The Phenomenon of Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century 9789814339285, 9789814332354

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Contents Introduction Mental Changes and the Carnival of the Gods

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Chapter 1 The Increasingly Blurred Cultural Map 1 Chapter 2 State Will and the Mainstream Cultural Resources 43 Chapter 3 Present-day Fashion and the Leaders 65 Chapter 4 Lower Case Culture: Two Kinds of Time in Popular Culture 117 Chapter 5 Swan Song and Oriental Utopia 137 Chapter 6 The Media War and the Changes in Media Function 189 Chapter 7 The Virtual World on “A Thousand Plateaus” 205 Chapter 8 The Formation of New Social Classes and the Expansion of Discourse Space 225

Chapter 9 The Writing of the Proletarians in the Capital Myth Time 241 Chapter 10 Globalization / The Rebellion and Carnival of the Asian Youth 255 Appendix I The “Betrayal”, “Runaway” and “Death” of Intellectuals 265 Appendix II The Specter of Totality and the Tradition of Being “Revived” 279

Notes

301

References

309



321

Index

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Introduction Mental Changes and the Carnival of the Gods Key words: dream of the century; market economy; cultural conflicts The pursuit of modernity as the dream of the century has echoed through the tunnel of history for a hundred years and has thus been a basic motif of China’s ideological and cultural society for a century. As a verbal expression for the innovations and changes of a nation, it has continued to exist. China in the 20th century was constantly seeking innovations and changes. In addition to the various efforts at the practical level, the ideological and cultural conflicts constituted the unique landscape of China’s ideological and cultural development. However, we have found that these ideological and cultural conflicts had different meanings and expressions in different historical contexts. Before the mid-1980s, due to historical development, those with linguistic skills had the opportunity for relatively calm reflection, which naturally contributed to their confidence. There was Chinese learning and Western learning, classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese, tradition and modernity, radicalness and conservatism, and other ideological and cultural conflicts. At that time, most of those people regarded themselves as the national elite and were positive that the dream of the nation would be fulfilled through their cultural strategies. This kind of mentality and discourse pattern continued until the mid-1980s. In a new round of upsurge of the “Chinese Culture Fad” and the “Comparison between China and the West” in 1985, Gan Yang wrote an article entitled Several Issues about the Discussion of Culture in the 1980s. It argued that the fundamental task of the cultural discussion in the 1980s was the realization of China’s “cultural modernization”. The fundamental issue of cultural discussion was not to reveal how different Chinese culture was from Western culture, but to ensure that Chinese culture would move from its old form towards modernization. In the meantime, Gan believed that the core theoretical issue of the current cultural debate was the issue of tradition. Tradition, according to him, was not equal to “what already existed in the past”, but the indefinite “possible world” that would always be open to the future. And the most powerful means of promoting tradition was to be anti-traditional. This

Introduction

was because “the traditional sense, the traditional mentality, the traditional knowledge form and the traditional behavior of the Chinese encounter and conflict with the modern sense, the modern mentality, the modern knowledge form and the modern behavior of the Chinese naturally required by a modern society” 1, and although this macro “form of modern culture” seems to lack detailed explication, the author’s passion and historical consciousness can be sensed between the lines. The preface of this publication was also powerful. It pointed out at the very beginning that “If China wants to become global, naturally Chinese culture should go global as well; if China wants to achieve her modernization, naturally the ‘modernization of Chinese culture’ must be achieved as well —— this becomes the shared belief of every single person of vision in the 1980s, and this is the logical necessity for the great historical rise of contemporary China”. The preface used such words as “naturally” and “must”, and this doubtless confidence clearly looked back at the heroic spirit of “Young China” in the May Fourth Movement. At the same time, it looked forward to “creating a brand new form of the contemporary Chinese culture” in an imaginary, poetic and romantic way and “seeing the perspective of the mixture of Chinese culture and world culture with confidence”. 2 Without a doubt, this imagination had tremendous charm and strong appeal. At that time, both scholars and writers had this kind of mentality and attitude. It was the most inspiring and powerful voice of the era, and it expressed the desire for and the image of enlightenment, and its tone conformed to people’s habits and tastes that had been nurtured in the revolution. Therefore, it is appropriate to call the voice the enlightenment voice of the elite. However, nobody was able to foresee that this was the voice of the last enlightenment in China for a hundred years. Before the turn of the 21st century, didacticism as well as one generation of the elite made an early exit from the stage of history before they could make their curtain calls. What is worth reflecting on is that what they had predicted did not actually come about as expected and that the course of history was different. In the 1990s, the mentality and mood of the intellectuals had already altered. That grand declaration and generous promise seemed astronomically remote. In 1991, Scholar , the first unofficial but influential academic journal began publication. Chen Pingyuan, editor-in-chief, said in the epilogue that “for several years, we’ve been working diligently not for being startling but for a good conscience”: Based on our understanding of Chinese history and culture, “studies among the people” is the vital pillar to maintain the social orders, principles of human relations and values in a period of political instability and social change. It is better to return home and make a net than long for fish by the waterside or

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curse the fact that the fish do not bite. Whether the value orientation of the cultural decision-makers is worth admiring is one thing, and the choice and efforts of the intellectuals is another. It is a shared idea for scholars to seek economic and ideological independence with the help of the people rather than complain about insufficient support from the government for academic activities.3 Even these concessive remarks did not get published until one year and a half later. The author was worried that they might threaten the journal’s survival and the epilogue became the real postscript. Later on, in the epilogue of the first volume of Literary History , the author stressed that they were “in pursuit of a solid and steady academic style. There will be no startling views and mostly there will be ordinary research with hard evidence. Emphasis will be laid on the standardization of quotations. These efforts are made to promote an academic atmosphere in which people can do honest reading and serious writing; and hopefully can avoid being satirized as ‘uncultivated people who simply focus on minor details’”4 Scholars used to think that they were the only people who could save the world and now they seem to have abandoned this strong desire to shape the world and gone back to their dens. In Chen Sihe’s words, this was retreating from “plaza” to “post”. Both academic intellectuals and the intellectuals who were concerned about reality felt that their own identities were being replaced. “The traditional role of intellectuals in influencing society in a rational way is being taken over by commercial stars, singers, movie stars, sports stars and political activists. Due to the fact that people have lost interest in rationality, truth, justice, values and dignity, on which intellectuals base themselves, the social status of intellectuals is being replaced. Universities, the base camp of intellectuals, are no longer the base of culture or the field of ideological life, and they are restricted to the general principles of a consumer society and a market society: being practical, direct, and short-dated. Universities have become training centers and the workshops that produce special skills (commodities) for society. The traditional educational style of ‘teaching, instructing, and explaining’ has died. No one seems to take notice of or care about the traditional literary masterpieces and values.”5 Compared with the 1980s, the mentality and attitude of intellectuals changed and their advantages disappeared as a result of historical developments. After entering the 1990s, the self expectation of intellectuals dropped to the lowest point for a hundred years and the spiritual fission caused by the historical fracture caught them off guard. The intellectuals were the first to call for modernity, and were enthusiastic supporters for innovation in this direction. Revolution is intoxicating, but “the real problems arise on ‘the second day of

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revolution’. At that time, the secular world will again encroach on human consciousness.” 6 The “Anti-traditional” cultural strategies called for in the 1980s collapsed of themselves in the 1990s. “Traditions” could not compete with the tide of secularization and people abandoned all the “traditions” all rapidly. The central values of the entire social thoughts were no longer dominant, either. The idols lost their halos. The authorities lost their majesty. The “gods” liberated in the market economy entered the era of carnival. However, the “form of modern culture” failed to keep pace with modernity. Even the critics who acclaimed the coming of the era in which “different opinions could be voiced” had to admit that “the reality was not the same”. Nevertheless, the cultural conflict in the 1990s did not start in that age. In its initial period, there was a blank in the ideological and cultural field and most intellectuals were silent. The field they had dominated was like a quiet wasteland due to the withdrawal of the protagonists. And at that time, culture that was non-political and entertainment-oriented took the advantage. No one had expected that popular culture would rapidly and fully occupy the cultural market in such an unexpected way. Qiong Yao, San Mao, Xi Murong, Wang Guozhen, the TV series Longing , Zhou Zuoren and Lin Yutang, whose works were later reprinted, and Liang Shiqiu, who wrote contemporary leisure essays, became very popular. Soft culture proceeded without hindrance in the market for the first time in contemporary China in soothing, easy, warming, sexy and other emotional ways. The audience was also for the first time soothed by such irresistible tender sentiments. In the meantime, no one thought that this undeclared, quiet appearance was merely the opening ceremony of the permeable market culture of the 1990s. In the early 1990s, when there was a shortage of production conditions for market culture, the literary and historical works of Hong Kong and Taiwan served as the preliminary alternatives. Once the mainland market culture reached production capacity, it was upgraded continuously like an avalanche or a flood discharge and became the contemporary cultural mainstream. Therefore, in the cultural conflict in the 1990s, market culture became the main aspect of the contradiction in a passive way, since for functional and objective reasons it did not take the initiative to attack other cultures or appear in an aggressive way, and even its face was charming and gentle. Market culture in the early 1990s largely occupied the cultural space and this phenomenon in itself implied the fact that the culture had long been suppressed. Radical revolutionary ideals and the spirit of integration could not provide space for the growth of market culture. The cultural strategy of “popularization” implied in itself a distinct ideological semantics and was expressed as a user-

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friendly strategy. It had clear enlightenment contents. Therefore, it was not the market culture that is meant today. It was a kind of “translation” of political culture. In this sense, consumption and entertainment-oriented market culture simply became its opposite. The strategy of “popularization” had two functions: it fulfilled the public’s demand for the entertaining function of culture; and it was easy to understand and fulfilled the requirement for mainstream ideological enlightenment in a casual and entertaining way. The term “edu-tainment” vividly illustrated the functional objective of cultural “popularization”. It was not a culture of one-time consumption. In the longterm practice, it formed its own classic series and became an ideological and cultural resource that could be repeated during different periods of time. When needed, it would be repeatedly utilized and given new meanings through the way it was elucidated. The “Red Classics” cyclone that once again swept the Chinese literary world in 1996 confirmed the views mentioned above. But market culture for market consumption is mostly a one-off one, with novelty, excitement and lust as its main features. Its production mode is also very different from that of popular cultural works. Mainly based on the requirement for mainstream ideological enlightenment, the latter involves clear “planning”. The so-called “domestic key film” is one kind, and the “Five No. 1 Project” further reflects the scale of this planning. On the contrary, the former is mainly based on market demand and it caters to people’s preferences. Its main target is commercial profits. Therefore, it could be said the market culture discussed today is entirely the product of a market economy. It had been suppressed, lacking the possibility and space for growth, due to the resistance and rejection by the mainstream ideology and the planned economic system. It could therefore be said that in the cultural conflict in the 1990s, market culture became the main aspect of the contradiction in a passive way. Inevitably, it was watched vigilantly by the mainstream ideology and criticized by elite intellectuals. This interesting cultural conflict did not come into existence till the 1980s. Generally speaking, intellectuals are particularly willing to flaunt their independence or independent spirit, and willing to maintain the necessary distance from society instead of following popular trends closely. Even if they have a strong desire to get involved they have their own way of doing so rather than participating directly. But in the second half of the 20th century, most of the time, due to the changes in the specific spiritual situation, the independent spirit of the intellectuals gradually subsided and consistency with the mainstream ideology became dominant. On the other hand, the tradition of the Enlightenment spirit and identity superiority was an important background to their existence. Thus the rapid development pace of the social historical

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process suddenly cut off their ties with history, and the spiritual situation greatly changed. And intellectuals, particularly those studying humanities, as a social conservative force, changed slowly. They could not adapt to the different world created by the hustle and bustle of the market tide. Their unfamiliarity, surprise, and lack of understanding gradually evolved into anger and criticism. Their first target was the immature market culture. They vividly revealed the illusion, fraudulence, flatness and consumption characteristics of this cultural form. However, it was frustrating for them that this market culture totally ignored the rejection and criticism of the elite intellectuals, and still went its own way in complete silence. The omnipresent popular culture germinated from the people and entered the authoritative national media, which to varying degrees declared the result of the conflict. The market economy, from the very first day of its existence, indicated the distress that the traditional humanistic intellectuals would inevitably face. In the 1980s the market economy was much debated and its development and direction were often unclear. In the 1990s the release of Deng Xiaoping’s Southern talk made the drastic change in the social economic operating mechanism an irreversible trend. It was impossible for humanistic intellectuals to enter the main economic battlefield. They were excluded from the market economy, and the traditional humanistic ideals lost their past appeal. Thus a strong feeling of loss enveloped this group and within a short period of time they almost sung a collective “swan song”. The most typical was the publication of The Deserted City by Jia Pingwa in 1993. This book conveyed with a strong feeling of loss the sense of desolation and cultural failure experienced by humanistic intellectuals through being unable to obtain selfassurance. All they could do was drift in the hustle and bustle of the city, and throw themselves into secular life in an extreme way. The mentality and the fate of the hero Zhuang Zhidie, in some way, became the spiritual epitome of some intellectuals. Of course, the disillusionment of the intellectuals came not only from their anxiety about their living situation and spiritual survival, or from the feeling of loss after the loss of their superior identity, but also came from the deep crisis within intellectual circles themselves. The concrete manifestation of this crisis was the frequent appearance of the word “aphasia” that became popular in academia. In fact, “aphasia” did not really mean that the intellectuals had lost their academic ability of expression. More importantly, “aphasia” described the loss of power to self explain the way of their survival and value. In the past, they were the guardians of social conscience and the authoritative interpreter of social values. At least, their superiority was unmatched at the spiritual level.

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Therefore, intellectuals had tended to disdain to participate in political or business activities. However, the changes in social customs deprived them of their superiority and their impractical way of life was soon ignored by people and society. Their superiority lost the basis for its existence and their actual position in society made people no longer respect them. The acknowledgement of intellectuals was restricted to teachers or to the relevant media coverage. Also, since the 1980s, in the radical pursuit of modernity, an undeclared “Western-centrism” became extremely popular in academic circles. All of the Western theories, methods and concepts have been put into practice successively in China. And they all had, from the so-called “new methodology” beginning from system theory, control theory, and information theory to the so-called “third world culture theory,” “postmodernism,” “post-colonialism”, etc. the latest and pioneering faces. They all attempted to obtain “cultural hegemony” status. Jameson, Derrida, Foucault, Lacan and so on became the latest cultural heroes and mentors. The practitioners took little notice of the original backgrounds to the theories and the specific cultural objectives, but just adopted a pragmatic cultural attitude to orientalize them and then exaggerate them for specific Chinese cultural criticism. As years went by, this cultural strategy increasingly showed its limitations and weaknesses, thus losing its effectiveness and its audience. After 1995, these voices based on the Western theories became increasingly thin and their practitioners made a dejected and embarrassed exit. The crisis might be more profound. It showed that in the process of modernization, Chinese ideological and cultural society was badly short of internal resources and it also showed that the pursuit of Western theoretical discourse could not solve the cultural problem in China. Therefore, for the admirers and the believers of Western discourse, the setback made them frustrated and disappointed. Samuel Huntington, the Western political scientist, had predicted this situation in the 1980s. He said: “With the Western colonial rule being a thing of the past, with more and more elites originating from the local culture rather than Paris, London or New York, with the political role of the people in non-Western societies, who have had little contact with the Western culture, being increasingly important and with the global influence of major Western powers continuing to be relatively weakened, the local culture is naturally becoming increasingly important in determining the process of social development. The partnership between modernization and the West has been broken. When the Third World continues to promote its modernization, part of it is deeply involved in and committed to a non-Western process”.7 This statement also fractured the illusion of excessive infatuation with Western theories.

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Obviously, we encountered new problems. On the one hand, out of a sense of national dignity, we demanded the maintenance of our cultural nationality and emphasized the national differences in the process of modernization. On the other hand, we had difficulty in envisaging what modernization with nationality would be like and how to describe its rationality. This contradiction was typically reflected in the article Notes on the Issue of Difference by Li Tuo. He said: “After the Cold War, the ‘globalization’ movement with modernity as its essence suddenly gained unprecedented vitality…It is clear that China in the 1990s has been deeply involved in this process of globalization, but how should we look at this process? What kind of theoretical interpretation should we make? What position should the interpreter take when making the interpretation? These issues have not been sufficiently considered or discussed. As far as some of the reactions are concerned, most of them tend to make an optimistic interpretation of globalization and generally fall into the scope of the purpose of modernization. And the issues that cannot be optimistically handled as a result of globalization have been less focused on or mentioned. In fact, globalization brings too many problems to human beings (especially the so-called least developed countries). The norms of modernity, originally rooted in Europe, are having more and more influence on the development of every single country in the world and their culture, thus making a tropism for all the cultures in the world. That is one of the problems”.8 From a local standpoint, the author’s concern responded to Huntington’s argument that “the partnership between modernization and the West has been broken”. However, it was worrying whether the raising of these problems meant a new round of “Chinese and Western argument”. In Pistachio Girl , the author pointed out: “Whenever I imagine that all ethnical, cultural and social systematic differences are eliminated and that the world is an undifferentiated ‘Pax World’ entirely formed by modern items such as highways, supermarkets, skyscrapers and billboards, I shudder”.9 Clearly, the author was greatly concerned about the trend toward “globalization”. His concern implied both his desire for modernity and his reservations about it. It also implied he revealed inadvertently a sad obsession about the gradual disappearance of the pre-modern poetry. However, the more civilized society is, the less poetry there will be, and this contradiction cannot be avoided. Of course, Li Tuo was not the only person who felt this way. The influence of the discussion since the end of 1993 about “human spirit” originating from the dialogue between Wan Xiaoming and several others —— The Ruins of the Wilderness , published in Shanghai Literature —— has lingered. The discussion showed the breakdown of the internal consensus of the intellectuals and the

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divergence of their cultural ideology. At the same time, it implied the different attitudes of the various parties in the debate towards the loss of the life poetry. When the discussion subsided, two scholars who had participated in it wrote two relevant essays. One was Living in History by Zhang Rulun and the other was The Story of C by Cai Xiang. The editors deliberately had them published in the same issue of the periodical (The Remotest Corners of the World , 1996 No. 5). When the articles were published next to each other, the contrast was even clearer. Zhang’s began with the ending of the film Patton. It showed great understanding of and sympathy for the melancholy and sadness of General Patton walking slowly into the sunset after the battle. Patton did not belong to the era and as a real soldier, he could only use the historical heroes in his imagination to gain his sense of honor. Therefore, he embodied “a spirit incompatible with his time,” and could only share the heroes’ courage, vigor and destiny in his imagination. Thus “he went beyond his time into the eternal kingdom of history and became part of the human spiritual life that existed in history”. Zhang Rulun criticized the modern Chinese for their shallowness and frivolity, as they lacked awe for history. To these people, “History and sages are no longer sacred or sublime or able to make them feel ashamed and small. On the contrary, everyone can shake his or her head scornfully to the stars shining in the distant historical space or even spit with a grudge. Not to mention the ancients, aren’t those contemporary ‘masters’ who proudly look down upon Lu Xun brave enough to be a bit shameless?” Zhang Rulun made references to a large number of sages in both Chinese and foreign history. They were “people living in history and are the immortal spirit of history. They are the stars of the universe that can be obscured and forgotten. But until darkness falls, until the world runs out of energy, they can point out to us the direction and reinject the aged and tired human life with the power of youth”.10 The ideals and poetic expressions of Zhang Rulun together with those of Zhang Chengzhi, Zhu Xueqin, Wang Xiaoming etc. constituted a critical force of the time. They were a typical illustration of the spiritual aspirations and cultural ideology of the contemporary elite intellectuals. The Story of C by Cai Xiang was different in the feelings and purport expressed. The story was about how an old Red Guard, after going through all the vicissitudes of life, changed from a radical and idealistic youth into an unknown ordinary man. C was also “a man who found it very difficult to step into daily life”. He was very lonely as well. Once quite talkative, he now “spoke very few words”, and “had little interest in society and he simply smiled and shook his head helplessly when the topic was put forward occasionally”. The change was not surprising. It was not only a “story” that had undergone

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the narrator’s “narrative”, but also a common spiritual phenomenon after the “Cultural Revolution”. There must have been few ideals that could be stuck to no matter what types they were. Cai Xiang, the critic who also wrote the article entitled The Roaming Spirit of An Idealist in the 1980s, was eye-catching. Not only did he abandon the vigorous narrative style of the 1980s for a kind of melancholy emotion but he also showed great admiration and sympathy for C’s choice of an ordinary life. And on the other hand, Cai Xiang fell into a deep contradiction: “No matter how history evaluates C in the future, I still show respect to that generation of idealists. The call for nobility, equality and justice still thrills me. I still firmly believe that social systems should provide the moral basis of its own and satisfy the common needs of most people. I cannot tolerate injustice, bullying or looting. In the depths of my emotions remains a youthful call for Utopia. However, I constantly alert myself and I am alert to the social practice of my Utopia. I respect secularity even if it takes on a state of being fouled. My fear of tyranny has not disappeared, so my position often looks ambiguous”. 11 Cai Xiang’s words reflected nostalgia for the heroic era as well as a reluctant farewell to it, and his inner tension. His “ambiguity” together with Zhang Rulun’s poetry, in a sense, represented fairly typically the various mentalities of Chinese intellectual circles today. The lengthy description above is just one facet of the cultural conflict in China today as well as a part of the internal expression of intellectual circles. The cultural conflict in China today has in fact already moved beyond this. If roughly summarized and divided, the cultural forms today can generally be described as “mainstream culture”, “intellectual culture” and “market culture”. These three cultural forms often intertwine and conflict with one another. They get entangled in a rather complex relationship and each tries to assimilate and influence the other cultures. Moreover each type of culture suffers the contradiction of being self-insufficient and self-conflicting. Mainstream culture is a culture that expresses the national orthodox ideology. All countries, whatever systems they have, have an ideology that expresses their own state will and national interest. Authority is the main characteristic of this cultural form. In China today, the “main theme” is the cultural expression form of orthodox ideology, basically highlighting the Party’s leadership, promoting the revolutionary tradition, and advocating socialist spiritual civilization. The cultural literary works recently selected for the “Five No. 1 Project” display the cultural orientation of the “main theme” and the values of the national orthodox culture in the new era. This is distributed in all directions through a variety of media and periodically has huge momentum, thus irresistibly influencing the audience.

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Although countries show a high degree of vigilance in the field of ideology, when compared with the era of “integration”, this field allows for an unprecedented liberality which promotes both the main theme and “diversity”. In this way it provides the necessary space and ideological basis for the development of other cultural ecologies. However, any ideology or its cultural expressions are built on an imaginary relationship with reality. It has its own logical starting point, and the development of reality is not entirely in accordance with this. As a result it inevitably faces contradictions and conflicts. China in the 1990s had already embarked on the track of the market economy with “competition” as its law and rule. As long as the market economy was implemented, this rule could not be changed. It had no tolerance for sentimentality. Interest became the primary issue before the choice between success and failure. Therefore, the main theme of development of history and culture (such as the resurgence of the Red Classics) or the publicity of the current representative figures (Xu Hu, Li Guo-An, Li Suli, etc.), expressed the efforts of the mainstream culture to change the public morals of being mercenary and money oriented. However, in the initial stage of the market economy, people’s desire and expectation for money and the pleasures of life became almost an irreversible trend. Not only did ordinary people long for them, the corruption and extravagance of certain civil servants also exerted an immense impact on society in a “demonstrative” way. At the same time, when we watched the stars singing the main theme in tears, we saw their undisguised appearance fees as well. The competing appearance fees, for the stars, were more than the pursuit of profits. They had gradually evolved into a standard of personal worth. Therefore, money in this era became a ubiquitous and invincible scale. Although no one verbally denied the words “spiritual civilization” and everyone “sincerely” supported this slogan, how much dominance it had in real life was questionable. On the one hand, the liberal ideological environment, to a certain extent, adapted to the development of the market economy and the formation of the diverse cultural ecology. On the other hand, it adopted a compromising posture towards the unreasonable demands of “market culture”. It frequently suppressed secular culture, in which the profit-oriented cultural products and their reappearance implied the reluctance of the suppression. According to a midday news report on China Central Television (CCTV) (November 1, 1996), cricket gambling had started in a certain place and often the gambling money added up to RMB 10,000. After prohibiting this, this kind of “underground” gambling behavior was made “overground” into a “healthy cricket fighting activity” by the authorities concerned. This activity had been

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popular for a long time among people and regarded as a typical activity of idlers. But today, it has become a legal recreational activity once stripped of its gambling content. This news report reflected the tolerance of the current cultural policy on the one hand and the concessive attitude of the mainstream cultural ideology on the other. The intellectual culture has been previously described. What needs further clarifying is that this cultural form, which once occupied the cultural center, is now gradually moving toward the edge. All kinds of ideological works and elegant works of art are basically popular among peers or in an even smaller “cultural circle”. This is not only because this cultural form tends to maintain a necessary distance from other cultural forms to show its own independence, but also because the internal discrepancies among intellectuals are more intense and prominent than ever. An interesting cultural phenomenon is that while the political ideology is liberal, tension has emerged in cultural ideology. An unprecedented conceptual conflict has appeared within intellectual circles over the attitude to market culture in particular. Those who are in favor of the cultural type believe that “in ancient society, more emphasis was laid on ‘teaching’ than ‘fun’ and ‘fun’ was subordinate to ‘teaching’. In the so-called references of ‘edutainment’ or ‘text as a vehicle to convey ideas’, the ‘fun’ itself had no legality and had to be given some legality in its subordination to ‘ideas’ or ‘teaching’. In modern society, the trend towards secularization has freed ‘fun’ from its subordination to ‘teaching’ and therefore, it obtained an independent status and significance.” 12 The opponents, while admitting the rationality of secular life, have pointed out: “There is a lack of promotion and proof of the richness of rationality as well as the practice under the guidance of this concept, so the richness of life is divided between pale legality on the one hand and the rich and gorgeous illegality (underground publishing and pastimes in pursuit of sensory stimulation) on the other hand. The contrast is very sharp. People’s leisure life is being eroded by the rich illegality”.13 Thus, an ideological disagreement about market culture has caused a severe conflict within intellectual circles. Generally speaking, the intellectuals with idealism mostly played a radical role in the history of Chinese ideology and culture for a century. They were against tradition and the return to the ancients. They advocated innovations and new ideas; new life and new concepts etc. often became their cultural objectives. However, in today’s China, the criticism of market culture cannot be simply interpreted as a radical ideological current. In fact there is more or less a “nostalgic” feeling among these intellectuals. The reference to “living in history” by Zhang Rulun partly illustrates this point. Therefore, the criticism

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of market culture not only reflects the intellectuals’ rejection of materialism and hedonism but their firm defense of the meaning of life on which they have relied for their existence. When excluded from the tide of the market economy, a sad cry on an isolated humanistic island has become a way to prove their existence. In an era of heroic decline, this violent criticism might be ignored and become a tragic performance without audience. The market economy is still moving forward in an inherent manner and the public have not reached the point of being anxious for meaning. Therefore, the intellectuals, who exist for general meanings, have not yet met their real challenge —— they have not found their own way to dedicate themselves and can only gain self-assurance in making a last defense against and persistent confrontation of the tide of secularization. However, this persistence is certainly not usurpation. The social spiritual course of developed capitalism has amply demonstrated that secular life is not a myth. It can satisfy people’s material requirements to the utmost and meet their daily needs, but it cannot alleviate people’s mental and psychological disorders caused by all kinds of problems. The modern people’s anxiety, depression, irritability, paranoia, gloom or lack of interest in anything cannot be cured by secular pleasure. Therefore, the search for general meanings is not a case of the intellectuals’ asking for trouble by finding the impractical “meanings”. In today’s China, a variety of psychological disorders are on the rise. The unhappiness of the rich is not caused by lack of money but by a lack of focus in their spiritual life. When social civilization progresses to another stage, the value of the intellectuals’ efforts today will be proved. Market culture is the inevitable outcome of the market economy. The reason I term it “market culture” rather than “mass culture” is because the connotation of the term “mass” is too ambiguous, and its meaning is often unclear. This plural concept simply follows the argument of history and is often used in contrast to intellectuals or elites. However, the acceptance of market culture is not restricted to ordinary people. Romantic and martial arts works have attracted many people in intellectual circles. In the 1980s there were some critics writing literary criticisms with Jin Yong’s martial arts novels tucked under their arms; Peking University, in the 1990s, even established a special course on Jin Yong’s novels; film works with no ideological function took up most of the time on television. This shows that market culture has been partly accepted in intellectual circles and by national ideological institutions. Therefore, it is no longer accurate to refer to this cultural form using the term “mass”. Market culture is a great force for deconstruction, infection and devouring. It has a neutral appearance, with no fixed standpoint but the profit principle under the control of market laws. It makes daily life enjoyable. No matter what interests and hobbies a person has, he or she can find their own books and

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audio-visual products. The richness of market culture virtually deconstructs the cultural dictatorship of “integration” and diverts people’s excessive attention on and passion for political ideology so that the cultural hegemony of “integration” can be disassembled unconsciously. However, market culture itself is one of the illusion cultures. All its sentiment and excitement are provided through the imagination. It has no direct connection with the reality people live in. Nevertheless, people with weary spirits are still willing to achieve their own aspirations and tastes through this kind of culture and its infectiousness renders secular life irresistible. As a product of the market economy, the greatest purpose of market culture is to obtain a market share and commercial profits. Driven by this, all cultural resources are likely to be brought into the market by this cultural form and, once newly packaged, they become cultural consumer goods. Even the “Red Classics” and serious literature cannot escape this strategy. A typical example is that, as an album of “revolutionary songs”, the revolutionary content and feelings of the “Red Sun Songs” are not entirely suited to the needs of the cultural information receivers today. However, after their “style transformation” by Tu Honggang, Sun Guoqing, Li Lingyu, Fan Linlin and other contemporary stars, these songs, which made several generations weep in those years, have become popular songs in the market with a circulation of more than a million. Obviously, today’s audience will not be reliving the feelings of those years. What interests them is the fashionable “new style” of the stars. This case is a classic one of the “secularization” process. A similar case is the “leisure” essays in the early 1990s. By rights, the authors of this type of works were mostly celebrities in the history of modern culture. They wrote these leisure works for a variety of motives. Though not being ambitious these works, due to the cultural status of the authors, have always been “elegant and decent pieces”. Together with a relatively low evaluation of them by the mainstream culture, they were never fashionable. But in the early 1990s these leisure works, culturally packaged and deprived of all their implied cultural background, became a leisure arts category in day-to-day lives. Others such as Fortress Besieged and Feminine Literature almost all suffered a similar fate in varying degrees. This kind of devouring force is terrifying. It makes the classics no longer classic. In the process of secularization, all the authorities lose their glory and the idols step through the dusk to be fully shrouded by dark night. People become the joyous and exciting gods with no sense of fear. Market culture has eventually created another world and personality. Therefore, its conflicts with the elite culture and the mainstream culture already existed when it came into being.

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Of course, the cultural conflict in China today is not simply manifested in cultural forms and concepts. It also exists in people’s behavior and practical choices. “Self-fashioning” has become a fairly common cultural belief. The tendency towards individuality in clothing, profession, image, taste and many other aspects is becoming increasingly prominent. Needless to say this represents great progress, but at the same time the increasing weakness of public discourse and common concern cannot but cause anxiety. Cultural conflict is the reality we face, and we not only need to describe it but also need to express our position. Some Western scholars have pointed out: “Modernization may be holistic, but not necessarily a very good unity. It must contain tension, stress, confusion and turmoil”. Thus faced with the cultural conflict in today’s China we must persist in voicing our criticism as well as remaining calm.

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Chapter

The Increasingly Blurred Cultural Map

The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

Abstract Key words: intellectual elite; enlightenment; consumption; desire; cultural reconstruction The cultural atmosphere of optimism in the 1980s had two important backgrounds: the convening of the Third Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Part of China (CPC); and the re-establishment of the enlightenment discourse of intellectual elites. The former re-confirmed the ideological line of emancipating thinking and seeking truth from facts. Modernization, as an expectable commitment, re-ignited the fire of hope in people’s hearts. The latter, as the historical subject to enlighten people, sounded the clarion call for liberation. The new humanistic ideological trends that sprang up one after another were full of fantasies and prospects. However, under the guidance of the new ideology, modernity as an uncertain program illustrated the silent demand for the legality of consumption, pleasure, desire, etc. In a turbulent era, cultural conflicts occur in accordance with the changes in reality and there is no static and calm corner in the external world or in the human heart. Our lifestyle and behavior are not solely determined by our wills and tastes. In fact inherent cultural instructions dominate our consciousness like an invisible hand. In other words, we are all subject to the direction marked for us by the cultural map. Along such a direction, a kind of unconsciousness gives us hints and interpellations and gives us the basis for existence and action. When a cultural map with a clear direction exists, we have no sense of hesitation or loss and our trust in it gives us confidence. This is the validity of the cultural map. Generally speaking, the cultural map is formed by ideology, values, idol imitation and the continuous expression of classical texts. It is the conceptual form that rules our consciousness. Any kind of social system or social formation will generate an ideology adapted to it. It serves the general purpose of maintaining existing relationships. There is a transformation process for any one person from being a natural entity to being a social entity, which is simply the process of

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The Increasingly Blurred Cultural Map

enlightenment. Dr. Yu Wujin argued that the enlightenment process just a process of language learning. The teaching of any language was not empty. It always implied a certain amount of ideological content. Therefore, ideology was also “a permit for a person to enter and live in a society. Only through enlightenment to identify himself or herself with an ideology can a person be accepted by a society with this ideology as the dominant ideology. So Hegel has told us that the more enlightenment a man receives in society, the more actual strength he will have in that society”.1 Therefore, whatever views a person holds on ideology, he or she cannot escape its restraint and influence. According to Mannheim, there are two kinds of “ideological forms”: the declining class bias, that is, “ideology”; and the ideological form at its emerging stage, that is, “utopia”. Everyone will necessarily be enlightened by one of these ideological forms. Values are the criteria for and measure of human behavior. Based on values, people determine their own behavior and care goals and make judgments about things. People are also accustomed to and accept the use of this measure by society to evaluate them. Therefore, values and daily life are more closely related, and their expression among people tends to be more constant and persistent. In general, good, kind and beautiful are considered valuable, such as the sense of justice, friendship, love, kindness, integrity, mutual aid, etc. The understanding of their connotation may be different to some degrees, but the expression of value cannot often do without these “signifier”. Idol imitation is the inevitable outcome of ideological enlightenment and the popularization of values. It conveys in a fashionable way the ideological orientations of different times and the value objectives reflected among the public. Especially at the sub-cultural level, idols have incredibly great charm. It constructs numerous super-powerful myths, which spread and are re-narrated at magical speed. In the cultural map, it has the most short-term effect and in relative time, it is simply a direction and goal. In an open society, its function can even replace the deliberate enlightenment of ideology. The classical text is the co-owned cultural heritage of mankind and it silently guards the common pursuit and value goals of mankind. In the cultural map, it indicates the ultimate goal for people. Its continuous expression nurtures people’s cultural beliefs and symbolizes the relationship between history and reality. The classical text is always associated with humanity, nobility, ideality, justice etc. The above form the different marks on the cultural map. They indicate our direction, making us find meaning in a timely way in our daily life and giving us a clear sense of direction. However, the validity of the cultural map is not

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The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

constant. It needs to be constantly redrawn and amended. In particular, at a time when drastic historical change occurs, the old cultural map will lose its effectiveness and it will be impossible or difficult for people to define their positions or to use it to identify future positions. The drastic change in the 1990s brought such problems. The displacement of the main body or center of social life inevitably caused drastic cultural conflicts and psychological shock. People were like children freshly weaned, gloomy, lost and having no past reliance or self-confidence. The enormous shock which resulted from the social transformation was not simply due to the deliberate guiding opinion or exaggeration of the news broadcasts or tabloids. It had an unexpected effect on everyone’s thinking.

