Ethnic Minority Children in Post-Socialist Chinese Cinema: Allegory, Identity and Geography 0367347873, 9780367347871

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title
Copyright
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
List of figures
Notes on romanisation, translation, and time periods
1 Introduction: ethnic minority children’s allegorical functions, identity construction, and geographies in post-socialist Chinese cinema
2 Children, nature, and animals: Dai children’s adventure in a forest
3 Natural landscapes as musical spaces: Uyghur children’s yearnings in a national narrative
4 Beijing and rural Guizhou in focalisations: Miao children’s relationships with the nation-state and ethnic tradition
5 Cinematic space in a relational construction: heroes and a reconstruction of ethnic relationships through children’s interethnic interactions
6 Grasslands as transitional spaces of play: Mongol children’s reimagination of the world
7 A young lama as Sun Wukong: contradictions and flexibility in a contemporary Tibetan child’s identity construction
8 Conclusion: some observations about the images of ethnic minority children in post-socialist Chinese cinema
Index

Citation preview

Ethnic Minority Children in Post-Socialist Chinese Cinema

This book examines the surprisingly large number of films about ethnic minority children in China, considering key questions such as Why are ethnic minority children becoming more intriguing to Chinese filmmakers? What are their roles in the films literally and allegorically? And how are they placed on screen geographically and why? It argues that ethnic minority children’s appeal lies in their special relationship with childhood, ethnicity, nationalism, and rurality; and that for dominant Han urban adults and elite ethnic minorities they serve as “the other” for these people’s construction of themselves as self-conscious modern subjects during China’s rapid social-political transformations. This book explores the diversity of ways in which both Han and ethnic minority filmmakers take up the special features of ethnic minority children to facilitate their expression of certain ideas or ideals, as well as the roles of these films in their directing careers. Zhenhui Yan completed her thesis in the Department of Humanities and Languages at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Media, Culture, and Social Change in Asia Series Editor: Stephanie Hemelryk Donald Editorial Board: Gregory N. Evon, University of New South Wales Devleena Ghosh, University of Technology, Sydney Peter Horsfield, RMIT University, Melbourne Chris Hudson, RMIT University, Melbourne Michael Keane, Curtin University Tania Lewis, RMIT University, Melbourne Vera Mackie, University of Wollongong Kama Maclean, University of New South Wales Laikwan Pang, Chinese University of Hong Kong Gary Rawnsley, Aberystwyth University Mingyeh Rawnsley, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Jo Tacchi, Lancaster University Adrian Vickers, University of Sydney Jing Wang, MIT Ying Zhu, City University of New York The aim of this series is to publish original, high-quality work by both new and established scholars in the West and the East, on all aspects of media, culture and social change in Asia. Russian Nationalism Imaginaries, Doctrines, and Political Battlefields Marlene Laruelle Digital China’s Informal Circuits Platforms, Labour and Governance Elaine Jing Zhao The Early Transnational Chinese Film Industry, 1897–1937 Yongchun Fu Urban Culture in Pre-war Japan Adam Thorin Croft Media, Indigeneity and Nation in South Asia Edited by Markus Schleiter and Erik de Maaker Love Stories in China The Politics of Intimacy in the Twenty-First Century Edited by Wanning Sun and Ling Yang Ethnic Minority Children in Post-Socialist Chinese Cinema Allegory, Identity, and Geography Zhenhui Yan For a full list of available titles please visit: www.routledge.com/ Media-Culture-and-Social-Change-in-Asia-Series/book-series/SE0797

Ethnic Minority Children in Post-Socialist Chinese Cinema Allegory, Identity, and Geography

Zhenhui Yan

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Zhenhui Yan The right of Zhenhui Yan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-34787-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-32798-8 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

Foreword by Stephi Hemelryk Donald Acknowledgements Abbreviations List of figures Notes on romanisation, translation, and time periods 1

2 3 4 5

6 7

Introduction: ethnic minority children’s allegorical functions, identity construction, and geographies in post-socialist Chinese cinema

vii ix x xi xii

1

Children, nature, and animals: Dai children’s adventure in a forest

19

Natural landscapes as musical spaces: Uyghur children’s yearnings in a national narrative

35

Beijing and rural Guizhou in focalisations: Miao children’s relationships with the nation-state and ethnic tradition

57

Cinematic space in a relational construction: heroes and a reconstruction of ethnic relationships through children’s interethnic interactions

79

Grasslands as transitional spaces of play: Mongol children’s reimagination of the world

101

A young lama as Sun Wukong: contradictions and flexibility in a contemporary Tibetan child’s identity construction

119

vi

Contents

8

Conclusion: some observations about the images of ethnic minority children in post-socialist Chinese cinema

139

Index

143

Foreword Stephi Hemelryk Donald

Reading this book brings back good memories, so it is a pleasure to contribute a few words to introduce the reader to an original and committed researcher and educator. I first met Dr Yan when she was outstandingly articulate and compelling in an MA seminar on gender and revolution, at the University of Edinburgh. Two years later, she joined me at the University of New South Wales as a postgraduate candidate on the ARC-funded Migration and Mobility project. In those years, she also held a position teaching at the China Agricultural University, she grew her family, and she became a friend. Working on the project with Dr Yan was always fascinating. She refused to be won over entirely by Anglo- or Eurodominant theoretical positions and approaches; nor did she accept without question the works of her China-based scholarly colleagues. She committed to the films, the subjects, and topical conditions of those films, and she searched for analyses and approaches that clarified what she saw on screen and what she discovered about the contexts and background of the films’ production. That is, of course, just good film studies. However, it is more than that when one is working across apparently incommensurable economies of value and understanding and when one wishes to do justice both to the intentions of the filmmakers and to recognise their omissions and assumptions in ways that are critical but without being judgemental. As a reader of the project over several years, I have my favourites. I still recall Dr Yan’s first seminar, where she talked about a small boy walking towards the Bird’s Nest (the National Stadium in Beijing), the vast space around him on screen, the sense of being fatherless (he is a left-behind child of a migrant worker), and at the same time overwhelmed by the patriarchal embrace of state-managed urban space. There is also the story of the young Mongolian girl who leads a city boy over the plains, away from his rural sojourn, which has overwhelmed him in turn, although she thinks they are heading to a festival of folk culture. His behaviour is atrocious (there, I’ve said it), and the film’s tone is perhaps overly managed in its childlike socialist bildungsroman structure, but in Dr Yan’s hands, it becomes a text that we must respect, with protagonists we must take time to acknowledge. Films about child migrants were central in the ARC Migration and Mobility project, and here those themes are traced through stories of accelerated

viii Foreword modernisation, leading to children in motion, between towns and cities, and between rural, Indigenous lifestyles and organised institutions. They often take substantial and life-changing journeys. These child protagonists contribute to our global understanding of the social and emotional and geopolitical work we make children do when we, as adults, require change, modernity, and urbanisation on a massive scale. Adults disrupt children’s lives through these demands, and it is a small mark of respect to acknowledge that disruption on film and in film studies. Liverpool, 2019

Acknowledgements

This book would not be possible without the generous help of several individuals. First of all, I am extremely grateful to my PhD supervisors: Zheng Yi, Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, and Ayxem Eli. They offered me invaluable feedback on my doctoral thesis, from which this book is derived. Their academic rigour, creative thinking, and profound knowledge have benefited me enormously. I also owe many thanks to Kwai-Cheung Lo and Gina Marchetti, who, as my thesis examiners, provided me with insightful comments and useful suggestions that helped shape the contents and structure of this book. My sincere appreciation also goes to George Kouvaros, Jon Eugene von Kowallis, and Yu Haiqing, whose thoughts and advice influenced me during the early stages of conceiving this project. I am also indebted to my colleagues and friends at China Agricultural University (CAU) for their support, understanding, and trust, especially Hu Youzhen, Ye Jingzhong, and Xu Xiaocun. This book was funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) ([ARC project number FT110100007] Migration and Mobility). It also received financial support from the College of Humanities and Development Studies at CAU. Chapter 6 is derived from an article published in Children’s Geographies (published online: 23 Mar 2019; copyright Taylor & Francis), available online at www.tandfonline. com/ Article DOI: 10.1080/14733285.2019.1598544. Figures in this book were captured from screens at www.1905.com, the official website of the film channel of China Central Television. Finally, I would like to thank Stephanie Hemelryk Donald once again, as series editor, along with editor Peter Sowden and assistant editor Nitesh Singh. Their expertise ensured the smooth publication of this book. In the end, this book is dedicated to my parents and parents-in-law, my husband Xianjun, and our two lovely children, Kaiwen and Luofei.

Abbreviations

BFA CCFS CCP CCTV PLA PRC

Beijing Film Academy China Children’s Film Studio Chinese Communist Party China Central Television People’s Liberation Army People’s Republic of China

Figures

2.1 The children positioned in a triangle on a rock pile (Red Elephant) 3.1 Kulaixi alone in the ruins of the village (The Drummer of Huoyanshan) 3.2 The smiling Buddha and the mosque-like building outside the grotto (The Drummer of Huoyanshan) 4.1 The Miao boy runs in the direction of the Bird’s Nest (Bird’s Nest) 4.2 Lala and other Miao children in a rice field (Lala’s Gun) 5.1 The girl uses the position of the mountains for directions (Seeking Naadam) 5.2 The girl drags the boy towards a leleche driver, a Mongol man (Seeking Naadam) 6.1 Bilike discovers a ball floating down a creek (Mongolian Ping-Pong) 6.2 The children discuss the ‘national ball’ on the stone heap (Mongolian Ping-Pong) 7.1 Little lama stares at a dancing crowd in the village square of his hometown (The Silent Holy Stones) 7.2 Little lama set against the gate of the village square (The Silent Holy Stones)

30 43 48 63 70 85 88 106 110 132 132

Notes on romanisation, translation, and time periods

The book adopts the pinyin system of romanisation to transliterate Chinese names, terms, and film titles, except in cases where there are more-established English forms. In the case of Chinese names, the book follows the Chinese tradition of placing family names before given names in the texts and notes unless the English forms of their names are preferred. Chinese sources cited in the texts and notes are the author’s translations unless otherwise specified. The English versions of dialogues and lyrics cited from film texts are also the author’s translations unless otherwise indicated. Some historical periods in China are frequently mentioned in the book. Their beginning and ending years are as follows: the Tang dynasty (618–907), the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the Qing dynasty (1644– 1912), the Republic of China (1912–1949), the People’s Republic of China (1949–), the socialist/Mao era (1949–1976), and the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976).

1

Introduction Ethnic minority children’s allegorical functions, identity construction, and geographies in post-socialist Chinese cinema

In a movie released in 1991 in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), an extremely talented rural Uyghur boy is seen in a variety of natural landscapes creating outstanding music with his hand drum. Pursuing his dream of becoming a professional instrumentalist, the boy overcomes many difficulties to ultimately merge into an urban space. He finally appears in one of the most famous state-owned refineries in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China’s northwest, receiving ‘advanced’ education. In another Chinese movie released in 2008, a Miao boy looks after a nest of baby birds in his hometown village in Guizhou, southwest China. After joining villagers in rescuing a wounded bird, he sets out on a journey to Beijing, the nation’s capital. He is then pictured in both traditional and modern landscapes of Beijing. In particular, he is set against the National Stadium, known to most as the Bird’s Nest. Designed by celebrated architects Herzog and De Meuron in collaboration with artist Ai Weiwei, it was one of the main venues for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and is a national symbol of modern China. When the boy runs towards the building in a panning-up landscape shot accompanied by non-diegetic solemn music, a national narrative of ethnic unity is produced on screen. However, the irony lies in the boy’s desire to persuade his father, a migrant worker in Beijing, to return home. As his mother says, ‘A wife needs a husband, and a son needs a father’. In the Han-dominated nation-state in the Chinese mainland, the child characters in these movies belong to the 55 non-Han ethnic groups, generally known as ethnic minorities. The people of these groups have been ‘living within China’s borders’ ‘since time immemorial’ (Mackerras 1994, 3–4). During certain historical periods, they controlled the national governments, such as the famous Yuan (1271–1368) and Qing (1644–1912) dynasties founded by the Mongols and the Manchus respectively. However, these groups were formally identified only quite recently, after a long and tortuous classification project undertaken by the PRC from 1953 to 1979 (Wang 2004, 7). They comprise less than 10 per cent of the nation’s population but take up over 60 per cent of its territory (Rao et al. 2011, 6). In terms of their geographical locations, ethnographer Louisa Schein (1997, 71) says that ‘While Han Chinese tend to be concentrated in the fertile plains and trading ports of central and coastal China, minorities occupy the strategic, resource-rich periphery to the north, south, and west’. With regard to their relationship to the

2

Introduction

dominant Han, the Chinese constitution stipulates three basic principles (the ethnic policies of the PRC), including ethnic equality and unity, regional autonomy, and the development of economy and culture in ethnic minority regions. Currently, over 70 per cent of ethnic minorities live in ethnic autonomous regions, especially the five provincial-level areas: Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Tibet Autonomous Region, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (Wang 2004, 26–29). Throughout the history of Chinese mainland cinema, ethnic minorities have been featured regularly on screen. For historical, political, and cultural reasons, Han people have monopolised this endeavour over a long period of time. When film was first imported to China as a foreign technology and an entertainment product, it was first consumed in the Han-dominated metropolises. Since then, Han people have dominated Chinese film production due to their better economic, educational, and technical conditions. Politically, films about ethnic minorities are particularly important to the Han-dominated nation-state. They contribute to both the construction and the rhetoric of national unity in the PRC. Chinese anthropologist Fei Xiaotong (1988) has famously proposed the concept of ‘plurality and unity’ in the understanding of Chinese people, on the basis of Chinese history.1 Zhang Haitao, deputy director general of the former SARFT (State Administration of Radio, Film and Television), once commented, ‘Tibetan film is not an issue of the market but an issue of the battlefield’ (as quoted in Rao et al. [2011, 382]). In Mao’s communist regime (1949–1976), films about ethnic minorities were known as Chinese ethnic minority–themed films (Zhongguo shaoshu minzu ticai dianying).2 They were all directed by Han filmmakers and carried the political message of ethnic unity. They facilitated the envisioning of a unified nation-state for the newly established country (Anderson 1983). Moreover, they served as foreign films, entertaining the Han audience with the ‘exotic’ and the ‘erotic’ – outlandish settings, colourful costumes, folksongs, dances, and love stories that could not be found locally (Li 1999; Clark 1987). However, since the 1980s, there has been a significant change. First of all, despite increased output, films about ethnic minorities have less of an impact on the Han audience. According to Paul Clark (1987), a prominent Western critic of this type of film, this is mainly because Chinese people have regained access to foreign films since Deng Xiaoping’s economic policy of reform and opening up in 1978. Secondly, the emergence and increase in ethnic minority filmmakers has given rise to a more commonly used but highly debated term in this era, to refer to films about ethnic minorities: Chinese ethnic minority film (Zhongguo shaoshu minzu dianying).3 This term highlights the ethnic minority identity of the filmmaker, despite the fact that Han Chinese remain the majority in the production of this type of films. Finally, the messages of these films have expanded from political imperative to cultural, economic, and ecological concerns. For example, in the 1980s, some dominant Han filmmakers started to appropriate ethnic minorities as the ‘cultural other’, ‘a contrasting mirror’ (Lo 2009, 235) to reflect on China’s destiny after the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) (Clark 2005; Zhang 1997; Berry 2006). This phenomenon is inseparable from Han filmmakers’

Introduction 3 desire for ‘primitive passions’, as theorised by cultural critic Rey Chow (1995).4 Although the type of ‘primitive materials’ Chow (1995, 21) identified in Chinese cinema is the woman in the dominant Han culture, primitivism is arguably equally at play across cultures within China’s borders. In Schein’s (1997) view, this type of Han-minority relationship in cultural representation is internal orientalism. In the 1990s, film productions about ethnic minorities diminished partly because of the nation’s transition from a planned economy to a market economy, which signified fewer subsidies to state-owned studios from the government (Rao et al. 2011, 397). However, in the 2000s, films about ethnic minorities revived, although they continued to stay at the margins of mainland cinema, in contrast to commercial entertainment ‘mainstream films’ (zhuliu dianying) or state-funded ‘main melody films’ (zhuxuanlü dianying).5 Funding sources have greatly expanded in the context of the market reform of the whole Chinese film industry. Moreover, as China becomes the second largest economy in the world and its modernisation is characterised by industrialisation, urbanisation, and internal migration of erstwhile farmers from the countryside to cities (Cao 2005; McGee, Lin, and Wang 2007), the negative impacts of rapid development have started to emerge. Among the most serious negative consequences are environmental destruction, unequal development, and intensified social stratification and injustice (Cao 2005). Because ethnic minorities are ‘a fragmented and forgotten realm separated from the rapidly industrializing China’ (Lo 2009, 242), who reside primarily away from the urban centres of the nation and thus on the periphery of China’s economic achievement, films about ethnic minorities lend themselves to Han filmmakers’ contemplations on the impacts of modernisation.

Films about ethnic minority children Wucai lu/Five Colour Road (1960) is the first film in the PRC that features ‘ethnic minority children’ in leading roles; however, they were actually played by Han children (Rao et al. 2011, 111). Like other films about ethnic minorities in this period, this film was directed by a Han filmmaker (Wei Rong), was produced by a state-owned studio (Beijing Film Studio), and focused on a group of Tibetan children who support the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in ‘liberating’ Tibet from its old serf system. During the Cultural Revolution, another film about ethnic minority children was produced, Axia hede mimi/Secret of Axia River (1976), which also was directed by Han filmmakers (Yan Bili, Shen Fu, and Wu Zhennian), was produced by a state-owned studio (Shanghai Film Studio), and starred Han children. Corresponding to its historical context, the film highlights three children from Han, Hui, and Tibetan groups respectively, acting as little ‘red guards’ of Chairman Mao to defend national property from being stolen by individual opportunists. Immediately after the Cultural Revolution, the third film on ethnic minority children was produced. The film Huowa/The Fire Boy (1978, dir. Xie Fei and Zheng Dongtian) focuses on a Miao child. However, it has the same production background and was concerned with the same issue of class struggle and socialist revolution as in the Mao era.

4

Introduction

In the 1980s and 1990s, films about ethnic minority children increased steadily, and each decade generated about six films. In the new century, the total output of the first ten years has touched 20 or so. All of the child characters in these films from the post-socialist period are played by real ethnic minority children.6 Moreover, an increasing number of ethnic minority filmmakers and Han filmmakers with varied professional backgrounds and funding sources are engaged in the production of this type of films, which has rendered diverse images of ethnic minority children and messages of the films. The filmmakers also cinematically emphasise the binary divide between rural and urban living with varied landscape shots. They reflect on the cultural, economic, ecological, and social impacts of Han-dominated modernisation on the lives of ethnic minority children who are at a critical period of forming their ethnic and national identities. Take the two movies discussed in the beginning as examples. One was directed by a filmmaker of Xibo ethnicity (a non-Han ethnic group in China), who is also affiliated to a state-owned film studio. The other was directed by an independent Han filmmaker. Although both films place their ethnic minority child protagonist first in a rural space and then in an urban area, their messages differ. In this context, it is important to ask what roles the ethnic minority children play in these films literally and allegorically, what their relationships are with ethnic traditions and the nation-state in the filmmakers’ representations, and what their specific geographies are on screen and the implications of these. The answers to these questions are important not only because these children occupy a larger proportion of China’s territory than Han children but also because a growing conflation of reel life and real life renders the understanding of this group of children on screen a critical part of understanding their peripheral existence in reality. Moreover, these children live in a peculiar sociopolitical environment in contemporary China – in which ethnic solidarity is highly stressed by the Chinese state, while the power relationship between Han and ethnic minorities is increasingly off-balance. This book focuses on the five groups of ethnic minority children most represented in post-socialist Chinese cinema in the mainland: Uyghur, Tibetan, Mongol, Miao, and Dai.7 For a variety of reasons, children from these ethnicities are cinematically emphasised in contrast to children of other ethnic minority groups.8 However, as this book argues, what they share in common are their special relationships with childhood, ethnic traditions, the nation-state, and rural spaces. They serve as the other for both Han and ethnic minority adults to reflect on the impacts of industrialisation, urbanisation, and migration on Chinese nationals. They embody not only the national discourse of ethnic unity in an enforced Handominated nation-state but also the confrontation between tradition and modernity in the course of China’s transformation. The contradictions and flexibility in the construction of identity in these children, in relation to their ethnic traditions and the nation-state, provide filmmakers with ample opportunities to imagine an ideal past, a creative and alternative way of thinking, and a reconstruction of ethnic relationships. Moreover, their geopolitical shifts from initial rural autonomy to later urban integration, and their final reincorporation into rural minority enclaves, illustrate Chinese people’s changing attitudes towards rural and urban living.

Introduction 5 Specifically, ethnic minority children are a special group in the Chinese population. In contrast to ethnic minority adults, they are minors (children). In contrast to the majority Han Chinese, they are ethnic minorities. As minority minors, they are in the early stage of acquiring ethnic traditions, and thus their ethnic identity is not fixed or settled. Meanwhile, their identification with the nation can be surprisingly conventional, owing to a lack of critical thinking that is more commonly possessed by adults. In a Han-dominated nation-state, they can conveniently symbolise childlike citizens paying homage to the father figure of the nation-state from the peripheries. Their geographies in the rural environments take on extra significance in the present era of urbanisation and migration. In the next section, I elaborate on these features of ethnic minority children in three aspects: their allegorical functions from the perspective of filmmakers; their dynamic and symptomatic relationships with ethnic traditions and the nation-state as child characters; and their relationships with various geographies, particularly rural spaces, in cinematic representations. Demarcating the three aspects does not mean that they are separate issues. On the contrary, they are closely interrelated, which makes repeating certain themes in different contexts unavoidable.

Allegory, identity, and geography Allegorical functions Ethnic minority children are interesting and useful to filmmakers because, as children, they possess symbolic power. Stephanie Donald (2005, 23) claims that children of any kind ‘evoke ideas and ideals in a national or cultural imagination’, which are true to ‘all cultures and nations to some degree’. In terms of how, Donald identifies two modes in which child characters are manipulated in a film: One is to use children in fantasies, which help adults depict the world in which they live, and in which they would like to live. In this world, children are flowers, stars, successors to a perfected future. The other is more marketdriven and perhaps of more interest to children themselves; the creation of media product for a specific demographic, or target audience of children. Here children may be all of the above (stars, successors, and hopes) but their images must also reach out to an audience that looks to identify with them in the present. (Donald 2005, 23) The two modes are adult- and child-centred respectively. Donald (2005, 24) asserts that ‘In the children’s film culture of the PRC, the emphasis on adult needs has undermined the requirements of a child audience’. Although Donald is primarily addressing the film production about Han children in China, her comment applies to the representation of ethnic minority children in mainland cinema. In films about ethnic minority children, the child characters are also arguably vehicles for adult filmmakers to express their concerns, desires,

6

Introduction

and imaginations and for the adult audience to satisfy their needs. This point is made clear in the use of language in this type of films. Historically, films about ethnic minorities were dubbed in Mandarin – a common language among Han Chinese – during postproduction. According to literary and film critic Li Daoxin (2012), this practice cannot be separated from Han-centrism or from the expected political function of these films, as I explicated earlier. However, since the 2000s, many films about ethnic minorities have employed minority languages in film dialogue.9 While such an act helps to preserve the diversity of languages, one consequence, as Hu Puzhong (2012) recounts, is that Chinese film viewers are subjected to a strange audiovisual experience: in the past, they read subtitles when watching foreign films, but now they must do the same thing with films about ethnic minorities. While this is fine for adult filmgoers, it is rather problematic and even unrealistic to expect a child audience to exert themselves likewise. Thus, with this language shift, which unfortunately happened to almost all the films in the 2000s that were about ethnic minority children, the Han child audience and most of its ethnic minority counterparts are discouraged from film viewership. As a result, these films are reduced to personal expressions of adult filmmakers for the consumption of predominantly adult audiences, who are mostly Han Chinese.10 The child characters in these films thereby become allegorical figures. As in a fable or parable, their stories carry double meanings. Because of their ethnic identity, their stories may significantly reveal ‘real cultural events’, but they simultaneously ‘make additional, moral, ideological, and even cosmological statements’ (Clifford 1986, 98). If ethnic minorities help Han filmmakers realise their ‘primitive passions’, as I suggested earlier, ethnic minority children are obviously better ‘primitive materials’ for this endeavour. Film critic Karen Lury has borrowed Lauren Berlant’s (1997, 29) concept of ‘infantile citizen’ to argue that children on screen can ‘provide a locus for a nostalgic nationalism’ among adult audiences (2010, 286). Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart have asserted that it is necessary to ‘politicise’ the seemingly ‘autonomous and asocial sphere’ of children’s media – comics, literature, or film for children or about children – because they are ‘devised by adults’, ‘determined and justified by their idea of what a child is or should be’ (1975, 29–30). One goal of this book is to shed light on the diversity of ideas and statements imposed on ethnic minority children by adult Chinese filmmakers. These ideas and statements may change over time and vary according to a film’s production background. In the 1980s and 1990s, because films about ethnic minority children were primarily produced by state-owned studios, especially the China Children’s Film Studio (CCFS) (Zhang 2005; Donald 2005), ethnic minority children were the ‘flowers’, ‘successors’, and ‘future’ of the nation, like their Han counterparts. They were expected to be instilled with ‘a spiritually “unpolluted” system of values’, as indicated by the CCFS leader Yu Lan (Donald 2005, 26). However, in the 2000s, because most films about ethnic minority children were funded by private capital and the CCFS had been incorporated

Introduction 7 into China Film Group Corporation, the largest state-owned film enterprise in the PRC, the images of ethnic minority children were pluralised, which resulted in all sorts of messages being conveyed by filmmakers. For example, the first movie discussed in the beginning of this chapter was produced by the CCFS, and it endeavoured to construct an unequivocal national narrative based on the child character’s relationship with space (more elaborations later). In contrast, the second movie, produced independently, embedded an element of deconstruction in an ostensibly nationalist theme: although the Bird’s Nest is used as a key backdrop, the Miao boy is a left-behind child who dreams of his father’s company. In both cases, the ethnic minority child characters are used to serve the agendas of the respective filmmakers. Identity construction Films about ethnic minority children often focus on the child characters’ relationships with their ethnic traditions and the Han-dominated nation-state: the PRC. Ethnic identity, according to anthropologist Stevan Harrell (2001, 21), is based on the recognition of cultural differences, including ‘the memory of a language once spoken or the consciousness of a shared history’, ‘a sense of relatedness as a people’, ‘an ideology of descent from common ancestors’, and ‘marriage and affinity within the group’. Apparently, acquiring these ‘history-, kinship-, and culture-based’ ethnic features (Harrell 2001, 21) takes time and can constitute a long developing process for ethnic minority children. Moreover, human geographers Aitken and Herman (1997, 83) discovered that, in contrast to adults who hold rather ‘solidified, fixed and immutable’ perspectives on the world, children often more readily adjust their standpoints. Consequently, ethnic minority children’s observing of ethnic traditions and practices, including their ethnic group’s historical and political attitudes towards Han Chinese and the PRC, becomes inconsistent, flexible, and negotiable. As long as the children are still in the course of learning and experimenting with ethnic ideologies, their ethnic identity remains in a dynamic condition of construction. On the other hand, ethnic minority children, like the majority of the child population, can identify with a nation-state in a surprisingly conservative and categorical way. Studies on children’s cognitive development have suggested children’s national feelings might start with a stage of ‘conventional’ identification, in which ‘they would see loyalty towards one’s country as unquestionably right’ (Scourfield et al. 2006, 7). However, as they grow up, they may arrive at the next stage of ‘post-conventional morality’, in which their independent thinking like adults can ‘distinguish between situations in which national identification was the right or wrong response by applying such so-called wider and universal values as liberty and justice’ (Scourfield et al. 2006, 7). Because the ethnic minority children on the Chinese screen are predominantly between five and fifteen years of age, who are mostly constructed by adult filmmakers as equipped with limited critical thinking, their identification with the nation can be likewise orthodox and

8

Introduction

traditional. Nonetheless, as this book reveals, ethnic minority children’s relationships with the nation-state, like their connections with ethnic traditions, can be equally fluid, variable, and complex. In general, the flexible relationships between ethnic minority children, ethnic traditions, and the PRC nation-state provide filmmakers with a field for manipulation. For example, the child protagonists in the two movies just mentioned conform to a mainstream understanding of minority capabilities: the Uyghur boy is talented in music, while the Miao boy is rich in Indigenous knowledge about nature. However, to serve the intentions of the different filmmakers, one child aspires to leave his hometown village (the origin of his ethnic tradition) to receive a Han-style education in a city, while the other is made to embrace his ethnic tradition in the rural environment, by expecting his father’s return from the national centre. In this context, we need to examine how the geographies occupied by the children on screen play a significant role in their allegorical functions and identity construction. Geographies As ‘primitive materials’, the ethnic minority child shares with the woman in Chinese cinema of the 1980s and early 1990s the ‘primordial, rural rootedness’ (Chow 1995, 23). According to Statistical Communique of the PRC on the 2018 National Economic and Social Development released by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, over half of a billion Chinese are still living in the countryside despite mass-scale urbanisation and internal migration. This is particularly the case with ethnic minorities, who, as mentioned earlier, live on the periphery of the nation. Moreover, the unique geographies of ethnic minorities – the grasslands, plateaus, forests, terrace lands, and so on – contribute to their distinctive cultures and the unique statuses they occupy in the political and cultural imaginaries of the nationstate. As the majority of ethnic minority children live in rural areas on screen, as in real life, rural living becomes an unavoidable issue in the discussion of films about them. When it comes to linking children and rural spaces, what easily comes to mind is the famous discourse of rural idyllic childhood in Western cultures. In this discourse, rural areas are considered better and safer places for children to grow up (Aitken 1994). Children benefit from being close to nature, free to explore outdoor spaces, and surrounded by ‘a peaceful, tranquil, close knit community’ (Valentine 1997, 137). This image coincides with Kate Taylor’s (2010) observation about Chinese cinema. She states that rural landscapes in mainland cinema from the 1990s onwards have been ‘a far more positive space of development when compared to the representations of urban city landscapes’ because ‘the rural space is still one that can be marked as local, culturally informed and positive, as opposed to economically controlled, globally informed and ultimately negative spaces of the urban development’ (2010, 228–229). However, Chinese scholar Zhang Haoyue (2006) concludes differently on the basis of his study of rural spaces in films about Han rural children in the 1990s and early 2000s. He asserts

Introduction 9 that rural landscapes in these films have taken on a tragic tone because of the misfortunes of the child characters, either stricken by poverty or confronted with failure, as they are forced to drop out of school and hence kept from the benefits of modernity. This dismal outlook echoes the anti-idyll discourse in developed countries, which describes rural areas as spaces of agricultural decline, hardship of chores, unemployment, and poor service facilities (James 1990). Chinese filmmakers, both Han and of ethnic minorities, enjoy setting ethnic minority children in rural environments, as indicated by the two movies in the beginning. Moreover, the different attitudes of the Uyghur boy and the Miao boy towards rural spaces not only illustrate the two contrasting views about rural childhood but also illuminate a transition in Chinese people’s attitudes towards rural living and the natural environment in the course of the country’s modernisation process. If in the early 1990s rural spaces were considered less progressive and advanced than urban spaces, then in the 2000s it is revisited as a land of treasures, featuring a harmonious relationship between human and nature. Thus, although both children are deeply embedded in rural spaces, the Uyghur boy’s aspiration for an urban space in his historical context is equivalent to his pursuit of the Han-dominated social system. This fulfils the filmmaker’s intention of constructing a national narrative. In contrast, the Miao boy seems to enjoy the privilege of being close to nature in the new century, which indicates the second filmmaker’s expectation of him to carry on ethnic traditions. Because of the type of ecological awareness that the second film manages to evoke among the audience, films about ethnic minority children in rural environments often belong to what is called ecocinema (MacDonald 2004, 2013; Lu 2009).11 This book explores how rural spaces are cinematically appropriated in relation to ethnic minority children. In particular, I am interested in how children’s interactions with rural environments, coupled with their occasional migration to cities, shape their identification with ethnic traditions and the nation-state while accomplishing certain national, cultural, or ecological imaginations of adult filmmakers.

Research methods, film corpus, and chapters An examination of ethnic minority children in post-socialist Chinese cinema has evoked a range of theoretical frameworks in my study. However, overall, this book adopts a geographical approach in film analysis that is based on a large quantity of landscape shots in this genre of films. These landscape shots highlight the interactions between ethnic minority child characters and their physical and social environments and unveil the dynamic process of the children’s identity construction. These shots contribute to the creation of certain types of childhood experiences of the ethnic minority children on screen and speak to the social context in which both filmmakers and these children live. Given the general strictness of film censorship in China (Calkins 1999; Johnson 2012), a geographical approach also helps to uncover certain ideological messages of filmmakers that would otherwise remain hidden in their cinematic treatments, which may contradict with dominant ideologies of the nation-state or at least render them more complex.

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Specifically, this book draws on theories in the sub-disciplines of cinematic landscape studies and children’s geographies. Cinematic landscape is a cultural geographical approach to film studies. It is famously defined by Jeff Hopkins (1994, 49) as, in its broadest sense, ‘a filmic representation of an actual or imagined environment viewed by a spectator’. The study of cinematic landscape examines various physical and social environments perceived on screen by film viewers, which are subject to aesthetic and ideological manipulations by filmmakers but critical to the construction of characters through the conveyance of various feelings, emotions, and sentiments (Aitken and Zonn 1994; Lukinbeal 2005; Aitken and Dixon 2006; Harper and Rayner 2010). This approach has been adopted by scholars of Chinese cinema in examining the meaning-making of landscape shots in films of Fifth-Generation filmmakers such as Chen Kaige’s Huang tudi/Yellow Earth (1984) (Berry and Farquhar 1994; Donald 1997, 2000) and the urban cinema of Sixth-Generation filmmakers (Zhang 1996, 2002, 2007; Kuoshu 2010; Braester 2010), especially the latecomer Jia Zhangke (Cui 2010; Lu and Mi 2009; Berry 2009; McGrath 2008).12 This book differs in that it brings films about (ethnic minority) children under examination by this geographical method. This is justified because a cultural geographical perspective is also applied to childhood studies. Children’s geographies refer to ‘diverse spaces (types of setting for interaction), places (specific sites of meaning), environments (surroundings full of nature and humanity), and landscapes (visible scenes and prospects)’ in which children are situated (Philo 2000, 245) and ‘in and through’ which children’s identities are ‘made and remade’ (Holloway and Valentine 2000, 11). This definition manifests the close relationship between children’s geographies and children’s identity construction. Although the study of children’s geographies has been dominated by empirical research, the main concern of which is ‘public space’ or ‘the street’ (Valentine 1996, 2004; Matthews, Limb, and Taylor 2000),13 the work shares with cinematic landscape an emphasis on the impacts of environments on an individual’s or a group’s identity construction. This book takes cinematic landscapes in films about ethnic minority children as a combined cinematic version of these children’s geographies, exploring how the geographies are entwined with the children’s identity construction in the artistic and ideological manoeuvrings of filmmakers. As mentioned earlier, a multiplicity of theoretical frameworks is employed in individual chapters, despite the book’s overall geographical approach. Specifically, Chapter 2 draws on theories about the relationship between animals, nature, and children to examine Dai children’s relationship with elephants and the forest in particular and examine ethnic minority children’s relationship with animals and nature in general in Chinese cinematic representation. Chapter 3 borrows theories on the use of natural spaces in musicals to examine Uyghur children’s music making and dancing in natural landscapes. Chapter 4 examines the contrast between landscapes in Beijing and rural Guizhou in relation to Miao children, on the basis of the concepts of focalisation, intentional landscape, and nostalgia. Chapter 5 draws on the idea of the relational construction of space to scrutinise

Introduction 11 the interactions between a Han boy and a Mongol girl on the Inner Mongolian grasslands and in the neighbouring towns. Chapter 6 borrows the notions of transitional space, transitional object, and the otherness of childhood to examine Mongol children playing on the Inner Mongolian grasslands. Chapter 7 draws on theories in media consumption and identity construction and provides a detailed reading of Sun Wukong, a famous media character in Chinese popular culture, to uncover the intention of the filmmaker in constructing a Tibetan child monk’s identification with Sun. Although the majority of these theories originated from the West, they are employed to shed light on the meanings of the films I discuss, without overshadowing the Chinese contexts of these films. With regard to the film corpus, seven films, which span over three decades from the 1980s to 2000s, were selected for detailed readings in this book. Despite their limited number, these films are placed in the context of the whole history of Chinese film production on ethnic minorities (both adults and children) from the Mao era to the 2010s. The majority of these films were selected from the millennial period because of both the abundance of corpus in this period in contrast to the preceding two decades and their significance to understanding contemporary China. Particularly, because the Beijing Olympics symbolise China’s rise on the global stage in the new century, two chapters concerning the event have been included. However, they address the event from different perspectives, and each deserves special attention. Specifically, Chapter 2 discusses Hongxiang/Red Elephant (1982), the first film produced in the 1980s about ethnic minority children that differs from the aforementioned cinematic tradition in the Mao era. Chapter 3 focuses on Huoyanshan laide gushou/The Drummer of Huoyanshan (1991), the first movie mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, which was also the first feature film about Uyghur children in Xinjiang. Chapter 4 examines two movies, Gun Lala de qiang/Lala’s Gun (2008) and Niaochao/Bird’s Nest (2008) (the second example in this chapter), directed by the same filmmaker who also has experience making films about Han children. There is an interesting comparison between the two types of films. Chapter 5 discusses another film related to the Beijing Olympics, Xunzhao nadamu/Seeking Naadam (2009). Different from Chapter 4, which highlights the contrast between the landscapes in the nation’s centre and periphery as well as a contrast between the filmmaker’s cinematic treatments of Han and ethnic minority children, Chapter 5 underlines interethnic relationships between children of different ethnic groups in the same rural place, which is rare in recent years but resonates with a cinematic tradition established in the 1970s. Chapter 6 centres on Lü caodi/Mongolian Ping-Pong (2005), which is arguably the first feature film about Mongol children in the PRC. Chapter 7 discusses Jingjing de mani shi/The Silent Holy Stones (2006), the first film about Tibetan children directed by a Tibetan filmmaker in mainland China. The films discussed were directed by filmmakers of different generations in the PRC. Red Elephant (Chapter 2) is the collective debut of a few key FifthGeneration filmmakers, such as Tian Zhuangzhuang and Zhang Yimou. The director of The Drummer of Huoyanshan (Chapter 3), Guang Chunlan, belongs to the

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Fourth-Generation of Chinese directors.14 Ning Jingwu and Ning Hao, the directors of the films discussed in Chapter 4 and Chapter 6 respectively, are commonly regarded as members of Sixth-Generation of Chinese cinema. Bao Lide, the director of Seek Naadam (Chapter 5), is not well known in China, and there is not much information available about him. In general, the films discussed in this book stand at different stages of the directing careers of these filmmakers and play different roles, either kicking off their careers or serving as an experiment or a turning point. Moreover, the Fourth-Generation and Fifth-Generation filmmakers, working in the 1980s and early 1990s, were mostly sponsored by state-owned studios. For example, Red Elephant (Chapter 2) and The Drummer of Huoyanshan (Chapter 3) were both produced by the CCFS. In contrast, the films in other chapters were funded primarily by private film companies, and their filmmakers are mostly independent, without organisational affiliation. The diversity of funding resources facilitates the diversity among the images of children. Finally, in terms of the ethnic identities of the filmmakers, Han Chinese remain dominant. Nonetheless, ethnic minority filmmakers are also underlined in this book. Moreover, they represent different situations. Specifically, the FifthGeneration filmmakers (Chapter 2), Ning Jingwu (Chapter 4), and Ning Hao (Chapter 6) are all Han Chinese, whereas the ethnic identity of Bao Lide (Chapter 5) cannot be identified. Although Guang Chunlan (Chapter 3) is an ethnic minority, she is based in the state-owned Tianshan Film Studio. Moreover, most of her films, including The Drummer of Huoyanshan, focus on Uyghurs instead of Xibo people. In contrast, the director of The Silent Holy Stones (Chapter 7), Pema Tseden, directs films mostly about people of his own ethnic group, the Tibetans.

Notes 1 Since Qin Shihuang established the Qin dynasty (221 BCE–207 BCE), the first united feudal nation on the PRC territory, Han Chinese have dominated the rule of most local and national governments. Even when ethnic minorities reigned over the country, national unity was a dominant theme. This is particularly the case when Han Chinese took over state control with the collapse of the Qing dynasty amid imperialist invasions. 2 There are other English terms in the West to refer to films about Chinese ethnic minorities, such as minority/minorities film, racial minority genre of films, minority nationality/nationalities film, national minority film, and minority nationality film. The diversity of terms originates from the difficulty of seeking an exact English equivalent for the Chinese term shaoshu minzu (Berry 2016, 89–90). In general, (shaoshu) minzu is translated as ‘(minority) nationality’ by the Chinese government, but its closest English term should be ‘ethnic (minority) group’ or ‘(minority) ethnicity’. This book adopts ‘ethnic minority[–themed] film’, as used by Yingjin Zhang (2004, 208) and many other scholars. 3 Film aesthetician Wang Zhimin (1997) has famously proposed a framework consisting of one ‘fundamental principle’ and two ‘guarantees’ to define ‘Chinese ethnic minority film’. One guarantee is the ‘theme’ (ticai), which is ethnic minorities. The other guarantee is the ‘ethnic minority identity of the filmmakers (mainly the director and the scriptwriter)’. He argues that the ethnic minority identity of the filmmakers ensures a film’s representation of authentic ethnic minority culture, which is the fundamental principle. However, Rao Shuguang, et al. (2011, 372–375) suggest that the ethnic

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identity of a filmmaker should not be a benchmark for evaluating the outlook of a film because ethnic awareness by birth or by culture can vary among filmmakers. A Han filmmaker may be born and grow up in an ethnic minority area, while an ethnic minority filmmaker may be more influenced by Han culture than by the culture of their own ethnic group. Even if a filmmaker belongs to an ethnic minority, the extent to which their films can actually reflect the subjectivity of their own ethnic group, individually or as a group, is also arguable (Hu 2013). This debate is indeed resonant with the whole national cinema debate started by Andrew Higson (1989, 1997) in the 1980s (i.e. what constitutes ethnicity and authenticity), then developed in useful ways by Trinh T. Minh-Ha ([1991] 2013, 1997) and more recently taken to new levels by Lúcia Nagib (2011) and world cinema (Nagib, Perriam, and Dudrah 2012). It is also related to the discussions of postcolonial cinema regarding the issues of who owns the story, who is looking, and who is being looked at (Wood 2008). Chow (1995) discovers that Chinese filmmakers are eager to transform ‘humanity’ – the ‘consciously ethnicized and nationalized’ Chineseness – into ‘its basic instincts’ because the ‘democratisation’ of the film medium promotes the ‘fantasies of an origin’ (1995, 20–22). According to Chow, ‘the animal, the savage, the countryside, the indigenous, the people, and so forth’ often ‘stand in for that “original” something that has been lost’ (1995, 22, original emphasis). Like Western modernist art that is based on ‘a continual primitivization of non-Western lands and peoples’ (20, original emphasis), Chow argues that Chinese cinema is characterised by a type of ‘primitivism’ originated from ‘the hierarchical relations of cultural production’ (21) ‘within a culture’ (23, original emphasis). Chow’s main focus is on the representation of women in the films made by the Fifth-Generation filmmakers. The mainstream films in the PRC consist of big-budget dramas filled with spectacular audiovisual impacts and medium-budget genre films such as melodramas and comedies (Zhang 2012). They also include state-funded ‘main melody films’, which were once called ‘propaganda films’ (xuanchuan pian). However, the latter is distinguished for upholding the CCP’s ideologies of socialism, nationalism, patriotism, and so on. Indeed, a certain proportion of ethnic minority–themed cinema in mainland China belongs to ‘main melody films’ for underlining ethnic unity and national cohesion. The post-socialist period in the PRC often refers to the period after the Cultural Revolution (Berry 2004). Some scholars use ‘post-socialist’ to refer to the reform era since 1978 (Pickowicz 1994). Because The Fire Boy, mentioned earlier, is the only film about ethnic minority children made between 1976 and 1979, which is no different from its predecessors in the Mao era, the ‘post-socialist’ in this book refers to the period from 1980 onwards. Post-socialism is understood as a condition of a society that loses ‘faith in the socialist myth’ but retains the operation of ‘many of the institutions of socialism’ (Berry 2004, 155). Post-socialist Chinese cinema is believed to move away from the classical Chinese cinema in the Mao era that performs explicit pedagogical and political functions (Berry 2004). This is based on my statistical analysis of the film list in the Appendix of Rao et al. (2011, 385–402), the first and most comprehensive monograph on the representation of ethnic minorities in Chinese mainland cinema. The list provides detailed information about over three hundred films that feature ethnic minorities as leading characters. For example, Uyghur, Tibetan, and Mongol children are favoured, probably because they belong to ethnic groups that are of geopolitical significance to the Chinese nationstate. Miao and Dai children stand out because their ethnic groups often exhibit simple, exotic, and premodern cultures and traditions (Clark 1987), catering to Han filmmakers’ preference for ‘primitive passions’, as I mentioned earlier. In contrast, Manchus, for instance, possess a rather advanced, complex, and even urbanised civilisation. This type of film is usually known as ‘Chinese ethnic minority mother-tongue film’ (Zhongguo shaoshu minzu muyu dianying) or ‘Chinese ethnic minority language film’ (Zhongguo shaoshu minzu yu dianying). According to film critic Hu Puzhong (2012),

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Introduction filmmakers originally chose to use ethnic minority languages in dialogue to cut out dubbing costs because most of these films were funded by private organisations. Later on, this language choice, as Li Daoxin (2012) sees it, became a deliberate act of preserving language and cultural diversity. It is worth mentioning that most films about ethnic minorities have limited theatrical release, owing to their marginal status in the Chinese film market. They are mainly distributed via the film channel of China Central Television (CCTV). Thus, the ideological significance of these films, as I will emphasise, is more concerned with, in the words of Donald (2005, 23), the ‘expectations of ideal theatrical impact’. Sheldon Lu defines ‘ecocinema’ as an exploration of ‘the relationship of human beings to the physical environment, earth, nature, and animals from a biocentric, nonanthropocentric point of view’ (2009, 2). He identifies six prominent themes and subjects in Chinese ecocinema, among which, two are particularly relevant to films about ethnic minorities: ‘Projection and description of an organic communal mode of life distinct from the daily routines of civilized city folks’ and ‘A return to religious, holistic thinking and practice and the difficulty of doing so in a commercialized society’ (2009, 7–8). Fifth-Generation filmmakers refer to those who graduated from the Beijing Film Academy (BFA) in 1982 (including from BFA’s director training courses in 1983 and 1984) and made their names in the mid 1980s: Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Huang Jianxin, Zhang Junzhao, Wu Ziniu, Zhang Jianya, Feng Xiaoning, Hu Mei, and Li Shaohong, among others. Sixth-Generation filmmakers, in a narrow sense, refer to those who graduated from the classes of 1985 and 1987 at the BFA and started to make films in the 1990s: Zhang Yuan, Wang Xiaoshuai, Lou Ye, Lu Xuechang, and others. In a broad sense, the Sixth-Generation filmmakers include those who graduated from the BFA later and started their careers in the early 2000s, such as Jia Zhangke, Wang Quanan, Lu Chuan, Ning Hao, Ning Jingwu, and so on. Other areas of interest include children’s play environments; institutional places such as schools, homes, and neighbourhoods; or more general domains of the countryside and the city. Overall, the everyday spaces in children’s lives are emphasised because they are seen significantly ‘produced through their webs of connections within wider global social processes’ (Holloway and Valentine 2000, 18). Fourth-Generation filmmakers are those who graduated from the BFA before the Cultural Revolution but could not start to direct films until the late 1970s, such as Xie Fei, Zheng Dongtian, Zhang Nuanxin, Guang Chunlan, Teng Wenji, Wu Tianming, Yang Yanjin, Yan Xueshu, Huang Jianzhong, Wu Yigong, and others.

