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INTOXICATING MANCHURIA: Alcohol, Opium, and Culture in China's Northeast. Contemporary Chinese Studies series. By Norman Smith. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013. x, 298pp. (Figures.) US$32.93, paper. ISBN 978-07748-2429-3.
In Intoxicating Manchuria: Alcohol, Opium, and. Culture in China's Northeast, Norman Smitii treats the reader to a rich analysis of die roles played both by alcohol and opium in northeast China between die late nineteendi century and 1945. His study aims to examine how "recreational intoxicant consumption was understood and characterized in die first half of the twentieth century," especially amidst die half-hearted efforts at prohibition by the state of Manchukuo during die 1940s (2). In eight chapters, Smitii illustrates very vividly tiiat both alcohol and opium have indeed had deep and substantial impacts on northeastern Chinese life and culture, and tiiat tiiroughout die period under investigation, the dependency of successive regimes on die opium trade ensured its continuity. Through a wide variety of media and literature, including alcohol advertisements, government propaganda, and contemporary Chinese fiction, Intoxicating Manch uria explores a wide array of alcohol and opium narratives, few of which ended happily.
In chapter 1, Smitii grounds his later examination of alcohol's impact in nortiieast China with a swift and convincing illustration of the historical evidence for alcohol consumption by Chinese since the Xia Dynasty (2070- 1600 BCE). From die exploits of the earliest kings to the writings of dozens of later poets and chroniclers to the discoveries of modern archaeologists, Smitii demonstrates convincingly tiiat "the intoxicant industries of China today have important precedents in Chinese history"...