The Bright Past The Early Romantic Style In the 1980s, there was a well-known song entitled Come to Meet, Young Friends. Young friends, we come to meet. We row the little boats and the warm breeze blows, Flowers are sweet, birds are singing and spring is bright, Songs and laughter fly with the colorful clouds. … Ah, my dear friends, Let us proudly raise our glasses, Square our shoulders, Smile and raise our eyebrows, The glory belongs to us new generation in the 80s. …

The lyrics of the song are very poetic. With idealistic feeling, the song lyrically expresses an imagination of reality. Its main theme is as bright as the spring breeze caressing the face, and as romantic as the blooming flowers. With a cheerful melody, it expresses the youth, passion, naiveté and a sense of happiness full of expectations in the 1980s. It is reminiscent of the Russian youth bonfire party and the Chinese youth in the 1950s who chanted collectively Shine, the Fire of Youth . That was a bright world, which is still reminiscent of Gold Shuttle and Silver Shuttle, Grandma’s Penghu Bay, My Chinese Heart

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The Increasingly Blurred Cultural Map

and the Bloodred Style , filled with heroism. These songs, widely popular among the youth, undoubtedly reflected the mentality and spirit of the youth in that age. The cultural map with clear directions made everyone clear about their individual position and the destination they were going to reach. This atmosphere of optimism that floats on the surface of society may be somewhat superficial, but it corroborates, from another aspect the fact that the 1980s provided a common expectation and direction for the future. This cultural atmosphere of optimism had two important backgrounds: the convening of the Third Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the CPC; and the re-establishment of the enlightenment discourse of intellectual elites. The former re-confirmed the ideological line of emancipating thinking and seeking truth from facts as well as confirming the shift of the main emphasis of the work of the Party and the country to economic development. This reconnected with the century-old dream of the modernization of China. As an attainable commitment, modernization re-united the public and re-ignited the fire of hope in their hearts; the latter, as the historical subject to enlighten people, sounded the clarion call for liberation. The trenchant criticism made it possible for people to give vent to their pent-up emotions. The new humanistic ideological trends that sprang up one after another were full of ideals and prospects. All the ideological trends set off in many fields in the humanities involved ambitious propositions and concerns. These two aspects joined the political discourse and the elite discourse into a great driving force to integrate the mass psychology of the era and to set the romantic and bright cultural theme of the era. The cultural elites might at first appear depressed, but their concerns remained a topic of speech in this era. The maiden work published in Poetry by Shu Ting, a young poetess involved in the debate, was Motherland, My Dear Country. Although styling herself as “lost, pondering and yet boiling”, she was still “one billionth” of the country and going to fight for the nation’s “wealth”, ”glory” and ”freedom”. In the works of Bei Dao, Gu Cheng, Jiang He, Yang Lian and some other poets who were peers of Shu Ting we often see words such as human nature, nobility, brightness etc. Though they resorted to deep expressions, overall they were still in tune with the main theme of the era. Their integral and ultimate concerns still were in tune with the commonality and romantic style of that era. The bright main theme does not mean that there was no polyphony. A typical example is the heated discussion an the outlook on life in the early 1980s. China Youth (1980, No.5) published a long letter entitled Why is the Path of Life Becoming Narrower and Narrower? sent to the editorial department by

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The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

two youths in Beijing under the signature “Pan Xiao”. The letter said: “Any person, to be or to create, does things subjectively for their own benefit. For instance, the sun shining is first an inevitable phenomenon of its generative movement and its shine on all things on earth is merely a derived objective meaning. So I think that as long as everyone tries to improve the value of selfexistence, the whole of human society will inevitably move forward. Perhaps this is the law of man and a definitive law of the evolution of life — a law that cannot be submerged or diverted by any arbitrary preaching!” Such bold argument and indignance could only have occurred in the pioneering days of the ideological liberation movement in the 1980s. China Youth released an editorial comment: “It is not difficult for people who understand the ups and downs experienced over the past ten years to understand the hardships the youth have had in the process of exploring life”. “They sincerely believed that everything in the world was nice and were willing to devote their lives to revolution and faith. However, the ten-year-long chaos destroyed all these beliefs. The ideal and reality were so strikingly different. The journey of life was so hard. And the purpose of life was so vague and difficult to grasp. They wandered in dismay…” The editors expressed a full understanding of and sympathy for the disillusionment and confusion reflected in the letter. This was the trigger for the heated discussion about “the faith crisis”. The young faces of hesitation and confusion were still everywhere to be seen in the 1990s but they had a very different cultural content. The issue discussed in both Pan Xiao’s letter and the editorial comment was still in the category of the meaning world and what they were concerned with was still the issue of mental attribution and value standards of human beings. Although it kept a low profile, this concern still did not surpass the main theme of the era and another positive aspect of it was that it impelled the youngsters to think about the meaning of life and the value of a person. This was totally different from the distress of the young finding themselves helpless and more profit-oriented in the trend of secularization in the 1990s. Therefore, both the romantic optimism reflected in Come to Meet, Young Friends and the confusion in Why is the Path of Life Becoming Narrower and Narrower? expressed the leniency and openness of the era. The polyphony, including the depression caused by disillusion, could not become the main theme. And its influence was always quite limited. There was always such a voice resounding over the era: “I am proud / under the clock tower of the motherland / lift my wrist / loudly announce to the world / listen to it, every beat of my heart / is calibrated for / Beijing time”.1

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The Increasingly Blurred Cultural Map

The Enthusiasm for Public Affairs T h e i n t e g r a t e d c u l t u r a l b e l i e f s b ro u g h t t o t h e i n t e l l e c t u a l e l i t e s a n unprecedented enthusiasm for participation in public affairs. They re-found the way to devote themselves as well as a sense of mission. If it was believed that the integrated goal-setting came from the the future direction set by the authorities, then their enthusiastic participation in public affairs showed that the elite were the voluntary followers of this goal. The dream of modernization re-awakened their inner needs for national care and in the meantime caused them to have illusional expectations that went beyond reality. This set the scene for the common sense of failure among this group later. Since the 20th century, the identities of Chinese intellectuals have for most of the time been almost unknown. On the one hand, they were the group needed for revolution; on the other hand, they were always the objects being modified. The process of their being united and won over had been again and again delayed. And they did not have clear roles and identities. This situation did not fundamentally change until the early 1980s, when the intellectuals eventually re-found the sense of identity. Li Zehou, who was known as an academic leader in the 1980s, wrote the following words in the epilogue to A History of Modern Thought in China: Since the downfall of “the Gang of Four”, China has entered a new period of awakening: the basis of small agricultural production and the various concept systems and superstructure that are based on it will disappear and the four modernizations will definitely be realized. The banner of people’s democracy will actually fly over the millenniumancient feudal country. Consequently, today, it is more meaningful than ever to learn how to take a fresh look at and re-study, based on the profound understanding of the bitter lessons learned over the years, some issues in the history of thought in modern China in order to summarize its scientific laws and point out the macro trend in ideological development for people to take the initiative to create history.3

The confidence, general consciousness of history, enlightenment feelings etc. expressed in these words might be unintentional. However, they convey from a certain angle the mentality of the intellectual elites at the time. His articles were not leisurely pursuits followed in his study or written for the sake of learning. Residing in a small room, he was concerned about public affairs. “The four modernizations will definitely be realized”. The purpose of his research

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The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

and learning was to summarize “scientific laws” and “the objective tendency” and to “help people to take the initiative to create history”. These feelings were quite typically representative of the intellectual elites’ way of thinking. They wanted to get involved in public affairs in an academic form. As an ideological current among the elites, this flowed radically in the 1980s. Eight years later, Li Zehou was still optimistic about the future. “China has indeed entered the world as a great nation”. “Its existence and influence were sensed all over the world”. All this was no longer far away. For this reason, he “would like to work hard to pave the way for the joy of tomorrow”.4 These feelings and awareness were quite common. Professor Xie Mian, a famous literary critic, wrote the following emotional words by the Weiming Lake in the summer of 1985: I think the several generations that are alive are all lucky. We are fortunate to stand on the intersection of two major times. History gives us the opportunity and possibility to launch an extensive national reflection. This kind of historical reflection opens the souls of the nation with profound critical awareness. As an intellectual of this era, of course I cannot (and certainly do not try to) avoid accepting this historical mission.5

Xie Mian clearly put forward the idea of “opening the souls of the nation” and his enlightenment desire coincided with Li Zehou’s language pattern of “being helpful……”. In their view, the intellectuals’ awareness of mission was inescapable. In an era that provided us with opportunities, the reflection of the intellectuals was just the “reflection of the whole nation”. Therefore, the love for “endorsement” was a vital symbol that the intellectuals had found their identities. In the creative community, writers resorted to using images to express their passionate love for the nation. Zhang Xianliang became well-known in literary circles for his short story Body and Soul. The story that Xu Lingjun would rather watch the Loess Plateau than go abroad to live comfortably looks detached today, but in those days it aroused numerous people’s patriotic enthusiasm. The “wrangler” and his wife “Xiu Zhi”, who shared weal and woe with him, left an indelible impression on people’s minds. And Chen Kaige, who belongs to a different generation, also frankly stated a similar point of view: People in our generation all had a rough childhood. We grew up in the turbulent years of the motherland. We saw too much misery and tears

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The Increasingly Blurred Cultural Map

and thus had the opportunity to sink into the bottom of the society and obtain genuine knowledge and sustenance from the people’s working, living and suffering. We also experienced their hope and yearning. It is due to this experience that we are able to feel that the nation in which we live is a tear-free one and that most people in the nation do not complain, just as A Chen said in The Chess King, “Worry is the intellectuals’ condiment”. So, when we no longer separate out the ignorance and backwardness of the Chinese for discussion and lamentation, we will see the tough internal vitality of the nation.6

These two generations, whether they be scholars or artists, have been ingrained by the common cultural beliefs and their imagination of the meaning world are actually very close. These intellectual elites’ participation in public affairs was still restricted to their own specialized fields. In the age in which “history gave us the opportunity”, it simply expressed the modern intellectuals’ mode of emotion. But with the development of the national reform process, some intellectuals’ enthusiasm for public affairs was further transformed into an awareness of ability to manage state affairs and they began to stress the political status of intellectuals. It was suggested that the intellectuals were the most creative part of the working class since the very day the working class became the leading class. They could best represent the advanced productive forces and were the backbone of the working class.7 Since then, a kind of “elite administration” was widely discussed among the theorists. Regardless of the complex social and political backgrounds to the proposal of an “elite administration”, one certain thing is that behind their enthusiasm for public affairs there lay a very unrealistic illusion. They overestimated the status and role of intellectuals. There was a view that the so-called elite administration was “elitism” and those intellectuals, with their independence and sense of historical mission, were the elites of the Chinese society, the representative of advanced productive forces, the main creator of human spiritual wealth and the representative of the advanced ideology. Intellectuals were also the representative of advanced political forces. According to this view, China’s present economic and political reform could be carried out under the guidance of a series of advanced ideas and views of intellectuals and under the direction of the advanced theories of intellectuals, the dispersed potential of workers and peasants could be turned into the actual power to promote reform.8 This view was fairly typical of the intellectuals’ ideas about themselves. It made sense merely in the dimension of discourse and once it went beyond

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The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

discourse and tried to move toward social practice, it would not only suffer insurmountable resistance from reality but also encounter internal challenges. In fact, the illusive nature of this theory was proved by the understanding of and views about elitism. However, it has the value of cultural interpretation. Yu Yingshi pointed out: Over the past hundred years, the tradition of the Chinese intellectuals has not only maintained its old aura but has also gained new glory. A series of major movements aimed at saving the world from confusion in China’s modern history were led by intellectuals. The leaders of the Hundred Days Reform in 1898, the Revolution in 1911, the May Fourth Movement and the National Revolution in the 1920s all stemmed from the educated class. The impact of Western culture (including Marxism) made the Chinese intellectuals no longer regard traditional moral obligations and teachings as right and proper. But this effect was limited to the content of ideological beliefs and the characteristics of the Chinese intellectuals were not revolutionarily changed. 9 Their enthusiasm for public affairs, on the one hand, showed the desire of this group to promote the national modernization process and their agreement on the integrated objective. On the other hand, it clearly reflected the deep connection between intellectuals and traditional ethical philosophy, political theories and the idea of benefiting the people of the world. In this dimension, no matter how characteristic their expression was of modern intellectuals, they were still the most traditional.

The Main Theme and Symphony The brightness of the main theme refers to the idea that the goal of modernization constitutes the cultural beliefs of the whole nation. The way surface culture expresses mainstream ideology and the enthusiasm of the elite intellectuals for public affairs have not departed from their concern for the integrated objective of the country. However, the reform and opening-up process and the process of modernization must be accompanied by a process of secularization. Though this process had a hesitant expression, both eager and cautious, in the 1980s, it after all opened the curtain on another cultural era. As a cultural current, it was a bit humble and uncertain amis the bright melody, but the potential energy it accumulated was released in later days. The rise of mass culture implied at least two kinds of cultural semantics in the 1980s: First was the market driving force of the commodity era. In the past few decades, the “pure and beautiful” culture had required intellectuals to become noble swans. Their “popular” cultural expression more or less

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The Increasingly Blurred Cultural Map

implied a certain ingratiation with and tolerance of the discourse power owners with spiritual superiority over the general public. And normally the intention of enlightening did not need to be concealed. Their common intention was to make enlightenment “loved” by the public to ultimately ensure that they themselves remained as the leaders of discourse power. After the formation of the cultural market, these culture production modes that were “loved” by the public were proved to be not the only form. The gradual disintegration of the integration provided more people with the need and impulse to express personal desires and expect material welfare. As a result, the popular culture products with more entertaining features came into fashion and quickly formed a mass culture market, in which the share of the elite culture gradually dwindled from occupying center place to being on the periphery. The mass and sharp nature of the intellectual elite discourse was split and diluted in this situation. Second, the general public who gradually acquired subject awareness in the process of reform and opening-up not only needed new forms of entertainment but also needed to express the ideology of the class. The meaning world set up and adhered to by intellectuals had always elicited a sporadic response from the general public. For instance, when ethnic conflicts and class contradictions were acute, it would be rapidly accepted by the public. But its persistence was basically achieved in a compulsory way. When there was the opportunity to express desires, people would basically choose this over the meaning world. The unimpeded advance of mass culture precisely demonstrated the public’s recognition and support of it. Although its gorgeousness and illegality formed acute conflicts, its massive circulation still demonstrated that it had a large group of supporters. The spread of mass culture inadvertently created a new ideology, which was a resistance against the elite culture on the basis of consumption, pleasure and desire as well as a silent requirement for the legitimacy of consumption, pleasure and desire. An interesting phenomenon is that in the 1980s, the elite culture’s expression of desire was considered a challenge to a forbidden area and therefore, was accorded a pioneering significance. Although Green Tree and Half of Man is Woman by Zhang Xianliang, Love in a Small Town , Love on a Bare Mountain and Love in the Valley of Jinxiu by Wang Anyi, and so on had different views, as a new concept they produced an enormous social shock that went beyond the category of novels. The writers’ expressions of human desire revealed more the message of the liberation of the soul of that era. The careful narration of Zhang Xianliang and Wang Anyi more or less implied a certain “solemnity and tragedy”: They wanted to strive for the legitimacy of normal human lust and their discourse pattern was still in the ideological category of the enlightenment

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The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

discourse of the 1980s and still had the ideological significance of challenge and of breaking into a forbidden area. Many reviews recognized and upheld the explorations of Zhang Xianliang and Wang Anyi on this point. Therefore, even now, these novels remain consistent with the cultural environment and the main theme of reform and opening-up. They are totally different in style from the popular works produced for commercial purposes in the cultural market. No matter how many desires and impulses people have, speaking from the overall cultural environment these have not attacked or threatened the main theme of society. The cultural map is still clear and the shared dream and pursuit are still the internal culture of every person. Although there have been doubts about modernity, “China has not reached the stage of pursuing the meaning of “what to do next after people are satisfied”. China now is still making efforts to provide her people with a prosperous happy life and free individual development”. 10 However, as the bright main theme, the grand narrative of the national concern has eventually become increasingly blurred in the hubbub of the symphony.

The Coming of the Era of Cultural Collision The social expectations of the cultural environment in the reform and opening up process are economic development and spiritual liberation. Such liberation inevitably touches on the integration of cultural hegemony. The introspection on the inherent cultural context and the addition of “heterogeneity” has become the sign of the spiritual liberation as well as the two major sources that trigger the generation of new ideas. The active ideological circles, after the discussions about local traditional issues such as humanitarian, human nature, subjectivity theory, truth pluralism, New Confucianism, tragedy consciousness etc. in the early stage, have gradually enlarged their vision and thinking and the introduction of foreign cultures and the introspection on traditional cultures have become the major topics in the ideological circles. The opening of culture is an important part of the reform and openingup process, which nobody has ever publicly opposed. But this does not mean that the pattern of its implementation has been settled. Therefore, analyses of the psychological barriers to cultural opening have been made. According to Deng Qiyao, the psychological barriers to cultural opening are caused by the long-term accumulation of historical sediments. Cultural superiority —— the egocentrism of sitting in central China ruling the roost and regarding foreign races as “barbarians in foreign lands” —— is a psychological barrier caused

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The Increasingly Blurred Cultural Map

by a geographical barrier. A natural environment that lacks communication is accordingly formed, which produces a relatively closed economic structure and conservative cultural psychology. In the opening of culture, if traditional cultures and our own national cultural psychology are not carefully clarified and if the national cultural psychological structure that is ill adapted to modern culture is not remolded, we cannot undertake the task of modernization. 11 This theoretical interpretation also faces specific practical problems, which are of more concern to people. Gu Xiaoming, therefore, has argued that when studying and dealing with the negative social phenomena of their own society, people tend to put too much blame on “erosion” by alien culture and the remaining “bad quality” of the traditional culture. Such cases do exist, but fundamentally cultural superiority or inferiority is relative. The reason why an alien or traditional culture brings about negative consequences in present life lies in how the receivers of the culture choose and coordinate with their real life. The cultural selection mechanism is not something mysterious. It can be specified into a variety of cultural exchange institutions, publishing houses, testing and awarding departments, publicity organizations, policy-making and implementing agencies, as well as people’s life activities that approach and contain a certain cultural style. The conclusion is that the criticism of alien and traditional cultures should be shifted to reform of the present system. 12 This great cultural debate has promoted cross-cultural research and cultural openingup as well as introspection on and the re-interpretation of the traditional culture. However, this grand form of discourse could only belong to the 1980s, when there was a mood of optimism in ideological circles. But they were unable to propose effective responses to the social transition and expressed radical emotions in Chinese and Western, ancient and modern dimensions. The main sections and contents of Culture : China and the World , a continuous and highly-influential publication at that time, were “Chinese culture research” and “foreign culture research”. The intellectuals were confident that they could understand and define China’s modernization. However, behind the various discussions a potential discourse gradually emerged: Western-centrism. A typical example was the radical critique of “dragon culture”. Although the critics intended to review traditional culture in order to promote a modern transformation of social concepts, they still made a mistake about “truth will”. In other words, they gave the symbol of “dragon” to an unchanged object, which was already set as a personalized authority, the modern totem worship, the cultural basis of narcissism and so on, and then mounted a major crusade against it. In fact, whether this culture was so dominant was highly questionable, and its different connotations were constantly changing at

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The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

different times. The critique was a continuation of the enlightenment discourse of the early 1980s. It still reflected the idea of the historical subject set by the intellectuals themselves. And the cultural structure it referred to was obviously Western. Related to it was the rise of “New Enlightenment”. This trend of thought was named after a homonymous magazine founded by Wang Yuanhua and others. According to Wang Yuanhua, the cause of the interruption of liberation of the individual, the awakening of the people, self-consciousness, humanity, humanism etc. that were put forward in the May Fourth Enlightenment were bourgeois reactionary ideas which were totally incompatible with Marxism. 13 The May Fourth was a great cultural enlightenment, which took the first step in opposing feudal cultural tyranny, raised the banner of science and democracy and made a great contribution to saving the nation from peril. However, the historical mission of a cultural enlightenment was far from over. In the new move towards a modern commodity economy and modern democracy, a new cultural enlightenment movement that was more profound and broader than the May Fourth Movement was needed to update the concepts of the whole nation, completely get rid of the traditional shackles of feudal cultural despotism, and awaken the subjective cultural awareness of every single Chinese. 14 Li Honglin’s explication above was the main idea of “New Enlightenment”. The requirements of cultural openness and the review of traditional culture brought an era of cultural integration. Although Marxism remained the dominant ideology in intellectual circles, new Marxism, the theories of Sigmund Freud, existentialism, the Frankfurt School and other Western trends of culture as well as values emerging from the people were gradually expressed and also played a role, which greatly impacted on and challenged the integrated cultural structure and the legitimacy of the knowledge/power of the intellectuals.

The Introspection and Change of the Cultural Elites In fact, the change in the overall social concept did not depend entirely on the guidance of intellectuals. It was social economic activities that truly had the power to break integration. Since the 1980s, focusing on the central task of economic construction has become the dominant ideology of society as well as a consensus of all the people. The establishment of its legitimacy silently declared the end of the ideological myth, and it has gradually changed the radical and confident discourse pattern of the intelligentsia. By the 1990s, the surges and enthusiastic speeches of the whole elite had gradually subsided and people had gradually found their own identity in the commercialization of society so

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The Increasingly Blurred Cultural Map

as not to blindly listen to the enlightenment and guidance of the intellectuals, and therefore, the “Word” of the 1980s had a very small audience. The diversification of production modes and ownership forms changed the values of civil society and integration was truly shaken by economic activities. In this unprecedented shock, the intellectual community itself was also so greatly impacted that it became differentiated. Life made the intellectuals realize that the real crisis might not be a discourse or faith crisis but a crisis of survival. In the era of integration, what the intellectuals could maintain was their superiority of identity. Although there had been several thought-reform movements, among the people the admiration and respect for the intellectuals did not change much and people still had heartfelt admiration for the learned. However, the economic activity itself was a creative activity of material wealth. Money, as its representation and ideographic form, gradually became the value. People’s superstition of “knowledge” was rapidly replaced by the myth of money. This situation even quickly affected the intellectual community itself. Before the 1980s, intellectuals never bemoaned their poverty. Despite the fact that their income was similar to that of ordinary people, with the further development of market economy and the further loss of effectiveness of their own discourse pattern, a “secular” feeling became more and more concentrated. Scholar Chen Pingyuan said after he analyzed the drop in admissions to the Chinese Department of Peking University: This phenomenon is worthy of note because it represents the destiny of the humanist scholars in China today. Both governments and enterprises are willing to handsomely reward technological elites, and economists and legal experts are also receiving more and more courtesy of different social sectors. Only humanist scholars are unessential and are left out in the cold. It is said that “well fed, well bred”; “man’s social being determines his consciousness”; “the economic base determines the superstructure”; “economic growth is bound to bring about regime change”; and “economic freedom will inevitably bring about political democratization” — the Chinese who have been frightened of poverty (from the government to the people) generally believe that as long as the economy develops, all contradictions will be resolved. “Rich or poor, the feeling is not the same!”, which are the words on the T-shirt that were popular in Beijing this summer can be borrowed to illustrate this point. Leaving the humanities, which cannot “earn money”, out in the cold is almost right and proper in an era when economic construction is taken as the central task.15

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The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

These words might be ignored, or interpreted as a momentary emotion, but if related to his thorough investigation into intellectuals’ income, his feelings of unfairness and helplessness could be sensed. He examined in detail the income of intellectuals from the 1920s to the 1990s. In Peking University in the 1920s, many professors received monthly salaries of between 300 silver dollars and 500 silver dollars, while the odd-job men working in the library there only got 6 to 8 silver dollars, as did Mao Zedong when he worked in the library there. However, by the 1990s the salary of the associate professors of Peking University was only about RMB 250. He also listed the remuneration schedules of different magazines. This mentality was a mild expression of the institutional humanist elite intellectuals who clearly felt the financial pressure. The difference was the action taken by some of the humanist intellectuals. They either were so late for or so disdained to resorting to discourse practice that they directly engaged in social practice and this was the so-called “plunge into the commercial sea”. From the professors that sold “pies” and opened companies to the hammer sound of the “manuscript bid in China” in Shenzhen in 1993, the intellectuals’ responses to the market economy slowly emerged. And the intelligentsia still did not lose their passion for discussion of the act itself. Mara Qin Fu appealed: “an early start results in an early profit, and a delayed start results in a delayed profit. We should do whatever we can do. If we cannot do something great for a long time, we should do something minor for a short time. In short, we must do something”. Feng Jicai said, not without worries: “The choice of literature and art is a choice of faith rather than interests. Someone says that it is better to change the job earlier to be a businessman. If this argument had turned up in the 1930s, we would not have had Lu Xun or Ba Jin.” Bing Xin said that she would never sell her manuscripts at auction just. Otherwise, her name would also be sold. Wu Guanzhong argued that: “A work that contains aesthetic value sooner or later will become a commodity and one is lucky to have a work that can become a commodity when he or she is still alive”. Xie Jin, who was engaged into business, said: “Now I can afford to pay stars high fees”. Zhang Xianliang more firmly believed: “If I do not do business, I will be regret throughout my life”.16 Seeing the living conditions of the intellectuals, The Report of National Conditions No. 1 pointed out:

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The Increasingly Blurred Cultural Map

The issue of the Chinese intellectuals is a special and complex social issue as well as an issue closely related to the human capital form in China. In “the Anti-rightist Movement”, “the Great Leap Forward Campaign” and “Cultural Revolution”, the intellectual issue was basically a political one which artificially undermined twice the human capital stock formation process in China due to political struggle and other non-economic factors. After 1978, the issue of the Chinese intellectuals became an economic one and there appeared the phenomenon that manual workers earned more than the mental workers, which was unique in the process of modernization around the world. The problem of the economic status of the intellectuals, who accounted for 2% of China’s total population, could no longer wait to be settled. If the situation continued, a third crisis might occur in which the formation process of human capital would be interrupted and damaged, and if so, China’s modernization process would sustain an immeasurable loss and far-reaching consequences.

Of the fact that the intellectuals were forced to take a “second job” as a parttime job or engaged in business in order to improve their living standard, the report provided an even more blunt analysis as well as an admonition to the government: The approach at present that the intellectuals employed by the government are encouraged to find another income in the market or search for ways to make up for lack of remuneration is a temporary remedy for the government failing to do its duty. The main reason explaining the poor benefits of the intellectuals is financial difficulties and tight budgets. As a matter of fact, developing countries are always short of funds. China during current development in particular has an almost unlimited demand for funds. We cannot postpone the improvement of the intellectuals’ economic status until the very end. Why not use the money spent on launching unfeasible construction projects, building luxurious office buildings and halls, purchasing luxury cars and having lavish dinners for human capital investment to change the terrible economic status of the intellectuals and various public officers?17

The anger or grief of the intellectuals still expressed a deep concern for the fate of the nation in the new historical period. It was the real national condition of China, but its voice was very weak. Seven years passed from 1989, when it

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The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

was originally published, to 1996, when it was reprinted. However, the appeal and admonition did not have the desired effect, and the living conditions of the intellectuals remained the same. Nevertheless another effect was achieved, namely the self-introspection and self-examination of the elite intellectuals. A typical example was the dialogue between Li Zehou and Liu Zaifu. This book entitled Farewell to Revolution was especially marked as “a look back on China in the 20th century”. Once published, it gave rise to intense reverberation in the Chinese ideological circles, much of which was political critique and cultural criticism. If the contents and views discussed in the book had been true, the traditional modern Chinese history and revolutionary history would surely have been reread and rewritten. However, in my view, the key point of the book is the construction of methodology and new myths. For instance, its discussion of the Revolution in 1911 and its exaggeration of the “gold standard” could be further discussed. Meanwhile, their different dispositions and major subjects made Li favor rational analysis and Liu favor sentimental sensibility. Let us leave them aside for the moment. What I want to point out now is the changes in their mentality and thinking in the 1990s. As we have noted above, they were active advocators of the enlightenment discourse and subject theory in the 1980s and therefore, a self-consciousness of historical the subject dominated their theoretical thinking and emotions. In the 1990s, with a clear understanding of history, they had totally different arguments: I am not in favor of another Enlightenment (This kind of movement is still content-based and destructive)… The social transformation, in fact, is a social transition from official standards to money worship. I am now in favor of food philosophy and against fighting philosophy with the emphasis on this “very basis”.18

This “eating philosophy”, “money mythology”, with Wang Meng’s “avoiding loftiness” and Liu Xinwu’s “facing the secular world” etc. constituted a new ideology, the ideology of the citizens and the white-collar workers. A reflection on the radical emotions and discourse patterns of the Chinese intellectuals in the past century was necessary because the consequences had been far from their expectations. The reason why this situation was able to form a trend and be followed by many people was that the intelligentsia always made judgments on the life close to them and they stubbornly believed that they were right. However, these “right” judgments did not always materialize in reality. The same is true today. With the era of the “gold standard” a frantic

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The Increasingly Blurred Cultural Map

tide of money worship is attacking the Republic. As a new value concept and evaluation scale, to what extent can its reckless prevalence prove the rationality of “food philosophy” and the “gold standard”? The establishment of the legitimacy of economic activities has made money inevitably a conversation subject. Han Shaogong, a writer, also said: Writers care only about money-making. This discussion about that was a bit too late. People who cannot make money are not qualified to be children or parents. Without the qualification as a human being, how can he or she become a writer? ... To become a rich country, China now has too few money-making experts and is still in need of at least hundreds of millions more. It might be better for these industrial talents who have been latent for a long time in the literary world, once a bit too crowded, to bypass the disadvantages and challenge the business market. Making money by doing business is difficult. It is good for them to be able to support themselves. At least, they can get rid of their bad name of parasite. ………… But making money to support oneself is only a means and it cannot become a “standard” or the ultimate concern. And people who are interested in money turn a blind eye to its danger. Some knowledgeable people have pointed out: Money can also give birth to a kind of despotism, which is never more lenient or tender than political despotism. This despotism can easily rule public opinions and customs, imposing a sense of poverty on people who are not too poor, imposing the desire for wealth on people who are not too covetous, making sensible men abandon their ideas to clamor insensibly in the streets and making people with dignity degrade their personalities by bowing down to the nobility. Chinese scholars once bowed down before political absolutism and hopefully they can stand firm in future.19

Han Shaogong’s reminder had a historical perspective. Since the 1990s, many articles had discussed the spiritual status of intellectuals as well as the separate mental space they should have. This introspection was triggered mostly by the century-long spiritual tradition (non-institutionalized) and political pressure (regularized) and its value was self-evident. However, at the turn of the 21st century, the political pressure had already faded and economic pressure appeared, which naturally provoked much discussion. It was a valiant leap to take action to move towards the market. Nevertheless, intellectuals did

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not have to rush to create the myth of money or rapidly identify with secular life, let alone recreate with an air of envy the rational ideology simply due to its legality.

The Values Popular among the Public The values popular among the public are a kind of invisible concept, which is not open to the public in the form of discourse or demonstration but is related to the public’s not having discourse power. However, as a concept in existence, once popular, it will become the internal cultural instruction of ordinary people which provides hints and control for their acts. The 1990s was an age to farewell political leaders and cultural heroes. They were no longer valued as role models or idols by people and were gradually replaced by real and perceptible secular heroes. In the folk cultural map, a new bearing was drawn. Data show that about 25% of the idols of the youth in the late 1980s were still political activists. For high school students, that was 24%, and for college students 27%. The prominent political activists both ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign; at all times and in all countries inspired the youth of that era with their eminent identities and achievements. 23% of people still admired and followed scientists, inventors, writers and artists. The feeling of idealism was still a cheerful capriccio. However, in the 1990s, great changes took place in teen idols. Most of them belonged to four categories: singers, movie stars, sports stars and best-selling authors. The relevant departments in Shanghai took a poll in 1991 and among the responses 2,500 were from secondary school students showing that 44% of their idols were artistic and sports stars.20 This situation was naturally related to youthful styles and interests as well as ways of self-realization, but the stars’ high income and consumption patterns were also factors that could not be ignored. The dominance of money even played a decisive role in changing human values. According to Chinese Music News (April 27, 1989), the appearance fees of the top ten stars were: the maximum of about RMB 2,000 (Mao Amin), and a minimum of about RMB 600 (Na Ying and Cai Guoqing). In 1992, the after-tax appearance fees of Wei Wei, Mao Amin, Hang Tianqi, Liu Huan, Li Lingyu etc. reached RMB 5,000 to 7,000 and those of Cai Guoqing and Na Ying reached RMB 3,000. In 1993 the situation changed again. It cost RMB 12,000 to invite a famous typecast actor who played Mao Zedong to appear in a large-scale performance. The appearance fees of Zhao Benshan also reached RMB 10,000, and those of Jiang Kun, Feng Gong, Hou Yaowen, Dong Wenhua, Liu Huan, Hang Tianqi were about RMB 8,000. Cai Guoqing, Xie Xiaodong and Na Ying closely followed with about RMB

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The Increasingly Blurred Cultural Map

6,000. Zhang Ye and Song Zuying could ask for RMB 2,500. A TV show host even got RMB 110,000 by telling a 3-minute joke about “the weather forecast” in a performance. The appearance fees of the singers from Hong Kong were even higher, between RMB 240,000 and RMB 680,000. Aaron Kwok, one of the four top Hong Kong singers, was paid RMB 800,000 for a single performance. 21 In a commercial society, the market has its own laws, and in developed capitalist countries it is already common for a TV host or a boxer to have an income far higher than that of the president or professors. However, in China, a developing country in the Third World whose economy was just taking off, the rapid rise in prevalence of this concept was really stunning. In civil society it is difficult to change the prevalence of hidden values, which even simply ignores the guidance of the mainstream discourse and the profoundly worried preaching of the elite. The continuous advocation of spiritual civilization and the fervent call for “Miss Lamour” can only be suspended over society as a discourse and aspiration, while being a law unto oneself silently shows people’s observance of the recognized values. A typical phenomenon is the change in the concept of mate choosing. This most personal value standard vividly reflects people’s unreserved understanding of values. The personal advertisment we often see read like this today: Male, 40 years old, on unpaid leave, serious about life, sensible, good at financial management, running an electrical business with an annual income of RMB 38,000… Male, 35 years old, healthy, 1.75 meters tall, MBA holder in the US, currently working in New York with an annual salary of US$ 100,000. Searching for marriage with a lady who is good at singing and dancing, pretty, holder of a bachelor degree or above and willing to live in the US… Female, 21 years old, 1.59 meters tall, single, college diploma holder, state-run department management cadre, pretty, intelligent, and sweet. Looking for an overseas boyfriend between 21-30 years old, 1.70 meters tall, healthy, good-looking, wealthy… Female, 27 years old, 1.63 meters tall, vocational secondary school graduate, sedate and kind, working in a state-owned unit in Shandong. Looking for a boyfriend over 1.70 meters tall with a college diploma or above, working overseas or in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, wealthy, able to be transferred to another job…

As a basic condition for choosing a mate, “men being wealthy and women being charming” makes public people’s undisguised pursuit of and longing for desire. Money and beauty as the primary condition makes the traditional

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The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

concept of love collapse in an instant. The idealistic expressions of love in Love Is Not to Be Forgotten by Zhang Jie and To the Oak Tree by Shu Ting in the 1980s rapidly gave way to Let’s Not Talk about Love by Chi Li. Today, the era in which people were made miserable by their emotions and the utopian ideal that one waited and searched for love have been pushed aside as something for “the ancients more than three generations ago”. The prevalence of actual profits as a measure of value replaces people’s abnormal concern for ideology and becomes an active element in economic activities, which is better than the daydream of being keen on fighting philosophy but finding it hard to become a statesman. However, if the inappropriate pursuit of actual profits makes all people lose the feelings of romantic poetry and utopia, social vulgarity results. If all this also has unquestionable rationality, then nobility, sacredness, solemnity, justice and morality will lose their authority over order. Over the years, the disregard and contempt for intellectuals have reflected from one aspect the victory of actual profits over “knowledge”. Wang Shuo has admitted: The themes of my works can be summarized pretty accurately by one of Ying Da’s remarks. Ying Da said: What Wang Shuo really wants to show is that “the lowly are the most intelligent, and the elite are the most ignorant”. Because I have not received a good education, on my life journey of revolution, I have had enough of the intellectuals’ insults which I find difficult to bear. The intellectuals are like a huge mountain pressing on the head of a rough person like me. Their pervasive sense of superiority, their control over the entire social value system as well as their values being the standard make it very difficult for us rough persons to struggle. Only by driving them away can we have our day.22

This kind of statement by Wang Shuo could only occur in the 1990s. When starting to write fiction in the 1980s, he was also having the dreams of intellectuals. The cleverness of this type of people lies in the fact that they can adapt themselves to the majority and utilize the civil society to rebel. After the overthrow of the status of intellectuals by actual profits, using the intellectuals as the contempt objects can both air their grievances and avoid their being attacked. However, when he has the discourse power, appears in the cultural market as a spokesman for citizens and society, and has control and influence over values, what is the difference between him and “the intellectuals” he has criticized?

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The consideration of actual profits as a personal choice cannot be criticized and everybody is entitled to pursue the happiness he or she aspires to. However, it is by no means a blessing to have such consideration be the value prevalent in society and dominate everybody’s choice. On September 27, 1996, Beijing Youth Daily published a note written by Zhu Hongwen, the supervisor to MA student Zhang Hua, on the second day of Zhang’s leaving school. As a MA student freshly admitted by the university, Zhang Hua quit school without hesitation because she found a job as a bank branch clerk in her hometown. The contents of her undergraduate thesis were actually about the theory of the personality of Gentleman proposed by Confucius and its contemporary significance. But after making the comparison between a real job and the postgraduate qualification, she chose the former without hesitation. Her supervisor wrote: I have no intention of judging the comparative importance between a MA student and a bank clerk, let alone denying the social status and role of a bank clerk. However, Zhang Hua’s choice, even for herself, has at least two points that are reprehensible: first of all, being a bank clerk with the knowledge of a university graduate from the department of philosophy is obviously a waste of educational resources; secondly, discarding easily the postgraduate learning opportunity that is fervently sought by a large number of youths eager to learn can be regarded as a denial and sacrifice of the social status of others, which not only causes trouble to the enrollment but also bears a moral responsibility. Of course, if seen from a purely personal perspective, Zhang Hua’s choice and her decision about her life value orientation should not be condemned. But who can say that her “running away” had nothing to do with the current social conduct that lays emphasis on actual and immediate profits, thinks little of the mind or spirit, and disdains ideals? She once told me frankly that what made her end unhesitatingly her student life in which she had to share the dormitory with four other students and sleep in a bunk bed was that the bank could provide her with spacious housing and a fair and stable salary. Besides, she did not admire or even fear the teaching profession.

However, to what extent can this scholar-like view influence the values in civil society?

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The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

Revelry and Depression in the Enclave The market impels every section of society like a huge driver, and all people seem place their hopes in it. Therefore, they flock to cities, special zones and all the places that can meet their expectations. The great migration of people forms a domestic immigration unprecedented since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The flow itself is a change of concepts. Blends of different cultures and customs speed up changes in people’s inherent understanding of survival and opportunities. In an era of integration the holy place most attractive for every citizen is Beijing, the capital. The people are full of sacred and mysterious feelings for the first city of the People’s Republic of China. Happiness and contentment can be seen on bright and open Tiananmen Square every day. That experience is enough for those who have come here to feel proud all their lives. However, in the wave of immigration in the 1990s, Beijing was no longer the city of the first choice. The newly rising special zones and star towns attracted thousands upon thousands of people. It was reported in the Yangtze Evening Post on August 2, 1996 that the daily floating population of Shanghai amounted to 3.31 million. It was the highest figure among all the cities in China and among the floating population, 1.80 million people live in Shanghai for long time. It was reported that for a long time Shanghai was the city with the strictest control over the registered population. With the enhanced degree of Shanghai’s internationalization, the relevant municipal departments took a series of measures to attract all kinds of domestic skills to participate in the construction of Shanghai. A blue-print residence registration system was implemented for qualified migrants. Thus they can enjoy the same treatment as the local residents of Shanghai. New star cities such as Shenzhen and Zhuhai also issued preferential policies on skills recruitment. The “migration wave” was like a huge stone falling into an ancient lake. Its huge roar caused a persistent echo. In 1995, China’s floating population reached 80 million. There were 6.5 million migrant workers from other provinces in Guangzhou. Many cities had relatively concentrated immigrant areas, such as Zhejiang Village and Wenzhou Village. The people had all kinds of illusions about migration. However, it was not an artist’s roaming experience. People expected that this migration would bring good luck to them and change their living conditions or realize their self-determined life value. Migration made a lot of people successful. In the continuous retellings, these successful people were changed to a myth, making more people go to the enclave of revelry. A magazine called Focus reported the current social conditions of China with

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The Increasingly Blurred Cultural Map

a distinctive modern consciousness. In its initial issue, there was an ordinary girl against the background of the business district and colorful advertisements of the old street of Shenzhen, and crowds of people flowed on its cover. The girl named Zhao Xiuhong carried a simple knapsack and was sad, simple and firm. In this strange city and unknown future, what kind of feeling was in her heart? In the “cover picture story”, the editor described her situation as follows: Her name is Zhao Xiuhong and she is from Zibo, Shandong. Before coming to Shenzhen, she was the youngest daughter of the five girls in her family. 50 years ago, her father joined the Eighth Route Army with the guerrillas, but her uncle became a soldier of the Kuomintang of China because of being press-ganged. After 19 years of bloody fighting, her father obstinately drove her uncle away to the island of Taiwan. For this reason, her father was criticized many times and her family also moved from the city to the countryside. It was hard to foresee the future and things changed after many years. Her father never expected that after 30 years, he would meet his gray-haired older brother who was once a soldier of the Kuomintang of China and who now carried a great sum of funds to support the construction of the country. The old uncle from Taiwan had spent half of his life in the other place, and deeply understood the value of experience for each person, so he urged his nieces to go into the outside world. Moreover, he had a factory he had invested in in Shenzhen. So we saw Zhao Xiuhong’s figure in the crowd of the old street.