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Holloway, Sarah L., and Gill Valentine. 2000. “Children’s Geographies and the New Social Studies.” In Children’s Geographies: Playing, Living, Learning, edited by Sarah L. Holloway and Gill Valentine, 1–26. London: Routledge. Hopkins, Jeff. 1994. “A Mapping of Cinematic Places: Icons, Ideology, and the Power of (Mis)representation.” In Place, Power, Situation, and Spectacle: A Geography of Film, edited by Stuart C. Aitken and Leo E. Zonn, 47–65. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Hu, Puzhong. 2012. “‘Muyu dianying’ de lailong qumai [Provenance and Development of ‘Mother-Tongue Film’].” Zhongguo minzu, (Z1): 80–86. Hu, Puzhong. 2013. “Mingming yu xiuci: Zhongguo shaoshu minzu ticai dianying de ‘yuan wenti’ [Naming and Rhetoric: The ‘Prime Question’ of Chinese Ethnic Minority Themed Film].” Shoudu shifan daxue xuebao (shehui kexue ban), (5): 102–112. James, Sarah. 1990. “Is There a ‘Place’ for Children in Geography?” Area, 22 (3): 278–283. Johnson, Matthew D. 2012. “Propaganda and Censorship in Chinese Cinema.” In A Companion to Chinese Cinema, edited by Yingjin Zhang, 153–178. West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Kuoshu, Harry H. 2010. Metro Movies: Cinematic Urbanism in Post-Mao China. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Li, Daoxin. 2012. “Xin minzu dianying: Neixiang de zuqun jiyi yu kaifang de wenhua zijue [New Ethnic Film: Introverted Ethnic Memory and Open Cultural Awareness].” In Quanqiuhua yu minzu dianying: Zhongguo minzu ticai dianying de lishi, xianzhuang he weilai [Globalisation and Ethnic Film: The History, Present, and Future of Chinese Ethnic Minority Themed Film], edited by Song Niu and Shuguang Rao, 326–333. Beijing: Zhongguo guangbo dianshi chubanshe. Li, Ershi. 1999. “Zuowei yishu tansuo de shiqi nian shaoshu minzu ticai dianying [Ethnic Minority Themed Film as Artistic Explorations in the 17-Year-Period].” Dangdai dianying, (5): 80–87. Lo, Kwai-Cheung. 2009. “Two Moments of Ethnic Representation in Tian Zhuangzhuang’s Minority Films.” Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 3 (3): 231–247. doi: 10.1386/ jcc.3.3.231/1. Lu, Sheldon H. 2009. “Introduction: Cinema, Ecology, Modernity.” In Chinese Ecocinema in the Age of Environmental Challenge, edited by Sheldon H. Lu and Jiayan Mi, 1–14. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Lu, Sheldon H., and Jiayan Mi, eds. 2009. Chinese Ecocinema: In the Age of Environmental Challenge. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Lukinbeal, Chris. 2005. “Cinematic Landscapes.” Journal of Cultural Geography, 23 (1): 3–22. doi: 10.1080/08873630509478229. Lury, Karen. 2010. “Children in an Open World: Mobility as Ontology in New Iranian and Turkish Cinema.” Feminist Theory, 11 (3): 283–294. doi: 10.1177/1464700110376279. MacDonald, Scott. 2004. “Toward an Eco-Cinema.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 11 (2): 107–132. doi: 10.1093/isle/11.2.107. MacDonald, Scott. 2013. “The Ecocinema Experience.” In Ecocinema Theory and Practices, edited by Stephen Rust, Salma Monani and Sean Cubitt, 17–41. New York: Routledge. Mackerras, Colin. 1994. China’s Minorities: Integration and Modernization in the Twentieth Century. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. Matthews, Hugh, Melanie Limb, and Mark Taylor. 2000. “The ‘Street as Thirdspace’.” In Children’s Geographies: Playing, Living, Learning, edited by Sarah L. Holloway and Gill Valentine, 54–68. London: Routledge. McGee, Terry, Chusheng Lin, and Mark Wang. 2007. China’s Urban Space: Development under Market Socialism. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.

Introduction 17 McGrath, Jason. 2008. Postsocialist Modernity: Chinese Cinema, Literature, and Criticism in the Market Age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Minh-Ha, Trinh T. 1997. “Not You/Like You: Postcolonial Women and the Interlocking Questions of Identity and Difference.” In Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial Perspectives, edited by Anne McClintock, Aamir Mufti and Ella Shohat, 415–419. London: University of Minnesota Press. Minh-Ha, Trinh T. (1991) 2013. When the Moon Waxes Red: Representation, Gender and Cultural Politics. London: Routledge. Nagib, Lúcia. 2011. World Cinema and the Ethics of Realism. New York: Continuum. Nagib, Lúcia, Chris Perriam, and Rajinder Dudrah, eds. 2012. Theorizing World Cinema. London: I. B. Tauris. Philo, Chris. 2000. “‘The Corner-Stones of My World’: Editorial Introduction to Special Issue on Spaces of Childhood.” Childhood, 7 (3): 243–256. doi: 10.1177/0907568200007003001. Pickowicz, Paul G. 1994. “Huang Jianxin and the Notion of Postsocialism.” In New Chinese Cinemas: Forms, Identities, Politics, edited by Nick Browne, Paul G. Pickowicz, Vivian Sobchack and Esther Yau, 57–87. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rao, Shuguang et al. 2011. Zhongguo shaoshu minzu dianying shi [Film History of Chinese Minorities (English Translation on the Book Cover)]. Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe. Schein, Louisa. 1997. “Gender and Internal Orientalism in China.” Modern China, 23 (1): 69–98. www.jstor.org/stable/189464. Scourfield, Jonathan, Bella Dicks, Mark Drakeford, and Andrew Davies. 2006. Children, Place and Identity: Nation and Locality in Middle Childhood. London: Routledge. Taylor, Kate E. 2010. “Crises, Economy and Landscape: The Modern Film Face of New China.” In Cinema and Landscape: Film, Nation and Cultural Geography, edited by Graeme Harper and Rayner Jonathan, 219–230. Bristol, UK: Intellect. Valentine, Gill. 1996. “Angels and Devils: Moral Landscapes of Childhood.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 14 (5): 581–599. doi: 10.1068/d140581. Valentine, Gill. 1997. “A Safe Place to Grow Up? Parenting, Perceptions of Children’s Safety and the Rural Idyll.” Journal of Rural Studies, 13 (2): 137–148. doi: 10.1016/ S0743-0167(97)83094-X. Valentine, Gill. 2004. Public Space and the Culture of Childhood. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Wang, Can. 2004. Ethnic Groups in China. Beijing: China Intercontinental Press. Wang, Zhimin. 1997. “Shaoshu minzu dianying de gainian jieding wenti [Questions of Defining Ethnic Minority Film].” In Lun Zhongguo shaoshu minzu dianying: Diwujie Zhongguo jinji baihua dianyingjie xueshu yantaohui wenji [Chinese Ethnic Minority Film: A Collection of Papers at the Symposium of the Fifth Chinese Golden Rooster and Hundred Flower Film Festival], edited by Zhongguo dianying jia xiehui [Chinese Film Critic Association], 161–171. Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe. Wood, Houston. 2008. Native Features: Indigenous Films from around the World. New York: Continuum. Zhang, Haoyue. 2006. “Ningzhi de xiangtu: Xin shiqi nongcun ticai ertong dianying de yizhong miaoshu [Stagnant Rural Land: A Description of Films about Rural Children in the New Era].” In Zhongguo ertong dianying de xianzhuang yu fazhan [Current Situation and Future Development of Chinese Children’s Film], edited by Keming Hou, 127–135. Beijing: Zhongguo guangbo dianshi chubanshe. Zhang, Yingjin. 1996. The City in Modern Chinese Literature and Film: Configurations of Space, Time, and Gender. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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Zhang, Yingjin. 1997. “From ‘Minority Film’ to ‘Minority Discourse’: Questions of Nationhood and Ethnicity in Chinese Cinema.” Cinema Journal, 36 (3): 73–90. doi: 10.2307/ 1225676. Zhang, Yingjin. 2002. Screening China: Critical Interventions, Cinematic Reconfigurations, and the Transnational Imaginary in Contemporary Chinese Cinema. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, the University of Michigan. Zhang, Yingjin. 2004. Chinese National Cinema. New York: Routledge. Zhang, Yingjin. 2012. “Directors, Aesthetics, Genres: Chinese Postsocialist Cinema, 1979–2010.” In A Companion to Chinese Cinema, edited by Yingjin Zhang, 57–74. West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Zhang, Zhen. 2007. The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Zhang, Zhilu. 2005. Zhongguo shaonian ertong dianying shilun [A History of Chinese Children and Youth’s Film]. Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe.

2

Children, nature, and animals Dai children’s adventure in a forest

Traditionally in Chinese cinema, films about children serve as a training ground for new young filmmakers (Zhang 2005; Donald 2005). Tackling the seemingly apolitical and relatively non-commercial subject matter of children, these filmmakers enjoy considerable creative freedom in expressing their ideas authentically without much concern over censorship or box-office returns. If their films centre on ethnic minorities, minority cultures – their geographies, music, customs, rituals, legends, and so on – provide them with ample materials for cinematic experimentation and innovation (Xie 2012). This chapter examines a collective debut of Fifth-Generation Chinese filmmakers about Dai children. Produced by CCFS, the film to be discussed, Red Elephant (1982), was codirected by Zhang Jianya, Xie Xiaojing, and Tian Zhuangzhuang. Zeng Nianping (director of photography, or DP) was the cinematographer; Zhang Yimou, Hou Yong, and Lü Yue were associate DPs; and Feng Xiaoning was the production designer. Except for Zeng Nianping, a young teacher at BFA at that time, all the other crewmembers just mentioned were students of direction, photography, and design at BFA in the class of 1978. After their graduation, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Zhang Yimou, Hou Yong, and Lü Yue went on to become key figures in the Fifth-Generation film movement of the mid 1980s, as either directors or DPs.1 In a sense, Red Elephant became a key project for these emerging filmmakers to work together and express certain ideals that would flourish years later. Moreover, Red Elephant set a paradigm for later films about Dai children in Chinese mainland cinema. All of them feature a harmonious relationship between the Dai children, nature, and animals – a theme that also extends to films about children of other ethnic minority groups. Indeed, the original screenplay of the film emphasises that nature is a colourful, lively, and interesting classroom for children to learn about the science of animals and plants (Zhang, Xie, and Tian 1982). However, the Fifth-Generation filmmakers decided to transform this pedagogical theme into a display of the children’s sincere feelings towards nature, animals, and their friends (Zhang, Xie, and Tian 1982). In fact, as this chapter will demonstrate, this film also exhibits the children’s ecstasy, freedom, and pioneering spirit while interacting with a forest. As journalist and author Richard Louv recounts, in the course of ‘[giving] itself to children’ – the animals, plants, rivers, and mountains – ‘for its own sake’, nature also provides children with ‘freedom, fantasy, and privacy: a place distant from the adult world, a separate peace’ (2008, 8).

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This chapter examines the Fifth-Generation filmmakers’ cinematic representation of Dai children’s relationship with animals. It concerns not only the Dai children’s relationship with elephants, based on Dai tradition, but also the representation of ethnic minority children’s relationship with animals and nature in general on the Chinese screen. In particular, it explores the significance of Red Elephant to the directorial career of the Fifth-Generation filmmakers. This chapter argues that the Dai children have largely become a surrogate for Fifth-Generation filmmakers, who exhibit the same spirit in exploring the art of filmmaking as the Dai children exhibit in nature: admirable wildness, spiritedness, courageousness, and perseverance. If the children’s spirit is embodied in the film narrative, the aspiration of the filmmakers is best illustrated in the film narration – in the various cinematic techniques and artistic expressions with which they experiment that diverge from Chinese cinematic tradition. In the following sections, I first outline the historical context in which the FifthGeneration emerged in Chinese mainland cinema. I then review the development of the representation of Dai people and Dai children on Chinese screen. After that, I focus on how children are depicted in relation to nature and animals in Western and Chinese cultures, intending to reveal why ethnic minority children are constructed as being particularly intimate with nature and animals in Chinese cinematic representation. Finally, I provide a detailed interpretation of Red Elephant to demonstrate how the children’s spirits in the narrative align with the filmmakers’ passion for cinematic innovation, in particular how the filmmakers’ cinematic techniques resemble their films in the mid 1980s.

Chinese mainland cinema after the Cultural Revolution According to Chinese film historians Zhong Dafeng and Shu Xiaoming (1995), in the wake of the Cultural Revolution, following a recovery period of no authentic breakthroughs in thematic and artistic aspects, Chinese cinema went through four phases between 1979 and 1989 in the context of Deng Xiaoping’s policy of economic reform and opening up. In the first phase (1979–1980), Chinese filmmakers of several generations worked hard to depoliticise their film narratives. They also experimented with various film techniques they acquired from unprecedented access to high-quality foreign films. Fourth-Generation filmmakers, some of them teaching at BFA, were particularly active in exploring the ontology of film. They advocated the divorce of the medium from drama and literature. Zhuang Nuanxin and Li Tuo’s 1979 article ‘On the Modernisation of Film Language’ significantly reflected the Fourth-Generation filmmakers’ desire to pursue film aesthetics for its own sake instead of serving educational or political purposes. In practice, Fourth-Generation filmmakers made a series of outstanding films, such as Shenghuo de chanyin/Reverberations of Life (1979, dir. Teng Wenji and Wu Tianming), Kunao ren de xiao/Troubled Laughter (1979, dir. Yang Yanjin and Deng Yimin), and Bashan yeyu/Evening Rain (1980, dir. Wu Yigong). In these films, they made creative use of colour and music for flashbacks and psychological activities, emphasised the compatibility or contrast between images and

Children, nature, and animals 21 sounds, and tried out artistic forms that included slow motion and freeze-frames, among others. In the second phase (1981–1983), Fourth-Generation filmmakers made a landmark return to a realistic mode of filmmaking, reducing their experimentation with cinematic language. This, on the one hand, was influenced by André Bazin’s aesthetics of realism and, on the other hand, resonated with a Chinese cinematic tradition established by films made during the Mao era and earlier, like Shennü/Goddess (1934, dir. Wu Yonggang), Yijiang chunshui xiangdong liu/Spring River Flows East (1947, dir. Cai Chusheng and Zheng Junli), and Linjia puzi/The Lin Family Shop (1959, dir. Shui Hua). Films such as Shaou/The Drive to Win (1981, dir. Zhuang Nuanxin), Linju/Neighbours (1981, dir. Zheng Dongtian and Xu Guming), Xiao jie/Narrow Street (1981, dir. Yang Yanjin), and Chengnan jiushi/My Memory of Old Beijing (1982, dir. Wu Yigong) focused on the daily lives of ordinary people, portraying their emotions, sufferings, dignity, and compassion. These films, along with those directed by preceding generations of filmmakers such as Xie Jin and Ling Zifeng, reached out to the masses and constituted the mainstream films of the 1980s. In general, the Fourth-Generation filmmakers held a strong ‘republic complex’ (gongheguo qingjie) or ‘red scarf complex’ (honglingjin qingjie) towards the PRC because they spent their youth in the relatively stable socialist regime before the Cultural Revolution. They were also entrenched in Chinese cultural traditions because of their systematic studies during those peaceful years. Although they suffered a setback during the Cultural Revolution, the socialist ideal of the 1950s was deeply rooted in their minds, and they used their films to convey the message to the public that evils and difficulties could be overcome and that hope lay ahead. In the third phase (1984–1986), Fifth-Generation filmmakers emerged on national and global stages. Four films in 1984 marked the beginning of their film movement (Zhang 1990): Zhang Junzhao’s Yige he bage/One and Eight, Chen Kaige’s Yellow Earth, Tian Zhuangzhuang’s Liechang zhasa/On the Hunting Ground, and Wu Ziniu’s Diexue heigu/Secret Decree. These films are characterised by low-key images, natural lighting, disproportionate framings, off-screen sounds and spaces, non-dramatic narrative structures, anti-hero characterisations, and more (Silbergeld 1999). Since the Fifth-Generation filmmakers were mostly sent-down youth (zhiqing) from during the Cultural Revolution,2 their vision of the world differed from their Fourth-Generation teachers at BFA (Ni 2003). They were less influenced by the socialist ideal and Chinese cinematic traditions. Nonetheless, they were interested in their teachers’ discussions about the ontology of film art and were further endowed with independent thinking and innovative spirits through direct exposure to Western film culture at BFA (He and Pan 1989). Consequently, they were bold and unconstrained, cold and rough, deep but vigorous and powerful. Ideologically, their films were rebellious and introspective. Stylistically, the Fifth-Generation filmmakers explored the film medium as an independent audiovisual system rather than a shadow play (yingxi) in the traditional Chinese conception of film. They were attentive to visual qualities such as setting, mise-en-scène, camerawork, lighting, colour, and so on, in addition to

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music and sound effects. They believed that all technical aspects of filmmaking were instrumental in conveying certain meanings, feelings, and emotions from the screen to the audience. Instead of telling stories in a rather realistic manner, they created a unique type of film aesthetics – the aesthetics of symbolism through images (yixiang meixue) (Zhang 1990). Hence, their films are often a combination of realism (xieshi) and symbolism (xieyi). The latter does not push the narrative forward but instead creates a huge sensual impact on the audience and conveys extra affects and meanings. Although a realistic approach remains dominant in this phase, the FourthGeneration filmmakers also made some innovations in their films. Prominent works include Yan Xueshu’s Yeshan/Wild Mountain (1984), Huang Jianzhong’s Liangjia funü/Good Woman (1985), Wu Tianming’s Laojing/Old Well (1986), and Xie Fei’s Xiangnü Xiaoxiao/A Girl from Hunan (1986). Zhang Nuanxin’s film about Dai people, Qingchun ji/Sacrificed Youth (1985), was often categorised by film critics in the same group as Tian Zhuangzhuang’s Mongolian and Tibetan films, On the Hunting Ground and Daoma zei/Horse Thief (1986). They all demonstrated the cultural reflections of Han Chinese filmmakers after the Cultural Revolution by appropriating the ethnic other, as mentioned in Chapter 1. In general, most films from this phase, by both Fourth- and Fifth-Generation directors, were set in the countryside. This was closely related to the historical context of China shifting its economic reform from the countryside to cities in 1984, giving rise to reflections on the contradictions between traditional rural culture and modern urban culture in the social ethos (Zhang 1990). Although this social context is not relevant to Red Elephant, because the film was produced in 1982, it explains why the Fifth-Generation filmmakers were not so rebellious and introspective in their treatment of the film. However, an interest in innovating the film language might have already existed under the influence of their teachers from the earlier phase. As He and Pan (1989) indicate, the technical aspects (especially cinematography) often took precedence in the Fifth-Generation’s artistic conception of a film. As a result, they repeatedly used the same cinematic techniques in different film contexts. The third phase was soon replaced by the fourth phase (1987–1989), in which the united vision of the Fifth-Generation came to an end, as represented by Chen Kaige’s Haizi wang/King of the Children and Zhang Yimou’s Hong Gaoliang/Red Sorghums, both released in 1987. The former was filled with incomprehensible symbolism, humour, and self-mockery, while the latter invented many folk customs and rituals based on the filmmaker’s imagination, which became spectacles in the eyes of domestic and foreign viewers. The deliberate incorporation of ethnographic elements rendered Red Sorghums a type of auto-ethnographic film (Zhang 1993; Chow 1995). Because it adopted a traditional way of shot composition, narrative structure, lighting, and so on, the film was well received by the audience. In the eyes of film critics, Red Sorghums symbolised both the great success of the Fifth-Generation and the end of their artistic movement (Dai 1993). After this, some Fifth-Generation filmmakers transformed from key figures in a counterculture avant-garde movement into proponents of mainstream ideologies and popular culture.

Children, nature, and animals 23 Red Elephant was produced in the second phase, but it was probably influenced by the artistic exploration of Fourth-Generation filmmakers from the first phase. Moreover, as this chapter will demonstrate, this largely ignored film (Rao et al. 2011, 186) had indeed contained many artistic elements that subsequently became prominent features of Fifth-Generation filmmakers. In the film analysis of Red Elephant, I will pay particular attention to its similarity with One and Eight, Yellow Earth, and On the Hunting Ground, because of the overlap of their production crew, especially directors and DPs.3 I will also refer briefly to Sacrificed Youth and Red Sorghums, because the former is a significant film about Dai people made after Red Elephant and because the latter is the directorial debut of Zhang Yimou, who overtook Tian Zhuangzhuang and Chen Kaige in prominence after 1987.

Dai people in Chinese mainland cinema The Dai people in the PRC live mostly in the Yunnan province in the south of the nation. They are the same group of people as the dominant population in Thailand and Laos and are the second largest group in Myanmar. Until now, films about the Dai people in China have all been directed by Han Chinese. During Mao’s socialist era, the Dai characters were also played by Han performers. Representative works include Menglongsha (1960, dir. Wang Ping), Daizu de nüer/Dai Daughters (1960, dir. Xu Tao), and Moya dai/Dai Doctor (1960, dir. Xu Tao). They focused on the newly established PRC defending its national border against Guomindang espionage, the building of trust between the Han-dominated CCP and Dai people, and the liberation of Dai women from feudalist oppression, respectively. After the Cultural Revolution, films about Dai people featured a variety of themes. For example, Kongque gongzhu/Peacock Princess (1982, dir. Zhu Jinming) was based on an ancient legend of Dai people about their peacock dance. The aforementioned Sacrificed Youth focuses on a female Han sent-down youth who discovers her feminine beauty while staying with Dai people in a Dai community. In the 1990s, romance and marriage dominated films about Dai people, such as Dainü qinghen/A Dai Girl’s Hatred (1991, dir. Yao Shoukang), Dainü zhilian/The Love of a Dai Girl (1990, dir. Liang Xianglan), and Xiang’ai zai Xishuangbanna/Love at Xishuangbanna (1997, dir. Ge Xiaoying). Interestingly, since the advent of the 2000s, films about Dai people have vanished from Chinese cinema. According to Clark (1987) as mentioned in Chapter 1, this is probably because of the dimming of their exotic and erotic charm as a result of China’s further opening to the outside world. Red Elephant is the first film about Dai people made after the Cultural Revolution. It is also the first film about Dai children in mainland China. The film has three leading child characters, unprecedentedly played by ethnic minority children (Zhang, Xie, and Tian 1982), although one of them was of Hani ethnicity instead of Dai (Ma 2007). The film was made for the purpose of celebrating International Children’s Day in 1982. Compared with the Fifth-Generation’s later avant-garde works, it turned out to be their first feature film that was formally

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released in the mainland (Rao et al. 2011, 186). After Red Elephant, two more films were made about Dai children: Qiang cong beihou dalai/Shooting from Behind (1987, dir. Liu Qiulin) and Xiaoxiang Xi’na/Little Elephant Xi’na (1996, Wu Tianren). The former tells the story of a Dai boy who fights bravely against poachers in a forest. The latter bears much resemblance to Red Elephant, focusing on a pair of Dai siblings who rescue a wounded young elephant from a trap and protect it from being smuggled by poachers. The two themes that dominate films about Dai children – their heroism and affinity for animals – conform to the ‘little hero’ images of Han children in socialist cinema, as in Jimao xin/The Letter with Feathers (1954, dir. Shi Hui) (Zhang 2005; Donald 2005), and the close relationship between children, animals, and nature in Han-centred films such as Feilai de xianhe/The Crane Flying Back (1982, dir. Chen Jialin). However, the majority of films that set Chinese children in nature to interact with animals are indeed about ethnic minority children, such as Xiongmao lixian ji/Adventure of a Panda (1983, dir. Guang Yuan), Jinqiu luming/Jiruo and His Deer (1994, dir. Zhan Xiangchi), and Wohe shenma Chagan/My Avatar Horse (2012, dir. Hou Keming and Liu Shen). These three films were directed by Han Chinese and focus on children’s relationships with animals: respectively a Tibetan child’s with a panda, an Oroqen child’s with a deer, and a Mongol child’s with a horse. Of all animals, Dai children are closely related to elephants, as indicated by both Red Elephant and Little Elephant Xi’na. Not only are elephants smart animals with delicate feelings and a strong sense of family (An and Zhang 2006), but they also occupy a special status in Dai culture because of their geographical proximity to Dai living areas, their association with Dai people’s religion: Buddhism,4 Dai people’s religion, and their historical roles in warfare and farming (Yan 2007). Elephants are thus considered a symbol of auspiciousness and happiness among Dai people. China’s elephants are only found in the Yunnan province (An and Zhang 2006). Among all sorts of rare and valuable animals and birds in the deep forest of Xishuangbanna, there are wild elephants that local Dai people once captured and domesticated (Bao 1964). However, this tradition has been discarded in the past two hundred years, because of the sharp decrease of elephants in the region, owing to shrinking forest areas, the deteriorating ecological environment, and illegal hunting and killing (Mao 1994). Both Red Elephant and Little Elephant Xi’na were set in Xishuangbanna and touched on this issue.

Children, nature, and animals Why are children, ethnic minority children in particular, often constructed as being close to nature and animals in Chinese cinema? This question has global resonance. In a diversity of cultural backgrounds and representational forms, children are considered to bear a closer affinity with nature and animals. In the words of children’s geographer Stuart C. Aitken (2010, 13), ‘The idea that child wellbeing is intimately related to frequent and intimate connections with nature and wild things is pervasive in past and contemporary psychology and popular culture’. In the West, French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau is probably the

Children, nature, and animals 25 most prominent figure to conflate childhood with nature. In his romantic vision, he considers both childhood and nature innocent and pure. Childhood is the presocial condition of human beings, as nature is the pre-social condition of the classed, raced (modern) world (Rousseau [1762] 2003). Indeed, according to Aitken (2010, 19), before Rousseau, in the Puritanical culture of the 1600s, children were considered ‘wild, unruly, and unsocialised’ beings that had to be tamed. After Rousseau, US environmental movements based on the wildlife writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), and others advocate a return of human beings to nature. Both perspectives seek a link between humans (especially children) and nature. In modern sciences, Hall’s (1904) idea of sending children back to nature to rekindle their ‘genetic “memories”’ of early tribal societies, as suggested by Aitken (2010, 22), has largely shaped the modern public’s attitude towards children and nature. Furthermore, Louv (2008), a key advocate for nature’s physical, intellectual, and socialising benefits to children, attributes overweight, poor attention, and lack of empathy in contemporary children to their deficient contact with nature. In China, the Daoist philosophy emphasises ‘learning from nature’ or ‘following the natural way’ (daofa ziran). Children are believed to be particularly intimate with nature because the degree of freedom offered by nature coincides with the degree of freedom expected of a child’s primal mind (Zhang 2009). Moreover, nature provides a diversity of stimuli that can satisfy a child’s curious mind and rich imagination. Furthermore, in a child’s eyes, everything in nature, plants or animals, contains a soul. Children seem to be naturally gifted in communicating with them (Zhang 2009). As for children’s relationship with animals, one can see it as part of their relationship with nature, since in their natural form animals live in the wild. On the other hand, children and animals do share some properties. They are the something else, the ‘other species’, in the eyes of human adults (Aitken 2010, 17–18). To tame this type of ‘other species’, human beings hold ‘eerily schizophrenic’ attitudes (Grady and Mechling 2003, 93). In the case of animals, they both slaughter them for animal protein and at the same time attach emotions and meanings to their relationship with ‘companion animals’ (Grady and Mechling 2003, 93). In the case of children, they both restrict them to institutional spaces of families and schools and also treasure them as a precious link in generational bonding (Jenks 1996). Moreover, children are considered not much different from animals in terms of their original state of life (Zhang 2009). Adults admire their primitive force but contain it so that children can grow into mature human beings. Thus, a child’s growth is an ongoing process of eroding their original nature (Zhang 2009). This is especially true and intense in much-developed cultures, where many forces push a child’s taming process forward by alienating them from nature and animals. In the social context of China, with its rapid modernisation in Handominated areas, Chinese people’s awe and respect of nature and animals are best retained in ethnic minority communities (Qiu 2009). Thus, ethnic minority children’s affinity for animals in Chinese mainland cinema is often a result of

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Han filmmakers’ aspiration for a return to an equal relationship between human, nature, and other species. In this sense, the Dai children’s wildness, as represented in their adventure into a forest without their parents’ permission, to look for equally wild elephants, is precious. For Fifth-Generation filmmakers, this theme perfectly fits their status as newcomers in Chinese cinema and their passion for cinematic innovation. What needed to be decided was not the narrative of Red Elephant but instead how to render the Dai children’s relationship with nature and elephants. Their cinematic treatment, especially their revision to the original screenplay, deserves serious attention.

The narrative and narration of Red Elephant Red Elephant focuses on Yanluo, Yanshuai, and Yixiang, two Dai boys and a Dai girl respectively, who enter a forest to discover the secret of red elephants, as narrated in a story by an elderly Dai man. While in the forest, they experience wonders, challenges, dangers, and fun in their relationship with nature and each other. The film, as designed by the filmmakers, can be divided into five sections (Zhang, Xie, and Tian 1982). The first is a prologue in which an old man, surrounded by a group of children, recounts his encounter with a red elephant in a forest. After that, a red elephant appears in the village and then walks away. The second section focuses on the children’s first day in the forest. Everything is fresh, interesting, and lovely in their sight. They cross a river on a log, cut bamboo to cook rice, and catch fish as a meal. The third section depicts some unpleasant things happening to the children. Yanshuai wounds a deer and is alienated by his friends because of this. He later pours water into Yanluo’s powder barrel, which almost costs Yanluo his life when a leopard chases him. The two boys burst into a fight, and in anger, Yanshuai takes off on a separate route. Later, when Yanshuai is found trapped in a swamp, his friends try every means to rescue him. However, nobody can pull him out except for Yixiang’s dog. This section is most dramatic and hints that the forest is not always about flowers blooming and birds singing. The fourth section is a phase of relaxation after the swamp crisis and a night of horror. The children wake up to a peaceful morning bathed in sunshine. They then swim and play in a lake with great joy. The fifth, and last, section focuses on the children’s encounter with red elephants. They first rescue a young elephant from a trap and then make acquaintance with its parent, a red elephant. Their kindness to the elephants is returned by the elephants. Meanwhile, they discover the secret of ‘red’ elephants – the red colour on their skin comes from a type of red mud in the pond in which they roll. In the narrative structure above, the Dai children are apparently brave, talented, and pioneering, although they (mostly Yanshuai) also make mistakes. During their rescue of the young elephant in particular, they try different means, finally making a ramp out of the elephant’s trap for it to walk out. This same method is repeated to rescue the elephant in Little Elephant Xi’na. In characterisation, Yanluo is particularly strong in solving all kinds of problems. He is the one who finds a long log for the team to cross a river. He is the one who cuts bamboo and shapes it into a

Children, nature, and animals 27 container for rice and into a shovel to dig out a ramp. He is the one who senses the presence of a leopard without seeing it. Meanwhile, Yanluo is phallocentric, as indicated by his initial refusal to take Yixiang with him. He quotes his grandpa’s saying that it is a bad luck to meet a girl (or woman) in a forest. In general, Yanluo resembles many taciturn, patriarchal male characters in One and Eight, Yellow Earth, and On the Hunting Ground. On the other hand, Yixiang is an equally strong-minded and intelligent girl. She takes the initiative to enter the forest and acutely senses the same intention in the boys to seek wild elephants. Her personality resembles that of the female protagonists in Yellow Earth and Red Sorghums, Cuiqiao and Jiuer, who are resolved to escape from doomed marriages arranged for them as poor farmer’s daughters. With his combination of masculine and feminine qualities, Yanshuai is somewhat situated in the middle negotiating between the other two. In the following paragraphs, I focus on how the filmmakers render the aforementioned narrative and characterisation in cinematic language, which shares much with their avant-garde works in 1984, albeit sometimes different. For convenience of analysis, I divide their techniques into three main groups on the basis of key scenes. However, multiple techniques are often used in a given scene. Close shots, low-key lighting, and the colour red in the prologue The prologue of Red Elephant consists of a series of close shots and close-ups in a dark and poorly lit indoor environment, starting with a water-smoking pipe. The close range of the shots reveals the children listening with attentive faces and bated breath to an old man’s story. The shots sometimes pan over the faces of the children and the storyteller and sometimes pause on a child’s reaction to the old man’s vivid account. At the point when the old man describes a noise he heard in a forest as ‘getting louder and louder’, a bamboo basket falls on a boy’s head, making the children burst into giggles. Afterwards, they soon resume their quiet attention to the story, and close shots continue to focus on the faces of the characters. However, the faces are often not fully displayed on screen; nor are they placed in the centre of the frame. There is a feeling that part of film screen has been chopped off. The appearance of a red elephant outdoors at dusk is equally dominated by close shots and low-key lighting. First, there is a close shot of the elephant’s feet, then a low-angle shot focused on its face. This is followed by close shots of villagers stepping outside their buildings and running on the village roads. These close shots highlight the huge size of the elephant, as well as the chaotic situation of the villagers running around to avoid the elephant. On the soundtrack, the noisy moment of the crowd is followed by a quiet moment that amplifies the sound of the elephant’s footsteps as it approaches the village. There are also loud sounds of racks collapsing and tableware breaking on the path of the elephant. When a young man is about to shoot the elephant, an old man stops him and suggests lighting a fire instead. After that, a close-up of a red-hued elephant appears on screen. When the elephant raises its trunk and trumpets, the frame freezes. The film’s title then appears in red, filling up most of the frame and adding a further reddish tinge to the image.

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The whole prologue reveals the filmmakers’ preference for low-key lighting, incomplete composition, silence and sounds, and especially close shots. Without establishing the location or direction with a long or overview shot, these opening close shots quickly draw the audience into the film’s diegetic space but simultaneously make them uncomfortable. This situation also occurs in the prologue and the opening sequence of One and Eight, which starts with some historical pictures of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Then close-up snapshots of the leading characters dominate the screen. The images are put together irregularly, part of them chopped and off screen. After the film title, the screen turns black. The audience can see nothing but can hear the buzzing of mosquitoes and the sounds of coughing, sighing, and snoring. When the images reappear, the audience still cannot figure out the location or the characters’ activity. It looks like an interior of a shack but is dark and poorly lit. Many close shots are used, focusing on the faces of the characters and their actions, but not placing them in the centre of the frames. Sometimes a part of their faces is left off screen. The shots create a sense of discomfort in the audience, since they do not offer an overview of the environment or follow a traditional way of composition. When Wang Jin, an instructor in the Eighth Route Army who is framed by spies, is put into the shack, there are several close shots of imprisoned individuals staring at him in freeze-frame. When Wang Jin asks to report to cadre Xu, who is responsible for transporting these captured criminals, a door opens and a torchlight shines through, revealing the prisoners’ escape route. However, the audience finds out that the criminals have been moved to another location the next morning: a deep, dry well, with no door leading to the outside. The wedding ceremony in the opening sequence of Yellow Earth also employs many close-ups of the faces and heads of villagers, who wear white headscarves. They are often shown in freeze-frame, sometimes taking up the whole frame and at others located at the bottom with some part of their faces chopped off. The colour red in the prologue of Red Elephant is also distinctive. Of course, it corresponds to the skin colour of a red elephant – the leading animal character in the film. However, it also resonates with the red colour of the bride’s sedan, the door curtains, the red dress in the wedding ceremony in Yellow Earth, and the red jacket of Cuiqiao, who will soon face her own arranged marriage at a young age. The colour red also dominates the opening sequence of Red Sorghum, which also features a wedding ceremony where Jiuer wears a red jacket and appears in a red sedan. Moreover, in the last shot of this film, when Jiuer is killed by the Japanese, the frame fills with the colour of red sorghum wine. The colour red arguably represents the passion of these leading characters – Yixiang wears a red dress as well (discussed later) – as well as the passion of the directors and cinematographers of these films. Disproportionate framings, medium shots, and landscapes in outdoor scenes Inspired by the story they heard, Yanluo and Yanshuai decide to look for red elephants in a forest near their village. When they run away from the village, they

Children, nature, and animals 29 are placed on the top margin of a long shot. As they are about to enter the forest, they are placed at the very bottom of the screen. Such framing is unusual in the Chinese cinematic tradition, which places the main character(s) in the centre of the frame.5 In another sequence, when the children have a good time with the young elephant that is released from the trap and later make friends with the red elephant, the children and the elephants are situated near a pond. It is at this location that the children discover the secret of the skin colour of red elephants. At the end of this sequence, an extreme long shot shows the location of the pool inside the forest and the position of the children and the elephants near the pool. Like the moment in which the children first enter the forest, they are situated at the bottom of the frame, occupying a small proportion of screen space. Such disproportionate framing continues when the children bid farewell to the elephants. A long shot shows the children turning their heads back on the right side of the screen, while the two elephants are situated on the left of the screen. The space in between is huge, while elephants and children look small in proportion. A moment of silence is broken when the children run back happily as the young elephant runs towards them. When the red elephant carries the children on its back at the end of the film, it marches towards the audience in an open clearing outside the forest, in a frame with low bushes in the foreground that occupies a large proportion of the screen. It is evident that even in a film about children, the Fifth-Generation filmmakers could not help experimenting with unusual framing. Examples of this type of framing are numerous in One and Eight, On the Hunting Ground, and Yellow Earth. Take Yellow Earth as an example. Before the wedding ceremony, the film starts with landscape shots that show the northern Shaanxi plateaus made of rocks and dirt. The plateaus often occupy most of the frames, while the sky takes up only a small proportion on the top. Then, in a huge contrast, a landscape shot with the sky constituting the majority of the frame appears. On a horizontal line between the sky and the earth, at the bottom of this shot, Gu Qing, an Eighth Route Army soldier on a mission to collect folk songs in the region, walks towards the screen. While he walks, several other landscape shots, with the earth dominating the frames, are superimposed with the image of Gu Qing approaching the foreground. Throughout the film, it is common to see the landscape of plateaus squeezing the human characters to the margins of the frame. Moreover, in Yellow Earth, the landscape shots are often edited directly to close shots of the human characters, without a transition of medium shots, causing discomfort in the audience’s viewing experience.6 This however does not occur in Red Elephant. When the children are inside the forest, their actions are often shown in medium or full shots, which are more acceptable to a child audience because they reveal a character’s action in relation to other characters and to their physical environment. As the filmmakers keep their target audience – children between ages 5 and 13 – in mind (Zhang, Xie, and Tian 1982), this choice of cinematic language is understandable. In contrast, close shots and long shots dominate One and Eight, Yellow Earth, and On the Hunting Ground. A minimal use of medium shots was meant to challenge cinematic tradition and create an extreme viewing experience.

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What remains the same is the filmmakers’ careful selection of shot locations. The Fifth-Generation filmmakers were attentive to settings and landscape shots. The plateaus (in Yellow Earth) and the grasslands (in On the Hunting Ground) were all fully exploited in their shots to convey extra meanings and emotions. If the backdrop of a forest in Red Elephant was more of an imperative of the film script that nonetheless attracted them, the choice of some specific locations inside the forest was definitely deliberate. One of them was a rock pile. After Yanluo and Yanshuai’s fight over the water-soaked powder barrel, the children are placed among a pile of rocks. In a long shot, Yixiang’s dog can be seen sitting on a huge flat stone. When the dog walks to a side, the long shot cuts to a close shot of Yanluo, leaning against a massive rock.7 Ensuing shots show Yanshuai lying on a rock playing with a weed in his mouth and Yixiang sitting on another rock. Then a high-angle full-view shot reveals their positions relative to each other (Figure 2.1). Yixiang is distinctly placed in the middle of the upper frame dressed in red, while the boys occupy the left and right margins of the middle and lower frame respectively. The triangle created by the children exhibits the tension in their relationship at that moment. Such shot composition is orthodox in the sense that its symbolic meaning is obvious. However, the fact that part of Yanluo’s body is cut off the frame is a feature of Fifth-Generation filmmaking. Sound effects and shots on animals in two xieyi moments Another specific location in the forest is a swamp. According to the filmmakers’ account, they deliberately designed the scene at the swamp to substitute for a simple apology made by Yanshuai once he reunites with his friends in the original screenplay (Zhang, Xie, and Tian 1982). In this sequence, the film not only

Figure 2.1 The children positioned in a triangle on a rock pile (Red Elephant)

Children, nature, and animals 31 highlights Yanluo’s effort to rescue Yanshuai but also places Yixiang’s dog in a leading role as the fourth character in the adventure into the forest. The filmmakers initiate this first of all through a close shot of the dog. Then a type of dynamic music is played on the soundtrack to kick off the dog’s act of running towards the swamp in slow motion. During the rescue process, fast-tempo music is first used when Yanshuai catches hold of the dog’s collar. This is followed by grand slow music as they approach the shore. The sequence ends with a relaxing and merry melody when Yanshuai returns to his friends’ side, happily hugging Yanluo and patting the dog in gratitude. This sequence shows a kind of equal relationship between animals and children, even before the appearance of the red elephant. Moreover, it shows the filmmakers’ creative use of music without dialogue to generate a mood and an atmosphere. This kind of xieyi moment exists in One and Eight as well, when the eight criminals are permitted to join the battle against the Japanese. In slow motion, the film shows Wang Jin leading the other prisoners, rushing out of a shelter with various weapons in their hands, shouting ‘Chinese people, come with me and march on!’ to the accompaniment of deep, solemn music. Another scene that was deliberately designed by the filmmakers was a peaceful morning after a scary night. According to the filmmakers, they wanted to create a sense of beauty, joy, and victory after the children conquered horror and fear on the previous day (Zhang, Xie, and Tian 1982). A close shot first moves from one child to another, revealing their sleeping postures on tree branches. In a zoom-out shot, a huge banyan tree comes into view. As in the prologue, the filmmakers start the sequence with a close shot of the children instead of an establishing landscape shot. When the children open their eyes, there are close shots of colourful birds chirping and monkeys swinging. The lively sight of the animals cheers up the children. Yanshuai climbs onto a top branch and sees a river nearby. The shots of animals in Red Elephant differ from those of the rabbits, gazelles, turkeys, and so forth on the grasslands in On the Hunting Ground. In previous shots, Red Elephant had shown the children’s affinity with animals. When Yanshuai wounds a deer with Yanluo’s hunting rifle, the film shows Yanluo and Yixiang getting angry with him. They try to comfort the wounded deer, and Yixiang bandages its leg with her handkerchief. More importantly, the film shows a companion deer standing nearby. When the children leave, the companion deer comes to the side of the wounded one. The background music is a sentimental melody on a violin. Such treatment is different from On the Hunting Ground. In that films, shots of little animals focus on their last breath and final struggle for life under the gunshots of hunters or as the prey of hunting dogs. There are also startling images of cutting open the body of an animal. The reason for such a difference in treatment is clear. Red Elephant is a film about children, and children are believed to be dear to animals. In contrast, On the Hunting Ground sends a message that it is a cruel world for animals because they can be killed at any time. However, there are at least rules governing this massacre, indicated by the hunting rule passed down from Genghis Khan in the 13th century to the Mongols. It is unlike the human

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world, in which persecution can occur without rules, as in the Cultural Revolution (Clark 2005; Lo 2009). When the children swim in the river, the film first shows the boys diving into the water and swimming through waterweeds. A zoom-in shot follows, revealing Yixiang washing her hair while standing in the river. Her body is wrapped in a red dress in a Dai style. Although she is a young girl, her feminine figure echoes the Dai women in Sacrificed Youth, where a Han sent-down youth transforms herself by changing her grey clothes into a Dai-style dress. That film also features Dai women swimming in a lake after their day’s work. When Yixiang is dragged under the water by the boys, all three children swim underwater to the accompaniment of soothing background music. The whole sequence does not contain any dialogue but conveys a strong sense of harmony between nature and children.

Conclusion In ordinary cases, films about ethnic minority children and animals would emphasise the ideology of human–nature harmony in ethnic minority cultures, to show the contrast with the dominant Han culture, which prioritises human needs at the cost of other species and the natural environment in its modernisation drive. However, apart from this agenda, Red Elephant carries extra significance because of its special status as the first collective work of the Fifth-Generation filmmakers. Although many critics do not consider this child-centred film as a representative work of the Fifth-Generation filmmakers, compared with One and Eight, Yellow Earth, and On the Hunting Ground, it does contain many of the artistic techniques that the filmmakers applied to their later works. The film’s narrative conforms to the pioneering spirit of the Fifth-Generation filmmakers, and its narration proves that it was a training ground for their technical breakthroughs. The ethnic minority children became the stand-ins for these filmmakers. Besides Tian Zhuangzhuang and Zhang Yimou, the careers of the other members of the production team of Red Elephant are more or less related to children or ethnic minorities. For example, Zhang Jianya, one of the three directors, famously directed San Mao congjun ji/San Mao Joins the Army (1992), a comedy that focuses on a Han boy, San Mao, who transforms from a waif into a solider but cannot escape the fate of being homeless again in the end. From starting as a set designer, Feng Xiaoning turned to direction and made a few creative films about Han children, such as Daqi ceng xiaoshi/The Ozone Layer Vanishes (1990), a science fiction movie, and Zhanzheng ziwu xian/The Meridian of War (1990), a war movie. He also directed Honghe gu/Red River Valley (1996), which was about Tibetans, and Gada Meilin (2002), which was about Mongols. It is apparent that their experience with Red Elephant left an impact on the future filmmaking careers of everyone associated with the making of that movie.

Notes 1 Xie Xiaojing became a teacher at BFA, while Zhang Jianya and Feng Xiaoning made their names in the early 1990s as directors (see details in the conclusion of this chapter).

Children, nature, and animals 33 2 Zhiqing are those Han Chinese ‘urban middle school students who were sent to receive re-education from the peasants’ during Mao’s initiative of ‘Up to the Mountain and Down to the Countryside Movement’ (Meng 2015, 672). 3 Of course, Tian Zhuangzhuang, as one of the directors of Red Elephant, directed On the Hunting Ground. Among the associate DPs of Red Elephant, Zhang Yimou became the DP of One and Eight (with Xiao Feng) and Yellow Earth, while Hou Yong and Lü Yue were the DPs of On the Hunting Ground. 4 Buddhist accounts state that the last incarnation of Sakyamuni before he became a Buddha was an elephant (Yan 2007). 5 Early Chinese cinema was influenced by traditional Chinese theatre. As if onstage, main characters were usually placed in the centre of the frame. According to Chen Xihe (1986), shadow play as a fundamental concept in the Chinese understanding of cinema did not change until the mid 1980s. 6 According to Li Jinsheng (1995), since the First-Generation filmmakers, there had been a tradition of ‘three-step’ presentation in photography in Chinese cinema: from the long shot revealing the character’s environment, through the medium shot revealing the character’s actions, to the close shot or close-up revealing the character’s emotions. 7 This is an indication that omission of medium shots do exist in Red Elephant, although they are less frequent.

