User:Generalissima/Zhang Jingsheng

This page is about the sexologist. For songwriter and political prisoner, see Zhang Jingsheng (singer-songwriter).

In this Chinese name, the family name is Zhang.

Zhang Jingsheng
張競生
Born	Zhang Jiangliu 1888 Raoping, Guangdong, Qing China
Died	June 18, 1970(1970-06-18) (aged 81–82) Beijing, China
Academic background
Education	Fudan University, Imperial University of Peking, University of Paris
Alma mater	University of Lyon
Philosophy career
Notable work	Sexual Histories
Era	20th century philosophy
Region	Chinese philosophy
School	Social Darwinism
Thesis	Les sources antiques des théories de J.-J. Rousseau sur l’éducation (1919)
Doctoral advisor	Charles Chabot
Main interests	Sexology eugenics pedagogy
Zhang Jingsheng
Traditional Chinese	張競生
Simplified Chinese	张竞生
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Zhāng Jìngshēng Gwoyeu Romatzyh Jang Jinqsheng Wade–Giles Chang1 Ching4-sheng1 IPA [ʈʂáŋ.tɕǐŋ.ʂə́ŋ]

Zhang Jingsheng (traditional Chinese: 張競生; simplified Chinese: 张竞生; pinyin: Zhāng Jìngshēng; 1888 – 18 June 1970), often referred to by his popular nickname Dr. Sex (Chinese: 性博士; pinyin: Xìng Bóshì), was a Chinese philosopher and sexologist.

Early life and education

In 1888, Zhang Jingsheng was born Zhang Jiangliu to a well-to-do merchant family in Raoping County, a rural county in eastern Guangzhou. His father was an Overseas Chinese merchant from Singapore who had settled in a small village. After attending a western-style elementary school, Zhang moved to nearby Shantou to study at the Tongwen School.

He tested into the Whampoa Military Primary School, a provincial military academy that had been recently established as part of the Qing Dynasty's military modernization program. As Whampoa required the study of a foreign language, Zhang was randomly assigned French. At Wampoa, he became a supporter of the Tongmenghui revolutionary organization through its Min Bao newspaper. Min Bao generally took a socialist, anti-statist position, inspired by a variety of European philosophers. Chief among the journal's ideological inspirations was Jean-Jacques Rousseau, heavily championed in columns by Wang Jingwei.

Zhang was rejected from a government scholarship to study overseas, and was incensed by the school's food service, which he claimed penalized slower eaters. The school expelled Zhang and one of his friends after they staged a protest over the food. Taking advantage of the suspension, they traveled with a friend to Singapore and met with Tongmenghui leader Sun Yat-Sen. Hu Hanmin, a senior Tongmenghui official, advised Zhang to return to China and infiltrate the Qing New Army. Zhang returned, but opted to instead enter Fudan University in Shanghai, later transferring to the Imperial University of Peking.

At Peking, Zhang was introduced to the theory of Social Darwinism, to which he would become a strong proponent. Inspired by this, he changed his personal name to Jingsheng, meaning "competition for survival." He had his first exposure to sexology around this time via Carl Heinrich Stratz's Die Rassenschönheit des Weibes, featuring hundreds of nude photographs of girls and young women from various countries. Introduced to theories of scientific racism, Zhang became convinced that the Chinese race suffered from pathological androgyny which could only be resolved through eugenics.

Xinahi Revolution and overseas study

He became active in the Tianjin-Beijing cell of the Tongmenghui, where he became close to Wang Jingwei and Chen Bijun. Zhang graduated in 1911, shortly before the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution. The following year, he served under Wang as an official in the North–South Conference with general Yuan Shikai. He declined a posting in the incipient Republican government, instead opting to participate in the Diligent Work-Frugal Study Movement and travel to France to continue his education; his participation in the study program was likely due to advocacy from fellow revolutionary Cai Yuanpei.

