Xavier Paules, “Anti-Opium Visual Propaganda and the Deglamorisation of Opium in China, 1895—1937,” European Journal of East Asian Studies 7, 2, pp229-262. Zhang Changjia, Yanhua (Opium Talk) in Keith McMahon, The Fall of the God of Money: Opium Smoking in Nineteenth-Century China, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, pp193 Download Keith McMahon, The Fall of the God of Money: Opium Smoking in Nineteenth-Century China, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, pp193-215. PLEASE NOTE: the PDF starts with the following optional text, the required reading begins on page 193 (page 37 of the pdf).
How did the meaning of drug use change at the turn of the twentieth-century in China? How were drug users represented in comics, posters and photographs? Thinking back to Ari Heinrich’s chapter from last week, what are the ramifications of presenting people in photographs in these ways? How did the different media (photographs vs posters, for example) influence the different representations of drug users and why is there such a difference between the medium? How did drug users themselves understand or represent their use of drugs? How do the two sides differ?
What messages do these communicate to the viewer about drug usage? Think about both what they tell you as a student in 2021, and what you think they told people in China in the 1920s. What do they tell you about drug users as people (or nonpeople)? Please indicate which image(s) you’re responding to in your response so we can refer back to it!
Image 1.jpg–The drug users stand front and center, the sun in the background reads: “stop using drugs and stop gambling”
Image 2.png–The two animalized figures in the center being attacked are inscribed with the characters for “Opium” and “Morphine”
Image 3.png–The baby in the middle is named “China” the Angelic figure on the left is named “Evolution” and the devil flying creature is named “Opium.” The title is just the name of the monthly magazine the image was published in, “Anti-Drugs Monthly” or “Resist Drugs Monthly” Image 4.png–The skull is labeled “Death” and the side images depict various stages of opium use. The title is just the name of the monthly magazine the image was published in, “Anti-Drugs Monthly” or “Resist Drugs Monthly”
Image 5.jpg–The one being stabbed holds an opium pipe and the other one is squirting something at the man out of a syringe (reference to injecting narcotics).
Image 6.jpg–The title reads, “Our countrymen/compatriots who smoke opium and drugs, please look.” Please note the order laid out by the numbers in the image: the side text isn’t important for your purposes here, it reads basically like you’d expect it to in an anti-drugs propaganda cartoon.
Image 7.jpg–The comic discussed in the lecture video, the title is “The process of the Opium Smoker.” Please note the order of the panels again, also the final panel reads: “The final resting place of the opium smoker.”
Image 8.jpg–Comic discussed in lecture video, the top panel reads: “The joys of smoking opium,” the bottom panel reads: “The bad end/fate of opium smoking.” The text bubble from the executed man’s head just reads: “A drug offender.”