Annotation

As a magazine published weekly during the Japanese occupation, Dazhong zhoubao offers insights into popular culture in Hong Kong and Guangzhou during the period of Japanese rule. In its first issue, it promised to be ‘accessible’ without being vulgar so as to assist ‘fellow-sojourners’ (qiaobao) to have a better understanding of the culture of China and Japan. Published every Saturday, its contents included social news, political reviews, war reports, serialised fiction and schedules of radio programmes run by JPHA--a broadcasting established during the Japanese occupation. Its Semilunar Screen column covered films, ‘An Illustrated Annotation to Cantonese Slang’ offered detailed notes on the Cantonese language and its ‘Old Tales of Hong Kong’ featured stories drawn from Hong Kong’s past. Correspondents also sent articles from Guangzhou and Japan. Later in its life, it published a supplement titled ‘Southern Collections’ that claimed to be the only source of southern Chinese literature, in which works by Ye Lingfeng and Dai Wangshu could be found.