This was Zhao’s background. However, Zhao left after she had worked for several months in her relative’s factory. She preferred to rent a room with several other girls because she wanted to wait for a better opportunity using her own ability. However, opportunities do not favor everyone at all times. In a “Star City” (city of the fastest economic growth), good positions and salaries are for skilled people. The others have to make a living with their “youth”. Nevertheless, youth goes by easily and the comprehensive crisis after youth comes unexpectedly early. Li Quan, Gong Lulu and Zhang Qingli from the Model Center of the National Exhibition Center of Shenzhen know that they cannot make a living by being a model for long because this job needs youth. However, besides “engaging in fashion design in the future” they cannot think of another path for future. In their dormitory, the three young ladies did not express the revelry of the enclave. On the contrary, they were heavy-hearted and looked worried. An invisible pressure made these beautiful girls much concerned.

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The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

Of course, the living situation with floating and independence has strengthened the capacity of human psychology. The Focus magazine reported “a woman who keeps on fighting despite frequent failure. In the year after she came to Shenzhen, she changed work units 17 times and moved home 21 times. Although she "did not make any money and did not have a good life, she was not willing to surrender and did not submit”. She “surely would go all out in work and try her luck”. When large cities and “Star Cities” became a target for many people, a new "reverse flow" also quietly arose. According to the report of the Service Guide on May 21, 1996, a questionnaire survey on “social issues of youth in the modernization process" showed that in domestic youths’ choices of career, there had emerged a situation of flowing from big cities to small cities and flowing from medium and small cities to township and village enterprises. Currently, over 3 million urban youths had gone to work in township and village enterprises. Among them, there were over 400,000 people in Guangdong and 100,000 people in Liaoning, Sichuan, Fujian, Hubei and other provinces. In the team of urban youths who turned to work in the countryside, there were many people who became "farmers" including many undergraduates, masters and doctors. It was analyzed in the report that it was that large demand for skills in township and village enterprises which conformed to the entrepreneurship ideals of urban youths. The further development of township and village enterprises, especially the rural economy in developed areas, has changed from being labor intensive to technology-intensive, makes this opportunity a reality. Every orientation has changed people’s imagination. Such huge changes inevitably result in major changes in the concepts of value. The stale concept that waits for “God” to arrange things has suffered a destructive impact. Undoubtedly, this is a great progress of history. Everyone has an opportunity, but at the same time everyone has to bear due pressure. The market and competition are fair, but they are also cruel. In such a situation there are bound to be big changes in traditional warmth, friendliness, mutual aid and outlook on morals, outlook on life, outlook on love etc. Thus successful people enthusiastically cheer the coming of this era, and people who suffer failure are full of sadness and nostalgia, and loiter, and often cannot make a decision. It is an era that contains everything and has cultural collisions, and it is also an era without a quiet corner in either the external world or the human heart because of the changes in reality.

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The Increasingly Blurred Cultural Map

Culture Reconstruction and the New Context of Culture The major changes in real life have changed the people’s past way of life and spiritual needs. The mass culture production mode with market operation as the main mechanism reconstructed the existing cultural form as it both aimed to meet the needs of mass culture and used a new cultural content to reconstruct, change and attract the masses’ and society’s cultural interests and pursuits. Therefore, a new cultural context had been formed in the 1990s. Although mainstream culture was constantly strengthened in the form of authority and issued inquiries and calls to society, advocation of diversification also provided a basis of legitimacy for mass culture production and consumption. After culture entered the market, its main object of consumption is the masses. This huge group had an amazing consumption throughput capacity, giving the market unlimited potential and space. Thus a culture production mode and market characterized by consumption rapidly came into and spread. Although lofty and ambitious goals of care existed among the masses, the entertainment function and desire for composition sped up their expansion and pervasion. Thus, the festival of mass art arrived.

The Rise of Consumption Culture After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the culture production model adapted to the planned economy and the main culture production means were almost entirely controlled by the state. The production and communications of newspapers, magazines, film studios, radio stations, bookstores, libraries, theaters etc. were not aimed at profit and consumption, but were another form of expression of national will and mainstream discourse. This form led to the people’s collective concern about national and ethical fate, and few personal desires and requirements. Under a unified goal, the people integrated in the spirit were energetic and lively, and society was permeated with a romantic collectivism and idealism. However, after the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy, with the first huge billboards set up in the streets of Beijing and the inrush of a large amount of electronic watches, dark glasses and jeans, a lot of foreign cultures also flocked in with them and an era characterized by consumption unexpectedly arrived. The culture which entered the Mainland first was soft culture, of which the songs of Deng Lijun (Teresa Teng) were the most

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The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

representative. Deng Lijun was born in Taiwan in 1953. At the age of 14, she was honored as “the youngest genius singer” by Taiwan's media, and at the age of 19, she was elected as one of the most popular ten singers in Hong Kong. Her gentle female image and sweet songs, which were full of secular life and sentiment, were quickly accepted especially by young people as soon as they were introduced to the Mainland. In the early 1980s an unusual spectacle was seen everywhere – young people carrying tape recorders which played the songs of Deng Lijun. Her albums such as Small Town Story , Tonight I Recall You , The World of Love and A Love Letter were all songs that sang of the sweetness of secular love. For contemporary Chinese youth whose emotions had been imprisoned for years, such songs made it difficult for them to extricate themselves as they collectively fell into “the river of love”. Undoubtedly, Deng Lijun’s songs were not only gentle and with beautiful voices and melodies, but also they were accepted as a concept. This situation on one hand showed that the people were not satisfied with the state of integrated culture and longed for secular life and sentiment, meanwhile it also conveyed the limitations the people’s identifiability when the culture market was opened up suddenly. Perhaps it was because of too long an imprisonment that the people had no time to understand the consequences resulting from such a culture. As long as it was soft, the culture should be accepted. At that time, the people did not think about it as a cultural trend and its unlimited spread was bound to lead to disaster. Soft culture has an obvious commercial nature and its nature of catering to people’s needs will inevitably become a means to achieve commercial purposes. Deng Lijun’s popularity contributed to the wave of popular songs and drove the development of karaoke bars, pubs and commercial art performances. In order to stimulate the audience, these performances were often accompanied with vulgar dress and actions. This was an inevitable cultural cost. In the early 1980s an article pointed out that in commercial performances with popular songs as the main form, “due to improper singing styles, some concerts had upset theater order. Some people frantically shouted, some people clapped and stomped, and some people whistled…” 23 What is more, when a singer from Shanghai imitated the costume of a film to sing Caravan with singing and dancing so as to please the audience, the desired effect was not achieved. “Some of the audience complained that her belly button wasn’t exposed" 24 . The poor tastes of enjoyment among the general public would be expressed whenever there is a chance. The biggest feature of commercial culture is novelty and volatility. It aims to become a fashion, thus attracting the interest of consumers, especially the young. In the varied public opinions on popular songs rock and roll, another

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The Increasingly Blurred Cultural Map

more exciting and challenging form of music, became popular in China. Rock and roll is a commercial integration of the country music of white Americans and black rhythm and blues style. It was popular in the African American society after 1954, became popular in the American cities in the 1950s. It was popular in Europe and America in the 1960s and 1970s. It became a cultural representation of the “Beat Generation” with its radical rebel profile. In the 1980s, this “rebel culture diametrically opposed to the traditional culture of ethics and orthodox culture”25 was widely accepted in European and American countries and became a part of the mainstream culture. However, after all, this art form belongs to the subculture and its form is always connected with basic human desires such as sex and violence. Its unconventionality not only represented rebellion against traditional morality, but also easily created a business miracle. In February 1964 a rock band consisting of three 17-year-old youths was established in London. This band was known for its wildness. It openly challenged traditional culture and the existing moral norms. Meanwhile, a rock band named the Beatles arrived in New York on February 7th of the same year. They not only held two TV shows, breaking the highest record for television ratings, but also held a premiere in Carnegie Hall, the top music venue in the US, to hold the premiere, making rock and roll quickly become one of the popular cultures with the most fashionable means. In the US, there were many events of violence and riots occurred because tens of thousands of young people watched rock and roll. They were eager for stimulation as if they were eager for alcohol and drugs, the girls who lost their sense of shame took off their clothes and rushed toward the stage, and all kinds of noises even suppressed the electronic music which was amplified 100 times. In New York, there were parties of Rock Culture Night and the Top of Anti-mainstream Culture which lasted for three days and three nights. At such parties the youths furiously danced and sang with intense rock and roll, smoked marijuana and even had sex".26 Such confusion was like the last rites for humanity. In China, the rise of rock and roll also came from the people. During the period from 1979 to 1985, there were rock bands named Tumbler, Continent, 10,000-li Horse Kong and so on, but these bands did not have an impact. The band which truly brought rock culture to China was the performance by the British rock band Wham in China in April 1985. The performance enabled the Chinese audience to have a chance to understand rock culture, and precipitated the growth of the Chinese rock culture. On May 10, 1986, a concert of a hundred singers was held in the Beijing Capital Gymnasium to commemorate the International Year of Peace. In the concert, Guo Feng’s Let the World Be Full of

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The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

Love and Cui Jian’s Nothing to Lose aroused a strong response. Let the World Be Full of Love made Guo Feng well-known for some time with its sincere, invocatory, gentle and slow rhythm. Cui Jian, who wore a green military uniform, carried a guitar and had one high bottom of trouser leg and one low trouser leg, furiously sang the song of Nothing to Lose . On January 14, 1987, Cui Jian sang the South Bay in the same place. In 1988, Cui Jian held the first personal concert in the Forbidden City Concert Hall. Cui Jian finally created “Chinese rock” with his persistent efforts and unique style. In March 1994, the Tianjin Social Science Press published a book entitled Beijing Rock Tribe, and prepared Events of Beijing Rock Bands. According to the Events, in the 1990 Beijing Modern Music Concert, six rock bands appeared at the stage, which showed that the Chinese rock culture had taken shape and ended the “unknown situation”, and had finally “come to the overground from the underground.” After that, tapes of the rock music could be publicly released and disseminated. Any kind of culture will inevitably become an ideology, and different judgments on it and cultural influences are also bound to cause short-term cultural discussions and debates. The popularity of Deng Lijun and her soft myths made people feel the return of secular life, but overseas politics tried to regard it as a challenge and threat to China. Nevertheless, no one would have believed that The Moon Represents My Heart or Small Town Story would become a dominant cultural spirit and remain so for many years. What the people were really interested in about Deng Lijun was her mellow image and singing. When the Deng Lijun’s myth was popular, rock and roll formed another shock wave which not only deconstructed the traditional cultural concepts but also impacted on its consumption culture. The consumer culture is to steal the limelight, and its one-off consumption means it has to seize opportunities to show itself. Therefore, the consumer culture can only be a cultural phenomenon instead of a political phenomenon. An interesting fact was that when rock and roll emerged in the US, some people concluded that it was an ideological weapon being used by members of the Communist Party and was a means to overthrow the US from inside.27 The Western world believed that rock and roll was a Communist conspiracy, but in China in the 1980s it was deemed a product of bourgeois liberalization and was restricted.28 Therefore, if politics is used to assess a cultural phenomenon, it is always impossible to get at the essentials. This is just like Deng Lijun. Someone claimed that identified with Taiwan politically, but they could not explain why she lived overseas for a long time. In the US, this was also expressed as a cultural conflict instead of a political one. Many fanatical followers of religions held that rock and roll was root of all evils. In the mid-1970s, churches throughout the US held a number of massive

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The Increasingly Blurred Cultural Map

activities of burning rock records and tapes. In the early 1980s, this cultural conflict reached its peak. John Lennon, the lead singer of The Beatles was shot dead by a fanatical follower of religion at the gate of his house. Cultural conflict finally resorted to violence.29 It had nothing to do with political differences. In Taiwan, many people were also deeply unsatisfied with the “sadness, plaintiveness, depression and enjoyment” of popular music. Many people even “hated popular music as if it were their enemy”. Thus a call to “sing our own songs” rang out. The songs about nature and pure thoughts and feelings written by some youths became popular. This was known as the popular style of “campus songs”. In Mainland China in the 1980s, such songs were once popular on the campuses. Different requirements for culture produced different cultural forms, and only explaining them through culture can promote the formation of a healthy cultural ecology. However, what draws our attention is that the cultural market initiated by culture and characterized by consumption greatly promoted the development of the popular culture industry, and meanwhile it also constitutes a huge impact on elite culture or serious culture; while strengthening the entertainment function of culture, it also made human desires increase without restraint. Moreover, as a driving force, the market has changed the orientation of the elite intellectuals to different degrees. In the 1990s, whether it was visual arts or graphic arts, they both leaned towards the market to differing degrees and changed their inherent character. In cultural reconstruction, it is not good to adapt to the market through compromise and concession.

The Moving of the Elite Arts The reconstruction of culture formed a brand new cultural environment, and the culture violence which was found everywhere had already disintegrated. Although the cultural ecology with the coexistence of many elements had a huge space for growth, the invisible hand of the market silently controlled its operation and development and its typical characterization was that the elite culture had gone to the market. In the 1980s, due to the privileged position of the elite culture, the elite intellectuals were flourished for a time. Their works not only were admired and accepted by the people, but also their prestige increased day by day. In a commercial society, although their art works do not cause a sensation any longer, their names have become “invisible assets”. They still have a huge potential market. As long as they make some adjustments to the market, they will regain their former glory. Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou and other “fifth generation” directors set off

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The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

a huge shock in films side by side in the 1980s. During the period from 1983 to 1985, the fifth generation directors successively produced One and Eight , Yellow Earth , On the Hunting Ground , Secret Decree and other movies. The critical world held that these young people added new life and blood to Chinese movies and grasped a relatively complete concept of movie. In the 9th Hong Kong Film Festival, Yellow Earth caused a great sensation. Some newspapers reported that it would have been hard to believe it was a film shot by Mainland China if it was not marked with the studio, and that its level was first class. Some critics said that the director of the Yellow Earth was undoubtedly a director with the most sense of film at that time. The film awareness and pursuit of this generation of directors are closely connected with their cultural backgrounds and unique experiences. Most of them belong to the generation of the "Red Guards". The traditional idealist education cultivated their cultural imaginations, and the experiences of spiritual liberation at the initial stage of reform and opening up further provided them with the right opportunities for their new artistic compositions. However, as intellectuals who transited and transformed from traditional to modern, their hearts were also filled with anxiety. Although their films turned from magnificent and grand historical serious plays to the people, so that the film themes had more cultural content, but in dealing with such themes they still could not avoid a “dilemma” and were still hard put to make a definite judgment between feeling and value, just as in Wu Tianming’s unspoken puzzle at about the relationship between Wangquan and Qiaoying in Old Well . The events which occurred in the nongovernmental sector did not form the main body of the story. For example, the praying for rain and North Shaanxi waist drums in Yellow Earth had a tragic and moving group charm and were full of tenacious vitality in hardship, which expressed the poetic character of the Chinese nation very fully. Due to the conversion of perspective, in a sense they had more artistic appeal than the battle scenes of national and class struggle. Through these moving pictures we seemed to hear a voice-over from Chen, i.e. profound love for national and local traditions. At this level, his value orientation has no difference with other cultural elites. The concern about nation and nationality is also a hugely complex question that cannot be resolved in the heart of Chen. The profound and distant Yellow Earth constituted a great representative symbol. Its dimness and vastness were not only an ideographic form of a piece of landscape in Central Asia, but also an expression of geographical awareness and sense of history. In Chen’s field of vision, it is the cradle of our nation and the spiritual home that bred our nationality; the restless water of the Yellow River is the root and soul

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The Increasingly Blurred Cultural Map

of our nationality. Such an impressionistic-style silent expression showed the ingenuity of a new generation of film directors. In The Big Parade , he turned abstract thinking on national history to thinking about specific people under the constraints of history. Those young soldiers full of personality must obey a uniform command in the rhythm of the green box. Personalities must be dissolved and assimilated in unified actions. Only in this way can they show their wonderful collective great power in the parade on Tiananmen Square and stirring national prestige and military prestige in majestic music. In a time when it needed a united mind of all people to achieve our national grand ideal, it was Chen Kaige who vividly and infectiously played the theme of the era with language, and the relationship between individual and group was handled in a solemn and sure way. All these works of art silently narrated Chen’s experience as a “Red Guards”. For that generation of people, what is in their hearts is undoubtedly the myth of the nation and nationality, which makes Chen have the charisma of the movie makers of that generation. However, with the further development of reform and opening up, as the market quietly took control of the market, for the survival of movies the “fifth generation” of directors had to lean towatds the market through compromise and concession, of which Zhang Yimou took a lead in setting an example. As a member of the “fifth generation” of directors, Zhang’s early movie activities remained in the category of the people of that generation. He took part in the shooting of One and Eight , Yellow Earth and Old Well and had many successes, becoming indisputably one of the best photographers. In 1987, he had an opportunity to direct independently and quickly selected Red Sorghum . This well-known novel already had a considerable influence among its readers, and people were full of expectation and interest in a work with the same name made from the novel. It should be said that Red Sorghum as a film is also very exploratory, and in particular its natural celebration of the great power of human life left a distinct impression. Moreover, the scenes such as waving sedan chair and illicit copulation not only made the screen full of the distinct color of oriental nationality, but also powerfully wrote “people” in capitals once again. It was not only sexual expression which was popular for a time, but sublimated senseless scenes in third-rate movies in a refreshing ceremony, which was precisely Zhang Yimou's attraction. Regarding disposal of the scenes, the red sorghum dancing in the wind not only had unprecedented visual glory, but it was also as if it were speaking of the mystery of the ancient Orient. However, these explorations obviously implied another pursuit by Zhang, i.e. the deliberate rendering of Oriental wonders. These marginal stories which were among the people and had never been paid attention to by the

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The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

mainstream culture were openly revealed on the screen under the direction of Zhang. He made the unpresentable folk bandit gang become the main object being described for the first time, and described it so tragically and sadly. This represented an enormous change. Zhang had no anxiety similar to that of Yellow Earth , and there was no tension between critique and enjoyment for marginal folk subject materials, which were only a decribed object, a story and a past event available for enjoyment. For Chinese audiences, it was a forgotten corner of history and corner and once it was unveiled it made people feel specially while the distinctive oriental color was familiar and friendly; for Western audiences, mysterious oriental society was finally reproduced and the backward, foolish, strong and ancient oriental society imagined by them finally had corresponding images. Between the two worlds, Red Sorghum was acknowledged by different opinions, so it had the possibility of a market share. Furthermore, after it won the Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear, the rise of the “myth”of Zhang was not unexpected. In the following Judou, Story of Qiu Ju, Raise the Red Lantern etc. Zhang placed a special emphasis on thick and heavy colors which had strong implication. It should be said that regardless of how different these stories and figures were, the two signatures of sex and violence were never left out. This intended packaging had a conceptive reflection in the weightlessness of expression of “love” and “desire”, especially in Judou and Raise the Red Lantern . Judou and Songlian were objects of male desire, men’s contention for them mainly originated from hunger and the imagination of sex and involved no emotional ties and disputes, which was apparently intended to mobilize the imagination of audiences. Accordingly, it implied a cultural consumption fashion that emotion had gradually exited and desire had constantly expanded. Of course, more importantly, was the packaging of Zhang Yimou's movies as a “Third World image” within the category of the post-colonial culture. Undoubtedly, under the domination of the cultural hegemony of the First World, it is very difficult for the Third World to break into the international cultural market. To be accepted by consumers from developed countries, it is necessary to create an “other” image of the First World. Such an image is an image in the mirror of the developed countries, and does not necessarily have a realistic correspondence in the indigenous Third World. It is an “image of the Third World” created to meet the imagination of Western consumers. No one did better than Zhang Yimou on this point. “The difference between him and other filmmakers is that he really focuces his attention on the exchange value of products in the market, which allows his products to enter the international market very quickly”.30 Thus Zhang Yimou became a creator of Oriental myth

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and a great director with international influence. While composing mysterious past stories of the Oriental, he also created an oriental female image in the eyes of Western audiences such as Gong Li, an image of a Chinese rural woman remotely distant from modern civilization. For Western consumers, when they think of Gong, they would think of a mysterious ancient oriental country. That ancient and remote existence became concrete, clear and captivating because of the emergence of Gong. When discussing packaging in the era of popular literature, Scholar Chen Gang made a very thorough analysis. He said: Packaging is an overall design for an image. It is not a place for selfexpression, but is a domain of cultural consumption where the masses can meet their needs. Image, of course, is thin, but it is not empty. An image implies all kinds of connections with the most secret needs of the masses. Only when it connects with the emotions and subconscious of the masses will an image be chosen and consumed by the masses. Therefore, packaging is not an external form but a process of image constitution, and the junction point between cultural products and the masses.31 Whoever wants to occupy the masses cultural market he must go this way. As a movie director who has received a college education, Zhang Yimou’s theoretical quality determines his understanding of mass culture. Therefore, when he decided to move toward the world cultural market, he quickly gave up his principal and natural illusions of the 1980s and concentrated on dealing with the “masses’ emotions and subconscious”. After a few years of silence, Chen Kaige produced his elaborate work Farewell, my Concubine . The movie gathered stars from mainland China and Hong Kong to act a modern Chinese folk legend. In Farewell, my Concubine, sex, violence and politics together as a spectacle intensively illustrated the secret of success of mass culture. Chen’s compromise to the mass cultural market finished the collective transfer of the “fifth generation” movie pattern and quickly defeated various mediocre film-making groups, opening a new era of Chinese film as elite. It is still hard to judge the value of the moving of cultural elites into the mass culture market. In a transition era, nearly any growth point is in an unknown state. Regarding the meaning world, we would like to see these talented directors produce classic movies which express care for the nation and nationality, and see their will and commitment for appeasement, exploration and cure. However, currently, since competition in the culture market is increasing fierce and the First World has admired the oriental movie market for a long time and is eager to give it a try, it is obviously another “dilemma”

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situation where we hope the national movie industry can occupy the market with effective competion so as to crush the cultural hegemony, superiority and control of the developed countries. Another fact worth concern is that economic factors that cannot be ignored are hidden behind cultural competition. Data show that the cost of a cartoon movie made in China is RMB 10,000 per minute, while the cost of The Lion King , a blockbuster cartoon movie produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation was US$ 500,000 per minute. The possibilities of such a competitive situation are obvious. With the introduction of transnational capital and American movies, the pursuit for large scenes, large investment and large style has become a fashion. It conforms to exploitation of people and identification with the money myth of the figures at this era. No movie can be shot without investment, but whether a huge investment can produce an excellent work is still a question worth discussion. It has been pointed out in some articles that RMB 50 million was invested in Temptress Moon and RMB 40 million was invested in Qin Song , but the movies recieved a lukewarm response in the market. Under the guidance of the myth of money, a female director unexpectedly wanted to spend RMB 600 million to shoot Epang Palace , so as to make the Chinese movie “actually enter the world market boldly”. We would rather believe that such a remark was spoken by a rich movie lover rather than a movie expert. Therefore, the moving of the cultural elites is also a move from producing ideological myth to identifying with the myth of money.

Folk Nostalgia In the 1990s, folk nostalgia first started in educated urban youth groups. Such groups first held all kinds of commemorative activities. No Regret in the Youth, The Soul’s Tie to the Black Land and other review activities had great impact in society. They then published self-statement books by the educated urban youth, such as Youth Formula – Self-Statement of Fifty Female Educated Youths from Beijing and We once were Young, a memoir of Wuhan educated youths, and movies and TV plays such as Annual Ring and Sinful Debt , novels of educated urban youths such as Cruelty and Black and White , documentary literature such as Dreams of Chinese Educated Urban Youth and all kinds of diaries of educated urban youths, letters of educated urban youths etc. Beijing TV Station specially organized an activity named Return to the Countryside to let them return to pay tribute to their youth and past stories of old friends. Xiangfang by Li Chunbo were popular in the streets, and there were the “Old Educated Urban Youth” restaurant and the old “Black Land” restaurant with

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the same interior decorations as those years in the business districts near the streets. Such activities continued until 1997. China Central Television Station played a feature movie of Shanghai educated youth on March 31, in which they discussed Jin Xunhua and the ideals and emotions of that generation of people, and Zhu Xueqin, Lu Xinger and other scholars and authors who once were educated urban youth were invited to recall those years enthusiastically. When the program ended, a popular singer wildly sang a song with the background of “Walk through the Youth, No Complaint and No Regret”, flashing lights and bursts of sounds of from a drum set. This nostalgia among educated urban youth is still popular. For this generation of people, this wave at least has had two cycles. The first cycle was the “literature and art of educated urban youth” dominated by poems and songs, which were circulated underground after going and working in the countryside. After the ebb of the “Red Guard” movement “there was plenty of room of development in a vast field”, and the educated urban youths commonly had a strong sense of loss and despair. Their limited cultural quality and the historical situation at that time meant they did not have the ability of self-examination and criticism, but a collective “era disease” had been popular, so songs with strong nostalgic content composed by them began to be spread among this group, such as Beijing’s Song of Leaving for the Countryside of Shanxi Educated Youth , Nanjing’s Song of Nanjing Educated Youth , Chongqing’s Where are you from, Young Friends ”. These works were completely divorced from the mainstream culture discourse way of the “Cultural Revolution”era and were mainly were used to express their concrete feelings of helplessness, perplexity, hesitation and homesickness. For example, in the Song of Leaving for the Countryside of Shanxi Educated Youth , its lyrics are: “I’m going to be a farmer in remote Shanxi, / Farewell, my lovely Beijing and parents. / My relatives and friends come to say goodbye with tears, / I keep their advices in mind. / My parents, please don’t be sad and don’t be in sorrow / On the Spring Festival of the next year, / I will return home to visit you ...” This sentiment arose from all the directions like song. On the one hand, it expressed the failure of the policy of going and working in the countryside, and the disappointment of the educated urban youths about their uncertain future. On the other hand, it expressed their imagination and their missing for familial affections in their hometown. This first wave of nostalgia had distinct political and cultural meanings, and formed a social foundation for the birth and acceptance of the “scar literature”. At the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, this generation of people successively left the countryside and returned to the cities once lived. However, the cities

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were already not the hometowns in their imagination. As soldiers of the main body of the “Cultural Revolution”, they found it hard even to survive after returning to the cities. This caused another wave of nostalgia, and a strong sense of rootlessness made them swing between city and countryside in the imaginations. They missed the grassland, the yellow earth of the high plateau, Eji mother, the old waterwheel and the grazing cattle of the old days. This are the thoughts and feelings expressed in My Remote Qingping Bay by Shi Tiesheng, The End of this Train by Wang Anyi, The South Coast by Kong Jiesheng and other works. Although this different wave of nostalgia had different culture connotations, it provided a perspective for us to explain this phenomenon. In other words, whether a group or individual, when their feelings, survival, relationship with the society and so on are frustrated, their hearts have no support, they hold a strong sense of being neglected and deserted, and find it hard to change, they will feel nostalgia. The above two waves of nostalgia among the educated youth are associated with the above-mentioned cultural psychology. However, the wave of nostalgia in the 1990s was much more complicated. The people who felt nostalgic had already passed the trough of their lives completely and in a sense had become social elites, as is shown by the fact that they have the power of discourse itself. Therefore, this wave of nostalgia had more the meaning of continuing history, looking back at their youth nostalgically and resisting the current fashion indirectly. The deputy editor of Youth Formula-Youth Formula – Self-Statement of Fifty Female Educated Youths from Beijing wrote in the “postscript” as follows: Although the harsh social reality buried the longings in the childhood, although the merciless wheel of history crushed the will of teenagers, and although they are deemed an abandoned generation, the melodious songs of the lambs on the green grasslands, the women soaked with sweat and the tough white birch on the black earth have already become an important part of their lives. They cannot separate themselves from the land which used its thin milk to feed them. Whenever and wherever, their hearts will forever follow the footprints of youth that walked in far-off regions and will cling to the people with whom they went through thick and thin together, interrelated and gave them love in their hardship.32 This confessions full of lyrical meaning can only be written by an author with the experience of the educated urban youth, has some vague and general imagination, and still implies yesterday's “song of ideals”. Therefore, recollection of and nostalgia for past events become evidence of the youth, suffering becomes a qualification, and the pastoral style in the imagination

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becomes the basis and faith for resisting today’s fashion. For the consumption culture, the wave of nostalgia has become a lucrative market resource. A variety of restaurants of the educated urban youth and pop songs which were popular for a time are used and consumed by people of various identities. Here an educated urban youth can drink, revel and recall those years, and young people can regard them as a way of prying open the past world of their fathers and brothers. The biggest intention for an operator in using the “educated urban youth" is “packaging”, and to occupy the consumption share of the market is his ultimate goal. In an era with discrete culture, even in the face of the same cultural phenomenon, the specific needs of each are quite different. Nostalgia is not only popular among the educated urban youth; the older generation of intellectuals under the mobilization of the planners is full of nostalgia. The Cultural Celebrities in the Capital are Emotionally Tied to the Xiangyang Lake by Li Chengwai published in China Readers discloses the “Xiangyang Lake complex” of the cultural celebrities in the capital. However, the wave of nostalgia among this generation is different from the spontaneous the wave of nostalgia among the educated urban youths. It is an event planned by the Xianning Government to develop the culture resources of Xiangyang Lake, improve the popularity of the region and promote the local tourism economy and cultural undertakings. During the “Cultural Revolution”, more than 6,000 cultural celebrities were successively demoted and experienced “labor exercises” for three years or so in the May 7 Cadre School founded by the Ministry of Culture in Xianning. Among them, there were late Feng Xuefeng, Shen Chongwen, Zhang Tianyi, Meng Chao, Chen Baichen, Guo Xiaochuan, Li Ji etc. This cultural resource is considered as an “intangible intellectual property, patent not registered, free advertising and a high-grade large specialty” by Xianning people. As soon as it was put into action, this plan immediately received a positive response. Bingxin, the “Literary grandmother” wrote the three Chinese characters for “Xiangyang Lake”, Xiao Gan wrote the dedication: “greatly miss Xianning and Xiangyang Lake”, Yan Wenjing wrote the dedication: “Xiangyang Lake, my past life”, Niu Han wrote the dedication: “Xiangyang Lake is the poem that has fed me”, Haomin wrote the dedication: “Who said there are a lot things forgotten in our life, Xiangyang is always in my mind” and etc. Neither the old generation or the educated urban youth generation are not indignant incessantly and do not crusade about and criticize the days of the “Cultural Revolution” any longer, but have recollections full of warmth instead. This history has become more remote. The more imagination is added by the

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people, the more it needs to prove the existence of individuals. It has become a part of the new context of the new cultural reconstruction of this era. In the culture map, it has added a historical marker: in the wave of nostalgia “you will feel the resurrection of history: the memory which seems to have been weakened by the water of time becomes clear again; it seems that those very common past events present a new cultural significance after circumstances change with the passage of time – the past events have always been in our memories.” In the face of an era which follows the instincts, the nostalgia also “has proved the vitality of rationality” and the “struggle of this generation of people”.33

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2

Chapter

State Will and the Mainstream Cultural Resources

The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

Abstract Key words: red classic; packaging; myth; hero; deconstruction The mainstream culture production for decades has come mainly from two aspects of resources: one is the red classics which have been produced continuously since the Yan’an period. These works take high revolutionary optimism and romanticism as the keynote and their broad and healthy emotion, poetic expression and straightforward form have had a huge influence. This successful experience has been inherited, and has become the main pattern and reference. Another resource is reporting or compilation on heroic figures. The finiteness of resources determines the difficulty that mainstream cultural production faces. Consumption has become a ubiquitous myth in today’s culture market. It not only sweeps away all obstacles to “sex” and “violence”, but also uses consumption to dissolve the classic culture. The red classics are re-packaged and walked into the culture market, so becoming evidence that cultural consumption attempts to devour everything. Meanwhile, it also shows that in an era lacking heroes, the people have a deep longing for heroes. The expressions of a state will constitute the national mainstream ideology. Regardless of the social form there must be an ideology of ruling or integrating the wills of citizens. Its legitimacy and authority become the “social unconsciouness” in the continuous process of expression. In Fromm’s view, “social unconsciousness” is caused by a “filter of society” (language, logic and the “social taboo”), and the standard of the “social taboo” is established by ideology. The ideology declares that some presentations and ideas are dangerous to the fundamental interests of the ruling class, which makes every possible effort to prevent them from reaching the level of ideology. Althusser further emphasized that “ideology is not available for the free choice of members of society. Regardless of whether the people want it or not, they have to accept it. Whoever does not agree with the ideology of a society cannot enter this society, therefore, ideology is accepted by the members of a society in a compulsory and unconscious manner” 1. As an ideographic form of ideology, the freedom of culture is not unlimited and it must be restricted within the ideological “issue frame” to meet the need of the society for culture.

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Since the reform and opening up, with cultural exchange and the formation of the domestic culture market, the traditional way of culture production, that is culture production under the control of the state, has disintegrated. Within the national plan there is no cultural product heavily supported by a huge amount of money. It is only a part of social culture supply, and its mandatory nature and the “dual-track system” in the economic field have exactly the same structural relationship. This sort of cultural products express the national ideology with a definite ideological orientation, which is known as “theme” culture. However, in order to meet the increasing social and cultural needs, diversification of culture production is also advocated. This flexible policy of culture production has brought unprecedentedly active enthusiasm to culture production. Theoretically, this is undoubtedly an ideal culture setting because it not only ensures the absolute authority of the mainstream discourse of the state, but also encourages the culture market of the masses. But the reality of this theoretical setting is thought-provoking. This is the conflict between “pale legality and colorful illegitimacy”. In the culture market in the 1990s, although the elevated theme was magnificent and attempts were made to root it deeply in the hearts of the people by various media, under the impact of the popular culture or extraterritorial culture it did not have the absolute advantage because of its monotony and paleness. In a sense, it existed only as a gesture and will, and did not occupy a due cultural share according to the law of culture production. Although this assessment was not encouraging, it was a fact that had to be faced. In our impression, what were widely discussed were the “fifth-generation” movies, “Wang Shuo style” TV series, imported movies and popular songs, and MTV music became more widely spread. The formation of this situation is closely connected with the mainstream culture resources and culture production consciousness. The mainstream culture for decades came mainly from two resources: one is the the cultural works which have been continuously produced since the Yan’an period and are named red classics. These works take high revolutionary optimism and romanticism as the keynote and their broad and healthy emotion, poetic expression and straightforward form have had a huge influence. This successful experience has been inherited, and has become the main pattern and reference. Another resource is reporting or compilation on heroic figures. In an era when heroes coming forth in large numbers, although this resource is inexhaustible, to what degree it is adapted to the law of culture production is discussible. The finiteness of the resource determines the difficulty of production of mainstream culture, and it will inevitably result in an unsatisfactory situation. This situation has caused debate. A signed article published in Literature

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The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

and Art pointed out that “the theme remains lofty, but unfortunately it has not become a spectacular scene”. "What is the theme? If carrying forward the revolutionary traditions, shaping the heroic images, and particularly praising the achievements of the revolutionary leaders are used as the theme, can those that express the normal state of ordinary people as the main body of revolution and construction be deemed the theme?” Therefore, the article stressed that a theme work should have at least two points: “firstly, it should love the socialist motherland and be healthy and progressive; secondly, it should be artistically competent or at least should be liked by the people, and of course if it stands careful reading or appreciation it is much the better. Otherwise, there is no need to talk about the theme. If it takes hundreds of millions of money earned by the hard toil of the people to shoot some works that make people miserable, it is a crime. Socialism will never need a rough, blunt and ambiguous theme.”2 Although the article is emotional, it hits the nail on the head from one aspect. From our point of view, how to explain this phenomenon may be more important. In the continuous compositions of the red classics, a number of excellent literary and artistic works have appeared and have deeply touched the people of several generations. Consumption has become a ubiquitous myth today. It not only may meet the desires of the people with sex and violence, but also can dissolve the classic arts by way of secularity to include it in the scope of the market and turn it into an object of consumption. The market has participated in the development and use of the red classics through economic means, thus making it have significance and value content at different levels.

