Eyebrow Talk
Eyebrow Talk was a Chinese monthly literary magazine published from November 1914 to around April 1916. It was the first literary magazine in China to be marketed towards women and the first to be edited mainly by women. Its founder and editor-in-chief was Gao Jianhua, who worked closely with her husband and cousin and a staff of mainly female assistant editors; at least ten different women are confirmed to have written for the magazine, alongside some number of men who wrote under female pen names. Reaching a claimed circulation of 10,000 by 1915, the magazine was published by the New Learning Society, which mainly published school textbooks.
The magazine featured provocative content in its advertising, covers, pictures, and writings. Although dubbed a "young ladies' fiction monthly", Gao noted that "cultured gentlemen" would enjoy Eyebrow Talk for its many pictures of women. Often nudes or semi-nudes, these pictures were often sourced from French postcards. Less risque images showing romantic couples or scenes of everyday life were also printed. These images were often juxtaposed with poetry and prose fiction about them. Romantic depictions of editors Gao and Xu were also printed, such as love letters and a story by another author about their relationship.
Although avoiding explicit pornography, Eyebrow Talk
Publication history
The first issue of Eyebrow Talk was published in Shanghai on 17 November 1914, the first day of the tenth lunar month. It was published by the New Learning Society, which otherwise mainly published school textbooks through distributors across China. Its founder and editor-in-chief was Gao Jianhua, a female writer from Hangzhou who was born around the late 1880s. She worked closely with her husband and cousin.Eyebrow Talk was the first Chinese literary magazine to be marketed towards women, as well as the first to be edited by a woman. An early advertisement for the journal, published in the Shanghai newspaper Shen Bao on 15 November, headlines it as a "young ladies' fiction monthly". The name Eyebrow Talk connotes flirting, as used in a Chinese figure of speech, "the eyebrows talk and the eyes smile". Another explanation is given in a declaration printed on the inside cover of the first issue, referring to its publication every lunar month: "Whenever the new moon shows its arch, this magazine will appear, hence the title Eyebrow Talk".
Gao and Xu were assisted by a male assistant editor and several female assistant editors; it was one of the only magazines in early 20th-century China with a sizeable proportion of female editors and contributors. Some contributors were men who published under women's names, a common practice during the period, although at least ten female writers are verifiable through their photographs being featured in the journal. Gao was the most prolific female writer for the journal, contributing seven short stories and an unfinished serialized novel. Two other female writers—Xu-Zhang Huiru and Liu Peiyu—contributed multiple stories to the paper, while all other female writers only contributed one each.
Eyebrow Talk claimed in advertisements that it reached circulation of 5,000 for its first issue and 10,000 for its seventh. Each issue cost 4 ; this was twice the price of its competitors published by larger publishing firms, such as the Chung Hwa Novel Magazine. The journal was published monthly until its eighteenth and final issue dated 3 April 1916. However, it had fallen greatly behind schedule by its final issues. One scholar, Guo Haofan, dates the final issue instead to 30 May 1916. The reasons for the journal ceasing publication is unclear; Historian Michel Hockx attributes its end to a decision by the New Learning Society to avoid incurring hostility from the Ministry of Education, which began a censorship campaign of offensive works in 1915 and 1916. Issues continued to circulate widely throughout the following months.
Ban
In July 1915, the Ministry of Education established an advisory committee called the Popular Education Research Association. Among other duties, the committee supervised the published material which circulated around the general public. The writer Lu Xun chaired a subcommittee of the association focused on monitoring popular fiction from 1915 to 1916. Lu established a classification system which sorts works into upper, middle, and lower ranks based on their usefulness to popular education. Some of the lower rank works were subjected to restrictions or bans, particularly those whose titles made reference to sex. The subcommittee frequently discussed four particularly problematic magazines who occupied the lower rank: Eyebrow Talk, The Pastime, Enticing Magazine, and Comical Magazine.A common topic of discussion among the committee, and its highest priority for censorship, was stemming the flow of "sexual corruption". Works which depicted promiscuous women were especially targeted; works with mentions of women in the title were more likely to be analyzed by the committee. Lu resigned from the committee in 1916, but his classification schema remained in use. At an August 1916 meeting of the fiction subcommittee unanimously agreed to ban Eyebrow Talk, considering it much higher priority to censor than the other problematic magazines. In early September, it and the Ministry of Education called on the Ministry of the Interior to ban the publication, as it featured sexually charged content and nude depictions of women. It was the first Chinese magazine to be banned on obscenity charges.
The Ministry of the Interior banned Eyebrow Talk on 25 September 1916, promulgating the ban order through provincial gazettes. By 1917, the New Learning Society had published seven issues of a new journal, entitled Shuoye, edited by Xu. Printed as a book, the periodical reprinted large amounts of text from Eyebrow Talk. The Popular Education Research Association banned the journal in 1917; it was the only periodical to be banned that year. By March of that year, a book called Chenghen was found to consist mainly of reprints of serialized stories from Eyebrow Talk. The fiction committee debated on whether to ban these, and came to the consensus that stories contained within it should not be automatically banned, as the journal had been banned for its "editorial principles".
