Choosing a House in Tianjin, China

At the turn of the 20th century, a Chinese resident of the northern treaty-port city Tianjin could choose to live in a courtyard house in the old Chinese city, a semi-attached house in the Italian Concession or an apartment in the French Concession, all depending on availability and cost. People chose houses, but housing also shaped people. This talk considers how and why people chose to live in particular houses in this multiply colonized city, as well as how the introduction of new floorplans re-shaped gender and class identities