Red Classics and the Cyclone of Secularization Red classics refers to the works with national style loved by the workers and composed by literature and art workers under the instructions in the Speech at the Yan’an Forum of Literature and Art. These works mainly focus on the theme of revolutionary history and use songs about the people’s democratic revolution and socialist construction under the leadership of the Communist Party of China as main content. They are constantly promoted and widely disseminated, and not only are familiar to the masses, cultivating their unique literature and art appreciation and acceptance, but also have become an important goal that dominates composition by artists. This situation means that literature and art

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for decades have accumulated rich experience in the composition of red classics. To tell the truth, in the long-lasting and continuous composition tide of red classics a number of excellent literary and artistic works have appeared. Even

measured against the strictest aesthetic standards they are classics, such as the

poems Wang Gui and Li Xiangxiang and Zhanghe Water , the novels Xiao Erhei’s Marriage and Sanli Bay , the operas the White-Haired Girl, Sister Jiang, Red Coral and The Red Guards on Honghu Lake , the model Peking operas Takeover of Weihu Mountain , Shajiabang and The Azalea Mountain , the ballet Red Detachment of Women , the suite of songs Long March and the dance epic The East is Red . These works form a consistent style and have become a collective memory of the masses. For many years these works played the function of “uniting the people and attacking the enemies, and realized the utilitarian goal with their strong emotional color and expression full of poetry. It enables the people to see the revolutionary heroes and the history of the Chinese revolution and construction through literature and art. It has profoundly touched the people of several generations. Therefore, as an important mainstream culture resource, it has always been given attention and is continuously explored and used. Before the 1980s, the masses’ acceptance of these works was sincere. There were mainly two reasons for this: on the one hand, they believed that the People’s Republic of China had changed their fates and national outlook, so they cordially acknowledged the images in these classics of revolutionary history and figures; on the other hand, the popular expression and traditional structures of these works were easy to understand and accept. At the turn of the 1970s and in the 1980s, one of the main strategies for encouraging literature and art was a full opening up of the red classics. The red songs were sang from the old “Northwest Wind” originating from the northwest plateau such as Nanni Bay, Song of Emancipation, Red Flowers Blooming all over the Mountain and North Wind Blowing, to We are Powerful Workers and the Water of Honghu . The familiar tunes and former stars’ images and voices re-kindled the historical emotion that had not been heard and seen for a long time, making the people reconnect with history through the classic arts. It repaired the rootlessness caused by its fracture and re-grouped under the red flag of historical imagination. Therefore, the red classics were usually closely related to specific historical circumstances, and were indeed the “spiritual food” of the masses. In that era, the people did not have much hope. Monotonous and pale art, even if it was a little romantic and poetic, was enough to satisfy people.

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See the Red Sun again The great changes over the 20 years from 1976 to 1996 made today’s China take on an entirely new look and spanned several stages. The mass culture market and media continuously manufactured all kinds of “hot spots”, constantly stimulated and impacted on the people and mobilized the people’s desires and imaginations like an invisible hand. It was like a spiritual enclave, and sent the news that the people were unable to stop even though they wanted to stop from time to time. Those culture producers rapidly replaced the spiritual producers. The ultimate goal of culture producers via the markets, regardless of their form, had only one aim which is to mobilize people’s culture consumption. Currently, consumption has become a ubiquitous myth. It cannot only meet people’s desires with sex and violence, but also can dissolve classical arts by way of secularity, include them in the scope of market and turning them into an object of consumption. The open cultural environment has made people no longer afraid, the great men have stepped down from the “altar”, bulk printing and the release of political books and biographies of leaders gradually meant that political behavior and great men lost their mystery, and many important historical secrets were revealed. The constant development of culture producers in this field not only enabled them to obtain market interests, but also changed the people’s concepts by way of osmosis. The constant popularity of such products has made the masses read them more out of appreciation and turned this into a recreational and a way of meeting curiosity. This change is also bound to change people’s inherent reverence and admiration for the “red classics”. One prominent example was the release of the cassette Red Sun – Ode to Mao Zedong . At the end of 1991, East China Branch, China Record Corporation made a cassette and put it on the market on the 98th anniversary of the birth of Mao Zedong. This cassette caused a sensation in society. According to a report in the Shanghai Culture and Arts Daily , when the Red Sun – Ode to Mao Zedong was played on a tape recorder by a salesperson and the song was heard, a lot of people waited in a long queue in front of many shops to buy it, and when a car transporting cassettes arrived at some audio and video shops, the people waiting to buy the cassette actually cheered. Many people who failed to buy the cassette were reluctant to leave for a long time, and when a salesperson told them that the distribution company would immediately send the tapes, the people immediately lined up and some even waited for more than one hour in the cold winter weather. After that Red Sun – Ode to Mao Zedong sounded all over China. In Nanjing, the last three

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consumers fought for a sample tape without the colorful cover; in Quanzhou, a tape worth RMB 5.5 was sold for RMB 11; in Beijing’s Wangfujing Bookstore, 200 tapes were declared to be sold out within one hour, and people heartily sang the Red Sun at home. In half a year, 5.50 million copies of Red Sun – Ode to Mao Zedong were released and re-started the culture market of the red classic. Since then, dozens of audio-visual presses successively released the East is Red, Red Sun Classics, 70 Odes to Mao Zedong, Children’s Red Sun and so on, and China Record Corporation also introduced the Chinese People Sing Karaoke Song Repository . There are different assessments of this phenomenon in the literature and art circles. Some people think that the red classics are re-sung today does not involve the blind worship there was then, and although they were produced in a special historical period “they will eventually be restored to the position that they deserve. The songs heard on the tape Red Sun – Ode to Mao Zedong are indeed out of tune with today in some content, but they will not only move those who accompanied their growth again, but also will move the next generation, just like the influence of the Yellow River Cantata on our generation who grew up under the red flag, because these works do contain sincere feelings and they do have perfection in art”.3 Some people also pointed out that the songs in Red Sun – Ode to Mao Zedong had a certain historicity, and the commentators doubted whether present instruments and singing were in line with the specific content, historical background, styles and features of the songs. They also held that some male singers “distorted such good songs in the past”, and the release was “more importantly for the purpose of circulation, and the original intention of the planners was to make money, so it is determined that this tape focuses on entertainment”.4 Their critical position was obvious. However, interestingly, this cultural phenomenon itself seems to have been removed from value judgments, or it can be said that value judgments can no longer stop its independent operation in the market. The popularity of Red Sun – Ode to Mao Zedong is very different from the dissemination of the red classics before the 1980s. At that time, this was part of mainstream culture and was full of a sense of religion. Just as believers sing anthems in a church, so the singers threw all their holy feelings into the singing. It was not just entertainment but a means whereby the people expressed their beliefs, outlook on values, aims in life, and in some realm was changed into collective subunconsciousness. However, the popularity of the red songs on the streets this time came spontaneously from the people and was not on the authorities’ instructions. Popular singers such as Sun Guoqing, Tu Honggang, Li Lingyu and Fan Linlin

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are all singers of popular vocalism, and their singing has obvious characteristics of the times. When the songs are heard, the tunes with which the people are familiar have completely changed their meaning in those years, what they leave are theme and original symbols, and they are quite far from the specific culture content carried in the songs. The audiences are more interested in the singing style and voices of these popular singers. Although they sing the tunes of history, the singers’ unmistakable voices still provide a connection between the audiences and current lives, and the audiences are still in the popular fashion. Therefore, in the singing vocalism, new secular interpretations are injected into the red songs. Repeat chanting can show the “history of suffering” that people have experienced, meanwhile it can meet pure appreciation after history is understood. At this time, the classics no longer have their original significance and have become pure culture consumption. This situation is closely related to the cultural environment and cultural situation in 1991. In this era, the pace of national economic reform obviously slowed down and the cultural trend was vague. In the culture market, soft and all kinds of culture categories and resources available for entertainment and recreation tried their talents. One-off of consumption determines that it is difficult for such products to win through unexpected moves in the market. Deng Lijun’s songs, novels and movies of martial arts from Hong Kong and Taiwan, Qiongyao and Sanmao’s novels, prose, leisure works in the 1930s and all kinds of rumors and compilations in tabloids had cut a smart figure at the time but exited disappointedly. The temporarily vacant field meant that Red Sun – Ode to Mao Zedong spread like wildfire on a whim. Red Sun – Ode to Mao Zedong was objectively adapted to a timely filling-in for people with nostalgia in a time of vacant culture ideology. It is also one of the reasons why the red songs created a stir for a time.

The Red Roaring Waves in the Autumn of 1996 No matter what changes occurred in the times, it is an undeniable fact that the red classics are deeply rooted among the people. In those years, the doors of all cinemas were completely open to play revolutionary model opera movies free of charge, and arias such as Hunting the Tiger on the Mountain, Everyone has a Red and Bright Heart and Home in Anyuan were repeatedly played on the radio every day. These movies and operas were known to every family by transfusion. Many people have acted as a brave hero in an amateur propaganda team. Therefore, the “Red Classics” are a kind of memory hidden in the hearts of many people.

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However, the red classic roaring waves in 1996 formed a spectacle through the planning by non-governmental organizations, and startup and packaging in the market. The modern ballets White-Haired Girl and Red Detachment of Women and the large-scale vocal epic work Long March Suite formed a “red classics series” and swept the capital. Lu Liming, President of Beijing Qiming Performance Corporation of the Chinese National Academy of Arts and General Planner and Artistic Director of the “red classic” series performances made the following analysis of the background to why the red series were popular: “Strictly speaking, the 'red classic' works were reborn in the ‘pre-matureness’ of some popular works in a ‘vacuum’ when there were very few classic works. It should be said that this ‘vacuum’ simply represented an opportunity for what were called classics to be produced”. However, “this opportunity was based on the market”.5 After it made a thorough investigation, meticulous planning and careful assessment of performances of the White-Haired Girl in Shanghai and Wuhan and the performance of the Long March Suite in Guangzhou, the company determined to introduce them in Beijing. Such information further showed that it was the driving force of the market that re-popularized the red classics. To achieve this goal, the performances were as temptating as possible. For example, in the dance drama White-Haired Girl , many scenes showing the feelings of hero and heroine were deleted in the “Cultural Revolution” but the dance of two people showing Dachun and Xier ’s love was restored to meet the audiences’ expectations and hopes when Shanghai Ballet, the original performance group, performed the White-Haired Girl this time. The Red Detachment of Women and Long March Suite were also performed by the original performance groups. Some reports analyzed that the performances were extremely heated, “on the one hand, the middle-aged and elderly audiences who had watched them countless times in the “Cultural Revolution” would have a very special feeling” when they turned back to watch the works of that era which would never be forgotten. On the other hand, the youths who had only heard or never heard these works were very eager to know what artistic works influenced the lives of their parents. Those two factors meant that the not-for-profit performances contained scenes which ensured that the seats were continuously full”. This situation was satisfactory to several sides quite satisfactory. A relevant person pointed out that these works had a special position in contemporary art history as they not only publicized the content of the revolution, they were also excellent works which adhered firmly to the road of nationalization. The performance in the capital after 20 years was of great significance. It indicated that although at times there was despair, the spirit of the times would be handed

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down by virtue of some representative works of art. The charm of fine artistic works that have been really tried and tested many times will not be reduced as time goes by. This had an important enlightenment role for compositions by current artists.6 For old audiences, “‘to revive an old dream’ cannot but make them recall the hard war period and think of those brave revolutionary soldiers”. Young people hold that: “we have learned the opera White-Haired Girl in music lessons, and being able to watch the artists to portray the story of the white-haired girl with the language of ballet is conductive for the younger generation to learn this play and related history”. Different historical circumstances give the red classics a function beyond pure education, and the tension in watching it is replaced by relaxation and curiosity. In past years to play a heroic figure was an honor, but it is very different today. The actresses of the second generation who acted the role of “Qionghua” were passionately devoted to the Red Detachment of Women . There are their youthful dreams and footprints in this play. However, the actresses of the third generation who acted the role of “Qionghua” frankly said: it is quite difficult to find the feeling of bitterness and hatred of Qionghua then. They were unaccustomed when they first started with the Red Detachment of Women , and a lot of the dance movements in the play made them feel a little ridiculous. However, whenever the dance song was sounded, the theme with passionate momentum and profound feeling gave them endless inspiration, making them eager to have a try on the stage. The interest of the audiences of their age in the play is mostly out of curiosity.7 Different moods also cultivated a market for red classics. Sun Xuejing, then President of the National Ballet of China said: Due to the sensation of this play, a lot of literature and art organizations competed to play it. The National Ballet of China was swarmed with visitors. The actors and actresses studying ballet filled upstairs, downstairs or even the yard of the National Ballet of China. Among them, there were middle school students more fanatical than the actors and actresses.8 In order to revitalize the performance market and carry forward national culture, Qiming Performance Corporation repackaged and carried out market operation for the Red Lantern, Shajiabang, Ode to Yimeng Mountain, Children of the Grassland and other plays9 in the hope of a stronger red classic cyclone. Just when the “red classics” of literature and art were popular in the culture market, “revolutionary” works of art also set off an unprecedented red tidal wave. The works auctioned by China Guardian Auctions Co., Ltd. in the auctions in the autumn of 1996 were all art treasures of the “hot years” from

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1949 to 1979, thus becoming a part of the red classic cyclone in 1996. These works, like the model operas, had involved complex arguments and were suspended for a long time because they were created in special years. Their holders even did not preserve them because they thought the works had no collection value. Popular arguments also did not treat them as works of art, but deemed them propaganda materials. After the end of an era, the political content carried by it would lose value as propaganda. It also meant the end of their mission and life, and their exit and even being forgotten were taken for granted. No one expected that in the autumn of 1996 of the “red classics” roaring waves, those works of art expessing the opinion that “revolutionary ideals are higher than the sky” suddenly became a dazzling landscape, openly entered into the market and attracted wide attention with their amazing prices and turnover rate. Statistics show that Wu Zuoren’s Happy Yard was sold at the price of RMB 260,000, and another oil painting of his, the famous painting Supplement of Liberation of Nanjing reached the amazing price of RMB 467,500; Liu Yong’s huge work A Million Bold Warriors Crossing the Yangtze River was sold for RMB 550,000; Zhao Zhitian’s Daqing’s Workers Have No Winter was sold for RMB 165,000; Qian Yansong’s Ode to Tiananmen Square was sold for RMB 52,800; Wei Zixi’s Return from the Harvest painted in 1972 was sold for RMB 71,500; Wan Changping’s watercolor painting Making Great Effort to Shape the Image of Workers, Peasants and Soldiers , which concentrated on the main heroic figures in eight model operas and took famous actors then as the models, was sold for RMB 41,800. The one which brought the highest price i.e. RMB 1.925 million was Xu Beihong’s masterpiece Happy Cultivation in Kyushu . The art auction, unprecedented in the People’s Republic of China, was a success but its success was also started and completed by the market in the same way as the popularity of the “red classics”. Its value was given economic form, realizing a huge change from ideology to the market. The people’s affirmation of it was not the political content and special background of the times, but the huge economic value that had to be paid attention to. The huge loss of works resulted in the increasing scarcity of original pieces. Thus value-added was guaranteed collectors paid it the same attention as other rare collections in the market. Here, it is necessary to mention China Guardian Auctions Co., Ltd. which started the Chinese auction market. In May 1993 a group of young people finally established China Guardian Auctions Co., Ltd., the first national auction company in China, and determined to build Beijing into an international artwork auction center like New York and Hong Kong, forming a situation like the three legs of a tripod. It was emotively written in a report that: “At the

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historic moment when the 21st century is approaching, the world turned its attention to China’s economic reform once again. The times called for pioneers once again. In the tide of the establishment of the socialist market economy, the young people from China Guardian Auctions Co., Ltd. bravely took up the responsibility for developing China artworks auction market…. The history that foreigners auction China’s artworks of 5000-year culture in English is declared to be at an end since then”. 10 China Guardian Auctions Co., Ltd. started the auction market for China’s works of art. In the autumn of 1995, Liu Chunhua’s Chairman Mao Going to Anyuan was sold at the price of RMB 6.05 million, which set the highest auction record for the “red classics” and Chinese oil paintings. In the auctions in autumn of 1996, Fu Baoshi’s most important painting Beauties on the Way carefully collected by Guo and his family set up a world record for a Chinese painting at the price of RMB 10.78 million. The value of art was reproduced through the market, and in this regard the, contributions of China Guardian Auctions Co., Ltd. cannot be denied. They have successively set up the highest deal records in the world for auctions of Chinese oil paintings, rare editions of ancient books, and modern Chinese painting and calligraphy, and world records for many individual authors’ works. While creating an economic miracle by way of auction, they also created many lawful means of deconstruction of the ideological hegemony. The market is the largest force for deconstruction of traditional ideologies. It broke the original values endowed by history. The single ideological direction has been gradually removed and is not only that the revolutionary ideal is higher than the sky, as it once was. As the years went by, art became a solidified history and has value for collection because it is irreplaceable. The market interpretations have given these works new meaning, and have exceeded the original understanding of the people about these works. Therefore, the “red classics” are no longer principal resources that the mainstream culture can develop, its expression continues in the composition of theme through the means of concept, and the market has participated in its development and use through economic means, thus giving the “red classics” different levels of significance and value content. The process of secularization means that people no long feel in awe of the “red classic”, its popularity among the people makes it approachable, and different concepts of its value enables people to establish different emotional connections with it.

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Contemporary Heroic Mythology If the “red classics” as the template of the theme can continue they can continue to exert influence in different periods, and modern heros have become a major subject for the singing of the theme at different periods. The 20th century’s special historical situation gave birth to countless heroes of the times. No matter whether it is in wartime or peacetime, heros and models emerge in an endless stream. As the characterization of the spirit of the times, heros and models are reshaped and recreated in the reporting. They are not ordinary people any longer, but heros with legendary color and superman willpower. Not only are their achievements and performances hard to be equaled by other persons, but also their inner worlds become a moral model hard to follow. From the early 1950s, calls and proposals for composing new heroic figures have always been a theme resounding in literature circles. A history of contemporary Chinese literature and art is almost a record of heroes in China in the 20th century, such as Zhou Dayong and Wang Laohu in Defending Yan’an , Zhu Laozhong in Keep Red Flag Flying , Liang Shengbao in History of Pioneering , Sister Jiang, Xu Yunfeng, Cheng Gang and Hua Ziliang in Red Rock , Shi Donggen and Shen Zhenxin in Red Sun , Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong in Li Zicheng , Yang Gao and Duan Yang in Biography of Yang Gao , Lu Jiachuan and Lin Hong in Song of Youth , Hong Changqing and Wu Qionghua in the Red Detachment of Women , Han Ying in Red Guards on Honghu Lake , Shanmei in Red Coral , all the main figures in the “model operas” etc. Many of these heroes were not produced in the contemporary era, some of them are quite remote, but because the creators used quite distinct feelings and imagination when composing these figures, these are settings accepted by and affecting contemporary people.

The Contemporary Narration of Heroes Among all the odes to heroes, in addition to the model operas, those which have the widest influence in print media should be Red Rock and Song of Ouyang Hai . These are two very representative literary texts. The theme of the former is a particular one which mainly describes the story of a group of revolutionaries who struggled in prison before the founding of the People’s Republic of China and the narrator is the person who experienced the story; the latter describes, in a plain peaceful environment, how heroic figures grew up and the narrators’ knowledge of the heroes mainly relies on interviews. But these differences do not hinder a connection of similarity at the spiritual level. Historical heros and

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realistic heros embody the people’s aspiration for dedication through countless repetition, and heroes become the myth that people yearn for for ever but cannot reach. Red Rock was published in 1961. “As soon as it was published, Red Rock caused a sensation throughout the country, just like the History of Pioneering , Record of th Red Flag, Snowy Forest and Song of Youth that readers competed to read in 1958. Red Rock with a brand new way of thinking and feeling, and artistic characteristics corresponding to this thought and feeling, was in the ranks of outstanding long novels”. 11 The description was not exaggerated. Within less than two years the circulation of the work amounted to more than 4 million, which set the highest record for long novels since the 1950s. It is also worth noting that all the above-mentioned long novels as classics controversial discussion, and negative opinions were even very angry. However, Red Rock was different. Except for some discussion on its art, affirmation and recognition for its ideological content were almost unanimous. In that era, Red Rock can be said to have met the needs and call of the times to the maximum extent. Every reader would want to solemnly follow and dedicate their will to the heroes portrayed in Red Rock . Different from images of heroes in growth, some people’s various shortcomings are exposed from different aspects before they become heroes to show the necessity of transformation during their growth and readers could obtain enlightenment or consciousness after seeing themselves in the mirror images. The previous experiences of the heroes in Red Rock are not very important for they are already mature communists. They have completed the process of displacement of identities, so their spiritual world and behavior will naturally be different realm. What the author focused on when shaping these figures was not the growth scenes of heroes, but on how to defeat or transcend the concepts and issues that cannot be defeated or transcended in secular society and ordinary life, such as outlook on feelings, outlook on life and death and stoic perseverance free from vulgarity i.e. the burden of physiology and psychology under external pressure. In face of this challenge the heroes showed their invincibility, thus becoming undeniable heroes. Sister Jiang is regarded as one of the most successful figures portrayed in Red Rock . Her first appearance shows that she is the image of a revolutionary with considerable qualities and vast uprightness. The details, such as when she works in the countryside, cleverly deals with enemies, and criticizes the individual performance of Fu Zhigao on the dock, further highlight the maturity of this Communist. However, this is not the most heroic challenge. When arriving in northern Sichuan she suddenly finds the bloodied head of

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her husband who has been killed. She is heart-broken, but she does not let her tears run down and “a feeling of remorse sudden rises in the heart. What place is it? When? I assume the task entrusted by the Party! No. I have no power to reveal the pain of my heart, and no power to stay here!” The narrator endows the heroine with such thoughts from an omniscient perspective. The Opera Sister Jiang expresses Sister Jiang’s feeling at that time with the following aria: “... Laopeng ah, my dear comrade in arms, where you are, where are you? I remember that under the red flag on the high mountain along the bank of Yangtze River, it was you that introduced me to join the Communist Party of China; I remember that the angry strike tide raised huge waves and you stood straight at the front-most of the tide. You said that the songs on Huaying Mountain ignite the wildfire and it is near the dawn; you said that we would grip the guns in our hands closely forever and fight until the whole country is liberated. Your words still echo in my ears, and I have never forgotten one word or one sentence of them…” This aria can be said to show how Sister Jiang misses her husband rather than as listing the glorious achievements of the communist as a martyr. The feelings of husband and wife have been fully integrated into care and yearning for the revolutionary cause. The misery of losing her husband is first the misery of losing a comrade in arms. Here, it has lost private sadness but is full of deep regret for losing the revolutionary force. In this sense, Sister Jiang does bear the emotional pressure that cannot be borne by ordinary people. As a heroine, she has passed personal feeling by and met the challenge to secular feelings. Red Rock mainly describes life in prison. Such an environment means that the heroes face not only psychological pressure, but also means that they bear physical pressure of torture. About this life which cannot be experienced, we can only obtain knowledge from the statements of the author. Bamboo prods are nailed into the fingers of Sister Jiang, she answers: “I know the names and addresses of the subordinates…These are all the secrets of our Party. You will never get any material information from my mouth ”. The enemy’s violence cannot finally defeat the willpower of the heroes. In the Interrogation Room of the China-US cooperation Zhazidong Concentration Camp, the sixth scene in the opera Sister Jiang, there is a romantic and bold accompanying song as follows: “Long shackles cannot lock the steel heart, bold feelings are like soaring aspirations; they are generous, calm and brave, and the genuine gold is shown after smelting by fire”. It reveals the heroine’s feelings and willpower from the side by way of “voice-over”. It is lofty, profound and pure. However, what shows the heroes’ willpower more is their calmness and serenity in the face of death. Xu Yunfeng is not only completely at ease, but

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also denounces Xu Pengfei and then calmly goes to his death. Sister Jiang is “unusually calm, has neither excitement nor fear nor grief”. She “stands up with her eternal smile, walks to the wall and picks up the comb to calmly comb her hair looking into the broken mirror on the wall as usual”. Moreover, she leaves a well-known motto beyond life and death: “If sacrifice is needed for the ideal of Communism, each of us should and can do it – our faces will not change and our hearts will not beat violently”. Heroic poetry and divine yearning not only make readers wish to follow, but also it even directly influences the “dramatis personae”. When he is imprisoned in Zhazidong, Liu Siyang feels deeply compunctious since he is not tortured, but once he is put in a heavy shackle he not only has no physical and mental pain and on the contrary, he spontaneously produces a sense of satisfaction “being proud of it”. His mood on lingering on Zhazidong reflects the unique state of mind whereby the author poetically changes suffering into a shrine. On this point, the lyricism of the aria in the opera Sister Jiang expresses the “process of suffering” more poetically and picturesquely. Different from Red Rock , Song of Ouyang Hai shows in a peaceful environment how a young soldier grows into a hero. To portray such a hero is obviously difficult. He does not grow up in wartime with fire and blood and he has no opportunity to show his heroic willpower in a dangerous environment. The author must try his best to explore how Ouyang Hai may walk to the sacred altar in daily life and has spiritual character similar to previous heroes. In this way, he reveals the process that Ouyang Hai “wants to be a hero, but is not a hero; later, he knows what makes a hero; and finally he becomes a hero, but he doesn’t know it”12, realizing the author’s subjective wish that “to write a hero is to write our great Party and our times. The changes of the army in these years are written through the growth of Ouyang Hai”.13 Similar to other “novels of growth”, Ouyang Hai also realizes a conversion of spirit under the guidance of a spiritual tutor. As an absolute moral authority, the tutor is requirements and inquiry calls in the center discourse of society, which are everywhere. This is the basic foundation of Ouyang Hai’s spiritual pursuit. Ouyang Hai is a student of Jiang Zhuyun and Xu Yunfeng. He puts Red Rock in his pocket.14 Later, the book is lost during the fire fighting. The reason why he does not look for it is fear of exposing his own name. The practice that donging good things without leaving one’s name precisely reflects the similarity in the spiritual character of the heroes of that time with their predecessor tutors. The most important reason why Ouyang Hai becomes a hero is cultivation of his moral character and self-denial and he continously examines himself and restrains himself, thus becoming a “great brave man” who is “not angry about

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misunderstandings and keeps calm in an emergency”. When he has no personal desire and consciousness, he finally reaches the realm that he “becomes a hero, but doesn’t know it”. Just because of this he can complete a heroic feat within 4 seconds at the last critical moment. The author uses more than 1,700 Chinese characters in the most poetic lyric. From “what Ouyang Hai thinks of” to “what he sees” and from “what he hears” to “what he says”, the author almost repeats all the words of the popularity of the era and then turns them into the portrayal of the hero. Because of Song of Ouyang Hai , Jin Jingmai was called as a “big writer” by Mao Zedong himself. The influence of this work is still felt in the recollections of people later. More than 30 years after the work was published, He Jiesheng recalled: “In 1966, praise for this work was often heard inside and outside the literature and art circles, and it was called a ‘milestone and a ‘textbook’. Cultural celebrities and critics wrote articles to analyze the success of this novel. The novel was published time and time again. The newspapers and magazines in different places either published selections or serialized it. It really made paper expensive.” 15 “I read this novel very carefully as soon as he sent it to me. I remember that that book was borrowed by others as soon as I completed reading it. I urged the borrower to return it but he didn’t give it back for a long time. When it got back in my hands the novel was dilapidated and the corners had been rolled up. I didn’t know how many people had read this book. Young people scrambled to read it book and considered it a pleasure to be among the first to read it”.16 The decription of the short 4 seconds in the book “won almost universal praise. Everyone said that it was well-written and wonderful. Many people used this passage as words for recitements and some students from primary schools and high schools could recite this passage”.17 Through analysis of the “hero legend” and the recollections of readers, we can see the popular state of mind for shaping heroes and worshipping heroes, which is that whoever is named hero must give up the life of an ordinary person. He completely became an object to “be watched” and existed completely as a significant demonstration and role model. Once he is sent to the “sacred altar”, the hero has self-identified requirements of his “role” with the “watchers” and implements the rule of “heroic feelings” together with the “watchers”. Later, we find this a common feature in the deeds of many heroic model figures. It was an era of enlightenment and dedication. In cultural characteristics it extended or inherited the cultures of war. In the face of death the heroes had no look of fear, which seemed sublime and tragic. Such a call would especially have a great attraction for the young generation. Zhu Xueqin has recalled that the educated youth generation in the “corps” was especially “eager for dedication”, so they understood the way of dedication of Jin Xunhua’s idealism very well.

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The Myth of Hero is Hard to Reproduce The 1950s and 1960s were an era of heroism. It is another matter as to how we comment on it, but cordial acknowledge of the audiences and readers for this culture was an undeniable fact. In other words, the culture of heroism in that era indeed nurtured the Chinese people’s feelings of heroism. The people not only accepted imagination and edification of this culture, they were willing to practice it in social life, which was one of the factors resulting in simple and clear social conduct and cultural environment. In the 1990s, under the encouragement of the main theme and excellent works strategy, contemporary heroes still remain a cultural resource. However, changes of the environment have changed the people’s acceptance and requirements for culture. The subject matter of the hero no longer takes the lead, and worship for heros and yearn for dedication had already become a thing of the past. The increasingly rich culture market enabled readers and audiences to have a variety of choices. Regarding content, the entertainment movies at home and abroad distracted the peoples’ unidirectional attention and yearning for heroes. After 1992 the movie market fell into recession. Because it was difficult to continue their operations, many cinemas were already used for other purposes. In order to re-start the movie market and attract audiences into cinemas again, the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television (later the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television) introduced 10 foreign movies with a very high attendance by way of sharing income for the first time in 1995. From The Fugitive and Rumble in the Bronx at the beginning of the year to Die Hard at the end of year, a cyclone of movies continued to be blown across the movie market, and the box office income was staggering. According to records, in Beijing alone, the box office income from these imported blockbusters were respectively as follows: RMB 2.20 million for The Fugitive , RMB 5.17 million for Rumble in the Bronx , RMB 8.22 million for True Lies , RMB 4.20 million for Forrest Gump , RMB 4.50 million for The Lion King , RMB 3.30 million for Speed and RMB 4.40 million for Thunderbolt and Lightfoot . Such high box office income brought new vitality to cinemas, and the audiences became interested in cinemas again. Not only imported movies played an important role in activating China’s movie market, but also the domestic movies that year brought a glimmer of hope for China’s movie market to escape the depression. The large imports of China’s film market has played an important role in this year of Chinese-made video film market. From the perspective of box office income, Sunny Days set up a record for domestic movies with an income of RMB 4.30 million; the income

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from Red Cherry reached nearly 4.00 million; and Row, Row the Boat to the Grandmother Bridge reached RMB 2.50 million. What lay behind these figures was completely beyond the single utilitarian setting of cultural products. It also implied that once they entered the market, spiritual products were bound to be dominated by market law after being changed into commodities. Therefore, at one time, the jargon i.e. “good” and “selling point” was often popular among movie and TV play producers. How to attract audiences, occupy the market and have a high box office income became their first concern. In China there were about 3,100 city cinemas, 180,000 halls of work units and open-air cinemas, and 1.2 billion people as the audience of movies and TV plays. Movie manufacturers in Hollywood and other places had coveted the vast cinema market in China for a long time, and who would occupy the movie market of China had to form a problem. Advanced shooting technology, a huge amount of investment and complete commercialized movie market awareness of imported movies, especially American movies, enable them to shoot movies that are thrilling, exciting, magical and full of imagination. In today’s world with increasingly competitive audiovisual arts, Americans themselves see five movies on the average every year. As a Western wonder, Hollywood is full of temptation for the Chinese audiences. Therefore, as soon as the movie market is opened, the huge impact this brings cannot but help to pose a powerful challenge. Meanwhile, the diversified culture market has also cultivated diverse tastes in audiences. As one way of entertainment and leisure, the tastes of movie audiences are diverse. It is impossible for them to only show special preference to heroes who sacrifice themselves any longer, as they did in the 1950s and 1960s. On the other hand, heroic figures in a peaceful environment do not offer a general and tragic scene of sacrifice scene for rendering any longer because they do not have legendary life experiences. The heroic spirit fearless of death for a just cause has already been replaced by ordinary trivia, and it is hard for a movie structure to have plots or emotional gaps with sharp rises and falls in scenes of common life. In an era without heros, on one hand the people are eager to reproduce the styles of heroism and add new imagination to ordinary life; on the other hand, the legendary expectations of heroes and the mediocrity of the contemporary odes to heroes do not meet the requirements of people. These conflicts and contradictions cause today’s “heroes” difficult to have the glory in the past. The people would rather experience stories of past heroes in the traditional “red classics” than see with embarrassment that current “heroes” find it difficult to perform great deeds. It seems that the mid-1990s was an era of the hero again. In movie production

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there were movies such as Kong Fansen, Zhang Mingqi, Police Officer Cui Daqing, Police Story and Director of Letters and Visits Office . Most of these movies have living prototypes, many of whom were well-known contemporary heroes and models. People were already familiar with their deeds. However, when they were filmed and portrayed through the visual arts, they did not receive the expected results. Among these films, the more successful one was Kong Fansen . Kong Fansen was first portrayed as a “good” man, and the scenarist and director tried to get people to experience a great and good soul in daily life and see to a cadre image with the characteristics of a “good man”. Meanwhile the distant and mysterious Tibetan regional features and customs as background combined with the “marvelous spectacle” made the movie watchable. However, due to the inner suggestion of “propagating a hero”, the movie still gave people a sense of rigidity. Even so, it was still rare to reach the standard of Kong Fansen for a movie about a hero and Kong Fansen found it hard to avoid being snubbed in the market. Data indicate that the rate of attendance of the movie in Ruian and other places was only 20%; Police Story played for 9 times in Zhuhai and, had an audience of 146 in total, 16 people on average.18 After being put into the market, Zhang Mingqi was not only hardly known but also was listed among the worst films along with Breaking Dream in the South Seas, Lanling Prince, Long Life, Women etc. by the Fifth Jinling Film critics in the Best and Worst Films.19 This fact pointed out the embarrassing situation of the myth of heroes from other aspects. In 1997, there were new messages in the movie circles. In an era when movies of heroes were unsuccessful and the theme was not spectacular, movies such as Great Turn, Red Valley and Days without Lei Feng seemed to bring a new opportunity. In particular Days without Lei Feng provoked much discussion in the media. Newspapers were so excited that they even used such titles as The Days without Leifeng are Applauded and Have a Good Box Office! and Why does the theme Sound so Good 20. It should be said that there were many different reasons why this movie could occupy a certain share in the market. From the perspective of the latent expectations of society, the people did indeed miss the spirit of Lei Feng, and as a collective memory Lei Feng had become the characterization of an era and a kind of ethos. Compared with the current social ethos, the people had no reason not to miss Lei Feng. Someone made an analysis in an article as follows: Lei Feng is undoubtedly the most famous Chinese for one third of the century. When one after another different figures and different kinds of “spirit” successively came and went, only Lei Feng still comes with

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his kind smile every spring. He has come on schedule for 34 years, and there is no other person who can do this. It should be said that it is a miracle. When someone concluded it was “willpower” they were ignored: why had other “wills” all disappeared successively? We have experienced the times of reading every day and discussing class struggle, and once lived in an era with “numerous heroes”. Why does only Lei Feng survive? For 20 years, the intellectual circles, nongovernmental circles and official organizations have raised questions and challenges for all the problems in politics, the economy and cultural life, and their severity, sensitivity and sharpness were all far more than those of “Lei Feng”. But many of them have been abandoned or corrected, and only Lei Feng successfully defends his title in a quiet way with his plain and calm pose.21

This analysis is justified. However, the successful market share achieved by The Days without Lei Feng was closely connected to its “news” and release strategy. For a long time it was only known that Lei Feng sacrificed his life for the work, but nobody knew that his death was related to Qiao Anshan. The movie’s disclosure of this was itself “news”. In the promotions, the relationship between Qiao Anshan and the death of Lei Feng was introduced, which vaguely implied that the movie had the nature of “fantastic story”. On the other hand, 70% to 75% of the tickets were reserved, which had the feel of “administrative measures”. Therefore, without “reservation of the whole cinema”, it was possible that the estimated income from the movie would be RMB 35–40 million. This can be understood as a special “case”. It is impossible for all theme movies to adopt the method of “reservation of the whole cinema”. In the market, “privilege” is not allowed to exist. The above analysis makes us see that no matter the type of movie, they must respect the law of arts and rules of market. Production of spiritual products not only requires study of the problems of the arts themselves, but also study of problems beyond the arts. In today’s world with its increasingly secular social life, it is not a fault to call again for heroism and idealism. However, not all contemporary heroes can be filmed. When it is impossible to extract the dramatics and conflict of a figure himself into art, it is hard to produce an excellent movie regardless of a huge amount of investment, a luxury production group and excellent main creative staff. We can not equate theme to revolutionary history matters and present heroes and models. In fact, all excellent works, including Western excellent classic story movies, which contain the maintenance role of basic human values should become the theme of a society because they share the functions of improving the quality of people and meeting the demand for diverse arts.

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3

Chapter

Present-day Fashion and the Leaders

The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

Abstract Keywords: media; mass culture; white collar; taste; culture working The establishment of the legality of daily life has changed the dull and single life color. Young people become the leaders of life fashion. They express their understanding of life and yearn for freedom in a personalized manner. However, the influence and control of development by the media and rise of mass culture over fashion are like a hidden hand. As a result, the media and mass culture have established an alternative ideology. While deconstructing “integration”, the “pretentious elegant interests” constructed by television, advertising, movie star and white-collar culture also lead the “dream of youth” of the young generation. Typical ideographic forms of the culture fashion in the 1920s can illustrate the post-modernism theory after being orientalized. Those gifted scholars in universities, who were born in the 1960s found it hard to enter the main battlefield in the 1980s. Their fathers’ and brothers’ unique experiences and temperaments and thorough understanding of this era firmly controlled the discourse power of culture. They integrated the culture with enchantment and inspiration in the 1980s in a spirit of high idealism. They were the people’s cultural heroes and spiritual mentors, and the national elite and soul. In the face these imposing cultural predecessors, those studying in universities were full of contradictions and uncertainty: on the one hand, they were also deeply shocked by such idealism and enlightened discourse; on the other hand, they were not willing to follow their fathers and brothers to stick to this ideal. The following statement by Chen Xiaoming very typically pointed out the state of mind of this generation of people: The people who experienced the baptism of culture in the early 1980s (such as myself) find it hard to forget those busy scenes. Although culture in the first half of the 1980s contained many and various exaggerated and self-righteous fallacies, it was after all an era when culture was pursued, and after all, there were some intellectuals with true humanist ideals. Although my peers and I did not necessary approve those ideals, we are very nostalgic. When I attacked the cultural status quo from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, I felt that I

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not only fell into the plight of contradiction, but also fell into a deep and almost sentimental resentment. The mainstream culture of the intellectuals in the 1980s was always a huge screen for the people of my age. We were thrilled to watch and occasionally participate in it, but then we waited for the bankruptcy of this great myth. The realization of charisma in the late 1980s actually provided our generation with a battlefield for charging and breaking through the enemy lines in culture. However, unexpectedly, defeat in culture was so rapid and thorough that history did not provide another site on schedule and there was not such a site at all. While we had to criticize the content of cultural myth in the 1980s, we still missed a cultural form – the historical opportunity and historical practices of culture. The 1980s has already disappeared, what it left was not only a lot of problems but also a kind of memory.1

From a young scholar, such a frank statement is quite moving. However, not all critics of postmodernism are so frank. The disintegration of social central values seemed to set the historical scene for an anti-cultural movement initiated by a group of bad guys. Dissolution of values, dissolution of meaning and dissolution of all in-depth modes spread like a storm for a moment. The way of the illusion of “postmodernism” replaced the historical scene of contemporary China. In their views, this time myth not only was possible, but also was turning into reality: “We are surrounded by satellite television programs, MTV, advertising, electronic games, and huge shopping malls like Lufthansa and Scitech. We are not the people of the 1980s who looked for passion any longer, but are the people of ‘post-modernism’ in the discourse of the Third World.” 2 For this bigoted and extreme scene setting it is necessary to briefly introduce how “post-modernism” took the opportunity to enter China.

