Post by a Thousand Cuts

Wan-Chuan Kao (author)

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Title	Post by a Thousand Cuts
Contributor	Wan-Chuan Kao (author)
DOI	https://doi.org/10.21983/P3.0171.1.06
Landing page	https://punctumbooks.com/titles/going-postcard-the-letters-of-jacques-derrida/
License	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
Copyright	Kao, Wan-Chuan
Publisher	punctum books
Published on	2017-05-15
Long abstract	could purchase postcards with photographs or illustrations of “Chinese tortures” (les supplices chinois) and mail them home. The particular artifact in figure 1, sent from China to France in 1912, depicts a man being executed by lingchi (凌遲 “slow slicing,” or “death by a thousand cuts”). This postcard is one it-eration of the West’s persistent horror at and fascination with lingchi. Another example is a post-execution photograph of dismembered body parts reproduced in Henry Norman’s The Peoples and Politics of the Far East in 1895 (fig. 2).2 As historians point out, foreign military occupation of Beijing following the Boxer Rebellion allowed Europeans, especially those able to afford a camera, to roam the country more or less at will. Im-ages of lingchi executions began to circulate as curiosities and mementos — especially in the form of postcards — in Europe.
Page range	pp. 69–81
Print length	13 pages
Language	English (Original)

could purchase postcards with photographs or illustrations of “Chinese tortures” (les supplices chinois) and mail them home. The particular artifact in figure 1, sent from China to France in 1912, depicts a man being executed by lingchi (凌遲 “slow slicing,” or “death by a thousand cuts”). This postcard is one it-eration of the West’s persistent horror at and fascination with lingchi. Another example is a post-execution photograph of dismembered body parts reproduced in Henry Norman’s The Peoples and Politics of the Far East in 1895 (fig. 2).2 As historians point out, foreign military occupation of Beijing following the Boxer Rebellion allowed Europeans, especially those able to afford a camera, to roam the country more or less at will. Im-ages of lingchi executions began to circulate as curiosities and mementos — especially in the form of postcards — in Europe.