References Aitken, Stuart C. 2010. “The Edge of the World: Embattled Leagues of Children and Seals Teeter on the Rim.” Yearbook of the APCG (The Association of Pacific Coast Geographers), 72 (1): 12–32. An, Rui, and Bin Zhang. 2006. “Xiang wenhua de chuancheng [Inheritance of Elephant Culture].” Yesheng dongwu, (2): 4–5. Bao, Fan. 1964. “Shuo Xishuangbanna de xiang [Elephants in Xishuangbanna].” Zhongguo minzu, (5): 48. Chen, Xihe. 1986. “Zhongguo dianying meixue de zai renshi: Ping ‘Yingxi juben zuofa’ [Reconsiderating Chinese Film Aesthetics: A Critique of Shadow-Play Screenwriting Methods].” Dangdai dianying, (1): 84–92. Chow, Rey. 1995. Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press. Clark, Paul. 1987. “Ethnic Minorities in Chinese Films: Cinema and the Exotic.” East-West Film Journal, 1 (2): 15–31. Clark, Paul. 2005. “From the Margins: Tian Zhuangzhuang’s Films.” In Reinventing China: A Generation and Its Films, 106–121. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. Dai, Jinhua. 1993. Dianying lilun yu piping shouce [Handbook of Film Theory and Criticism]. Beijing: Kexue jishu wenxian chubanshe. Donald, Stephanie Hemelryk. 2005. Little Friends: Children’s Film and Media Culture in China. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Grady, John, and Jay Mechling. 2003. “Editors’ Introduction: Putting Animals in the Picture.” Visual Studies, 18 (2): 92–95. doi: 10.1080/14725860310001631967. Hall, G. Stanley. 1904. Adolescence; Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education. New York: D. Appleton and Company. urn:oclc:record:1038782757. He, Shaojun, and Kaixiong Pan. 1989. “‘Diwu dai’: Wenhua pinfa xia de yuwang kuozhang [‘The Fifth Generation’: Desire Expansion in the Context of Cultural Meagreness].” Dianying yishu, (1): 9–14. Jenks, Chris. 1996. Childhood. London: Routledge.

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Li, Jinsheng. 1995. “Lun Zhang Shichuan dui Zhongguo zaoqi dianying fazhan de gongxian [Zhang Shichuan’s Contribution to Early Chinese Cinema].” Dianying yishu, (2): 37–42. Lo, Kwai-Cheung. 2009. “Two Moments of Ethnic Representation in Tian Zhuangzhuang’s Minority Films.” Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 3 (3): 231–247. Louv, Richard. 2008. Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. New York: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. Ma, Li. 2007. “Lun xin shiqi Zhongguo ertong dianying zhong de ertong wenhua shiyu sanwei [Three Dimensions of Children’s Cultural Vision in Films about Chinese Children in the New Era].” Dianying wenxue, (15): 17–19. Mao, Dechang. 1994. “Daizu yu xiang [Dai Group and Elephants].” Simao shizhuan xuebao, (1): 64–68. Meng, Jing. 2015. “Prohibition and Production of the Past: Representation of the Cultural Revolution in TV dramas.” Media, Culture & Society, 37 (5): 671–685. doi: 10.1177/ 0163443715577240. Ni, Zhen. 2003. Memoirs from the Beijing Film Academy: The Genesis of China’s Fifth Generation. Translated by Chris Berry. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Qiu, Rui. 2009. “Guanzhu dongwu benti de renwen sixiang: Lun Gerileqige·Heihe zuopin de shengtai yiyun [Humanity Thoughts on Caring for Animals: A Discussion of Ecological Implications of Gerileqige·Heihe’s works].” Mudanjiang jiaoyu xueyuan xuebao, (1): 17–18. Rao, Shuguang et al. 2011. Zhongguo shaoshu minzu dianying shi [Film History of Chinese Minorities (English Translation on the Book Cover)]. Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. (1762) 2003. Emile: Or Treatise on Education. Translated by W. H. Payne. New York: Prometheus Books. Silbergeld, Jerome. 1999. China into Film: Frames of Reference in Contemporary Chinese Cinema. London: Reaktion Books. Xie, Fei. 2012. “Tan shaoshu minzu dianying de chuangzuo [On the Production of Ethnic Minority Film].” In Quanqiuhua yu minzu dianying: Zhongguo minzu ticai dianying de lishi, xianzhuang he weilai [Globalisation and Ethnic Film: The History, Present, and Future of Chinese Ethnic Minority Themed Film], edited by Song Niu and Shuguang Rao, 8–14. Beijing: Zhongguo guangbo dianshi chubanshe. Yan, Feng. 2007. “Redai conglin de gudai wenming: Lun Yunnan Daizu de xiang wenhua [Ancient Civilisation in a Jungle Forest: A Discussion of Dai Group’s Elephant Culture in Yunnan].” Yunnan shehui kexue, (1): 89–94. Zhang, Jianya, Xiaojing Xie, and Zhuangzhuang Tian. 1982. “Hongxiang daoyan chuangzuo tansuo [Explorations in Directing Red Elephant].” Dianying, (9): 14–21. Zhang, Yabin. 1990. “Zuowei yici yishu yundong de Zhongguo xin dianying [Chinese New Cinema as an Art Movement].” Dianying yishu, (3): 148–162. Zhang, Yiwu. 1993. “Quanqiu xing hou zhimin yujing zhong de Zhang Yimou [Zhang Yimou in the Global Discourse of Post-Colonialism].” Dangdai dianying, (3): 20–27. Zhang, Yuling. 2009. “Shengming zhuti de tongxin shouhu: Shen Shixi dongwu xiaoshuo de ertong wenxue yiyi [Childlike Protection to the Motif of Life: The Significance of Shen Shixi’s Novels about Animals to Children’s Literature].” Jiaoyu tansuo, 4 (4): 86–89. Zhang, Zhilu. 2005. Zhongguo shaonian ertong dianying shilun [A History of Chinese Children and Youth’s Film]. Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe. Zhong, Dafeng, and Xiaoming Shu. 1995. Zhongguo dianying shi [A History of Chinese Cinema]. Beijing: Zhongguo guangbo dianshi chubanshe.

3

Natural landscapes as musical spaces Uyghur children’s yearnings in a national narrative

This chapter draws on postulations of film theorists Richard Dyer (2000, 2002) and Kenneth MacKinnon (2000) on spaces in musical films, to explore the significance of natural landscapes in a film directed by a mainstream filmmaker in China. The film being discussed, The Drummer of Huoyanshan (1991), is a musical, and it is the first feature film in the PRC to feature Uyghur children in Xinjiang as leading characters. The film’s director, Guang Chunlan, is of Xibo ethnicity, but she is famous for making movies about Uyghurs in a variety of film genres, especially the musical. Chinese film and culture critic Dai Jinhua (1994) claims that Guang is a mainstream filmmaker who has created a unique musical style with minority characteristics. In Dai’s (1994) view, Guang is no different from her predecessor Wang Ping or contemporary Wang Haowei, as a Chinese female director.1 They all serve as the backbone of their respective stateowned film studios and make excellent mainstream films. In contemporary China, a ‘mainstream film’ can be either an entertainment genre film or a ‘main melody film’, with explicit ideological messages of the party-state (see Chapter 1). In the case of Guang, Dai (1994) asserts that, as a filmmaker based in Tianshan Film Studio in Xinjiang, Guang has emphatically pursued a type of social educational function in her films. However, Dai does not provide further details as to what kind of social educational function, for whom, and how it is achieved. Nor does she elaborate on Guang’s musical style. As a follow-up to Dai’s claim about the distinctness of Guang’s musicals, subsequent researchers discovered that Guang was adept at integrating musical numbers with film narrative (Wu 2015). For example, to achieve a seamless combination, her musicals often centre on art troupes recruiting new members or a group of music or dance fans entertaining themselves (Zhang 2010). With regard to her status as a mainstream filmmaker, researchers have further highlighted Guang’s persistence on exhibiting only ‘positive and beautiful images’ of Xinjiang and Xinjiang people (Zhang 2010; Wu 2015). This is based on a famous remark that Guang (1997) made: ‘Mom has a pair of beautiful eyes as well as an ugly scar on her forehead. Instead of displaying the scar, I will present to the outside her beautiful eyes’. But what are these ‘positive and beautiful images’, and in whose eyes? This chapter examines landscapes in The Drummer of Huoyanshan as musical spaces of Uyghur child characters. It argues that Guang’s selection of certain

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landscapes facilitates her film’s social educational function, and the so-called positive and beautiful images of Xinjiang and Xinjiang people are actually Han centred or, to put it differently, in accordance with Han ideologies. While musical spaces in the movie are emphatically established in rather ‘natural’ and ‘primitive’ landscapes in Xinjiang, urban spaces provided by Han-initiated modernisation are represented as advanced, serious, and offering high-quality education and upward mobility. The former is used to manifest the children’s yearnings for the latter. Thus, the Uyghur children become symbols of ideal citizens expected of ethnic minorities by a Han-dominated nation-state. In the context of China’s emerging urbanisation in the early 1990s, Guang’s employment of space constitutes another characteristic of her musicals, which works in line with her identity as a mainstream filmmaker.

Xinjiang and Xinjiang/Tianshan Film Studio In the official discourse of the PRC, Xinjiang has been an integral part of China since the Han dynasty (206 BCE–24 CE). The world-famous Silk Road that linked Chang’an to Rome was established in this period. During the Qing dynasty, the central government strengthened its rule over Xinjiang, unifying it as a single entity under the prefecture and county (junxian) system (Millward 2007). In 1949, Xinjiang was ‘peacefully liberated’ by the PLA. Six years later, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region was established and became the largest province in the PRC. Situated in the nation’s northwest, it shares borders with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, and Mongolia and has forged strong ties with these countries. The region is considered to be of ‘strategic’ and ‘geopolitical’ significance to the PRC (Clarke and Hayes 2016, 1). Not only is it rich in natural resources, but it also serves as a gateway to China’s economic and political connections with its Central Asia neighbours (Clarke 2011).2 There are 13 ‘Indigenous peoples’ (shiju minzu) in Xinjiang. They are those ethnic groups that had lived in Xinjiang before the establishment of the PRC (Li 2009). They include Uyghur, Han, Kazak, Hui, Kyrgyz, Mongol, Tajik, Xibo, Manchu, Ozbek, Russian, Daur, and Tatar. According to the 2000 census, people of these groups comprise nearly 87 per cent of Xinjiang’s total population (Li 2009). Although Uyghurs remain the largest population group, its overall proportion has dwindled since 1949, in contrast to Han. In 1949, Uyghurs took up 76 per cent of the region’s population (He and Guo 2000, 147), while Han constituted merely 6.7 per cent (Iredale, Bilik, and Su 2001, 166). However, by 2000, Han people had reached 39 per cent of Xinjiang’s population (Li 2009), and Uyghurs occupied only 42 per cent at around the same period (Statistical Bureau of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region 2012). The increase of Han Chinese in the region is largely owed to ‘government programs’ and ‘private economic motivations’ (Clarke and Hayes 2016, 4). For a long time, Xinjiang was a place of exile in Han imagination: barren, backward, and isolated. However, since the central government kicked off the campaign of the Great Western Development (xibu da kaifa) in 2000, Xinjiang has instantly

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become a land of opportunities (Kardos 2008). Although the Han people in Xinjiang are far from being a unified group, and Indigenous Han residents and their offspring feel as strong a sense of belonging to Xinjiang as the Uyghurs (O’Brien 2016), the recent influx of Han migrants has intensified the tension between the Muslim Uyghurs and the Han Chinese. This is evidenced by the many attacks, bombings, riots, and uprisings that have occurred in Xinjiang and the rest of the nation in the recent decade (Clarke and Hayes 2016). In the rhetoric of the West, the ‘Xinjiang Problem’ is an issue of ‘free markets, democracy and human rights’ (Clarke 2016, 225). However, in the CCP discourse, it is ‘a “developmental” one that at its core is concerned with state-building and the increase of China’s material power’ (Clarke 2016, 226).3 The state-owned Xinjiang Film Studio (known after the Cultural Revolution as Tianshan Film Studio) has played a significant role in producing films about ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. The studio was founded in 1959 under the impetus of the warm reception of the Shanghai Film Studio’s production of Hasen and Jiamila (1955, dir. Wu Yonggang), the first movie about ethnic minorities (Kazak) in Xinjiang in the PRC. Between 1959 and 1966, the studio produced a series of feature films about ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, either on its own or in collaboration with other studios, such as Liangdai ren/Two Generations (1960, dir. Chen Gang), Yuanfang xinghuo/Distant Fireworks (1961, Ou Fan), and Lüzhou kaige/Oasis Eulogy (1959, dir. Zhao Ming). Other big studios in the nation also produced a few well-acclaimed films about ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, such as Bingshan shang de laike/Visitor on the Ice Mountain (1963, dir. Zhao Xinshui) (Tajik) and Tianshan de honghua/Red Flower in Tianshan (1964, dir. Cui Wei) (Kazak). In general, all these films were directed by Han filmmakers, and most of them were about Uyghurs. The themes of these films included socialist revolution and construction, class struggle, anti-espionage activities, and ethnic unity. Thanks to a rather pervasive distribution and projection system that was simultaneously established in Xinjiang, these films were able not only to entertain the local audience but also to educate them with the ideologies and policies of the party-state (Hasimu 1997). After the Cultural Revolution, Tianshan Film Studio resumed its production, which had been disrupted for a decade. The first film produced was Xiangdao/The Guide (1979), directed by the Fourth-Generation filmmakers Xie Fei and Zheng Dongtian, along with their teacher Wang Xinyu, all based at BFA. Although Han filmmakers still dominated the studio’s film production in the 1980s, Uyghur filmmakers started to emerge, including Abudula·Maimaiti and Tuyigong·Aihemi. Mostly significantly, Guang Chunlan was invited to join the studio. Her films about Uyghurs, such as Xingfu zhige/Song of Happiness (1981), Rena de hunshi/Rena’s Marriage (1982), Budang yanyuan de guniang/A Girl not to be an Actress (1983), Xibu wukuang/Crazy Dancers (1988), and Kuaile shijie/The Merry World (1989), were so enjoyed by the local audience that they started to bring profits to the studio (Hasimu 1997). Overall, the studio managed to produce all the films about ethnic minorities in Xinjiang during this period. Its total output, 30 films or so, comprised movies of different genres – comedies, musicals, thrillers, romances,

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and so on. They delved into both the history and current scenario of Xinjiang, and the Uyghur remained the most represented group. In the 1990s, Guang Chunlan continued her high productivity, and her films remained popular among the Xinjiang audience. Except for The Drummer of Huoyanshan, which was produced by CCFS, all of her other films, such as Nanzihan wuting de nü mingxing/An Actress in Drag (1990), Qiuai bie dongdui/Strive for Love (1992), Guntang de qingchun/The Hot Youth (1993), and Gebi laike/A Guest at Gobi (1995) were produced by Tianshan Film Studio. During this period, the Uyghur filmmaker Aihemi completed his second movie, Maolazhaiding (1991), depicting a historical figure in Xinjiang who was as humorous and intelligent as the character of Afanti in the Beijing Film Studio’s earlier production, Afanti (1980, dir. Xiao Lang). On the whole, Tianshan Film Studio decreased its overall yield in this period (Jilili 2016, 105), corresponding to a general decline of film productions on ethnic minorities across the nation at that time (see Chapter 1). However, in the new century, Tianshan Film Studio has revived its production. Although Guang Chunlan has retired,4 new talent has emerged, such as locally raised Han filmmaker Gao Feng and Uyghur filmmaker Xierzhati Yahefu. To sum up, among the hundred or so feature films about ethnic minorities in Xinjiang produced so far, the majority of them were made by Han filmmakers who live either inside or outside Xinjiang. A small portion was made by Uyghur filmmakers. Guang Chunlan belongs to a third group of filmmakers. Although she is neither a Han nor a Uyghur, most of her films focus on Uyghurs.5 Guang also differs from other groups of filmmakers in terms of her experiences of leaving Xinjiang in early childhood and then coming back.6 In the eyes of Zhang Hua (2010), a foremost critic of Guang’s films, Guang’s exilic and return relationship with Xinjiang renders her vision of Xinjiang different from that of a complete insider’s or a complete outsider’s. In her view, Guang has largely broken away from a cinematic tradition established by outsiders in constructing Xinjiang as exotic, and landscapes in her films are less about spectacle than integral living environments of characters (Zhang 2010). Ironically however, and probably for the sake of achieving her goal of social educational function and presenting positive and beautiful images of Xinjiang and Xinjiang people, primitiveness and exoticism are at play in The Drummer of Huoyanshan, as this chapter will demonstrate. This argument is particularly pertinent to the genre that Guang enjoys the most: the musical. Among all the genres that Guang has actively explored, such as the western (e.g. Shenmi de tuodui/The Mysterious Camel Team, 1984), suspense (e.g. Meiren zhisi/Death of a Beauty, 1986), and comedy (e.g. Maimaiti waizhuan/Mai’s Love, 1987), the musical is her favourite. She made over a dozen musicals in the 1980s and 1990s. Indeed, all her Xinjiang films have elements of song and dance (Wu 2015). To better understand Guang’s Uyghur-themed musicals, I place them in the historical context of Chinese musicals.

Chinese musicals and Guang Chunlan’s musicals As a genre, the Chinese musical appeared almost simultaneously with the Hollywood musical, but it evolved differently and remains underdeveloped. In the

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1930s and 1940s, Hollywood musicals were imported to Chinese metropolises such as Shanghai. Simultaneously, Chinese filmmakers made musicals by drawing on both Hollywood experiences and Chinese traditions (Li 2000). Eminent works include Yuguang qu/Song of the Fishermen (1933, dir. Cai Chusheng) and Malu tianshi/Angels on the Road (1937, dir. Yuan Muzhi). Both depict the sufferings of ‘singsong girls’ (Yeh and Tang 2010) who live at the bottom of the social ladder under the Guomindang regime. In the socialist period, opera films developed rapidly, such as Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai (1954, dir. Sang Hu and Huang Sha) and Tianxian pei/The Heavenly Match (1955, dir. Shi Hui). Like early Chinese musicals, most opera films focused on Han women – the ‘opera girls’ (Yeh and Tang 2010). An exception to this ‘feminisation’ tendency of Chinese musicals were the revolutionary musicals and model operas in the 1960s and 1970s, such as Honghu chiwei dui/The Red Guards on Honghu Lake (1961, dir. Chen Fangqian) and Hongdeng ji/The Red Lantern (1970, dir. Cheng Yin). These films powerfully showcased the great passion of Han Chinese for Mao’s socialist cause (Chen 2010). However, this period of Han men singing on screen did not last long because, fundamentally, Chinese men are reserved in personality under the strong influence of the Confucius ideology of being a gentleman of few words (Xu 1988). This trait contrasts with the free and outspoken spirit of the musical (Sun 2017) and doomed the development of the musical in China, which is primarily a patriarchal society. Thus, it is no wonder that the musical is not considered a national style of Chinese cinema (Yeh and Tang 2010). Nonetheless, in certain historical periods, the musical managed to occupy a prominent position in Chinese cinema. This was when ethnic minority characters, especially female characters, became the focus of screen attention. In the Mao era, Wuduo Jinhua/Five Golden Flowers (1959, dir. Wang Jiayi), Liu Sanjie/Third Sister Liu (1960, dir. Su Li), and Ashima (1964, dir. Liu Qiong) all featured ethnic minority women singing and dancing. These musicals achieved great success by incorporating minority cultures into political discourses of socialist construction and national integration (Clark 1987). Moreover, Third Sister Liu became the first Chinese musical set in real locations – the natural landscapes of southern China (Hao 2010). However, the success of Chinese musicals did not last long. After the Cultural Revolution, with the decline of ethnic minority–themed films in general (see Chapter 1), the glory of Chinese musicals waned. In the Han-dominated Chinese-language scholarship, Tian Zhuangzhuang’s Yaogun qingnian/Rock Youth (1988) was the only revival in the 1980s, while the genre vanished completely from the Chinese cinematic stage in the 1990s (Hou 2001). Researchers have obviously ignored Guang Chunlan’s musicals in China’s northwest. Like her predecessors, Guang often placed ethnic minority women in noticeable roles. However, both men and women sing and dance in her musicals. Moreover, Guang is keen on presenting Xinjiang children’s passion for music and dance. Her debut film Baobei/Babe (1980) about Han children indicated her interest in child characters, and there has been a variety of minor child characters in her Xinjiang films. However, it was The Drummer of Huoyanshan that fulfilled her desire to make a movie about Uyghur children, who amazed her, as

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they seem to be able to ‘sing when they can talk’ and ‘dance when they can walk’ (Guang 1997). As with Guang’s other musicals, this film revolves around the recruitment of an art troupe. A talented hand drummer, a Uyghur boy, is discovered by the Urumqi Children’s Troupe when the troupe performs in his hometown village: the village of Huoyanshan. However, the film is special because it chose the real location of the Mazar village of Tuyuq county in Turpan as the locale of Huoyanshan (Wang 2015). According to studies on cinematic landscapes, using found landscapes loaded with sociocultural meanings can lend density to a film by evoking an ‘underground reservoir’ of connotations (Aumont 2006, 5). As the oldest village of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the Mazar village is considered ‘a living fossil of Uyghur folk culture’ (Xiang 2006). It is not only famous for white grapes (the only source of livelihood for its villagers) and the one- or two-storied clay houses specifically designed for storing and sun-drying grapes but also for its geographical proximity to Al-Sahab Kahfi Mazar (‘Tomb of Saints in the Cave’) – a world-renowned Islamic pilgrimage site (Wang and Fan 2005; Li, Yao, and Liu 2006; Li 2011). This village, together with other natural and local landscapes that unfold with the boy’s admission to the troupe, becomes the main spaces where the Uyghur children create music and dance. These spaces turn out to be more than indispensable living environments of the characters. They also contribute to the construction of a certain aspect of these children that deserves serious attention.

The space in the musical Both Dyer (2000) and MacKinnon (2000) perceive the genre of the musical is about space. As Dyer puts it, Dancing is by definition about bodies in space, about how bodies relate to other bodies, how they move through space, and how they make use of or submit to the environment around them. Less obviously, singing too is about space. Singing carries differently into space than speech, and different kinds of singing, from crooning to belting, impose themselves differently on the world around the singer. (Dyer 2000, 25) With regard to who occupies the space in the musical, Dyer (2000) argues that in MGM-style musicals, it was colonised by the dominant white groups in American society. That is to say, not all social groups in a society have the privilege of ‘bursting from the confines of life by singing your heart out and dancing when you feel like it’ (2000, 25), which is the joy of the musical. Rather, it is white people that enjoy the privilege, while ‘blackness is contained in the musical, ghettoised, stereotyped, and “only entertainment”’ (25). By ‘only entertainment’, Dyer refers to the fact that black performers in a musical may have roles to play, such as servants or waiters, but ‘all they ever do in those roles is entertain’ (25, original emphasis).

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MacKinnon (2000) acknowledges what Dyer has identified – the whiteness of musical space – but suggests that this type of colonisation may reflect the wish of white people for ‘somewhere, better than the world as experienced diegetically’ (40). MacKinnon points out that ‘musicals abound with the bursting out of spatial and psychological/economic/social confinement by the disadvantaged, the “underlings” created by social norms of gender and industrial master/servant patterns’ (43). These ‘underlings’ are mostly white, albeit not necessarily white. What they share in common is their underprivileged social status. Although Dyer and MacKinnon agree on the dominance of whiteness, namely the self-imposed privilege of the dominant race/ethnicity in a society to the musical, this does not fit the historical development of Chinese musicals. Nonetheless, MacKinnon’s emphasis on the liberating power of music for underprivileged characters explains the characterisations of Song of the Fishermen and Angels on the Road in early Chinese cinema. MacKinnon (2000) continues to assert that wide-open spaces in a musical are as significant as those in the western genre. He indicates that the power of the musical in expressing a character’s ‘yearning for a better place’ is particularly strong when the character is situated in a background of ‘a uniformly beneficent, appealing version of the natural world’ (40). Using many films as evidence, MacKinnon demonstrates that the lyrics of songs sung in such locations of unspoiled nature often express the characters’ wish to transcend their mundane life in the diegetic world. MacKinnon’s discovery echoes the significance of natural landscapes in the aforementioned Chinese musical Third Sister Liu, a film that aims to highlight the act of a charismatic legendary Zhuang woman from China’s Tang dynasty (618–907) to ‘defend[s] her fellow villagers against local landlords by articulating their folk wisdom in witty songs’ (Clark 1987, 22). MacKinnon further points out that the value of ‘natural’ space lies in its potential to be transformed into a ‘private’ space of the characters in solitude. In that space, ‘the quotidian may give way to power (of emotion, ambition, energy) by means of a musical number’ (2000, 41). In this context, MacKinnon (2000) summarises the most important message in a musical: ‘there is space beyond humdrum, burdensome everyday reality’ which belongs to ‘the underprivileged, those who experience discrimination’ in the diegetic world (44). That space is meaningful because it creates ‘another kind of space, psychical perhaps’ (44), which opens up for disadvantaged people. ‘Underlings’ occupy that space when their feelings are so intense for their diegetic life that they must express them ‘in song, or in movements so vigorous and dexterous as almost to defy audience belief’ (44). In this process, a more ‘attractive’ and ‘perfectly realised’ (44) individual emerges by breaking away from human limits and social confinement. MacKinnon admits that the seizing of that space by underlings may cause anxiety in an audience of the dominant social groups. Nonetheless, its significance lies in the fact that it produces considerable pleasure for viewers of social minorities. MacKinnon observes that the musical is particularly attractive to ‘minorities who are marginalised in their social experience’ (40). The possible reason is that their expressions of desire for somewhere better are often frustrated

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in real life, while film viewing can provide them with a chance for wish fulfilment through empathy and identification. In this context, MacKinnon expresses his agreement with Dyer’s claim that musicals are generally utopian. Before discerning the politics of colour in Hollywood musicals, Dyer (1985) has stressed that musicals are first and foremost an entertainment genre. As entertainment, the genre is closely linked to two emotions, ‘escape’ and ‘wish fulfilment’, both of which ‘point to its central thrust, namely, utopianism’ (Dyer 2002, 20). By ‘utopianism’, Dyer refers to what musicals provide – ‘the image of “something better” to escape into, or something we want deeply that our day-to-day lives don’t provide’, ‘alternatives, hopes, wishes’, and ‘the sense that things could be better, that something other than what is can be imagined and maybe realized’ (2002, 20). Dyer’s two main arguments concerning musicals seem contradictory, but in MacKinnon’s (2000) view, they arise from two different contexts. The politics of colour is derived from an examination of ‘the practices and ethos of the studios’ (45), whereas the utopianism of musicals is observed from the perspective of spectator reception. As MacKinnon sees it, the intended message of a musical may be at variance from its actual impact on viewers. What impresses an audience of minorities is less likely a narrative resolution that is white supremacist than those musical moments in which they recognise the ‘longings and absences’ of the disadvantaged characters. This is because these audiences resonate with the experiences of the characters, who ‘strive towards, though they arguably do not achieve, utopia’ (45–46). MacKinnon’s attention to musical space occupied by underlings is particularly relevant to The Drummer of Huoyanshan because of the similar hierarchies of power involved in this film’s narrative – between urban and rural Uyghurs, between Han and ethnic minorities, and between the nation’s periphery and the centre. The Uyghur children’s singing, dancing, and music making likely reflect some type of yearning in their minds, but what exactly is ‘somewhere better’ for these children and how does the film convey its messages?7

The musical spaces in The Drummer of Huoyanshan The stage amid the ruins There are four key musical spaces in The Drummer of Huoyanshan in which the Uyghur children make music and dance. The first is the ruins of an ancient city in boy protagonist Kulaixi’s hometown village, in which he often plays music alone. This is also the location where the urban troupe puts on its first performance. The ruins do not appear in the film’s opening sequence, where what is highlighted instead are the village’s geographical isolation, its sole source of income: white grapes, rows of decrepit clay houses, and a new mosque that contributes religious significance. It is no wonder that Kulaixi and Lalaguli, a girl from the same village, explicitly express their desire to leave the village to become an instrumentalist and a dancer respectively, despite their affection for the village. The latter is manifested in Kulaixi’s voluntary assistance with housework and Lalaguli’s gentle attitude to herds, coupled with the metonymy of the village as ‘mother’

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(muqin) in the non-diegetic opening song. The ruins appear in a later sequence, when Xilinnayi, the class monitor of the troupe, searches for Kulaixi after she visits his grandparents’ home. When Xilinnayi is at the ruins, an ominous score plays in the background, bringing to mind a comment made by Lalaguli earlier: despite it being Kulaixi’s favourite place, the locale was desolate, expansive, and scary. After passing some tall walls and arriving at a flat, open space, Xilinnayi hears drumbeats. Following the sound, she finds Kulaixi sitting in a hole in a tall wall in a corner, holding his drum in hands (Figure 3.1). Xilinnayi jumps up and down and claps her hands, exclaiming that she has seen a picture composed by Kulaixi. Although this is the only sequence in which Kulaixi is seen on his own in this location, it reveals a special relationship between him and the ruins. As Kulaixi’s favourite place to spend time alone, the location is obviously important to him psychologically. The two children’s later conversation based on a song they both know, The Song of a Hand Drum – Kulaixi’s deceased mother’s favourite song – unveils the boy’s trauma owing to his special family circumstances. As a child without a mother and living separately from his father, who lives in a city, he experiences a sense of being deserted, as are the ruins. Xilinnayi’s exclamation that he fits in with the environment acknowledges this metaphor. However, Xilinnayi’s reaction also suggests that the ruins, in her eyes, can be a spectacle, an object of visual attractiveness and beauty. This type of gaze, according to Lukinbeal (2005), is encoded with a power relationship. From the perspective of Rey Chow (1995), who is sensitive to the ethnographical inscriptions of Fifth-Generation filmmakers, this would be a moment when primitivism is at play. As an urban child, Xilinnayi represents a probable response of predominant urban film viewers to the image of the ruins. It is unlikely that the filmmaker was unaware of

Figure 3.1 Kulaixi alone in the ruins of the village (The Drummer of Huoyanshan)

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this while constructing Kulaixi’s personal relationship with the location. More significantly, this site echoes Mackinnon’s idea of ‘natural’ open space. As the drum in Kulaixi’s hands suggests, the ruins are probably where he plays the drum in solitude. Thus, this locale becomes Kulaixi’s ‘private’ space where he relies on music to transcend his real-life trauma and yearn for a ‘better’ place, a place where he can connect with his parents in a certain way. This ‘private’ space also enables him to protect the feelings of his maternal grandparents, who have provided him with a loving home. In a sense, Kulaixi’s capability to connect with both rural and urban spaces encapsulates the contradictions of rural minorities in modernity, and the psychological struggle that accompanies their desire to leave the rural environment. When the troupe performs in this location, before Xilinnayi’s meeting with Kulaixi, the filmmaker employs many zoom-in shots to highlight Kulaixi and Lalaguli’s captivated eyes as they watch the performance from the forefront of the audience, closest to the stage. A full-view shot reveals a hand drummer in the ensemble who holds his drum over his head. This is directly linked to a close shot of Kulaixi and Lalaguli. Xilinnayi’s dance is cinematically emphasised through a tracking shot that focuses on her turning body as she approaches the central stage. When she starts to sing, the camera zooms in on Kulaixi, who explains in a sentimental tone that he is familiar with her voice. The film then inserts an image from his fantasy, in which a woman (Kulaixi’s mother) turns her body in endless circles on a stage, in accompaniment to slow and soft music. The illusion terminates when a light-hearted tune from off screen brings Kulaixi back to the live performance, which soon ends. This sequence demonstrates Kulaixi and Lalaguli’s admiration for the children of the troupe, whose performance must have kindled their professional ideals. In the case of Kulaixi, these ideals are expressed on ordinary days in his ‘private’ space. The enthralled gazes of the children and their proximity to the stage reveal their innermost feelings. However, their admiration does not necessarily imply the superior quality of the troupe’s performance, which turns out to be quite the opposite in the case of the drummer (discussed later). Instead, it is linked to the privileged status of the troupe members. No matter how talented Kulaixi and Lalaguli are, they are rural children confined by their physical environment and are the ‘underlings’, who stand off stage. They lack the training and opportunities provided by a troupe to perform in various places and to entertain various people. Kulaixi’s attention to Xilinnayi is also attributed to the fact that she is the one who can sing his mother’s beloved song. His illusory image suggests how much he misses his mother. On the other hand, the troupe’s arrival from Urumqi, where his father lives, may have intensified his desire to leave the village and be united with his father. Moreover, the fact that his mother was a successful performer, and who has probably inspired him professionally, echoes his longing to become a professional drummer. Xilinnayi’s song, which says, ‘You are like a dove, dreaming of flying into the distance’, also speaks directly to Kulaixi’s mind with the metaphor of a dove. Unlike other earthly love–themed and thus quite ‘meaningless’ folksongs in the native Uyghur language in the film, this diegetic song is dubbed in Chinese. It

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is apparent that the filmmaker’s intention is to use its lyrics to express Kulaixi’s aspiration for a better life. The shift of perspectives between ‘you’ and ‘me’ in the lyrics sounds like an exclusive communication between Xilinnayi and Kulaixi and serves to reinforce the connection between them. The lyrics also coincide with Kulaixi’s love for doves, in the narrative, another strategy the filmmaker adopts to signify the boy’s dream of flying away from the rural space. Finally, although Kulaixi’s yearning for the troupe and Urumqi is linked to his parents, the choice of Urumqi, a big city that is the social, economic, and political centre of Xinjiang, is not random. His longing reflects a notion that formal schooling and training in an urban environment are directly linked to a child’s ‘quality’ (suzhi) and future development.8 Although he is extremely talented, as I will demonstrate in the next section, he needs a platform from which to launch his upward mobility. The stage in an outdoor cinema The second important space of music and dance in the film is a stage in an old outdoor cinema. When Kulaixi and Lalaguli take control of this stage the next day, the children of the troupe are amazed by the rural children’s superb performance. According to MacKinnon, this is the moment when the disadvantaged group manages to transcend their limitations and liberate themselves by seizing the musical space, an act that inevitably causes anxiety in their urban counterparts. The sequence occurs when the troupe’s rehearsal is frequently interrupted by the poor performance of a hand drummer in the ensemble. Just as they are about to give up, they notice their audience – the children sitting on the side – leaving. What follows is a view of many children standing behind a broken wall looking forward, amid dynamic drumbeats. The film shows Kulaixi and Lalaguli performing on a stage. When Lalaguli turns her body in consecutive circles, the large audience in the background of the frame begin to clap their hands. Meanwhile, Xilinnayi and other children of the troupe are seen running towards the audience. When Xilinnayi stands still, the camera zooms in, leaving Lalaguli off the frame. The shot thereby contrasts the image of Kulaxi playing his drum in the foreground with the image of Xilinnayi staring in his direction in the background. The filmmaker then employs many close shots to show Lalaguli’s dancing body and the interactions between Kulaixi and Lalaguli as a performing duet. An overview shot ensues, revealing a large audience of neatly seated local people in front of the stage. After that, the film juxtaposes a close shot of Lalaguli’s expressive dance with a close shot of Xilinnayi’s eyes, which are uneasy because of the great fervour of the audience. This montage constitutes a reversal of the infatuated gazes of Kulaixi and Lalaguli at the troupe’s performance the previous day. When Kulaixi beats his drum forcefully and rapidly with confidence and thrill, a close shot of Xilinnayi shows her stepping forward towards the camera and filling the frame with her anxious eyes. When the film cuts back to Kulaixi, who beats his drum harder and faster, ready to head for a climax, another close-up of Xilinnayi’s eyes follows, coupled with a zoom-in shot of the incompetent drummer of the troupe, who shakes his head in disbelief. Following the latter’s gaze, an extreme close-up shows the rapid

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movements of Kulaixi’s hands. After that, a close shot from the back of the stage focuses on Lalaguli. She stamps her feet alternatively on the stage, then moves her upper body towards the stage in a circular motion, and finally stands up, continuing to turn her body. The excited audience in the background rise with enthusiastic applause. In this sequence, the power relationship between the rural and urban children is totally reversed. Kulaixi and Lalaguli occupy the musical space onstage, while the children of the troupe are left dumbfounded in the audience. Kulaixi’s thrilling confidence and Lalaguli’s superb technique demonstrate the power of the musical space to create utopian feelings for the performers and enable their transformation into better selves. The instrument of the drum also facilitates Kulaixi’s achievement of utopia. Instrumental music is a type of ‘pure music free from the burden of words’ (Grout 1980, 552 [as quoted in Laing 2000]), and is thus endowed with ‘the ultimate ability to communicate the boundless and transcendent emotions’ (Laing 2000, 6–7). On the other hand, the hand drum differs from rawap, another instrument unique to the Uyghur culture (Wong 2012). The drum is more dynamic, explosive, and charged with rallying power, which is why it was selected by the filmmaker (Guang 1992).9 In contrast, rawap produces soft and light-hearted tones, as can be seen when it appears in a later moment when the local audiences join Kulaixi and Lalaguli onstage in a casual and comedic atmosphere. In sum, one might suggest that the liberating emotions in Kulaixi and Lalaguli are achieved when the former ‘pulls out all the stops’ in the beating of his drum, while the latter executes a series of ‘dazzling technical feats’ (Mackinnon 2000, 41–42) in her dance, as an extension of Kulaixi’s drumbeat. Meanwhile, the film’s emphasis on Xilinnayi’s responses, as indicated by many close-ups as well as her juxtaposition with Kulaixi within the same frame, is not only because Xilinnayi turns out to be Kulaixi’s step-sister but also because she represents the urban children of the troupe. Her anxiety portrays the discomfort of her peers in witnessing the underlings take over the musical space and garner as much, if not more, applause from the audience. The choice of a deserted cinema as Kulaixi and Lalaguli’s musical space is also noteworthy. From a psychoanalytical perspective, cinema screens provide audiences with a sense of fullness, plenitude, unity, and satisfaction through imaginary signifiers and the mechanism of identification (Lacan 1968; Metz [1977] 1982). This is particularly true for socialist cinema, which must have dominated the heyday of the outdoor cinema, given the historical development of Xinjiang Film Studio, as reviewed earlier. Mao’s slogan of ‘combining revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism’ (Clark 2012, 45) has indicated that communism conforms to the spirit of ‘romanticism’ as a ‘revolutionary/utopian’ way of thinking (Lőwy 2002, 95). Even in the 1980s, when Tianshan Film Studio had a major output of a variety of film genres, musicals included, the cinema served as a site for villagers to collectively pursue a sense of escape and wish fulfilment. It was not until the late 1980s, when the government reduced its subsidies on film projection and television gradually entered individual households, that outdoor cinemas like the one represented in the film started to be abandoned (Hasimu 1997).

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In this context, Kulaixi and Lalaguli’s performance probably would have rekindled the villagers’ nostalgia for a bygone era. The difference is that the fourth wall of their performance is open for penetration, which is also unlike the troupe’s performance amid the ruins, where the fourth wall was sealed by the gap between the urban troupe and local villagers. The overview shot of the villagers being neatly seated alludes to a sense of order and concerted support, while their participation in the subsequent performance onstage proclaims their control of the musical space. The conventional power relationship between privileged urban citizens and underprivileged rural residents is challenged. The whole sequence ends with a silent panning shot showing the troupe being left behind facing an empty cinema. Despite the power reversal, the urban space is still attractive to Kulaixi, as indicated by his decision to seek his father in Urumqi. Space of solitude When Kulaixi moves to the city and is accepted by the troupe, his physical and social environments have completely changed. His physical geographies are limited to the training hall of the troupe and the apartment of his father’s reconstructed family. He makes an effort to adjust to the new spaces and new interpersonal relationships. While his drumming skills earn him the recognition of his teachers, they also bring about jealousy from some troupe members. Moreover, the delicacy of handling his relationship with Xilinnayi in front of the troupe without embarrassing her with the ‘secret’ of their family is challenging. When the urban children of the troupe tease him about their puppy love and when his stepmother sends his beloved dove away, he decides to return to his hometown. On his way home, he comes across a grotto at dusk, the outside of which becomes the third crucial musical space in the film. MacKinnon calls this space as unspoiled nature, as it provides solitude and enables Kulaixi to relieve himself of the burdens he experienced in the diegetic urban life. Early the next morning, the film shows a massive statute of a smiling Buddha, the bust of which occupies almost the whole frame. When Kulaixi enters the frame from the foreground, he turns his head towards the Buddha and bursts into laughter. Then, in a long shot, Kulaixi is shown in the middle ground, emerging from underneath, in between the Buddha in the foreground and a mountain slope in the background (Figure 3.2). When he runs laterally towards a mosque-like building made of stone, sand, and clay, his giggles can be heard clearly. Arriving at the foot of the building, he stops and doubles over laughing, before climbing the building. Upon reaching the top of the building, he looks around cheerfully in a close shot before starting to play his drum. When he plays, the camera zooms out and provides a low-angle full view of him standing high on one side of the building. The dynamic sound of drumbeats dominates the scene until Kulaixi is discovered by passers-by. This sequence exhibits Kulaixi’s excitement at once again occupying a natural environment to produce music. Different from the ruins, where only sporadic drumbeats were heard, the musical space of solitude in this sequence is fully

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Figure 3.2 The smiling Buddha and the mosque-like building outside the grotto (The Drummer of Huoyanshan)

developed and completely presented to the audience. When Kulaixi plays, there is a feeling that he is thrilled at being able to be true to himself in that space, free from any bias or conflict. Moreover, unlike previous staged performances, Kulaixi’s music seemingly originates from ‘nowhere, in surroundings apparently not intended for performance’ (Laing 2000, 6). In this case, as Heather Laing suggests, the music is more likely to arise from the site of the player as ‘a means of self-expression’ if the player is a composer or a musician (2000, 7). The film has informed viewers that Kulaixi can compose music with his drum. Thus, the explosive drumbeats in this sequence symbolise nothing other than the ultimate release of the boy’s emotions, which are too intense to be contained in his erstwhile urban quotidian life. The juxtaposition of the statue of the Buddha, a smiling Buddha no less, with the mosque-like building is also interesting. Historically, the region of Tuyuq was an active centre of multiple religions, Buddhism included, before the arrival of Islam, which practically wiped out all other religious beliefs (Wang and Fan 2005; Xiang 2006; Li 2011). The emphasis on these religious symbols, like the choice of the Mazar village, conforms to the film’s depiction of the Uyghur children’s passion for music and dance. MacKinnon has suggested that the utopianism of musicals coincides with a non-denominational religious message that ‘the dullness of the world is something passing, only a phase obscuring the intensity of experiences beyond the quotidian’ (2000, 40). This statement alludes to a close relationship between music and religion. Nonetheless, anthropological findings also suggest that local Uyghurs consider Buddhist symbols a threat, stemming from a belief that visiting Buddhist sites can invite illnesses (China Daily, 10 March 2009). Thus, the film’s construction of Kulaixi’s giggles and laughter at

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seeing the Buddha may actually contradict the true psyche of Uyghurs. However, the film’s successful manipulation of religious icons to convey the utopia-making function of music is undeniable. So far, the film has emphatically used ‘natural’ spaces to express the yearnings of underprivileged rural children for an urban troupe (in its ideal form) – their ‘somewhere better’. Simultaneously, the different controls of the musical spaces are used to construct a binary divide between rural and urban Uyghurs. No Han Chinese are involved, and hence there are no ethnic conflicts. This reflects one way that the filmmaker appropriates musical spaces to endorse an orthodox state ideology. However, when Kulaixi returns to the troupe and reconciles with his stepmother with the return of his dove, the film presents what I call a musical carnival: a rather poetic and hilarious musical sequence in which the children and teachers of the troupe are all situated in a diversity of local and natural landscapes in Xinjiang. The rural/urban binary is collapsed, but another landscape makes a prominent appearance. The musical carnival The sequence starts with a downward panning shot focusing on a piece of landmark equipment in a refinery, accompanied by strong dynamic music. The children have helmets on and are visiting a factory under the guidance of a man who appears to be Han. A zoom-in shot shows Kulaixi happily mingling with other children of the troupe. The children are then shown on a grassy area, running around, dancing, and playing. When urban girls ride a camel with both fear and excitement, and when Kulaixi accompanies Xilinnayi’s dance with his hand drum in an amusing way, the film brings in the gazes of a herd of sheep. After that, the children sightsee, dress up, dance, and make music on the deck of a ship with a backdrop of snow-covered mountains and pine trees. Finally, they play instruments and dance with colourful umbrellas over their shoulders in a desert, where their male teacher puts on a dramatic martial arts performance. To overcome the disjunction between various natural landscapes, a type of light-hearted non-diegetic music is used that is distinctive and different from the earlier part of the sequence. According to the filmmaker, this prolonged sequence was shot in three locations: Dushanzi Oil Refinery, Tianchi Lake Reserves of Tianshan Mountains, and Qumtagh Desert in Shanshan county. The footage was collected after the main story had been filmed, and its purpose was to display the freedom and happiness of the children (Guang 1992). However, what is the actual impact? A cinematic landscape is capable of imposing ‘order on the elements of landscape’ (Harper and Rayner 2010, 16). Moreover, it can articulate various ‘ideas, attitudes and sentiments’ of the filmmaker and characters through the cinematic devices deployed (Aitken and Dixon 2006, 331). Thus, it is important to examine how the filmmaker presents her selected landscapes on screen. Overall, drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s (1984) idea of carnivalesque, one sees that this sequence has two aspects of liberating power. On the one hand, it creates ‘a special form of free and familiar contact’ between human beings in which ‘truly human relations’ are established and experienced in the ‘carnival spirit’

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(Bakhtin 1984, 10). This is best illustrated in Kulaixi’s total integration with the urban children of the troupe. On the other hand, the sequence creates a harmonious relationship between human and nonhuman (the physical environment and other species). An ecological harmony transpires when the children are situated in the natural landscapes, which turns the film into ‘ecocinema’ (Lu 2009). However, the filmmaker also separates the refinery from other landscapes through audiovisual means. Carnivalesque elements such as folk humour, laughter, festivities, parody, or comic spectacles (Bakhtin 1984) are precluded from the social landscape of the refinery because it is characterised by seriousness and poses as a learning environment for the Uyghur children. Dushanzi, as a site of one of the largest state-owned oil refineries in China,10 acts largely as a symbol of contemporary Han civilisation, modernisation, and industrialisation. The filmmaker’s choice to begin the sequence with the refinery to the accompaniment of grand music indicates her endorsement of national ideology. Kulaixi’s happy visit to the factory illuminates the mindset underpinning his yearning for the urban space. However, what the refinery symbolises immediately turns the natural landscapes in the boy’s hometown from a safe, comfortable, and private space into the representation of ‘primitiveness’ and ‘backwardness’. While the refinery is not a place for random musical performances, the natural landscapes in Xinjiang, such as the reserves and the desert, become sites to be ‘naturally’ free, happy, and humorous in a ‘dramatic’ way. Drawing on Mackinnon’s argument, I consider the Uyghur children’s collective music making in these natural environments an exhibition of their yearning for recognition in a Han-dominated society. Their subsequent performance at Xinjiang People’s Hall, arguably the most important and prestigious state-owned performance venue in Xinjiang, is propounded by Xilinnayi as a culmination of their success, despite the fact that the performance remains a qualification trial for an opportunity to perform in the nation’s capital. When their performance onstage intercuts with shots of a group of Han-looking judges nodding their heads in approval, the implication is that their performance and their future development are subject to the gaze of the state. What they yearn for – a stage on which to create fantasy and utopian feelings for themselves and for others – may render them an object of gaze, as implied by the gaze of the sheep in the carnival sequence. For Kulaixi and Lalaguli in particular, who wish to become professional performers, their music making and dance constitute not only their means to express their longings but also the very contents of their longings. Such cinematic construction alludes to a type of social space constructed by a mainstream filmmaker for ethnic minorities, a space where the Uyghur children and the Uyghurs are encouraged to become an object of gaze for the dominant Han, and they turn out to be what Dyer calls in the case of black performers ‘only entertainment’ (2000, 25).

