Chinese Lottery Business and Korea, 1898-1909: Cantonese Company Tongshuntai and the East Asian Trade Network

• In Event: Gaming Rounds the World: The Worldwide Circulation of Chinese Gambling Games in the Long 20th Century

Abstract

This paper investigates lottery business circulating from China into Korea managed by Chinese merchants, mainly focusing on the case of business and marketing of Cantonese company Tongshuntai, a most representative Chinese capital in Korea from 1880s up to 1930s. Through lottery case, East-Asian trade networks can be explained as a kind of network circulating culture and fashion in East Asia. In case of the strict prohibition of any type of domestic lottery as gambling in Qing, the first lottery introduced to China is a imported Spanish lottery issued in Philippine. In 1899 Guangji company in Shanghai, a Cantonese merchant, was authorized by the Qing government to issue the modern Chinese lottery(江南義賑彩票) for the first time. Moral disapproval against gambling conceded to justification of disaster relief and financial profit. After that, Chinese lottery business obtained explosive growth. Cantonese merchant in Korea imported Chinese lottery in the very 1899 year and broadly advertised lottery in the newspaper in Seoul. Korea and China showed the same pattern in lottery business from rise to demise. Overcompetition between lottery companies and overheated speculation caused extensive social reaction against lottery business. Interestingly, growing lottery business in Korea supplied fund to Chinese New Policy(新政) because these lottery was issued by provincial governments in China and circulated by overseas Chinese. In 1909, there was strong regulations about lottery business simultaneously both in China and Korea. But forces and incentives are different. The force to terminate lottery business in China was reformative power to modernize China. In Korea, forces to curb lottery business were Korean nationalism to criticize Chinese business and Japanese imperialist authorities.

Author

• Jin A Kang, Hanyang University