The Making of the Republican Citizen 
Subtitle: Political Ceremonies and Symbols in China 1911-1929 (Studies on Contemporary China)
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: April 17, 2000
Language: eng
Number of pages: 278
ISBN-13: 9780198295198
First sentence: On the evening of the thirteenth day of the eleventh month of the Xinhai year, 1 January 1912, Sun Yatsen, newly elected president of the Republic of China, stepped down on to the platform of Nanjing Station to greet the assembled dignitaries.
Description: "What does it mean to be Chinese? How did the major political events of the early twentieth century affect the everyday lives of ordinary people in China? This book uses a wealth of new sources, including newspapers, memoirs, interviews, and photographs, to look at the political history of the period and to understand the ways in which politics intersected with the thoughts and feelings of ordinary people.

To be a modern citizen of the Chinese republic meant repudiating much of the very ritual that had previously defined one as Chinese. As we follow the changes in everyday life, ranging from the unbinding of women's feet to the commemoration of the events of the new republican history, we see the complex interactions between an ever more activist state and its new citizens."--BOOK JACKET.