Conclusion and implications This chapter argues that Guang Chunlan has, unconsciously or not, taken advantage of ‘natural’ space in a musical to construct the yearnings of the underprivileged

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Uyghurs for either an urban space or the national centre. In the social context of modernisation and urbanisation in the early 1990s, she turns the Uyghur children’s musical spaces into a means of accomplishing a national narrative. The ‘somewhere better’ in the children’s yearnings – being an urban troupe, a provincial auditorium, or ultimately a stage in Beijing (which is kept off screen) – are all spatial, musical, and significantly social. Guang consolidates a Han-dominated nation-state by underlining social differences within the Uyghur group on the one hand and contrasting musical spaces in the natural environments with a Handominated superior system that the Uyghurs crave for on the other. Although Guang intends to present ‘positive and beautiful images’ of Xinjiang and its people, her musical ends up relying on the manipulation of the supposedly primitive and backward landscapes of Xinjiang to achieve its ideological function. As the first movie of its kind, The Drummer of Huoyanshan exerts a huge influence on later films about Uyghur children. Some pay homage to it, and others seek to deviate from it. Guangzhou laile Xinjiang wa/A Xinjiang Child in Guangzhou (1994, dir. Wang Jin) is the second movie about Uyghur children. It was produced by Zhujiang Film Studio and set in the city of Guangzhou in southern China. The movie pays tribute to Guang’s musical by inserting a plot in which a warm-hearted film projectionist invites the protagonist Uyghur boy – a street child under the care of a Han neighbourhood – to watch the musical in a cinema. The beginning sequence of The Drummer of Huoyanshan is replayed, and on hearing the word ‘mother’ in the opening song, the boy’s eyes well up with tears. This motivates the projectionist to seek help from a local newspaper to find his mother. When the boy returns to Xinjiang, he shouts the word ‘mother’ in the direction of the south to express his appreciation of the help he received in Guangzhou. The action instantly transforms the Han-dominated nationstate into the metaphorical figure of the mother. In contrast, Jin Lini, another female director working for Tianshan Film Studio and a local Han Chinese, manages to avoid expressing explicit political messages in her films about Xinjiang children. Breaking away from the stereotypical image of Xinjiang children gifted only in music making and dance, Jin highlights the scientific and pioneering spirit of the Xinjiang children in Hui changge de tudou/A Potato Can Sing (1999) (Uyghur and Kazak). Her subsequent film, Weixiao de pangxie/Smiling Crab (2001), celebrates the dignity and virtues of Xinjiang children in the course of interacting with an arrogant and materialistic Han girl, who later gets transformed (see Chapter 4). The type of cross-generational affection and father–child relationship similar to the ones in The Drummer of Huoyanshan also dominates the films about Uyghur children in recent years. For example, Zhiai/True Love (2005, dir. Yan Gaoshan) focuses on a Uyghur boy who recovers from the trauma of losing his family to an earthquake, with the help of an elderly Uyghur. Xingfu de xiangrikui/Blissful Sunflowers (2011, dir. Su Lei) revolves around a Uyghur girl’s search for her father across Xinjiang in the company of her grandmother. On the other hand, a new element – sports talent – has been incorporated into films about Uyghur children. This is well illustrated in Yahefu’s Maimaiti de 2008/Maimaiti’s 2008 (2008),

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which displays Uyghur children’s talent in soccer. A more recent film, Xiaokaiti de jiaqi/Xiaokaiti’s Summer (2012, dir. Pan Yu), significantly integrates almost all the above-mentioned themes. The film is a collective work of BFA graduates who were commissioned by Tianshan Film Studio. It tells the story of a Uyghur boy, who, in the course of learning to play basketball from a Han singer, helps the latter obtain inspiration from Xinjiang music and also to reunite his once-separated parents. Music returns to a prominent position in the life of this Uyghur child, albeit indirectly. This time, however, Han civilisation is represented as the hunger for revelation from an ethnic minority culture. From The Drummer of Huoyanshan to Xiaokaiti’s Summer, a trajectory of return is outlined in the minority’s relationship to Han modernisation, although the theme of family union is eternal.

Notes 1 Wang Ping (1916–1990), affiliated with August First Film Studio, was the first female director in socialist China. She has directed many films about the Chinese liberation army, Chinese soldiers, and socialist revolution, such as Liubao de gushi/The Story of Liubao (1957), Yong bu xiaoshi de dianbo/The Eternal Wave (1958), and Dongfang hong/The East is Red (1965). Wang Haowei (1940–), affiliated with Beijing Film Studio, is famous for directing many melodramas after the Cultural Revolution, such as Qiao zhe yi jiazi/What a Family (1979), Cunlu dai wo huijia/Country Road Taking Me Home (1987), and O, xiangxue/Oh! Sweet Snow (1989). 2 China’s famous Belt and Road Initiative, composed of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road, was proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2013, in the context of strengthening the nation’s economic, cultural, and political connections with its neighbouring countries. 3 Clarke argues that the Chinese government’s reliance on economic development to solve ethnic conflicts ‘has in fact played a large role in exacerbating those problems’ (2016, 242). Most ethnic tensions are caused by unequal job opportunities and the Han’s exploitation of natural resources and arable lands in Xinjiang. On the other hand, Han Chinese are increasingly dissatisfied with the government’s preferential policies to Uyghurs and complain about the Uyghurs’ ungratefulness to the state (Millward 2009). 4 After retirement, Guang directed a few films commissioned by other studios and organisations, such as Xindong suiyue/The Days Touched by Love (2004), Aixin/A Loving Heart (2006), and Jianxiang shaonü/A Girl of Archery Village (2013) (Xibo). 5 Of the 15 films she made from 1981 to 2000, 13 featured Uyghurs as protagonists. The remaining two, Gunü lian/Love of a Single Woman (1986) and Zhenxin/True Heart (2000), focused on Kazak and Kyrgyz in Xinjiang (Jilili 2016, 99–100). 6 Guang Chunlan spent most of her childhood in Xinjiang, which she left at age nine. She moved to Beijing five years later and graduated from the Department of Directing at BFA in 1966. According to Guang’s (1997, 2012) own accounts, because of her ‘beautiful’ memories of Xinjiang, she ‘happily’ accepted the invitation of Tianshan Film Studio when she finished her first film at Nanjing Film Studio in the Jiangsu province. 7 Dyer’s and MacKinnon’s theorisations reveal the interwoven relationship between film production and film reception, but my analyses in this chapter focus mainly on the film text concerning the child characters’ relationships to their musical spaces. Nonetheless, as these children often perform onstage in the narrative, there is also an issue of spectatorship, especially when underprivileged children occupy the stage. 8 In China’s educational context, a person’s ‘quality’ refers to their educational background not only in natural and social sciences but also in humanities and arts. The term is often used to underline the importance of ‘general education’ (tongshi jiaoyu)

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to students at school in contrast to their specialised knowledge (Yuan 2001). It is also used in the scenario of civilising the behaviours of the undereducated populations in the society, such as rural peasants (Xin, Mao, and Luo 2005). Both connotations have some bearing on Kulaixi. 9 The drum’s dynamic power is well illustrated in the film’s opening sequence, when Kulaxi’s beating of the drum intercuts with cockfighting until the two cocks are exhausted at the termination of drumbeats. 10 According to Wang (1991) and Liu (1991), the Dushanzi Oil Refinery was established in 1936 through the collaboration of the Republic of China (1912–1949) and the Soviet Union. Labelled as a ‘pearl’ in the Gobi Desert, it is one of the largest oil deposit fields in China and the top industry in Xinjiang.

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as Examples and Comparing with Hollywood Musicals of the Same Period].” Dangdai dianying, (6): 83–88. Li, Na. 2011. “Lüyou kaifa zhong de minzu chuantong wenhua baohu–Tulufan Tuyugou weiwuerzu xiangcun diaocha [Ethnic Cultural Protection during Tourism Development: An Investigation of a Uyghur Village in Tuyuq of Turpan].” Xinjiang shehui kexue, (4): 54–60. Li, Xiaoxia. 2009. “Xinjiang minzu qunti goucheng jiqi guanxi fenxi [Ethnic Constituents of Xinjiang and Their Relations].” Xinjiang shehui kexue, (6): 107–114. Li, Xinhua, Zhaoping Yao, and Xuling Liu. 2006. “Lishi wenhua mingcun de lüyou baohu yu kaifa moshi yanjiu–Yi Tulufan Tuyugou Mazhacun weili [A Study of Tourism Protection and Developmental Model of Famous Historical and Cultural Villages: Taking the Mazar Village in Tuyuq of Turpan as an Example].” Ganhanqu dili (hanwen ban), 29 (2): 301–306. Liu, Baohong. 1991. “Guomindang zhengfu yu Sulian zhengfu qitu heban Dushanzi youkuang jilüe [A Record of an Attempted Cooperation between the National Government and the Soviet Government in Building Dushanzi Oil Deposit Fields].” Xinjiang difangzhi, (4): 75–76. Lőwy, Michael. 2002. “The Revolutionary Romanticism of May 1968.” Thesis Eleven, (68): 95–100. doi: 10.1177/0725513602068001008. Lu, Sheldon H. 2009. “Introduction: Cinema, Ecology, Modernity.” In Chinese Ecocinema in the Age of Environmental Challenge, edited by Sheldon H. Lu and Jiayan Mi, 1–14. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. doi: 10.5790/hongkong/9789622090866.003.0001. Lukinbeal, Chris. 2005. “Cinematic Landscapes.” Journal of Cultural Geography, 23 (1): 3–22. MacKinnon, Kenneth. 2000. “‘I Keep Wishing I Were Somewhere Else’: Space and Fantasies of Freedom in the Hollywood Musical.” In Musicals: Hollywood and Beyond, edited by Bill Marshall and Robynn Stilwell, 40–46. Exeter, UK: Intellect. Metz, Christian. (1977) 1982. The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and Cinema. Translated by Ben Brewster, Alfred Guzzetti, Ceila Britton, and Annwyl Williams. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Millward, James A. 2007. Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang. New York: Columbia University Press. Millward, James A. 2009. “Does the Urumqi Violence Mark a Turning Point?” Central Asian Survey, 28 (4): 347–360. O’Brien, David. 2016. “‘If There Is Harmony in the House There Will be Order in the Nation’: An Exploration of the Han Chinese as Political Actors in Xinjiang.” In Inside Xinjiang: Space, Place and Power in China’s Muslim Far Northwest, edited by Anna Hayes and Michael Clarke, 32–51. London: Routledge. Statistical Bureau of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. 2012. Xinjiang tongji nianjian, 2012 [Xinjiang Statistical Yearbook, 2012]. Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe. Sun, Yan. 2017. “Shilun Zhongguo bentu gewupian tezheng jiqi kunjing fansi [Characteristics of the Chinese Musical and Reflections on Its Predicament].” Dangdai dianshi, (2): 81–82. Wang, Qiming. 1991. “Chongman shengji de lao qiye–Xinjiang Dushanzi lianyou chang [An Old Factory Filled with Vitality: Xinjiang Dushanzi Oil Refinery].” Zhongguo jihua guanli, (2): 35. Wang, Xiaodong. 2015. “Dianying ‘Huoyanshan laide gushou’ zhong weiwuerzu chuantong cunluo renju wenhua jiedu [A Residential Cultural Interpretation of the Traditional

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Uyghur Village in the Movie ‘The Drummer of Huoyanshan’].” Dianying pingjie, (10): 93–95. Wang, Xin, and Jingjing Fan. 2005. “Shanshan Tuyugou Mazhacun de minsu wenhua [Folk Culture of the Mazar Village in Tuyuq of Shanshan County].” Xiyu yanjiu, (3): 112–116. Wong, Chuen-Fung. 2012. “Reinventing the Central Asian Rawap in Modern China: Musical Stereotypes, Minority Modernity, and Uyghur Instrumental Music.” Asian Music, 43 (1): 34–63. Wu, Yuxia. 2015. “Guang Chunlan de Xinjiang bentu ‘gewu pian’ [Guang Chunlan’s Xinjiang Native ‘Musicals’].” Dianying pingjie, (23): 21–23. Xiang, Feng. 2006. “Zui gulao de weiwuerzu cunluo–Tuyugou Mazhacun [The Oldest Uyghur Village: The Mazar Village of Tuyuq].” Xiaochengzhen jianshe, (9): 62–63. Xin, Xian, Xuefeng Mao, and Wanchun Luo. 2005. “Zhongguo nongmin suzhi pingjia ji quyu chayi [An Assessment of Chinese Peasants’ Quality and Its Regional Differences].” Zhongguo nongcun jingji, (9): 4–9. Xu, Yan. 1988. “Rujia sixiang yu minzu xingge [Confucian Ideologies and National Characters].” Beijing shifan daxue xuebao, (4): 101–106. Yeh, Emilie Yueh-yu, and Hongfeng Tang. 2010. “Shenti yu shengyin: Huayu gewupian zhong de sizhong biaoyan nüxing [Body and Sound: Four Types of Female Characters in Chinese-Language Musicals].” Yishu pinglun, (3): 55–62. Yuan, Guiren. 2001. “Suzhi jiaoyu: Ershiyi shiji jiaoyu jiaoxue gaige de qizhi [Quality Education: A Banner of Educational Reform in the Twenty-First Century].” Zhongguo jiaoyu xuekan, (5): 1–3. Zhang, Hua. 2010. “Guang Chunlan Xinjiang dianying jiema [Decoding Guang Chunlan’s Xinjiang Films].” Dangdai dianying, (6): 79–84.

4

Beijing and rural Guizhou in focalisations Miao children’s relationships with the nation-state and ethnic tradition

This chapter examines the depiction of Miao children in Han independent filmmaker Ning Jingwu’s films. It borrows film and literature critic Celestino Deleyto’s (1991) theorisation on focalisation in narrative film and film theorist Martin Lefebvre’s (2006) paradigm of intentional landscape. It explores how Ning Jingwu appropriates his Miao child characters to reflect on Chinese modernisation and China’s rise. The films to be discussed, Bird’s Nest and Lala’s Gun, were both scripted, directed, and produced by the filmmaker in 2008, the year of the Beijing Olympic Games. In one film, a Miao child protagonist travels from his hometown village in rural Guizhou to Beijing. In the other, a Miao child walks around his hometown in China’s southwest. Both Lala’s Gun and the first half of Bird’s Nest were shot in the real location of Basha Miao village and its neighbouring areas in the Guizhou province. This chapter scrutinises the Miao children’s interactions with diverse landscapes in Beijing and rural Guizhou in Ning Jingwu’s cinematic representation. It argues that by juxtaposing a peripheral rural geography with the national centre, especially by employing the building of the Bird’s Nest (an Olympic stadium in Beijing) under construction as a backdrop, Ning Jingwu’s Miao films underscore the foundation of China’s ascending power: migrant workers and the tolls exacted by migration and modernisation. The ethnic minority child characters are on the one hand ‘left-behind children’ (liushou ertong), who suffer from family separation and may also experience physical and social exclusion because of their ethnicity and class while being situated in an urban environment. On the other hand, these ethnic minority child characters live in pre-modern rural societies, and they conveniently purvey the filmmaker’s nostalgic vision of an idealistic past in which harmony prevails in human relationships with nature, land, village community, and cultural tradition.

Films about Miao people and Ning Jingwu’s films about children Miao people in the PRC live mostly in the provinces of Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan, and Sichuan, in the nation’s southwest. They form different branches, but most of them relate to the Hmong in Northern Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos in South East Asia, in terms of language and culture (Diamond 1996). They are

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highland people, the so-called hill tribes or hill people, with rice as their staple diet (Tapp 2003, 4–8). Until now, they maintained distinct customs and practices related to ancestral worship, initiation ceremonies, dating conventions, gender relationships, funeral procedures, and so on (Tapp 2003). Miao people first appeared in Chinese cinema as leading characters during Mao’s socialist era, in such titles as Shanjian xiangling mabang lai/Caravans with Ring (1954, dir. Wang Weiyi), Jiaoyin/Footprint (1955, dir. Yan Jizhou), and Miaojia ernü/Sons and Daughters of the Miao People (1958, dir. Tao Jin). Directed by Han Chinese, these films focused on socialist revolution or economic production before or after the establishment of the PRC. After the Cultural Revolution, this theme continued in a number of films. Meanwhile, films about family relationships and romantic love within the Miao community emerged, such as Yuanfang/In a Remote Place (1984, dir. Wu Yinxun) and Sanqi qingyuan/Love of Sanqi (1999, dir. Wu Kuangwen). In the 2000s, Anayi (2006) and Yunshang taiyang/Close to the Sun (2010), both scripted and directed by the first Miao director Chou Chou,1 together with Qiuli zouming qu/A Song from Qiuli (2010), directed by Han filmmaker Han Wanfeng, extended the themes of this type of films to the issue of Miao cultural protection. The first attempt to feature a Miao child as a film protagonist can be traced back to The Fire Boy (1978), mentioned in Chapter 1. The film tells the story of a Miao boy who fights heroically against local bandits and Guomindang antirevolutionaries under the leadership of the CCP for the liberation of his Miao villagers. It is a pity that the film’s highly propagandist theme outweighs its depiction of the ethnic attributes of the child character, both in terms of his life habits and living environments. Other films made subsequently with a claim to focus on Miao children, such as Yangqi nide xiaolian/Raise Your Smiling Face (2000, dir. Zhu Yimin) and Hong mian’ao/The Red Jacket (2006, dir. Zou Yalin), are equally problematic for lacking explicit clues asserting the Miao identity of the child protagonists.2 In this context, Ning Jingwu’s Bird’s Nest and Lala’s Gun stand out for demarcating both the specific geographies of the Miao children and their behaviours within these environments. Moreover, since this was not the filmmaker’s first time making a film about children, it is interesting to explore how his Miao child characters differ from the other children in his cinematic representations. Ning Jingwu is a prolific filmmaker in contemporary mainland China. Given his age (born in 1966), production period, and educational background, he belongs to the Sixth-Generation filmmakers or the ‘Generation of Postgraduates’ (yanjiusheng dai).3 He completed his directorial debut with a movie about primary school pupils made for CCTV in 1996. Afterwards, he directed a series of feature films about children, funded primarily by state or provincial capital, including Chengzhang/Growing Up (1998), Gushou de rongyu/Drummer’s Aspiration (1999), Wusheng de he/Silent River (2000), and Wo yao zuo hao haizi/I Want to be a Good Child (2004). Another film made in this period, Duozi/Running for Son (2003), although led by adults, addresses the issue of autistic child protection: biological and foster parents (the latter are migrant workers) wage a war for the custody of an autistic child. In general, the children depicted in Ning Jingwu’s

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early films are all Han children. Moreover, the director has a propensity to situate his child characters in Beijing, which is near his hometown, Hebei. As for his adult characters, apart from Beijing as in Running for Son, he often places them in pre-modern environments, such as in a remote grassland in the north of China in Jidi caihong/Polar Rainbow (2003), or in a primitive forest in central China in Jingqing Shennongjia/Lost in Shennongjia (2005). Ning Jingwu’s early films won him many awards, including the best picture and the best director awards at the Golden Calf awards (the highest honour for children’s films in China) and the government-sponsored Huabiao awards. However, these films received limited theatrical release, a situation commonly experienced by Chinese children’s films (Donald 2005). In the context of the film market in contemporary China that is dominated by blockbusters and commercial entertainment films, Ning Jingwu imputes the peripherality of his films to a few characteristics they exhibit, including high relevance to social reality, concern for marginalised characters (e.g. children and migrant workers), and disregard for promotional activities (Ning et al. 2004). In 2005, Ning Jingwu set up his own film production company and began making small-budget independent films. Despite experimenting with different genres along the way,4 he returned to his previously favoured child characters with Bird’s Nest and Lala’s Gun.5 Moreover, shot almost simultaneously, the two films are set in the filmmaker’s preferred spaces: Beijing and a space of marginality. The latter, the Basha Miao village, is distinctively inhabited by an old Miao tribe: the last group of people in China that are allowed to carry hunting rifles. Bird’s Nest focuses on a Miao boy, Xiangma, who hears of a ‘bird’s nest’ in Beijing in a letter from his father. Puzzled at a statement that the nest is built for sports athletes instead of birds, he is determined to make a trip to the city to solve the mystery. He also intends to persuade his father, a migrant worker in Beijing, to return home. Lala’s Gun tells the story of a Miao boy, Lala, on the verge of adulthood embarking on a journey in search of his father, with whom he had never been acquainted. He expects the man to pass down a hunting rifle to him on the day of his coming-of-age ritual, in accordance with Miao tradition. In Han-dominated modern China, with uneven development between the city and the countryside, Ning Jingwu’s transition from focusing on Han children in the urban environment to ethnic minority children in the rural milieu, from concern for Han migrant workers to their ethnic minority counterparts, signals the further marginalisation of his films. Both films ended up being distributed via the CCTV film channel, despite the many awards they won (Ouyang et al. 2009). Nonetheless, the films seem to carry particular significance to the filmmaker and constitute a critical link in his directing career. Several years later, he finished two more films about left-behind children and one more film about ethnic minorities.6 A few questions then arise: What did the filmmaker intend to convey through his Miao films? What did his Miao child characters afford him? How did he convey his message with the spaces he chose? Unlike previous research that either celebrates the nationalist theme in Bird’s Nest (Hu 2013) or excavates ethnographical inscriptions in Lala’s Gun (Jiang 2013), this chapter examines the interactions

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between the Miao child characters and the diverse geographies in which they are placed in Beijing and rural Guizhou. In particular, I study cinematic landscapes in what is called external focalisation according to Deleyto (1991) or intentional landscape in Lefebvre’s (2006) categorisation.

Focalisation and intentional landscape In their study on cinematic landscape, Harper and Rayner (2010) have pointed out that a variety of cinematic devices, such as frame, frame composition, movement, colour and shape, and music and sound can shape the outlook and meaning of a landscape on screen. Another cinematic device that is indispensable to the construction and interpretation of cinematic landscape is the focalisation of a shot. A landscape can be shot from the perspective of either a character or the filmmaker. The distinction is configured by Deleyto as internal focalisation and external focalisation. Deleyto (1991) takes Mieke Bal’s notion of focalisation as a point of departure to theorise a shot’s focalisation in a film narrative. According to Bal ([1980] 1985, 100), focalisation is ‘the relation between the vision and that which is “seen”, perceived’ (as quoted in Deleyto 1991). In this definition, Deleyto identifies two components in a focalisation: focaliser and focalised. Deleyto defines the focaliser as ‘the origin of the vision or agent that performs the vision’, while the focalised is ‘the object of that vision’ (1991, 160). Deleyto (1991) further proposes two types of focalisation to signify two different perspectives from which a spectator can receive information in a shot: internal focalisation and external focalisation. The former is initiated by an agent in a story (such as a character in a film), while the latter is motivated by an agent external to the story (such as the camera or the director). The distinction is important because while internal focalisation is largely equivalent to a character’s point-of-view shot, external focalisation originates from the director’s intentions. In this context, a character is situated in a milieu with the filmmaker’s conscious attempt to trigger an active view from a keen audience. On the reception end, owing to potential gaps between encoding and decoding processes (Hall 1980), the audience may adopt two paradigms to interpret the representation of a landscape in a film: intentional landscape and spectator’s landscape. According to Lefebvre (2006), the former is based on the audience’s complicity in the filmmaker’s purpose, while the latter is derived from the spectator’s own observation and explanation on the basis of personal experiences. This chapter (indeed, the whole book) focuses on intentional landscape in order to reveal the filmmaker’s intents, which are mostly conveyed through external focalisations. Nonetheless, occasionally, the tension between internal and external focalisations is foregrounded. While theorising focalisation, Deleyto (1991, 176) also indicates that because of the film medium’s ‘natural tendency towards objectivity’ in contrast to ‘the centrality of the gaze in film narration’ (which brings forth a character’s subjectivity), tension between internal and external focalisations is inevitable. However,

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as Deleyto suggests, the audience tends to ignore such tension because cinema is capable of ‘combining simultaneous internal and external gazes in such a way that, most times, the coexistence of both is taken for granted by the viewer’ (176). Hence, Deleyto asserts that the tension ‘constitute[s] a permanent source for subtle fibula [story] manipulation and irony’ on the part of the filmmaker (176). That is, the viewer’s neglect of the distinction between internal and external gazes provides the filmmaker with a field of manipulation. This insight has been employed by Rocha and Seminet (2012) to examine films about children. They argue that the ‘fragmentation’ of focalisation on different points of a frame or a sequence allows the filmmaker to deliberately select certain ‘position of the focaliser/focalised’ to embed certain ‘ideological content’ (2012, 4). In their view, ‘it is the representation of the child’s point of view, either as the focaliser or as the focalised, that determines the ideological content, which in turn reflects the concerns of the adults who both produce and watch films’ (4). Rocha and Seminet’s point is significant. As we see, cinematic landscapes in both internal and external focalisations belong to a filmmaker’s intentional landscape because they are subject to the manoeuvrings of the filmmaker and reflect their intentions. However, the filmmaker’s message in an internally focalised landscape is relayed to the domain of a child character’s subjectivity. This can constitute a strategic deployment of a filmmaker in the context of strict ideological control of a nation-state like China over its cinema to ensure the medium’s adherence to dominant ideologies, such as nationalism, patriotism, or modernisation. In the sections to come, I explore how cinematic landscapes in Bird’s Nest and Lala’s Gun, which are focalised externally in general and internally at times, convey certain messages of the filmmaker. Discussed first will be the landscapes in Beijing in Bird’s Nest, where comparisons are drawn between this film and Ning Jingwu’s other films set in Beijing. I then evaluate the cinematic landscapes in both films, with rural Guizhou as a backdrop.

Landscapes in Beijing In Bird’s Nest, two types of landscapes in Beijing are cinematically emphasised. One is the national landscape, with the Bird’s Nest as a modern example. The other includes the traditional landscapes of Beijing in the inner city, such as the Bell Tower, hutong, and siheyuan. The Miao child protagonist traverses both types of landscapes through his running. While previous research highlights the boy’s intimate contact with the capital city, and thereby hints at the boy’s smooth identification with the nation-state, my examination of cinematic landscapes, as follows, reveals fissures in this reading. The Bird’s Nest The artistically named Bird’s Nest (also known as the Beijing National Stadium) is an internationally famed sports stadium in Beijing. It became a national symbol because of Beijing’s successful bid to host the 2008 Olympics. The Olympics,

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as Gladys Chong observes, are ‘never just about sports’ in the eyes of the Chinese people (2013, 243). Because of China’s long history of being subjected to Western imperialism and being regarded as ‘the sick man of Asia’, the Chinese government and Chinese people consider a successful sports event crucial to the nation’s rejuvenation (Chong 2017). Among all the buildings constructed for the Olympics, the Bird’s Nest stood out as the location for the opening and closing ceremonies, and as one of the main venues for many sports events during the Games. The stadium’s political significance is exhibited through its location on the extension line of the Imperial Palace and Tiananmen. As a national landscape of China during the socialist era, Tiananmen appeared frequently in Ning Jingwu’s films about Han children. As a gate to the south of the Imperial Palace – a symbol of imperial power in feudalist China – Tiananmen became the most famous landmark in the nation when Chairman Mao announced the founding of the PRC on it in 1949. Drawing on Donald Meinig’s (1979, 42) ‘ideological’ way of seeing a landscape, one sees that both Tiananmen and the Bird’s Nest have characteristically taken on ‘the values, the governing ideas, the underlying philosophies’ of Chinese society. Moreover, they manifest China’s transformation from an authoritarian socialist regime to what the Bird’s Nest stands for: ‘the modernisation of China’ (Lu 2013, 434). The Bird’s Nest in Bird’s Nest is in a state of construction. Despite being a reality during the film’s production, this circumstance entails certain themes of the film played out owing to the building acting as a critical backdrop against which the Miao boy is set. When Xiangma first arrives at the Bird’s Nest, the camera pans up from the ground to the sight of the distant architectural landmark while placing the boy in the middle of the frame. In this external focalisation, the boy runs in the direction of the building, facing away from the camera, to the accompaniment of non-diegetic solemn music (Figure 4.1). This moment evokes the juxtaposition of a citizen’s physical and emotional attachment to the nation to that of an infant to their parents (Berlant 1997). The nation is symbolised as a father figure, and the child becomes a perfect embodiment of a national citizen. This is true for either a Han child or an ethnic minority child, except that the symbolic value of the latter is more meaningful and powerful in a multi-ethnic nation. It is no wonder that Hu Puzhong (2013) has taken this shot as evidence to argue that the filmmaker has successfully accomplished a national narrative. Whether intentionally or not, the shot yields a disquieting visual impact. The boy looks extremely lonely and isolated in the environment, in contrast to similar shots that portray Han children passing through Tiananmen Square on a national day in Drummer’s Aspiration.7 While thousands of Han children march through the spectacularly decorated Tiananmen Square in organised squads, the Miao boy’s physical proximity to the Bird’s Nest appears random. Presumably, the difference lies in the boy’s difficulty in achieving the same amount of intimacy and pride in a national landscape as that of the Han children. After all, he is a temporary rural migrant. His ‘closeness’ to the building is made possible only by the fact that his father is a construction worker on the site. While the construction is in process and the building is in an unfinished state, migrant workers as ‘others’

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Figure 4.1 The Miao boy runs in the direction of the Bird’s Nest (Bird’s Nest)

in the city are, as David Clarke (1997, 5) suggests, ‘the very agency necessary for the institutional structures of modernity to function’. However, once the building has been completed and turned into a stadium of national significance, they may be kept at bay for being either culturally less refined or economically less well off (Solinger 1999). They are subject to what Kwai-Cheung Lo claims as ‘a new kind of racism’ in modern China, targeting not only ‘peasants of Han origin’ but also ‘poor, backward, and culturally different ethnic minorities’ (2009, 234). Thus, the shot’s framing insinuates the embarrassment of construction workers in Dror Kochan’s (2009) observation: they are both included and excluded by urban spaces. However, a more compelling element of deconstruction in this scene is the boy’s father being physically located near the Bird’s Nest and working as a labourer in front of the building. Here, ‘deconstruction’ is understood as an attempt to uncover ‘nonlogical contradictions and discursive inequalities’ that may ‘haunt and fissure even the successful development of philosophical arguments and their systematic exposition’ (Gasché 1987, 4, original emphasis). The father’s geographical position not only gives the boy the motivation to run towards the symbolic father of the nation as expected by the nationalist claim but also basically deconstructs the boy’s nationalism through his real intention of running. The subsequent cinematic treatments, especially those concerning the boy’s internal focalisations, have lent considerable support to this nuance. Following the external focalisation as an establishing shot, a series of close-ups focuses on the boy’s upper body or running feet, intercut with shots of the building, first in a long range (from the same direction as the boy’s movement) and then in a medium range (in a shot-reverse-shot). In common practice, an internal focalisation of a

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landscape consists of a close-up on a character’s gaze and a reverse shot landscape showing what is gazed on from the character’s point of view. However, in this sequence, no close-ups are oriented at the boy’s gaze. Moreover, the shotreverse-shot that is often used in ordinary internal focalisations does not apply to the case of a landscape because a landscape, as an object, does not normally return a gaze. In this circumstance, a probable explanation for the reverse shot is his father’s location near the building and his imminent welcome gesture to his son’s arrival. Bal ([1980] 1985, 114) has termed such moments of being unable to tell whether a character or an external agent is the focaliser ‘ambiguous focalisation’ (as quoted in Deleyto 1991). Obviously, the film has provided us with inadequate clues to whether the boy’s sight is aimed at appreciating the grand building ahead of him or spotting his father among a group of workers.8 Moreover, the Bird’s Nest is deployed to pit the national against the personal – that is, the national interest as represented by the building versus a left-behind child’s desire for his father. This is illustrated briefly in the sequence when Xiangma tries to persuade his father to return home and more elaborately in the marathon sequence. In the former, when the father and the son finish their conversation outside a makeshift shelter, which they inhabit on the construction site, then the camera cranes up, gradually leaving the boy out of the frame and ending at a high-angle distant view of the Bird’s Nest. This external focalisation blatantly prioritises the building over the boy and provokes the audience to ponder over the two seemingly legitimate reasons proffered by the father to deny his son’s request. One is his part in the ‘busy’ construction schedule, and the other is a lack of livelihood back in their hometown. The first reason manifests a type of social responsibility in the awareness of a migrant worker, which is possibly misguided but nonetheless sympathetic. Regarding himself as part of a team devoted to the building project is ideologically consistent with the dominant discourse of the nation. It attests to what Chong has identified as China’s successful mobilisation of its citizens to support the Olympics, by transforming them into ‘self-directed subjects of their own’ with the internalised ideal of the nation’s revival (2017, 2). However, an inconvenient truth is that as a migrant worker, the father is a member of an enormous body of replaceable labour in Chinese cities. In the year of the Olympics, there were over two hundred million migrant workers across the nation (Gallagher, Lee, and Kuruvilla 2011). He is de facto insignificant individually, although collectively, as the figure indicates, migrant workers constitute an indispensable force in China’s modernisation process. The second reason reveals the ‘personal’ choice of a father who considers himself first and foremost the ‘breadwinner’ of his family instead of a ‘caregiver’, a ‘playmate’, or a ‘guide’ to his son (Lamb 2010, 4). However, what is hidden underneath this ostensibly ‘individualistic’ decision of a father are the ‘large-scale social processes’ that shape the type of roles available to him (Marsiglio 1993, 495). Sociological studies in China have suggested that the number of choices for Chinese farmers to make a living in the countryside are limited. This fundamentally propels their migration to cities despite the challenges involved (Ma and Xiang 1998). A key challenge confronted by migrant workers

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is separation from their families, which is closely related to a unique household registration system in China: hukou. Contrary to ‘free mobility’ in other parts of the world, where entire families migrate for better economic opportunities (Moses 2006), Chinese migrant workers are unable to take their children to receive education in the cities where they work because of their lack of an urban hukou. Consequently, millions of children are left behind in the rural areas with just one or no parent by their side (Ye 2011). In the marathon sequence, the filmmaker takes advantage of the tension between internal and external focalisations to display the contradiction between the national interest and the boy’s personal desire. When Xiangma joins a marathon on a highway near the Bird’s Nest, his figure is set against the national symbol in slow motion. While such external focalisation can easily elicit national sentiment in the audience, the filmmaker makes the boy turn his head away from his forward direction three times. Accordingly, he inserts three internal focalisations to exhibit the boy’s ‘landscape of the mind’ (Harper and Rayner 2010, 21). The first two internal focalisations reveal the affectionate relationship between the father and the son by highlighting the man’s act of lifting the boy up on two occasions. One occurs in their hometown when they cross a stream, the other when the father welcomes the boy on the construction site. Taking the latter moment out of its original sequence indicates the filmmaker’s intention of highlighting it as the boy’s inner landscape that reflects his true desire. As for the third internal focalisation, although the third cutaway is followed by an idealistic image of the Bird’s Nest, which is assumed to be the boy’s subjective vision, there are contradictory transitions between the boy turning his head away from his direction of movement and his head coming back (his head turns to the direction of the Bird’s Nest but returns from the direction of the audience). Thus, the idealistic image is misplaced and has probably been deliberately inserted to reconcile the tension between previous internal and external focalisations. For a filmmaker with rich experience in making ideologically bona fide films, such compromising manoeuvring is unsurprising. The Bell Tower, hutong, and siheyuan Besides national landscapes, traditional landscapes of Beijing, such as the Bell Tower, hutong, and siheyuan, have taken on different perspectives, from those in Bird’s Nest to those in Ning Jingwu’s other films. This may exemplify an ethnicised and classed version of the person-environment relationship, which is likely to be experienced by rural children displaced in cities. It echoes the type of social and spatial exclusion implied in the background of the Bird’s Nest, discussed earlier. The Bell Tower, hutong, and siheyuan are all cultural and historic relics in the old city of Beijing. The Bell Tower is a building constructed during the Ming dynasty for the purpose of reporting time (Kiang and Min 1996). Hutong, a Mongol word for ‘the space between tents or the way to the well’, refers to a ‘narrow alleyway’ that divides siheyuan – those ‘single-storey brick and stone courtyard houses’ (Heath and Tang 2010, 156). Both hutong and siheyuan took

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their preliminary forms during the Yuan dynasty (Heath and Tang 2010; Kiang and Min 1996), when the Mongols first turned Beijing into a capital city known as Da Du (Bulag 2006). In the subsequent Ming and Qing dynasties, while the original forms of the Bell Tower, hutong, and siheyuan were maintained, constant renovations were made (Heath and Tang 2010; Zhang 2012; Wang 2012). Rules also differed during different periods. Because the Qing dynasty was ruled by the Manchus, only the Manchus enjoyed the privilege of living in the inner city. People of other ethnicities, including Han, had to live away from the city centre (Zhang 2012). It is ironic that while these traditional landscapes of Beijing are historically pertinent to ethnic minorities, they are alienated from the Miao boy in Ning Jingwu’s external focalisations. When the boy runs through the Bell Tower and hutong, all the entrances are tightly shut to his eyes and the eyes of the film viewers. The resulting sense is that the Miao boy is excluded from the city’s interior geographies. Arguably, such exclusion stems from the boy’s lack of historical, cultural, and emotional affinity for the environment. For Beijing locals, the Bell Tower, hutong, and siheyuan embody their philosophy of time and space and represent the unique and ‘true urban identity of Beijing’ (Heath and Tang 2010, 155). However, for a boy coming from a distant rural region, it is hard to recognise the ‘enormously rich store of data’ associated with these landscapes (Meinig 1979, 42–43). He can navigate them only externally through bodily movement. The filmmaker brings this about in the scenario where the boy chases a criminal for snatching his bag. The event gives the boy the motivation for seemingly random mobility through the inner city. It successfully evades the need on the boy’s part to intellectually interpret or closely engage with these unfamiliar environments. However, the visual implications of these closed-off architectural or geographical icons in relation to the boy are conspicuous, especially in contrast to the filmmaker’s cinematic treatments in his other films. In Ning Jingwu’s films about Han children, hutong and siheyuan are intimately inhabited by the child characters. The Bell Tower is also physically and emotionally integrated into their daily lives. These buildings constitute part of the system of inclusion, which is denied to the Miao boy. For example, the boy protagonist in Growing Up often meets a girl living in the same siheyuan at the top of the Bell Tower after school. The film exhibits the landscapes of imperial and modern layouts of Beijing down below and far away that follow regular transitions of the four seasons under the children’s sharp eyes as they grow up. In Drummer’s Aspiration, one of the two leading girls resides with her grandparents in an independent siheyuan near the Imperial Palace. The other girl is often set against the Bell Tower while she waits for her mother to finish work at a nearby bus terminal. Although the main characters of Silent River are disabled youngsters who face social discrimination, the film frequently sets a protagonist in the background of the Imperial Palace. Against a red wall, the boy practices a fighting sequence from a traditional Beijing opera. These sequences encapsulate an interactional relationship between the Han children and the traditional landscapes of Beijing, which is different from what the Miao boy experiences in Bird’s Nest.

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Besides being ethnicised, the Miao boy’s engagement with the environment is classed. His running – the dominant mode of his contact with Beijing landscapes – coincides remarkably with the action of the foster mother in Ning Jingwu’s Running for Son. The film was played by Wang Junxia, China’s first Olympic gold medallist in long-distance running. In the filmmaker’s beautifully framed running sequences in external focalisations, she runs around Beijing to prevent her non-legally adopted son from being taken away by his biological mother, who is greedy for money and abandoned him in infancy. Despite being a Han Chinese, the foster mother resembles the Miao boy as part of China’s rural migrant population. Frequently running through a variety of Beijing landscapes that are either culturally dense or aesthetically modern, she always ends up taking shelter in a shabby room, either in the shadows or in the margins of the city. Likewise, after traversing the Bell Tower, hutong, and the Bird’s Nest, the Miao boy settles down in his father’s shack. Their common experiences demonstrate that for disadvantaged people at the bottom of a society, the geographies of both traditional and modern city landscapes can only reinforce rather than erase their detachment from the environment and their marginal status in society.

The space in Guizhou and nostalgia If the filmmaker has constructed the metropolitan space of Beijing as an environment of estrangement for migrant workers, then the Basha Miao village in rural Guizhou is presented as ‘the most poetic habitat of human beings’, as according to Ning Jingwu (2012). The contrast between the two is clear. While in the previous section, I occasionally drew attention to the tension between internal and external focalisations, in this section, I predominantly examine external focalisation as a direct conveyance of the filmmaker’s intentions. I demonstrate how Ning Jingwu’s deployment of external focalisations in depicting the rural space speaks volumes about his nostalgia for an idealistic past in which harmony dominated people’s relationship with nature, land, village community, and ethnic tradition. Nostalgia is understood as ‘a means of using the (idealised or simplified) past to redeem the (complicated and painful) present’ (O’Shea 2005, 83–84). China’s rapid economic development at the expense of natural environment and social cohesion obviously breeds Ning Jingwu’s nostalgia for the ‘good old days’. Meanwhile, ethnic minorities are suitable avatars for nostalgia because they live primarily in pre-modern rural environments, and their ethnic practices are inscribed in geographies away from mainstream society. Ethnic minority children are even better embodiments because their attributes of innocence and simplicity are believed to characterise the stage of childhood (Faulkner 2013). Specifically, in the space of Guizhou, Ning Jingwu has cinematically conjured a pristine forest, a poetic terrace land, and a close-knit village community for the Miao children. Moreover, the adjacent town, coupled with the city of Guangzhou in the south of China that serves as a ‘structuring absence’ (Robertson 1997, 271) in the case of another young character, is treated in a negative manner. The filmmaker’s cinematic rendition may rest on some ‘reality’ of the Basha

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village.9 However, his personal expectation and imagination might largely shape the type of childhood experience that he selects to put on screen and how he represents them. Forest Situating the Miao children in the natural landscape of a forest is of course a realistic representation of Miao geographical locations.10 However, the way Ning Jingwu represents it reinforces a romantic configuration of childhood under ‘a powerful formative effect’ of Rousseau (Taylor 2011, 422–423) (see Chapter 2). Ning Jingwu’s approach to conflating childhood with nature is to construct two relationships between the Miao children and the forest: one ‘synonymous’ and the other awe-filled. I borrow the term ‘synonymous’ from Meinig’s (1979, 34–35) description of the pristine state of nature: ‘There was a time, in the sweet childhood of the human race, when man lived close to nature . . . the world of nature and the world of man were synonymous’. The term is pertinent to the type of relationship in Ning Jingwu’s representation because the Miao children and the forest, along with birds in the forest, are equal, inseparable, and homogenous. In contrast, the awe-filled relationship originates from the Miao people’s religious belief in the supernatural powers possessed by trees. The two relationships work together in binding the Miao children to nature physically and ideologically. The synonymous relationship between the Miao children and the forest is best illustrated in the opening sequence of Bird’s Nest, where Xiangma preys on insects for his baby birds. The filmmaker’s cinematic emphasis on a few primary natural elements in the forest, such as insects, trees, baby birds, and a nest, reveals his attempt to ‘restore nature to her pristine condition’ (Meinig 1979, 34–35). The children are made synonymous with these elements, in the sense that they fit completely into the environment. A steadily ascending shot from a distance is employed to track Xiangma’s climbing of a tree. It highlights the scale and colour of the forest, which render Xiangma indistinguishable from the environment. The duration of the shot plays up the intimate contact between the boy and the tree, while Xiangma’s ultimate feeding of a nest of baby birds bolsters the analogical relationship between him and the birds. Both in the childhood stage of development, they require care and support, more especially because they have negligent or absent parents. As informed by the film narrative, the baby birds have a careless mother bird, while Xiangma has a migrant father. As if by telepathy, Xiangma takes care of the birds in the same manner as he expects himself to be looked after. In contrast, the opening sequence of Lala’s Gun provides an apt demonstration of the awe-filled relationship between the Miao children and the forest. In this case, the forest becomes a sacred place where a coming-of-age ritual is being held. In the presence of his parents, a row of rifle-bearing men, and a crowd of villagers in the background, a boy asks the Tree God, through a sorcerer, to take him in as his ‘son’. The sorcerer also pleads to the Tree God to offer the boy a

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blessing for fast growth and a smooth life, to reward him for his good behaviours, and to punish him for mischief. In this context, not only is the forest ‘large, immense, great, and mysterious’, but it also ‘possesses the power to change lives and alter destinies’ as in Grimm’s fairy tales (Zipes 1987, 66). The sanctity of the forest and the resulting awe-filled relationship between the boy and the forest is achieved not only through the image of trees in a low-angle shot in the beginning, which renders the trees bathed in brilliant sunshine as if taking on spiritual charm, but also through a subsequent high-angle God’s point-of-view shot that metaphorically incorporates the perspective of the Tree God into the ceremony. Moreover, the sorcerer’s words expound a deep ideological connection between the coming-of-age boy and the forest. The trees become a ‘restorative environment’ and a ‘moral teacher’ (Louv 2008, 102, 189) by providing the children with psychological support and moral guidance. Finally, the ritual is delivered in a serious manner. The participation of all villagers, especially the line of gun-toting male adults, heightens the solemnity of the moment and buttresses the authority of its message. As a result, an awe-filled relationship is established between the Miao children and the forest. Terrace land Terrace land features prominently in both films, especially in Lala’s Gun. Different from a forest, whose pristine condition is preferred, agricultural land is more often celebrated for being creatively reformulated by human beings without violating the laws of nature. As a product of ‘a collective shaping of the earth over time’ (Crang 1998, 14), terrace land attests to the agricultural civilisation of Miao people over the centuries. The filmmaker apparently adores this miraculous creation. Evidence for this is a crane shot that follows Lala’s movements in carrying firewood away from his village shortly after the film starts. The upward movement of the shot marginalises Lala in the foreground and deliberately draws viewers’ attention to the terrace land in the middle range of a mountain in the background. The shot reveals the filmmaker’s personal obsession with the landscape, which temporarily even takes precedence over his child character. The filmmaker also employs either a panorama shot or an overhead shot to frame the Miao children on the land. These shots highlight an inseparable relationship between the children and the land, which reveals the filmmaker’s expectation of the children to carry on Miao’s agricultural tradition. For example, when Lala walks through terrace fields at the outset of his journey in search of his father, he is situated in a high-angle panorama shot. His figure is swallowed by patches of fully grown golden crops at harvest season, which dominate in colour, shape, and scale. The shot is reminiscent of similar shots in Times and Winds (2006, dir. Reha Erdem), a Turkish film where, as Karen Lury describes, the child characters are placed ‘between the animate and inanimate, or the earth and sky. . . . they are not separate from the land; they are not “figures on the landscape” – they are part of the world’ (2010, 287). Conversely, when Lala returns from his journey during

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sowing season, not only is he visible on the land, but he also constitutes a prominent presence. Nonetheless, the same message of their close relationship is transmitted. This is manifested on the morning of Lala’s coming-of-age day, when an overhead shot situates Lala, together with other Miao children, in a newly sown rice field (Figure 4.2). The shot juxtaposes the children with sprouting young crops, drawing a beautiful visual analogy between the vitality of the children and that of the new plants. Village community Community is defined by Gillian Rose (1990, 426) as ‘a group of people bound together by some kind of belief stemming from particular historical and geographical circumstances in their own solidarity’ (as quoted in Valentine 2004). It can operate on a spectrum of spaces and scales, being nation based (Anderson 1983) or ‘neighbourhood based’ (Valentine 2004, 9). This understanding of community lends itself conveniently to an ethnic minority group in a remote village. Although sociological research has disclosed an increasing number of Chinese villages composed of only children, women, and the elderly, as a result of China’s urbanisation and migration (Ye et al. 2010), a collective way of living is far from being dismantled in Ning Jingwu’s cinematic rendering. Young and middle-aged Miao men remain in the village, and they play significant roles in the upbringing of local children. The opening sequence of Lala’s Gun, discussed earlier, has demonstrated the village as a close-knit community. This is the same case with Bird’s Nest. For example, when villagers gather to make bamboo cups for Xiangma, so that he can settle a deal with a rice wine festival in town and obtain fares to travel to

Figure 4.2 Lala and other Miao children in a rice field (Lala’s Gun)

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Beijing, a high-angle long and static shot is used. In this shot, the villagers engage in a conversation about Xiangma’s cleverness at procuring funds in the vicinity of home without migrating to a city. Making no cuts to individual speakers, the shot invites the audience’s full attention to the villagers’ collective revelation, which is of course made on behalf of the filmmaker.11 More significantly, the shot highlights the concerted efforts of the villagers to help a child of their community to realise his dream. Another case in point is a dramatic long shot that depicts the villagers’ release of a wounded bird before Xiangma heads for Beijing. The villagers stand solemnly beneath a tree and stretch their arms straight upward in the direction of the branches in a ritualistic fashion. In this image, the children and the adults all look solemn, serious, and unanimous. In retrospect, Xiangma’s caring for the baby birds in the beginning of the film is probably not a rare case and is a common practice among Miao people as a tradition passed down through generations. Town space The filmmaker also cinematically presents a rather dismissive image of a neighbouring town near the Basha village. This corresponds to a tendency implicit in nostalgia: an ‘impulse to reverse or deny change’ (O’Shea 2005, 83–84). Although the town is indispensable to the life of the Miao children in terms of their occasional acts of exchanging firewood, herbs, or bamboo roots for money, the filmmaker maintains an artistic treatment that insinuates a minimal level of transformation in the life of the children by external forces. This is best illustrated in the sequence when Xiangma cooks bamboo rice as his lunch in town. A shot first shows a river and some modern buildings on the banks. It then gradually lowers its position to include Xiangma and his open fire in the foreground near the river. This low-angle framing highlights the precarious nature of the urban landscape in the background, although it is made of concrete and steel. Moreover, backlighting is employed in this deep-focus shot to separate the boy from the modern environment. Consequently, a sense of detachment looms large, as if modernity has taken people’s lives away from what used to be fundamental elements of human existence: land, rocks, rivers, and so on. This feeling echoes human geographer Edward Relph’s observation that while modern landscapes manifest ‘technical accomplishments’ and ‘material prosperity’, they also give rise to ‘aesthetic confusion, ethical poverty and a disturbing degree of dependence on technical expertise’ (1981, 14–15). The same effect would not have been achieved if the camera were placed on the top of a building looking down at the boy. In that case, an opposite message of extolling modernity and lamenting the past would be conveyed. A similar feeling can be sensed in Lala’s Gun. In this film, the first appearance of town space occurs shortly after the first appearance of terrace land, when Lala carries firewood away from his village. An ascending crane shot is equally deployed by the filmmaker to draw viewers’ attention to what lies in the background: high buildings erected in the town at the bottom of the mountain.