Zhang initially enrolled in the University of Paris. He made overtures to study medicine and foreign relations, but eventually specialized in social philosophy. He was awarded a Diplôme d'études in 1914; due to the outbreak of World War I, he moved south and continued philosophy studies at the University of Lyon. He further studied the work of Rousseau and eminent sociologist Émile Durkheim. Captivated by Rousseau, Zhang wrote his doctoral thesis on Rousseau's pedagogy, and received his doctorate in 1919. He would later create the first Chinese translations of several of Rousseau's works, including Reveries of the Solitary Walker and Confessions. Zhang helped found the Sino-French Education Association, promoting overseas education and work-study programs to Chinese academics.

Academic career

In 1920, Zhang returned to China and became a teacher at Jingshan Middle School in Guangdong. He was forced to resign from this position the following year, but was offered a position as a professor of philosophy at Peking University by Cai Yuanpei, who he had inititally met in the Tongmenghui. At Peking, Zhang became strongly influenced by the political and social philosophies of the May Fourth Movement, united by a belief that China's weakness to foreign powers had to be overcome through mass political action and education. In addition to his classes on European philosophy and aesthetics, Zhang wrote articles for a variety of May Fourth movement publications, including the Jingbao Fukan and Chenbao Fukan.

Zhang became close to a number of other faculty at Peking, including his old Tongmenghui comrades Wu Zhihui and Zhang Ji, as well as librarian Li Dazhao. Zhang and Hu Shih served as translators for birth control activist Margaret Sanger during her visit to Beijing in 1922. In 1924 he published his first book, A Beautiful Philosophy of Life. Published by the Shanghai firm Beixin Shuju, the book was very well recieved, and was reprinted twice in its first year. Zhang followed it up the next year with The Way to Organize a Beautiful Society. Both books advocated that China should seek to model itself on nations such as Japan and the United States. He also expoused a form of positive eugenics, recommending interracial marriage with Europeans and the Japanese in order to overcome the "weaknesses" of the Chinese race.

Dr. Sex

In February 1926, Zhang released his sexology studies as Sexual Histories Part I (traditional Chinese: 性史第一輯; simplified Chinese: 性史第一辑; pinyin: Xìng shǐ dìyījí). The book became a "sensational" commercial success. Upon its release, a large group assembled at the Guanghua Bookstore in Shanghai awaiting the book, prompting onlookers to head to the bookstore to investigate; the ensuing crowd blocked the avenue in front of the store, leading the Shanghai Municipal Police to disperse the crowd with water cannons.

The Sexual Histories, Part II available on the market now, falsely using my name, is crass in content, and is sold at an exorbitantly high price. After legal action, the whole issue has been settled by a mediator. The two parties involved have decided to solve the problem in peace. Besides agreeing to compensate me for damaging my reputation and to destroy the copies in stock, the other party has agreed to print this announcement in the journal (in my name, paid for by him) and the following table of contents of the said volume, so that buyers will not be defrauded of the truth...

Zhang Jingsheng, New Culture, 1 January 1937

As the epithet Part I signals, Zhang intended to publish sequels to the book. However, numerous unlicensed editions and sequels to Sexual Histories were published by various parties over the following years, often including literary sexual tropes and explicit erotica. The first of these unlicensed pornographic sequels, Sexual Histories Part II, was published by the end of the year. Zhang published a response to the sequel in January 1927, describing it as fraudulent and noting that he had settled out of court with the illicit publisher.

Later life and death

During the 1930s, Zhang became interested in the work of Sigmund Freud. He was the first to translate Freud's Interpretation of Dreams into Chinese.

