This article discusses a discourse on the Xiaojing (The Classic of Filial Piety) with rich religious implications that developed during the late Ming. This discourse was closely related to the contemporary syncretism of the Three Teachings, and its central figure was Yu Chunxi. This paper begins with an examination of Yu Chunxi’s ideas about filial piety, and then turns to the intellectual and cultural context that informed Yu’s ideas. Yu Chunxi promoted filial piety beyond the level of mere ethical relations, treating it instead as a cosmic creative force and the natural order. He believed that it possible to communicate with a Spirit intimately involved in human affairs through true acts of filial piety. He therefore proposed the “mental practice of devotion to filiality” as key to filial acts, a practice he grounded in the Liji (The Book of Rites) emphasizing long-term constant cultivation in ways that were similar to the practices of mind cultivation found in the Neo-Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism of the day. Yu also expressed his vision of Chinese cultural transmission by the sole criterion of filial piety.

     Turning to the context of Yu’s thought, this paper focuses on previous studies of the Xiaojing and the syncretism of the Three Teachings. In addition to delineating Yu’s debts to earlier religious interpretations of the Xiaojing during the Han and Six Dynasties and some similar concepts of filial piety in both Buddhist and Daoist traditions, it is also important to note the close relationship between Yu’s thought and contemporary Yangming Confucianism.

     This paper focuses on waitresses in Beijing from 1928 to 1937, when Beijing was renamed Beiping under the government of the Nationalist Party, to analyze the relationship and interaction between urban consumption and women’s jobs. The first appearance of waitresses in Beiping, the period during which waitressing flourished, their main working places, their numbers, and reportage about them, were all intimately related to Beiping’s evolving urban consumer culture after the city lost its political status as the national capital. This paper examines why waitresses were so famous and were reported frequently by the presses at that time; what people want to express through their narratives and judgments of waitresses; and what the practices of waitresses and the discourses on them reveal of the urban consumer culture in the first half of 1930s Beiping.

     The first section of this paper introduces the brief history of waitresses in modern China, the definition of this women’s job, and its typical social image. The second to fifth sections of the paper then explore aspects of employment, consumption, discourse and regulation in regard to waitressing in Beiping. Through these practices, various kinds of people contributed to the evolution of waitressing and Beiping’s gender politics. By discussing the development of waitressing in Beiping, this paper hopes to highlight aspects of this women’s job and its relationship to urban consumer culture and gender.

     This paper examines the Nationalist and Communist regimes’ efforts to acquire the Shanghai Racecourse after World War II. The Racecourse, comprising a 71-acre Recreation Ground and the surrounding 16-acre race track, was purchased and managed by heads of British firms as a sporting facility for the foreign community. It had long been regarded as one of the symbols of imperialism in Shanghai, and horse racing a ruse to seduce the Chinese into gambling. Under the auspices of the foreign-controlled Shanghai Municipal Council of the International Settlement, the Racecourse managed to remain outside the purview of the Chinese administration for more than three quarters of a century. However, the Settlement was handed over to the Chinese in 1943. After the war, the Shanghai Municipal Council was gone and so were Britain’s gunboat policies. The Nationalist municipality, led by Mayor Wu Guozhen (K. C. Wu), thus started a campaign to acquire the Racecourse, a campaign continued by the Communist-run municipality after 1949. In 1951 the acquisition was finally completed and the area was transformed into what we know today as People’s Square and People’s Park.

     It is generally considered that 1949, the year of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, was a turning point for foreign businesses in China, as the new “revolutionary” Communist government soon adopted measures forcing them to leave. By focusing on the acquisition of the Shanghai Racecourse, this paper argues that the real watershed for foreign institutions in Shanghai in particular and in China in general should be seen in broader terms: the recovery of the International Settlement by the Chinese in 1943 and the erosion of British power and influence throughout Asia after World War II. The situation steadily worsened for foreigners and finally reached the final stage in the 1950s. Continuity across 1949 itself, however, was particularly obvious in two ways. First, was the consistency of the Nationalist and Communist regimes’ strategy in the acquisition campaign. Both regimes used similar populist language and moralistic discussions of imperialists and their rotten “gambling” institution, thus revealing many of the same assumptions about the prerogatives of imperialism and sovereignty. And second, was the assembling of materials to create a myth of imperialist thievery, which also straddled 1949.Beginning in 1946 both the media and government officials made great efforts in digging out anecdotes, hearsay, and records about how the foreigners had obtained the land illegally. These bits and pieces of information were put together to finally become a plausible story in the 1950s. It was then quoted repeatedly by wenshi ziliao (cultural and historical materials) and formed a myth about the Racecourse that still flourishes today.

　　In the early 1950s, the People’s Republic of China managed to collect a record amount of tax revenues from both the rural and urban sectors.The government could claim tax receipts at least three times those of the displaced Nationalist government during its golden days.This achievement has been attributed to the Communist Party’s ability to maximize the taxed population, its firm grasp over tax resources, and its systemization of tax data and tax collection procedures.However, this article focuses onTianjin and Shanghai to paint a more complicated picture.The inauguration of a highly centralized Party-state, the ability to organize taxed individuals and households, the mobilization of the population through manipulated class struggle and an intensive campaign of confession all enabled the government to target the owners of private capital, which also contributed to the success of tax maximization.