Travel Journal 1 - Tianjin
Feifei Hung
March 2-3, 2024
The trip to Tianjin has been a very eye-opening journey in shaping my understanding towards how China is currently shaping its inglorious history under Western and Japanese humiliation. Before the trip started, I only knew about Tianjin concessional history and how it is still preserved and vitalized when doing the class readings for CAPS 4003. I was very captivated by how Marinelle’s paper described Italian’s former concession in Tianjin as a “aristocratic concession”, carrying a underlying tone of intrusiveness and unwelcomeness, to a contemporary reinvention of “new Italian-style town” and Italianerie, in an accepting and embracing attitude. As she concluded that the intentions of China is to promote a harmonized image of Global China through the domestication of the foreign-Other while commodifying culture for highly economic capital, I became very curious to experience how she came to such conclusions of China’s strategic intentions in constructing a certain image. Could it be all strategic reasons? What are some cultural motivators behind?
After arriving in Tianjin with the Gaotie, I was very pleasantly surprised to see an entirely different architectural landscape in the city that comprises some European characteristics. As we proceeded walking from the Russian concession to the Italian concession, the change in building designs, from a more dull landscape to a very vibrant and dynamic environment, caught my attention. More interestingly, the names of the street in the Italian concession, naming after the Three Principles of the People: 民主(nationalism), 民權(democracy) and 民生(livelihood). Seeing strong resemblance between the names of streets in Taipei and traits of the Nationalist Government, I am surprised to see how these principles suggested by the founding father Sun Yat-sen are still respected in China. I am curious to know how people in China currently perceive these values as well: do they see it as part of the founding principles of China and the CCP as well? Or will they see it as a rather alienated value adopted in Taiwan? As Professor Xu started to explain his family’s historical presence in the area, as well as the conversation we had about how people adapt to the macro-political and social change and the society progresses, it gave me a strong sense of resemblance on the topic of search for identity: a transition from concessional past to accepting the blend of culture and landscape currently, and myself living in a transitional stage of Hong Kong. Even though the houses of his parents, the former Italian barracks, the Ancient Culture Street and Five Great Avenues remained as historical landmarks, they are all now revitalized for other purposes while the architecture stood still. This gave me a strong reckoning on the importance of educating new generations about the past histories of these buildings for teaching people the intrinsic value of this building, rather than simply the service layer.
I am very grateful for the opportunity to dine in an Italian restaurant while drinking Tuscany red wine, and experiencing how people in the city are presenting their perspective of Italy through food and interior design. While the design of the restaurant was intended to be Italian, I find it very interesting how it deliberately places a lot of Italian staples like spaghetti, wine, Italian-branded snacks on display, while adding other icons of European culture like baguette from France in the presentation. It seemed to me that the restaurant tries to present an overall European feeling to its customers rather than giving them the authentic experience of how it really is like in Italy. The way of cooking of the dishes also incorporated Chinese elements, such as adding dragon fruit cubes with the fish, to cater the likings of its local customers. This approach reminded me of how culture is adopted, reinvented and localized.
The opportunity to meet new friends from the Foreign Language University in Tianjin was definitely a highlight of the trip. Through conversations and interactions with them, although not particularly related to learning about Tianjin, was very intriguing when learning about how they decided to pursue an Italian language major rather than a conventional major acknowledged by the society. While my understanding towards the rigid Chinese academic system has atoned me into thinking how Chinese students would always pursue for domains that could convert into monetary value or reputable status, speaking with these students who wanted to pursue an unconventional path made me realized that my perception did not change as the society changes in China. The younger generation in China, just like many in other parts of the world, have seem to also acknowledged how one’s major could not provide any guarentee in one’s prospect given the high level of uncertainties, they are more inclined to choose what they want. They also seem to experience less family pressure in achieving certain goals, leading to my question of the reasoning behind it: was it the One Child Policy that made parents spoiling their child more and allocating more resources on them? Or are the students we met in Tianjin the unconventional group? Their work-life balance is also starkly more impressive than those in Beida, dismantling my imagery of how all Chinese students would only study hard as portrayed in Beida.
Regardless, the museum visit that exhibited the map of all the concessions, the chronological city development and the giant model of the city planning of Tianjin provided me with an apparent contrast of how urban development over the years have slowly blurred the architectural differences over the years. As we are walking around the fountain rebuilt by the Chinese authorities, with the sword removed from the goddess deliberately, I started to identify how Italian-style architectures are in a way utilized as a tool to present the openness of China in embracing this part of their history, while being very cautious in exerting their dominance over the right to determine what is “real” or “unreal” from the cultural perspective in the Chinese narrative. I also found a quite awkward mismatch in aesthetic when themed activities were organized and decorated the area in Chinese style, with Chinese New Year decorations and a cartoon-themed skating rink. It further weakens the level of Italian-ness the area embodies by this very unnatural contrast. The idea of how China does not intend to authentically preserve their counterpoints are very apparently, but contrast in intention and official representation in the act of retention intrigues me. This presents as an incidental effort to project this peaceful blend to its audience locally and abroad.
In terms of the historical value of contemporary Tianjin, I am very happy that we got to visit Liang Qichao’s old home that described his life story and remarkable contribution, both ideologically and politically, to the progression of Chinese society. His belief in “one pen triumphs over a ten thousand soldiers” once again reminded me of the importance of peaceful negotiations in times of conflicts, uncertainties and instability. In application of this mentality in the current U.S.-China geopolitical situation, scholars, lobbyists and policy makers play an instrumental role in gauging plausible and tactical ideas for relationships moving forward, further instigating my interest in playing a part at this dialogue.
After spending the evening walking along the river, taking beautiful pictures and eating tanghulu, the Ancient Cultural Street across the river offers a very different representation of Tianjin, offering a traditional Chinese picture. Although it was a pity that I didn’t get to try 狗不理 and other Tianjin famous snacks, I am surprised to see the amount of locals walking along the food street and looking like they are exploring new things when it is probably their many-th times visiting. When I am in Hong Kong, I never spend time exploring touristy places since they are very unoriginal and overrated to me. However, Tianjin people seem to genuinely enjoy the ambience and vibrancy of the area, even the students told me that they will always visit these areas when they have time off school. I wish we were able to spend more time there trying out the food and explore the small shops.
Visiting Wudaokou at night and during the day was completely different. It was a very youthful area full of bars and music at night, while an artistic, crowded area full of tourists of all ages during the day. I really enjoyed how Tianjin has a lot of small boutique stores that supports young shopowners and designers located in revitalized historical landmarks, offering a dual experience for visitors to take a glimpse of contemporary Tianjin in the historical city.
Overall, this trip to Tianjin has been very rewarding in deepening my understanding of China’s current approach towards reinventing its “Century of Humiliation”, meeting new friends in China that offered diverse perspectives on the life of young people in China and provoking more questions on how Chinese cities are cohesively shaping a certain narrative of their history. The way the Italian concession unspokenly represents China’s soft power strategy in harmonizing its unglorified past while subtly demonstrating dominance has truly surprised me. It is unfortunate that we only had 30 hours in Tianjin - would hope to explore the city through biking, visit to more concessions and try authentic Tianjin food in the future!