Zou Taofen
| Zou Taofen | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Native name | 邹韬奋 |
| Born | November 5, 1895 |
| Died | July 24, 1944 (aged 48) Shanghai |
| Cause of death | Cancer |
| Alma mater | St. John's University, Shanghai |
| Spouse(s) | Shen Cuizhen |
| Children | Zou Jiahua, Zou Jingmeng, Zou Jiali |
Zou Taofen (Chinese: 邹韬奋; Wade–Giles: Tsou T'ao-fen; November 5, 1895 – July 24, 1944) was a Chinese journalist, media entrepreneur, and political activist. Zou was known for developing Shenghuo Zhoukan (Life Magazine) into a pioneering journal of political reporting and social commentary, and for his participation in the National Salvation Movement that mobilized opposition to the Nationalist Government and demanded stronger resistance to Japan's expansion. He was one of the so-called "Seven Gentlemen" who were arrested in 1936 and then freed in July 1937 on the eve of the Second Sino-Japanese War. During the war Zou worked in Communist held areas. He died in Shanghai, July 1944, and was granted posthumous Chinese Communist Party membership in September of that year.
Zou was born in Fuzhou, Fujian province in 1895 as the eldest of six children. His father was a minor official who struggled to support the family. His mother did sewing, taking in orders from women for festival clothes, and making shoes for the children. She died when Zou was twelve. His father wanted Zou to study engineering, and sent him to Nan Yang College in Shanghai, but in 1919 Zou transferred to St. John's University, where he majored in English. Although he wanted to become a journalist, his first jobs after graduation were teaching English, then director of the editorial board of the China Vocational Education Society (中華職業教育社), headed by Huang Yanpei.
In 1926 Zou became editor of the society's journal, Shenghuo zhoukan (Life Weekly) and changed its mission from vocational education to political reporting and social criticism. The Vocational Society's target was young men who wanted to take advantage of schooling but often could not afford a university education and feared that they would not be able to enter a secure professional life. Zou, in the words of a recent historian, "turned out to be one of those legendary editors who found out just what made their readerships laugh, cry, and most importantly, come back the following week for more." Zou showed this talent for connecting with lower middle-class and working-class readers in the magazine's advice column, "The Readers' Mailbox" (Duzhe xinxiang), in which he gave advice on work, love, and politics. Readers addressed him simply as "Taofen" and his answers were both liberal in embracing progress and realistic in explaining the limited options a young woman had in the face of sexual harassment or discrimination, and the obstacles young men had in finding satisfying work in China's changing economy.
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