Following the bans, Gao worked on a compilation of information about domestic skills. She and Xu published various other periodicals of a similar style to Eyebrow Talk during the 1920s and 1930s; none of these were banned, although some were regarded with suspicion by other magazine writers.
Content
Eyebrow Talk, like other Chinese journals of the period, began its issues with several pages of pictures and photographs. In stark contrast to other literary journals, it often included sexually charged photographs and paintings of nude or semi-nude women. Some of these were sourced from French postcards. It avoided explicit pornography: when women are depicted fully nude, genitals are always depicted covered or obstructed by another object in the scene, and the text within the magazine only alluded to sexual acts through innuendo. Suggestive material was also incorporated into its advertising; one Shen Bao ad from October 1915 includes a cartoon of a nude woman with one breast exposed, with the rest of her torso covered by the magazine's name. In announcements on the inside cover of the second and third issues, Gao calls for both writing submissions from women and pictures of women, writing that "cultured gentlemen" will enjoy seeing so many photos of women in the journal.Many of the photos and postcards in the journal are Western postcards showing romantic couples engaged in various activities. The third issue included a photo of a Western couple sitting at a table and smoking together, captioned "Treating Each Other with Respect". They are sometimes juxtaposed with Chinese photos of a similar subject matter. Several photos show Xu posed with cross-dressing male actors., a movement which advocated for reforms to Chinese drama such as the inclusion of both male and female actors, is a frequent topic of discussion within the journal. At the time of its publication, it was seen as a lowbrow form of art, possibly adding to the perception of the magazine as indecent. Other photo series included within the journal captured the scenes of everyday life for Chinese women.
The journal characteristically juxtaposes images with poetry and prose fiction, often recalling images from different sections of the work or previous issues; every line of one poem in the seventh issue recalls an image featured at the front of the fifth issue. Themes of romance and nudity common in the provided images are also used in the short stories, including one by Gao Jinhua, which incorporates the theme of nudity into a critique of male ownership of women. Bathing is another commonly used motif throughout various poems, prose, and photos within the journal, sometimes with references to the Tang concubine Yang Guifei, who is often depicted leaving a bath. Eight stories published within the journal are adaptations of foreign works ; many of the female editors had received education in foreign languages.
Gao and Xu depicted themselves as a close and romantic couple throughout Eyebrow Talk and their later periodicals. They shared relatively reserved photos of themselves holding hands and standing together in the first two issues. In the fourth issue, Xu published ten "new love letters" where he passionately expresses his love for her and sorrow that he has to spend time apart from her. In one of the letters, he discusses their background as first cousins and states that they "promised to grow old together" as children. A short story by another female writer, Liu Peiyu, views their house from the perspective of Gao's pet dog Xuebi, who witnesses Xu tiptoeing into her bedroom at night and secretly measuring Gao's feet with his hand; holding feet in such a manner is a frequent motif in Chinese erotica, lending the story an expressively erotic tone.
Covers
Some issues of Eyebrow Talk featured female nudity on their covers. The early print runs of the first issue of Eyebrow Talk feature a painting by artist Zheng Mantuo on their cover, labeled in the table of contents as An Unblemished Woman's Body. The cover depicts a young woman with an arm raised behind her head. Her body is partially covered by translucent fabric, but with one of her breasts left exposed. The following two print runs of the issue, published in late 1914, feature the same painting with only minor modifications to the titling. In January 1915, the Ministry of Education issued a document entitled "We Urge Writers and Publishers to Pay Attention to Culture", which features an expansive critique of the publishing industry, with a specific mention of fiction magazines which feature nudity and "offend the public decency".Following this, many Eyebrow Talk issues were released with censored covers for further print runs. The fourth print run of the first issue, made in April 1915, features a completely different cover, with a clothed woman leaning on a railing and biting into the corner of a handkerchief. Despite the change, the work still bears the same name in the table of contents. Other early issues of Eyebrow Talk made similar changes; both the second and third issues initially featured partially nude women, but swapped them in later print runs for fully-clothed women.
Reception and legacy
In a 1931 essay criticizing Shanghai commercial culture, Lu Xun criticized the "Mandarin duck and butterfly" school of writing and named Eyebrow Talk as one of its first examples, writing "Although Eyebrow Talk was later banned, the power did not wane at all." Eyebrow TalkA poor-quality reprint of Eyebrow Talk was printed in 2006, based on holdings at the Chongqing Library. Many of the nude paintings in this edition are barely visible, and the less provocative versions of the variant covers are used. In 2017, the Shanghai Library published a higher-quality online version of the periodical as part of its database of Republican era periodicals.