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However, different visual impacts are created. In the case of terrace land, such movement reveals the filmmaker’s admiration of the geographical miracle; the same technique used here transmits, instead, a sense of intimidation and concern. The effect is probably due to the fact that the town looms large in the shot, which implies its geographical proximity to Lala’s village. One feels that modernity will soon expand and wipe out the traditional space. Moreover, with the character of Guwang, Lala’s 20-year-old friend, the filmmaker demonises urban spaces and expresses his opposition to the idea of relinquishing ethnic traditions for the sake of Han-dominated modernity. Shearing off his hair bun, which represents his ethnic identity, and putting on a business suit that symbolises modernity, Guwang heads for Guangzhou, but he returns shortly afterwards and dies. Despite a lack of visual representation, the film provides his oral account that recounts his accident in the city as a deliveryman. He had jumped off a vehicle and bumped his head on an asphalt road while attempting to catch his uniform cap, which was blown away by the wind. He had assumed that the cap was paramount to his professional identity, and the city road was as safe as a country road. The accident proves that urban professionalism and geography are incompatible with Miao ideologies. Guwang’s death serves as a safety valve on Lala’s future, which, as constructed by the filmmaker, should be embedded in ethnic traditions and rooted to his homeland (guxiang). Ethnic tradition and Miao homeland To turn Lala into an heir of Miao tradition, the filmmaker exposes him to a variety of Miao men and Miao practices on his journey, which constitutes a real comingof-age ritual for the boy. These men represent a Miao community on a larger scale. They act as role models for Lala, positive or negative, and provide him with useful lessons. All the men’s circumstances are concerned with their relationships with the Miao land. Their stories and the way they are framed in the company of Lala in relation to their environments reflect the filmmaker’s attitudes towards ethnic tradition and social change. Wu Bala, Lala’s first encounter, lost his wife and home after a failed investment in farming and retreated to a forest to live alone near a stream. His story illuminates the challenge of a market economy to Miao men, which has basically stripped Wu of his homestead and his dignity as a man. His lack of manhood is symbolically conveyed through the absence of dragon marks on his back. A dragon, according to Kam Louie’s accounts of Guan Yu’s ‘green dragon sword’ in Chinese classic novel Sanguo Yanyi/Romance of the Three Kingdoms, not only symbolises ‘power and control’, but also ‘invoke[s] a specifically male potentiality’ owing to ‘its expandable penile quality’ (1999, 840). In an overhead shot that depicts Lala’s disappointment at seeing nothing on Wu’s back (his grandma had told him that his biological father had dragon marks on his back), the audience sees the figures of Lala and Wu compressed by the high angle of the shot, which works to expose their vulnerable hearts in the milieu of a gently flowing stream. For Lala, he is a pitiful boy without a father. For Wu, he is even worse off, being

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without money, a home, a wife, and a son. Wu’s experiences may render Lala cautious about his future engagement with the modern financial world. Lala’s encounter with a group of Miao men witnessing their houses burned to ashes is a more straightforward trope of the Miao people’s loss of their native place, although the latter is more likely to result from urbanisation and migration (such as in the cases of Xiangma’s father and Guwang) than fire. In a meticulously composed long static shot, the disheartened Miao people spontaneously form themselves into two detached groups – men in one and women in the other – after rescuing possessions from the burning houses. They stand still and stare at the flame silently. The male group is distinctively situated in the centre of the frame, while the female group is allocated to the right margin. With a contrast in position and size, the shot maps out the gender inequality in a Miao society. Lala’s ultimate joining in the male group after giving away his bag of rice to a woman indicates his recognition of the male power. However, what the shot communicates significantly is the powerlessness of the Miao men as a group in the face of destruction to their homeland. Contrary to Wu Bala, who lost his home, and the group of Miao men who lost their houses, a farmer whom Lala encounters in the aforementioned poetic landscape of terrace land constitutes a positive role model for the boy. The farmer’s life is perfect in many ways. He possesses a house and heads a family with a wife and two children. Moreover, his rice fields achieve bumper harvests year after year, as described in his songs. The filmmaker apparently celebrates his life because he employs many pictorial landscape shots to feature him harvesting in the terrace fields with his family, later joined by Lala. The shots are accompanied by the family’s singing to express joy at harvest time and contentment with life. This combination of spectacular landscapes with music, as Saeed-Vafa suggests, ‘reflects a filmmaker’s cultural harmony with those places, or a desire to identify with them and what they represent culturally’ (2002, 213). Given the fact that this vision of agricultural prosperity and satisfaction with life, especially in the case of a strong, married, and middle-aged man, is rare in contemporary rural China, as mentioned earlier, the filmmaker probably deliberately sets up this role model, expecting Lala to lead a similar contented life based on a self-sufficient agricultural economy, as in an ideal bygone era.12 The filmmaker finally secures Lala’s commitment to ethnic tradition by making him an heir to a singing practice in Miao funerals: death-guidance songs. The songs, as explained on screen and understood in real life, articulate the gratitude of the deceased to their parents and the natural world and guide their path to families and ancestors in the other world – the ultimate home of the Miao people (Tapp 2003). The filmmaker obviously sees value in this cultural practice. He employs many landscape shots to depict Lala’s acquisition of the singing skill from a ship repairman along a riverbank. The river, with boats on the shore or in water, as well as huge banyan trees on the banks, evokes the metaphor of an irreversible life course, the continuity of time, and the relative eternity of the material world. They form apposite geographies for an old man’s mentorship to a young one on the issue of life and death in their tradition. Because the songs are at the risk of

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vanishing (the ship repairman’s son refuses to learn them and prefers to work as a migrant worker), Lala’s inheritance of the skill renders him a critical link to the past and the future of the Miao community.

Conclusion This chapter studies cinematic landscapes in Ning Jingwu’s two films about Miao children. It uncovers a contemporary Han filmmaker’s reflection on China’s rise and Chinese modernisation. Although all the leading characters are played by local villagers who speak their native language, which is assumed to facilitate the self-expression of ethnic minorities (Li 2012; Hu 2012), Ning Jingwu, like his predecessor Tian Zhuangzhuang (Marchetti 1988), admits that his initial motivation to make the Miao films was not to protect the Miao culture but to seek references from other cultures to solve the confusions in his own (Zhongguo minzu bao, 1 May 2009). By setting his films in a marginal rural space in conjunction with the national centre and by casting the Miao children as either a left-behind child or an inheritor of Miao tradition, the filmmaker highlights the contribution and sacrifice of migrant workers on the one hand and expresses his nostalgia for an ideal traditional society on the other.

Notes 1 Chou Chou is a contemporary Chinese female director of ethnic origin, who has experiences of both Miao (her mother’s ethnicity) and Dong (her father’s ethnicity) groups. Her recent film, Dongzu dage/The Grand Song (2017), focuses on the protection of a special singing practice in the Dong culture, which has been put on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritages of the World. 2 An exception to this scenario is documentary filmmaker Hu Shu’s Kaishui yao tang, Guniang yao zhuang/I Want to Dance (2007). This film importantly focuses on a Miao girl’s aspiration for a slim body, in accordance with the Han standard of feminine beauty, so that she can attend a Miao dance competition in town. The film reveals the impact of Han culture on Miao youth. 3 According to Lin (2003), the Generation of Postgraduates refers to those filmmakers with master’s degrees from the BFA. The first batch comes from the class of 1991, with Zhang Ming, the director of Wushan yunyu/Rainclouds over Wushan (1995), as a key representative. The second batch comes from the classes of 1996, 1997, and 1998 and includes Ning Jingwu, Lu Chuan, Pan Guangyuan, Yu Zhong, Fang Gangliang, and others. 4 Besides Lost in Shennongjia, a thriller, Ning Jingwu also made two romantic movies during this period: Zaoyu Ruan Lingyu/Encounter with Ruan Lingyu (2005) and Lihua yu/In Spring (2007). 5 The idea of making the two films was born out of the period when Ning Jingwu worked as a production supervisor to Chou Chou’s Anayi. He became ‘fascinated’ with the Miao culture in the rural areas of Guizhou (Zheng 2012). 6 The two films about left-behind children are Zai na yaoyuan de xiao shancun/In That Small Remote Mountainous Village (2011) and Yangguang liushou/Left-Behind in Sunshine (2013). The one film about ethnic minorities (Yao ethnic group) is Wangdu zhilian/Love in Wangdu (2015). 7 Tiananmen Square is a square area to the south of Tiananmen. According to Dutton, Lo, and Wu (2008, 21–25), it is after the renovation of Tiananmen Square as part of Ten

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9

10 11

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Great Projects in the preparation for the nation’s tenth anniversary that Tiananmen and Tiananmen Square ultimately ‘displaced’ the Imperial Palace as the ‘unquestionable centre of Beijing’. Note that Bird’s Nest has at least two versions. This chapter’s analysis is based on the version played on the film channel of CCTV. I had not been aware of the other version on the channel’s website until I prepared screenshots for this book. In that version, a conversation has taken place between the boy and a police officer about the building before he runs towards it. This further proves that the boy runs towards his father instead of the building in the later moment, as he has taken a glance at it beforehand. Ning Jingwu (2012) claims that his Miao films, Lala’s Gun in particular, are documentary feature films that are rich in ethnographical values. His screenplays are based largely on real events that he encountered during the several years in which he commuted back and forth to the village and mingled with the local people. As both films exhibit, Miao’s residential and production geographies are structured hierarchically. Forests and villages are located on the upland, terrace fields are in the middle, and rivers and grassy areas are at the bottom. The filmmaker’s view that a farmer does not need to seek faraway employment for livelihood was marginal when the film was produced. His idea, which was based mainly on humanitarian concern, in light of his emphasis on the feelings of a leftbehind child, contradicted the nation’s developmental discourse that prioritised urban modernisation. However, ten years later, in 2018, Ning Jingwu’s idea miraculously coincided with the dominant narrative of the nation-state when Chairman Xi proposed the initiative of ‘modernising rural China’ (xiangcun zhenxin) and encouraged migrant workers to return to the countryside. Interestingly, the farmer has a personal dilemma in life as well, as represented in his secret date with a woman other than his wife. But this ‘affair’ fails to defame the man because his wife responds to the discovery by commenting that ‘It is not a bad thing to be loved’. The man must have done something great that deserves the woman’s forgiveness. Moreover, through the anecdote, the farmer passes down another critical lesson to Lala: ‘Marry a girl you adore and make the girl who adores you unwilling to leave you’. This lesson reverberates owing to a supporting character in the film: a Miao girl who is fond of Lala.

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Lin, Lisheng. 2003. “‘Yanjiusheng dai’ daoyan yanjiu zongshu [A Literature Review on Directors of the ‘Generation of Postgraduates’].” Beijing dianying xueyuan xuebao, (2): 75–79. Lo, Kwai-Cheung. 2009. “Two Moments of Ethnic Representation in Tian Zhuangzhuang’s Minority Films.” Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 3 (3): 231–247. doi: 10.1386/jcc.3.3.231/1. Louie, Kam. 1999. “Masculinity and Politics in Chinese Culture: The Case of the ‘Sanguo’ Hero Guan Yu.” Modern Asian Studies, 33 (4): 835–859. doi: 10.1017/S0026749X99003558. Louv, Richard. 2008. Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. New York: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. Lu, Zhouxiang. 2013. “From Hongkew Recreation Ground to Bird’s Nest: The Past, Present and Future of Large Sports Venues in China.” The International Journal of the History of Sport, 30 (4): 422–442. doi: 10.1080/09523367.2013.765724. Lury, Karen. 2010. “Children in an Open World: Mobility as Ontology in New Iranian and Turkish Cinema.” Feminist Theory, 11 (3): 283–294. doi: 10.1177/1464700110376279. Ma, Laurence J. C., and Biao Xiang. 1998. “Native Place, Migration and the Emergence of Peasant Enclaves in Beijing.” The China Quarterly, (155): 546–581. doi: 10.1017/ S0305741000049997. Marchetti, Gina. 1988. “Two from China’s Fifth Generation: Interviews with Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang.” Continuum, 2 (1): 128–134. doi: 10.1080/10304318809359355. Marsiglio, William. 1993. “Contemporary Scholarship on Fatherhood: Culture, Identity, and Conduct.” Journal of Family Issues, 14 (4): 484–509. doi: 10.1177/019251393014004002. Meinig, Donald W. 1979. “The Beholding Eye: Ten Versions of the Same Scene.” In The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: Geographical Essays, edited by Donald W. Meinig, 33–48. New York: Oxford University Press. Moses, Jonathon W. 2006. International Migration: Globalization’s Last Frontier. London: Zed Books. Ning, Jingwu. 2012. “Xinling shudi de huigui huo juebie: Niaochao, Gun Lala de qiang chuangzuo fansi [Return or Farewell to a Soul Habitat: Reflections on the Productions of Bird’s Nest and Lala’s Gun].” In Quanqiuhua yu minzu dianying: Zhongguo minzu ticai dianying de lishi, xianzhuang he weilai [Globalisation and Ethnic Film: The History, Present, and Future of Chinese Ethnic Minority Themed Film], edited by Song Niu and Shuguang Rao, 70–72. Beijing: Zhongguo guangbo dianshi chubanshe. Ning, Jingwu, Hang Xu, Baofeng Tian, and Jing Wang. 2004. “Shixin de xianshi biaoda: Fang ‘Jidi caihong’, ‘Duozi’ daoyan Ning Jingwu [A Realistic Expression of a Poetic Heart: An Interview with Ning Jingwu, the Director of Polar Rainbow and Running for Son].” Dianying xinzuo, (5): 9–11. O’Shea, Mary B. 2005. “Crazy from the Heat: Southern Boys and Coming of Age.” In Where the Boys Are: Cinemas of Masculinity and Youth, edited by Murray Pomerance and Frances Gateward, 83–97. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Ouyang, Qinshu, Shan Hua, Shiyi Zhang, and Jingwu Ning. 2009. “Wo wufa qianjiu renhe ren [I Cannot Make a Compromise to Anyone].” Dianying, (9): 74–76. Relph, Edward. 1981. Rational Landscapes and Humanistic Geography. London: Croom Helm. Robertson, Pamela. 1997. “Home and Away: Friends of Dorothy on the Road in Oz.” In The Road Movie Book, edited by Steven Cohan and Ina Rae Hark, 271–286. London: Routledge. Rocha, Carolina, and Georgia Seminet. 2012. “Introduction.” In Representing History, Class, and Gender in Spain and Latin America: Children and Adolescents in Film, edited by Carolina Rocha and Georgia Seminet, 1–32. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Rose, Gillian. 1990. “Imagining Poplar in the 1920s: Contested Concepts of Community.” Journal of Historical Geography, 16 (4): 425–437. doi: 10.1016/0305-7488(90)90144-Z. Saeed-Vafa, Mehrnaz. 2002. “Location (Physical Space) and Cultural Identity in Iranian Films.” In New Iranian Cinema: Politics, Representation and Identity, edited by Richard Tapper, 200–214. London: I. B. Tauris. Solinger, Dorothy. 1999. Contesting Citizenship in Urban China: Peasant Migrants, the State and the Logic of the Market. Berkeley: University of California Press. Tapp, Nicholas. 2003. The Hmong of China: Context, Agency, and the Imaginary. Boston, MA: Brill. Taylor, Affrica. 2011. “Reconceptualizing the ‘Nature’ of Childhood.” Childhood, 18 (4): 420–433. doi: 10.1177/0907568211404951. Valentine, Gill. 2004. Public Space and the Culture of Childhood. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Wang, Mingzhen. 2012. “Beijing zhonglou he gulou [Bell Tower and Drum Tower in Beijing].” Beijing dang’an, (12): 34–35. Ye, Jingzhong. 2011. “Left-Behind Children: The Social Price of China’s Economic Boom.” The Journal of Peasant Studies, 38 (3): 613–650. doi: 10.1080/03066150.2011.582946. Ye, Jingzhong, Congzhi He, Huifang Wu, and Lu Pan, eds. 2010. Liushou Zhongguo: Zhongguo nongcun liushou renkou yanjiu [Left-Behind Population in Rural China]. Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe. Zhang, Guiyu. 2012. “City Texture–Hutong and Siheyuan in Beijing (I).” China & the World Cultural Exchange, (9): 28–31. Zheng, Qian. 2012. “Muyu [Mother Tongue].” Zhongguo minzu, (Z1): 72–79. Zipes, Jack. 1987. “The Enchanted Forest of the Brothers Grimm: New Modes of Approaching the Grimm’s Fairy Tales.” Germanic Review, 62 (2): 66–74.

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Cinematic space in a relational construction Heroes and a reconstruction of ethnic relationships through children’s interethnic interactions

This chapter draws on British human geographer Doreen Massey’s (2005) idea of the relational construction of space, to explore how ethnic minority children’s interactions with Han children in cinematic space serve to reconstruct interethnic relationships. The film to be discussed, Seeking Naadam (2009, dir. Bao Lide), is not directed by a famous filmmaker in the PRC, but the film importantly situates a Han boy from Beijing in a rural environment – the Inner Mongolian grasslands – to counteract his addiction to Internet games. This plotline counters a dominant narrative in contemporary Chinese popular culture that focuses on rural children’s adaptation to urban spaces when they migrate to cities with their parents, but it resonates with a cinematic tradition since the 1980s, in which Han children are placed in an ethnic minority region to get transformed. Taken there against his will, the boy attempts (and fails) to escape from the grasslands shortly after his arrival. This gives rise to his subsequent resort to seeking help from a Mongol girl in the host herder’s family. Their shared journey across the grasslands and neighbouring towns constitutes the main body of the film. Moreover, different from migrant children in a city, who are subject to discrimination and segregation, the Han boy receives considerable hospitality from locals, even though, as the film intimates, the Mongols are the victims of the Han-dominated socioeconomic reform in the region. Ostensibly, the film celebrates the leadership of the Han-dominated nationstate. ‘Naadam’, in the film’s title, is the most important sporting event for Mongols on the grasslands, but it coincided with the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games the year the film was produced. Owing to the unique status of the Olympics to the Chinese nation (see Chapter 4), Chinese gold medallists in the Olympics are considered heroes (Chong 2013). In the film, although the children fail to arrive at Naadam to see athletic Mongol heroes because of the girl’s illness, the Han boy’s final act of carrying the sick girl on his back conveys an undeniable message that Han Chinese are the real heroes. However, this chapter suggests that a celebratory reading of Han leadership is not the whole message of the film. What deserves real attention is the process by which the film unfolds cinematically while telling a seemingly straightforward story that corresponds to national preoccupations. This chapter argues that the film’s effective construction of two alternating spaces with the children’s mobility – the grasslands and adjoining towns – illustrates

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forcefully how power relations between the Han and the Mongols shift with space. Although the film is in line with the rise of both Han and China on the domestic and international stages through benign heroism, it also takes note along the way of other Indigenous knowledge systems and practices of civility, which give pointers to how this might be enacted. The film suggests that both Han and Mongols can be heroes if they are situated in a proper space. The Chinese state needs to reconsider its spatial relationship with its power and its people – other ethnic groups – it governs. The relational space between Han and ethnic minorities can be more intimate and allow different readings.

Interethnic relationships in films about children In Chinese cinema, ethnic minority children are sometimes placed side by side with Han children in a film narrative. Secret of Axia River (1976) (mentioned in Chapter 1), Yingsheng age/Echo Brother (1982, dir. Wang Junzheng), and Smiling Crab (2001) (mentioned in Chapter 3) are three prominent examples, and they were all directed by Han filmmakers. Secret of Axia River tells the story of three children, from Han, Hui, and Tibetan groups respectively, who volunteer to defend the logs of a state-owned tree farm from being transported away by speculators via the Axia River. Growing up in a multi-ethnic rural community during the Cultural Revolution, the children are all educated with stories of the little Red Army soldiers and are aware of the importance of class struggle. They are either newly recruited little ‘red guards’ or are aspiring for the role. However, the Hui child occasionally indulges in play, which results in the loss of a national asset, while the Tibetan child gets overwhelmed by negative feelings after the incident. In this context, the film highlights the modelling role of the Han child, who helps his ethnic minority peers to overcome weaknesses in their characters. Nonetheless, the film on the whole prioritises class struggle over its depiction of ethnic differences. Echo Brother, produced after China’s reform and opening up, significantly discards the theme of class struggle as well as the construction of moral advantage in a Han child. Instead, it sets a precedent for a type of narrative in which a ‘problematic’ urban Han child is sent to a rural minority region to get rehabilitated. In the context where China had just kicked off its single-child family policy, the film focuses on a six-year-old boy, Jingjing, who is spoilt by his family in Beijing because he is their only child. Visiting his mother in southern China, he spends some time in a Jingpo residential area. After interacting with a group of Jingpo children in a village, Jingjing gradually gets rid of his selfish and unsympathetic behaviours. Smiling Crab follows a similar narrative pattern. In the milieu of China that has accumulated great material wealth around the century, the film features a rich, well-equipped Han girl, Xiaoya, from the Ningbo city in the south of China. She visits a rural area in Xinjiang because her father has business over there. She soon finds herself abandoned by the local ethnic minority children because of her arrogance, self-centredness, and materialism. When no children show up at her extravagant birthday party, Xiaoya starts to reflect on her behaviour and decides to change.

Cinematic space in a relational construction 81 The three films illustrate a shift in ethnic minority children’s relationship with Han children in Chinese cinematic representation. In the Mao era, ethnic minority children were bluntly set up as less advanced and progressive than their Han counterparts. In contrast, in the post-socialist period, ethnic minority children serve as ‘other’ for Han children to realise their problems and precipitate change in their attitudes and behaviours. Seeking Naadam has in many ways inherited this new tradition. However, it also differs remarkably in terms of its construction of cinematic space through the mobility of the children. Seen relationally, as this chapter argues, the two oscillating spaces are formed through the children’s different connections with things, objects, and people in each space, which ultimately effectuate the boy’s transformation. Such cinematic construction is significant because it reveals analytically who is the real hero and how a hero is produced.

A relational construction of space Space is a key concept in cultural geography. Drawing on Gill Valentine (2004, 8), geographers’ understanding of space has undergone three stages. In the 1950s, space was valued for its objective physical features. It was taken as a discrete and autonomous container for social relations and processes. Later, space was perceived as a product of these relations and processes rather than being merely a container. Finally, in the late 20th century, geographers identified the active role of space in reproducing social relations and processes while being produced by them. ‘Spatiality’ is used to describe the way in which space and social relations are made through each other. Edward Soja’s famous configuration of the ‘sociospatial dialectic’ helps to understand ‘spatiality’. In Soja’s (1980, 208) view, the organisation of space is neither ‘a separate structure with its own autonomous laws of construction and transformation’ nor ‘simply an expression of the class structure emerging from the social (i.e. aspatial) relations of production’; instead, it represents ‘a dialectically defined component of the general relations of production, relations which are simultaneously social and spatial’. According to Soja, it is important to examine this ‘socio-spatial dialectic’ because ‘the demystification of spatiality and its veiled instrumentality of power is the key to making practical, political, and theoretical sense of the contemporary era’ (1989, 61). Soja’s idea echoes the thoughts of many key geographers of the era, such as David Harvey, Neil Smith, and Doreen Massey. Harvey (1973), a pioneer of Marxist geography, agrees that space is an active agent to social relations instead of being a given, a vessel for non-spatial things. Smith (1991) develops the concept of relative space to refer to the dynamic condition of space as both an effect and a cause of socioeconomic relations and processes, in contrast to the conventional understanding of space as absolute – that is, an empty receptacle. Massey (1994) advances the configuration of space from a relative to a relational condition. She perceives space as ‘porous networks of social relations’ where a diversity of groups and individuals are positioned differently, constituting what she calls ‘power geometry’ (1994, 121). Massey (1995) also stresses that all ‘things’ – places, identities, and socio-spatial formations – should be conceived relationally.

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In the later development of her idea, she underlines that space is not simply ‘there’ as a smooth continuous surface but poises as ‘the sphere of coexistence of a multiplicity of trajectories’ (2005, 135), constructed through ‘practices of material engagement’ and ‘unfolds as interaction’ (132). Massey’s relational thinking of space is significant because it solves a critical question that has beset geographers for decades – ‘how to uncover, explain, and represent the interrelationships between spaces and objects [social relations and processes]’ (Jones 2009, 490, original emphasis). Massey also emphasises that in her framework, the ‘practices’ and ‘interactions’ that constitute space, which reflects the ‘social dimension’ of space, do not imply ‘exclusively human sociability’ but ‘engagement within a multiplicity’ (2005, 132, original emphasis). Instead of being ‘discrete’ or ‘inert things’, the multiple trajectories in the sphere of space are ‘a heterogeneity of practices and processes’, which form a dynamic simultaneity of ‘becomings’ (Massey 2005, 221, original emphasis). These simultaneous ‘becomings’ do not prescribe that the sphere is ‘an already-interconnected whole’ (221). Rather, it is ‘an ongoing product of interconnections and not’ (221). As Massey (2005) recounts, the sphere is full of ‘loose ends and ongoing stories’, where there are ‘connections yet to be made, juxtapositions yet to flower into interaction, or not, potential links which may never be established’ (222, original emphasis). From Massey’s standpoint, it is those ‘practices which form relations’ that collectively produce ‘entities and identities (be they places, or political constituencies, or mountains)’ (295). Although space is in a constant state of construction, Massey admits that there are ‘temporary cohesions of articulations of relations, the provisional and partial enclosures, the repeated practices which chisel their way into being established flows’, which ‘mirror the necessary fixings of communication and identity’ (2005, 347). Despite the convenience afforded by these temporary fixings, the identities of human or nonhuman can be opaque to each other because of various spheres of multiplicity and relationships within them. Therefore, when we (human or nonhuman) are ‘being together’, we require the aforementioned ‘social’ dimension of space to establish relationships so that the ‘mutual opacity’ in the ‘spatial’ can be broken (307). In this state of ‘throwntogetherness’, negotiations in the course of engagements and interactions become ‘inevitable’ (356). While every entity and identity needs to negotiate, ‘shockingly unequal’ challenges are involved for different groups and individuals (Massey 2005, 334). Massey points out that the ‘politics, economics and cultures of space’, marked by social differences of class, gender, ethnicity, and so on give rise to that inequality and may cause tension (2005, 334). To alleviate the tension, ethics is required in our negotiations. Inspired by Jacques Derrida’s remarks that ‘ethics is hospitality’ and that hospitality is ‘a manner of being there, the manner in which we relate to ourselves and to others, to others as our own or as foreigners’ (2001, 16–17, original emphasis, as quoted in Massey 2005), Massey suggests that relational ethics should be adopted in accordance with relational space (369). She considers it necessary to reframe the traditional locally bound ethical commitment through its interconnectedness with other trajectories on a larger scale. The purpose is

Cinematic space in a relational construction 83 to imagine and establish ‘different geographies of affect and of loyalty’ (371). This idea incidentally echoes the feminist ethics of care, which advocates situated understanding, openness to ‘others’ (human and nonhuman), and recognising mutual dependence (Held 2006). Massey’s notions of relational space and relational ethics open up opportunities for intervention in social relations and processes. On the one hand, the relational perspective exposes the power geometries in various structures of time-spaces that regulate ‘the range and nature of the adventures and chance encounters which are permissible’ (Massey 2005, 354–355). On the other hand, there is potential for change. As Massey indicates, if entities and identities ‘of ourselves, of the everyday, of places’ are relational (2005, 374), then ‘it is in the relations of their construction that the politics needs to be engaged’ (354–355). Through intervention, a reconstruction can be achieved in interpersonal relationships, human–nonhuman relationships, and ‘spatialities of responsibility, loyalty, care’ (374). Nonetheless, as Massey warns, this type of reconstruction does not dismiss the connotation of ‘one-way-ness’ in ethics like hospitality or ‘responsibility’. These ethics are unavoidably ‘hierarchical’ in spatiality and ‘arrogate’ unto the ‘responsible’ figure or the provider of hospitality in a superior position of power (383). Seen through Massey’s framework, Seeking Naadam may be considered a reconstruction of Han–Mongol relationships through an intervention in space construction. The space of the grasslands, together with the space of adjoining towns, is made available to the two children so that they can interact with a cohort of ‘adventures and chance encounters’ that totally differs from their past experiences. However, space does not take effect by itself. The children must make interactions with other trajectories in those spaces before the spaces create social relations that are relevant to them. The two children respectively facilitate the other’s negotiations with the multiple trajectories – human or nonhuman – in their unfamiliar space, resulting in a relational construction of space and ethnic relationships. Power is implicated in this process and shifts with space. The Indigenous knowledge of the Mongols and their hospitality are particularly emphasised. In the sections to come, I examine how the two spaces are constructed relationally, before moving on to the climactic moment in which the boy carries the girl on his back.

The space of the grasslands Although cities are characterised by ‘peculiarly large, intense and heterogeneous constellations of trajectories, demanding of complex negotiations’, Massey emphasises that her relational conception of space is not confined to urban spaces (2005, 308). All places can be ‘home to the weavings together, mutual indifferences and outright antagonisms of [such] a myriad of trajectories’ (334). Indeed, Massey states that ‘reimagining countryside/Nature is more challenging’ because it involves more trajectories of nonhuman in addition to those of human in its ‘politics of negotiation’ (318). The grasslands are obviously such a space with a multiplicity of trajectories, human and nonhuman, in a state of constant ‘becomings’

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and negotiations. For the Han boy who is new to that environment, the grasslands are opaque. When he tries to escape, the film emphasises how his body forms a trajectory in the space that is isolated from his surroundings. Sneaking out of the yurt of the host family amid sounds of bleats early in the morning, the boy runs wildly on the grasslands accompanied by strong nondiegetic music. In a long shot, he is juxtaposed with a herd of running horses and a nearby herd of sheep. The dark skin of the horses and white fleeces of the sheep, together with the blue mountain ranges in the distance and green grass under his feet, form multiple trajectories in that space. The boy’s running turns him into one of them. However, instead of engaging with those ongoing stories on his side, he persists in running. When he stops to take a breath, a monologue voiceover informs the audience that he is eager to find a ‘road’ but is frustrated at not being able to find one after a long period of running. He takes out an electronic device wherein lies his virtual pet and friend, wumi. He confides to wumi that he will not succumb to his father’s plan of abandoning him to that space. When he starts to run again, he is framed in another landscape shot, seemingly running towards a herd of sheep that forms a thick line ahead of him. However, a medium shot cuts in, showing him coming to a halt. When he stands still, the camera tracks in, cranes up, and turns around him from a high angle. In this shot, the boy raises his head towards the sky and then kneels down in the grass with a scream of desperation. Concurrently, the high-angle shot is shifted to a low-angle close shot of him buried in the grass. This sequence exhibits what Lo terms the ‘radical otherness of minority life’ that remains largely ‘unknown and impenetrable to the Han subjects of the so-called civilised centre’ (2009, 239). The boy’s sense of desperation, as cinematically highlighted in the end, ostensibly arises from his failure to find a road. However, the real reason is his inability to forge any connection with any trajectory in that space. As the landscape shots illustrate, he is juxtaposed with other trajectories instead of being connected to them. Even though he makes contact with the grass by running through it, no real interaction is made because he cannot identify a path through it. His original sphere of relationships and trajectories – wumi, his father, and a familiar road with a clear sense of direction – simply does not intersect with the trajectories in that space. He is, in a sense, rendered immobile by his own modernity. However, this situation of nonconnection changes gradually in his subsequent journey with the Mongol girl. She facilitates his engagement with the grasslands on both human and nonhuman levels. First of all, she helps him to recognise a path in that space. Paths on the grasslands Massey (2005) has suggested that although in extreme cases, the negotiations between human and nonhuman can be defined as either the human’s ability to conquer, or nature’s power to crush, a situation in between is often the norm. The Mongols’ survival on the grasslands depends largely on their deferential and respectful adjustment to the environment, epitomised by their Indigenous

Cinematic space in a relational construction 85 knowledge. The Mongol girl can locate a direction on the grasslands by using the position of mountains. When she discloses that there is an asphalt road on the way to Naadam, the place where she desires to go, the boy lies to her, saying that he will take her to Naadam. During the journey, the film highlights the girl’s natural connections with multiple trajectories in the space of the grasslands, while the boy’s attitudes towards these trajectories shift from initial indifference to later enthusiasm. At the outset of the journey, the children are often shown in distant shots walking on a horizon formed by the grass and the sky. To indicate the passage of time, the film employs an unpeopled shot in fast motion, where the movement of clouds casts shadows on the grass. This shot incidentally illustrates the sky and the grass as multiple ‘becomings’ in that space alongside the children. When the children reappear in a medium long shot after a dissolve, a mountain range is visible in the background, which reminds the audience of the significance of mountains in locating directions. However, the boy seems unable to see them at this stage because his mind is occupied by the road. When he asks the girl how much longer they need to walk, she points ahead, answering that there is another mountain to pass (Figure 5.1). The boy becomes impatient, complaining that they have already crossed several mountains. When they are seen again after a brief cut to the girl’s grandma, who just discovered the children’s absence from home, there is a better view of a mountain range in the distance. In the shot, the girl is walking ahead energetically, while the boy is lagging and looking exhausted. So far, the girl clearly sees the road, while the boy merely follows her passively. She is confident, assertive, and equipped with knowledge about the space, but he is not. Drawing on Massey, one sees that the girl possesses more power to negotiate with that space than the boy does. Such inequality results from and results

Figure 5.1 The girl uses the position of the mountains for directions (Seeking Naadam)

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in the girl’s identity as a Mongol, which reflects Soja’s ‘socio-spatial dialectic’. Power is afforded by space. Although the boy is assumed to represent a more advanced civilisation, he needs the girl’s help in navigating the space. When the girl successfully leads the boy to an asphalt road and she is about to return home, a twist occurs in the plot. Because the boy cannot communicate with the hitchhiked driver, a Mongol, she is called on to help. Consequently, she gets on the same automobile as he does. Seen relationally, this is a moment when the sphere of relationships on the asphalt road becomes unexpected, owing to new relations constructed or to be constructed as a result of interacting with the grasslands. Due to the girl’s company in the boy’s subsequent adventure, his change of mind – a real commitment to take her to Naadam – becomes possible. What is also made possible is her further assistance in his interactions with the grasslands. In a later sequence, she shows him another way of identifying a path on the grasslands. It occurs when the children have gone through two towns and are only two hours’ walking distance away from Naadam. Walking on a winding earthy track under a downcast sky, the girl comments on the imminent rain. However, when the boy urges her to quicken her steps, she walks away from the track. With a sound of bleat, there is a medium shot of a lamb. The children then walk towards to the lamb in a long shot. The shot indicates that the children are likely to make a connection with the ‘ongoing story’ of the lamb. However, as Massey suggests, there is still an issue of whether to turn this chance encounter, a ‘juxtaposition’, into real interaction. When the girl picks up the lamb in her arms and remarks that the lamb has lost its mother – her connection with her herd – the boy’s first response is to ignore the lamb and continue their own journey because of the forthcoming rain. However, the expression on the girl’s face makes him immediately realise her determination to first save the lamb. In this context, he raises his question after looking around: ‘How can you find her herd when there is no sight of sheep anywhere?’ Considering this a critical moment in which she can teach him another lesson about the grasslands, the film highlights in a medium close-up of the act of the girl pointing a finger at the ground with a smile on her face. The boy looks down accordingly. Following his sight, there is a shot of some dark droppings scattered on the land. Wondering what it is, the boy is about to bend down to touch it when the girl tells him that it is sheep dung. Hearing this, the boy immediately straightens up and grimaces. The film cuts back to the girl, ready to walk on ahead. She informs the boy confidently that the trail of dung leads to the lamb’s home. After that, the film shows the children walking together on the grass instead of a track. On one occasion, the boy draws the girl’s attention to his discovery of a big mass of dung, which he claims in an amusing tone must have been left by ‘dinosaur sheep’, only to be told that it was the dung of cattle. In this sequence, the boy finds a way to move across the expansive space of the grasslands without a track or a road. He knows the way because the girl, as self-assured as before, provides him with knowledge about livestock dung. The medium close-up on the girl at the critical moment defines the space of interactions between herds (droppings) and grass (land), and the boy enters it when they walk on together. The boy also knows the way because of his motivation

Cinematic space in a relational construction 87 (also thanks to the girl) – taking the lamb back to her herd – that makes sense in the environment. Due to his knowledge and motivation, there is a reversal of his initial indifference to herds and blindness to paths, as illustrated in the escape sequence. When the girl points to a direction off screen, exclaiming happily that ‘there are many sheep over there’, the boy adds immediately with more excitement that ‘the sheep are not just many but numerous’. The children are then framed in a distant crane shot, running towards the depth of screen where there is a lateral line of white sheep. In this shot, the children’s movement across the space produces a sense of direction, which differs from the asphalt road that cuts through the grasslands. Like the experiences of two Indigenous children in the Australian film Beneath Clouds (2002, dir. Ivan Sen), where the road stops for them at certain places that overcome the logic of modernity and refer them to Indigenous histories of place and trauma (Gall and Probyn-Rapsey 2006), the boy’s sense of orientation in this sequence is derived from his connection with the natural inhabitants of the grasslands. When the boy finally puts the lamb in a sheep pen, he accomplishes his bonding with the trajectory of the herd after an interaction with the trajectory of the path (the trail of dung). Interactions with a leleche driver Besides nonhuman trajectories, the girl also facilitates the boy’s interactions with the Mongols on the grasslands, with whom he feels similarly estranged in the beginning. The children’s first encounter with a pastoralist occurs when they return to the asphalt road after spending a night in the first town. By then, the boy has decided to take the girl to Naadam, but he cannot hitchhike in an automobile to get to the second town. When she wakes him up from a nap, claiming that she has found a vehicle, he looks around in disbelief and sees no cars. Then, in a dramatically framed long and static shot, the girl drags the boy from one side of the frame towards the other, where a cattle-driven cart and its driver, a Mongol man, stand (Figure 5.2). When the children arrive at the middle of the horizontal foreground, the camera moves behind the man, shifting the cart to the foreground and the children to the background. A conversation takes place between the children in the static shot. The boy expresses considerable doubt and anxiety about the hitchhiked vehicle, while the girl assures him that leleche, a type of cattle-driven cart with wide wheels, can move fast on the grasslands. While they negotiate, the man stands firmly and silently in the foreground beside his cart. The contrasting positions of the children and the man in the opening and ensuing shots vividly illustrate the physical and psychological distance between them. While the girl has no problem in accepting leleche and the man’s favour, on the basis of their shared culture, the boy is dragged in the direction of the man and chooses to stop midway to negotiate with the girl. The frame compositions suggest the physical juxtaposition of the boy and the man, signifying that real connection has not yet been made between them. At this moment, the girl plays a significant role in catalysing the interactions between the two. Moreover, the man’s steadfast posture suggests that he commands a great deal of confidence in establishing ‘new

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Figure 5.2 The girl drags the boy towards a leleche driver, a Mongol man (Seeking Naadam)

relationships’ with the children because of his profound interrelations with many trajectories in that space. When the man invites the children to get on the cart, non-diegetic music with a sweet melody arises. A tracking shot shows the boy sitting on the cart, actively involved in driving the cattle. When the man turns to the boy and says something in Mongolian, the boy turns to the girl sitting next to him for the translation. Learning that the man has praised him for his ability to drive the cattle, the boy immediately asks the girl to teach him the Mongolian expression for ‘thank you’. When the man hears the boy reply with a thank you, he points his thumb up in praise. The boy makes the same gesture in return. The camera then moves to the back of the cart, focusing on it in a long range. After an unpeopled shot of roaming horses, the children are seen again, lying down on the cart and falling asleep. The background music has faded away, replaced by the man’s deep singing voice as he leads the cart passing by the camera. Following the cart’s movement, the camera starts to turn around and crane up, showing the cart moving towards the depth of screen under a clear sky. Meanwhile, the non-diegetic music resumes, gradually overpowering the man’s singing. In this sequence, harmonious relationships are established between heaven and earth, human and nonhuman elements, and people of different ethnic groups. In the space of the cart, smooth interactions are carried out along multiple trajectories – the cattle, the boy, the man, and the girl, where all entities speak different languages. The cart itself forms a trajectory under the sky, linked to the trajectory of the land through its movement across the space. Real trust must have been established between the children and the man, as they fall asleep while he leads them. The man’s singing obviously provides a sense of assurance to the children,

Cinematic space in a relational construction 89 telling them that they are on track. Although no clear path can be seen on the grasslands, the movement of the cart provides a sense of direction. With the cart’s movement, the children are also firmly embedded in the space and linked to the path. In this sequence, the driver offers the children a type of hospitality based on his sense of control of connections with multiple trajectories in that space – the cart, the ox, and the path. Because children’s free rides in adult-owned vehicles are subject to the moral, motivational, and ethical attributes of adult drivers (Donald 2015), the two children are lucky. Indeed, all the pastoralists whom the children encounter in their journey are kind-hearted and helpful, ready to offer them compassion and love. Interactions with a herder couple The children’s next encounter with a pastoralist and his wife occurs as a followup to their rescue of the stray lamb. A reciprocal relationship seems to define their interactions. However, due to the incorporation of a new trajectory, that of a sandstorm, into the space of the grasslands, the pastoralist’s hospitality becomes eminent. To the relatively stable sphere of relationships on the grasslands, the trajectory of the sandstorm is a disturbance, a negative ‘new arrival’ (Massey 2005, 221–222) that renders the sphere of relations on the grasslands undetermined due to new relationships yet to be constructed. It is associated with forces outside the area, beyond the control of the Mongols – those interconnected trajectories on a larger scale in which Han Chinese are the main players. This fact accords with Massey’s argument that ‘purely human negotiations’ in one place can exert unavoidable impact on human or nonhuman negotiations in other places (2005, 319). The trajectory of the sandstorm complicates the relationship between Han and Mongols, which in turn highlights the generosity of the herder couple in looking after the children. The herder owns the herd of the lost lamb. He is on his way to the sheep pen to fasten it against the looming wind and impending downpour when he meets the children. After a brief communication about the lost lamb, which, according to the herder, could have returned to its herd by itself, the girl asks the herder how many sheep he has. The man replies, ‘Over eight hundred’. To express her admiration, the girl reveals that her family possesses only one hundred sheep. Hearing her family are also herders, the man asks with great interest where her family lives. On being informed, he praises the location of her hometown for having better grass and water. He sighs with regret saying that the grass in his area had been damaged by flying sands and that his family would be compelled to move northwards in the coming year. Hearing ‘flying sands’, the boy cuts in and asks the herder, ‘Do you mean sandstorm?’ The man gives an affirmative answer. When the herder drives away on his motorcycle, there is a long shot of the girl crouching to touch sand on the land in front of the pen with the boy standing nearby. A close shot follows, moving all the way from the sand to the girl’s face, when she makes an earnest remark to the boy: ‘If there is no sand, sheep will have enough grass to eat’.

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As before, the girl plays an active role in initiating the boy’s interaction with the herder and the space of the grasslands. She is not dragging him to the herder this time, as his participation in rescuing the lost lamb has justified his involvement. Instead, she elicits further interaction through her questions, actions, and comments. She engages him in the trajectory of the sand and gives rise to a binary divide among multiple trajectories in the space of the long shot. With her sympathy for the sheep, there is a feeling that she and the herd are connected as victims, while the boy becomes complicit with the sand as culprits. Because the boy comes from Beijing, the capital city, that was notorious for regular sandstorms in the early 2000s, despite its rising status in world economy,1 he is involuntarily entangled in the trajectory of the sand. Although in the dominant Chinese discourse, the sandstorms in Beijing are attributed to the desertification of the Inner Mongolian grasslands (Song 2002), as the film shows, the Mongols are more likely to be the victims of the sandstorms rather than perpetrators. The Handominated industrialisation, urbanisation, and modernisation processes around the nation and in the region have probably caused more damage to the natural environment than the activities of the Mongols (Williams 2002; Feng 2008). In this sense, Han Chinese are hidden players on the grasslands, whose roles so far have not been admirable.2 Thus, the herder’s subsequent hospitality, as elaborated on later, represents the higher moral ground he commands, in addition to the inherent ‘hierarchy’ in the ethics. He is a victim, but instead of taking revenge, he doubles his beneficence. Since the children’s favour of bringing back the lost lamb had not been essential in the herder’s eyes, the reciprocal relationship between the two parties becomes tenuous. Instead, the trajectory of the sandstorm is turned into a foil to highlight the herder’s generosity to the children. The herder rescues the children at a critical moment when they are wet and the girl is not feeling well after being caught in the downpour. He brings them into his yurt. In the interior space, the boy undergoes an interesting metamorphosis, which symbolises a collapse of ethnic boundaries. He is changed into a Mongolian robe and becomes a ‘spectacle’ in the eyes of the girl, who looks fully recovered and cannot stop giggling. She makes a benign comment that he has turned into a Mongol. The herder sits comfortably in the centre of the yurt, pouring some tea for himself and the children. When the herder’s wife brings in the children’s dry clothes with a smile on her face, the boy trips over the robe in his attempt to reach out, which generates more merriment in the yurt. The film then employs a series of medium long shots to show the herder conveying the children back to the track on his motorcycle. In the company of warm and light-hearted music, the children stretch their arms and chant happy tunes while sitting on the backseat of the vehicle. It is clear that the film underlines the herder’s sense of control inside and outside the yurt. The herder’s initiative to entertain the children in his private space – the ‘home domain’ – signifies a significant amount of hospitality across cultures (He 2006; Othman, Buys, and Aird 2014). The herder’s motorcycle also becomes magical. It not only transports the children across space but also reshapes interethnic relationships through the minimal physical distance between the children and the herder. The cheerful music, coupled with the children’s joyful tunes,

Cinematic space in a relational construction 91 conveys a sense of harmony in their relationship. The sequence suggests that the relational space between Han and Mongols can be shortened if sincere interactions are made and relational ethics that exceed ethnic differences are adopted. In general, in the space of the grasslands, the Mongols – the girl and the pastoralists – take control. They have the power to connect with multiple trajectories in that space, look after themselves, and care for others. Their power is afforded by space, and they use the power to provide generous help to the Han boy and contribute to his interactions with the space. Thus, their power works for a good purpose: to construct a harmonious interethnic relationship. Moreover, the Mongols’ hospitality is full of dignity, grace, and initiative, and therefore, it should not be viewed as an indication of their subordination to the dominant Han. While the power of the Mongols is closely related to the space of the grasslands, which occupies the majority of the children’s journey and accordingly conveys the film’s emphasis, the filmmaker also constructs the space of neighbouring towns in which the Han boy takes control. Such a parallel structure can better illuminate how power is implicated in space and how an intervention in ethnic relationships is made possible through a relational notion of space.

