So what does 洋场 mean?

[aeon]

One of the articles in my Reading Textbook (汉语阅读教程第三册, BLCU) has the following line:

上海在历史上曾经被称作“十里洋场”...

My dictionary defines 洋场 as 1. [Hist] Foreign settlement 2. Thriving metropolis.

The first of those definitions is neutral, the second complimentary.

The 生词 section of the chapter defines 洋场 as a "metropolis infested with foreign adventurers", which is positively insulting!

So which is it really?

[trevelyan]

洋 is an older word which carries the connotation of foreign, as in 洋人.

[xiaoxiajenny]

近代的上海，十里洋场，自开埠以来，固然有许多辛酸的不平等的血泪史，固然有许多污泥浊水，这里被称为是"冒险家的乐园"，这里有鸦片，有荡妇，有赌棍，使人纸醉金迷，乃至使人堕落。可是，上海这座近代大城市却更有它的另一面，它有活力、它聪慧、革新、进取，它敢于担风险，有竞争意识及机制，这种城市意识或风格，使人奋发，跟上时代，走向进步。

In the contemporary period, Shanghai as a metropolis infested by foreign adventurers has indeed recorded, since the opening of its commercial port, a bitter, blood-and-tear history of many miseries and inequalities. Referred to as the Paradise of Adventurers, Shanghai was indeed home to "human sludge and filth" where one could find opium, dissolute women and gamblers. It was a place that made people indulge in luxury and dissipation and given to sensuous pleasures, even inducing people to become degenerate. However, there is a different and more important picture of Shanghai as a modern metropolis. It has been full of vitality and vigor, displaying its unique intelligence and wisdom, characterized by an innovative and enterprising spirit. It has the courage to assume risks and is in possession of both the awareness and the mechanism of competition. Such a metropolitan mentality or style inspires its residents, encouraging them to keep abreast with the changing epochs and to make efforts toward greater progress.

[aeon]

Thank you xiaoxiajenny, but that didn't actually answer my question.

Describing a city as a "metropolis infested by foreign adventurers" is a carefully crafted insult, but the dictionary definitions don't have that tone. I want to know whether my dictionary's definitions are correct, or is the textbook definition correct? Why are they so different in tone?

Where did your text and the translation come from anyway?

[roddy]

This is an interesting one. I think a more placid definition might be 'foreign settlement (derog)'. Iciba.net (which I find to have more quantity than quality) defines it as (my bolding)

[metropolis infested with foreign adventurists] 指旧时洋人较多的都市,多指上海(含贬义)

and my 1979 Chinese - English dictionary has

metropolis infested with foreign adventurers (usu. referring to preliberation Shanghai): ~恶少 rich young bully in a metropolis (in old China)

moving forward a few centuries the 2002 Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (Chinese-English edition) has almost the same definition.

I'd say both your textbook and your dictionary are at fault. Your textbook (and at root whichever Chinese - English dictionary first chose the word 'infested') should have a neutral definition with a (derog) note attached, and your dictionary (the ABC, no?) should have added the same note to its neutral definition.

Interesting to see how this definition hasn't changed in two and a half decades. Wonder what other gems are hiding in today's dictionaries . . .

Roddy