From Theoretical Review to Discourse Practice Postmodernism is a cultural trend which arose in the US and other places in the 1960s and rapidly spread throughout the world. It widely involves mass art, avant-garde novels, post-structuralism philosophy and literary criticism. According to an introduction by Professor Ihab Hassan from the Department of Comparative Literature of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the US term “postmodernism” was first used by Félix Guattari, a Spanish author, referring to Selected Poems of Spain and Spanish America edited by him in 1934. Selected Contemporary Latin American Poems edited by Tdely Fitts in 1942 used this

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term once again. In 1947 Toynbee, a famous British historian also used this term in Historical Research, but the term when it was used by Toynbee belonged to a category different from the category discussed today. In the 1950s Charles Orson, a main theorist of the American Montenegro Poems School often used this term. After the 1960s, the term postmodernism was widely used in all kinds of culture categories.3 “Postmodernism” is the most avant-garde contemporary cultural trend, and a topic with numerous different meanings and quite a lot of disputes. Postmodernism has a natural connection with modernism, but in the views of most postmodernists the distance or reversal between postmodernism and modernism is far bigger than that between modernism and traditional romanticism. They are more inclined to draw a clear boundary between modernism and postmodernism. Postmodernism is a cultural trend which arises after World War II. Compared with modernism, it involves significant changes in the feelings and attitudes. As a great “illusion movement”, modernism has become a mythical symbol of spirit for creation of the world. In the views of the modernist masters it seems that they assume all human suffering: the struggle for survival, seeking the way to liberation, revealing the universality of spirit alienation and loss self, fighting evil and depravity in human nature, providing ultimate human beliefs and concerns, feeling absolute freedom of spirit in transcending reality, looking for new artistic feeling and spiritual depth. All of these constitute the basic features of modernism. However, after World War II, economic recovery brought a prosperous and peaceful world scene. The pursuit of pleasure and comfort meant that everyone no longer hated and resisted society. The people had already no firm beliefs and objectives, and the collective desire for freedom caused rapid disintegration of the social center values. The authors portrayed new heroes: they lived a mediocre life and had no heroic spirit except that they would never rise to the bait. The authors hoped to restore the normal function of literary language and show the crudeness and incompleteness of literary language. They wanted a kind of literature which could express precisely the status of people in this changeable world. In that world, everyone could freely deal with all experiences.4 There are many various interpretations for the induction of the characteristics of postmodernism. However, generally speaking, the following characteristics contained in it are not fallacious: (1) an overall outlook on the world and deconstruction of the center objecting to the pluralistic ; (2) an outlook on humanity of the dissolution of history and humanity; (3) use of text discourse theory to replace the ontology of the world (survival); (4) a value position objecting to (elite) culture and its trend of population (plebification or commonality); (5) an art attitude that plays

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paste-up game and pursues the pleasure of writing (this article); (6 ) an aesthetic effect that blindly pursues irony and black humor; (7) in the means of artistic expression, pursuit of the slotting method, discontinuity, abuse of metaphor and confusion between fact and fiction; (8) “mechanical reproduction” or “cultural industry” as the means of its historical existence and historical practice.5 In China, the environment of reform and opening up not only enabled Chinese writers to have the opportunity to further learn the spiritual connotations of foreign culture, but also the development of real life also provided the condition for and possibility of the gestation and growth of modernism. On September 12, 1985 Frederick Jameson, a famous Western scholar of Marxism from the US, gave a lecture on contemporary American culture trends in Peking University. A large audience attended the lecture. After it was published in the country the next year, his lecture entitled Postmodernism and Culture Theory immediately caused a response and became a hot topic. The influence of this foreign culture cannot be underestimated. Jameson became a theory master of postmodernism theory. He is the real teacher of domestic young critics of postmodernism. More importantly, the environment of reform and opening up significantly changed the social value concepts, and people’s inner concerns and ways of behavior. Although the rise of the “citizen class” does not constitute a political force, it does get involved in the whole society in a powerful participatory way and even changed the orientation and way of social daily life in some respects. The increasing diversity of mass entertainment venues and popular culture has constituted the core trend of China’s urban culture. In any city there is almost every consumption culture that one desires. All these quickly filled the spiritual vacancy of the people after the disintegration of social center values in the late 1980s, and it would certainly change the way that the people experienced the modern life. These are the cultural and realistic reasons why postmodernism can be accepted by contemporary China. Production and development of the cultural trend of postmodernism in China had its cultural and realistic rationality. It played a role that cannot be ignored in deconstruction with limited center discourse and diversified form. However, the shattering of the authority of the centre discourse myth was probably based on reasons other than culture, and the spiritual crisis of the intellectuals was reflected in and responded very well to the culture of postmodernism. After the late 1980s, the main body discourse established by the intellectual elites was rejected and ignored by the masses. The marginalization of intellectual elites was increased day upon day. They were thoroughly marginalized not only politically but also economically and culturally. As

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an intellectual it was difficult to find their own position in society, and their intervention in social life became almost impossible. All these were an inevitable result of the disintegration of uniform social values. In such a cultural situation, the culture of postmodernism used the opportunity to reach its goal. It not only completely avoided the discussion of loneliness, pain, human nature, and love found in modernist texts but also completely avoided exploration and questioning of ultimate values and concerns. Idealism was completely “ended” in postmodernism. It completely implemented another set of culture strategies: as an outsider to ideology, its signans thoroughly got rid of the stipulations of an agreement and referred in the predetermination to becoming easy and free. In any text form of postmodernism, all denotations refused to be present or had no return date in the infinite delays, which was “dissolution of content”. The commitments that they provided were only endless operations and carnivals of entertainment, easiness, absurdness, black humor and other signans, and it was always in a “zero of spirit”. However, the question is: whether people can remain indifferent and have no expectations of the ultimate concern, value position and new humanistic spirit for ever, although postmodernism reached a contract relationship with society it was unnecessary to sign. How to address the question of people’s spiritual home and destination after interests, money, material desire and personal care are entirely satisfied? All these were obviously outside postmodernism but issues non–postmodernism had to address. When deconstructionism announced that deconstruction of the center still needed 300 years, although people were full of respect for the ambitions of deconstructionism they also doubted it because it avoided construction of a new cultural spirit.

Penetration and Spread: from the Margin to the Center In Chi Li’s novel No Matter it is Cold or Hot, it is Good to be Alive , there is an allegorical symbolic scene when he meets a youth named Maozi. An author named Si plans to tell him his conception of a work that he is going to write. Si is confident that his story can move Maozi to tears. The result is that the scene imagined by Si does not appear but on the contrary, Maozi falls asleep and Si lowers his voice to finish the story. This allegorical scene mercilessly mocks the enlightenment-style literature, reveals the plight of writing that tries to make an ultimate interpretation and foretells the crisis of the “people’s literature” myth in the new era. The possibility that an author is involved in life through the identity of saver is getting weaker and weaker. Some so-called authors of postmodernism have given up concern with

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ultimate values and the in-depth mode of writing. A series of Ma Yuan’s works all dissolve the in-depth significance of the “narrative trap” and the universality and symbolic nature of human, especially that agreed by intellectuals by signatum, and writing becomes a ceremony of words without boundary and purpose. Due to the oppression of description, his stories are also very indistinct. The younger writers after Ma Yuan, such as Yu Hua, Su Tong and Ge Fei, learned some lessons from Ma Yuan and thus they go further. In the texts of Ma Yuan, the man of the Han nationality named Ma Yuan always appears. For Ma Yuan, these stories accordingly have the nature of “personal experience”, and it also implies more or less that these “fictions” are real potential ideas. However, Su Tong and Yu Hua “have a habit of telling a lie” without disguise. Escape in 1934, Wives and Concubines, Classical Love, Bloody Plum Flower and other old stories such as historical anecdotes, family histories of decadence, love and hatred, or martial arts copies, obviously have no relationship with the life experiences of their authors. There is no way to include them in an ordinary historical context in order to interpret them. They have no other significance except for the stories themselves, and the main signans of the stories are sex and violence. Until the new era, sex and violence had never been written about as fully as by these young writers. They used novel forms and bold language to disclose the most private life and temptations of mankind, and endowed them with humanistic significance as well. As well as the writings of pioneer writers such as Yu Hua, Su Tong, Ge Fei, Sun Ganlu, Beicun and Ye Zhaoyan which reflect distinct postmodernism, Wang Meng’s Thrilling, One Sneeze Has a Thousand of Charming, Soccer Star and other works also show the phenomenon of language “out of control”. In the stumble where signans and signatum lose their connection, Wang Meng’s descriptions enter the absurd so they also have a great experimental nature. In the poetry circles, to “live like a citizen, and think like God” has become a slogan of many “post-jugendstil” poets. Free identity and self recognition dispersed the original “divinity” of poetry. Oral, trivial and vulgar languages are found everywhere. Poets are no longer prophet or priest, and all mystery veils vanished in the laughter or ridicule. This is a rough description of the penetration and spread of the post-modern landscape in literature. The phenomenon obviously exists. Although at first it appeared in some serious publications, it was still in a marginal position and was little known by society outside literary circles. Even in literature circles, discussions on and indifference to it co-existed. However, no one expected that mass and popular civilian literature would quickly occupy the central cultural position. The elite literature and its composers withdrew from the center to the margins. Culture makers replaced the former elite class and controlled

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the lifeblood of popular culture. In various media, the illusion culture with postmodernism was already found everywhere: luxurious holiday tours, warm and attractive fashion shows, colorful karaoke halls, magnificent song and dance evenings and a variety of pop arts were inescapable but attractive. It is everywhere in life, but seems to be completely unrelated to you. Especially at night, bright neon advertisements made every city seem to have a high fever. The prosperous scenes of the “post-industrial society” made people seem to be in the heaven, and it seemed that every desire could be satisfied. In such a citizen society, mass arts were like more flowers in the brocade. Wang Shuo became a new culture hero. He entered the life of many households together with Zhao Benshan, Pan Changjiang, Gong Hanlin, Feng Xiaogang and others. Stories from the Editorial Board, Love You Without Reasons, Deep Love, Hippocampus Song and Dance Hall, Kyoto Chronicle and other indoor plays became a symbol of culture and classics in the 1990s. Mass art neither cares about your mental anxiety nor addresses your problems of survival. Its culture consumption nature takes you to a world of illusion, and its re-coding of the world and order is only to please and delight of your sense organs. However, all these appear as a “simulation” effect. For example, the above-mentioned indoor plays and all kinds of soft advertisements, daily life scenes, dialogue of ordinary people and other things seem to happen beside you. Once these trivia of ordinary people were arranged by scenarists and directors, audiences would obtain novel and happy experiences and impressions. The postmodernist nature of mass literature and art was already fully prepared at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. The introduction of Hong Kong and Taiwan movies and TV plays, the re-publication of Qiongyao and Xi Murong’s works, and the rapidly growing popularity of Wang Guozhen and Desire all showed that a cultural era of transformation was coming. Radical resistance, painful description and solemn sermons could hardly meet as bosom friends. The tide of commercialization suddenly pushed people to the final frontier of money, ultimate concerns were already replaced by close interests, short-term behavior replaced long-term planning of efforts, and “to do things in a way that makes you happy” was popular among young people for a time. This piece of the urban “post-industrial society” picture was drawn by the “pioneer” artists and producers of mass culture. Needless to say, in our daily life, the abovementioned cultural landscape was piled everywhere. The works of pioneers in the movie circles, known as the “fifth-generation” directors, had more and more connotations of postmodernism, which did not just mean that they were full of passion and interest for the adaptation of the pioneer novels, but equally importantly the movies after their adaptations reflected similar cultural attitudes.

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The Dejected Withdrawal of “Postmodernism” There is no doubt that postmodernism is a named behavior. The problem is that while postmodernism was being constantly interpreted and enriched in theories, the questioning and refuting of postmodernism had already begun. Eagleton, Habermas and Lodwick are representative figures of this. Eagleton held that postmodernism’s dissolution of the center and preference for uncertainty led to its final banishment of the ultimate value. However, it was still not the pure game and it was still an ideology in its appearance of negation. He pointed out that in modern society, ideology usually suppressed people’s way of thinking and conduct via the network of mass culture. That kind of mass culture of vulgarization filled the bitter souls of contemporary people with secular sweet and fat interest and charms. It did not leave room for self-examination by people and resulted in the fact that joining in the fun on occasions of luxury and dissipation was regarded as real life itself by people. Thus it concealed the nature of its power with “open lies”, and used the promise of happiness to collapse people’s ability to criticism and negate, and to reduce people’s impulse for self-examination.6 Habermas held that “postmodern nature” did not exist. The irresponsible young implemented modernism under the banner of postmodernism. They were hostile to rationality, subjectivity and totality, and abandoned the unfinished modernist cause. If the modern nature was really replaced by a postmodern nature, this was equal to collapsing overall life into fragmented independent specialized disciplines and entrusting them to be dealt with by an “expert” specializing in one discipline. A complete individual also suffered a split of the soul in the face of collapse of the whole world, thus experiencing the “dissolution of lofty sense” and dissolution of “structure form”. What this consequence brought was not a kind of liberation, but an extremely tired and bored state of mind.7 Lodwick made a thorough negation of postmodernism with a more severe attitude. He pointed out that postmodernism was obsessed with lowliness of feeling and spirit, and it was on the same plane with the life principle in blocking superiority of life; after excluding all value beliefs and dissolving spiritual utopia, it disassembled the human art conscience and spiritual orientation. Thus it started unrestrained carnival celebrations of blasphemy and dissection. What made Lodwick angrier was that postmodern literature was bound to “begin with embarrassingly involved individuals and end with shamelessly showing off skills. It even can be said to develop from the suicide of narrators to damage to narrative literature because several postmodern writers

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eventually destroyed themselves, and most of the postmodernist literature regarded the destruction of the criteria of narrative literature as a pleasure”8. Chinese researchers also have different opinions on postmodernism. Chen Xiaoming and other critics not only announced the arrival of postmodernism in China with pleasure, they also published a large number of critical interpretations of the position of postmodernism and made great adjustments to critical discourses, which had a great impact in critical and literature circles. However, Wang Ning held the opinion that the belief that postmodernist literature had also appeared in China was actually proved incorrect by practice. He denied the possibility of the emergence of a postmodernist literature movement in China. His reasons were as follows: China, which only had the works of modernist writers, lacked the soil to germinate postmodernism. The introduction of different cultures would inevitably be filtered and screened by the national culture. The collision and blend of two culture factors could only produce a third, a variant of them.9 Wang Yuechuan expressed great concern about the degree to which the postmodernist trend had swept across the whole field of culture, and the fact that the human realm of spirit being soaked in nihilism everywhere resulted in increasingly intensified conflict between trueness and falseness on the stage of human thoughts in the 20th century. The pursuit by mankind for truth, goodness and justice were continuously dissolved by language, and the value of life and significance of the world were extinguished in the control of discourse.10 In addition, some researchers have pointed out that postmodernism was a part of the neo-conservatism of Chinese culture at the turn of the century. The characteristics of neo-conservatism of culture are: firstly, it abandons the radical critical spirit and implements moderate and stable discourse practices; secondly, it abandons concern for the common position and changes to concern for the individual situation; thirdly, it abandons the pursuit and provision of ultimate values, goals and beliefs, and addresses itself to the resolution of specific and local problems. Postmodernist literature completely reflects the cultural spirit of neo-conservatism. Professor Xie Mian pointed out: “postmodern writers often show a preference for selective techniques. They are happy to highlight things that do not appeal to refined taste and refuse to believe that elegant forms can bring consolation. Postmodernist authors look for new means of expression. Their purpose is not to seek the pleasure that these means can create, but to give inelegant things strong meanings. Many postmodernists have noted that as a specific cultural phenomenon, postmodernism can only be produced in a region with a highly developed capitalist material civilization and fully developed modernist culture. China is obviously not such a region, but the opening up of

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China to the world, communications with the Western world and the rapidness of information communications together with an experimental consciousness brought by the awakening of the consciousness of the main body of Chinese writers makes some penetration and practices of postmodernism become possible.”11 Postmodernism deconstructs everything, but loses no time in establishing its own unified opinion and does not allow others to offend this myth. Their awareness of establishing their hegemonic discourse shows between the lines and they will not conceal their compromise and follow reality. Young critics criticized this abnormal state of mind. He Yi pointed out: “Some ideas advocated by the postmodernists of China, for example, removing depth and pursuing instant pleasure, usually hide the unspoken words that they hope to reach a compromise with the evil in reality, advocating giving up the spiritual dimension and historical awareness imply their requirements for buck-passing and self-forgiveness, and promoting diversification also deviated from the original intention of emphasizing rebellion and innovation, and descended completely to recognition for hypocrisy and ugliness and tolerate mediocrity and corruption. It is sad that these ideas were not just for cultural interpretation and assessment, but also grew into an attitude towards life imbued with a nationwide crafty and cunning social atmosphere”. 12 Therefore, the deconstruction advocated by postmodernism only touches the surface of life, and its “deconstruction” commitment is only “empty words”. In the 1990s, on the one hand postmodernism walked onto the stage of history as a fashionable theory, on the other hand, it was everywhere as a force advocating and preaching social fashion and happily danced in the wonders of its imagination. In the face of this, Scholar Kang Xinnian could not help asking: “Where did postmodernism come from? How did it come? Postmodernism established the legitimacy of its knowledge and position of current hegemony through the strategy of “questioning modern nature”. Postmodernists brought didacticism to the dock of history as a ‘knowledge power’ to be debunked, and Western hackneyed and stereotyped expressions. Postmodernism established the myth of “postmodernism” through the thoroughly refuted disclosure of the modernist nature of didacticism. However, the arrival of postmodernism was only a characterization of the time and Western worship in the late 1980s. Postmodernism replaced didacticism simply by the time myth of modernism, used ‘pass’, ‘overthrow’, ‘surpass’ and other verbs, and the ‘post-new era’ was only a “future” which was constantly announced, constantly imagined and constantly fabricated by postmodernism after 1989.13 Postmodernism’s false promises and ideas which could not be achieved for a

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long time became a myth in the real historical science of contemporary China. In 1995, in the discussion of the humanistic spirit, it first became an object of study by intellectuals in the humanities. The postmodernists’ defense that words fail to express meaning, and its limited discourse and knowledge resources, increasingly exposed its weaknesses. Subsequently some postmodernists could only make a living like basket stars Rodman and Barkley, movie star Madonna and third-rate singers in China by creating disturbances. In fact, this was just a silent signal of the dejected withdrawal of postmodernism from China.

The Promise of the Culture of Illusion Illusion culture is a characterization of commercial society. It brings people an unreal world in a fictional manner, thus inducing people’s desire for possessions and tendency to follow. The “postmodern” prospects described by postmodernists with great relish are all contents of illusion culture: gaudy fashionable dresses, exaggerated advertisements, false information about “acquiring wealth”, a wide variety of indoor plays, stately resorts, grand prize contests with undeserving winners, sensational and exciting poor quality popular novels…These numerous and jumbled signans not related to signatum give “sincere” promises everywhere containing the illusion of non-reality. Especially at night, colorful neon lights constitute a world of advertisements and it seems that every big city has a high fever. As a characterization of commercial society, advertising is just as described by Daniel Bell: “If there are no light signs, what can be the sign of a big city? When passing over an urban area by air, people can see patches of colorful light advertisements blinking in the background of night like glittering jewels. In the center areas of metropolises such as Times Square, Piccadilly, Champs Elysees and Ginza, people gather under glittering neon light advertisements, enter into the bustling stream of people and share the vitality of metropolis. If the social influences of advertising techniques are considered, their most direct role which is ignored most easily is to reconstruct the look of a city center. When a city is reconstructed, for instance, replacing an old church, city hall or palace tower, an ad impresses its “brand” on the facade. It is a mark of goods, and the new lifestyle shows advance notice of outlook on value. As a popular practice, advertising techniques highlight the attractive charm of goods.” 14 The function of illusion culture is to change people’s concepts of value, way of life and life concerns. However, the promise of illusion culture is false. For most people, all are only hopeless dreams. Both the three-dimensional media and the print media realize a lawful “deception”

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in complicity, which is that the world already has very rich and plentiful goods and happiness is everywhere. As long as you have the ability, all can be yours. Therefore, the media have constructed a new ideology i.e. an ideology characterized by consumption in a neutral manner. The role of television in particular cannot be ignored.

The Ideology of Television In real life, all our spare time is almost filled with television. No matter if it is day or night, it exists everywhere. It becomes our main form of entertainment and time consumer and our important information source. It even replaces or controls our thinking. Its variegated colors and plots of plays alternating between joy and grief control us like an invisible hand, making everyone in love with it and unable to stop watching. The people are besiege by or trapped in the entanglement of television. In this way, television has become a new myth. It is both like a fine showcase, which shows all the wonders in the world, and like a never-ending theater, where ancient and modern classics and poor quality works rush at you at the same time. Television has changed our daily lives in a complete new manner: the earth has become smaller, the stars have become closer, the characters and styles of foreign countries and our own past are clearly visible, but we ourselves are gone. Television makes its audiences consume and lose themselves. It has become a new ideology, which changes and re-shapes us in a non-mandatory manner; as a force of culture, it tempts you with its tirelessness and charm, making it hard to resist and impossible to refuse. Day after day, we are willingly and mercilessly devoured by TV. Numerous beauties, underworld and righteous outlaws, murder, terror or justice simultaneously impose suggestions on us. We watch devotedly and consciously walk towards the “peaceful evolution” of television. No one forces us to watch TV, no one specifies our channels, remote controllers are in our own hands and we can change what is on the screen, so it seems to make us miss freedom and autonomy. However, matter if it is sincere laughter or painful sadness, no matter it is an advertisement to induce consumption or an enthralling soap plot, the source mobilizing the emotions of audiences is what is on the screen. The television indoors appeals us to follow it with mobile scenes. Not only do we not control television, on the contrary, we are controlled by television without reason. Thus our thoughts and concerns tend to center on television. Television has become the biggest myth in this era and the force of culture with most control over and influence on society. It is a huge “dream factory”. We are its “fans” and share the dreams produced by it. Then, although it is very questionable how much all this is associated with our

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reality, its incomparable charm makes us unable to stop watching it. Among its offerings, advertisements are a huge temptation full of “traps”.

Advertisements and Illusion If we live in a city, advertisements become a part of our lives. They are almost everywhere and filled the space around us. They look at our front and back like countless hunters so that we have no place to hide and are unable to escape. They patiently wait for us. Over a long period of time, we become used to the siege by advertisements as well as the temptations and calls sent out to us by advertisements. If not, we can only escape from the city and live in a remote place. However, can people like us, who are used to the hustle and bustle of a city, really stand to be without the temptation and interference of advertisements? Can we really endure loneliness and solitude similar to being abandoned? Obviously, advertisements are changing us with their persistence and determination. Whether we like it or not, advertisements have pervasively penetrated our lives and even feelings. Advertisements have become a symbol of modern cities. Especially at night, colorful neon lights form a world of advertisements, and it seems that every city has a high fever and has aggressive and brilliant flickering lights. When we go home, the programs we watch always include advertisements whenever we turn on the television. Especially in prime time, all important programs are followed by all kinds of advertisements. Even when a tail leader is not finished, an ad impatiently rushes toward the screen. Not only do we frequently watch all kinds of commodities, but also big stars accompany such commodities. They are pretty, or casual and elegant or have an unusual demeanor. We are led into another world by stars many times, a world full of material desires and imagination, in which Li Dongbao forgets Geling because of Chundu ham sausage, and Huang Zongluo is rejuvenated because of Fengexin; we also know that Ma Ji drinks Zhanggong, and Wang Ji drinks Kongfu… Therefore, advertisements are not just a kind of commodity publicity and a kind of shopping guide any longer, they are also a kind of fashion and it gives us satisfaction when we share the same liquor and wear dresses of the same brands with stars. In the illusion we share the same life with the stars. They are around us and when we drink, it seems as if the stars are frequently nodding and drink with us… Advertisements influence our consumption in such an illusory manner. They force us to surrender with their very warm and soft attitudes. This is an ideology of the commodity era. Its ubiquity has silently told us that the dominant force in this era is in this pair of invisible hands, and “money is

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everything” is clearly written behind it! Without money, their enchanting smiles will certainly change to dismissive contempt regardless of wine in the hands of beautiful women or suits worn by golden boys. No matter who you are, the only scale that they measure you by is money. Therefore, advertisements have become a new ideology. It induces your imagination in an illusory manner. No matter whether this imagination has a hope, it forces all the people to first have an expectation. Those commodities exaggerated by advertisements patiently wait for you, and they gently and gracefully display this era in a neutral attitude. Although you do not visit them for a long time and you have full self-suggestion and ignore them, they still indomitably shoot the center of your heart in the spirit of professional shooters. They preserve and firmly believe that your succumbing is only a question of time. Advertisements often take effect unexpectedly. No matter how strong our nerves are, when we step into a self-service shopping mall what is controlling our shopping desires are advertisements that we have watched thousands of times. At that time, the advertisers who have racked their brains and the golden boys and jade girls certainly hug ecstatically. The purpose of an ad is to induce and praise. It never criticizes and examines. It never has a conscience even in the case of very bad commodities. Arrogance, conceit and incomparability are their unspoken words. In order to win the market, they invest heavily in the media and force you into submission by widespread bombing. Gradually, people become used to praise, submission and not having other concerns resulting from the lure of materials. Advertisements have never cared for the anxieties of any person or the spiritual and survival situation of any person. Under the cover of their false appearances, the world is sunny and bright. Therefore, in their form and orientation there is nothing which is more ulterior and provident. Advertisements are muddle-headed and only for money, like a soulless white-collar worker without a position. Therefore, they not only dissolve people’s resistance against desire for consumption, but also fearlessly dissolve all other ideologies. From this perspective, advertisements play a role in dissolving tension and deconstructing hegemony. No matter it whether the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Gulf War, the Chechnya crisis or the Iraq War, these major international issues made people feel very depressed and anxious; issues including environmental pollution, soaring unemployment, shortage of resources or natural disasters, which threaten human survival and quality of life, often make it hard for people to fall asleep at night because of fear. However, as soon as these scenes disappear and while people still anxious, Avanti carrying his Aiding digestion tablets, Gong Li carrying her Kenwood,

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Liu Xiaoqing in the dress of the Tang Dynasty and Li Ning dancing to Thomas Flare appear in front of us, and we are brought back to material consumption desires by the stars once again… We will no longer be depressed and have no anxiety and worry. The advertisements have warmly comforted us once again. We fall asleep at night as if we had taken opium sent by TV.

The Media and the Star An era with highly developed media is an era of the star. Different characteristics and types of stars enable them to meet audiences’ imagination and fantasies in a flexible manner, giving stars have dual attributes of “god” and “human”. The innocence of Norico Sakai, nuttiness of Fei Xiang, vigor of Xie Xiaodong, sex appeal of Gong Li, skill of Giovanni, hardness of Tyson make them invincible magic tools to attract awareness in media. Stars are known to every family through “packaging” and seeding by the media, becoming “acquaintances” close to daily life. Thus each star has his or her relatively stable fan base. People can not only can watch stars’ move, talk and costume on the screen, but also can put their huge posters or huge pictures by a bedside or in a room to decorate the room or express their interests. Meanwhile, stars also bring the media viewers of different levels at different times. When outmoded stars have not yet finally withered, new stars have already been in the process of “manufacturing” and “packaging” by the media, In this era, no relationship is closer than the relationship between stars and the masses. Once a star is familiar to the masses via the media, not only are his or her achievements and success of interest, but also their marriage, love life, scandal and even daily life are “deeply cared about”. This cannot just be understood as the vulgar taste of the masses. In addition to this superficial reason, a “more fundamental reason is that the masses have found freedom beyond mass level in these phenomena. A star is pearlescent. In the view of the masses, such radiance is just the reflection of the light of freedom in utopia and it is an appeal and call to the masses. Since a star is created by the masses, such a call is not remote and empty like the voice of a god. On the contrary, it is real and can be grasped. The charm of stars is that they are a secular myth: Everyone has the chance to become a star through their own efforts. The masses identify themselves with stars, regard stars as guidance to utopia and take the faint light reflected from stars as a support of life, so the autobiographies of stars become contemporary Bibles and the most popular cultural products”15. Therefore, the freedom of stars is a deeper reason attracting the masses because stars can go to heaven and earth. Once he became successful Jordan, a poor boy from a slum in the US, did not only not need to worry about

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survival any longer but also became a model of the American dream. He can retire if he wants, and he can come back if he wants; although Johnson is a HIV carrier, his farewell ceremony was still exciting and no one challenged him about how many women he has had sexual relationship with. In the crowd, there were only regret for his leaving and deep respect for this elusive “magician”. Star and hero became the same word. Because he is the backboard king in the US the brutality and repeated trouble-makings of Rodman, with his strange hair and tattoos all over his body, are forgiven for his skills in playing basketball. The world of the stars contains every strange thing. They meet the masses’ interest in marvelous spectacles and strange things and the masses’ desire for and imagination of freedom. In the package dispersed everywhere by the media, stars become a lingering daydream of the masses. A high school student fell in madly love with Noriko Sakai after seeing her on a poster. When this Japanese female singer who was fashionable for a time came to Shanghai to participate in the Asian singers’ concert, this high school student rode a bike to follow her to the hotel where she was staying. He ran to her and excitedly said: “Hello, Noriko Sakai. I am your loyal fan. It is nice to meet you”. Then he stretched out his hand. Although this Japanese lady did not understand what he said, she shook hands with him with a smile and said “Thank you” in Mandarin. A vague “thank you”, a smile and a shaking of hands made this high school student very happy. Warmth was still left in his hand, and that brilliant and attractive smiling face was still in his mind. He began to collect all the tapes of this singer, and wanted to study Japanese for the purpose of writing to her to pursue her. He asked about her address, liked all the things from her country and turned a deaf ear to discouragement from all parties. When his father said that singers are packaged out by businessmen, he thought that his father insulted her; when a reporter said that the image of a singer is a project of the song industry, he did not agree. He firmly believed that he could find Noriko Sakai’s address and that he must marry her.16 This is the charm of a star. It may resist good advice from all parties. The “innocent” image of Noriko Sakai injected a breath of fresh air into this materialistic era. However, she is “released” as a heartthrob. She can only meet the imagination and is difficult to resort to “objectification” in reality. This honest young man mistakenly believed it and tried to exchange for the dream for reality by using the same “innocence”. It is enough to prove the force of domination of the star in the real world. Stars do not exist only in the entertainment circles and sports circles. In various fields such as politics, economics and culture there are stars of different forms and levels packaged out by the media. Before becoming the first Chief

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Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Dong Jianhua was barely known to people. He only engaged in activities in the commercial field with skill and ease like many wealthy people. However, when he became the first Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, marking the resumption of Chinese rule in Hong Kong and the end of the over 100 year colonial rule of the UK, he became a dazzling political star. Dong Jianhua Family began to be published in installments in newspapers, and Boat King Dong Jianhua was sold in Xinhua bookstores and street bookstalls; his large graceful photo with a confident and smiling face was published on the cover of Chinese People ; his career, family and conduct became subjects the content that the media was keen to report on. On the one hand, this was needed for publicity, but it cannot be denied that the media used this hot point to magnify some aspects so as to meet the curiosity of people about a successful figure. Moreover, rich and powerful businessmen in the business circles are an especially hot focus of the media. From the Ferrari of Li Xiaohua, a proud son of a generation with assets of RMB 1.20 billion to the marriage and love history of Liu Xiaoqing, a star businesswoman, the media has carried detailed full coverage. However, in the writing of some unscrupulous third-rate authors, irresponsible fabrications can be found in such re-narrations. A young woman developed from a nun to a billionaire. On the way to collect pious alms, she created “another round of another round of brilliance in her life”. Her name is Jin Najiao. The introduction in a magazine to her is as follows: “From a nun to a master and from poverty to wealth, the experience of Jin Najiao has too many legends. There are many unbearable tribulations in our lives. When she led her Dragon Clothes and Pheonix Dresses Group Corporation towards the world and the future, the past humiliation and tears are indeed a sum of money. Today’s Jin Najiao is wealthy, attractive and energetic. The annual output value of her group corporation increases at a speed of more than RMB 10 million. Her tomorrow is like a colorful rainbow.” Although such narration an air of superficiality and bombast it can only be said that it is not high grade. However, the following description very clearly exposes the relationship between media and star. One day, Najiao arrived at the territory of Fuzhou. At that time, it was cloudy and was going to rain. She had a break and ate her meal in a Xuande Burner. Two men in suits were already in the pavilion. One of them looked ugly and ferocious and the other one had a knife scar on his face. When she saw them, Najiao already guessed 80%–90% of their identity, so she kept an eye on them.

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“Little nun, you are tired on the way. Eat an orange to quench your thirst”. The man who looked ugly and ferocious walked up to her and took out two oranges and gave them to her. “Very good. Thank you a lot”. She put the oranges into her alms bag, and continued her meal. When seeing the three Chinese characters “Xuande Burner”, the knife scar face knew it was a precious relic. He looked grim. “Give that incense burner to me!” As he was speaking, a flick knife was stabbed towards the chest of Najiao. She blocked it with the incense burner and a length of the knife tip was immediately broken off. The man who looked ugly and ferocious tried to punch Najiao from one side and Najiao pricked his fist with her chopsticks. The chopsticks went through the fingers like nails and into the flesh of the man, then blood spurted out. Najiao did not want to struggle with the gangsters any more, so she used her flying skill to fly out of the pavilion and continued to walk. The two gangsters chased her. Najiao turned around and shot the rice in the burner out. The rice hit the eye of one gangster like an iron ball; Najiao immediately threw the two oranges at the face of the other man. Because she used magic power, the oranges were like stones. The gangster’s nose was bloodied. Then Najiao steadily walked away.17

To highlight the legendary life experiences of Jin Najiao, the author used the writing method used for martial arts novels. This supplement magazine named Heroines in the Industrial and Commercial Circles — Ten Female Millionaires in China more fictitious than “realistic writing”. These female millionaires have legendary experiences, and in these fabrications such experiences are described more intensely. In the media field, stars are a myth of the era. The assessment of Liu Xiaoqing at that time by the same magazine was as follows: “As a famous woman: she is known by everyone in Mainland China, she is well-known in praise and grows up in criticism; as a rich woman, she is a successful entrepreneur, owning 16 companies worth RMB 100 million. The Xiaoqing brand of cosmetics is sold in major cities all over China; as a movie queen: she won the Golden Rooster Award and the Hundred Flowers Award six times. Although she retired from the movies for 5 years her skills were still very good and Wu Zetian swept the board at home and abroad once again”. It seems as if this world was ready for stars. They achieve whatever they want and have freedom and development possibilities which not everyone can have. The media tries its best to magnify

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and highlight their success. For the masses, such success is limited to their imagination. Therefore, the media and the stars jointly promise illusions to the masses. In his analysis of the star phenomenon, Scholar Chen Gang indicated: The creation and production of stars are completed by the culture industry. The culture industry has rooted the images and deeds of stars deeply in the hearts of people by means of the huge influence exerted by the mass media. The process of creating a god was usually completed by painstaking missions and preaching by believers in preindustrial society. The commodity nature and image nature of the contemporary culture industry means that its products inevitably become commercial, and there is no exception for stars. When a star’s personal secrets and appearance are sold in the culture industry as a part of product image, the star is thoroughly visualized and, of course, also thoroughly commercialized. Or in other words, in the culture market a star is not a human being, but is a pure image with no content. The reason why a star can become a star is just because everything about them can be materialized as a commodity. The more fully a star is materialized, the more crystal clear the image of the star will be and the higher their popularity. The most influential star is actually the most perfect commodity. Therefore, the freedom of a star is freedom as a commodity.18

The media makes a star success, but the star has to pay the price of “dehumanization”. However, the media and stars use colorful distractions to cover this up.

