Annotation

This sophisticatedly produced magazine of the pre-war period comprised mainly photographs and illustrations (most of them adapted from foreign sources) of topics ranging across dancing, sports, interior design, film stars (chiefly from Hollywood), voluptuous women, Western operas, the activities and lives of foreigners, male and female fashion, and wedding gowns. Its captions, written in both Chinese and English, are dotted with phrases such as ‘modern’, ‘of the epoch,’ and ‘the latest’, stressing the magazine’s stance as abreast of the times. Advertisements for hotels, music stores, pipes, cigarettes, cigars and department stores selling foreign goods are found on many of its pages, while the promotions for medicines that dominated many tabloids were less common, suggesting its target audience were the upper-middle classes.