References

Sources

• Chiang, Howard (2010). "Epistemic Modernity and the Emergence of Homosexuality in China". Gender & History. 22 (3). doi:10.1111/j.1468-0424.2010.01612.x.
• Dalin, Liu (2014). "The Development of Sex Education in China". Chinese Sociology & Anthropology. 27 (2): 10–36. doi:10.2753/CSA0009-4625270210.
• Dikötter, Frank (1995). Sex, Culture, and Modernity in China: Medical Science and the Construction of Sexual Identities in the Early Republican Period. University of Hawaii Press.
• Geng, Yushu (2020). "What is Obscenity? Morality and Modernity in 1920s China". China Perspectives. 2020 (3): 9–17. doi:10.4000/chinaperspectives.10276. ISSN 1996-4617.
• Hee, Wai Siam (2013). "On Zhang Jingsheng's Sexual Discourse: Women's Liberation and Translated Discourses on Sexual Differences in 1920s China". Frontiers of Literary Studies in China. 7 (2): 235–270.
• Hsu, Rachel Hui-Chi (2018). "The "Ellis Effect": Translating Sexual Science in Republican China, 1911–1949". In Veronika, Fuechtner; Haynes, Douglas E.; Jones, Ryan M. (eds.). A Global History of Sexual Science, 1880–1960. University of California Press. doi:10.1515/9780520966673-011. ISBN 9780520966673.
• Jiao, Lin (2017). Nation, Fashion and Women’s Everyday Lives: Breast-binding in China, 1910s-1970s (PDF) (PhD thesis). SOAS University of London.
• Leary, Charles Leland (1994). Sexual Modernism in China: Zhang Jingsheng and 1920s Urban Culture (PhD thesis). Cornell University.
• Leary, Charles Leland (1993). "Intellectual Orthodoxy, the Economy of Knowledge and the Debate Over Zhang Jingsheng's Sex Histories". Republican China. 18 (2): 99–13.
• Lei, Jun (2015). "'Natural' Curves: Breast-Binding and Changing Aesthetics of the Female Body in China of the Early Twentieth Century". Modern Chinese Literature and Culture. 27 (1): 163–223. JSTOR 24886589.
• Pan, Suiming (1998). "The Move Toward Spiritual Asceticism in Chinese Sexual Culture". Chinese Sociology & Anthropology. 31 (1): 14–24. doi:10.2753/CSA0009-4625310114.
• Peng, Hsiao-yen (2002). "Sex Histories: Zheng Jingsheng's Sexual Revolution". In Chen, Peng-hsiang; Dilley, Whitney Crothers (eds.). Feminism/Femininity in Chinese Literature. pp. 159–177. doi:10.1163/9789004333987_012. ISBN 9789042007277.
• Rocha, Leon Antonio (2016). "A Utopian Garden City: Zhang Jingsheng's 'Beautiful Beijing'". In Lincoln, Toby; Tao, Xu (eds.). The Habitable City in China: Urban History in the Twentieth Century. Springer. pp. 143–168. ISBN 9781137554710.
• Rocha, Leon (2019). "Small Business of Sexual Enlightenment: Zhang Jingsheng's 'Beauty Bookshop,' Shanghai 1927-1929". British Journal of Chinese Studies. 9 (2): 1–30. doi:10.51661/bjocs.v9i2.35. ISSN 2048-0601.
• Rocha, Leon (2015). "Translation and Two "Chinese Sexologies": Double Plum and Sex Histories". Sexology and Translation: Cultural and Scientific Encounters across the Modern World. Temple University Press. ISBN 9781439912508. OCLC 919612519.
• Sang, Tze-lan Deborah (2000). "Translating Homosexuality: The Discourse of Tongxing'ai in Republican China (1912–1949)". In Liu, Lydia H.; Fish, Stanley; Jameson, Frederic (eds.). Tokens of Exchange: The Problem of Translation in Global Circulations. Duke University Press. doi:10.1515/9780822381129. ISBN 9780822381129.
• Wang, Y. Yvon (2021). Reinventing Licentiousness: Pornography and Modern China. Cornell University Press. ISBN 9781501752995.
• Zhang, Aihua (2011). "Women's Breasts and Beyond—A Gendered Analysis of the Appeals for Breast-Unbinding: 1910s-1920s". Postscript: A Journal of Graduate Criticism and Theory. 8 (1). ISSN 1192-0823.