The space of towns In the urban space of towns, the girl becomes a character who feels disconnected with the ‘ongoing stories’ around her. She represents the challenges of pastoralists who shift to an urban way of life (Jankowiak 1993). The children’s first encounter in town, a Mongol man, is a typical example, who, unlike his counterparts on the grasslands, lacks a sense of control over his surroundings. The space of towns is also where the girl first discerns the heroic side of the boy, which leads to his later decision to take her to Naadam. Different from a traditional understanding of heroes in the Mongolian culture, which refers to either ‘fictitious’ figures endowed with ‘magic power’ or actual ‘outstanding’ characters in history who perform ‘heroic deeds for his people’ such as Genghis Khan or Gada Meilin (Chen 2014, 87–88), the girl’s definition of a hero is based on a Mongolian proverb: ‘A hero is a person who is courageous enough to overcome difficulty and surpass oneself’. This sentence is uttered repeatedly by the girl in the Mongolian language and thus cannot be understood by the boy and the Han audience until her mother paraphrases it in Mandarin at the end of the film. Seen relationally, the boy’s heroic deeds are his hospitality to the girl, which, as I will demonstrate, is indeed closely linked to his much stronger connection with trajectories in the urban space. It is important to recognise this, just as it is important to acknowledge the significance of the grasslands in bringing about a sense of power in the Mongols. A Mongol man in the urban space In the first appearance of town space, the film employs a series of medium and long shots from opposing directions to show the process in which the children

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cross a street. The boy holds the girl’s hand while she incessantly questions him about the urban space: ‘Where to live without yurts?’ ‘How to move fixed houses with leleche?’ ‘Where to find grass for sheep to eat?’ and ‘How to trade for other objects, money included, without sheep?’ When the boy answers these questions impatiently, the shots provide visual answers to her questions with the images of houses, buildings, cars, asphalt roads, and Han Chinese on the street. The girl’s disengagement from these trajectories is exhibited. In contrast, the boy looks assertive, commanding a sense of control he lacks on the grasslands. The children’s encounter with the Mongol man occurs in this context. Because the boy has not decided to take the girl to Naadam by then, he asks her to stand in front of a shop while he walks away with the excuse of going to the toilet. He calls the police. When asked to provide more information about the location of the ‘stray’ girl, he sticks his head out from behind a wall. To his surprise, he sees a Mongol man talking to the girl. In a medium long shot from the boy’s perspective, the man bends down to the girl and even touches her arms. Wondering what happened, the boy immediately puts the phone down and rushes forward. However, he stops midway. Hesitating, he turns around slowly and faces away from the girl. In a close shot on his face, the audience can clearly see his psychological struggle. To his horror, when he finally turns around to face the girl, he finds that she is out of sight. This is a complex moment. The boy’s first reaction to the man’s relational space to the girl, which is physically close, is to rescue her. This indicates his identification of the man as a threat. His perception conforms to Valentine’s (2004, 15) discovery that public space is often constructed as ‘geographies of fear’ for children because of the ‘terror talk’ of global media that represents the male body primarily as a figure of menace. The man’s physical contact with the girl is perhaps particularly unbearable for modern eyes, which prefer zero body contact between strangers (Classen 2005). Although the boy is not deeply connected to the girl at this stage, except for a possible feeling of guilt for tricking her away from home, his modern ethics prompt his immediate response. However, the boy later withdraws from his impulse to rescue her. The film does not provide followup explanations. It is likely that his desire to get rid of her temporarily took an upper hand. Alternatively, after a second thought, he might have assumed that she was acquainted with the man. Yet, his final decision of coming back to her suggests that he was still convinced that the man was a bad person. The boy probably believed that it was better for the girl to be picked up by the police than be left behind with a male stranger. When the boy runs around anxiously in search of the girl, shouting her name and asking passers-by for her whereabouts, the girl emerges from a shop, waving her hand towards him in happiness. Rushing to her side immediately and grabbing her hand, the boy turns to the man, who also walks out of the shop, and questions him sternly, ‘What are you up to?’ The man replies in Mongolian and explains that he wanted to buy some stuff in the shop. He then hails the girl, thanks her, and bids farewell. This sequence is the boy’s first ‘interaction’ with a Mongol man that is cinematically emphasised (before the leleche driver and

Cinematic space in a relational construction 93 the herder couple). The man’s ethnic identity is confirmed because, unlike the other encounters of the children, he is distinctively dressed in a Mongolian robe. Because the stranger is a Mongol, the boy’s misconception that he is evil inevitably takes on an ethnic bias. The Mongol man may look more dangerous to him because he belongs to an ethnic group of whose psyche the boy is ignorant. The filmmaker probably uses this sequence to draw attention to ‘psychic decolonisation’ (hooks 2001, 225), which is crucial to establishing trust, care, knowledge, and understanding between people of different ethnic groups. Seen relationally, this sequence echoes Massey’s call for relational ethics, a type of authentic interaction without preconceptions. Unfortunately, this does not occur between the boy and the man. Indeed, the boy straightaway forms an antagonism to the man due to his assumption, while the man also foregoes an opportunity to communicate with the boy with his quick farewell. Besides the language barrier, the man’s decision was probably based on his perception that the boy was already angry with him. Although neither the boy (despite his hesitation to ‘rescue’ the girl) nor the man (the moment of his departure suggests that he is a nice person) are bad people, an unpleasant encounter is generated because of their lack of openness, acceptance, and real interaction. This incident contrasts with the film’s subsequent construction of a more amicable relationship between the Han and the Mongols on the grasslands, revealing the filmmaker’s intention of reconstructing interethnic relationships with the shift of space. After all, the urban space has been dominated by Han people and epitomises a more general socioeconomic control of the Han over the nation. The film hints that Han Chinese mostly run the businesses in town. The Mongol man’s difficulty in the urban space is directly attributed to his inability to speak Mandarin, the dominant language of Han Chinese and the official language of the nation-state. This incident also reveals Mongols’ fight for language maintenance, which according to anthropologist Uradyn Bulag, is not a ‘primarily cultural’ battle but a political one that signifies their circumstances of being ‘deinstitutioinalised, depoliticised, and deterritorialised’ (2003, 753). The Mongol man’s misfit exposes the disadvantaged position of Mongols in the Han-dominated socioeconomic structure of the urban space, because his experience strikingly reflects the unequal challenges faced by Han and Mongols in negotiating with town spaces. According to Soja, Harvey, and Smith, who were mentioned earlier, the unequal socioeconomic relations can reproduce inequality between Han and Mongols. Although he is a child, and probably without his awareness, the boy’s courage to confront the Mongol man is inseparable from his identity as a dominant Han. This, however, does not mean that ethnic relationships and socioeconomic relationships simply add to each other or function discretely. Han Chinese can exploit Han Chinese or help Mongols as well. Diverse scenarios can operate at the micro level while the socio-spatial structure at the macro level remains relatively fixed. For example, the boy is ripped off of all his money by a self-described zhiqing (see Chapter 2), the boss of an Internet café where he spends a night. Apparently, some sent-down youth, who chose to stay instead of returning to cities, had moved away from the rural areas where they were supposed to receive a

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re-education. Instead, they set up operations on the periphery of towns, dominate the local economy, and indirectly guide local farmers or herders away from their traditional lifestyles. What occurs at the café is also a turning point in the narrative when the boy, in a state of absorption in computer games, reveals to the girl that he has lied about taking her to Naadam. She claims in great despair that he is a cheater. This claim apparently touches him, because he locks himself up in a toilet afterwards to interrogate himself. From then, the boy starts to transform his familiarity with the urban space into positive interactions between himself, the girl, and the space, resulting in her subsequent assertion that he is a hero. The boy’s heroic deeds in the urban space When the children leave the Internet café and pass a breakfast stall in the morning, the girl pauses because of hunger, while the boy reminds her of the rip-off. He is about to walk away when he notices her genuine craving for food. Unlike his previous hesitation to ‘rescue’ her, he steps forward to negotiate with the stall owner on her behalf. In a carefully framed medium close shot, the girl is seen standing behind him through the stall window. In this framing, the boy asks for a pancake on credit only to be told that the small business does not accept credit. He tries to explain that his money was robbed, and his ‘sister’, the Mongol girl, is hungry. Although he is telling the truth and has indeed stopped lying since he confided in the girl, ironically, it sounds like he is lying. Receiving no response, the children are about to leave when the owner, a Han Chinese, hails them. He suggests that they yell for the stall and he pay them with pancakes. In happiness, the boy accepts the offer immediately. To light-hearted music on the soundtrack, the boy starts to yell. A moment later, he gently touches the girl on her head, urging her to join. Subsequent close and medium shots focus on the children hawking in Chinese and Mongolian respectively. The camera then frames them in a long shot, showing customers entering the frame from all directions. Finally, it cranes up, leaving the children out of the frame and revealing an overview of the townscape. In this sequence, the boy displays more negotiation power than the girl, owing to his richer experiences with the urban space. He first puts forward a deal on credit, albeit ineffectively, and then readily accepts the proposal of payment for labour. An uplifting space is constructed in the long shot because of his active engagement with the trajectories of the stall owner, the girl, and the customers. Because the boy is brave enough to ‘stand out’ to solve the girl’s problem, as cinematically illustrated by the filmmaker, the girl later claims that he is a hero according to her understanding of the Mongolian proverb. Although the boy does not consider himself a hero, nor can he understand the meaning of the proverb, her claim makes him curious about why she did not go to Naadam with her father as planned. When hearing that the girl was left behind because of his arrival, he decides to take her to Naadam instead. When the children arrive at the second town, the boy further demonstrates his ability to establish more connections within the urban space, which contributes to his image as a hero in the girl’s eyes. This, however, does not imply that the girl

Cinematic space in a relational construction 95 is totally passive in comparison. On the contrary, she is often the one who elicits his interactions. For example, when the boy attempts to make a phone call to his mother after recognising her voice over a radio from a nearby store, he gives up easily because he is penniless. In this context, the girl steps forward and asks him to trade the beloved boots she has carried on her back throughout the journey to pay for the call. While the boy may not be strong-minded in solving his own issues, he is assertive when it comes to defending the girl’s interests. This occurs when the children walk out of the store. The boy notices the girl’s reluctance to leave her boots behind, indicated by a few shots-reverse-shots between the girl and the storeowner, a middle-aged woman who is scrutinising the boots in her hands. At this moment, the boy does his heroic deed. He takes out the electronic device wherein lies wumi, who is as precious to him as the boots to the girl. When he runs back into the store, there is a medium shot of him standing close to the woman, showing her how to operate the device. The shot is taken from the girl’s perspective. It illustrates forcefully the boy’s sacrifice for her, which reinforces his image as a hero in her eyes. When the boy brings back the boots, it reveals his knowledge of what appeals more to the woman: a modern device for an urban dweller versus a pair of boots made for the grasslands. The girl is thrilled at regaining her boots but sorry for the loss of his ‘friend’. At this moment, the boy replies that, ‘It is a machine, not a friend’. This comment not only uncovers the boy’s changed perception of the device but also, more importantly, hints at a closer relationship between him and the girl. He considers her a real friend at this stage. This indicates that the children have changed their relationship with each other during the course of helping each other to interact with their unfamiliar space. Recognising this helps us understand the boy’s most heroic deed in the film.

The relational space between the children and the climactic moment At the outset of the journey, there is massive space between the children in terms of their experiences, understandings, and desires. One dreams of going to Naadam, while the other is obsessed with finding an asphalt road. The gap between them is cinematically illustrated through a landscape shot in which the children are walking away from each other into the horizon between the grass and the sky. However, they must negotiate their relationship because their relational space is both collapsed with old space and brought together in the same new space due to their shared journey. Moreover, their mode of mobility, walking, provides them with opportunities to interact because walking is a slow way to ‘appropriate space and give it a shape’ (Wojcik 2016, 23). The children choose to communicate through songs only to find a strong ‘mutual opacity’. The girl sings a Mongolian song, which is a typically Mongolian way of connecting with the space, as Mongolian songs are filled with descriptions of the sky, clouds, grass, rivers, horses, herds, mountains, and so on (Yang 2013). However, her singing is cut off abruptly. When pushed to sing at his turn, the

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boy selects a song by Taiwanese singer Jay Chou (Zhou Jielun), who is famous for uttering lyrics in a fast and unclear manner. The song is totally beyond the girl’s comprehension. Moreover, the song revolves around traditional Chinese medicine and transmits a clear message of Han nationalism as a response to social symptoms of worshipping things that are foreign.3 Such a theme is apparently displaced in the context where he is situated. Drawing on Massey, one sees that, in a sense, the girl has not left her home, while the boy has totally failed to connect with the girl and the space of the grasslands. However, as they walk through the rest of the journey, the boy’s relationship to the girl and the grasslands starts to change. His final act of carrying her on his back signifies his absolute harmony with the girl and the space. This moment occurs in the final leg of the journey, when the boy discovers that the girl has fever and decides to quit the journey and send her to a hospital instead. The film first shows the boy walking on a track with the girl on his back. Then, in a delicately composed landscape shot, the children are placed in the middle of the frame, in line with the descending sun. The sky is filled with dark and golden clouds, occupying most of the frame. The sun is half-sunk beneath the horizon, and the grassland at the bottom is completely dark. Walking against the sun, the figures of the two children are also cast in darkness. When the boy trips over and falls, the descending sun shines through. When he struggles to his feet, the sun is covered by the children’s bodies. Meanwhile, the sun’s golden aura falls over their heads. A non-diegetic Mongolian song, sung by a woman, accompanies the scene. Her slow and holy voice adds a transcendental touch to the shot. The filmmaker apparently sees value in this shot as an ‘ephemeral landscape’ (Brassley 1998, 123); the special colour and texture of the sky, the sun, and the land needs to be captured in a specific moment with much effort. With the sun as a compositional device, coupled with the ‘holy’ music, the shot highlights the heroic deeds of the boy. Admittedly, the filmmaker’s construction of the Han child as an elder boy and the Mongol child as a younger girl coincides with Gladney’s (1994) observation that ethnic minorities are often represented as feminine in contrast to the masculine Han in Chinese visual culture, to serve the Han-dominated nation-state. One may also suspect that the filmmaker is appropriating ‘the weakened ethnic other’ as an ‘antithesis’ to ‘the [Han] self’ for the purpose of ‘rejuvenation and self-reflection’, which in the eyes of Lo could be morally ‘exploitative or illegitimate’ (2009, 236). Alternatively, one may argue that indeed such a cross-cultural narrative of a ‘white knight’ hero ‘finding’ himself through rescuing a woman of another ethnic or racial group ‘deliver[s] a conservative adherence to the racial and gender status quo’ (Marchetti 1993, 109). However, I suggest that we should not ignore that the film’s main body focuses on the hospitality of the Mongols to the Han boy. In those moments, the Mongols are heroes. They give rise to the boy’s shift in moral, ethical, and emotional relationships with the grasslands and with themselves. His transformation serves as the foundation for this moment. Thus, it is more proper to claim that the filmmaker was smart to hide his attitude and political position behind the orthodox message. While the boy as a hero is

Cinematic space in a relational construction 97 explicitly expressed and cinematically highlighted, figuring the girl and the pastoralists as heroes becomes the hidden message of the film. Moreover, the shot insinuates that a more intimate relationship can be established between Han and Mongols. Drawing on Massey, I consider the shot a spatial reconstruction of responsibility, affect, and care, despite the inevitable hierarchy of power implicated. That is, the girl’s illness is strategically employed by the filmmaker to reformulate the relationship between Han and Mongols. This deployment does not suggest that Mongols must be weak. Rather, it indicates that a close relationship already exists but requires an incentive to take form. In this context, the girl is a hidden hero who facilitates the boy’s interactions with the grasslands, and this contributes to a change in his relational space to her. In contrast to their initial disconnection, the children represent a cinematic oneness in this moment. One cannot fall without the other. As often achieved via a road movie, the children manage to ‘redefine and recontextualise’ their relationship and create ‘new intimacies’ through their shared journey (Stringer 1997, 166). However, what is really significant about their physical and emotional closeness is the fact that they come from different ethnic groups. This does not happen in most American road movies (Stringer 1997). Nor does it occur in the famous Chinese animation Caoyuan yingxiong xiao jiemei/Two Little Heroic Sisters on the Grasslands (1965), which shares many similarities with this film. Based on a real event with ideological manipulation (Bulag 1999), the animation tells the story of two Mongol sisters heroically protecting the sheep of their commune against a fierce storm, under the call of Chairman Mao. In the animation, the elder sister also heroically carries her younger sister on her back when the latter’s foot freezes because she loses a boot while saving a lamb. However, the heroic behaviour of the elder sister is not a surprise, because she is helping her sister from the same ethnic group. In contrast, Seeking Naadam is outstanding because it realises a ‘dialogic coming together’ (Stringer 1997, 167) of Han Chinese and Mongols. The two children’s intimacy constitutes an imaginative reconstruction of ethnic relationships that are based on situational understanding and recognition of interdependence. Finally, the boy’s moral obligation to carry the girl may symbolise a type of care that the Han-dominated nation-state should offer to Mongols during China’s rapid transformation. If in the socialist era, Mongols were dominated by Han ideologies of socialism and collectivism, as reflected in Two Little Heroic Sisters on the Grasslands, then in contemporary China, it is Han-initiated modernisation, urbanisation, and the market economy that have largely reshaped the lives of Mongols, making them deviate from their traditional space, as indicated in Seeking Naadam. This, however, does not mean that the film advocates an assimilationist view of ethnic relationships, since ethnic differences and Indigenous knowledge are highly celebrated. The film even conveys the message that Mongols might as well maintain their territory of the grasslands because, in this space, they have power and confidence. Thus, the responsibility should be understood in the sense of relational ethics originating from the acknowledgement of interconnectedness, as underscored by Massey.

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When the film ends with the boy sitting in his father’s car running on a highway in Beijing, superimposed by the images of the grasslands where the boy and the girl walk hand in hand and she sings a Mongolian song with assurance and ease, there is a feeling that the film is calling for a reconsideration of the relationship between the nation’s centre and its periphery. Beijing, as the capital of China, which was ironically founded largely by the Mongols in the Yuan dynasty (see Chapter 4), is not so much a home for the boy as a destination of national significance. The juxtaposition of Naadam with the Beijing Olympics, as represented by many venues outside the car window, remind the Chinese state that while a successful sports event can demonstrate China’s ascending status in the global arena and help to present it as a strong nation to the world (Chong 2017), it should not ignore its responsibility to care for its people, especially those marginal populations on the periphery of its territory.

Conclusion Ethnic relationships need to be reconstructed. This is the most important message that Seeking Naadam has managed to send out. When a harmonious relationship is expected across a narrative within the borders of the PRC, a relational construction of space is turned into a strategic deployment by the filmmaker to convey his message. The film does not depict only the Mongols as heroes, neither does it portray only the Han as heroes. It shows that both the Mongols and the Han can be heroes in certain spaces. This message is disguised both under a seemingly orthodox ‘main melody’ film based on Naadam’s resonance with the Olympics and by casting children as leading characters. Children are considered less restricted by social conventions of class, gender, race, ethnicity, and so on; moreover, adults’ attitudes towards children are generally much more favourable. Thus, the children’s interactions across ethnic boundaries serve to reconstruct ethnic relationships in a natural and spontaneous way. When discussing China’s rise in the global system, Lo (2009, 242) states that ‘China no longer posits itself as simply the marginalised ethnic (with which it has previously identified)’. Lo refers to the films made by the Fifth-Generation filmmakers in the 1980s and early 1990s, where ethnographic or auto-ethnographic approaches were at play in filmmaking (see Chapter 2). After a nation has successfully freed itself from the mechanism of Western orientalism (Said 1978), Lo (2009) suggests that it should not maintain a simplified or biased view towards its own marginal places and peoples. The Han boy’s transformation in Seeking Naadam is important, as highlighted in the climactic moment. However, what is more important are his encounters within a space and its people, giving rise to the understanding that one cannot just encounter people outside their context. Here, the context is both spatial and social. A more tolerant, open-minded, and caring relationship should and can be established between people of different ethnic groups if a relational perspective is used to construct both their spatial and ethnical relationships.

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Notes 1 Indeed, in the context of the Beijing Olympics, sandstorms in Beijing were considered a major obstacle that had to be overcome to successfully organise the event (Jing 2002). 2 This resonates with an ecological narrative in Lang tuteng/Wolf Totem (2015, dir. JeanJacques Annaud), a transnational production in which an initially well-balanced relationship between Mongols and wolves on the grasslands is disrupted because of the ignorance and greed of Han Chinese. However, when wolves retaliate, it is Mongols and their herds that are paying the price for Han wrongdoings (Varsava 2011). 3 The song is Jay Chou’s ‘Compendium of Materia Medica’ (bencao gangmu), and it shares the same title with a great work of medicine compiled by Li Shizhen (1518– 1593), a pharmacologist from the Ming dynasty, which happens to be the last feudal dynasty established by Han Chinese (preceded by the Yuan dynasty of the Mongols and followed by the Qing dynasty of the Manchus). The song begins with a hypothesis: ‘If Hua Tuo (145–208), a famous Han doctor during the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220), were alive, worshiping foreign things would be cured. Foreign countries would learn Chinese characters, and our nationalism would be motivated’. The song then lists many herbs in the traditional Chinese medicine before making a bold, proud claim: ‘A history would be rewritten in our way’. The song carries a strong sense of Han chauvinism in opposition to not only foreign countries but also ethnic minorities.

References Brassley, Paul. 1998. “On the Unrecognized Significance of the Ephemeral Landscape.” Landscape Research, 23 (2): 119–132. doi: 10.1080/01426399808706531. Bulag, Uradyn E. 1999. “Models and Moralities: The Parable of the Two ‘Heroic Little Sisters of the Grassland’.” The China Journal, (42): 21–41. doi: 10.2307/2667639. Bulag, Uradyn E. 2003. “Mongolian Ethnicity and Linguistic Anxiety in China.” American Anthropologist, 105 (4): 753–763. www.jstor.org/stable/3567140. Chen, Shuanglian. 2014. “From Gada Merin to Jesse James: A Comparative Study on the Images of Heroes in Mongolian Horqin Folk Songs and American Western Cowboy Songs.” English Language and Literature Studies, 4 (4): 86–92. doi: 10.5539/ells. v4n4p86. Chong, Gladys Pak Lei. 2013. “Chinese Bodies that Matter: The Search for Masculinity and Femininity.” The International Journal of the History of Sport, 30 (3): 242–266. doi: 10.1080/09523367.2012.754428. Chong, Gladys Pak Lei. 2017. Chinese Subjectivities and the Beijing Olympics. London: Rowman & Littlefield. Classen, Constance, ed. 2005. The Book of Touch. Oxford: Berg. Derrida, Jacques. 2001. On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness. London: Routledge. Donald, Stephanie Hemelryk. 2015. “Landscape in the Mist: Thinking beyond the Perimeter Fence.” In The Cinema of Theo Angelopoulos, edited by Angelos Koutsourakis and Mark Steven, 206–218. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Feng, Gang. 2008. “Jingji fazhan yu huanjing baohu guanxi yanjiu [A Study of the Relationship between Economic Development and Environmental Protection].” Beijing linye daxue xuebao (shehui kexue ban), 7 (4): 48–53. Gall, Adam, and Fiona Probyn-Rapsey. 2006. “Ivan Sen and the Art of the Road.” Screen, 47 (4): 425–439. doi: 10.1093/screen/hjl033. Gladney, Dru C. 1994. “Representing Nationality in China: Refiguring Majority/Minority Identities.” The Journal of Asian Studies, 53 (1): 92–123. www.jstor.org/stable/2059528.

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Harvey, David. 1973. Social Justice and the City. London: Arnold. He, Yuanguo. 2006. “Kongzi yu Yalishiduode de pengyou guan zhi bijiao [A Comparison between Confucius and Aristotle on the Notion of Friendship].” Lunli xue yanjiu, (1): 47–52. Held, Virginia. 2006. The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global. New York: Oxford University Press. hooks, bell. 2001. Salvation: Black People and Love. New York: Harper Collins. Jankowiak, William R. 1993. Sex, Death, and Hierarchy in a Chinese City: An Anthropological Account. New York: Columbia University Press. Jing, Ai. 2002. “Beijing shachenbao yu 2008 nian aoyunhui [Beijing Sandstorms and the 2008 Olympics].” Senlin yu renlei, (1): 6–8. Jones, Martin. 2009. “Phase Space: Geography, Relational Thinking, and Beyond.” Progress in Human Geography, 33 (4): 487–506. doi: 10.1177/0309132508101599. Lo, Kwai-Cheung. 2009. “Two Moments of Ethnic Representation in Tian Zhuangzhuang’s Minority Films.” Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 3 (3): 231–247. doi: 10.1386/jcc.3.3.231/1. Marchetti, Gina. 1993. Romance and the “Yellow Peril”: Race, Sex, and Discursive Strategies in Hollywood Fiction. Berkeley: University of California Press. Massey, Doreen B. 1994. Space, Place, and Gender. Cambridge: Polity. Massey, Doreen B. 1995. Spatial Divisions of Labour: Social Structures and the Geography of Production. 2nd ed. Houndmills: Macmillan. Massey, Doreen B. 2005. For Space. London: Sage. Othman, Zulkeplee, Laurie Buys, and Rosemary Aird. 2014. “Observing Privacy, Modesty and Hospitality in the Home Domain: Three Case Studies of Muslim Homes in Brisbane, Australia.” Archnet-IJAR, International Journal of Architectural Research, 8 (3): 266–283. doi: 10.26687/archnet-ijar.v8i3.374. Said, Edward W. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books. Smith, Neil. 1991. Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the Production of Space. 2nd ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Soja, Edward W. 1980. “The Socio-Spatial Dialect.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 70 (2): 207–225. Soja, Edward W. 1989. Post-Modern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory. London: Verso. Song, Yingchang. 2002. “Beijing shachenbao chengyin jiqi fangzhi tujing [Causes of Beijing Sandstorms and Means of Prevention and Control].” Chengshi huanjing yu chengshi shengtai, 15 (6): 26–28. Stringer, Julian. 1997. “Exposing Intimacy in Russ Meyer’s Motorpsycho! and Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” In The Road Movie Book, edited by Steven Cohan and Ina Rae Hark, 165–178. London: Routledge. Valentine, Gill. 2004. Public Space and the Culture of Childhood. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Varsava, Jerry. 2011. “Jiang Rong’s Wolf Totem: Toward a Narrative Ecology of the Grassland of Contemporary Inner Mongolia.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 18 (2): 283–301. doi: 10.1093/isle/isr037. Williams, Dee Mack. 2002. Beyond Great Walls: Environment, Identity, and Development on the Chinese Grasslands of Inner Mongolia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Wojcik, Pamela Robertson. 2016. Fantasies of Neglect: Imagining the Urban Child in American Film and Fiction. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Yang, Liu. 2013. “Mengzu gequ de xingcheng ji fengge tezheng [The Formation and Styles of Mongolian Songs].” Da wutai, (11): 235–236.

6

Grasslands as transitional spaces of play Mongol children’s reimagination of the world

This chapter examines Mongol children’s play on the Inner Mongolian grasslands in Mongolian Ping-Pong (2005). The film’s director, Ning Hao, is Han Chinese and belongs to the Sixth-Generation or ‘New Generation’ (xinsheng dai) of filmmakers from mainland China.1 This chapter draws on paediatrician and psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott’s (1971) concepts of transitional space and transitional object and on children’s geographer Owain Jones’ (2002, 2007, 2013) idea of the otherness of childhood. It claims that the cinematic space of the grasslands in this film plays a significant role in constructing transitional spaces of play for the Mongol children, while a ping-pong ball discovered by one of the children becomes their transitional object. The transitional spaces are created because the filmmaker employs cinematic landscapes to insinuate the delicate interactions between the children’s subjective world and the larger objective world. Significantly, these spaces provide the children with safe environments to experiment with a diversity of cultural practices and traditions and encourage their creative understanding of the ball and the world. As a result, their unique vision of the world is exhibited on screen. Mongolian Ping-Pong is a tribute to one of Ning Hao’s teachers, who asked students to construct a story based on three notions: the countryside, children, and a ping-pong ball. Ning Hao decided to set his story on the Inner Mongolian grasslands, focusing on Mongol children’s experiences of a ping-pong ball, an unfamiliar object for them. The film celebrates the Mongol children’s creativity in exploring the physical attributes and sociocultural meanings of the ball. At the end of the film, the filmmaker sympathises with the children, who cannot escape from the fate of acculturation once they start formal schooling in a Han-dominated society. Based on a screenplay created in collaboration with his wife Xing Aina, Mongolian Ping-Pong turns out to be one of the most significant movies to represent Mongol children in Chinese cinema.

Mongol children and other Mongols in mainland cinema Inner Mongolia is situated in the north of the PRC. It is an area that has been inhabited by Mongols for many centuries. While historically Mongols founded the nationwide Yuan dynasty, they have been subject to the rulings of Han and

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Manchus ever since. After the establishment of the PRC in 1949, Inner Mongolia became the first of the five provincial-level ethnic autonomous regions set up in the nation (see Chapter 1). To its north, Inner Mongolia borders Mongolia and Russia. To its south, it is close to the nation’s capital, Beijing. Yet the worldfamous Great Wall of China symbolically marks the boundary between Han civilisation and northern nomads (Williams 2002). In Chinese cinema, Saishang fengyun/Storm on the Border (1940, dir. Ying Yunwei) was the first film to feature Mongols on screen. The film was produced under the regime of the Republic of China. It highlights the united efforts of Han and Mongols in fighting against Japanese invasions in the 1930s. Neimeng renmin de shengli/Victory of the People of Inner Mongolia (1950, dir. Gan Xuewei) was the first film about ethnic minorities made by the PRC that focused on Mongols. This film, together with other films made afterwards about Mongols in the Mao era,2 served to propagandise the ethnic policies of the Han-dominated party-state. They extolled the Han’s socialist cause and emphasised the CCP’s leadership in economic production and political struggle (Lian 2016). This political theme continued through the 1980s and 1990s, with the addition of a few new themes. Besides Tian Zhuangzhuang’s exploratory avant-garde film On the Hunting Ground (1984), with its emphasis on Mongolian tradition (see Chapter 2), there were films about the generous love of Mongolian mothers, such as Hei junma/A Mongolian Tale (1997, dir. Xie Fei) and Bai luotuo/The White Camel (1997, dir. Shi Xuehai). In particular, the Mongolian couple Sai Fu and Mai Lisi directed a series of historical epics and biographical films focusing on the history of Mongols and their heroes, such as Qishi fengyun/Four Horsemen (1990), Donggui yingxiong zhuan/Going East to Native Land (1993), Beiqing buluke/The Sorrow of Brook Steppe (1995), and Yidai tianjiao Chengji Sihan/A Brilliant Man, Genghis Khan (1998). These films constituted a unique genre in Chinese cinema, known as ‘action film on horseback’ (Jia 1994). In the new millennium, more films have been made that eulogise Mongolian mothers, especially their love for Han children, who are either deprived of parental love or suffering from starvation. These films include Tianshang caoyuan/Heavenly Grassland (2002, dir. Sai Fu and Mai Lisi), Caoyuan muqin/Grassland Mother (2002, dir. Zhou Yupeng), Eji/Mother (2010, dir. Ning Cai), and so on. Meanwhile, films about the history of Mongols persist, such as the Fifth-Generation filmmaker Feng Xiaoning’s Gada Meilin (2002) and Mongol filmmaker Ba Yin’s Siqin Hangru (2009). Besides history, an increasing number of Mongolian filmmakers are concerned about the impact of Han modernisation on the traditional Mongolian lifestyle. Ning Cai’s Jifeng zhong de ma/Season of the Horse (2003), Hasi Zhaolu’s Changdiao/Urtin Duu (2007) and Zhuo Gehe’s Chengji Sihan de shuizhan/Genghis Khan’s Water Post (2009) and Lanse qishi/The Blue Knight (2010) stress the efforts taken by Mongols to protect their cultural traditions and natural environment and stress their unwillingness to leave their native place (Lian 2016). Despite the quantity of movies about Mongols in Inner Mongolia in Chinese cinema, few of them feature Mongol children as protagonists. During Mao’s

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socialist era, the animation Two Little Heroic Sisters on the Grasslands (1965), mentioned in Chapter 5, was the only production centred on Mongol children. It depicted their devotion to the socialist ideology of collectivism. In post-socialist China, despite few political imperatives, Mongol children remain on the margins of the screen. They, like the Mongol boy, Huhe, in Season of the Horse, often act as silent witnesses to the transformations in adult life. Mongolian Ping-Pong unprecedentedly features Mongol children as leading characters. It tells the story of a seven-year-old Mongol boy, Bilike, who finds a white plastic ball floating down a creek on the Inner Mongolian grasslands. Not knowing what the object is, Bilike and his friends, Dawa and Erguotou, embark on a quest to identify it. They discover through access to media that it is a ping-pong ball, a ‘national ball’, and logically, they decide to return the ball to the nation. However, their adventure through the Gobi Desert ends in failure. Soon afterwards, Bilike leaves for town to attend a primary school. The film ends when Bilike opens the door of the school stadium and discovers the truth about the ball. Much of the film features the grasslands prominently, where the three protagonists move freely and play independently. Andrea Barnes (2007, n.p.) states in a review that the film’s charm lies in ‘watching these boys in early childhood, living with extraordinary freedom and safety and able to embark fearlessly on childhood adventures’. Despite Barnes’s keen observation, no research has been conducted to explore the children’s engagement with the grasslands through their play. Previous research focuses mainly on adult characters, emphasising their aspirations to connect with the outside modern world (Zhao 2014; Zhou 2009). When attention is paid to the children, researchers either consider them an embodiment of the binary divide between tradition and modernity (Zhao 2014) or suggest that the children’s quest for the ball’s identity connects them with both their ethnic traditions and the nation (Zhou 2009), which is the most obvious and usual reading of the film from the perspective of the narrative. With regard to the function of the grasslands that are visually represented in many landscape shots, researchers agree that these images create a sense of tranquillity and slowness in the audience (Liu 2008; Zhao 2014; Zhou 2009). This chapter, however, examines the children’s play on the grasslands from the perspectives of transitional space, transitional object, and the otherness of childhood. It reveals the filmmaker’s cinematic highlighting of the children imagining the world in a manner different from what is prescribed in the mainstream discourse.

The transitional space of play, the transitional object, and the otherness of childhood Winnicott (1971) asserts that a child’s life is ‘an example of creative living’ (101), and play is an essential part of this. With regard to what constitutes play, Winnicott states that ‘playing has a place and a time’ (41, original emphasis). Here, the ‘place’ refers to ‘transitional space’, which is interchangeably termed by Winnicott as ‘an intermediate state’, ‘an intermediate area of experiencing’, ‘potential space’ (3, 2, 53, original emphasis), or the ‘third area’ (102) of human life

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contrasted with ‘inner reality’ (2) and actual world. Winnicott (1971) defines it as ‘illusory experience’ (3) situated ‘on the theoretical line between the subjective and that which is objectively perceived’ (50). Thus, transitional space is neither purely psychic reality nor fully recognised world but rather a psychological state that turns play into ‘a creative experience’ (50). Although Winnicott’s observations arise primarily from his studies on infants, the concept of transitional space has been widely applied to the study of children’s play. Aitken and Herman (1997, 74) develop the concept as ‘an interplay between the internal and the external’ and consider it ‘the psychic environment within which interpretations are formed and used’. They summarise three characteristics of transitional space. It is where children experiment with their culture and environment. It is a safe space for children’s experimentation, immune from the consequences of adult society. Most importantly, the space allows children to incorporate part of their inner selves into their understanding of the external world. Thus, it is a psychic environment in which meanings are open to negotiations, and creative interpretations are encouraged. To facilitate the creation of transitional space, researchers suggest that children might as well be engaged in a type of free play or ‘thick play’ (Aitken 2001). The play should be ‘child-initiated’, and ‘spontaneous and voluntary’ (Holt et al. 2015, 73), to allow for ‘unmitigated potential, creativity and imagination’ (Aitken 2001, 177). The children in Mongolian PingPong apparently enjoy the privilege of ‘thick play’. Their play is independent and unsupervised. When they play, the grasslands are turned into many transitional spaces in which they manipulate cultural resources of diverse scales to promote their understanding of the world. Creativity and imagination are deployed in their interpretations, as this chapter will demonstrate. Play also requires something to play with. Winnicott (1971) names the something a ‘transitional object’. It can be a teddy, a doll, a hard toy, a blanket, or the mother. He lists seven special qualities in a child’s relationship with their transitional object. In particular, he highlights a paradox in this child–object relationship, indicated by the first quality: the child ‘assumes rights over the object’, but ‘some abrogation of omnipotence is a feature from the start’ (5). In Winnicott’s view, an infant starts to recognise the object/mother as ‘not-me’ through its ‘destructive drive’ (93). Since the child cannot annihilate the object, they are forced to form a new relationship with it. It is through this relationality that the child changes, but so does the object. As Winnicott describes the process, ‘a world of shared reality is created which the subject can use, and which can feed back other-than-me substance into the subject’ (94). In Mongolian Ping-Pong, the ball discovered by Bilike is the children’s transitional object. They cannot annihilate it and therefore have to confront and relate to it. The children’s quest for the ball’s identity is their act of playing with the ball. In the process, the children are changed in terms of their vision of the world. The ball is also changed in terms of its assumed identity in the eyes of the children and the actions taken on the basis of this identity. The children’s relationship with the ball conforms to the qualities of the child–object relationship in Winnicott’s list.

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By transforming the grasslands into transitional spaces of play and the pingpong ball into a transitional object, Ning Hao manages to uncover the unique world of the Mongol children on screen. Because transitional space is ‘allowed’ only to the infant and the child, or in art, religion, philosophy, ‘imaginative living’, or ‘creative scientific work’, instead of in normal adult life (Winnicott 1971, 3, 14), it becomes integral to the world of children, which is wild, absurd, strange, different, and separate from the world of adults – the otherness of childhood as set out by Jones (2002, 2007, 2013). Although this concept is in its preliminary stage, it has some explanatory power. The Mongol children’s quest for the ball’s identity, undertaken in various geographies of the grasslands, echoes Jones’s remark that the otherness of childhood is conducted ‘within adult orders, spaces and systems’ but seeks to ‘build their own spatialities’ in ways that are not ‘easily knowable by adults’ (2013, 4). The otherness of ethnic minority children also doubles. Their world is not only separate from the world of ethnic minority adults but also different from the world of Han Chinese. In the dominant Chinese discourse, a ping-pong ball is more than just a ball used for playing table tennis. It is associated with a sport that has been the ‘national sport’ in China since the 1960s because of the national pride generated by Chinese athletes in international games, the game’s great popularity among the masses, and its political influence. The last is exemplified by ‘pingpong diplomacy’, the establishment of a formal relationship between China and the United States in 1972 (Chen 2009). While this sociocultural identity of a pingpong ball is common sense to Han Chinese, this knowledge is not a priori for ethnic minority children, because of their physical locations and social environments, which explains the validity of the story. When the Mongol children first lay hands on the ball that Bilike finds, without any knowledge of table tennis, the ball is no more than a small light white plastic ball. This would be true with a Pokémon card or a Harry Potter wand, which are no more than a paper card or a stick to those who are unaware of their sociocultural meanings (Horton 2010). In this sense, Mongolian Ping-Pong resembles The God Must Be Crazy (1980, dir. Jamie Uys), a South African film, where ‘the clash of peoples and ideologies’ (Davis 1985, 52) is well at play. In the film, a Coca-Cola bottle, as a symbol of capitalist ideology of private ownership (Gugler 2004), disrupts the communal life of the Bushmen. However, that film differs from Mongolian Ping-Pong in the sense that it underplays the perspective of the leading character – the Bushman who discovers the bottle. His ‘thoughts’ are conveyed either through the film’s voiceover owing to the director’s ‘penchant for direct-address narration’ (Tomaselli 2006, 171) or through the role of an interpreter. This treatment may be consistent with the film’s general tendency towards what critics identify as racism, namely the ‘garbage’ of the advanced whites becomes a ‘source of wonder’ to the Bushmen (Davis 1985, 53). However, as this chapter will demonstrate, Mongolian Ping-Pong cinematically underlines the Mongol children’s creative reimagination of the world, and indeed, the filmmaker appreciates the children’s creativity and feels sorry that eventually they must lose it.