The Media and the Intellectual Elite Criticism of the secular society is the consistent tradition of the elite class. The wide-spread functions and commercialized purpose of the mass media are a dilemma for the elite class. It has admired its wide coverage for a long time and tries to reconstruct the media through the discourse and thinking of the elites so as to further spread cultural enlightenment and improve the cultural character of the media. At the same time, it also has worries about being trapped by it and is on the alert for erosion by the media. This is accord with the character of intellectuals, and is exactly how they treat the contradictions between out and in, advance and back off. The attitude of waiting and seeing always makes it difficult for this class to resort to social movements in the short term. However,

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there are some people who take the initiative. They actively participate in the planning of television programs, act as guests on shows, give lectures, work as guest hosts, start columns for newspapers and so on. The reading programs, literature and art evenings, and melodramas on television stations and the essays of scholars in newspapers etc. are especially developed and prevalent in the current era, which has a direct connection with the enthusiastic participation of scholars. Even so, the relationship between intellectuals and the mass media is still a topic of discussion in these circles. The intellectuals with a more resolute attitude not only do not participate in the mass media; they also refuse to understand and pay attention to it. "An intellectual should have the determination and perseverance to stop watching TV like stopping smoking. Using it for recreation will make people become superficial and complaining after time. Because the color of life is far from the colors shown on TV, you will be impatient and get angry when you turn around to look at life. Quick TV scenes together with the stimulation of light will make you unable to think well while watching. You will eventually give up thoughts. …A mind which has not been nourished by masterpieces is mostly a rough mind, so it can not be used to change the world. If it is used it will do harm to the world. Sometimes you find that life is a mess mainly because the minds that have not read the masterpieces are used. Such minds generally are suspect and unreliable.”19 This statement not only directly expresses disdain and distrust towards the mass media, but also implies strong resistance to it. When it is addressed to undergraduates, it is not only a choice of personal attitude but also an appeal to preserve the elite class. This is a typical position of the traditional elite. What is similar to but slightly different from it is analysis of the need to be alert to the media. Bao Yaming held: Intellectuals can also carry out simple reproduction of cultural capital with the help of media-like stars, best-selling authors and other culture producers. Besides amplification, dissemination and valueadded prestige, the cultural capital gains also bring high productivity to intellectuals’ structure of social relations. Intellectuals become famous owing to the burble of the media. Because they are famous, they are worth knowing. It is not necessary for them to “know” all the “acquaintances” because the people who know them are more than the people known by them. The media has undoubtedly become an arena of social exchange activities for intellectuals. Therefore, the media also has the function of alchemy. It can bring personal

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“benefits” to intellectuals. However, if there is any carelessness, intellectuals will become accomplices in this alchemy. The affinity in blood between intellectuals and media practitioners is worth noting. Teacher and student, classmates, friends and other social relationships are conductive to a relaxed social atmosphere and convenient for communication and exchange of information resources. Such blood affinity also means that they can share some value concepts at different levels, including respect for culture and the pursuit of transformation from cultural capital to economic interests etc. It ultimately results in simplicity of cooperation between both parties. Because they are familiar with the rules of the game, they readily take the hint without too many words. Such an intervention with low risk and high efficiency is especially seductive to intellectuals. Meanwhile such an individual intervention relationship also endows intellectuals with unique rights to benefits. On the one hand, due to the intervention relationship, academic titles, academic reputations and other cultural capital is transmitted and value-added. On the other hand, in the transmission process, the norms of academic circles are obstructed. Thus all kinds of anecdotes, boasts, conjectures and misrepresentations about cultural capital are both unnecessary and cannot be appraised and identified. They are not only unimpeded, but also add color to the media. While these cultural capitals are spreading rapidly, expanding and valueadded, in turn they win some authority for the media. Sometimes such authority only develops through negative appeals from intellectuals, and this is also a reproduction mechanism of media alchemy.20

This analysis of Bao Yaming cannot be said not to make sense. It focuses on the purity of the pure academic standpoint and the spiritual production of cultural elites and sounds an alert to and criticism of the soft approaches and temptations of the media. He reaches a consensus with scholars from the Frankfurt school. Zhou Guoping also held: if you are always in the limelight, it is difficult to do research. Furthermore if you consider acceptance by society very important, you will be involuntarily influenced by the whole acceptance attitude of society.21 Intellectuals’ intervention in the mass media has not just started. Intellectuals have always participated in both the hardware and the software of the media, including leading academic elites. Xu Youyu has indicated in an article that the media had full and effective cooperation with Bertrand Arthur William Russell, an academic giant that only a few people can compare with in mathematics, logic and philosophy. He accepted interviews and gave speeches on radio

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and television, and what he did most was to write articles for newspapers and journals. There were probably thousands of such articles, ranging in topic from marriage, family and education to disease, clothes, ornaments and food, including nearly every subject. It was said that Principia Mathematica coauthored by Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead can probably only be understood some dozens of people, but his commentaries, political commentaries and short essays are well-known and have numerous enthusiastic and eager readers. Therefore, Xu Youyu raised an appeal to learn from Russell. However, this does not completely mean that Xu Youyu supports and agrees with scholars’ intervention in the mass media unconditionally. He also pointed out: the mass media provides intellectuals with a new and vast stage, which is both an opportunity but also full of traps. It seems that it is easier to be in the limelight and obtain fame and profits than to painstakingly do research, which makes some people stop half way in their own special fields of study. The media spares no efforts to enable literati and scholars to obtain audiences, readers and admirers, and once he becomes celebrity by media an intellectual can easily lose himself, leading to a false sense of personal expansion.22 Therefore, in the author’s view, an ideal situation is the method Russell used because it not only maintains independence of spirit, human feelings and a critical stance, but also makes the media disseminate cultural expression through popularization. However, interestingly, the arguments of adhering to resistance against the mass media are disseminated by the mass media. It shows that in this era with ubiquitous media, it is very difficult to evade the constraints and use one’s personal voice. It is precisely because of this that some intellectuals who participate in the media find the basis for their personal behavior. On the other hand, Zheng Yefu holds that the cultural quality of production groups of television programs is very low. “I am a person discussing reasons. I think the most profound reasons are in written words, but I see a trend: a from shallow level, the masses are willing to watch TV and enlightenment must have the aid of television; from a deep level, human thinking in primitive times was once influenced by double HUV — pictures and spoken words. Later, production of written words suppressed the role of pictures. Today pictures stand at the front of the stage once again and they would like to expand the territory of the human spirit beyond the world of logic. I love the kingdom of logic, but I know we face an awesome new realm of thinking, which is also unfathomable. It is just that attracted by this great power, I endure noise, hustle and bustle as well as internal friction and external setbacks. I have yet to determine to leave it”.23 Yu Qiuyu holds that: the way and manner of academic studies should change and develop in concept. Now, there are hundreds of millions of people who

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watch TV every day. The function and role of TV communications should not be underestimated. Cultural workers cannot be pretentious. They should pursue the validity of cultural behavior.24 In an era of action the influence and validity of discourse, regardless of whether it is that of the cultural leadership or of the intellectual elites, have been greatly weakened. Like much information in the media, these different discussions are not given special attention because they are discourse of the elite. In fact, it is the only excuse of “do it or not” of this class, but it has no any change, and can’t change continuous intervention of elite in media. As personal behavior, participation in the media is free regardless of whether it is out of personal interests or is an excuse for changing the image of the media. Some people cannot participate and can sit in a study at leisure, but some people also can step out of their study, change the lives of scholars in other ways and even discuss a reasonable way to combine the elite and the media. On the other hand, whether a scholar has the spirit of an independent personality does not depend on their relationship with the media. Those leisurely scholars who lack capability cannot demonstrate achievements and can only leave a false gesture even if they sit in their studies for all of their lives. For a scholar with thinking ability it does not matter who tries to tell him what he should do or how to do it. He should be fully self-motivated and understand the things that he should resist. Therefore, whether intellectuals participate in the media is far less important than what they think.

The Media and the Masses The masses originally referred to an unknown concept of plurality. However, in China in the 20th century, the term “the masses” is a concept which is not specific but was repeatedly used. It seemed that whoever owned the position and name of this concept, he could be in a position of winning without fighting. Therefore, the masses were also an indescribable myth in China. It was related to the special historical situation of China in the 20th century. The unfortunate story of domestic trouble and foreign invasion made intellectuals and political leaders try to mobilize the masses to participate in the process of changing China, and the masses were thought of as a large integrated whole. In fact, in an era concerned with national interests, survival and death, this image was reasonable and political leaders mobilized the masses to achieve their political goals. Later, the rule of integration also enabled the masses to become organically organized. However, this success cannot be separated in two ways: one is the promise of happiness, and the other is organizational control. When a

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promise cannot be fulfilled, control will become looser and the original meaning of the masses will not exist. For example, after the French Revolution, the masses became individual citizens, individuals had subjective existence, and the concept of plurality became an empty thing without specific meaning. In commercial society, the masses are consumers and mass culture is a consumption culture. At this time the masses are ordinary people and their attitudes towards culture have a clear secular consumption trend. There are boundaries and differences between the masses and the cultural elites. Therefore, the relationship between the media and the masses is the closest, and the media uses the masses as the main object of its positioning and production. For the masses, the media is an important part of their lives. For example, they almost cannot abandon daily intake of life magazines, romance stories, martial arts publications and especially television. Relatively closed and private living spaces make people use television as a companion more often, and television culture has now become an important cultural phenomenon. When consuming this culture, people not only cultivate special interests but also correspondingly develop expectations that can never be satisfied. This cultural psychology is not only because of the coarseness and mediocrity of television production. As a consumer culture, it will never meet the changing requirements of the masses for ever. No matter how exquisite the production is and how big the investment is, television culture can not change this fore-ordained. A typical example is the Spring Festival Gala. Since 1983, CCTV has had a Spring Festival Gala each year. It has become a part of Spring Festival culture and a main celebration form on the Eve of the Lunar New Year. For 20 years CCTV and its main creative staff racked their brains and strived to meet the expectations of the masses for this Gala. It should be said that the Gala is becoming more and more difficult to hold, and there is general dissatisfaction with it. In order to hold a popular Gala, CCTV even established a topic group responsible for special studies and organizing questionnaires, and spent manpower and material resources to specialize the Spring Festival Gala. The directors of the Gala had misgivings. Although experts had much lavish praise, such as “Lunar New Year banquet”, “the highest celebration and ceremony”, “unique and with real merit” and “colorful, full of brilliance”, the influence of these judgments made because of different motives on the masses was very weak and the masses had no desire to listen. The masses use perception as their measurement scale and no comment can replace personal judgment. This is the fate of culture experts in the era of mass culture.

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In Daniel Bell’s words, mass culture tries to make everyone happy. The most popular programs in the Spring Festival Gala for many years have basically remained skit, Chinese comic dialogues, songs and other entertainment forms. However, the repertoires of Zhao Benshan, Huang Hong, Gong Hanlin, Pan Changjiang, Jiang Kun, Niu Qun, Feng Gong, Zhao Lirong and other famous comedians are almost exhausted. Every time they created a program for the Spring Festival Gala, Niu Qun and Feng Gong ate almost 30 kg sunflower seeds while they racked their brains, yet they were still hard put to realize the masses’ continuous requirement for novel entertainment. This proves the relationship between the masses and media from the other hand: as a consumer, there are never the best consumer goods. Therefore, as a form of consumer entertainment program, it is undoubtedly a daydream to meet the desire of the masses for consumption with continuous novelty and innovation. Base on the masses’ psychology of consumption, the media can calm and control the masses’ expectations for continuous innovation with effective “curbs” and routinization. Among these, the most effective way is the relatively stable principle of modeling. Consumer cultural products and programs must use modeling to stabilize the requirements of consumers. In the past experiences, all the products which are accepted and have long-term attraction are patterns. For example, Hollywood movies, the Vienna New Year Concert, martial arts novels, romantic novels, model operas, the Super Variety Show and the like almost all have their successful and established inherent patterns. These patterns are familiar to the masses. Once they are mentioned or seen, they make the masses connect them with their own experiences. They find the interests that they are used to from the programs, and they have exuberant interest in participating from beginning to end because they are familiar. The model operas have been performed many times, but when the cyclone of the “Red Classics” began to blow the audiences still hummed along with them and watched from beginning to end; the program of Super Variety Show is familiar, participants and bystanders, regardless of whether they are prominent experts or ordinary civilians, play the game of “Take a Guess”; although it is an elegant and noble culture and symbol, the stock performance of the Vienna Concert is an exciting point for the audiences and the climax of the evening. These illustrate the success of patterns from different aspects. Therefore, the mass media must create patterns, and create patterns that the masses accept and which create consumer desire. In the conflict between the media and the public, this is an effective shock absorber.

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The Prevalence of White-collar Tastes While creating an economic miracle, commercial society also created a new class i.e. the white-collar middle class. This class is constantly growing in numbers. They are in economy and finance, culture communications, commercial transport and various sectors of the tertiary industry. They are managers, account executives, producers, technical specialists and office workers etc., engaging in management of non-direct production. These people do not hold a prominent position or power, and seem to be insignificant ordinary people, but for ordinary workers they are a symbol of success: they are neatly dressed, have an aloof expression, go in and out of banks and museums, and their stable income means they have no worries about clothes and food. But amid their selfconfidence it seems that there is also some depression. Unlike the traditional middle class, white-collar workers have no private assets and no independent status, and their identities determine that they have personal bondage. “They are manipulated by external forces, cautious, and feel rootless and helpless in spirit. From Kafka’s office worker who changed into a beetle to Arthur Miller’s death of old salesman unable to adapt to the world, as a typical product of a high degree of alienation under capitalism white-collar workers should also be subject to specific research within modern sociology and anthropology”.25 Although their social status is quite ambiguous, white-collar workers actually control the circulation and operation of commodities and they all work in specific departments. Therefore, no matter whether they are polite and smile and have enough patience, they are closely liked to the practical interests of their company or department. No class has to make more careful and meticulous calculation and set more clear and definite goals than white-collar workers. The bondage position of white-collar workers determines their political inclination. When commenting on Mears, Zhao Yifan quoted the following opinions: Mears thinks that they are a complex professional division and it is difficult for them to obtain a clear sense of self and sense of solidarity. Cultural root excision created this group of non-heroes without believers or history. Disconnection of private property and status also promoted their “false consciousness” about the relationship between the individual and society. Different from previous classes, the new middle-class white-collar workers have no unified direction and are a category with political apathy. They dissociated out of the old

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social organization and mode of thinking and were thrown into a new form of existence, but they cannot find a focus for their thinking and can only expediently “live in the meaningless world without faith” (words of Weber) – specializing in technology improvement, personal promotion and amateur entertainment to compensate for spiritual sluggishness and political negativity, like a somnambulist hovering between a sweet dream and a nightmare... It seems to be destined that this class, which entered the modern society first, has to ignorantly be a “political guard” for some time.26

This opinion of Mears has many similarities with those of Huntington. In Huntington’s view, although the middle class in modern society may be the “real revolutionary class, it must be intellectuals with traditional roots and modern outlook on values that appear on the social stage. As the middle class grows, it also becomes more conservative. All or most of these groups will play a revolutionary role from time to time, but generally speaking, the talents who neither work for government and or engage in business deals are more inclined to resistance, violence and revolution”.27 Thus in the works of many Western scholars, a critical attitude is mostly taken toward the white-collar class which has no clear identity, is very isolated and has no way of forming internal links. Mears has been called the spiritual father of the “New Left Movement” who “fought a lone battle” and inherited the critical spirit of the Frankfurt School; Daniel Bell is known as “a representative critic of the Sociology and Cultural Conservatism trend”. They once quarreled fiercely. Nevertheless, their attitudes towards white-collar workers are surprisingly consistent. Mears said: “The ‘white collar ’ cannot be consistent with ‘democratic illusion’. In society, it will inevitably lead to widespread alienation, leaving its victim without roots, sincerity or a sense of history. … In politics, it is beneficial to the continuation of a concept of inaction among the silent masses”. 28 Moreover, Bell also treats white-collar workers, this group of people with “middle-class interests”, with disdain. They not only attempt nothing and accomplish nothing in politics, but also their cultural tastes are very fraudulent. He pointed out: “In the view of serious critics the real enemy, i.e. the worst kitsch, is not an ocean such as inferior art trash forms but is a middle-class interest culture or follows the label attached by Dwight McDonald i.e. midcult. McDonald said that ‘the tricks of mass culture are very simple, that is to do everything possible to please everybody. However, midcult or middle-class culture is two-faced: it pretends to respect the standards of high culture but in fact it tries to dissolve and vulgarize it. 29 These elegant scholars themselves are in the “middle class”, but their conscience and spirit of social criticism spirit as scholars make them unable to

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restrain their disgust for white-collar and middle-class tastes. In China in the 1990s, due to development of the commercial economy, the white-collar class also developed. Although it did not reach the standard of developed capitalism, white-collar tastes or “midcult” had antecedents. Not only the masses admired white-collar workers, but also there was public opinion admiration for “white collar culture”. Almost all the popular characteristics of white-collar workers conformed to Mears’ and Bill’s position analysis of the white-collar class. They had urban style, carried leather bags, had extraordinary spirit, were embarrassed to talk about their ideals, hated critical theories, disdained to talk about personal responsibilities, talked about the status quo with great relish and shined in all the media. However, if you observed carefully you would find that there was no depth to their spirits. They had no concept of history and had a vision of retraction for the future. They only came and went, and floated in a self-made illusion. In an era when culture itself meant nothing, they also had worries, but what they were afraid of was loss of discourse “control” power. They had no connection with the “masses” as main signans. They became the characterization and representation of this era with mediocre culture. They had no faith, and continuously changing positions and pursuing trends were their most prominent feature. In the commodity economy, they were an antecedent pioneer brutally alienated. However, they still spoke as “elegant intellectuals”, and their mental status had the same source.

“White-Collar Magazines” There are various popular white-collar tastes. Most of them are associated with high-price consumption such as passing the time bowling, playing golf, exercising, sitting in bars or listening to CDs, staying in the suburbs or the countryside on weekends, shopping in high-end stores, attending cocktail receptions, dancing, frequent visits to beauty salons, living in luxury residential zones and owning luxury cars. In the consumption culture “white-collar magazines” fairly typically demonstrate the tastes of the white-collar worker. One report gave the following description and analysis of the “ten-yuan magazines” popular in the market: The ten-yuan journal is a careless title. It particularly refers to journals which are sold at a price of ten yuan or so and take the urban whitecollar worker as the main object of sales. International popular sextodecimos and imported copper plate paper together with exquisite cover design give this new breed of journals an outstanding aristocratic style in the book and newspaper stalls.

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It is not easy to discover who first set the precedent for ten-yuan journals. At present, the generally accepted mature journals are Elle and Fashion , but Modern Pictorial, Shopping Guide, Contemporary Celebrities, The Urbanite, Ilook and other journals have been successively established and have competitive potential. Most ten-yuan journals advocate consumption fashion and often involve living styles and state of mind of the urban white-collar class. Objectively speaking, their content is not “brilliant” but from the point of view of packaging, no journal is better. Title, format, illustrated pictures, blank and other aspects are all handled by seeking for increased perfection. The advertising inserts are even more beautiful and elegant, and the effect is comparable with “foreign journals”. This sense of a quality product naturally depends on funds to support it, so the price of ten yuan is accordingly logical.30

The report also stated that: grades of incomes covered a wide range and so consumption was also divided into levels. Ordinary people with a monthly income of several hundred RMB shop at stalls and in department stores, but a white-collar worker with a monthly salary of a few thousand RMB can shop in boutique shops. After material consumption is satisfied, spiritual consumption can not be left a blank. They feel that to read popular publications is “vulgar” and a loss of their identity. It is undoubtedly elegant to read Times Weekly, Happiness and Forbes , but firstly there is no place to buy them, and secondly they are after all not about things around us and so always having some distance in content.31 The report also used an eye-catching large font to point out: white-collar workers are a young and growing class with high culture, and high culture in Chinese society. The growth of the white-collar class will definitely bring about a well-developed culture market. If the previous analysis in the report has some truth, then last judgment is for discussion. Further development of the market economy will definitely multiply different cultural forms. White-collar culture is a variety of various cultural forms. Not only is the term “white collar” from the West, but also white-collar culture tastes and pursuits are almost duplicates. White-collar workers are different from both the masses and officials, and are different from the already “outdated” humanistic intellectuals. With regard to tastes, they form their own style and show their identity. Moreover, the “white-collar magazine” or the print media called “white-collar journal” will strengthen the tastes and lives of the white-collar class with the white-collar ideology. Nearly all the content of these magazines is associated with lifestyle, but it is difficult for ordinary

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people to achieve such a life. Ads account for a very large proportion of each issue – advertisements for luxury cars, watches popular in the world, fashions, famous wines, cosmetics, food, etc. are made exquisitely attractive and all the brands are world famous. For the white-collar class in China, it is unnecessary to consume according to this guidance and also the white-collar workers in China do not have resources to do so. However, this is not important. What is important is that the class identity can be expressed through these tastes. It is a kind of ideograph for pursuit of a quality material life by China's white-collar class, not necessarily a guide to consumption as China's white-collar workers also do not have the spending capability. But this is not important. What is important is that the class can be expressed through these interests. In lifestyle, such magazines try to distinguish white-collar workers from ordinary people and endow them with a distinctive “cultural position”. For example, ordinary people often gather in hotels, but in the view of whitecollar workers that is rather low-grade and the places that they want to go are bars. In some bars in Shenzhen not only daily operating activities are carried out but non-sale journals such as Helihuo Communications and Nirvana Communications are sold. The journals are named after the bars. A boss said: “I hope that our bar guides a healthy and normal spiritual consumption, respects young people and provides a relaxed and free environment to let them make friends openly and give vent to their inner feelings. In addition, we also arrange some cultural pointers, making culture become something which is actively favored and depended on by the souls of young people. Although a bar cannot assume the important responsibility of historical culture, it is conductive to forming a kind of atmosphere and latent spiritual needs are naturally activated once it forms a culture industry through conscious promotion”.32 “These words typically annotate MacDonald’s words: “it pretends to respect the standards of high culture, but in fact it tries to dissolve and vulgarize it.” 33 The whitecollar workers are a class that does not need passion because they do not need consciousness of resistance, and the clear hierarchical relationships in orderly commercial activities determine that they must learn to obey. Therefore, there is no “activation” at all. A white-collar worker said: “The friends in our circles all like to go to bars periodically. We go to bars from time to time and don’t need any reason. It is perhaps a kind of escape and a kind of need. We sit in a bar, don’t do much chatting, just drink and dance. Such a feeling is relatively pure”.34 The bars in Beijing are generally similar. Going there “does not focus on enjoyment, but focuses on feeling”. It was pointed out in an article: “When people are tired of elegant and luxurious but rigid and overcautious hotels, fiery-hot but

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noisy disco, and want to forget satiric karaoke, what they want perhaps is not a more luxurious and more exciting life and not recreation but to try to forget themselves, but in a habitat where communication and feelings are paid more attention to. This the reason why they like to go to bars”.35 The author pointed out that the people going to bars include six kinds of people i.e. people who speak a foreign language, people eager to communicate, people who hope to get a taste, understanding and feeling of Western culture, people who like drinking and continuous speaking, people who want to continuously make new friends, and people who are afraid of loneliness and wait for opportunities. 36 These people are almost all white-collar workers. However, as an emerging commercial culture in China, it is very different in function from those in Western countries. People who go to bars said that they went to seek a feeling, but this “feeling” is too misty to be captured and identified. It is luxurious, romantic, tender and full of foreign style, meanwhile it has no constraints. For example, in a bar, there are Indian wooden swords, Indian Buddha statues, star posters, Chinese hard brush calligraphy and Bambusa Multiplex quietly standing out of the window. All these different cultures are not for you to make a choice between but simply for enjoyment. Therefore, a bar being orientalized becomes a leisure place for expressing identity and taste, and its own culture has no connection with the people who go there. This is very different from the Western bars. An old British professor finally found a JAZZ YA bar in a small alley at Sanlitun after he had worked in Beijing for four years. He had loved jazz music all his life. At hearing the soft music he burst into tears, as if he met his former lover again. In China, he heard a familiar sound, and insisted on sending a piano to be placed there. 37 This cultural relationship made this old man find the roots of his culture. In a distant foreign land he found his own culture, which meant that he found his own history and memories, and all the things over there were familiarized by him. Thus even in a foreign country he will still feel his real identity will not feel strange and lonely any longer just because of living in a different place. This is the mystery and great power of culture. For China’s white-collar class going to a bar for leisure they can only be said to be looking for an “escape”, which is vague and uncertain. It is quite different from the old British professor who burst into tears when he heard the jazz music. However, when this way of consumption was explained by a “white-collar magazine’, its rhetoric was very ambiguous: “When we both continue to accept Western culture and constantly affirm and adhere to our own culture, a new living space which emphasizes feelings and can combine and communicate between the Chinese and Western cultures gradually becomes the need of

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people”. 38 However, this explanation is very feeble. It does not constitute or cannot be said to have found a convincing cultural basis. All the content published by Fashion magazine is aimed at the white-collar class, which implies that the white-collar class guides fashion in today’s life and that this fashion is almost entirely included in an abundant material life. Fitness, body-building, facial beautification, tours and so on are regular columns in the magazine. It should be said that this is a successful white-collar magazine and it can compete with similar magazines in Europe and America in term of taste, layout and production. Interestingly, the 4th issue of Fashion in April 1996 gave the “Special Summer Issue” of the French Marie Claire as a gift to readers, and the main content of this was also health, fashion, facial beautification and love in the middle class. Its cover was a brilliant “beautiful girl”. She was very beautiful. Although she only wore a sleeveless viscose justaucorps, the picture did not look pornographic and flirty like those in third-rate popular magazines. This lady called Cristiana Reali was the new image representative for Lancôme products. She looked healthy and pure, beautiful and elegant, and lovely like Noriko Sakai, an image representative of Toshiba. The difference was that she had the romance and sentiment of Europe. The reason why this French woman’s’ magazine chose to cooperate with Fashion was that: “this magazine is the first magazine introducing lifestyle trends in China, and its achievements over the last three years fully show the talents of its producers”.39 Almost all the covers of Fashion are beautiful women and handsome gentlemen from Europe and America, who have an unusual demeanor, calm expression and illustrate a distinct occupation and identity; the content is mostly Western pictures and life style pursuits. An article entitled Stay at Home Alone: Weekend of One Person is about their activities from morning meditation, skin care, listening to music, drinking afternoon tea to bathing. It showed a grace of taste and life enjoyment: Like turning down the volume of a radio, beautiful music permeates to the bottom of the heart. Sitting quietly and meditating is a good method for city people who are often in a state of tension. Those who like this method call meditation an “inner tour”, and it can lead you into a real inner realm. Messy thoughts will be calmed and become peaceful. It has been proved by scientists that meditation is also good for the body. The most notable change is steady breathing and an increase in lung capacity.

The article endows all activities of one day with elegant cultural meaning. The people enjoying such life understand science, love music, and their inner

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hearts and outward appearances are healthy and beautiful. A person spending a weekend at home needs to wash their face with fruit juice, uses grapefruit skin refreshener and warm olive oil as a tightening mask, and meanwhile can listen to music conducted by the master Karajan. They then drink afternoon tea and precisely calculate the various nutrients it contains, and finally they need to pay attention to the “bath”.40 Of course, a magazine needs to introduce some successful people, politicians, pop music or avant-garde artists, but these are only a necessary embellishment. Through the contents it emphasizes its respectable character and extensive interests, and it also expresses culture expectations and shapes the conscience of Fashion for the Chinese white-collar class. It should be said that white-collar workers are a class which seeks selfimprovement. They also use their intelligence and contributions to get appropriate remuneration and to maintain the basic order of social development and reproduction. Their special status and educational background mean that this group has unique culture requirements and life interests. This is the freedom they chose. It is understandable that they are not heroes but are ordinary people. Nevertheless, as a group consciousness, they dominate the social atmosphere like an invisible hand in the process of modernization. Their bondage makes this group no longer wants to resist and criticize. Their professional faces also make them increasingly cold and no longer care for society and others. Stability of life and rootlessness is an eternal contradiction that cannot be solved. The white-collar magazines emphasize the ideology of the white collar by illusion. Material luxury and paleness of humanistic thought are its prominent features as well as a strategy of occupying the market through illusion. However, this cannot explain the puzzle and confusion of the whiteclass workers. Due to the loss of humanistic content, its tastes also determine that its grade is not so elegant and that is in the mediocre ranks of affectation, artificialiality and ostentation.

The White-collar Cultural Image In Daniel Bell’s words, the so-called white-collar culture is a new game called a “fashion competition”, which precedes the fashionable masses. It is different from “mass culture”, which is below it, because it has “pretentious elegant tastes”. 41 Generally speaking, white-collar workers disdain mass culture. Popular sex and violence will not arouse particular interest from whitecollar workers. For example, a white-collar magazine has never published such content. However, the cultural requirements of white-collar workers as a moderate group of individualism determine its conservative property

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interlinked with mass culture. As mentioned earlier, mass culture does not take the initiative. As a kind of commodity it only cares for consumption. The gentleness and elegance of white-collar culture are more like an educated “gentleman” image. They will not commit blasphemy, but will never advocate it, and their lives lose all passion and impulse. In the Romantic era, Byron made the following statement: The greatest things in life are passion and ecstasy — to feel one’s own survival — even survive in pain – It is just this “avid sense of emptiness” that drives us to play games, to fight, to travel, to indulge ourselves, but deeply felt is the most important inducement for all kinds of pursuit, that is the excitement inseparable with success.42

Today, of course, very few people look forward to or long to express revolutionary passion in a violent manner, but this does not mean that the life does not need passion. Nevertheless, the white-collar class and their cultural representatives reject it. From April to August 1996, Selected Novels made an investigation of current novels in the whole country except for Taiwan and Tibet. The report showed that reading of novels had a very close connection with economic income: The readers with a monthly income below RMB 400 accounted for 25.2%; the readers with a monthly income between RMB 400 to RMB 600 accounted for 37.9%; the readers with a monthly income between RMB 600 to RMB 800 accounted for 18.3%; the readers with a monthly income between RMB 800 to RMB 1,000 accounted for 9.8%; and the readers with a monthly income over RMB 1,000 accounted for 8.8%. The investigation showed that the higher the income, the less people read novels. The income of white-collar workers is generally more than RMB 1,000, so white-collar workers refused to read novels. Most serious novels express a deep concern for contemporary society and the ardent wish of their authors’ to intervene in social reality. However, white-collar workers are indifferent towards these literary texts expressing depth, meaning and value. The postmodernists, as cultural white-collar and the cultural image of the white-collar class, used the event when Rodin’s Thinker from Paris was exhibited in Beijing to declare: “We are no longer the people in the 1980s looking for passion, but ‘postmodern’ people in the discourse of the Third World. We have experienced huge changes in stepping out of the ‘new era’ and entering the ‘post-new era’. Thus Thinker no longer provokes passion and anxiety, but is a space wonder of postmodernists. Its coming forces us to ask about our

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past”. 43 This expression fairly typically reflected the state of mind of whitecollar workers. A class which does not need passion and refuses to worry was projected onto the general condition of the whole society. It tried to establish the rationality and legitimacy of cultural white-collar discourse in a fantasy way and with the tone of hegemony; it used a fallacious and extremely one-sided description to describe Today’s China a society in which “postmodernism” had already arrived, and all the people enjoyed the incomparable abundance and warmth of “postmodernism”. Society only has general interests and common interests, and in this virtual “commonality” more and more differences are covered up. This is the ideal of the white-collar class and its cultural image. They project their own comfortable survival onto the common experience and common wealth of the whole society, which is the biggest basis on which they identify with reality. Therefore, regardless of white-collar class or their culture image—postmodernists are a group of people forever floating above reality. They “have neither history nor reality. Let alone a future. There are no reference points, and this becomes a ‘new state’ of the ‘pure flow of life’. This new state becomes a clear strategy of rationalizing the “now” by ignoring historical and realistic references”. 44 Similar to the silent white-collar class, while labeling them “marginal”, “wanderers” and “watchers”", postmodernists found it difficult to suppress a strong desire to establish their central position. In their narrations, history, values, significance and in-depth “defeat” are realized in violent language such as “deconstruction”, “resolution” and “subversion”. Their desires are concealed by a false neutral attitude. We also found that while deconstructing everything, postmodernists, whitecollar workers and their cultural image have no awe for anything any longer. All classics and goodness no longer have significance. Similar to many popular cultures, they are consumable after being packaged. Like Rodin’s Thinker , they only a “space wonder of postmodernism”. For postmodernists, this classic had no classic significance any longer and was not sacred any longer. It became only a spectacle from the Western world and would not evoke feelings of admiration and respect any more. However, a person must have awe. A person may not believe in God, but should believe in good. If a person does not believe there is any good values in the world, abstains from nothing and does whatever he wants, such a person is no different from the birds and beasts. A person believing in good has awe. In his mind, there are some things that belong to the fundamentals of being a decent person and cannot be desecrated. He is not afraid to be punished, but is not willing to lose his basic personality. Regardless of how full he is of desires in his life, he always understands that once personality is lost he will

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lose the confidence and respect that come from being a decent person and the satisfaction of all desires cannot prevent his life being a failure. On the contrary, for those people who have no awe, there is no self-examination of personality. If “having a sense of shame is almost equal to bravery”, this kind of people shows a cowardice and cruelty. 45 The cultural image of white-collar workers is not only the postmodernists. Chinese Studies are also similar to the cultural image of white-collar workers in term of culture character. This Chinese Studies wave originated in Peking University was rapidly spread to the intellectuals. With the academic dean and young people learning side by side, this concept quickly spread to the intellectual circles and publishing circles because of the joint performance of academic authorities and young scholars. All the media praised and encouraged it. Its academic authority has it authenticity. In the face of the ubiquitous influence and control of political ideology on academies, a movement returning to academia and studies is perhaps a solemn and stirring effort by the intellectuals to move into the professional category, and a solemn rebellion against the ruling power which had ignored academia in the past. However: For the scholars in the 1990s, too many overthrows, rises and falls had already made them tired of and feel scorn for all kinds of publicity and preaching. In the process of speeding up the slide towards the edge of the mainstream ideology, they also worried that the inertial force would ultimately make them lose control. Like the generation of May Fourth, their confusion also reflected the problem of how to establish a personal position beyond the practical utility. From the surface perspective it seems that returning to “Chinese Studies” is just the foundation laying for this position, but with careful analysis we find there are some psychological distortions produced. Emphasizing the pure self sufficiency of academia more represents an anti-radical effect produced by external factors rather than self-originating. As for the division of politics and academia, the real cause lies in politics not academia, in the loss of confidence in prospects in political disputes instead of an insight into the nature of academic research.46

This “pure academic research” which seemed to turn them into professional scholars who paid no attention to human affairs, as if they were no longer interested in things other than their specialties. However, their true state of mind—“confusion in value orientation and passivity in spirit construction”— was covered up. Young Scholar He Yi continued to point out: “On the one hand,

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these people kept calling for a return to studies devoted to learning; on the other hand, they didn’t really pay no attention to personal gains and losses and the fickleness of the world. It seems that they were not content with the fate of the “Chinese Studies” which had been ignored for a long time. In fact, it was that they had worries about the careers which they were devoted to. Starting a so-called tide of ‘Chinese Studies’ was undoubtedly to raise their social status in the manner of a commercial promotion. Amid the monstrous swirling waves of the commercial economy, they boasted of being lofty and refined. However, the tide of ‘Chinese Studies’ was just a reflection of their inner world, a reluctance to be isolated and not forgetting the market”.47 Therefore, it is appropriate to call both the postmodernists and the agitators of the new Chinese Studies a cultural image of the white-collar class. Both the affluent daily life myth constructed by the postmodernists and the quiet studies imagined by the new Chinese Studies can be considered as a new trend of cultural conservatism. If they have any characteristics, these are vague and hard to identify. This conservative tendency is different from Lin Qinnan’s individual close combat against the literature revolution during the period of “May Fourth”, different from the cultural position of Gu Hongming and Yan Fu at the edge, and even more different from the “fierce counterattack.” of Xue Heng and Jia Yin. These conservative cultural forces had a clear goal of attacking and objecting to. Those declaration-style words are exactly the same as a radical authoritarian attitude. The new conservatism is generally summed up in the following three points: Firstly, it gives up the radical critical spirit and implements mild language; secondly, it gives up considering common concerns and focuses on concern for personal situations; thirdly, it gives up pursuit of the ultimate values and faith, and only focuses on solutions to specific and local issues. These three characteristics are all characteristics of white-collar workers.

Dreams of the Youth of the 1990s In any age, young people always set the fashion. In the early stages of reform and opening up the university campuses were filled with energy and major topics concerning the fate of country and nationality were the subjects that each youth wanted to discuss. A kind of restless mood hard to calm down was the common feeling all young people at that time. When modernization had just been initiated, visions of it provided each youth with great temptation and happiness. That generation of people, who were deeply idealistic, was used to setting the future by way of imagining it and was full of expectation. However,

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no matter what topic they talked about, their way of thinking and goal setting stayed within the overall framework of collectivism. At the beginning of the social transition, the original ideology was still the most basic dominant power over this generation of people. Therefore, this was an era which respected the spoken word and discourse. That generation of people especially liked to talk. In essence, society did not provide them with a broader space in which to achieve personal goals. Of course, they also talk about “selfhood”. Campus poets felt excited that they could freely express “selfhood”. However, their “selfhood” had never been individual. Their understandings of value, significance and self-realization had never been expressed outside the boundaries of society and national history. Therefore, this was a generation of idealism. At that time, the things most commonly seen in the universities were all kinds of literature journals of poetry groups. There was even a literature journal named This Generation jointly established by many universities. From its name and way of operation, we can perceive a strong sense of group and collective concern in this generation. This was also the era with the most writers, poets and critics produced on the campuses of universities, and the humanities were very visible. In the 1990s the social transformation was basically completed. The era of talk accordingly also ended and then came an era of action. No matter whether on campus or in society, the young were not addicted to discussions any longer. Since their admission days, those who were good at their majors vowed to prepare for the TOEFL test, and their personal goals were very clear. Investigations since the 1990s showed that the top three answers for “what is the biggest happiness” of youths were “success in career”, “have a warm home” and “have close friends”, all of which were concerns related to the individual. “Contribute to society” ranked No. 6. In 1995, the value concept of collectivism was as follows: the people who held a negative attitude towards the opinion that “no matter how big a personal thing is, it is a small thing, no matter how small a national thing is, it is a big thing” accounted for one third.

