Introduction:
Opium Smokers in an Opium Den, Qing Dynasty
It was way past sunrise, and yet no one could be seen in the streets. There was no one walking around, tilling the fields, or preparing for a new day. Instead, people gathered around a small, round table with their metal pipes, pumping the smoke in and out of their throat. The sound of the inhale and exhale was all a visitor could hear. People then lay down for hours at a time, caring about nothing but fulfilling their daily cravings for opium. Opium smoking had not merely taken away their lives, it had become their lives.
Opium dens like the one picture above were common in China during the Qing dynasty, with groups of young and old men smoking their time away. The excerpt below …show more content…
The introduction of opium into Qing China led the Dynasty into an era of embarrassment, where the British essentially controlled China militarily, economically, and politically. To the Chinese, opium was more than just a health issue or a personal problem. Opium symbolized centuries of Western aggression, foreign imperialism, and the internal corruption of the Qing Dynasty, which could not accomplish the simplest governmental task of protecting its own citizens. Whereas the corrupt, incompetent Qing government became a victim of imperialism, certain characters like Commissioner Lin, or Lin Zexu, stood up against the Western encroachment and thereby sewed the seeds of modernization for China, even at the cost of two Opium Wars. Thus when Sun Yat-Sen eradicated the Qing Dynasty through his Xinhai Revolution in 1912, the new government tried to protect its citizens by not only warning its people of the negative impacts of the drug, but also reminding them of the values that opium stood for. Through popular folk songs and poems to visual propagandas, the memory of opium and the Opium Wars was forever preserved so that future generations would never forget what they once …show more content…
The second section introduces Commissioner Lin, explains the details of his opium-prohibition plan, and reflects upon the impact of his policies on the history of the Qing Dynasty. The third section features an overview of the Opium Wars, with a particular focus on how the Wars began. Finally, the last section reveals how artists and poets of the early twentieth century memorialized the Opium Wars and the opium struggle through a close analysis of poems, folk songs, and visual
Opium Smokers in an Opium Den, Qing Dynasty
It was way past sunrise, and yet no one could be seen in the streets. There was no one walking around, tilling the fields, or preparing for a new day. Instead, people gathered around a small, round table with their metal pipes, pumping the smoke in and out of their throat. The sound of the inhale and exhale was all a visitor could hear. People then lay down for hours at a time, caring about nothing but fulfilling their daily cravings for opium. Opium smoking had not merely taken away their lives, it had become their lives.
Opium dens like the one picture above were common in China during the Qing dynasty, with groups of young and old men smoking their time away. The excerpt below …show more content…
The introduction of opium into Qing China led the Dynasty into an era of embarrassment, where the British essentially controlled China militarily, economically, and politically. To the Chinese, opium was more than just a health issue or a personal problem. Opium symbolized centuries of Western aggression, foreign imperialism, and the internal corruption of the Qing Dynasty, which could not accomplish the simplest governmental task of protecting its own citizens. Whereas the corrupt, incompetent Qing government became a victim of imperialism, certain characters like Commissioner Lin, or Lin Zexu, stood up against the Western encroachment and thereby sewed the seeds of modernization for China, even at the cost of two Opium Wars. Thus when Sun Yat-Sen eradicated the Qing Dynasty through his Xinhai Revolution in 1912, the new government tried to protect its citizens by not only warning its people of the negative impacts of the drug, but also reminding them of the values that opium stood for. Through popular folk songs and poems to visual propagandas, the memory of opium and the Opium Wars was forever preserved so that future generations would never forget what they once …show more content…
The second section introduces Commissioner Lin, explains the details of his opium-prohibition plan, and reflects upon the impact of his policies on the history of the Qing Dynasty. The third section features an overview of the Opium Wars, with a particular focus on how the Wars began. Finally, the last section reveals how artists and poets of the early twentieth century memorialized the Opium Wars and the opium struggle through a close analysis of poems, folk songs, and visual