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The grasslands In this section, I explain in detail how the grasslands are turned into the children’s transitional spaces of play and how the ball, as a transitional object, shapes their understanding of the world. I focus on a few geographies on the grasslands and consider cinematic landscape a vehicle for the filmmaker to intimate the dynamic interactions between the children and their environments. Dawa’s home Dawa’s home near a creek features prominently in the film. Nomadic herders, Dawa’s family have just arrived at the area in the opening credits. This location becomes a key geography where several transitional spaces are created. In particular, the film highlights the moment when Bilike spots the ball in the creek. While fetching water for Dawa’s father, Bilike suddenly stands still and stares at something off screen. An ensuing long static shot reveals a tiny white object floating down the creek before him (Figure 6.1). A close shot shows the object is a ball. Then, in a carefully framed high-angle shot, the ball passes through the reflection of Bilike in the water. When Bilike puts his pail down and walks into the creek after a sustained moment of standing motionless, a close shot is captured to focus on his silent gaze while the ball is kept off screen. This shot then cuts directly to a view of the three children squatting on the grass and staring at the ball floating in a pail of water. In this sequence, transitional space is created through a series of gazes instead of actions. An action is often a result of a decision, indicating a temporary resolution of thoughts, while a silent gaze implies concurrent thinking processes that have not been sorted out. Bilike’s ‘inaction’ and his silent gaze signify the emergence of transitional space, while the shot of the ball floating over

Figure 6.1 Bilike discovers a ball floating down a creek (Mongolian Ping-Pong)

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Bilike’s shadow graphically illustrates the essence of a transitional space: a space of in-between, a space of interaction between the internal (embodied in Bilike’s shadow) and the external (the ball). The three children later conduct a primary investigation into the ball’s physical attributes. They undertake a type of ‘sensorimotor play’ (Änggård 2016, 77), directly communicating with the object through their bodies. In the process, transitional spaces are also created. The investigation starts with Dawa pressing the ball down with a finger under the curious gaze of all the children, only to find that the ball rebounds and keeps floating. Erguotou grabs the ball and stands up. He stares at the ball while turning it in his hands. The other two children stand up accordingly. When Erguotou starts to knock the ball against his teeth, Dawa grabs the ball and scratches it with his fingers. Erguotou soon regains the ball and starts to lick it. While he licks, Dawa leans his cheek on one hand, looking puzzled and seemingly thinking hard. He takes the ball back and starts to lick it himself. Then a static long shot frames the children engaging in a discussion on the ball’s identity in the milieu of the grasslands. At the end of their discussion, the children all turn their heads in the direction of the camera. Their action is followed by a landscape shot of the creek, which ends the sequence. The children’s eagerness to communicate with the ball with their hands, teeth, nails, and tongues resembles a child’s destructive impulse with an object in the early stage. Since the ball survives the children’s ‘instinctual loving’, ‘hating’, or ‘pure aggression’, as in Winnicott’s description of a child’s relationship with a transitional object (1971, 5), the ball becomes the children’s transitional object. There is no ‘anger in the destruction of the object’, as Winnicott stresses, but ‘joy at the object’s survival’ (1971, 93). Transitional spaces are created when the children are watching and thinking silently while their peers handle and experiment with the ball. Their subsequent discussion in the static long shot reveals the result of their thinking. Meanwhile, their conversation gives rise to another transitional space when all three of them turn their eyes off screen, to the creek. This occurs in the context of their discussion of an ethnic tale they heard about the creek and gods living in its upper reaches. They suspect that the ball may be the gods’ treasure. In the progression from a former moment of transitional space to the latter, the environment of the grasslands shifts from being non-relevant to essential. The whole sequence illustrates how the children aptly employ both their bodies and cultural resources, especially environmental factors, to enhance their understanding of the ball. Interestingly, the children’s investigation, conducted in Dawa’s ‘home range’ (Moore 1986, 17–18), was not interrupted by Dawa’s parents. The children take time to experiment with the ball, while the film also takes time to showcase their exploration. It appears that a complete, independent world of the children is presented on screen. Later in the film, when Bilike’s father also takes an interest in the ball, his wife laughs at him for acting like a child. When both of them dismiss the ball as insignificant, the quest for the ball’s identity legitimately becomes the children’s enterprise. The film continues to show the otherness of childhood

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through the children’s subsequent exploration, much of which is carried out on a stone heap – a geography exclusive to them. The stone heap The stone heap appears repeatedly in the film. Comprised of huge stones of different sizes and shapes, the heap is an ideal location for both prospects and hideouts. However, apart from that, it possesses no utility because of its isolation. While such a location can easily be neglected by adults, the three protagonists have practically ‘colonised’ (Ward 1978) the place to serve their own purposes. As the film shows, the children play games, drink wine, watch the horizon, chat, sleep, and tease each other at this location. The filmmaker also constructs transitional spaces in this location to showcase the creative experiences of the children’s play. For example, when the children finish their enquiry about the ball with local lamas,3 they have a brief discussion on what the lamas said about the ball on the stone heap. The film shows Erguotou and Dawa playing a game with goat joints. While they play, one of them says, ‘Lamas are the closest to gods! If lamas don’t know, it can’t be gods’ treasure’. The other replies, ‘Young lamas don’t know. Old lamas said it will glow if you have faith’. At the end of their conversation, the camera cuts to Bilike who is sitting alone, a few steps away, on the edge of a huge stone, looking ahead with a telescope, away from the camera. Without putting his telescope down, he cuts in, ‘So let’s go and pray!’ When Erguotou expresses his reluctance, from off screen, owing to the approaching dusk, Bilike puts his telescope down and sits quietly for a moment before the film cuts to the scene of aobao – a site of worship for Mongols. Transitional space is created when the film shows Bilike sitting apart in silent observation. Bilike’s personality (he does not say much but observes and meditates) contributes to the film’s construction of transitional spaces. It seems that transitional space, a psychic environment in which a child interprets the external world with a strong sense of subjectivity and self-consciousness, is more likely to be experienced by an introverted child. Moreover, among the three leading child characters, Bilike is key. He is the child who discovers the ball and thus claims rights over it against Dawa and Erguotou; the ball is more a transitional object to him than to his friends. He is also the mastermind behind a series of experiments on the ball. This reflects a key quality in a child’s relationship with a transitional object: ‘it must seem to the infant to give warmth, or to move, or to have texture, or to do something that seems to show it has vitality or reality of its own’ (Winnicott 1971, 5). In other words, it must be of use. Bilike’s immediate follow-up to his friends’ comments is not based on a solid religious belief but an eagerness to find out the ball’s identity, its function(s). While Bilike sits away, the unimpeded vision of the grasslands afforded by the stone heap symbolises the thinking space in which he reflects on how he might use the ball. The resulting shift of scenes indicates the impact of his suggestion. Despite Erguotou’s unwillingness, the children pray at aobao. Infiltrating this adultordered space (Jones 2000), the children imitate the behaviours of adults, albeit for a completely different purpose. When they fail to see the ball glow, despite

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exhibiting their allegedly sincere faith in gods as instructed by the lamas, the filmmaker constructs another transitional space with a full-view landscape shot in which Bilike gazes at aobao in silent contemplation. This moment hints at Bilike questioning the power of religion. As Aitken and Herman (1997, 83) suggest, children’s worldviews are largely flexible and modifiable. The transitional space that arises from Bilike’s meditation can be understood as his moment of readjusting his perception on supernatural forces. Such setbacks in Bilike’s belief occur several times in the film. Another transitional space created on the stone heap occurs when the children discuss what the ‘national ball’ is and where the nation is. Previously, a film projectionist at a state-sponsored film carnival held on the grasslands had told them that the ball was a ping-pong ball, but they mistook its function for that of a golf ball, as seen in a movie. Seeing no use in it, Bilike dropped the ball into a rat hole in despair. When the children later learn that the ball is a ‘national ball’, from a newly purchased television in Dawa’s family, they retrieve the ball and excitedly pass it around on the stone heap. In particular, the shift of scenes starts with a close shot of Bilike delightedly examining the ball under his telescope. Evidently, the children, especially Bilike, are emotionally attached to the ball. Their moods change and are considerably shaped by the type of information they obtain about the ball. This corresponds to Winnicott’s description of the child–object relationship: ‘The object is affectionately cuddled as well as excitedly loved and mutilated’ (1971, 5). When the children learn that the ball is a ‘national ball’, they find it difficult to comprehend both its literal and symbolic meaning. Due to the poor electrical signals while watching television, the children can only hear a sports programme say, ‘ping-pong is a strong sport . . . of our nation . . . and ping-pong is regarded as our national ball (game)’,4 without seeing any images on screen. They cannot believe the ball can be used to play a sport, because, as one of them says, ‘It’s too light to be a sport! Wrestling is the real sport!’ Then, what does a ‘national ball’ mean? The children discuss this question on the stone heap and come to three conclusions. First, a ‘national ball’ is the ball of the nation. This is based on Dawa’s creative analogy between pandas as ‘national treasure’ (in his words) and the ball as a ‘national ball’. Second, they should return the ball to the nation because they have found what the nation lost. Third, they agree that the ball should be returned to Beijing, the heart of the nation. This conclusion is a follow-up to the analogy between pandas and the ball. They mistakenly assume that pandas live in Beijing, and thus the ball belongs to Beijing. But ‘where is Beijing?’ When Dawa raises this question, the camera shifts from a position in front of Bilike to one behind him (Figure 6.2). From this perspective, the space of the grasslands in the distance is revealed. Within this shot, Bilike replies, ‘On the Golden Mountain, the place where the sun rises. My grandma told me that’. Erguotou cuts in, ‘How can she know? She may be lying again!’ Their conversation ends with the children lowering their heads and resuming their play. Erguotou’s comment is understandable given that the children fail to see the ball glow under any circumstances, while Bilike’s grandma had asserted that the ball was a ‘glowing pearl’. Despite Erguotou’s disbelief in her words, the shift

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Figure 6.2 The children discuss the ‘national ball’ on the stone heap (Mongolian Ping-Pong)

in the camera’s position reveals that there is significance in Bilike’s claim. The moment at which the children return to their silent play – in a static frame after the shift of the camera’s position – marks a transitional space worthy of attention. This transitional space is set against a physical background where there is a hill in the distance echoing the Golden Mountain in Bilike’s claim. The unrestrained view of the grasslands from the new perspective is probably symbolic of the psychic environment in which the children silently digest what they have discussed. The consequence of this moment of contemplation is the children’s decision to return the ball to Beijing by traversing the vast terrain of the grasslands, as implied by the landscape shot. Their decision is not expressed with words but hinted at through the filmmaker’s construction of the transitional space. The Gobi Desert The children’s biggest experiment with the ball occurs when they set out on a journey to Beijing. The whole adventure turns the grasslands into a transitional space in which the children play with both tradition and invention. The children are creative in the sense that they not only regard the ball as a precious possession of the nation but also assume that Beijing is not far away and can be reached on horseback. In their imagination, Beijing lies right beyond a Gobi Desert they heard about. Their adventure is built on tradition; besides the traditional practice of ‘lost and found’, they may follow the loyalty of Mongols to the nation, as manifested in the song ‘Upon the Golden Mountain of Beijing’, sung repeatedly by Bilike’s grandma. The song was popular in socialist China. A Tibetan artist originally wrote its lyrics to express his admiration for Chairman Mao for

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‘liberating’ Tibet. However, the song was revised and used to convey the loyalty of not only Tibetans but all ethnic groups to the leadership of Chairman Mao (Zhang 2013). The filmmaker’s construction of the Mongol children’s allegiance to the nation reveals the film’s ideological appropriateness in a Han-dominated nation-state. However, Bilike’s subsequent contemplation in the face of the endless grasslands, before stopping the journey, creates a transitional space in which he re-evaluates the distance between Mongols and the nation. This occurs when Bilike and Dawa have passed through a bleak Gobi Desert, while Erguotou has taken a different path owing to insufficient fuel in his motor scooter and a lack of drinking water (they fail to see any clean water at the spot where they expected to find it – the film’s ecological theme). Facing hunger and exhaustion, Bilike and Dawa decide to make one last effort to find out whether the grasslands finish beyond a hill ahead. The film then focuses on Bilike’s silent gaze from the top of the hill. When Dawa also reaches the top, an unpeopled shot of the grasslands from their high-angle perspective unfolds. As both of them gaze into the distance, they talk about the consequence of their adventure: they expect no more than a beating from their parents and agree to find shelter before dusk to avoid wolves. After that, they walk away from the hill. In this sequence, Bilike’s prolonged gaze at the endless grasslands creates a specific transitional space in which he reconsiders his relationship to Beijing. Although the endless grasslands do not change his perception of the ball as a treasure to the nation, he does realise that he cannot reach Beijing or get out of the grasslands on his own by riding a horse. The physical distance between him and Beijing, which frustrates his loyalty to the nation, is probably symbolic and ironic. In the context of the rapid economic development in contemporary Chinese cities, the geographic and economic marginality of the Mongols can only exacerbate their insignificance in national concerns. Thus, the children’s faithfulness becomes misguided, albeit sympathetic. This reading is based on Ning Hao’s less subtle social critique of Chinese politics in his debut film Xianghuo/Incense (2003), a film made before Mongolian Ping-Pong. Unlike Ning Hao’s subsequent commercially successful films, including Fengkuang de shitou/Crazy Stone (2006), Fengkuang de saiche/Crazy Racer (2008), Huangjin da jie an/Guns and Roses (2012), Wuren qu/No Man’s Land (2013), Xinhua lufang/Breakup Buddies (2014), and Fengkuang de waixing ren/Crazy Alien (2019), which are mostly hilarious comedies filled with parodies, satire, and black humour and which indicate his negotiation with the market and the state (Chen 2010; Wang 2013; Liu 2014; Tan 2016),5 the first two films are considered serious, serene, and calm (Liu 2008). They were independently produced with Ning Hao acting as producer and scriptwriter as well. They are therefore more likely to reflect the filmmaker’s true feelings about the world and his attitude towards society. In particular, Ning Hao expresses in a conversation with Yang Lan, a famous Chinese television hostess, in her programme Yang Lan One on One (No. 16, 2012) that Incense was his personal film in every sense.6 In this film, Ning Hao exposes bureaucratic corruption at a town level by focusing on a monk’s effort to raise money for a new statue of the Buddha, after the

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collapse of the old one in his village temple. When he finally succeeds in erecting a new statue after a lot of suffering, he is informed that his temple will soon be demolished for a new road. The film ends with a panning shot from a loudspeaker that airs the chanting of Buddhist scriptures to a high-angle view of an old road that connects the village to the outside. The shot questions why economic development must come at the expense of compassion, love, and care for other people and species. The monk, like many anti-heroes in Ning Hao’s later films, is not a man of unquestionable moral decency. He resorts to various deceitful means to obtain the funds, because people in his society have given up on faith and honesty in order to make money. However, the film reveals that it is local officials’ refusal to offer help (despite their awareness of the temple’s critical role in redeeming all villagers from the sin of killing sheep for a living) that forces the monk to raise money by himself. The news of the new road is just another blow to him. In a sense, the monk is let down by his society, as in the case of Bilike, who assumes his closeness and importance to Beijing. When Bilike and Dawa are rescued by the police with Erguotou’s help, they are told that they have travelled in the wrong direction and have almost reached Russia, where adults require a visa for legal entry. The scene hints at the otherness of their vision of the world. Moreover, the consequences they face are more serious than they expected, exposing the limit of children’s agency in creatively playing with cultural tradition. As Jones indicates, the otherness of childhood is subject to ‘violence, disdain and corruption within the adult world’ (2013, 5). These disruptive forces, as shown in Mongolian Ping-Pong, result in the children’s loss of both transitional space and transitional object, as well as their friendship. When the children return from the adventure, Bilike’s mother disfigures the ball after beating him. After that, the image of the grasslands is devoid of the children’s active play and imbued with a gloomy atmosphere. Bilike is often shown sitting alone outside his family’s yurts. When Bilike discovers that Dawa has traded the ball in his temporary custody for an iron loop, he breaks up with him out of anger. After that, a long-distance shot frames Bilike sitting on a fence before a splendid view of a rainbow. Nonetheless, the horizontal panning of the shot to capture the full range of the rainbow intensifies the boy’s loneliness in the expansive environment. When the ball is finally retrieved, it is cut into halves by Bilike’s father, who intends to teach his son a lesson about sharing. His act completely destroys the hearts of the two children. Before Bilike reconciles with Dawa, Dawa’s family moves to another area of the grasslands. These episodes showcase the violence imposed on the children by the adults and the contradiction between the children and adult worlds. The series of distressing events also illustrates another unique quality in a child’s relationship with a transitional object: ‘It must never change, unless changed by the infant’ (Winnicott 1971, 5). Since the damage to the ball is directly caused by the adults and the children are forced to react to this, the behaviours of the adults constitute ‘persecutory elements’ (Winnicott 1971, 103) that jeopardise the creativity of transitional space. Nonetheless, the children’s safe return from the adventure shows that the grasslands, an overarching transitional space of play for the Mongol children,

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are still relatively safe and exempt from social obligations. However, Bilike’s subsequent experiences at a town school reveal that the children’s creative imagination of the world will soon be challenged. The Han-dominated sociocultural discourse prescribes the only feasible way to understand the ball. This is the part of the film that reveals explicitly the life ‘behind the “façade” of idyll’, raising questions on inequality, domination, and the ‘harsher realities of children’s lives’ (Jones 2007, 178–179). It hints at the vulnerability of an alternative view in an authoritarian state, serving as a foil for its precious presence in the main body of the film.

Formal education in town and the ‘truth’ Towards the end of the film, Bilike leaves the grasslands for a school in town. The filmmaker allocates ample screen time and space for this journey. Despite the bright sunshine on the day of the trip, Bilike looks dismal. The sideboard frame of the truck in which he sits casts stripes of shadows on his Mongolian robe. He turns his head to the side and starts to look at the grasslands attentively as it gradually fades away. Then he turns his eyes to the rear of the truck. Following his gaze, there is an image of a rusty door and its broken windows in the frame of the carriage, as well as a view of two earthy parallel tracks made in the grasslands. This subjective shot cuts to a distant shot from the camera’s perspective that shows the truck moving through the expansive grasslands. After that, the camera returns to Bilike’s perspective. It shows a view of an asphalt road in the direction of the truck’s movement. Then Bilike looks back, giving rise to a view of the road fading gradually into the distance. The whole journey does not have any dialogue but is accompanied by non-diegetic singing from a Mongol man from the depths of his throat. The entire journey may be viewed as a transitional space, in which Bilike silently observes the shifts of the road and ponders on its implications for him. There is evident melancholy in his eyes, which is reinforced by the background music. His emotion is probably due to the loss of his transitional spaces of play and transitional objects (the ping-pong ball is not the only one, but the last one) on the grasslands. However, he is also attracted by the asphalt road. Despite its being ordinary in the eyes of modern viewers, the asphalt road is for Bilike probably a significant spectacle because it takes him out of the grasslands, given his previous experiences in the Gobi Desert. The road stands as a metaphor for several dichotomies in his life: past and future, childhood and growth, home and school, and rural and urban. Bilike’s lingering and meditative gaze at the road in both directions conveys the inevitable tension in these relationships. What is also involved in these relationships is Bilike’s vision of the world. The road will open a different way of thinking that will shatter many of his presumptions and the imaginings produced on the grasslands, including the connotation of a ‘national ball’. School education plays a significant role in irreversibly ‘colonising’ a child’s creative mind with the dominant way of thinking. Here ‘colonisation’ occurs in cultural and ideological realms (Duncan and Gregory 1999)

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and is effected particularly by discursive practices like naming, reducing to text, and producing knowledge (Gibbons 2002). While school education aims to bring enlightenment and sustained progress to both individuals and society, it is also part of the ideological state apparatus, serving the interests of the dominant social group (Althusser [1971] 2001). The so-called scientific knowledge disseminated at school is socially ‘constructed’ instead of being ‘found’ or ‘proved’ (Haraway 1991). Power is implicated in this process of knowledge production. As Mike Crang recounts, the production of knowledge is about ‘empowering the group who sees the world in that way and disabling the arguments of other groups’ (1998, 180). In contemporary China, it is the Han sociocultural system that possesses this power. Through school education, the unique ethnic and childlike way of thinking is replaced by a more uniform structure based on the Han adult order. Thus, the road and Bilike’s melancholy on the road may be interpreted as a type of agony at the inevitable prospect of disappointment when Bilike discovers the ‘truth’ about the ball in a Han-controlled society. The film shows that Bilike’s school is dominated by Han Chinese and Han ideologies. In an opening distant shot, the central landscapes of the school are two modern buildings – landmarks of modern education – and the national flag on the top of a pole. A crowd of students sit on a playground watching some Mongolian dances and recitals performed on a stage. The focus then shifts to Bilike, sitting among a group of Mongol children dressed in either blue or pink robes according to gender. In the background of the shot are Han children wearing uniform jackets. Referring back to the opening shot, one sees that the number of Han students far exceeds Mongol students. The composition of the student population, coupled with the national flag and the entertaining role of the Mongol children onstage, epitomises the ethnic and political structure of the nation. Sitting uncomfortably in the crowd, Bilike stands up and asks a nearby teacher for permission to go to the washroom. When he passes by the school’s stadium, he pauses in his steps and tries to peek in through the windows of the building before he turns around to search for its entrance. The film ends with a close-up of Bilike’s face when he opens the door of the stadium. The shot is not followed by any image of ping-pong balls but is instead accompanied by amplified sounds of many ping-pong balls hitting tables off screen. Bilike’s face (silent gaze) gives rise to the last transitional space in the film. Unlike earlier on the grasslands, no discussion among peers or follow-up actions can be employed to infer what might be on his mind. Since the film ends here, it is left to the viewers to figure out how he might interpret what he perceives in the stadium. What is certain is that from this moment on, the ball as his transitional object is ‘allowed to be decathected’ (Winnicott 1971, 5). As Winnicott explains, the transitional object ‘loses meaning’ when ‘the transitional phenomena have become diffused’, such as in the case of spreading over ‘the whole cultural field’ (1971, 5). The ping-pong ball loses its transformative effect because its identity has been fixed by the mainstream culture. Bilike found out at the stadium how a ping-pong ball is used in a sport and will soon learn through school education why it is labelled as a ‘national sport’. However, what is lost – perhaps more

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valuable and precious than this taken-for-granted knowledge and understanding – is the three children’s original quest for the ball’s identity in the many transitional spaces of play constructed on the grasslands because, as Winnicott (1971) highlights, that is creative living.

Conclusion In this chapter, ideas about transitional space, transitional object, and the otherness of childhood are drawn on to examine the Mongol children’s interactions with the grasslands and the ball in Mongolian Ping-Pong. This chapter highlights the filmmaker’s deployment of cinematic landscapes to construct the transitional spaces in which the Mongol children creatively appropriate a variety of cultural resources to facilitate their understanding of the ball. Despite being a ‘welleducated’ Han Chinese, Ning Hao does not construct the children’s ignorance of the ball in a negative manner. This attitude can probably be attributed to his own endorsement of creativity. Ning Hao’s next movie, Crazy Stone, a huge commercial and critical success, was characterised by its unusual narrative structure and character construction. On a fundamental level, Mongolian Ping-Pong reflects a discursive struggle between the dominant and alternative views (Laclau and Mouffe 1985), both of which are dedicated to imbuing the ball with meanings. The fact that table tennis is the ‘national sport’, not wrestling, demonstrates the Han hegemony in a multi-ethnic nation, although such a discursive struggle also prevails between different social classes in the Han community, as Ning Hao’s later films tend to show. The creativity of the Mongol children may indeed represent a type of creativity that is present in almost all of Ning Hao’s leading characters in his oeuvre. The fact that these characters are often stuck at the bottom of the society, despite their creative way of living, reveals the harsh reality of a larger structure that shapes their life beyond their control, as experienced by Bilike. Because alternative views inevitably face suppression, the filmmaker’s construction of transitional spaces for the Mongol children on the grasslands becomes eminent and deserves credit. In addition, My Avatar Horse (2012), mentioned in Chapter 2, is another film about Mongol children made afterwards by Han filmmakers. This film focuses on a Mongol boy’s experience in a town school, especially his missing of his horse on the grasslands. Instead of emphasising the grasslands as a transitional space of play and the horse as a transitional object to the boy, the film highlights the symbolic value of the grasslands and the horse to the Mongolian culture. In the context of herders and the boy’s family moving to town (resonant with Chapter 5) and selling their horses, the boy’s horse turns out to be an avatar horse, which is set free on the grasslands at the end of the film. If the horse represents the Mongol spirit that is kept alive on the grasslands, the Mongol boy becomes a protector of this spirit – a hope of carrying on Mongolian traditions against all odds in a Han-dominated society. In terms of the future of the Mongolian culture, this is an ending more optimistic than that of Mongolian Ping-Pong.

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Notes 1 Some scholars prefer the term ‘New Generation’ to Sixth-Generation, because they believe that ‘Sixth-Generation filmmakers’ should refer specifically to BFA graduates from the classes of 1985 and 1987 (Chen 2005). However, as indicated in Chapter 1, Sixth-Generation filmmakers, in a broad sense, can include those who started their directing careers in the early 2000s. Ning Hao was born in 1977. He first learned art at the Beijing Normal University and then studied cinematography at the BFA. He graduated from the BFA in 2003 and thus belongs to the group of Sixth-Generation or ‘New Generation’ filmmakers that started filmmaking after the year 2000. 2 Examples include Caoyuan shang de renmen/People on the Prairie (1953, dir. Xu Tao), Mumin zhizi/The Son of Herdsmen (1957, dir. Zhu Wenshun and Erji Guangbudao), Caoyuan chenqu/The Morning Song of the Grasslands (1959, dir. Zhu Wenshun), Eerduosi fengbao/Storm at Erdos (1962, dir. Hao Guang), Shamo de chuntian/Spring on the Desert (1975, dir. Zhu Wenshun and Liu Zhongming), and so on. 3 ‘Lama’ is a term in Tibetan Buddhism, referring to a spiritual leader or, by extension, any respectable monk. Because the majority of Mongols have converted to Tibetan Buddhism since the 16th century (Na 2006), lamas enjoy high sociocultural status in Mongolian communities. 4 This and other English translations of dialogue in this chapter come from the EnglishChinese bilingual subtitles of the movie. This translation hints at the potential confusion between the ‘ball’ and the ‘game’. In standard Chinese, both the sport of table tennis and the ball used in the sport are known as ‘ping-pong qiu’. Confusion can occur when linguistic translation is involved. It is possible that in Mongolian there are different words for ‘ball’ and ‘sport’, as in English. Thus, the children’s confusion is understandable. 5 For instance, Ning Hao’s initial motive behind No Man’s Land was to explore human desire in its naked form in the milieu of a desolate land, where a person’s social attributes were reduced to the minimum, whereas their animal attributes were displayed on a full scale (‘Ning Hao’ 2014). However, after a four-year ban imposed by SAPPRFT (State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television) for the negative images of all its characters and the policemen in particular (Liu 2014), the film was recut and ends with a venal lawyer earning redemption by saving the life of a prostitute who tells lies throughout the film but ultimately learns to tell the truth. 6 Incense was shot in Ning Hao’s hometown in the province of Shanxi, casted by his middle-school classmates, and it was produced, directed, scripted, and photographed by the filmmaker himself.

References Aitken, Stuart C. 2001. Geographies of Young People: The Morally Contested Spaces of Identity. London: Routledge. Aitken, Stuart C., and Thomas Herman. 1997. “Gender, Power and Crib Geography: Transitional Spaces and Potential Places.” Gender, Place and Culture, 4 (1): 63–88. doi: 10. 1080/09663699725503. Althusser, Louis. (1971) 2001. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Towards an Investigation).” In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, translated by Ben Brewster, 85–126. New York: Monthly Review Press. Änggård, Eva. 2016. “How Matter Comes to Matter in Children’s Nature Play: Posthumanist Approaches and Children’s Geographies.” Children’s Geographies, 14 (1): 77–90. doi: 10.1080/14733285.2015.1004523. Barnes, Andrea. 2007. “Childhood Adventures on the Mongolian Steppe.” PsycCRITIQUES, 52 (33): n.p. doi: 10.1037/a0008424.

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Chen, Jie. 2010. “Ning Hao de leixing yu yiyi [Ning Hao’s Genres and Meanings].” Beijing dianying xueyuan xuebao, (2): 41–46. Chen, Qihu. 2009. “‘Guoqiu wenhua’ gainian bianyi [Distinction and Discussion on the Concept of ‘National Sport Culture’].” Sanxia daxue xuebao (renwen shehui kexue ban), 31 (4): 110–113. Chen, Xuguang. 2005. “‘Xinsheng dai daoyan’: Wenhua fanying, jingshen licheng yu dianying celue [‘New Generation Filmmakers’: Cultural Reflection, Spiritual Journey, and Cinematic Strategies].” Hainan shifan xueyuan xuebao (shehui kexue ban), (2): 97–103. Crang, Mike. 1998. Cultural Geography. London: Routledge. Davis, Peter. 1985. “The Gods Must be Crazy by Jamie Uys.” Cinéaste, 14 (1): 51–53. www.jstor.org/stable/i40079266. Duncan, Jim, and Derek Gregory, eds. 1999. Writes of Passage: Reading Travel Writing. London: Routledge. Gibbons, Peter. 2002. “Cultural Colonization and National Identity.” New Zealand Journal of History, 36 (1): 5–17. Gugler, Josef. 2004. “Fiction, Fact, and the Critic’s Responsibility: Camp de Thiaroye, Yaaba, and The Gods Must be Crazy.” In Focus on African Films, edited by Francoise Pfaff, 69–84. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Haraway, Donna Jeanne. 1991. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London: Free Association Books. Holt, Nicholas L., Homan Lee, Carolyn A. Millar, and John C. Spence. 2015. “‘Eyes on Where Children Play’: A Retrospective Study of Active Free Play.” Children’s Geographies, 13 (1): 73–88. doi: 10.1080/14733285.2013.828449. Horton, John. 2010. “‘The Best Thing Ever’: How Children’s Popular Culture Matters.” Social & Cultural Geography, 11 (4): 377–398. doi: 10.1080/14649361003774563. Jia, Leilei. 1994. “Zhongguo dianying de yizhong jianrong leixing ‘mashang dongzuo pian’ [‘Action Film on Horseback’: A Hybrid Genre in Chinese Cinema].” Dianying yishu, (5): 55–57. Jones, Owain. 2000. “Melting Geography: Purity, Disorder, Childhood and Space.” In Children’s Geographies: Playing, Living, Learning, edited by Sarah L. Holloway and Gill Valentine, 29–47. London: Routledge. Jones, Owain. 2002. “Naturally Not! Childhood, the Urban and Romanticism.” Human Ecology Review, 9 (2): 17–30. Jones, Owain. 2007. “Idylls and Otherness: Childhood and Rurality in Film.” In Cinematic Countrysides, edited by Robert Fish, 177–194. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Jones, Owain. 2013. “‘I was Born But . . . ’: Children as Other/Nonrepresentational Subjects in Emotional and Affective Registers as Depicted in Film.” Emotion, Space and Society, (9): 4–12. doi: 10.1016/j.emospa.2013.02.001. Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe. 1985. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso. Lian, Yue. 2016. Xin Zhongguo shaoshu minzu dianying zhumeng zhilü (Neimenggu juan) [Dream-Buiding Journeys of Ethnic Minority Film in New China (the Inner Mongolian Part)]. Hefei: Beijing shifan daxue chuban jituan; Anhui daxue chubanshe. Liu, Changqi. 2014. “Wuren qu: Jiuping zhuang xinjiu–Cong leixing pian de jiaodu kan Ning Hao de bian yu bubian [No Man’s Land: Ning Hao’s Change and No Change from the Perspective of Genre Film].” Yiyuan, (3): 23–25. Liu, Yang. 2008. “Cong jingmi dao xuanxiao: Ning Hao dianying de ‘xianshi’ zhidao [From Serenity to Boisterousness: The ‘Realistic’ Approach of Ning Hao’s Films].” Qilu yiyuan, (5): 53–56.

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Moore, Robin C. 1986. Children’s Domain: Play and Place in Child Development. London: Croom Helm. Na, Risu. 2006. “Mengguzu zongjiao wenhua [Religious Culture of the Mongolian Group].” Neimenggu shifan daxue xuebao (zhexue shehui kexue ban), (52): 127–129. “Ning Hao: Wuren qu jiushi tantan yuwang, tantan renxing [Ning Hao: No Man’s Land is about Desire and Human Nature].” 2014. Jizhe guancha, (1): 108–111. Tan, Xiaohan. 2016. “Huise youmo, xiaoyu, xiju lixing de shuailuo: Ning Hao xiju dianying lun [Grey Humour, Laughter, and the Decline of Comedic Rationality: A Discussion of Ning Hao’s Comedy Films].” Wenyi zhengming, (9): 188–192. Tomaselli, Keyan G. 2006. “Rereading the Gods Must be Crazy Films.” Visual Anthropology, 19 (2): 171–200. doi: 10.1080/08949460600598711. Wang, Wenbin. 2013. “Cong caogen kuanghuan dao jiaguo xushi: Lun Ning Hao shangye dianying de muti chengzhang yu leixing jiaolü [From Grassroot Carnival to National Narrative: The Development of Motifs and Anxiety over Genres in Ning Hao’s Commerical Films].” Beijing dianying xueyuan xuebao, (1): 47–50. Ward, Colin. 1978. The Child in the City. London: Architectural Press. Williams, Dee Mack. 2002. Beyond Great Walls: Environment, Identity, and Development on the Chinese Grasslands of Inner Mongolia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Winnicott, Donald W. 1971. Playing and Reality. London: Tavistock. Zhang, Xiaofang. 2013. “‘Beijing de jinshan shang’: Xizang renmin changgei Mao zhuxi de zhujiu ge [‘Upon the Golden Mountain of Beijing’: A Toasting Song to Chairman Mao Sung by Tibetans].” Xiangchao, (12): 35–36. Zhao, Yuexia. 2014. “‘Zizai’ yu ‘ronghe’ zhijian de gan’ga jingyu–Lun dianying ‘Lü caodi’ zhong mengguzu wenhua jingyu de shuxie [An Embarrassing Meeting between ‘Being Itself’ and ‘Integration’: Inscriptions of Conditions and Encounters of Mongolian Culture in Mongolian Ping-Pong].” Neimenggu minzu daxue xuebao (shehui kexue ban), 40 (4): 52–55. Zhou, Genhong. 2009. “Quanqiuhua shidai shaoshu minzu dianying de minzu wenhua jingyu [Ethnic Cultural Circumstances and Encounters in Ethnic Minority Film of the Globalisation Era].” Minzu yishu, (1): 88–91.

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A young lama as Sun Wukong Contradictions and flexibility in a contemporary Tibetan child’s identity construction

This chapter examines a young Tibetan monk’s identity construction in cinematic representation in an era of rapid transformation in the Tibetan areas of the PRC. The film to be discussed, The Silent Holy Stones (2006), was shot in a Tibetan prefecture in the Qinghai province on the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau and was directed by the first Tibetan filmmaker of the PRC, Pema Tseden. The protagonist is a young Tibetan monk who is attracted to Sun Wukong, a mythological figure in Chinese popular culture. Sun is most vividly depicted in the classic novel Journey to the West (Xiyouji), authored by Wu Cheng’en (ca. 1500–1582) during the Ming dynasty. This chapter draws on theories in media consumption and identity construction and provides a detailed reading of Sun from humanistic, religious, and sociopolitical perspectives. It argues that the filmmaker employs the young lama’s identification with Sun to represent the complex situation in which the Tibetan child identifies with his ethnic (religious) and national identities in contemporary China. His identity construction is destined to be full of contradictions and flexibility.

The geopolitics of Tibet The Tibetan areas in the PRC include both the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR): the so-called political Tibet, in Western rhetoric; and ‘Tibetan prefectures distributed in the provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan and part of the traditional Amdo and Kham regions’ (Frangville 2016, 116), the so-called ethnographic Tibet (Goldstein 1997, xi). On the land of current China, the first united Tibetan Empire was established in the 7th century, based on a system of slavery. The first Tibetan king, Songtsen Gambo (617–650), married Princess Wencheng from the Chinese Tang dynasty, a significant move that strengthened the economic and cultural exchanges between the Tibetan region and China’s hinterland at the time, and afterwards (Huang 1986). Also, during the Tibetan kingdom period (7th–9th century), there was constant struggle between ‘the traditional shamanistic Bon religion’ (Goldstein 1997, 1) and Buddhism, a newly imported religion from India. Both religions played significant roles in relieving the pains of ordinary Tibetans, who were living in severe weather conditions, facing regular natural disasters, and being exploited by slave owners. When the Tibetan royal

120 A young lama as Sun Wukong dynasty collapsed in the mid 9th century, followed by the quick development of a feudalistic serf system, Tibetan Buddhism came into being. As a new religion, it combined Bon and Buddhism, with doctrines like karma, incarnation, and compassion serving as an effective antidote to people’s sufferings during this period of turbulent transition (Wang 1996). Religious leaders from several powerful sects of Tibetan Buddhism started to engage in political affairs. As a result, the traditional lineage system of kings was replaced by a religious succession of reincarnations (Goldstein 1997; Li 2005). During the mid 13th century, when the Mongols conquered central China, they also conquered Tibet. The Tibetan region henceforth entered the national territory of China. Moreover, Tibetan Buddhism made a huge impact on the religious belief of the Mongols and strengthened its power.1 The Geluk sect (Yellow Hat) of Tibetan Buddhism started to control political Tibet in the late 14th century (Goldstein 1997). The Dalai Lama became the first incarnate lama, followed by the Panchen Lama. During the subsequent Ming and the Qing dynasties, Tibetan areas maintained their close connections to the central governments as part of China. However, with the fall of the Qing dynasty, the thirteenth Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso (1876–1933), started to seek the independence of Tibet under the influence of the modern politics he learned in India (Goldstein 1997, 30). During the next three decades, when the Republic government in central China was busy fighting first against foreign invasions and then the CCP in the Civil War, Tibetan areas basically operated like an independent entity, forging diplomatic relationships with Britain, India, and other countries (Marshall 2005).2 Meanwhile, owing to a conflict with the thirteenth Dalai Lama over a tax system, the ninth Panchen Lama (1883–1937) fled to Qinghai in 1924. He henceforward played an important role in popularising ‘Tibetan Buddhism among the Han Chinese’ and ‘the incorporation of Tibet into the modern Chinese imagination of their nation-building’ (Lo 2016, 151). When the CCP took power in 1949, the new government decided to solve the Tibetan question, which at the time was about Tibet’s acceptance of Chinese sovereignty. Through a ‘peaceful liberation’ in 1951, the Chinese government brought the fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, to the negotiation table and made him sign the 17-Point Agreement that acknowledged the legitimacy of Chinese rule over Tibet (Goldstein 1997). Moreover, the relationship between the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama was reconciled. The exiled tenth Panchen Lama (1838–1989), who had pledged allegiance to the CCP, returned to Tibet in 1952 (Chen 2014). However, instigated by the US battle against the socialist block during the Cold War, the Dalai Lama maintained the idea of Tibetan autonomy (Goldstein 1997). When the fourteenth Dalai Lama failed to quell the 1959 uprising organised by refugees and rebels from ethnographic Tibet because of China’s democratic reforms, he fled to India (Goldstein 1997, 54). After that, the politically ‘progressive’ Panchen Lama acted as the religious figurehead of political Tibet. The TAR was established in 1965 to ensure the ‘autonomy’ of the region under the CCP leadership, but it soon suffered from the chaotic Cultural Revolution. Many monks, including the tenth Panchen Lama, were persecuted,

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and many temples and monasteries were destroyed. Moreover, foreigners’ entry into Tibet was strictly controlled, and ‘Tibet effectively became a symbol rather than an actual place for many commentators’ in the West (Neuhaus 2012, 8). During the same period, the exiled fourteenth Dalai Lama unremittingly campaigned for Tibet’s independence on the international stage. His activities in the 1980s, including winning the sympathy of the US Congress and the European Parliament, gave rise to several riots led by lamas in political and ethnographic Tibet (Goldstein 1997; Lo 2013). Initially, given the distinctness of Tibetan culture, Beijing encouraged the Dalai Lama’s return to the TAR if he accepted the leadership of the Communist regime. However, after several failed attempts, especially over the issue of selecting the incarnation of the tenth Panchen Lama, the Chinese government totally gave up on the Dalai Lama.3 At the same time, China devoted itself to the economic reform of Tibet. Since the mid 1990s, the Chinese state has treated Tibet as the rest of the nation, speeding up its economic development and modernisation process. As a result, many Han Chinese started to live and work in Tibet (Ma 2011). Despite being ‘the bestowal of the gift of development’ (Yeh 2013, ix), the influx of Han Chinese has intensified the job competition in the region and caused discontent among Tibetans. Nonetheless, the Chinese government adheres to its economic integration policy, expecting that although the older generation might remain loyal to the Dalai Lama, the younger generation will appreciate their improved living standard and become more adaptable to a modern way of life, like people in other parts of China (Goldstein 1997, 94). The Chinese government also established special classes for Tibetan children in Han urban areas and shifted school education in the TAR from the Tibetan model to the Mandarin model (Goldstein 1997, 96–97; Ma 2011). Although the Tibetan uprising of 2008, before the Beijing Olympics (Smith 2010), indicated that the question of Tibet has not been fully resolved by economic growth and cultural assimilation (Yeh 2013), it is also true that ‘a Tibetan . . . nationalist discourse at the margins cannot really subvert the nationalist ideology of a rising China at the centre’ (Lo 2013, 177).

Films about Tibet and Tibetans The special circumstances of Tibet and Tibetans in the sociopolitical spheres of the Chinese nation and the world, as outlined earlier, render their cinematic representation a battlefield for different ‘political agendas’ and ‘ideological purposes’ (Lo 2016, 154). ‘Tibetan cinema’, the cinematic representation of Tibet and Tibetans in its broadest sense (Lo 2016), can be divided into four groups. The first group is films made by Han Chinese and targeted at the dominant Han audience. Since Jinyin tan/The Gold and Silver Plain (1953, dir. Ling Zifeng), there have been nearly a hundred feature films in this category, constituting the majority of Tibetan cinema. These films highlight the positive roles of the CCP in either ‘liberating’ Tibetans from ‘old Tibet as a feudalist hell on earth’ (Lo 2016, 154) or modernising it into a socialist ‘New Tibet’ (Smyer Yu 2012). A famous example of the former theme is Nongnu/Serfs (1963, dir. Li Jun) from Mao’s socialist period;

122 A young lama as Sun Wukong in the last scene of this film, the leading character, a long-suffering Tibetan serf, utters ‘Chairman Mao’ (Mao zhuxi) with great emotion in his first words after years of being mute (Clark 1987). Contemporary films, such as Shijie wuji de taiyang/The Sun on the Roof of the World (1991, dir. Xie Fei), Yixi Zhuoma/Song of Tibet (2000, dir. Xie Fei), and Wode gesang meiduo/My Lucky Flower (2001, dir. Xiong Yu), underline the latter theme of Han benevolence and generosity in modernising Tibet after China’s reform and opening up. In this first group, Five Colour Road (1960) was the first film about Tibetan children. As mentioned in Chapter 1, this film was actually played by Han children with the intention of exhibiting the ‘Tibetan’ children’s gratitude to the CCP for overthrowing old Tibet and bringing in a new system. In the post-socialist period, The Adventure of a Panda (1983), mentioned in Chapter 2, emphasises a Tibetan child’s affinity with animals. Tanqi wode zhanian qin/Zhanian Instrument (1999, dir. Lu Gang) celebrates the artistic talents of Tibetan children in singing, dancing, and making music. In the new century, almost all films about Tibetan children are about those studying in Tibetan classes in Han urban areas. These films, such as Dai fozhu de zangwa/A Tibetan Girl Wearing Buddhist Beads (2005, dir. Wu Rina) and Nima de xiatian/Nima’s Summer (2010, Zhang Jin), focus on Tibetan children’s gradual adaptation to Han culture and the establishment of their friendship with Han teachers and classmates. The second group of films about Tibet or Tibetans is made by filmmakers in the West. To gratify the voyeuristic gazes of the global audience, Tibet in these films is constructed as ‘a hermit country solemnly concentrating on spiritual transcendence’ (Lo 2016, 154). Hollywood cinema, for instance, has long been devoted to creating a ‘virtual Tibet’ (Schell 2000). Thanks to its production, the ‘exoticising, romanticising and mystifying stereotypes of Tibet and Tibetans’ (Frangville 2016, 107) are strengthened. Prominent examples include Little Buddha (1993, dir. Bernardo Bertolucci), Seven Years in Tibet (1997, dir. Jean-Jacques Annaud), and Kundun (1997, dir. Martin Scorsese). Similarly, the third group, produced by the Tibetan diaspora such as the Tibetan government in exile, is keen on presenting ‘hyperreal’ images of Indigenous Tibetans (Klieger 1997), featuring an ‘idealised and pasteurised’ version of Tibetan culture (Frangville 2016, 108). An exception to this general characteristic is The Cup (1999, dir. Khyentse Norbu), which tells the story of a group of young lamas in India who are fascinated by the World Cup and end up bringing a rented television and a satellite dish into the monastery. The Silent Holy Stones shares this theme with The Cup, and addresses the impact of media and popular culture on young Tibetan monks. However, Pema Tseden’s films belong to the fourth group, famously known as the ‘New Tibetan Cinema’ (Smyer Yu 2014). Films in this group are directed by Tibetan filmmakers in the PRC. Using the Tibetan language before and behind the camera, these filmmakers aim to bring the real-life world of Tibetans in the PRC to audiences inside and outside China, representing life as it is without postulating any positions (Zhu and Caidan 2016). Pema is considered the founder of the ‘New Tibetan Cinema’ (Caidan and Li 2006). As Pema’s first feature film, The Silent Holy Stones

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features a teenage monk nicknamed ‘little lama’, who becomes obsessed with Sun Wukong in the television adaptation of Journey to the West (hereafter cited as Journey) during a three-day visit to his parents’ home in a village. He ends up bringing his family’s television to the monastery to share the drama with his master (nicknamed ‘old lama’) during the Tibetan New Year. Previous research on this film in both Chinese and English language scholarship has been thorough (e.g. Chen 2006; Zhuoma 2013; Smyer Yu 2014), thanks to a whole issue of Journal of Chinese Cinemas (volume 10, issue 2, 2016) devoted to Pema and his films. Scholars agree that, like Pema’s subsequent films, such as Xunzhao Zhimei Gengdeng/The Search (2007), Laogou/Old Dog (2011), Wucai shenjian/The Sacred Arrow (2014), and Taluo/Tharlo (2015), this film reflects on the impact of Han-dominated economic development and modernisation on traditional Tibetan culture. Even the filmmaker admits that, in conceiving the film, the theme of Tibetan culture in transformation came first, while the story of little lama going home for the New Year holiday came later (Caidan, Xu, and Tian 2017). However, as Chris Berry (2016, 100) astutely observes, Journey, which tells the story of a Buddhist monk taking a pilgrimage to India for sutras, ‘complicates’ the dialectic relationship between tradition and modernity in this film. However, how does this happen? Sun Wukong is one of the disciples, notably the most important of them, escorting the monk during the pilgrimage. How do we understand the filmmaker’s construction of little lama’s identification with Sun? Some scholars have suggested that little lama shares his childlike naughtiness and identity as a disciple with Sun Wukong (Chen 2006; Zhuoma 2013; Yau 2016). However, a background introduction to this aspect of Sun is necessary to contextualise their kinship. Moreover, as many critical scenes in the film suggest, a humanistic reading of Sun as a naughty child or a faithful disciple does not explain much. This chapter therefore proposes two more perspectives from which to examine the character of Sun so that we can better understand Pema’s construction of little lama’s identification with him. First of all, we need to distinguish the original novel of Journey (including its historical source of ‘Tangsen Lama’s stories’ and other inspirations) and the 1986 television adaptation watched by little lama, because the images of Sun either do not exist or differ in them, which can shape the identity construction of children and young people in different ways.

Media and identity: Tangsen Lama’s stories, Journey, and Sun Wukong Media and identity studies indicate that symbolic media characters play a significant role in a child’s or a youth’s identity construction. According to Brown et al. (1994), the ‘identity work’ of children and young people – ‘the process of creating a sense of self in the context of the immediate and larger social world’ (813) – can be ‘modelled by both real life and media figures’ (814). That is, children and young people can act out all their possible selves, as called forth by daily experiences while getting inspired by alternative identities embodied in media characters. While social institutions such as family and school still largely

124 A young lama as Sun Wukong determine how children and young people ‘look, talk, feel, and act’ (814), ‘mediated symbolic materials’ (Strelitz 2002, 460) have started to play a heightened role in the formation of their sense of self. Mass media is transformed into an important ‘tool kit’ (Swidler 1986, 273) from which children and young people can choose a range of ‘cultural symbols, myths, and artifacts’ to shape their identities (Brown et al. 1994, 813). Because of this, the ‘unprecedented prevalence of popular cultural consumption’ has become a prominent feature of contemporary childhoods (Horton 2010, 381). This is the case not only in developed countries but also in the developing world. As David Buckingham (2007, 43) observes, ‘the advent of electronic media is often an early harbinger of “modernisation”’ in economically disadvantaged places. This is the case with little lama, whose identification with Sun Wukong is made possible because his elder brother made money doing business in town and bought a television set, a VCD (video compact disc) player and the VCDs of the drama for the family. Then, what does Sun Wukong, as a symbolic media character, afford little lama in terms of the latter’s identity construction? The main reason for little lama’s request to bring the drama to the monastery was his claim that old lama enjoyed telling him ‘Tangsen Lama’s stories’. It is true that the stories of Tangsen in the classic novel of Journey were loosely based on the historical figure of Xuanzang (596–664), a well-known respectable Buddhist monk from the Tang dynasty who made a trip to India for Buddhist sutras (Yu 1977; Plaks 1987). However, the novel also absorbed a diversity of literary sources that combined in a creatively rewritten version of Xuanzang’s pilgrimage. In particular, Sun Wukong was created as one of Xuanzang’s disciples, inspired by the character of Monkey Novice-Monk (Hou Xingzhe) in The Poetic Tale of the Procurement of Scriptures by Tripitaka of the Great Tang (Datang sanzang qujing shihua) (Yu 1977; Wang 1992). Moreover, Sun features prominently in the novel and even overshadows his master, Xuanzang (Zhou 1982). The 1986 television adaptation of Journey, watched by little lama, was directed by Han Chinese Yang Jie under the sponsorship of CCTV and was dubbed into Tibetan.4 It was acclaimed for its faithfulness to the original novel, especially in terms of the outstanding position of Sun Wukong in contrast to Tangsen (Wang 2012). Furthermore, the drama maintained the narrative structure of the source. Altogether, there were 25 episodes of the drama that can be divided into three sections: the stories of Sun Wukong before Tangsen takes him on as a disciple, Sun’s protection of Tangsen during the pilgrimage, and the team’s final procurement of sutras in India. Nonetheless, the difference lies in the image of Sun Wukong, which was ‘beautified’ in the drama. Contrary to his ‘unattractive’ appearance in the novel, Sun is not only talented and powerful but also handsome (Chen 2016). He is thus famously known as Beautiful Monkey King (Meihouwang). The distinctions made here are important because little lama often blurs boundaries, thereby revealing his active role in seeking identification with Sun. For example, he takes advantage of the Buddhist theme in Journey to justify his attraction to the drama while underplaying the difference between Journey and Xuanzang’s stories with regard to Sun Wukong. This is demonstrated when a shepherd questions his idea of bringing the drama into the monastery. Little lama

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justifies his action by using the fame and legitimacy of Tangsen Lama’s stories. This is arguably the biggest trick that he plays in the film, because on many other occasions, he discloses Sun as his real attraction. He not only brags about Sun’s extreme talents in front of Living Buddha and other young lamas but also suggests that old lama watch the drama from the beginning, which features only Sun, without Tangsen, despite his awareness that the overall time to watch was limited. Although the film narrative highlights little lama’s admiration for Sun’s extraordinary talents, the filmmaker’s construction of his identification is likely to be more complicated than the character’s self-recognition. This is especially the case when little lama wears or carries the mask of Sun that he purchased in his hometown village, in a physical or social environment that evokes the audience’s active interpretation. In the sections to follow, I provide a detailed reading of Sun from three perspectives to shed light on the symbolic values of Sun Wukong and to uncover the possible intentions of the filmmaker regarding little lama’s identity construction in these scenes.

A humanistic perspective A humanistic approach to Sun reveals his humanlike characteristics, feelings, and emotions. Like humans, step by step he develops a sense of knowledge and control in relation to the outside world. The beginning of the drama is like his childhood period (Liu 2006). He was born as a simian out of a stone and led a carefree life in the Flower Fruit Mountain (Huaguoshan). As an animal, he is cute; as a human, he is clumsy. Because he is not equipped with many social rules and has not learned to be rational, he shares much of his nature with children. This increases his affinity with the child audience, including little lama. When Sun admirably attains exceptional talents under the tutoring of Patriarch Subhodi (Puti zushi), he also incorporates a child audience’s imagination of super powers in a hero. Although his magic powers and extraordinary talents turn him into a leader in the Flower Fruit Mountain, Sun cannot hide his inherent nature as a naughty trickster, which also resonates with a child audience. He notoriously wreaks havoc in Heaven and secretly consumes all the big peaches at the Peach Garden (Pantaoyuan), which is under his supervision. He lies to the Barefoot Saint (Chijiao daxian) to obtain the location of a party to be held by the Queen of Heaven (Wangmu niangniang), who has not invited him. Once there, he feasts generously and lavishly on food and wine before the party’s formal commencement. In a state of drunkenness, he bumps into the alchemy room of Lord Laozi (Taishang laojun) and consumes the elixir of life without permission. These mischievous behaviours all occur in the first three episodes of the drama, which, as the film indicates, are what little lama emphatically and repeatedly watches in different locations: his parents’ home, old lama’s house, and Living Buddha’s house. These episodes, without the appearance of Tangsen, therefore play a significant role in little lama’s identification with Sun. Nonetheless, little lama does get exposed to the middle section of the drama when he stays at his parents’ home.5 The middle section is based on the aftermath of Sun’s havoc in Heaven. Due to the misuse of his powers, Sun is imprisoned

126 A young lama as Sun Wukong under the Mountain of Five Phases (Wuxingshan) until Tangsen rescues him and becomes his master. To express his gratitude, Sun agrees to escort Tangsen on his pilgrimage to India by pulling through altogether 81 ordeals. The pilgrimage constitutes the main body of the drama, in which Sun gradually acquires more rules of the human world. Moreover, he begins using his phenomenal talents for good, to protect Tangsen from all sorts of evils and monsters along the journey. His commitment to duty displays his commendable loyalty to his master (Zhou 1982). This humanistic understanding of Sun Wukong contextualises two aspects that little lama shares with Sun, as identified by previous research. The first is his identity as a naughty child who plays tricks and lies. For example, little lama tricks Living Buddha for an opportunity to watch his television by deliberately losing a game to him and later bribing him with coloured goat joints. He also lies about what he has watched in Living Buddha’s house. Instead of the VCDs of the Tibetan opera Prince Drime Kunden,6 he tells other young lamas that he has watched Hua Ergong’s tanchang,7 in which he is interested, as are they. He also plays tricks while playing shuttlecock with his younger brother on the rooftop of their family’s house. All these anecdotes occur before little lama watches the drama, and thus pave the way for his later identification with Sun. When little lama has watched the drama and purchased the mask, his trickster nature becomes most conspicuous. With the mask on, he proposes to his younger brother that both of them watch television behind their parents’ backs, using their grandpa as a lookout. The second is little lama’s identity as a faithful disciple who dreams of Sun’s powers to protect his master. Little lama’s loyalty is best illustrated when he is invited by old lama to join the latter’s pilgrimage to Lhasa – the capital of the TAR. Little lama puts on the mask and assures his master that he will protect him with as much power as Sun. This moment, as Chinese scholar Chen Baoguang (2006) articulates, miraculously creates a few paralleled structures: between little lama and Sun Wukong, between old lama and Tangsen, and between the pilgrimage to Lhasa and the pilgrimage to India. Overall, a humanistic approach to Sun fruitfully explains little lama’s trickster behaviours in some sequences and explains his loyalty to old lama. Nonetheless, other nuances remain unexamined, especially regarding his trickster role. After all, little lama is not just an ordinary child. His identity as a Buddhist monk problematises his trickster behaviour. Like the red robe he cannot take off, his interactions with the external world carry along his religious identity anytime, anywhere. Thus, a religious reading of Sun is imperative to contextualise this special type of trickster.