The “Employed Cultural Worker” and the “Quasi-Singing Star” A social transformation will inevitably bring great changes in value concepts, and economic activity itself will inevitably have some conflicts with the value concepts advocated by society. In the planned economy era, a student would be assigned to a state unit after he graduated from a school. The “units” ensured the basic living conditions of each person who could achieve a sense of identity from the different “units”. This “self” realization was inseparable with “units”

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as collective. In the 1990s, this national unified assignment policy without fear of problems for young students was gradually replaced by mutual choice of suppliers and demanders. The employment opportunities, locations and incomes of majors urgently needed formed a growing scissor difference with basic majors. The national caring system in which volunteers went to “old, minority, remote and poor” regions to make contributions were only individual phenomena and was no longer a popular choice for young people. The conflict between popular values and the dominant values of the society meant that actual benefits defeated ideals. This was a major reason why this generation of youths did not pay attention to empty talk. Meanwhile it was also the only way that to realize “self salvation” of the individual. If we understand it from this sense, their choices have a realistic rationality. Of course, in addition to these practical reasons, there were also young people’s requirements for the realization of “self” value. In Beijing, we can see “employed cultural workers” who are not permanent working in the media everywhere. They are journalists, editors, photographers, producers, and even heads or planners of a department. They are cultural people “outside the system”. They come from other provinces or Beijing itself. They are young, carry big bags, wear sun hats, are dust covered and tired from traveling and bustling about. Their interviews and commission articles are dedicated, and pursued for practical results. Many of them have already made great achievements and are influential in the cultural circles in Beijing. However, since they are “outside the system”, they naturally cannot enjoy many benefits “within the system” such as housing, job title and free medical care. They also rarely talk about such topics. Because this was their personal choice they rarely complain, but just make a living by their skills and choose work that they like according to their interests. In an era of great change, they show their survival ability and adaptability, but they seldom have the sense of superiority of general cultural people. Many people also occasionally talk about their ideas of seeing a dream in Beijing, their youthful dreams and feelings of wandering, and youth topics particular to them, but their expressions are quite complex. The choices of these young people easily remind people of career choice differentiation in the period of “May Fourth”. That was in the early spring of the 20th century and was an era that laid the tone for the young for the next 100 years. It was also the era of the birth of modern intellectuals. In that era, cultural people took off their kerchiefs and gave up a single career goal. They were no longer a reserve of national bureaucracy. They went to cities or the countryside, and they were journalists, teachers, freelance writers, professional revolutionaries etc. Intellectuals and cultural people also had many goals in

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life and ways of survival, and it changed the personal bondage of this group of people or this class. Today this spectacle appears once again, which is a major characterization of the change in contemporary youth’s concepts. They have changed themselves and would definitely change society. Those generally similar to “employed cultural workers” are “quasisinging stars” who try to make a career in Beijing. Over the past decade, the development of music culture and the great influence of singers have led many young people with music and singing talents to try their hands in this regard. Beijing is China’s cultural center. In order to make a national impact, Beijing is both the starting point and destination of these people. In particular CCTV as an authoritative medium is seen as a cradle of singers. Since the 2nd CCTV Young Singer Grand TV Prix held in June 1986 set up a pop singing award, to be able to perform on CCTV has become the dream of young singers. The unique status of this medium can make many unknown persons famous overnight. In addition, Beijing concentrates the most outstanding musicians. Their help and recommendation are the first step and a key step for a singer to become famous. As a result, many “quasi-singing stars” gather in Xidan, Fuxing Road and Hepingli just as painters gather around the Yuanmingyuan area and writers gather in Tong County. There are many descriptions of the life, experiences and process of becoming famous of these “quasi-singing stars”. They form groups of neighbors, consciously help each other and have collective familystyle meals. However, they are often blackmailed and monitored by landlords. A male singer said: “The landlord’s management and surveillance of us are undisguised. Any landlord is the best security officer. The landlord regularly convenes a meeting of all of us. If we are slightly careless, we are threatened with eviction. Every time a guest comes to visit us he knows, and knows if the guest is male or female”. Before “becoming famous”, singers also must contact “star” writers of lyrics and composers of songs through all kinds of ways. They think: “If we can “make friends” with those writers of lyrics and composers of songs, especially those famous or senior writers of lyrics and composers of songs, there will be a way to and guarantee of our future success. Those famous music writers compose a lot of songs and these works have very high rate of popularity. The “evening fever” in recent years has provided ample opportunity for them to show their works. As singers of these works, we will naturally have very high performance and exposure rate and are highly likely to become a new star”. However, in the rise of “quasi-singing stars” almost all have experienced numerous hardships. A singer named Wang Menghong finally entered the TV “XX Cup New Star Song Competition”, but she said to the interviewer: “Do you know?

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This success comes two years late because of one small mistake. Two years”. Originally, when she took part in the competition for the first time, like other singers “I made some ‘expression’ to the personnel from different parties on the stage including the band to thank them for their cooperation. Among them, a tuner was temporarily absent so I temporarily kept that ‘expression’. I never realized it was that tuner who tuned up when I was singing. As a result, the tuner played a trick”. Accordingly, Wang Menghong’s career start was delayed for two years.48 The spiritual price paid by these wandering youth groups on the way to seek their dreams are used in literature by sensitive authors with deep experience. Over a period, Qiu Huadong composed Fashion People, Public Relations People, Sales People, Watch People, Holder and other works. Driven by the market, these heroes do the most “fashionable” work in this era. However, the “public relations person” calmly chooses “death”. His last words are: After I started in public relations I really started to make contact with people. In the past, I was a person who indulged in my inner world and thought time was static. However, I found that everything was changing rapidly. I have had public relations contact with more than 18,000 people in total. On this point, I had the statistics in my work record for three years. Later, I suddenly became interested in the study of people. In my heart, I classified them and collated their information. However, the conclusion that I recently drew is: people are poor, human bodies are detested, the human soul has no fixed face, and only masks show the soul of modern people. Therefore, I increasingly feel pressure at work, I cannot bear the fact that I have to make contact with dozens of or one hundred people every day, and meanwhile I have already become a mask person, a person without depth, a hypothetical person. I think the ultimate irony is me, so I choose to run away and die. People, I detest you! 49

Qiu Huadong’s novels, on the one hand reveal the efforts made by urban youth to improve their living conditions, and on the other hand reveal the psychological costs they pay. In the process of modernization, everyone is unavoidably confronted with such pressure. There was a report titled A Family in Fushun Coal Mine. The story is as follows: the head of the family is a 67year-old retired worker, and his wide is sickly. The family consists of 15 people including two sons and three daughters. The three-person family of the oldest son can be supported by wages; the oldest daughter was unemployed for two

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years and her spouse has been unemployed for six years; the second daughter has also been on a long holiday for more than two years, and her spouse who works for the mine has not been paid for four months; the RMB 200 income of the second son is not enough to live on so he makes bird cages to sell. It takes two days to make a bird cage, but it is not easy to sell one for RMB 10. The youngest daughter has been unemployed at home since she graduated from high school.50 In the mid-1990s, unemployment became an major social phenomenon and has shown a continuous increase. According to statistics from the relevant materials, China’s overall unemployed population (open unemployment and hidden unemployment) was about 180 million to 260 million, which is almost equal to the entire population of the US. However, for the Chinese who, were not used to work flow, the self-help concept of re-employment was very weak. In Harbin there were 200,000 laid-off workers, but migrant workers numbered nearly 300,000. The laid-off workers preferred to be unemployed rather than condescend to do work other than their original occupations. Modernization can bring huge material wealth to people but also can bring unprecedented spiritual shock. This is the paradox of modernization. Although they paid a psychological cost, “employed cultural workers in Beijing” and “quasi-singing stars” had after all made the effort to shape themselves through taking action. In the face of enormous challenges from life they took positive action in response.

I Bet on Tomorrow with Youth A pop song called Walk Once Gracefully was once widely sung among the young people. There is a lyric which is “I bet on tomorrow with youth” in it. This lyric, which seems casual, became the declaration of action of a generation of youth in some sense. While singing this song merrily, young people easily put up youth as a “stake” and chose the “youth occupations” in society. In different periods of society, there have been different fashionable occupations. Soldiers, workers and intellectuals had been at the top in occupation and status, and several generations of people were proud of being one of these. However, in the 1990s, these “proud” identities had become a thing of the past and it was rare to hear that young people were interested in such occupations. Some industries, particularly the commerce and service industries must recruit young people because of their nature, such as models, “stewardesses”, hotel attendants, tour guides, secretaries of enterprises in the three forms of joint ventures and other foreign-funded enterprises. Such occupations have a

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strict age limit, and the working life is very short. Therefore, they are called “youth occupations” by some people. For Chinese who are used to having only one occupation in their lives, the arguments about “youth occupations” can be imagined. However, generally speaking, work in such industries has a relatively high income and can change personal living condition in a short time. Therefore some people worried and found it hard to make a decision, and some people “took risks” with the firm resolve to achieve the dream of walking once gracefully. Professional model Wu Di was 1.78 m high at the age of 16. She dropped out and become a model before she graduated from high school. She disregarded the objections of her parents and teachers, and thought she would regret if she gave up this choice. In her view, “sixteen or seventeen is really a terrific age and an age full of both illusions and courage. At that age you have a lot of capital and even if you make a wrong choice, you still have time to start again. Importantly, you should learn to be an active person in life rather than passively be processed according to the pattern designed by others, where everything is like a production line and proceeds step by step. China’s young people are lacking in this spirit.” Wu Di is successful. She is “outstanding” among the peers because of her looks and skills. She has won titles such as one of the “Top Models” and champion of “Model Contest”, and became the general manager of an advertising planning company.51 A university graduate who majored in English and American Literature was assigned to an international economic and technical cooperation company. After three years she resigned and joined the Beijing office of a foreign country as a clerk. She said: “I still think that the work I had before quitting was not bad, and my former leaders and colleagues were very good. I have been ordered to receive the Minister of News, Uganda and the General Secretary of the ruling party of Rwanda in Nanjing. My working abilities were acknowledged by many people. But it was lack of enrichment which was the problem. Compared with the work in my former company, my work in Youde corporation has not much variation but I like it very much, not only because I have a specialized computer but more importantly there are standards but not too many constraints when dealing with matters. I can design my own work and can learn more about the outside world”. She thought, “Many young people favor jobs in a foreign company. They think it is full of modern atmosphere and there are no overlycomplicated relationships. Everything is done through ability, comprehension and effort. They think it needs the unique vitality of youth. They do not do “youth occupations”, but use youth to participate in competition”. 52 This new concept of occupation choice has been accepted by many peers, especially those

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with cultural capital and psychological preparation. A university student said that occupation choice for university students “suddenly pushes those people specially favored by heaven to the forefront of life. How to design one’s own role and adjust to entering society becomes the most topic of most concern to the students of the “8th semester”. Society no longer gives an “iron rice bowl” to you, so you must give full play to your youthful vitality and advantages. There is nothing bad about having a “youth occupation”. Anyway, it is much better than envying an iron rice bowl or a golden rice bowl from a distance. When “your hair is white” you have no chance to choose a “youth occupation” even if you want to, which is really a tragedy”. Another university student confidently believed: “When we are young, youth is our advantage. Of course, we choose youth occupations; when we are middle-aged, we can choose a middle-aged job. We don’t seek that our occupations stay the same for several decades. We only seek that every choice is suitable for us”. 53 Not just young people saw the change of occupation choice as “betting on tomorrow with youth”. This concept has been recognized by sociologists and by people who have deep feelings for the “iron rice bowl”. A cadre of one state organization said: “Iron rice bowls” have actually have held back quite a lot of people. I have met many friends who do work not suitable for them at all because they are reluctant to give up their stable occupations. As time went by, their talents have been submerged, they have little energy, and their élan has been tarnished. In fact, without such dependence, they might do better. Therefore, young people start with “youth occupations”, confidently engage in “youth occupations”, accumulate work experience and increase their skills. In this way, they walk to maturity and success. When they are not young any longer, they will surely be adapted to this society and undertake other responsibilities and missions”. Sociologists affirmed the “youth occupations” from the perspective of macrodevelopment of society. They said: “From the perspective of global development trends, life-long careers are fading. The accelerated development of science and technology has provided new requirements for workers. The experts think that new employment opportunities for professional skills are gradually improving. This trend indicates that the vast majority of employees cannot hold a rice bowl which does not change for all their lives. A person must constantly adjust himself in the competition, and be adjusted by society at the same time”. The “iron rice bowls” will eventually be melted by society through multi-polar rapid development. However, as a choice with unique charm, the “youth occupations” not only will not disappear but are attracting a large number of young people. This is a kind of social progress.54 The change of this concept of occupation choice also implies fundamental

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changes in the potential dominant cultural psychology behind it. Most of people in the generation of their fathers and brothers had an ambitious and magnificent ideal when they were young. Social education and guidance made their youth full of fantasy color, and their youthful dreams were of being a scientist, artist, poet or professor, or even a minister or general. They did not pay much attention to practical benefits, but had a clear requirement for “identity”. In fact, this concept is a modern version of an ancient traditional concept. Real society cannot shape everyone into a scientist, artist, writer or scholar with a high social status. Most people can only engage in ordinary specific work. Therefore, we often hear or see the youthful memories full of loss of this generation of people. Their dreams are only full of attractive luster in the setting of youth. Contemporary youth has given up this kind of “idealistic” dreams. They demonstrate the advantages of youth with a more pragmatic awareness and in a more realistic way. On the one hand, this illustrates the disintegration of the “identity” advantage in today’s society; on the other hand, it also illustrates that young people’s target selection pays more attention to practical interests. A “stewardess” thinks that her occupation is very hard, but she has a monthly salary of RMB 5,000 to 6,000, and if she has the opportunity to serve on an international flight her allowance will be higher. Meanwhile, in their view, “white-collar beauties” in a city will always be a cluster of bright colors of the city. They are well paid, trendy, fashionable and avant-garde, hold their heads high and come and go like the wind, which is also an important cause of youth choice. Therefore, this “youth occupation” choice phenomenon implies a very complex cultural content: It is a way of realizing “self value” and a strategy of “self-help” for survival; it is both a new concept of employment and a yearning after the “urban white-collar”. This phenomenon silently declares to us that we really have entered a modern society with integration with international society, and contemporary youth is just its civilian leader.

Professional “Football Fans” The tide of commercialization quickly swept through all areas, and commercial sports came into being in this tide. Interestingly, the first choice of commercial sports was not China’s strongest sports, such as table tennis, gymnastics and swimming. Football, one of China’s weakest sports was the first to be chosen by commercial sports. After Series AA, tens of thousands of fans came into being in China overnight. Regardless of age, occupation and gender, they all talked about soccer in a weak football country. Football journals also are suddenly

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in demand and are popular, and all information related to football can be sent to all fans in the shortest interval for the first time. Thus football fans became a striking cultural phenomenon with their obsession, dedication, and even professionalism as fans. Football fans are different to “employed cultural workers”, “quasi-singing stars” and white-collar aspirants. The latter is a realistic choice. Although their choices are connected with their youthful dreams, they pay more attention to the material quality of life. In order to achieve this goal, they must bear a lot of pressure and even pay the price of distortion of character while obtaining rich material returns. However, football fans are different, especially those professional “super fans” who not only cannot obtain any practical benefit but may lose their jobs, spend their savings, and even lose their family because of their obsession. The football fan phenomenon is a very complex phenomenon of urban culture. The large-scale urban football game is not only a part of modern urban life but also one of sources of urban riot. With the commercial development of football, almost all football “powers” have problems created by crazy football fans, and football riots have became one of the modern urban diseases. China’s earliest football riot was the “May Nineteenth Incident” which occurred in Beijing Workers Stadium in 1985. Football fans found it hard to accept the cruel reality that the Chinese team had lost to the Hong Kong team. They were really crazy. They not only threw soda bottles and other beverage bottles towards the venue and Chinese and Hong Kong players like rain, they rushed into the streets and overthrew traffic booths, garbage cans and cars, smashed glass in the subway ... It seemed that only such crazy destruction could vent their anger and grief. However, after all, the “May Nineteenth Incident” belonged to the story of the football fans of the previous generation. Their grievances and riots were closely connected with the ideology of patriotism. That they flocked to the residence of the Chinese football team and sang The Internationale is the best proof of this. They looked forward to Chinese football being more competitive in the world, probably for the sake of the state and national honor. In the interpretation of football this generation of football fans, especially super fans, did not go beyond the framework of state and national ideology. For example, in the White Paper on Chinese Football Fans by Jin Shan, there is a section entitled Three Men who Divorced for Football and One Man who did not Get Married because of Football . It describes how Luo Xi, Emperor of Football Fans and far more famous than the football stars, Tang Houcai with the nickname Small Ball and Wang Xiao with the nickname “Small Crop” successively got divorced from their wives because of football, and how Wang

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Wei with the nickname Philips refuses to get married because of football. The reason in each case was the hope that the Chinese team could reach the finals of the World Cup. Luo Xi said: “I love football so much that I am lost in it; I love it so much that I cannot be separated from it; I love it so much that I am alone…” After one game, because the Chinese team fell into “the sea of death”, he wanted to end his life by an extreme act of self-immolation to “arouse the people to care about football”. “Small Ball” said in a lyrical manner: “Football ah, makes me happy, makes me sad, makes me feel as if flying to the heaven, puts me be in jail, and makes me lose my first wife…” Because he can sing and dance, after he resigned as a professional football fan, he goes to Karaoke bars to sing and dance and he even does not refuse “weddings and funerals” for the purpose of making a living and watching football. In order to watch the more important events in Beijng, Philips said goodbye to his girlfriend, was “transferred” to Beijing with the identity of football fan, and vows “I will not get married if the Chinese team cannot enter the World Cup”.55 This was the first time that “professional fans” appeared in China. It is inextricably linked with the football fever fashionable for a time. Although it is a frantic form of the dream of earlier football fans dream of the Chinese football team entering the World Cup, it is also a form through which these “super stars” find another value of themselves watching the group activity of football. Luo Xi said that “After I came to love football, I felt that my life is especially full. As soon as I go off duty, I go to the “football fans corner” in Anshan. I remember the most names of the football stars. My description of the details of football venues is the most vivid. My analysis ofn difference between Chinese and foreign football is the most complete. As soon as I begin to speak, the others simply don’t interrupt. When I see dozens of pairs of eyes staring at me, I know my language has conquered them. As soon as football is mentioned, my words electrify the listeners and my witticisms flow continuously. The applause makes me suddenly find my value which I had not found before”. Because of his fanatical obsession with football, Luo Xi was interviewed by the column of Son of the East of CCTV. Small Ball had a similar experience: “As long as I am in the stands, the stands appear a scene of jubilation. I can sing and dance on the stands. I am flexible and graceful just like a ball rolling down from the stands.” 56 Therefore, while the super-fans have great expectations of Chinese football, we do not doubt the potential motivation of their need for self-performance. But as a romantic dream and choice, they after all bring a romantic utopian atmosphere to this materialistic age and also add a new cultural character to the nationality and age which is not romantic.

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Rural China through the Lens Different from the expeditions of super football fans for the purpose of football, a press photographer traveled for over 40,000 km, passed through 16 provinces, and visited more than 100 rural schools to shoot a large number of pictures reflecting the educational status of children in poverty-stricken areas. These pictures caused a great sensation at home and abroad. After half a year the “Hope Project” had received donations of RMB 100 million, which was more than 8 times the donations of the previous two and a half years. Thus some reports held that Xie Hailong, a journalist from China Youth Daily was “the first person to influence national policy with pictures”. China’s poor mountain villages and educational situation affected countless people. Publication of his pictures not only promoted a breakthrough in China, more importantly it made more people understand the poverty of China’s rural areas. Xie Hailong’s wish to helping rural children with his camera was formed in the process of going to the countryside. Once he stayed in the home of a secretary of a CPC branch in the countryside. That home was actually a soil cave. A person could only enter by bending at the waist. He said that the three children did not go to school because they were too poor. His wife left home and got married to a shepherd in the village. The shepherd grazed 200 sheep for the village. At the end of a year, the income from each sheep was RMB 2, and the annual income of the shepherd was RMB 400, which was the highest in the village. After that, Xie Hailong went to the countryside at intervals. Every time he took some pictures. There is a picture entitled Two Sisters . In the picture, 10year-old younger sister bends the neck and wipes her tears with her lappet, the slightly older sister has two scratch holes in her pants and disheveled hair, and stares vacantly at something. Their father is a demobilized soldier. Dressed in rags, he stands at the door piled with mud. From this picture, his life can be completely imagined. The crying little girl is 10 years old and in Grade 1. She said: our family doesn’t have money. The superior give us RMB 40 and asked my sister to go to school. My sister thought it over for one night. At dawn she woke me up and said: sister, you go to school. I am old enough to help our family do things”. This older sister had formerly begged to go to school. After the first batch of relief funds from the Hope Project was allocated, they had RMB 40, but the older sister gave the opportunity to her sister. Xie took this picture with tears. Before leaving, he gave this “older sister” RMB 10 to buy notebooks and pens. After the picture was published, this “older sister” was finally helped to go to school. Subsequently these pictures by Xie Hailong were successively

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published in the People’s Daily and the People's Daily, Overseas Edition , and were exhibited publicly in Beijing and Taibei which caused a great sensation. At that time, people did not know how to donate, so they put money on the ground. After a soldier gave RMB 5, he said: “I’ve only got RMB 5. I dropped out after studying in a primary school for 4 years because I didn’t have RMB 5. It is possible that a child cannot go to school because he doesn’t have RMB 5. Please take it and give it to the child most in need”. A middle-aged man asked: “How much does it need for a child to finish primary school? I want to sponsor a child to finish primary school”. Then, he took out 200 RMB and asked to be transferred to the foundation. This man was Luan Sibiao, a worker from Huabei Oilfield and the first person in the country to make a “1+1 Study Aid Action” donation as well. After the pictures were exhibited in Hong Kong people from all walks of life in Hong Kong donated a total of more than HKD 70 million, accounting for one third of total contributions at home and abroad. Obviously, Xie Haihong is not only a press photographer. He is also an intellectual in the modern sense. Although he is the poorest one among the well-known young photographers in Beijing, his concern for the potential perils for the country and nationality and his enthusiasm for participating in social public affairs have made him become the most touching examples in the multipolar choices of modern youth.

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Chapter

Lower Case Culture: Two Kinds of Time in Popular Culture

The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

Abstract Keywords: c ulture time; meeting international standards; culture with bacteria; immunity Mass culture is consumer culture. After the “regurgitation feeding” of mass culture from Hong Kong and Taiwan, mass culture production in Mainland China has problems such as confused values, working exclusively for profit, similar themes, and low character and morals. One thing is certain, which is that current mass culture in China has two kinds of time: in the central cities, fashionable youths or radical artists think they live in a “trendy” or “avant garde” culture time. The schedules of these people are geared to “international standards”; in the vast remote areas, culture time is still flowing slowly and the culture that people accept and appreciate still has strong regional and national characteristics. Different culture times have formed different cultural tastes, but this does not constitute a cultural hierarchy. For quite a long time, mass culture was considered “the culture with bacteria”: the mainstream culture believed that it was an “unhealthy culture” and intellectuals believed that it was a “vulgar culture”. Beijing’s distrust of mass culture was due to the sense of superiority of ideology and classic culture. However, in the process of “sterilization” of mass culture the masses obtained an unexpected cultural “immunity”.

The Entertainment Function of Popular Culture Since 1942, the mainstream culture has had all the features of mass culture through “translation” of folk discourse. However, it is worth noting that this “mass culture” is “capital culture”, and that it emphasizes and advocates grand narration related to state and nationality. Its aim is to mobilize and organize the masses to take part in national salvation and socialist construction. Therefore, although the forms and content of this “mass culture” have been “loved” by the people, it is not “market” or consumer culture. The mass culture with consumer culture in Shanghai as a representative was basically interrupted in the later mainstream culture, and in the times of national peril it was considered “unhealthy” and “corrosive”. The “Red Rose School” and “Mandarin Duck

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and Butterfly School”, and the soft and effeminate music in dancing halls, was defeated by the “Red Classics” of the masses. Thus for most of the 20th century, due to the special historical situation in China, there was no possibility of legitimizing production of consumer mass culture. Since the 1990s, the mainstream discourse with economic construction as the center has dominated social life and its direction of development. While it is generally accepted, it also provides space and legitimacy for the growth and development of commercial culture. It should be noted that the re-start of consumer mass culture in Mainland China was realized through “regurgitation feeding” of consumer culture from Hong Kong and Taiwan after being interrupted for 50 years. Deng Lijun’s songs, the martial arts novels of Jin Yong, Liang Yusheng, Gu Long and Wen Ruian, Qiong Yao and Xi Murong’s love novels and poems as well as overseas Chinese TV series etc. occupied the culture market of Mainland China in another way. This culture form is called “fast food culture”. Its content and methods of narration are familiar and readily accepted by ordinary people. The basic content of these works is related to morals, ethics, family affection and kinship, and are all ordinary things and ordinary thinking. They realize the goal of commercial appeal by way of catering to the psychology and interests of ordinary people. While receiving “regurgitation feeding” of cultures from Hong Kong and Taiwan, the Mainland culture market also tentatively looked for its own form of commercial culture. Before the shaping of this form, the market first found a past “substitute” i.e. non-ideological literature featuring “leisurely and comfortable” prose. The leisure and comfort works of writers such as Zhou Zuoren, Liang Shiqiu, Lin Yutang, Feng Zikai, Xu Zhimo and Yu Dafu were reproduced in large amount. In fact, once they were re-packaged and sold on the market, these works experienced a “stripping’’ process of the market. The taste for leisure and comfort is a part of Chinese cultural tradition. It shows some idea of Chinese literati and officialdom and announces the declining mood hidden within it. However, the process of the market’s “secularization” changed the “leisure and comfort” cultural connotation and focused only on “leisure” consumption. For consumers, tea houses, wine shops, restaurants, catering, clothing, antiques appreciation, flowers, fish and insects etc. do not have implied meanings. They are only another form of secular life. On the other hand, in the process of “regurgitation feeding’’, the culture market finally found a form of Chinese-style “soap”. In the early 1990s, the showing of Desire (TV series) marked the fact that consumer TV plays had begun to take the absolute advantage and monopoly in the culture market. Since this period, TV series as the main form of mass culture production rapidly realized scale. TV series such

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as Hippocampus Song and Dance Hall, Love you without Reasons, Whoever you are, A Native of Beijing in New York, Prime Minister Humpbacked Liu, Princess Returning Pear, Swordsman and Big Family became well-known star series at the turn of the century. Marketization of mass culture was adapted to consumption requirements of this era, and made the “integrated” pattern of culture production of the mainstream culture since the 20th century undergo a fundamental transformation. However, mass culture, after all, is a consumer ’s culture. According to the explanation of Richard de Hamilton, it is a “popular (designed for the public appreciation), short-lived (disappears after short-term showing), consumable (easily forgotten), low-cost, mass produced, young (its subject is youth), humorous, erotic, witty and attractive feast”. 1 In McDonald’s words, “the tricks of popular culture are very simple, that is to do everything possible to please everyone”.2 Therefore, mass culture cannot be assessed on the elite or classic scale of criticism. Robert Escarpit, a representative of the Sociology School of French Literature, made a wonderful explanation of the commonality of culture training. He quoted Aldous Huxley’s interesting analogy and said that culture training was just like a family: “All members of this family recall some prestigious people in their family tree. Let us take France as an example: the cousins of the younger generation recall the witty wisecracks of Uncle Poclain, the simple and plain philosophical understanding of the Descartes brothers, the rhetorical speech of Grandpa Hugo… It is like calling all members of the family pet names. A foreigner will feel uneasy in this circle because he is not a member of this family; in other words, he does not have the culture training. (This is another argument on culture training) ”, this is “commonality of culture training”. It “leads to a community of understanding, and any collective “secretes” a considerable number of thoughts, beliefs, outlooks on values or current views; all of them are considered to be clear, unnecessary to be proved, argued and explained” 3. This view is intended to explain that the concept basis of society, especially concepts of value as critics, will probably lead to misplacement of criticism and becomes invalid criticism due to difference in the appeal of culture goals when making a rational criticism and judgment in the face of mass literature and art. Mass culture is consumable and commercial in essence and its function is entertainment. While catering to the consumption psychology of the masses, it also learns influential narrative strategies from serious culture, such as the fantasy productions of Hollywood. However, all these are for the purpose of obtaining maximum surplus value.

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Two Kinds of Time in Popular Culture The development of mass media is one of characteristics of globalization. In the era of the “E-illusion”, on the one hand we feel a false realization of the “global village”; on the other hand, we also find different culture time in serious information. For years we have been able to watch almost all New Year Concerts held in the Golden Hall of Vienna by live broadcast on TV. People from all over the world sit quietly in the golden hall to wait for the arrival of that exciting moment. After a few years, we found that except that the conductors symbolizing honor and status were changed, the songs every year had almost no change. It seems to have become a symbol and a ritual: it symbolizes the lasting stability of European classical cultural traditions and respect and recognition for a kind of civilization. People come here to take part in a solemn ceremony rather than to enjoy a high-level concert. The Golden Hall becomes a real sacred hall at that time. This is not revelry, but a grand ceremony to commemorate history and cultivation. Europeans, of course, are not rigid to the degree of being single-minded. In fact, current new trends and fashions such as punk, rock, street culture, and even drug abuse and homosexuality are almost accepted in Europe, but European culture time still gives people a soothing feeling. On the university campuses and in the educated class, traditional culture is still the mainstream culture widely accepted. Despite its boisterousness and impact, fashionable culture does not have dominance. It is suspended on the surface of life and seems to have more dramatic color and decoration of culture diversity. However, it is more complicated and difficult to interpret the mass culture of China in a transformation age. Its complex state makes any judgment arbitrary. We also often hear advocates of traditional culture and blind pride for our long culture tradition. However, once this is implemented in specific issues we do not know what traditional culture is and where it is. Chinese traditional culture is too complex. It has both folk culture and official culture, healthy culture and stale culture, interrupted culture and continuous culture. Importantly, it even does not have a symbolic ceremony with cohesive meaning. If we very broadly make an analogy, that would be the Spring Festival Gala which has been held for more than ten years and which is called a ‘new folk custom” and a “Lunar New Year banquet” by the organizer itself. Although according its statistics its popularity rises year by year, through supseficial analysis we can find that skits with the cultural atmosphere of peasants have become the main content and a group of indigenous entertainers in some places jokingly called clown cut a

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dash, which is enough to let down people’s expectations of this “folk custom” or “banquet”. What kind of “folk custom” or “banquet” is this? Ironically, it continuously appeals for “support” and “protection” of “serious culture” or “high culture”. The problem is that such culture is clearly no longer longed for and respected. Therefore, it is meaningless to generally advocate some unspecific culture in China. Induction and catering of authorative media to the tastes of the masses are enough to annihilate any serious effort in the secular field. On this point, we are very different from Europe. It seems that we have not found our cultural soul. Although it is difficult to judge the mass culture of China, it is clear that the current culture of China also has two kinds of time. Inn other words, in the central cities, fashionable youths and radical artists think they live in a “trendy” or “avant garde” culture time. The schedules of these people are completely geared to “international standards”. They are not only used to McDonald’s and KFC and enjoying the European Cup or World Cup and NBA finals, or watching concerts of stars from Europe, America, Hong Kong and Taiwan. More importantly, they hang out in bars, dance disco, do nothing and have nothing to adhere to, live all alone or are extremely lonely, cohabit today and become single tomorrow, all of which have become the normal state of daily life and spiritual life of some of the people. Accordingly, some people concluded that China had entered a “postmodern” era, but they do not know that there is another culture time, or it can be said that in a vast area of China there is a culture time which is flowing slowly in “old revolutionary, minority group, remote and poverty-stricken” areas. The culture that they accept and appreciate still has strong regional and national characteristics. They not only can not accept “fashion” and “avant garde”, they even find it profoundly offensive. You can condescendingly think that this is backward, conservative, uncivilized and ignorant. However, it is meaningless to criticize such tastes. Mutual criticism of cultural tastes formed in different culture time is difficult. Importantly, in essence, these different cultural tastes do not have a hierarchical relationship so there is no question of which culture is superior. Folk culture and tastes will still stubbornly hold the line as an existence. Such irreversibility of difference is the rationality of its existence. In the 1990s, the theory of globalization was widely discussed in many fields of expertise. It became a cutting-edge topic, which was related to the fact that international society was devoted to the new targets of cooperation, development and progress after the Cold War. Especially in the economic field, globalization has not only been limited to theoretical discussions but has penetrated to specific rules and ways of operation. Theories and rules related

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to economic activities as the main activities of human life today cannot help but have great effect and influence. However, the complexity of the fields of human activity fields and means as well as differences in region, nationality, race, class, gender and so on determine that there are different understandings of the theory of globalization. Even in the same area, globalization has still not been accepted as a universal theory. Especially in the humanities field, there almost is no possibility of reaching a consensus on differences between theories of globalization. No matter how bright or irresistible “globalization” is as described in theory, it is in fact still an ideology or theoretical assumption. Even if default “globalization” is achieved in some fields, the above-mentioned phenomenon of coexistence of two kinds of culture time in different regions cannot be “integrated” by this theoretical conjecture. It should be noted that folk or geographical cultural tastes are different from the “mass culture” produced in the current era. The former is a national cultural form in the traditional sense, and it is a part of the customs and culture formed by a nationality or region over a long period; the latter is an emerging cultural industry formed under the instigation of modern media and the capital market. They are far from being the same thing. There have been many discussions over the last 100 years on the issue of “mass culture”. Most of the previous discussions were in the ideological sense. This is because the concept of “the masses” has a crucial position in a hundred years of ideological and cultural history. Its deified nature is not allowed to be subverted and transgressed. Whoever stands at the side of the masses will obtain a position of winning without a fight. The legitimacy of this plural concept is self-evident. Therefore, worship for the masses was the biggest fashion in the ideological and cultural history of the 20th century, which was greatly connected with the extensive mass mobilization needed in saving our country from subjugation and ensuring its survival and socialist construction. What was associated with this goal was the need to prove to its rationality. Therefore, populism, as the most appropriate ideology resource, was widely disseminated in China. From the “rickshaw puller school” to “workers, peasants and soldiers literature”, the masses became a signans with endless means. At that time, the plural concept of “the masses” was still conceivable. They were simple, honest or archaistic masses. They were Wang Gui and Li Xiangxiang, the white-haired girl and Yang Bailao, Xiaoerhei and the brother and sister reclaiming wasteland. They created new literature out of historical facts with lively, healthy, handsome and vigorous new images. The call for the masses was changed from imagination to reality in literature for the first time. People created “the masses” by calling for the masses, and then got to know “the masses” through “the masses”. It was a victory of

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revolutionary literature and revolutionary intellectuals. This victory was deified with undeniable conventionality. Therefore, culture in the revolutionary period did not have the issue of two kinds of time. Its singleness also expressed the purity of revolutionary literature. At that time, intellectuals or writers were lucky. Although they were the object of transformation, they had the right to control discourse and it was still a general consensus that educated and knowledgeable intellectuals were respected by society. Therefore, by calling for “the masses”, intellectuals had some sense of “superiority”. It was just for this reason that for many years, although they were poor and their social status was ordinary, they did not have a sense of loss. If they were occasionally attacked a kind of “vehement determination to make efforts” naturally rose in their hearts, and everything was for “the masses”. “The masses” evolved from an object of imagination to an object of faith. It became a fulcrum of the life and ideology of intellectuals. No one doubted its rationality and basis. By the turn of century, China had changed dramatically. Those people with too many illusions about modernization were not ready to think about its negative effects. They still regarded the masses with the passion of past days and the old idealistic feelings, and tried to serve them, but the masses had lost interest in the literature and art created by intellectuals for them. Intellectuals’ original idea of the masses went wrong. In fact, the understanding of the mainstream ideology in the 20th century had strong political color at the very beginning. The masses was understood and known as a “class”. Moreover, they were a plain, pure group with natural revolution requirements and consciousness, and were more progressive than any other level, class and group. This divine status was completed through constant imagination and narration, which had significant differences with Western society’s understanding of this concept. At the turn from the 20th century to the 21st century, French scholar Gustav Le Bon gave a comprehensive analysis and criticism in A Motley Crowd—Mass Psychology Study . In his view, impulsiveness, volatility and impatience are the basic characteristics of groups and their actions are completely controlled by the unconscious. They easily submit to the bidding of a headsman, and they also are ready to sacrifice their lives heroically. It is only groups in every faith that do not hesitate to make the sacrifice. When he cited the cause of the Franco-Prussian War, he said that it was said that a telegram showing an ambassador had been insulted was made known to the public and offended the public. This caused a terrible war. The crowd is suggestible and credulous. They are always self-righteous, arbitrary and illiberal. In a public occasion, even if a speaker makes only the slightest refuting of knowledge undoubted by the crowd, he will immediately provoke cries and wild shouting.

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Such criticisms by Gustav were of course related to his personal experience, but we have all partially experienced the peremptoriness and irrationality of a group or crowd in some point. Therefore, his criticism is not entirely unreasonable. When the era of extensive public mobilization had passed, some concepts related to “the masses” also successively lost their original meanings. The revolutionary nature and progressive nature once owned by them not only gradually faded, but were also profoundly doubted. Especially after entering the era of the market and commercialization, the requirements of “the masses” for culture proved this doubt. In the era of commercialization, “the masses” are a consumer group. It is because of the existence of such a group that the “mass culture” in today’s meaning and its market appear. However, at this time, “the masses” are still not a whole, and they are capricious. Different tastes influence the relationship between production and consumption. Therefore, the “mass culture” field is not an aesthetic field. The requirement of “the masses” for “pleasant sensations” shows that it is a place of desire. The problem of radical criticism of mass culture in the “humanistic spirit” discussion carried out in the early 1990s was criticism of mass culture as an object of aesthetic appreciation from the position of elitism. Therefore, from the point of view of mass culture, this was a badly posed criticism that did not constitute a criticism. Urban mass culture is a unique and strange field. It has links with traditional culture, modern culture, oriental culture, Western culture and other cultures, but it does not have a pedigree relationship with these. You cannot say what cultural form mass culture directly originates from. Once this culture is in the market, it follows the rules of the market. As a product, it is directly related to consumption. Therefore, the ultimate appeal of mass culture is never divorced from commercial interests. In the movie market, success of box office take has almost become the most important assessment scale or mark of a movie. In this unique field that meets people’s desire to watch, regardless of tearful sensations, bloody terror, scenery, science fiction, computer generation or real swords and spears, the ultimate goal of producers and directors is to bring an audience to a cinema. Therefore, the effective demand theory is an eternal rule followed by mass culture. Under the constraints of the rules, the mass culture in contemporary China has created two kinds of false culture time. One kind is past culture time characterized by nostalgic culture; the other kind is current culture time characterized by white-collar tastes. Since Desire , the first indoor play in China produced in the early 1990s during the secularization cyclone of the “Red Classics”, nostalgia culture has been one of the main contents of the

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mass culture market. This situation is connected with realistic situation in contemporary China. In the early 1990s there was a little space in the ideology and culture fields in China. At that time, enlightenment discourses were frustrated and the elite position was questioned. The works irrelevant to the main theme such as Desire not only had nothing to do with the enlightenment position, but also eased the tension of shortage of products in the culture market. Meanwhile, since the 1980s, a vigorous radical “innovation” movement had been implemented, production of traditional cultural was broken down, and demand was continually expanding. This situation led to the success of Desire . For the masses, the melodies and scenes once familiar to them enabled them to establish a connection with history once again. The masses marginalized by the market economy crossed the historical fault from the psychological point of view, which eased anxiety and loss of reality. Mass culture implemented a nostalgia strategy not only at the social psychology level, but also seized the opportunity to resort to nostalgic strategy at emotional and value levels. It was the decisive role of the nostalgia style of these movies that enabled the smooth introduction of movies of American ideology such as Hollywood’s Bridges of Madison County and Titanic to Mainland China. In other words, mass culture should highlight what is lost in an era. It brings people into another kind of time in order to meet their psychological demands. White-collar tastes are a kind of fashion cultivated by commercial society. Although the white-collar class is still in the process of development in China, white-collar tastes arrived ahead of schedule. Not only the masses admire white-collar workers, other public opinion is enchanted by “white-collar culture”. “white-collar magazine” is the most eye-catching characterization of such tastes. It shows everything in a dreamlike fashion and covers up or substitutes for real problems stealthily. Its consumption and possession hints are realized in the emphasis on grace, education and self-esteem. Everything that a white-collar worker looks forward to cannot be entirely achieved by the white-collar worker, but it shows a kind of identity, a kind of fashion and a kind of false boundary of keeping a distance from the ordinary people. Therefore, in the movie and television play market, especially in mediocre TV series, it seems that almost all Chinese currently live in buildings, halls, restaurants and clubs. The consumption means and style of the Western middle class can be found everywhere. This is a kind of unreal real time. While inducing a type of tastes and consumption desire, it has also inspired a kind of hedonistic and extreme individualism. In some sense, it can be said that this taste meets general bad taste. It is no different from the nostalgia trend in essence and both of them lead

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consumers to unreal illusion time. Therefore, how to understand indigenous cultural resources and the difference between the two kinds of culture time on the basis of studying mass culture psychology in China in the cognition transformation period is an issue that mass culture theory must address. Mass culture is not an aesthetic field. Its entertainment feature determines its consumption function. In the era of single culture production, we called for the emergence of entertainment culture and hoped culture could be more easily appreciated. However, this does not mean that all cultural products made in the non-aesthetic field are reasonable. Regarding the actual situation of mass culture, simplification and vulgarization caused by its two kinds of virtual culture time are harmful to the healthy development of mass culture. But we have to despondently say that in the face of the present situation of mass culture, while making criticisms, we can do nothing because we cannot change it.

