Jiang Yanwen 姜彦文. Mishi yuyi: Yangliuqing nianhua zhong de duozhong shijie 谜式寓意: 杨柳青年画中的多重世界 [Enigmatic allusions: Multiple worlds within Yangliuqing-New Year Pictures], Tianjin: Tianjin Renmin Chubanshe, 2024. ISBN: 978-7-201-19965-8, 315 pages, 198 RMB.
Reviewed by Bernd Spyra (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg)

During his China voyage of 1907, the Russian sinologist Vasiliy M. Alekseyev (1881–1951) visited a small town on the banks of the grand canal, famed for its production of popular New Year prints: Yangliuqing. Here Alekseyev bought a sizeable amount of prints, becoming one of the first scholars to prolifically collect this hitherto overlooked expression of Chinese popular culture. Being fascinated with, but unable to decipher the prints’ complex symbolic language, he asked his Chinese teachers in Beijing to assist him, however, they helped him only reluctantly, deeming the prints to be associated too strongly with the illiterate, lower classes to be worth their time. Alekseyev however, who understood the prints as an intrinsic component of Chinese culture, persisted and would become a pioneer in researching Chinese New Year pictures.
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