Modernism and Urban Culture response (extra credit)

It Often Begins with a Smile, 1930s. By Jin Meisheng (1902-1989).
Chromolithograph on paper. Collection of the Shanghai History Museum.

As your first short paper will be due on Wednesday October 9 by 8 pm under "First Short Paper" (post the title of and a link to your paper from your own blog) and your comments to two other papers (as a reply to the link) will be due on Wednesday by 10 pm, you are not required to also post reading responses here by the same deadline.

I am making this post available as an extra credit opportunity, as the readings for the coming week are too good to be missing out from our online discussion! You can certainly focus on this week's readings for your first paper and combine the two tasks more effectively to receive credit for your paper and extra credit for reading response.

Please respond to the first chapter of Mao Dun's novel Midnight and Shi Zhecun's short story "One Night in a Rainy Season". How do the chapter from the novel and the short story contribute to our understanding of a new urban culture in Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s? Are the chapter from the novel and the short story different or similar in their ways of approaching Shanghai urban culture? Which of the two pieces seem to best represent an emerging "modernism" in Chinese literature at the time, from your point of view? Use textual evidence with page numbers to support your argument. Due Wednesday October 9 by 10 pm for one extra credit.