A religious perspective Like the Buddhist teachings, themes, proverbs, and symbols that are embedded throughout the film in the everyday lives of Tibetans (Wei 2012; Cui 2009), the religious connotation of Sun Wukong could not have been ignored by Pema, who, like all Tibetans, is a Buddhist. In the aforementioned scene when little lama puts forward the idea of watching television behind his parents’ backs, the filmmaker

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employed a low-angle shot, which amplifies the restless mind of little lama that is filled with desire behind the mask. A religious reading of Sun explicates little lama’s commonality with Sun in terms of his incomplete adherence to Buddhist doctrines of emptiness, karma, and compassion, which forebodes his probably tortuous route of self-cultivation. Emptiness For Sun, the biggest problem in the early stage, and even for the majority of the pilgrimage, is his restless mind. According to Buddhist accounts in both India and China, the monkey figure represents dual connotations. It can provide smart and powerful protections to scriptures (Wang 1992), but it is also a metaphor for a restless mind in need of self-cultivation (Yu 1983). As written in the novel Journey, ‘Mind is a Monkey – this, the truth profound’ (Yu 1977, 168, as quoted in Yu 1983). Sun Wukong is obviously restless as he voluntarily disrupts his carefree life in the Flower Fruit Mountain several times in the opening episodes of the drama; each one starts with his curiosity about, or desire for, something else, elsewhere. He begs Patriarch Subhodi to accept him as an apprentice because he wants to become immortal. He visits the Dragon King at the East Sea because he yearns for his best weapon, a magical staff known as Ruyi jingu bang, which can grow or shrink according to Sun’s will. He accepts the position of Protector of the Horses (Bima wen) on appointment by the Jade Emperor (Yudi) because he has never been to Heaven before. Despite leaving Heaven in a fit of anger after discovering the position is a low-ranking one, he agrees to return because he expects the Jade Emperor to officially approve his self-claimed title of Great Sage Equalling Heaven (Qitian dasheng). Although his tutor Patriarch Subhodi gives him the name Sun Wukong with the expectation that he will achieve a state of being ‘awakened to emptiness’ (Li 2003), his mind is far from empty at the time. Later on, the scroll of six-syllable mantra (‘om-mani-padme-hum’) used by Buddha to press him under the Mountain of Five Phases reiterates the importance of a pure mind as a lotus (Cheng 2004) to Sun. Although the scroll flies away by itself during Xuanzang’s rescue and Sun accordingly becomes a Buddhist monk known as Sun Novice-Monk (Sun Xingzhe), his mind continues to be restless. His subsequent act of escorting Tangsen can be considered his own journey of self-cultivation to a state of ‘no mind’. In the course of dispelling evils and monsters in the external world, he cleans his internal realm (Wu 2007). As the fictive Xuanzang in the classic novel explains, ‘when the mind is active, all kinds of māra (or, demons) come into existence; when the mind is extinguished, all kinds of māra will be extinguished’ (Yu 1977, 283, as quoted in Yu 1983). In the final section of the drama, which is partly watched by little lama at old lama’s house, Sun succeeds in his own self-cultivation. Like his master, he becomes a Buddha and a saint. This religious understanding of Sun as a monk struggling with a restless mind most of the time best explains Pema’s construction of some of little lama’s behaviours, which contradict with Buddhist doctrines of emptiness but contribute to

128 A young lama as Sun Wukong his later bonding with Sun. Sun’s final success in self-cultivation, despite taking a tortuous route – a key contradiction in his religious identity – also illuminates why the filmmaker does not refrain from representing little lama’s ‘problematic’ restlessness as a monk. For example, when little lama is asked to clean up Living Buddha’s living room before heading for his hometown, he is unable to control his curiosity with the television. He runs his fingers over its screen and examines the remote control. In Pema’s static wide-angle shot, his action contrasts sharply with a serene portrait of the tenth Panchen Lama on top of the television. A tension is created between little lama’s curiosity and Buddhist teachings of emptiness, as epitomised by the spiritual leader. In another sequence, little lama’s desire to watch a video in a video hut motivates him to interrupt his elder brother’s live performance as Prince Drime Kunden onstage in a village square. In a static long shot, the filmmaker shows little lama, together with his younger brother, running on the periphery of a crowd of spectators who occupy the centre of the frame, shedding tears for the prince’s generosity in giving away his eyes. A wide-angle shot from the opposite direction follows, in which the audience still form a dense presence in the foreground while little lama arrives at an edge of the stage on the right side of the frame, asking his elder brother for money. The frame compositions in both shots convey the message that social order resides in the public, while little lama chooses to ignore it by taking a route from the side. His forceful intrusion on the fourth wall of the live performance is not due to his childlike naughtiness, as suggested by previous research (Chen 2006), but due to his uncontrollable desire to entertain himself with the fourth wall of a video sealed by technology. Like Sun’s acceptance of the Jade Emperor’s first invitation to Heaven, little lama’s curiosity for some other way of seeing and encountering the world is the main motivation behind his behaviour. Most significantly, when little lama is commissioned with the task of transporting discs between old lama’s and Living Buddha’s house, he runs like a ‘monkey’. He passes repeatedly through a few landmarks in the monastery in a series of static long shots, wearing the mask of Sun. No music is used to accompany his running, but his action is emphasised with the sound of his feet hitting the ground amid the crisp sounds of bells blowing in the wind. This sequence resonates with a few scenes in Where Is My Friend’s Home? (1987), directed by Pema’s favourite Iranian filmmaker, Abbas Kiarostami, where the boy protagonist, Ahmad, runs between Koker and Poshteh. Ahmad goes to Poshteh because he needs to return his classmate Mohammad’s notebook so that Mohammad can complete his homework on the notebook, in compliance with their teacher’s serious demand. Ahmad is compelled to run because he also needs to buy bread for his family before the bakery in Koker closes. If Ahmad’s repeated running exhibits his effort to overcome the hustle of life and to achieve friendship (Chaudhuri and Finn 2003), little lama’s running is different, in that it indicates more of his negotiation between a personal desire to watch the drama on television and the responsibility to run an errand. Time saved on the road means more time in front of the television. His heavy steps on the ground exhibit his desire and amplify its intensity.

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Lo (2016) has linked little lama’s running in this sequence to the behaviours of a monkey and drawn attention to the Buddhist ideology of mind as a monkey while underlining the role of physical environments in these shots. In Lo’s words, The Buddhist teaching compares our mind to a monkey that is wild, crazy, never resting, reaching out toward one thing after another, messing all up and racing from here to there. In the sequence, the restless monkey-masked little lama is contrasted by the muteness and sturdiness of the religious architecture. (Lo 2016, 157) Lo’s observation coincides with my religious interpretation of Sun Wukong, which contextualises little lama’s restless mind. That the serene space of the monastery is forcefully fissured by little lama’s rapidly moving body apparently facilitates the construction of little lama as a monk with a restless mind. Nonetheless, we cannot ignore the fact that a monkey also serves as a powerful protector of Buddhist scriptures. This is a contradiction in Sun’s identity as a monkey and monk in the course of Tangsen’s pilgrimage. He is restless, but he also ensures that Buddhist sutras can be successfully obtained. Thus, little lama’s running also reveals his commitment to the task of transporting the discs. Despite his personal desire to view the television drama, little lama hits the road. Less time on the road means more time, for both himself and Living Buddha, to watch the final section of the drama, which has religious significance. Hence, he is overall an obedient child who follows instructions. His restless mind may contradict with the ‘mute and sturdy’ space of the monastery, yet his execution of orders justifies his disturbance of the space. Finally, the filmmaker’s construction of little lama as a young monk with a restless mind that has to be tamed corresponds with two other objects other than the mask little lama gains from his journey home. One is an unfinished mani stone engraved with an incomplete six-syllable mantra that was left behind by an old stone carver who passed away during the Tibetan New Year. The other is an empty disc container left behind by little lama’s father when the man leaves the monastery. The mani stone obviously resonates with Buddha’s scroll in Sun’s case, which signifies the importance of a pure mind. While the empty box may symbolise the emptiness of little lama’s heart at his father’s departure (Chen 2006), it alludes more significantly to the uttermost importance of ‘emptiness’ for little lama’s self-cultivation in the forthcoming days. Thus, the religious approach to examining Sun’s symbolic values coordinates the three symbols that thread the film: the mask, the mani stone, and the empty box. Karma and compassion Like ‘emptiness’, Sun is developing an understanding of karma and compassion – two other Buddhist tenets that are particularly relevant to him (Bantly 1989; Zhou 1990). Karma is concerned with cycles of life and cause-and-effect relations (Bantly 1989; Zhou 1990). The incarnation of Living Buddha as represented in

130 A young lama as Sun Wukong Little Buddha exemplifies the cycles of life, while Sun’s imprisonment under the Mountain of Five Phases is an operation of karma – a consequence of his havoc in Heaven. However, he does not accept this cause-and-effect logic until five hundred years later, when he promises to become a disciple of Tangsen. His subsequent role as an escort is his continued redemption from his wrongdoings, in addition to repaying Tangsen (Wu 2007). Likewise, Sun’s observing compassion – ‘the salvation of all beings’ (Bantly 1989, 518) – does not comply with Buddhist principles most of the time. Different from Tangsen’s unconditional compassion, Sun’s compassion is reserved for the innocent and the disadvantaged (Zhou 1990). It is hard to tell which is better. According to doctrine, Tangsen is right. However, in practice, Tangsen’s compassion that extends to evils and monsters causes trouble in the pilgrimage, which must be resolved by Sun’s conditional compassion. Little lama is similarly slow in figuring out the significance of karma, and his attitude towards compassion is also ambiguous. The mechanism of karma is expounded by little lama’s grandpa, who takes the boy to feed the family’s livestock on New Year’s Day. The grandpa is surprised at little lama’s ignorance of the knowledge about the manifestation of karma on animals and explains that animals are the incarnation of humans who did wrong things in their former lives. Even in daily life, little lama lacks consideration of karma, as indicated by the aforementioned lie he tells about watching tanchang. His subsequent tripping over an upward ramp, and being mocked by other lamas, implies the workings of karma. Interestingly, when he falls, he is wearing the mask, echoing Sun’s experience under the Mountain of Five Phases. As for compassion, little lama’s equivocal stance transpires in his conversation with his grandpa on their way home from the village square. When encouraged by his grandpa to do good deeds, little lama expresses his doubt about donating his eyes like Prince Drime Kunden if needed. His uncertainty, although different from his younger brother’s outright refusal, exposes his confusion about observing Buddhist principles in life. The mask he wears while uttering his hesitation evokes Sun Wukong’s practice of conditional compassion. So far, a religious reading has proved effective in explaining little lama’s affinity for Sun in terms of his restless mind, disregard for karma, and reservation about compassion. Of course, little lama’s young age renders his falling short of Buddhist scriptures forgivable. However, the contradictions in Sun’s identity as a Buddhist monk suit the filmmaker’s purpose of justifying little lama’s imperfection better. Indeed, in the end, Sun not only succeeds in his self-cultivation but also manages to outperform Tangsen in his understanding of Buddhist canons (Cao 2004; Wu 2007). For example, when the team arrives in India, Sun promptly figures out the meaning of a bottomless boat – relieving the sufferings of all beings – while Tangsen is overwhelmed by fear of boarding the boat. This inconsistency in Sun’s trajectory of self-cultivation precludes any prescription of little lama’s future, positive or negative. Little lama is as much likely to quit monkhood due to his restless mind as overtake his master through follow-up selfcultivation. Such ambiguity in character construction can exactly distinguish the

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New Tibetan Cinema – what Pema represents – from other groups of Tibetan cinemas. It conforms to the group’s principle of representing life as it is without pre-emptive judgement. After all, ambiguity is a part of real life that cinema should respect (McGrath 2016). On the other hand, what renders little lama’s restless mind peculiar is the sociopolitical context of his life. He is surrounded by a myriad of temptations brought to Tibetan areas by Han-initiated modernisation – just like the figure of Sun in the novel and the drama is a Sinicised character circulated through Han-dominated mass media and popular culture, while the mask of Sun is above all a commercial product symbolising the influence of Han market economy.

A sociopolitical perspective A sociopolitical approach to Sun’s symbolic meanings exposes Han hegemony in the political, cultural, and economic spheres of Tibetan life. Despite being a religious character, Sun Wukong has been actively engaged by the Chinese state and Chinese masses, who are predominantly secular. Sun’s challenge of the Jade Emperor’s rule by claiming he is Great Sage Equalling Heaven, along with his provocative assertion that his turn to rule has come, is transformed into a political statement that corresponds with the CCP’s cause of anti-feudalism and antioppression. In the socialist period, the Chinese party-state constructed Sun as a rather perfect revolutionary hero, as represented by the CCP (Zhou 1990; Zhou 1982; Yang 2008).8 Although Sun’s trickster role was maintained, it was considerably receded. Moreover, its abstinence was celebrated as a virtue of proletariat revolutionaries. The ‘beautified’ depictions of Sun in the 1986 drama were in accordance with the mainstream political discourse. While the drama cannot be considered a work of propaganda because of this, its popularity has undoubtedly spread the image of Sun as a positive revolutionary figure. Indeed, in the eyes of ordinary Chinese, Sun has become a symbol of a courageous fighter, a righteous swordsman, and a saviour (Jiang 1986; Chen 2016). Until now, the Chinese state has been proud of its revolutionary past. As intimated earlier, according to the official discourse, Tibet was emancipated by Chinese revolutionaries (the PLA led by the CCP) from religious persecutions and feudal oppressions. In the postsocialist period, the drama of Journey and the mask are brought to Tibetan areas as a result of China’s modernisation process. Thus, as consumer products and embodiments of Han popular culture, they are implicated in a process of economic and cultural Sinification, in the wake of the prior political march of Han Chinese into Tibetan regions. This is the specific sociopolitical milieu in which little lama lives, which is likely to complicate his identity construction. The filmmaker makes this clear when he shows little lama observe a dancing crowd in the village square. On New Year’s Day, when the young actors of Prince Drime Kunden start to dance wildly to disco music after their stage performance, little lama is situated on the periphery of the dancing crowd with his mask on (Figure 7.1). Although unlike his younger brother, who soon joins the dance, little lama stands firmly in the vicinity

132 A young lama as Sun Wukong

Figure 7.1 Little lama stares at a dancing crowd in the village square of his hometown (The Silent Holy Stones)

Figure 7.2 Little lama set against the gate of the village square (The Silent Holy Stones)

and stares attentively at the crowd. When the camera shifts its position to his front, he is clearly set against the gate of the village square (Figure 7.2). However, instead of placing him in the middle of the gate frame, the filmmaker employs a deep-focus shot to reveal a crowd of people gathering around a vendor’s truck, the same one where little lama previously bought the mask, in the background outside the gate.

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The vendor’s truck is no less randomly composed by the filmmaker as the modern dances. Both speak volumes for the powerful intrusion of Han cultural and economic modernity into the region. Bare mountains in the backgrounds of both Figure 7.1 and Figure 7.2 reveal the geographical environment in which these modern popular cultural practices and products are consumed with great passion. In Figure 7.1, the main building, which is yellow in the movie and which has served as the performance stage for the opera, is apparently a symbol of tradition. The odd presence of little lama in his red robe, attached to the boundary of the dancing crowd, is as strong as the odd presence of modern popular culture in this geographical location. Thus, little lama’s physical posture of standing and observing is a statement made by him and by the filmmaker on his part: he is there on the scene and he cannot not be there, because these are the contingencies and contexts in which he lives. He inhabits both the world of Tibetan Buddhism and the world of the Chinese cultural-political influence, as hybridised in his mask. Moreover, he is not resistant to social change, as manifested in his prior active shopping at the vendor’s truck and his physical proximity to the dancing crowd. He may be unfamiliar with them, but he definitely has not excluded himself from any connection with them. In a sense, little lama represents the very future of Tibetan tradition, with both its incongruities and its resilience. Because of what the mask represents sociopolitically, when it is worn in the monastery, it becomes a symbol of ‘deconstruction’ (see Chapter 4) to the homogenous space of Tibetan Buddhism, which in Pema’s view is ‘synonymous’ with Tibetan tradition (as quoted in Smyer Yu [2014, 130]). In the aforementioned running sequence, although a religious perspective has shed light on little lama’s restless mind as well as his obedience to order, little lama’s running enables the mask of Sun to powerfully penetrate the space of the monastery. It declares the entry of a popular cultural icon produced by Han Chinese into the most sacred space of Tibet reserved for its tradition. It hints at two discrete sites of media consumption: old lama’s house and Living Buddha’s house. Thus, the mask represents a discordance: while the public space of the monastery remains a symbol of professional Buddhism, holy, pure, and solemn, its fabric is being fractured because of what is occurring in the private domain of lamas in their living quarters – their transformed visions of the world under the influence of mass media and popular culture imported from the dominant Han society.

Conclusion This chapter proposes three ways of reading Sun Wukong as a symbolic character in a child’s identity construction to understand Pema’s construction of little lama’s identification with him. The three perspectives indicate that Sun inhabits many levels of human nature, Buddhist traditions, and Chinese politics and popular culture – as an animal, a human, a trickster, a disciple, a Buddhist, a revolutionist, and a cultural icon. His identity is contradictory, flexible, and fluid and resists a simple judgement. Due to this, little lama’s identification with Sun conveys the message that little lama’s identity construction is equally filled with

134 A young lama as Sun Wukong contradictions and flexibility. Despite being a child, little lama is caught between his life as a lama, a key embodiment of Tibetan tradition, and his life as a Chinese within Han hegemony. He must make room for his child self within these social constraints, which results in the complexity as well as the unpredictability of his identity work. Choosing Sun Wukong as a character for little lama’s identification reveals the filmmaker’s real understanding of the nature of Tibetan life and Chinese sociopolitical life. It speaks to the Buddhist tradition of Tibetans while revealing the impact of Han domination on the political, cultural, and economic life of Tibetans. Pema had planned to make sequels to this film to follow up little lama’s development, by situating him in a larger social context through old lama’s pilgrimage (Xinhua, 26 August 2006). However, his scripts failed to pass state censorship (Robin 2009, as quoted in Lo 2016). This incident proves that religion remains a sensitive topic in Chinese film production (Lo 2016).9 If The Silent Holy Stones is an open sally in a longer series that explores a contemporary Sun Wukong – a child and a Tibetan monk in modern China – then it is apparent that the journey of this monkey is denied a stage in cinematic representation. Nonetheless, Pema has never stopped paying attention to Tibetan children, although they play minor roles in his subsequent films. Most of these children act like little lama’s younger brother, who is more interested in the Chinese language than in Tibetan and who dreams of obtaining a profitable job in town when he grows up. These children are strongly influenced by Han culture, ready to be assimilated by it, and comfortable with a market economy and a modern lifestyle.10 They reflect the expected result of China’s economic integration policy with regard to Tibet but also point to the demise of Tibetan tradition. In this sense, little lama still represents a ray of hope in carrying forward the future of Tibetan traditions and Tibetan Buddhism, despite the challenges involved.

Notes 1 Until today, lamas have been held in reverence by the Mongols, as indicated by the Mongol children’s inquiry to lamas in Chapter 6. 2 Indeed, because of Tibet’s two-century-long relationship with Britain, since the latter’s colonisation of India, a wealth of English-language texts concerning Tibet, such as travel notes, has been produced. This has greatly shaped the Western imagination of Tibet, as well as Tibetans’ self-presentations (McMillin 2001; Neuhaus 2012). 3 In 1995, the fourteenth Dalai Lama announced the incarnation of the tenth Panchen Lama without the approval of the Chinese government. Irritated, the Chinese government ultimately chose another boy as the eleventh Panchen Lama (Goldstein 1997). 4 Two other famous adaptations were produced afterwards: one was directed by Cheng Lidong under the sponsorship of Zhejiang TV in 2009, and the other was directed by Zhang Jizhong in 2011, funded by a private media organisation. In Cheng’s version, Tangsen and Sun Wukong are equally important, whereas in Zhang’s version, Tangsen is a more dominant character. 5 When little lama and his younger brother watch the drama behind their parents’ backs, the television screen shows the characters of Sun Wukong, Tangsen, and Zhu Bajie – another disciple of Tangsen who looks like a pig. Zhu’s funny behaviour makes the two children laugh. The images on screen indicate that the episode being watched is from

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the middle portion of the drama, where Tangsen and his disciples have embarked on the journey. Prince Drime Kunden is one of the eight national operas of Tibetans. It focuses on the compassionate deeds of Prince Drime Kunden on being deported by his father. In exile, he generously gives away all his ‘possessions’, including his three children, his wife, and his eyes. His altruism touches Brahmins – members of the highest caste in the traditional Indian society, who make him return to his kingdom and become a king (Smyer Yu 2014; Frangville 2016). According to Lo (2016, 159), the exiled prince is reminiscent of the Dalai Lama in the yearning of Tibetans. Hua Ergong (Palgon) is a popular Tibetan singer. For more information about him and Pema’s use of his music in filmmaking, see Frangville (2016, 113). Tanchang is a singing style adopted by Tibetan singers when they accompany their singing with the playing of a string instrument. An influential animated version of Journey was produced by Shanghai Animation Film Studio in the 1960s. Titled Danao tiangong/Uproar in Heaven, the animation focuses on the early period of Sun Wukong and successfully constructs him as a heroic figure with the combined attributes of a monkey, a god, and a human (Zhang 2005, 220). Pema mentions in an interview, in another context, that he watched this animation in his childhood and that it left a deep impression on him (Caidan, Xu, and Tian 2017). According to Lo (2016), The Silent Holy Stones passed state censorship on the one hand because of ‘the new policy that facilitates the marketisation of film industry’ (156) and on the other ‘because neither the lama nor the monastery life symbolises any form of resistance against the modern forces coming from outside’ (157). Moreover, the film was used by the Chinese government to ‘counter diasporic film[s]’ (Dreaming Lhasa, 2005) during a US film festival (Lo 2013, 183). For example, a Tibetan boy in The Search refuses to run an errand for the film crew in the diegetic space until he is assured of a material reward. Tibetan children in Old Dog often appear in the sight of the leading character, an infertile Tibetan man. His infertility corresponds to the image of the children, who do not know how to handle sheep but enjoy playing basketball. Both signify the end of Tibetan traditions.

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138 A young lama as Sun Wukong Yu, Anthony C. 1977. “Introduction.” In The Journey to the West, Vol. 1, 1–62. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Yu, Anthony C. 1983. “Two Literary Examples of Religious Pilgrimage: The ‘Commedia’ and ‘The Journey to the West’.” History of Religions, 22 (3): 202–230. doi: 10.1086/462922. Zhang, Zhilu. 2005. Zhongguo shaonian ertong dianying shilun [A History of Chinese Children and Youth’s Film]. Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe. Zhou, Yanbin. 1990. “Lun Sun Wukong de zongjiao yishi [A Discussion of the Religious Awareness of Sun Wukong].” Hunan shifan daxue shehui kexue xuebao, 19 (6): 92–96. Zhou, Zhongming. 1982. “Yinggai zenyang kandai Sun Wukong [How to View Sun Wukong].” Wenshizhe, (6): 51–55. Zhu, Pengjie, and Wanma Caidan (Pema Tseden). 2016. “Duanlie de minzu xing–Zangzu daoyan Wanma Caidan fangtan [Disrupted Ethnicity: An Interview with Tibetan Filmmaker Pema Tseden].” Dianying xinzuo, (3): 80–83. Zhuoma, Cairang. 2013. “Shensheng yu shisu–Zangzu dianying ‘Jingjing de mani shi’ zhuti fenxi [Holiness and Secularity: An Analysis of the Theme of the Tibetan Film The Silent Holy Stones].” Xiandai shiting, (3): 57–60.

8

Conclusion Some observations about the images of ethnic minority children in postsocialist Chinese cinema

The subject of ethnic minority children and childhoods has proved attractive to Chinese filmmakers over the past four decades, yet relevant research is quite rare, perhaps because of the febrile mix of difficult and sensitive topics. In the context of increasing Han-centrism and ethnic tensions in Xinjiang in recent years, my book appears to be ‘depoliticising’ ethnic issues in China by reducing them merely to cultural representations and cultural differences. This is a natural response to the films under discussion, which were publicly released mostly in the PRC via cinema or television after being censored. No politically sensitive or extremely controversial ‘underground’ films were selected or even made available. Being openly political is not my intention behind writing this book, and instead, I offer nuanced interpretations of several ostensibly mainstream films and reveal possible ambiguities within a narrative of upholding Han Chinese nationalism through the analysis of cinematic expressions such as landscape shots. This book proves that the ethnic minority child on screen, operating simultaneously as an embodiment of childhood, ethnicity, nationalism, and rurality, has much to teach us about attitudes and approaches in contemporary Chinese filmmaking, along with ideas and ethos in contemporary Chinese life. In particular, they tell us what rurality is made of versus urban living, how such geographies are imagined, and how these vistas and landscapes reflect the attitudes, expectations, and imagination of filmmakers in the larger context of mainstream society. In most chapters, I provide a brief anthropological introduction to the given ethnic group or autonomous region, including its historical and political relationships with the Han and the PRC and the unique status it occupies in the nation’s cultural and political imagination. I place my corpus within the larger context of the history in which the people of that group or region, both adults and children, have been represented in Chinese cinema. Sometimes, relevant issues, such as the historical development of a state-owned studio, a particular genre concerning ethnic minorities, and relevant cinemas outside China’s territory have been discussed. Moreover, I place the films about ethnic minority children in the context of the given filmmaker’s directorial career, exploring certain continuities or disruptions across the oeuvre. As I mentioned in Chapter 1, there is a necessity for ‘politicising’ children’s media, in the sense that they are devised by adults for certain purposes. Here

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are my observations concerning the representation of ethnic minority children in Chinese mainland cinema. First, in different historical periods, the ethnic minority children’s connections with the rural space carry different connotations. In the 1980s, their autonomy and adventure in the wild served filmmakers’ need to express their desire for freedom and courage to explore film art. Yet in the context of emerging urbanisation in the early 1990s, the children were constructed to aspire for the more ‘advanced’ urban space dominated by Han Chinese, as a route to better education and upward mobility. The rural space ended up being ‘primitive’, ‘backward’, and deserted. In the 2000s, when the negative impacts of industrialisation and urbanisation became evident, the ethnic minority children were returned to the rural environment. They were admired for maintaining a harmonious relationship with nature, agricultural land, and village communities. Such a cinematic construction might evoke ecological awareness among urban film viewers and thus coincided with what ecocinema advocates. More importantly, a rural idyllic childhood was consequentially constructed, filled with the filmmakers’ idealistic imagination. Second, in the context of particular challenges posed by modernisation to ethnic minorities, ethnic minority children are placed in different positions with regard to their ethnic traditions. For the sake of nostalgia, they are constructed as adherent to traditional practices and rural spaces and as immune to the impacts of modernisation. Alternatively, their ethnic traditions facilitate their interactions with animals and nature, their creative imagination of the world, or a reconstruction of ethnic relationships. In particular, before the start of formal acculturation in a Han-dominated urban space, the children are characterised by open minds and creative thoughts. They represent a unique way of seeing the world that differs from the prescriptions of Han sociocultural systems. When the children of different ethnic groups interact with each other, with one party being the dominant Han, the children’s interactions are used to reformulate ethnic relationships – an intervention in the ethnic relationships of the adult world. Nonetheless, these predominantly Han narratives still differ from a narrative conjured up by an ethnic minority filmmaker for his own group, in which the children are made to confront the challenges of modernisation and reconsider their relationship with ethnic traditions. Their identity construction unfolds as one replete with contradictions and flexibility. Moreover, in many of the films discussed in this book, the father of the ethnic minority child is often absent from the child’s life, for various reasons, which may symbolise the challenge of passing down ethnic traditions from one generation to the next. Meanwhile, the theme of searching for one’s father may signify the ethnic minority child’s effort to claim their ethnic identity. This is reminiscent of the early works of Fifth-Generation filmmakers, who are described by Dai Jinhua (1995) as a generation of sons without fathers, owing to the impact of the Cultural Revolution. For ethnic minority boys, their lack of father figures – the role models for being ethnic minority men – may signify the challenge of contemporary Chinese life for ethnic minority men and boys, which has basically stripped them of their manhood, as discussed in Chapter 4. It also resonates with the feminised images of ethnic minorities, as mentioned in Chapter 5. Religion

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is another element that is frequently used to indicate ethnic minority children’s relationship with ethnic traditions. Sometimes, the children are respectful of it (Chapter 4) and sometimes doubtful of it (Chapter 6). Nonetheless, they are all situated in a dynamic process of forming a relationship with it as part of constructing their ethnic identity. Third, despite being convenient avatars of multi-ethnic unity, ethnic minority children’s contribution to a national narrative takes on different outlooks for each filmmaker, in varying historical contexts. As mentioned earlier, there are surprisingly nuanced expressions in some instances. In the cinematic deployment of a mainstream filmmaker, the rural ethnic minority children’s aspiration for urban space in the early 1990s conforms to the state ideologies of development and nationhood. However, in the 2000s, when the ethnic minority child character seems to perform a perfect national narrative in an independent Han filmmaker’s frame, elements of deconstruction are also embedded in the film text. Indeed, both films that relate to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games hide subtexts that challenge the national discourse. In one case, the rapid economic development based on the mass migration of rural farmers begs to be reconsidered from the perspective of left-behind children. In the other, interethnic relationships suggest reconstruction in the context of urbanisation and enforced displacement of ethnic minorities away from their homelands, where they have power. Both films indicate the filmmakers’ strategic appropriation of ethnic minority children for making serious social commentary in the context of strict ideological control of film censorship on the one hand and intensified social stratification on the other. In many of the films discussed in this book, the city of Beijing is differently imagined in the minds of the ethnic minority children, but it always stands for the Han-dominated nation-state, with which the children are forced to forge a connection. Finally, several generations of Chinese mainland filmmakers – the Fourth-, Fifth-, and Sixth-Generations – have all been active in making films about ethnic minority children. The historical, political, and cultural reasons for Han dominance were expounded in Chapter 1. What I intend to emphasise here is an observation that the ethnic identity of a filmmaker, be it Han or an ethnic minority, matters in the type of childhood experiences constructed on screen; however, there are individual variations in the extent to which it matters. In general, Han filmmakers take an ‘outsider’s perspective’ (Rao et al. 2011, 373), endowing their child characters with subjective imaginations. Mainstream filmmakers working for state-owned studios tend to espouse party-state ideologies, regardless of their ethnic identities. Independent filmmakers are more likely to hide their personal expressions under the guise of seemingly orthodox ‘main melody’ films. Filmmakers like Pema adopt an ‘insider’s perspective’ (Rao et al. 2011, 373), revealing the delicacy of a Tibetan child’s identity construction that cannot easily be achieved by a Han filmmaker. However, this is not just because of ethnicity but also because of the vastly varying power dynamics and real-life experience that a member of a dominant group, however sympathetic, will find difficult to understand. In the contemporary world, media representations and real-life experiences increasingly constitute one another, although not always in pre-determined ways. It is important to be aware of what is represented on screen and to investigate

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the relevant ideologies and cultural politics underneath, including how they are supported or challenged in the text. With regard to ethnic minority children, their childhood experiences on screen may not only shape the audience’s perception of these children in both discourse and reality but also end up influencing their circumstances in real life. As Chris Philo suggests in the study of children’s geographies, a better understanding of ‘structure-based geographies of childhood’ – that is, how they are ‘shaped by broad-brush political-economic and social-cultural transformations’ – is ultimately for the sake of ‘[heralding] “real” changes in the conditions of existence for children who are in poverty, being excluded, suffering abuse or simply enduring neglect’ (2000, 253). My research cannot bring direct changes to the lives of ethnic minority children, who still live on the periphery of the nation and deserve more attention. However, I hope that this book has provided a better understanding of these children in terms of how they are appropriated on screen and how their cinematic geographies and identity constructions are shaped by the ideological agendas of both Han and ethnic minority filmmakers in the ongoing process of China’s modernity project.

References Dai, Jinhua. 1995. Jingcheng tuwei: Nüxing·dianying·wenhua [Breaking through the Mirror City: Women, Film, and Culture]. Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe. Philo, Chris. 2000. “‘The Corner-Stones of My World’: Editorial Introduction to Special Issue on Spaces of Childhood.” Childhood, 7 (3): 243–256. doi: 10.1177/0907568200007003001. Rao, Shuguang et al. 2011. Zhongguo shaoshu minzu dianying shi [Film History of Chinese Minorities (English Translation on the Book Cover)]. Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe.

Index

action film on horseback 102 Aihemi, Tuyigong 37–38 Aitken, Stuart C. 24–25, 104 Aitken and Herman 7, 104, 109 aobao 108–109 asphalt road 86–87, 113 auto-ethnographic film 22, 98 awe-filled relationship 68–69 Axia hede mimi/Secret of Axia River 3, 80–81 Bakhtin, Mikhail 49–50 Bal, Mieke 60, 64 Bao, Lide 12 Barnes, Andrea 103 Basha Miao village 57, 59, 67 becomings 82 Beijing: capital 98; inner city 65–66; traditional landscapes 65–67; see also Da Du; national landscape; sandstorm Beijing Olympic Games 57, 61–62, 64, 79, 98 Bell Tower 65–66 Belt and Road Initiative 52n2 Beneath Clouds 87 Berry, Chris 123 BFA (Beijing Film Academy) 14n12, 19–21 Bird’s Nest (Beijing National Stadium) 57, 61–62 Buddhist doctrines: emptiness 127–129; karma and compassion 129–131 Bulag, Uradyn 93 Caoyuan yingxiong xiao jiemei/Two Little Heoric Sisters on the Grasslands 97, 103 carnivalesque 49 CCFS (China Children’s Film Studio) 6, 38 censorship 134, 135n9, 141 Chengzhang/Growing Up 58, 66

children: relationship with animals 25–26; relationship with nature 24–25 children’s geographies 10, 14n13 China’s rise 57, 74, 98 Chinese ethnic minority film (Zhongguo shaoshu minzu dianying) 2, 12n3 Chinese ethnic minority language film (Zhongguo shaoshu minzu yu dianying) 13n9 Chinese ethnic minority mother-tongue film (Zhongguo shaoshu minzu muyu dianying) 13n9 Chinese ethnic minority-themed films (Zhongguo shaoshu minzu ticai dianying) 2, 12n2 Chinese musicals 38–40 Chong, Gladys 62, 64 Chou, Chou 58, 74n1 Chow, Rey 3, 6, 13n4 cinematic landscape 10, 49, 60–61, 106 civility 80 Clark, Paul 2, 23 Clarke, David 63 colonisation 113–114 community 70 Crang, Mike 114 cultural geography 81 Cup, The 122 Da Du 66 Dai, Jinhua 35, 140 Dai children: cinematic representation 23–24; relation to elephants 24; relation to a forest 24 Dai fozhu de zangwa/A Tibetan Girl Wearing Buddhist Beads 122 Dai people: cinematic representation 23–24; geopolitics 23; relation to elephants 24 Dalai Lama 120

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Danao tiangong/Uproar in Heaven 135n8 deconstruction 63, 133 Deleyto, Celestino 57, 60–61 Derrida, Jacques 82 discursive struggle 115 Donald, Stephanie 5–6, 14n10, 59, 89 Dorfman and Mattelart 6 Duozi/Running for Son 58, 67 Dushanzi Oil Refinery 50, 53n10 Dyer, Richard 35, 40–42 ecocinema 9, 14n11, 50, 99, 111 economic integration policy 121 ethnic autonomous regions 2, 102 ethnic identity 7 ethnic minorities 1–2; cinematic representation 2–3; film distribution 14n10 ethnic minority children: allegorical functions 5–7; avatars for nostalgia 67; cinematic representation 3–5, 139–142; geographies 8–9; identity construction 7–8; relation to animals and nature 25–26; without fathers 140 ethnic minority women 39 ethnographic Tibet 119–120 exclusion 66 external focalisation 60–61 Fei, Xiaotong 2 Feng, Xiaoning 19, 32 Fengkuang de shitou/Crazy Stone 111, 115 Fifth-Generation filmmakers 14n12, 21–23; artistic movement 21–22; see also realism; symbolism filmmaker: ethnic awareness 13n3; ethnic identity 12, 141 Flower Fruit Mountain (Huaguoshan) 125 focalisation 57, 60–61 forest 68–69 Fourth-Generation filmmakers 14n14, 20–22; see also red scarf complex; republic complex Generation of Postgraduates (yanjiusheng dai) 58, 74n3 Gladney, Dru C. 96 Gobi Desert 110–113 God Must be Crazy, The 105 Golden Calf awards 59 Goldstein, Melvyn C. 119–121 Great Western Development (xibu da kaifa) 36–37

Guang, Chunlan 37–40 Guangzhou laide Xinjiang wa/A Xinjiang Child in Guangzhou 51 Gun Lala de qiang/Lala’s Gun: ethnic tradition and Miao homeland 72; village community 70; see also forest; terrace land Gushou de rongyu/Drummer’s Aspiration 58, 62, 66 hand drum 46 Harrell, Stevan 7 Harvey, David 81 Hmong 57 Hollywood musicals: politics of colour 40–42; social minorities 41–42; wide-open natural spaces 41 home domain 90 Hong Gaoliang/Red Sorghums 22–23, 27–28 Hongxiang/Red Elephant: cinematic features 27–32; narrative structure 26–27 Hopkins, Jeff 10 hospitality 82–83 Hu, Puzhong 6, 13–14, 62 Huangtudi/Yellow Earth 10, 21, 27–30 Hui Changge de tudou/A Potato Can Sing 51 hukou 65 Huowa/The Fire Boy 3, 58 Huoyanshan laide gushou/The Drummer of Huoyanshan: musical carnival 49–50; outdoor cinema 45–47; ruins 42–45; space of solitude 47–49 hutong 65–66 identity work 123–124 Imperial Palace 62 inclusion 66 Indigenous knowledge 80, 84–85 Indigenous peoples (shiju minzu) 36 infantile citizen 6 inner landscape 65; see also landscape of the mind Inner Mongolia 101–102 Inner Mongolian grasslands 79, 83–84; paths 84–87; sheep dung 86; see also aobao; stone heap instrumental music 46 intentional landscape 60–61 interethnic relationship 79–81, 91; cinematic representation 80–81; ethnic bias 93 interior geographies 66 internal focalisation 60–61

Index internally focalised landscape 61 internal orientalism 3 Jade Emperor 127 Jifeng zhong de ma/Season of the Horse 102–103 Jin, Lini 51 Jingjing de mani shi/The Silent Holy Stones 119, 122; humanistic perspective 125–126; little lama’s identification with Sun Wukong 123–125; religious perspective 127–131; sociopolitical perspective 131–133 Jingpo 80 Jones, Owain 101, 105, 112–113 Journal of Chinese Cinemas 123 Journey to the West (Xiyouji) 119; animated version 135n8; television adaptations 123–124, 131, 134n4; Tangsen Lama’s stories 123–124 Kaishui yao tang, Guniang yao zhuang/I Want to Dance 74n2 knowledge production 114 lama 108, 116n3, 134 landscape of the mind 65; see also internal focalisation landscape shots 9 Lefebvre, Martin 57, 60 left-behind children (liushou ertong) 57 leleche 87 Li, Daoxin 6, 14n6 Liechang zhasa/On the Hunting Ground 21–22, 27, 29–31, 102 Liu Sanjie/Third Sister Liu 39, 41 Lo, Kwai-Cheung 63, 84, 96, 98, 129 Louv, Richard 19, 25 Lu, Sheldon 14n11 Lü caodi/Mongolian Ping-Pong: Dawa’s home 106–108; formal education in town 113–115; see also Gobi Desert; stone heap Lury, Karen 6, 69 MacKinnon, Kenneth 35, 40–42 Maimaiti de 2008/Maimaiti’s 2008 51–52 main melody films (zhuxuanlü dianying) 3, 13n5 mainstream films (zhuliu dianying) 3, 13n5 Manchus 13n8, 66 mani stone 129 mantra 129 Massey, Doreen 79, 81–83

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Mazar village 40 media and identity 123–125 media characters 123–124 Meinig, Donald 62, 66, 68 Miao children: cinematic representation 58; coming-of-age ritual 59, 68; subjectivity 61 Miao people: agricultural civilisation 69; cinematic representation 58; funerals 73–74; geographies and culture 57–58, 68, 75n10; homeland 72–74; men 72–74 migrant workers 57, 62–65, 67 migration 57 minority capabilities 8 minority languages 6, 13n9, 44 minority minors 5 mobility 79; free rides 89; walking 95 model operas 39 modernisation 3–4, 57, 74, 131 modernising rural China (xiangcun zhenxin) 75n11 monastery 122–124, 128–129, 133 Mongol children: cinematic representation 102–103; religion 109; town school 113 Mongolian mothers 102 Mongolian robe 90, 113 Mongols: cinematic representation 102, 116n2; heroes 79, 91; language maintenance 93 Mountain of Five Phases (Wuxingshan) 126–127, 130 musical space 40–42 Naadam 79 national ball (ping-pong qiu) 109, 116n4 national cinema 13n3 national landscape 61–65 national sport 105 Neimeng renmin de shengli/Victory of the People of Inner Mongolia 102 New Generation filmmakers 101, 116n1 New Tibetan Cinema 122–123 Niaochao/Bird’s Nest: village community 70–71; see also Bell Tower; Bird’s Nest; forest; hutong; siheyuan; terrace land Nima de xiatian/Nima’s Summer 122 Ning, Hao 111–112, 115, 116n5, 116n6 Ning, Jingwu 57–59, 74n4, 74n5, 74n6, 75n9 Nongnu/Serfs 121–122 nostalgia 67, 71 object of gaze 50 only entertainment 40, 50

146

Index

opera films 39 opera girls 39 otherness of childhood 101, 112 Panchen Lama 120 Patriarch Subhodi (Puti zushi) 125, 127 Pema, Tseden 122–123, 134 Philo, Chris 142 playing 103 political Tibet 119 postcolonial cinema 13n3 post-socialist cinema 13n6 power geometry 81 primitivism 3, 13n4, 43; primitive materials 3; primitive passions 6 Prince Drime Kunden 126, 135n6 propaganda films (xuanchuan pian) 13n5 psychic decolonisation 93 public space 92 Qingchun ji/Sacrificed Youth 22–23, 32 quality (suzhi) 45, 52n8 rawap 46 realism (xieshi) 22 real life 4 red guards 80 red scarf complex (honglingjin qingjie) 21 reel life 4 relational construction of space 79, 81–83 relational ethics 82–83 relational space 81–83 relative space 81 Relph, Edward 71 republic complex (gongheguo qingjie) 21 revolutionary musicals 39 Rocha and Seminet 61 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 24–25, 68 rural autonomy 4 rural Guizhou 67–72 rural idyllic childhood 8–9 rural space 67 Sai Fu and Mai Lisi 102 Saishang fengyun/Storm on the Border 102 sandstorm 89–90 Schein, Louisa 1, 3 school education 113–114 sensorimotor play 107 sent-down youth (zhiqing) 21, 33n2, 93–94 shadow play (yingxi) 21 shaoshu minzu 12n2 siheyuan 65–66

Silk Road 36; see also Belt and Road Initiative singsong girls 39 Sinification 131 Sixth-Generation filmmakers 14n12, 58; see also Generation of Postgraduates; New Generation filmmakers Smith, Neil 81 Soja, Edward 81 Songtsen, Gambo 119 space of marginality 59 spatiality 81 spectacle 43, 113 spectator’s landscape 60 stone heap 108–110 Sun Wukong 119, 124; abstinence 131; disciple 126; havoc in Heaven 125; monk 127–129; restless mind 127; revolutionary hero 131; self-cultivation 127–128, 130; trickster 126 symbolism (xieyi) 22, 31 synonymous relationship 68 tanchang 126, 135n7 Tanqi wode zhanian qin/Zhanian Instrument 122 tenth Panchen Lama 120–121, 128, 134n3 Tenzin, Gyatso (fourteenth Dalai Lama) 120–121 terrace land 69–70 thick play 104 Tian, Zhuangzhuang 19, 21–22, 74 Tiananmen 62 Tiananmen Square 62, 74n7 Tianshan Film Studio (Xinjiang Film Studio) 36–38 Tibet: geopolitics 119–121; kings and serfdom 119–120; modernisation 121; religion 119–120; religion leaders 120–121; Western imagination of 134n2 Tibetan Buddhism 120, 133–134 Tibetan children: cinematic representation 122, 134; Tibetan classes 122 Tibetan cinema: diaspora films 122, 135n9; Han production 121–122; Hollywood production 122 Tibetan operas 126 Tibetan question 120–121 Tibetans: cinematic representation 121–123; uprising 121 Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) 119 town space 71–72, 91–95 trajectories 83

Index transitional object 101, 104 transitional space 101, 103–104 Tuyuq 48 Upon the Golden Mountain of Beijing 110–111 urban integration 4 utopianism 42, 46 Uyghur children: capabilities 39–40; cinematic representation 51–52 Uyghurs: cinematic representation 37–38; geopolitics 36–37 Valentine, Gill 81, 92 Wang, Haowei 52n1 Wang, Ping 52n1 Wang, Zhimin 12n3 Weixiao de pangxie/Smiling Crab 51, 80–81 Where Is My Friend’s Home? 128 Winnicott, D. W. 101, 103–105 Wohe shenma Chagan/My Avatar Horse 24, 115 Wucai lu/Five Colour Road 3, 122

147

Wuren qu/No Man’s Land 116n5 Wusheng de he/Silent River 58, 66 Xianghuo/Incense 111–112, 116n6 Xiaokaiti de jiaqi/Xiaokaiti’s Summer 52 Xiaoxiang Xi’na/Little Elephant Xi’na 24, 26 Xie, Xiaojing 19, 32n1 Xingfu de xiangrikui/Blissful Sunflowers 51 Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang) 36; ethnic tension 52n3, 139; religion 48; see also Indigenous peoples Xunzhao nadamu/Seeking Naadam: climactic moment 95–98; herder couple 89–91; heroic deeds 94–95; leleche driver 87–89; Mongol man 91–94; paths 84–87 Yahefu, Xierzhati 38, 51 Yige he baga/One and Eight 21, 27–29, 31 Yingsheng age/Echo Brother 80–81 Zeng, Nianping 19 Zhang, Jianya 19, 32 Zhang, Yimou 19, 23 Zhiai/True Love 51