Cultural Taste And Identity

Early Public of China is called "Change in the times" by Zhang Hao.Chinese traditional intellectuals were gradually replaced by the modern consciousness of intellectuals in such a "transition period".They choosed to serve in a variety of new institutions such as culture, education, publishing in stead of"a good sholar can become an official".Though they had a certain amount of employment and economic freedom, but they did not enjoy independent of political realities, and turned to his own spirit needs and individual wills.Intellectual self-identity for the imagination and construction of major interest in the cultural level, started to form their identity and sense of belonging.Taste of the cultural life is re-defined by intellectulers.New civilizations and new ethics became a standard of identity. As a symbol of social stratification, cultural taste highlights the identity of the class.Professors highlight the taste of their own identity through cultural taste.The paper refers the daily life of this group as the starting point, showing intellectual conception of culture and the conflict between old and new through many scattered details of the daily life, hammer out a meaningful historical context. Through the vivid analysis of major cultural life such as collecting books, watching operas, eating, drinking tea, playing and visiting, we can realize the transformation of modern Chinese intellectuals is actually a process of old and new fusion, and then we can perspective the spirit of this community's social and cultural trends.This paper is divided into four chapters.The first chapter introduce the variance of old Beijing's cultural life from three levels:royal court, gentrification, populace.Then it refers the relation between the traditional Beijing culture and professors taste.The second chapter elaborates cultural status and urban emotion of professors in Beijing, reflecting the emotional release professors in the traditional culture city. The third chapter describes the six major cultural interest:collecting books, watching operas,eating, drinking tea, playing and visiting, reflecting cultural roaming and identity of professors in Beijing.Summary Chapter discusses the cultural transformation of the old and new tastes, releaving Beijing professors still were guiders of mainstream culture, and trying to form a new identity.This historical overview reveals the course and contradictions of cultural interest through social transformation of the cultural view of intellectuals, discusses its relationship with Beijing's traditional culture,and reveal embodied identity in this process.