped into the age of the zoological garden with the help of the global trade in animals and the demands of modern urban public space. Imperial animals and their mounts became collections of the zoo andmuseum. The imperial stages that had provided animals with the roles of power, control, dominance, and domestication were gradually turned into scenes of daily entertainment and recreation. The Garden of Ten-thousand Lives became one of several key media to visualize Cixi’s preparatory movement for constitutional monarchy.
Grafted onto Qing imperial harvest ritual ceremonies, the Garden of Ten-thousand Lives modernized the classical political rhetoric of “raising all things and nourishing all the people” into the context of zoo and museum by transforming and reconnecting animal participants. The royal ploughing ceremony and silkworm-feeding ceremony were converted into scientific experiments for improving agricultural productivity. No longer being sacrificed, those beasts in spring and autumn royal hunting ceremonies, together with other species, become domesticated zoo animals under the public gaze. By gradually integrating “ritualized nature” with more “modernized nature,” the birth of the Agricultural Experiment Station reflected the political change of the Qing imperial way to cooperate with nature.
Keywords: Wanshengyuan, Agricultural Experiment Station, zoological garden, museum, Empress Dowager Cixi
This paper examines three large-scale exhibitions held in the Republic of
China with special reference to exhibits and objects from Mongolia so as to
highlight the process of latent Mongolian independence movement. The first
exhibition organized in 1914 by the curatorial team of Yan Zhiyi, was called the
Zhili Province Pre-exhibition of Panama-Pacific International Exposition, in which
a Mongolian yurt and two Mongols were in display. The second exhibition entitled
National Education Fair, was organized by Tao Zhixing and held in 1924 at the
Southeast University, Nanjing. The third named Northwest Heritage Exhibition,
was held in 1936 at Nanjing, under the auspices of Ma Hetian and the members
of the Northwest Development Association. From the various representations of
Mongols in these three exhibitions, this paper enquires into the political discourse
on the “republic of five nationalities,” and its shift from the conception of “nationbuilding” to the function of racial classification and minority group status.
Keywords: Yan Zhiyi, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, Tianjin Museum
Regulations for Ritual Paraphernalia of the Imperial Court. It shows how, in the name of
victory, the Qianlong court incorporated the ethnic music of various peoples from recently
conquered areas into the banquet music at the Qing dynasty court. By the recording it
in books and stylized repetition of acts, a musical expression symbolizing communal
harmony between peoples was integrated with Centered Harmony ceremonial music,
forming another step in the dynastic and imperial building of the Great Qing. The present
study deals, first of all, with court music and instruments that were added in 1760 and
1761 as a result of the Qing court’s victory over Muslim peoples in the western regions.
They include the new additions of “Military Song of Triumph” and “Victory Song of
Triumph” in 1760. Second, in the eleventh lunar month of 1761, a set of ancient Zhou
bells unearthed in Jiangxi was displayed in the specially established Rhyming-the-Old
(Yungu) Hall, and bells newly cast after the Zhou set were incorporated as part of the Qing
Centered Harmony ceremonial court music. The newly-cast bells were also accompanied
by chimes made of jade from the western regions to celebrate the court’s victory over
rebellious peoples in its western regions and serve as an example of the sound and music
capturing the idea of triumph in the west. Finally, the submission of Muslim performers
and instruments allowed the music of Islamic peoples from those areas to be officially
become one of the court banquet music of various peoples.
On the one hand, the Qianlong emperor sought to trace Centered Harmony
ceremonial music in the name of reviving the rituals of Zhou by establishing the Rhymingthe-
Old Hall to display ancient bells and also adding new sets of tuned bells and chimes.
On the other hand, to illustrate the Qing idea of supremacy in the land, it projected the
banquet music of other peoples outwards in terms of time and space by also establishing
the Purple Brightness (Ziguang) Pavilion as a memorial hall of victory in wars. Every
year, foreign peoples were invited to Purple Brightness Pavilion for the court’s New Year’s
banquet. Furthermore, to commemorate military triumph in the Ten Great Campaigns, the
music of other peoples was added and performed at official ceremonies at the court. As
this juncture of time and space, a coordinate system of rites and music was thus formed
that could be continually expanded and extended.
關鍵詞:萬生園、農事試驗場、動物園、博物館、慈禧
In 1908, with the support of the Empress Dowager Cixi, the Agricultural Experiment Station of the Ministry of Agriculture and Industry (農工商部農事試驗場), or the “Wanshengyuan” (萬生園, Garden of Ten-thousand Lives), was officially opened to the public. As the first central-level experimental station, besides agricultural fields, the entire complex also included laboratories, botanical gardens, a natural history museum, and a zoological garden. All were the first such cultural facilities in the empire. This article analyzes how the captive wild animals in imperial menageries that Qing sovereigns had maintained for more than two centuries were gradually de-contextualized from imperial ceremonies and then re-contextualized into the new agricultural experimentation station.
Since the early Qing, the Imperial Household Department (內務府) managed menageries around the Forbidden City, including the Imperial Bestiary (baishofang 百獸房), the Imperial Aviary (bainiaofang 百鳥房), elephant stables, tiger rings, and so forth. Many of beasts performed important ceremonial roles in imperial rituals related to hunting, killing, and exhibiting furs. However, after the mid-nineteenth century, the number of animals kept in imperial menageries rapidly declined. At the same time, the ceremonies of hunting and killing were no longer conducted in the Nanyuan (南苑) or Royal Southern Hunting Park in Beijing, and the Qing empire stepped into the age of the zoological garden with the help of the global trade in animals and the demands of modern urban public space. Imperial animals and their mounts became collections of the zoo andmuseum. The imperial stages that had provided animals with the roles of power, control, dominance, and domestication were gradually turned into scenes of daily entertainment and recreation. The Garden of Ten-thousand Lives became one of several key media to visualize Cixi’s preparatory movement for constitutional monarchy.
Grafted onto Qing imperial harvest ritual ceremonies, the Garden of Ten-thousand Lives modernized the classical political rhetoric of “raising all things and nourishing all the people” into the context of zoo and museum by transforming and reconnecting animal participants. The royal ploughing ceremony and silkworm-feeding ceremony were converted into scientific experiments for improving agricultural productivity. No longer being sacrificed, those beasts in spring and autumn royal hunting ceremonies, together with other species, become domesticated zoo animals under the public gaze. By gradually integrating “ritualized nature” with more “modernized nature,” the birth of the Agricultural Experiment Station reflected the political change of the Qing imperial way to cooperate with nature.
Keywords: Wanshengyuan, Agricultural Experiment Station, zoological garden, museum, Empress Dowager Cixi
This paper examines three large-scale exhibitions held in the Republic of
China with special reference to exhibits and objects from Mongolia so as to
highlight the process of latent Mongolian independence movement. The first
exhibition organized in 1914 by the curatorial team of Yan Zhiyi, was called the
Zhili Province Pre-exhibition of Panama-Pacific International Exposition, in which
a Mongolian yurt and two Mongols were in display. The second exhibition entitled
National Education Fair, was organized by Tao Zhixing and held in 1924 at the
Southeast University, Nanjing. The third named Northwest Heritage Exhibition,
was held in 1936 at Nanjing, under the auspices of Ma Hetian and the members
of the Northwest Development Association. From the various representations of
Mongols in these three exhibitions, this paper enquires into the political discourse
on the “republic of five nationalities,” and its shift from the conception of “nationbuilding” to the function of racial classification and minority group status.
Keywords: Yan Zhiyi, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, Tianjin Museum