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Through literary praise, gastronomic writing, and ritual etiquette, shark fin became a marker of social distinction. Its presence at banquets was expected; its absence, a subtle breach of decorum. This history offers a window into how cultural meanings are shaped and sustained, and how oceanic life was drawn into the fabric of Chinese society through an expanding foodscape.
This project does not, of course, advocate for the continued consumption of shark fin. On the contrary, it uses history to interrogate tradition. Beyond cuisine, it rethinks “maritime China”—not merely as trade or naval design, but as a realm of meaning, porous and entwined. As George Orwell wrote, “it could plausibly be argued that changes of diet are more important than changes of dynasty.” In this spirit, the project reflects on how traditions are made—and just as powerfully, unmade.
Recommended Reading
Po, Ronald C. The Blue Frontier: Maritime Vision and Power in the Qing Empire. Cambridge University Press, 2018. Paperback 2019.
—. “Qing China and Its Offshore Islands in the Long Eighteenth Century.” The Historical Journal 67, no. 3 (2024): 430–462.
—. Shaping the Blue Dragon: Maritime China in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Liverpool University Press, 2024.
© privat
2025/2026
Ronald C Po, Dr. phil.
Associate Professor of Chinese and Maritime History
London School of Economics and Political Science
Born in 1985 in Hong Kong
Dr. phil. in History, Heidelberg University
Arbeitsvorhaben
Shark Fin in China: A Cultural History
How did a tasteless, nutrient-poor part of a marine predator become one of the most prized symbols of status and refinement in early modern China and beyond? This project traces the cultural ascent of shark fin from an overlooked by-product to an elite delicacy deeply embedded in the rituals and social imagination between the fourteenth and early twentieth centuries. While shark fin soup had little culinary merit, it came to signify wealth, hospitality, and moral cultivation. Its prestige was not driven by merchants or imperial decree, but by scholars, poets, and physicians who encoded it with symbolic and medicinal value.Through literary praise, gastronomic writing, and ritual etiquette, shark fin became a marker of social distinction. Its presence at banquets was expected; its absence, a subtle breach of decorum. This history offers a window into how cultural meanings are shaped and sustained, and how oceanic life was drawn into the fabric of Chinese society through an expanding foodscape.
This project does not, of course, advocate for the continued consumption of shark fin. On the contrary, it uses history to interrogate tradition. Beyond cuisine, it rethinks “maritime China”—not merely as trade or naval design, but as a realm of meaning, porous and entwined. As George Orwell wrote, “it could plausibly be argued that changes of diet are more important than changes of dynasty.” In this spirit, the project reflects on how traditions are made—and just as powerfully, unmade.
Recommended Reading
Po, Ronald C. The Blue Frontier: Maritime Vision and Power in the Qing Empire. Cambridge University Press, 2018. Paperback 2019.
—. “Qing China and Its Offshore Islands in the Long Eighteenth Century.” The Historical Journal 67, no. 3 (2024): 430–462.
—. Shaping the Blue Dragon: Maritime China in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Liverpool University Press, 2024.