Contextualizing Chaoben: On the Popular Manuscript Culture of the Late Qing and Republican Period in China

Abstract

Between 1850 and 1950, China enjoyed a vibrant popular manuscript culture.* Books hand-copied by brush1 proliferated in the large cities, market centers, and even inmany villages. At first glance, it seemsparadoxical that handwritten materials would flourish at the very time that printed matter was increasingly available, often in inexpensive, illustrated lithographed editions sold in bookstores and local markets. By the 1920s, printed copies of virtually every popular and well-known text in China had been reproduced for sale and circulated widely. Yet thousands of people continued to copy these texts by hand for use in daily life, and they handwrote notebooks for their own reference. This chapter explains why the practice of hand-copying materials continued and how they were used. I began collecting these books in 2004, and all the examples used in this chapter come from my personal collection. They are all one-of-a-kind notebooks [bijiben 筆記本], also referred to in this study as booklets, since they usually contain fewer pages than books and have the feel of an informal