UCLA

This thesis examines the historical relationship between xiangsheng (cross-talk comedy) and the space of Tianqiao in Beijing from approximately 1900 to 1966. Rather than repeating the conventional understanding of xiangsheng as a linguistic or literary art form (or as pop culture), it argues that xiangsheng must be construed as an everyday practice produced through specific spatial formations. Using performers’ memoirs, oral histories, documents from the Beijing Municipal Archives, contemporary newspapers, and recollections from later periods, this thesis reconstructs the social ecology of Tianqiao on paper, thereby demonstrating how Tianqiao performers, in order to eke out a living through words, developed a set of techniques closely tied to the district’s distinctive spatial formation. The divergent trajectories of two amusement parks—the New World Amusement Park and the South City Amusement Park—opened in the greater Tianqiao area further illustrate the futile Republican-era efforts to modernize Tianqiao and the South City. Despite how municipal authorities and elite observers often depicted the area as a chaotic world, Tianqiao prospered. After 1949, Tianqiao did not immediately disappear; instead, it continued to serve as a final refuge for performers and some urban laborers, sustained by the recurring social relations that had long structured Beijing’s urban life. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s concept of the production of space and Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of social fields and convertible capital, the thesis shows how xiangsheng materialized through the everyday spatial practices of performers and audiences embedded in Tianqiao, as well as the broader population of Beijing urbanites who wandered into the area. Instead of treating Tianqiao as a community without hierarchy, the thesis explains how the community produced and maintained its own internal hierarchies, which replicated the larger social structure of Beijing society. By situating xiangsheng within a specific spatial formation, this thesis contributes to broader discussions of urban culture and everyday life in Beijing by arguing that entertainment and cultural practices were not merely reflections of urban social hierarchy but active participants in producing it. Tianqiao, therefore, was not merely the birthplace of xiangsheng but the spatial formation that made the art form historically possible.