A Study Of The Social Life Of Southwest Areas In China During The Anti-Japanese War

The Travel Magazine was founded by China's first travel agency -- China Travel Agency in 1927. It was the first tourism journal in China's modern history. Its tenet was interpretating scenic spots and developing travel business of China. Since its establishment, it tried hard on reformation to adapt to the needs of the times. The contents in the magazine were all real and interesting. They involved many aspects such as mountains and their situation, the changing of terrain, the distribution of people, division of administrative zones, the transportation construction of waterway, highway and airfreight. It also had a record on customs, legendary fun, common sense of traffic, journey expenses and so on. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the southwest areas became the center of China, which was paid specical attention by more and more people. In such condition, the Travel Magazine published a lot of articles relevanted nature, customs, social organizations and public life in the southwest areas of China. Now they are precious materials in understanding and researching the social life of people live in the southwest areas.Before the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the southwest areas of China was chaotic in politics, behindhand in economy and culture, and the transportation was unenlightened, the war was uninterrupted. There remained strong feudal and traditional thought in the society, which made the people plunge into an abyss of misery. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the strategic position of southwest areas was becoming more and more important. With the further aggression of Japanese imperialism, most areas of central and eastern areas of china were fell, so that many factories and enterprises had to move to the southwest areas. At the same time, many people were forced to move there, too. Such as officials, workers, students, experts, scholars, refugees and so on. Under such influence, the industries in southwest areas had a vigorous and prosperous development. People living there also had many positive change in their social life: material life was improved in certain degree; the life of science and technology and education was flourished; entertainment increasingly became rich and colorful.However, till mid-late of the war, especially after 1943, with more and more objective difficulties, the policy limitation of the National Government and aggravating corruption, the society, economy and culture of Southwest areas were in recession. Inflation was deteriorating, transportation was stagnation, all constructions tended to pause.However, despite the dire difficult objective conditions of southwest areas, we should give affirmative evaluation on the positive changes which was showed in southwest areas. Besides, it is the same important that we can not ignore the conflict and problems.