The Young Companion

The Young Companion
Lingyou magazine cover
First issue, 15 February 1926, featuring actress Hu Die
Editor-in-ChiefZhang Yiheng
Former editors
FrequencyWeekly
Founded1926
First issue15 February 1926
Final issueOctober 1945
CountryChina
Based inShanghai (Hong Kong and Chongqing during WWII)
LanguageChinese, English

The Young Companion, known as Liángyǒu (Chinese: 良友; pinyin: Liángyǒu; Wade–Giles: Liang-yu) in Chinese, was a pictorial magazine with captions in both Chinese and English, published in Shanghai beginning February 1926. Although the direct translation of Liangyou is "Good Companion", the magazine bore the English name The Young Companion on the cover. Referred to by historian Yajun Mo as an "iconic magazine" and "a visual shortcut for 'old Shanghai'", the magazine has proven useful in modern times to examine the glamorous side of colonial-era Shanghai. It may have been the most influential large-scale comprehensive pictorial in the 1920s, at least in Asia. It ceased publication in 1945. There were 174 issues in total, which includes the two special issues not given monthly issue numbers, the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Special Issue and the Eighth Anniversary issue. Since 1945, it has been repeatedly reestablished, but the impact has not been the same.

The magazine ran a mixture of content – including photography, art, and text – and covered a multitude of topics, including news, politics, culture, economy, lifestyle, and sports.

The magazine was known for its cover-girls, beautiful women who appeared to be active, "modern girls in motion". The motion was really performed by the girls inside the magazine playing sports, while the cover-girls presented modern women, attractive to men in their Western outfits and implied activities.

The women were modern girls, appearing to not be dressed up looking for men, but living their lives and doing what they enjoyed doing. The modern girls of Shanghai appeared in the city's artwork, including magazines such as The Young Companion and Ling Long, but also in the advertisements of the city and calendars. They were shown as actively living their lives, "driving motorcycles, swimming, horse riding, horse racing, rowing competitions, and participating in social assistance."

The cover of issue 45 depicts Guan Zilan, a Chinese painter who studied in Japan in the late 1920s, and who also received coverage in Japanese media as a model for "modern" women.

Modern scholar Maura Elizabeth Cunningham points out that in spite of the idea of the independence of the modern girl circulating in the period, the magazine showed women how women's sports could be used to satisfy the male gaze and give examples of a "model of femininity for female viewers to reproduce". She also pointed out that the magazine showed progress, with pictures inside the magazine not only showing beauty, but also women actively doing sports, something unimaginable a generation earlier.

References

  1. 1 2 艺志的样式 《良友》画报 [Styles of art periodicals: Liangyou pictorial magazine]. cnarts.net. Archived from the original on 2 April 2019. Retrieved 5 June 2026.
  2. 1 2 Mo, Yajun (2015). "Liangyou: Kaleidoscopic Modernity and the Shanghai Metropolis, 1926-1945. Edited by Paul G. Pickowicz, Kuiyi Shen, and Yingjin Zhang (Leiden: Brill, 2013) xi, 287 pp. ISBN 9789004245341 [Modern Asian Art and Visual Culture, v. 1]". The Trans-Asia Photography Review. 5 (2). hdl:2027/spo.7977573.0005.209. Volume 5, Issue 2: Vital Signs: Photography and Eco-Activism in Asia, Spring 2015
  3. ↑ "[trams;atopm"Liangyou·film special issue]". Retrieved 31 July 2018. It was published in Shanghai in February 1926, and was published in October 1941 until the 171st issue. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in October 1945, the 172nd issue was published. In 1926 and 1934, two special editions of "Sun Yat-sen Memorial Special Issue" and "The Eighth Anniversary Magazine" were published. A total of 174 issues were issued.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Cunningham, Maura Elizabeth (2013). "Chapter 4: The Modern Girl in Motion: Women and Sports in Liangyou". In Pickowicz, Paul; SHEN, Kuiyi; ZHANG, Yingjin (eds.). Liangyou, Kaleidoscopic Modernity and the Shanghai Global Metropolis, 1926-1945. Brill. pp. 95–110. doi:10.1163/9789004263383_006. ISBN 9789004263383.
  5. 1 2 别找了，美女都在这儿呢，有颜有腰还有腿 [Don't look for it. Beautiful women are here.]. Retrieved 22 June 2018. [illustration with mandolin is 12th image down] ...characterized by the exquisite water-jet brushing of the Western style...content is mainly about women's social life, such as the campus activities of female college students, women driving motorcycles, swimming, horse riding, horse racing, rowing competitions, and participating in social assistance...no longer important to have advertisements in the 40s. What is important is the United States
  6. ↑ Ikeda, Shinobu (2008). "The Allure of a 'Woman in Chinese Dress': Representation of the Other in Imperial Japan". In Croissant, Doris; Yeh, Catherine Vance; Mostow, Joshua Scott (eds.). Performing "Nation": Gender Politics in Literature, Theater, and the Visual Arts of China and Japan, 1880–1940. BRILL. p. 367. ISBN 978-90-04-17019-3.
  7. ↑ Hu, Xinliang. 民国封面女郎 浮华时代的美学（上） [Republican Era cover girls – The aesthetics of a gilded age (I)]. shaoxing.com. Retrieved 27 June 2018. 但从第139期复刊号开始，《良友》画报又找到了在时局附加的政治要求与个体审美品位之间的平衡点，那是一张身着戎装的封面女郎，名为《新时代之中国女性》。 [But starting with the 139th reissue issue, Liangyou pictorial again found a balance between the political demands of the time and individual aesthetic tastes, with a cover girl in military attire titled "Chinese Women in the New Era".]

Wikimedia Commons logo Media related to Liangyou at Wikimedia Commons