“Typhoid Mary” and “People with Art Diseases” In 1907, members of the Biological Society of Washington were told that the first known case of a “chronic typhoid bacteria communicator” or “healthy carrier” had been found. The name of this “typhoid carrier” was Mary Mallon. She was an Irish immigrant and a cook in a household. This unfortunate woman would be traced, noted, and invested with the name of “Typhoid Mary”. This “typhoid carrier’’ was found by chance, but there were two strands to the story – social control and “typhoid carrier ’’. In the view of the government health department, this was an infectious disease which poisoned people openly and threatened social order secretly. For the sake of social health, medical groups and the media cooperated. The medical theories supported by the media would become social policy on the basis of science, and provided lawful public opinions and social conditions for properly dealing with the incident. However, “Typhoid Mary” absconded with the defense of “innocent”.4 For mass culture, the story of “Typhoid Mary” is a complete metaphor. The past and present of mass culture have always been deemed as a “culture with bacteria”. It survives in the cracks and is attacked by front and rear. Mainstream ideology holds that this type of culture often contains “unhealthy culture”, it is harmful to society and the consequence of its widespread popularity is similar to that of typhoid bacilli. As a culture disease, its poison is endlessly harmful especially to young people; in the view of intellectual culture, this is a “vulgar culture” and a garbage culture which cannot be mentioned in the same

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breath as classical culture again. From such statements, we may see similarities between mass culture and “Typhoid Mary”: Mary was an Irish immigrant, and she was not a native US citizen. As an exotic “other person”, her identity was originally suspicious, or in other words her “uncleanliness” was congenitally linked with her identity. As she was “Irish”, the race problem was also implied in the narration of “bacteria carriers”, or in other words, the “typhoid bacilli” was exotic. American chauvinism suddenly had another fear. An MD wrote the following words in an article: “From several weeks last year to this winter, Asiatic cholera visited Europe especially Russia. Every morning, while looking through the newspapers, US intellectuals, leaders and outstanding experts, excluding freelances who get up early like birds, and all other similar people, feel sad for those victims suffering pain. They have to bear the pain because of ignorance and laziness. American citizens feel lucky that they need not bear or die of cholera morbus helplessly like those blindfolds, stupid and superstitious Russian peasants, before taking a breakfast cup of coffee as usual. The American citizen complacently lays aside or subconsciously does not consider American Typhoid.”5 In such a narrative, the security and superiority American citizens fancied they possessed are vivid on the paper. However, “Typhoid Mary” made it more difficult and complicated to differentiate between Americans and Russian farmers. Gender discrimination is also implied in the narration of “Typhoid Mary”. This Irish woman was demonized because of her notoriety. She was described as an ugly woman, a woman strong as a man and an old maid who slept with a dirty man. In such narrations, the notoriety of “Typhoid Mary”’ was repeatedly enlarged. Thus she became a heinous “bacteria carrier”. Repeated arguments against and mistrust of mass culture originate from the claim of superiority of ideology and classical culture just like American chauvinism’s attitude towards the cholera epidemic. Order of ideology, state and national concern about narrations and the classical culture faith of intellectuals meant that the marginal mass culture was not only discriminated against by the cultural “class”, but also due to its offensiveness to the dignity of culture it is always difficult to establish its lawful status. Once mass culture is identified as “culture with bacteria”, its turbulent and volatile “identity” and fate are almost certain. In the view of academic defenders of classical culture: mass culture is “popular” (designed for public appreciation), shortlived (disappears after a short-term showing), consumable (easily forgotten), low-cost, mass produced, young (its subject is youth), humoristic, erotic, witty and attractive …”6 These features subverted the support points of traditional culture and produced a new ideology through “cultural illusion”. Judgments on cultural heroism predetermine that mass culture becomes a clown in the culture

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structure. However, this is not entirely applicable to Chinese mass culture. Since the 20th century, mass culture has experienced an extremely complex historical process in China, or in other words, different political and cultural appeals have been expressed in the field of mass culture. Therefore, discussions on and transformation and conversion of mass culture have never stopped. There were at least three most classical discussions on mass culture: the first one was the “May Fourth” period. Against the social background that nationality was in great danger and the introduction of Western science, technology and learning to the East, the first awakening intellectuals wanted to overthrow the old literature and establish a new literature, and wanted to return the literature of aristocrats to civilians. Hu Shi’s “Eight things”, Cheng Duxiu’s “three main doctrines”, “Zhou Zuoren’s “civilian literature” and so on all advocated reconstructing “literature easy to understand”, “understandable and popular” “social literature” and “universal” and “sincere” literature. The discussions during this period implied a clear requirement for and image of a new culture. It was closely linked with the myth and dream of establishing a national country which had existed since modern times. However, the culture returned to civilians was actually developed by the intellectuals and the feelings, content, misery, sadness and perplexity had no reaction with the masses. Even if they wrote about “rickshaw pullers” they were still the commanding “riders”. The second discussion was of particularly great significance. The Popular Literature and Art Movement and its discussion held at the turn of the 1920s and in the1930s lasted for nearly 10 years among revolutionary writers and artists, and provided a background of literary theory for the guiding principle for literature and art that “literature and art serve workers, peasants and soldiers” formulated at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art. The proposal of this guiding principle became the guideline and standard followed by literature and art for half a century, and the implied and definitive political ideology became an indisputable consensus. It should be admitted that although the two discussions had clear ideological goals, they also had indisputable historical rationality. In a sense, they reached the expectations set up by the mainstream discourse. The turbulent social situation in China for 100 years made it difficult for all the discussions on and expectations about literature and art to resort to pure literature; they had to bear a heavier social content. Statements that the country and nationality were in great danger and calls for self-help were widely expressed in these popular works. As intellectuals or writers and artists, it was also or only through this form that they could express their intervention in and concern about social life. The fortune or misfortune of Chinese intellectuals, writers and artists were all

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implied in this contradiction and the situation is hard to explain. However, this situation also indicates that the connotations of “mass culture” we discuss here not only are different in different periods, they are also not completely the same as a literature and art type concept. In the Western countries, mass culture includes many meanings: it can be mass culture or folk culture. In form, it refers to songs, poetry, realistic or vivid romantic stories, confessions, humorous fiction or poem booklets sold along the streets, western fiction, horror fiction, science fiction or fantasy stories, allegories and satirical sketches, comic strips and drawings, and even picture postcards. It can also be used to refer to some news texts, and includes the whole field of dramatic literature, from one-man shows and small comedy to full-length drama. Its role is “only entertainment”7, but the above discussions of Chinese mass culture were not carried out within this framework. Regardless of “popular” or “popular mass”, it refers more to a cultural ideology issue of “for what people”. However, it is worth noting that these two discussions of mass culture not only achieved the change from old culture to new culture, but also achieved the “translation” from intellectual discourse to folk discourse. In such a cultural context, Chinese artists composed lively and healthy images of Chinese farmers and soldiers for the first time. It played an inestimable role in achieving wartime mobilization, mobilizing as many of the masses as possible to participate in national self-help to save the nation from subjugation and ensure its survival. Therefore, while mass culture discussion during turbulent times or wartime cleared “culture with bacteria”. Its construction was more important. However, once it formed the mainstream, this cultural ideology also brought two unexpected consequences. Firstly, it was a peasant culture and popular in its tastes. After this discussion, the first batch of “Red Classics” in Chinese cultural history was produced. It is worth noting that the production of these works was completed against the background of “writing articles about the countryside” in 1938 and “walking to the people” in 1942. When affirming Xiaoerhei’s Marriage , Zhou Yang said: “In any narrative description, the author uses the language of the masses, and how charming these languages are! This charm can only be obtained from life and the masses”.8 However, here, “the masses” were peasants. Some works including Xiaoerhei’s Marriage also realized some compromise with the old culture in ideographic strategy in the process of achieving the shift and tilt towards peasant culture. In other words, these works loved by peasants still follow the pattern of “handsome scholar and beautiful girl” and “hero and beauty” in their structural form. Xiaoerhei, Xiaoqin, Liu Qiaoer and Zhao Zhenhua are all expressed in such a structure patterm. Thus the object of “sterilization” of the second discussion on “mass

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culture” was actually the “individualism” of intellectuals and the perplexed, sad and miserable emotions of the “petty bourgeoisie”. The second consequence was that once the inertia of thinking of peasant cultural tastes was formed, they were delayed timelessly. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, clear-up of “culture with bacteria” had become a routine cultural policy. Wartime tension and anxiety was not be relieved because of the arrival of peace, and wartime cultural opinions were almost completely used in the peaceful period. The objects cleared by the culture criticism movements were in fact all identified as “cultural bacteria carriers”. Not only did entertainment mass literature and arts become impossible to produce and even exist, but also the works related to human nature and human feelings in serious literature and arts were also identified as “cultural bacteria carriers” and were constantly exposed and criticized. From Between Our Couple to Daji and Her Father and from Beautiful to Red Bean , normal human love was deemed evil. This situation was naturally related to Mao Zedong’s New Culture Conjecture . In Mao Zedong’s view, the old culture should be objected to, meanwhile the new culture should be constructed. However, in Mao Zedong’s view old culture not only referred to traditional feudal culture, it included some parts of bourgeois culture, peasant culture and even intellectual culture. But the new culture was always vague. It was described as a “new democratic culture” and “the people and masses’ anti-imperialism and feudalism led by the proletariat”, and looked forward to a “revolutionary national culture” which should have “national form and democratic content” and be “fresh and lively, with the Chinese style and Chinese air loved by the Chinese people”. However, the specific form of literature and art, and what culture was consistent with the “new culture conjecture” remained vague.” 9 It is certain that the new culture that Mao Zedong looked forward to is a continuous, transparent, pure and simple culture, as can be seen by the great interest of Mao Zedong in “revolutionary model operas” during the “Cultural Revolution”. It was just this transparent, pure and simple “new culture” requirement which amplified and highlighted some aspects of peasant culture which could be used, and used this to exclude, attack and refute other cultures which was deemed as “culture with bacteria”. In fact, the second discussion on mass culture and the culture mainstream formed afterwards was also a culture excluding and attacking intellectuals. The culture shaped in the culture “sterilization” movement was no longer a culture of human caring, and thus there was no longer any relationship with “mass culture”. The third discussion of mass culture occurred in the 1990s. This was a brand new historical context. In this era, because mass culture had a relationship with

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market, it became more complex. After the legitimacy of the ideology of the market was established in the social life structure, the commercial factor in mass culture would inevitably generate rapidly and expand widely. It is noteworthy that, before generation of this discussion, mass culture had been popular quietly among the people in the 1980s, which was a result of regurgitation feeding of cultures from Hong Kong and Taiwan. That was an optimistic and romantic era. All kinds of atmospheres and emotions in society indicated a brilliant and bright future for the state and people, and the relaxed environment provided the possibility for the release of a variety of desires among the people. Before the native consumer culture was produced, the “alien form” fulfilled its leisure function. Deng Lijun’s success in Mainland China caused an increased development of the “regurgitation feeding” phenomenon from Hong Kong and Taiwan. The martial arts novels of Jin Yong, Liang Yusheng, Gu Long and Wen Ruian, the love novels of Qiongyao, the warm prose of Sanmao, the innocent poems of Xi Murong and a large number of Chinese TV series from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore rapidly became popular. This phenomenon almost fully rewrote the cultural life and people’s culture consumption tastes in Mainland China. The culture from Hong Kong and Taiwan, which was often disdainfully called a “cultural desert”, easily occupied the culture market of Mainland China. Its acceptance obviously conveyed some internal laws of production of mass culture and indicated the rich experiences of production of mass culture outside Mainland China under commercial economic conditions. This culture appeared in the form of illusion and imagination, and had no direct relation with real life. The masses not only were familiar with its cultural connotations, but also looked forward to it full of appreciation: what was described was all about morality, ethics, love, kinship and other human relationships, not the political goals of politicians nor the ultimate concerns of intellectuals. These ordinary things and ordinary feelings were “related to themselves” for the masses. Although such mass culture contains an unavoidable business motivation, it does take the masses as the object of concern and reflects ethical awareness of commercial culture while realizing commercial appeal. Therefore, it implemented “cultural conciliation” for the masses with “cultural illusion”. Compared with the initial production situation of mass culture in the 1980s, this production of mass culture was normative and mature, and it had obviously passed the process of “sterilization”. However, the mass culture just starting up in Mainland China was experiencing the non-immune period of “desiring typhoid infection”. The intellectual class with historical responsibility found the “Typhoid Mary” of Chinese mass culture at that time, so they launched the third re-

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discussion on mass culture. A slight difference in this discussion was that it was not initiated by the mainstream ideology and nor were the objectives stipulated by the mainstream ideology. Once the tide of the market economy had destroyed the traditional humanities dam, and the humanistic spirit adhered to by intellectuals was under threat, they were not only very disappointed at the ubiquitous secular life atmosphere but also felt unbearable oppression. They thought that the real world had had a “spiritual crisis”, and people had “lost interest in developing their spiritual lives”.10 Therefore, in a major discussion named Humanistic Spirit, mass culture was put forward as a specific object once again. In this discussion, the intention of “sterilizing” mass culture through ideology had almost completely faded. The elite intellectuals hoped that in the era of a commercial economy, people could also pay attention to their spiritual situation and retain feelings of idealism to some extent. Therefore, this discussion was mainly targeted at the “culture of commercialism”, and this was mass culture in the modern sense. Its simulation, reproduction, consumption and fashion was the characterization of the ideology of a post-industrial era, and its complexity can only be reflected in such an era. Although the radical criticism of elite intellectuals further illustrated their sense of social responsibility the state, nation and spiritual well-being, in fact this criticism not only lost them listeners but also there was no way to change the rampant production and ideology strategy of consumerism at all in the era of red dust. Only at this time did we perceive that the status of intellectual discourse as authority no longer existed. This radical expression was only a last bleak gesture a last elegant stand. “The masses” who once adored and worshiped them had gone. The transformation of the era has formed “the masses” who could be transformed as a whole into today’s leisure consumers. However, this discussion was fruitful with regard to level of knowledge. For example, the discussion clarified the concept of “mass culture”, which had been thought to be self-evident. In fact, mass culture and popular culture are two totally different concepts. “One of the reasons causing the two to be mixed up is the strategy of the mass culture maker, which is used to conceal its culture dissolution function and counteraction to human life; once mass culture is said to be popular culture, mass culture can be openly produced under the slogan that “we want both elegant culture and folk culture”. In fact, mass culture and popular culture are absolutely not the same. It has changed into a kind of commodity production, and its most important feature is not the creation of culture itself but production and commodities. It moulds the masses’ emotions and life tastes.”11 The importance of this revelation is: a “Typhoid Mary” was created to please the “desire for infection” and to cater to the pleasure of the “infected people”.

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During the long process of “sterilization” we also cultivated the masses and adapted cultural tastes. We found that the classic works of contemporary Chinese culture actually have the narrative factor of mass culture. Among them, the most obvious is the “violence advocacy” complex. In Red Sun, Red Rock, Keep the Red Flag Flying, Story of Pioneering, Li Zicheng (Chuang Wang), Steel Meets Fire, Railway Guerrillas, Snowy Forest, Youth in the Flames of War etc., the fighting and bloody scenes have great similarities with narratives of violence and revengeful murder. Therefore, when the violence narrative resources of the red revolution were hard to maintain in reproduction, the appreciation of the masses rapidly shifted to martial arts novels. In the late 1980s, even a university professor teaching classics in class would have a martial art novel under his arm after class. In the 1990s, when salacious and violence narrations in mass culture gradually shifted to historical and folk wonders, it was just in “serious literature’’ or “elegant literature”, and the main signans of mass culture were used unprecedentedly. In works such as Abandoned Capital, White Deer Plain, The Door of the Sheep, Traditional Chinese Painting, Let the Dust Settle , “sex” is almost the most important signans, and the main reason that they caused numerous discussions originated in this point: in “female literature”, “to narrate with body” was the consensus of the critic circles, and body exposure was one of the ideographic strategies of female literature. It can be seen that the ubiquity of mass culture is very corruptible. Thus all of us have become “culture bacteria carriers”. This is an era of boundless desire, and an era in which “nomadic culture” gallops freely over “one thousand plateaus”. Does the “revelry of the gods’’ really give us absolute freedom? When calling this a free era, do we call out demons? In the process of “sterilization”, are we “Typhoid Mary” in the moral sense? In Public Field and Private Field , Hannah Arendt quoted the statement of Adam Smith and mercilessly deconstructed that “group of people usually called literati”: “The public’s appreciation... is often a part of their remunerations… For a doctor, this accounts for…a large part; for a lawyer, it accounts for a bigger part; for a poet and a philosopher, it almost accounts for all the part.” She believed that: “Self-evidently, the public’s appreciation and remuneration of money belong to the same nature, and the two are interchangeable. The public’s appreciation is something which can be used: status and identity.” 12 Here Arendt’s argument is that when the public discourse domain has been opened up, in fact due to the fact that everyone has a different position their ways of speaking and the things that they want to protect are naturally different. However, for us who love words, although we are already “Typhoid Mary”, we still have to play the role of “culture sterilizer”. In order to express our

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identity as intellectuals we must stand on the position of criticism. It seems that we have no other choice. But we should note that the changes of mass culture from connotation to production strategy have never been altered owing to the criticism of intellectuals. The control of the market, as an invisible hand, is the most powerful. We found that the present production of popular culture has moved away from the sex and violence of the 1980s, and the desire on this level has been saturated. Its shift to elegance, nostalgia, comedy drama, family, love, good and evil and other directions surely does not leave requirements of interests, but the traditional accusation leveled at mass culture is obviously no longer valid. To treat consumption culture through aesthetic criticism is misplaced criticism. It should also be noted that, if we stick to a constant position which is controlled by “truth will’’ such as mass culture, we will be “culture bacteria carriers’’ like “Typhoid Mary’’. However, we have reason to believe that we have acquired the immune antibody after experiencing “’typhoid”. Therefore, we will not be “culture bacteria carriers’’ of moral judgments.

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Chapter

Swan Song and Oriental Utopia

The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

Abstract Key words: d isillusion; cultural frustration; leisure tide; Utopia; humanism The disillusionment of the intellectual is a sign of the mental crisis of their class. They have to doubt what they had once sincerely convinced themselves of. It is the psychological price the intellectuals have to pay after the destruction of the central values of society. It is an inevitable spiritual agony and conversely indicates the necessity of cultural reconstruction. The question of ultimate concerns and values has not been left in the past. Perhaps it is through questioning that the intellectual can actually find their way to self salvation. A utopia is essential to the intellectual. The neo-idealists interpret literature in such a way. No matter how society changes, literature should address, explore and contemplate the living environment and the spiritual situation of mankind, and endeavor sincerely and enthusiastically to solve the problem of a spiritual morass. The writers are obliged to express their will to maintain the basic human values through their work. Except for the function of entertainment, literature should also console and enlighten the human heart through the spirit of idealism. The description of the variety of human behavior in the commercial age is rather trivial. Superficially, it seems that people have more freedom and they can arrange their life according to their own will. However, behind the confused and complicated behavior, it is concealed the fact that human beings are anxious and unwilling to choose in the progress of modernization. Immediate interests and small individual will becomes the most dominant motive for their behavior. The abundance of material is a miracle of the age. On the other hand, it is also a great mountainous barrier and no one can traverse it to see what is hidden behind it or what can they pursue or look for. Therefore, behind the multipolarization or multiple choices, a real modern anxiety is hiding. Such anxiety makes people wonder what to hope for. Such anxiety not only exists in undeveloped countries like China, but also exists in the developed countries. In the works of Fromm, Marcuse, Giddens and Sun Zhiwen, we also find this kind of anxiety and we can see how these scholars continually endeavored to remove or alleviate such anxiety. They

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find: “The more deeply modern people are involved in a rationalized life style, (we need only take the example of technology which controls our daily life), the more unreasonable their reflections are. The more modern people are disengaged from the material trap, the less they know about what to do. The more freedom modern people get, the less they know how to enjoy it…” 1 Such a situation is a problem that we keenly felt. Therefore, while we continue to look forward to and pursue modernism, a worldwide reflection on modernism has already been going on for a long time. In the opinion of Giddens, the initial character of modernism is that it traps us in a large number of events which we never fully understand, most of which seems out of our control. In order to analyze how such situation was formed, it is not enough to invent new concepts such as postmodernism. On the contrary, we must re-examine the nature of modernism”.2 The problems appear only in the pursuit of and realization of modernism and of course there will still be other unforeseen problems. When the high-tech “cloned sheep” faced the world for the first time, the earthquake it caused was no less astonishing than the Iran Earthquake. The reason of mankind had again exposed its limitations in the endless pursuit of modernism. To what degree can people control themselves by reason? Has modernism not become uncontrollable? These problems are the real problems faced by scholars. On the other hand, the attempt to lead people back to the spiritual life and to the traditional nobility and meanwhile make them yearn for such happy life suffered unprecedented destruction. The vital strike came neither from friendly critiques or vicious attacks, nor from the change or alteration of the way of spiritual life. It came from the nonchalance of the world — the existence of the spirit was completely ignored. For those who still insist, modernism turns out to be something even darker. Then we see another kind of modernism, which is anti-modernism. The cultural reflection of such a phenomenon is more obvious in our ancient oriental nation with a long history of humanism. But we have to admit that these cultural reflections can never lead to reality. To most people, they are merely accidental events in this confused age. In small talk, people unconsciously but cruelly include them in the category of consumption. Their real influence is among the intellectuals. “The Swan Song” made them more determined to seek a utopia. On the one hand, they tried to establish their relationship with history in a new context. On the other hand, they tried to redeem the cultural estimation of the intellectual who were in the process being marginalized and to reluntantly establish the rationality of insistence, so that they could realize their own spiritual and cultural self-salvation. Thus an intensity caused by the differences in cultural demands pervaded the intellectual circle at the turn of the century.

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We live in an age when the central value of society has been destroyed. Some people try to seek and explore new beliefs and values with the courage to survive, some people chant the death of their soul in the failure and disappointment in their life. “Leisure” stands for a sense of loss and a contemplating gesture towards the past cultural heroes in the present commercial age. The literary criticism is too gentle. It seems that there is no literary criticism that does not contain high praise and flattery.

All kinds of cultural circuses have gradually retreated. People look despondently at the wasteland-like background and the lifeless empty stage, waiting for new sparkling spectacles.

Cultural Frustration and Disappointment In the 1990s everything we talked about was related to a huge and pervasive secret: commercialization. Before the 1980s, social life and cultural phenomena could only be interpreted through ideology. Although the intellectuals were partly deprived of their discourse power under the domination of ideology, there were still more relaxed periods which enabled them to express themselves. Although resolving to write for the people, they were still tragic heroes when they felt depressed. But commercialization is crueler. Cultural violence is replaced by capital violence and the utopian illusion is replaced by the principle of interest and exchange. Looking back to the 20th century, the spiritual drive for enlightenment was brought down by commercialization overnight. In this sense the history was ended. The spiritual history of the intellectual is dimmed in this age and it has lost its past influence and splendor. New heroes have replaced them. Even their faint and individualized revolt is weak and trivial. At the splendid opening ceremony of the international games, the reporters tried to find a famous old director according to the list provided by the organizer, but they only saw a young face. The old director refused to perform because there would be pop singers on the same stage.3 However, the performance was not and would not be interrupted and the pop singers would not take this gesture as disdain or insult. The old director, who was not able to prevent fashions from spreading as fast as a quickstep dance, could only express himself as an individual with an individual gesture. He could not proclaim his insistence as elegantly and confidently as in the age of enlightenment. This not only hurt the self-esteem of the intellectuals; they were also severely challenged. The whole basis and spiritual resources they relied on to practice their discourse power are silently derided in this age. This

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is intolerable for them. Nevertheless, a swan song rose lonely from beyond the horizon. This was the poem by Hai Zi: I hear the sound of swans at night, Flying over the bridge remote. The river water in my body flows, Echoes their fluttering wings. Over the birthday soil they fly And over the soil of dusk. A swan is wounded, deeply hurt Only soft wind does know. Yet still she flies aloft. Heavy is the river water in my body, As is the door that hangs in the house. When they fly over the bridge remote, I cannot echo with my elegant flight. Over the graveyard they fly like snow, No road leads to my door — My body has no gate — I have only fingers Standing on the graveyard, Like ten frozen candles. On my soil, On my birthday soil, A swan is wounded, As the folk song singers chant.

This beautiful and melancholy poem Wounded Swan was written by Hai Zi, a famous Chinese poet. “Wounded Swan” is a vivid image, which shows the poetic taste and imagination pattern of Hai Zi’s day. It is lofty and elegant, with a hue of idealism and romanticism. The poem was written in 1986, when China had passed through the primary period of reform and opening up and in the field of culture, idealism began to dim but was not yet really challenged. Especially on the campuses, where idealism was still shining with its last glow, Hai Zi was steeped in such a cultural atmosphere. He wrote a lot of beautiful lyrics. He was loved by a generation of young men because of these works

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and thus became known as one of the best Chinese poets. However, his poetry never aroused enough attention during his lifetime and no serious criticism was written about his work. This phenomenon not only showed the marginalization of the purest literary genre, but also silently declared that people neither understood it nor needed it. Hai Zi was enthusiastic about poetry. He adored the respect poet Hölderlin, whose lines he had noted: Till in that cradle of steel heroes enough have been fostered, Hearts in strength can match heavenly strength as before. Thundering then they come. But meanwhile too often I think it's Better to sleep than to be friendless as we are, alone, Always waiting, and what to do or to say in the meantime I don't know, and who wants poets at all in lean years? But they are, you say, like those holy ones, priests of the wine-god Who in holy Night roamed from one place to the next.

Hölderlin especially touched Hai Zi and he learnt from the German poet endurance and enthusiasm. Thus he formed his own poetic view: From Hölderlin I know that the century disease of poetry must be overcome——one must overcome the zeal for the superficial and for rhetoric, the pursuit for rhetoric, visual and organic stimulation, and trivial description of details. From Hölderlin I know, poetry is a fire, not a rhetoric practice. Poetry is not vision and is not even language. It is the tranquil and mysterious center of the spirit, which does not settle itself in rhetoric. It has a quiet nature, which should not be bothered by the vulgarians. Poetry is pure. It has its own dominion and throne. It is quiet. It has breath.4

Out of his own understanding of poetry, Hai Zi wrote a large number of lyrics in praise of the nature. He wrote about herds in the moonlight, villages under the sun, wheat fields in May. The modern people were more and more alienated from nature and spirit, but Hai Zi repaired the broken connection. He lived in a poetic world created by himself and took the remote imagination as spiritual food, singing alone in a marginalized corner in Beijing. On March 29, 1989, Hai Zi killed himself by lying on a railtrack. Before he left his dwelling in Changping, he cleaned his room thoroughly. Xi Chuan has described and commented on Hai Zi’s life: “You can deride an emperor for its

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wealth, but you can never deride a poet for his poverty. Unlike the Spanish poet Jiménez, who dreamed about paradise but still found a place in the world, Hai Zi never found his place in life happily. Maybe it was because of his paranoia. In his room you couldn’t find a TV set, a record, or even a radio. Hai Zi wrote in poverty, monotony and loneliness. He didn’t know how to dance, to swim or how to ride a bicycle.” 5 In this material age, Hai Zi was a “man out of date”. He could never cross the gap between his imagination and the reality he lived in. The death of Hai Zi might have been caused by many unknown reasons, but one thing is certain: that he must have felt strong discomfort, felt that a vast loneliness had swallowed him like the dark night. “Ten thousands of men will extinguish the fire, alone I uplift it high / Grand is the fire, blooming and withering in my sacred motherland / Like all the poets who ride the horse of dreams / I will pass the life-long dark night with the fire.” 6 Hai Zi is dead, but the fire he uplifted is not extinguished. His friends deeply understand that “the loss of a true friend means the loss of a great muse, the loss of a dream, the loss of part of our life and the loss of an echo”.7 The death of Hai Zi was a true “swan song” of this age. He was not only a “wounded swan”, but also a “tired and melancholy” swan. The death of Hai Zi threw the nation into deep sorrow. They kept the talented poet in their memory and collectively paid tribute by acclaiming his poetic achievements. They cherished the tragic glory and declared that the silenced idealism had revived on the battlefield of poetry. “On the threshold of a new century, we will benefit from the brightness and persistence of his art and life”.8 We can also read some commentaries and reflective words: “They (Hai Zi, Luo Yihe) are among several poets of this age who are enthusiastic about life. They are flames burning above the wheat fields in a series of tributes to the wheat and they have extended their life as a poet”.9 “Hai Zi was the best singer of our poets”.10 For the living, “The death of Hai Zi forced us to directly face the crisis of life. Hai Zi reminded us with his suicide that we need a reason to live. When the poet failed to find a solid reason of life after agonizing search, everything turned out to be a reason for death. Once we begin to question the reason of life and we cannot decide whether the order of life and our living situation is self-evident, then we trigger crisis in our individual life”. The death of Hai Zi “was an oracle for the intellectual circle which had been asleep for thousands of years under tricks and deceits. Maybe from then on, the survival of anybody became no longer self-determined and self-satisfactory. Everyone must think about their reason for living. When the world can’t give us enough ends and meanings we can live on, everything ends in one question: to what extent we can tolerate the absurd life. Should we should choose to live in humiliation

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or to revolt in desperation?”11 These thoughts were from the youngest groups or the young campus intellectuals in China. After the death of Hai Zi they felt that the spiritual highland they had watched and guarded had become an isolated island. The effort to lead people to a spiritual utopia became more and more difficult. The death of their beloved poet Hai Zi made them realize that the day had come when the intellectual utopia would disappear. The death of Hai Zi was the expression of his despair.

Historical Illusion and Its Narration Although Hai Zi was an intellectual from countryside, his educational background and the enlightenment context of the 1980s both inevitably gave him a strong sense of the elite. He was familiar with both Chinese and foreign classical poetry and deeply influenced by the new poetry movement of the day. Hai Zi was full of subjective enthusiasm both formally and emotionally, which not only linked his literary works and consciousness of creation with tradition but also instilled in him a revolutionary character. He underwent a progress from confidence to despair. So we can say that Hai Zi was the last idealist Chinese poet of the 20th century. The death of Hai Zi was a fable of disillusion of historical consciousness. On the one hand, it made the adherents more determined. On the other hand, the sense of disillusion soon became pervasive. The torchbearers and the intellectuals, who were no longer elegant and respected, had been the heroes of many stories. Their past efforts and thoughts were no longer touching and heroically tragic. They turned out to be ridiculous clowns, derided by history which they attempted to change with their activities. In a new narrative revolt, the enlightenment became a farce instigated by the intellectuals. Liu Heng’s novel Cang River Daydream is just such a narrative. In Cang River Daydream , we seem to hear remote but clear echoes from the tunnel of history. It is a fabulous novel full of oriental flavor and wonders. As a witness to history, a centenarian tells us a sad story about disillusionment with a glorious myth. It is not only about the past secrets of a traditional magnificent family which has declined, and the disillusioning history of an intellectual, but also about the history of a “Prometheusian” savior who took on danger and ended in desperation. What is most interesting is that the centenarian narrator is not a participant in the story. He is an outsider who has only the identity of a witness. He is telling the story of other people. The narrator is not interested in the “Yu Town Matches Community” established by the hero, Cao Guanghan.

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He only roughly describes the situation when he mentions the event. He is more interested in the family anecdotes and love affairs after Cao Guanghan comes back to his hometown. The central events are left behind and even often neglected. The narrator ’s attitude is important. As a servant, a man from the bottom of society and the object of enlightenment, he not only does not agree with the torchbearer but even has no interest in him. He is more concerned with other people’s love affairs which are none of his business and his heart is stuffed with the most obscene emotions. As the object of enlightenment, he actually rejects enlightenment. He indicates the inevitable failure of the torchbearer and also the tragedy of enlightenment. The author, who is the real narrator, becomes the audience of the story. Obviously, he is also an outsider. There are two outsiders telling and listening to the history, but neither of them are participants. The grand history has nothing to do with them, or can be said to be meaningless to them. So in “Note” the centenarian says: “Boy, my story is ended.” The author says: “Grandpa, what shall I do with it?” That is the main attitude in the novel: it is only a story, a story worth telling only because of love affairs and family secrets. The old man finishes the story nonchalantly, so what should the listener do since he is only an outsider? The hero Cao Guanghan is a young intellectual educated in France at the end of the Qing Dynasty. He returns to his hometown and establishes a match factory. It is a highly symbolic plot, which suggests a “Prometheus” attempting to illuminate his poor and ignorant hometown with enlightenment. Even the name “Yu Town Matches Community” came from the origination of enlightenment. But the town people did not understand Cao Guanghan. Even when “The young mistress brought the maids with her to deliver the dinner, tattlers in the town would say ‘The female has entered the community!’” These descriptions are relevant to the theme. The Frenchman Da Lu is a mechanic invited by Cao Guanghan. When the machine is installed, Da Lu starts the engine. The second young master confidently tells the community staff about how many benefits this machine will bring them. However, the machine suddenly stops. Da Lu adjusts some part and the machine jumped and started humming again. The second young master smiles and becomes more talkative than usual. He says that when connected to those machines by a belt, even wood as thick as bucket could be cut into match sticks. And he says that these machines are already out of date in the West. They were still fresh here only because our Yu Town is such a backwater. He says we have no other way. The machine is dead while human beings are alive, so we should help and benefit each other and open a new world for our community. He was to go on talking, but the machine stops again. This problem

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is more severe than last time. The second young master ’s face turns slightly red and then sheet white. He stands dully before the community staff and people watching the fun, greatly humiliated. He waits for the machine to make a sound again, but the machine still does not work. He does not know how to explain or ease the situation, only unwillingly looks at Da Lu, looks at the machine and then looks at his two greasy hands.

The scene was rather sarcastic. On the one hand, the second young master declared his ideal as a torchbearer to the world and then he set about the practice. He was so excited that he did not have time to think over the practicability and future fate. He was a gloomy and solemn man, who got excited only by the topic of enlightenment. He preached solemnly like a priest and promised the people virtue and happiness. On the other side, the community staff and people watching the fun made no response. The second young master’s words had no effect. No one was worried or uneasy about his anxiety. It was a fruitless communication with the wrong partner. The listeners had no desire to participate and they were all “others” to the second young master. The match factory was established at last. However, the torchbearer, Cao Guanghan, and his family had paid a great price. The torchbearer’s French tutor, Da Lu, had an affair with Cao Guanghan’s wife and she gave birth to a blue-eyed baby, which caused great disturbance in the whole Cao family. Later Da Lu goes missing and no one knows where he went. The infant was also secretly disposed of. The physical default of the torchbearer, Cao Guanghan, is a metaphor for his inherent shortage. Under the double pressure of betrayal and low self-esteem, he starts to produce explosives instead of matches in order to blow up the government office. However, he did not succeed and was hanged. After his death: …some people snatch the corpses, some people pick up the corpses, and the second young master is the only one left on the execution ground. The wood frame of the gallows is removed and taken to make fires. Waxed ropes used to hang the prisoners are also taken away for who knows what usage. The lifted second young master is left at the bay, naked, whose ragged clothes are also stripped by those goddamned. The second young master was a lean man, but when he has been left under the burning sun for a day, his body becomes obviously fat at dusk. I take courage and go to have a look. There are a lot of people on watch. Some boys are throwing mud lumps at the second young master ’s body. Most of miss and some occasional hits on his

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stomach and head arouse applause. Not afraid of sins, the children continue to pelt him with river pebbles. The hits on his stomach make a sound of putt-putt. The shouts of the adults sound like cheers.

This tragic scene reminds us of Lu Xun’s story Medicine . The death of Xia Yu, whose blood was eaten by Hua Xiaoshuan with steamed bread, was gossiped about enthusiastically as anecdote. However, Lu Xun’s story is full of tragic atmosphere in which he expressed his worry and anger, as well as showing the dim light of dawn in the darkness. But Cang River Daydream is totally different, with no anxiety or solemnity or inner intensity. The enlightenment is merely a story and all the tragic aspects disappear among other spectacles and wonders in the novel. It is not the age in which the story happens but the day on which the narrator tells the story that is worthy of our reflection. The tragedy of enlightenment was not only caused by itself, but also caused by the attitude of the descendants. Cang River Daydream was written in 1992. At the turn of the century, enlightenment had become an absurdity. The torchbearers were not able to fulfill their promises and thus were derided by the younger generation, which was the biggest tragedy and failure of enlightenment. Chi Li’s novel, No Matter Warm or Cold, It’s Just Good to Live , also contains an allegorical symbolic scene: a writer “four” meets a young man “cat” and he gives “cat” a new name “person”. Then he is going to tell him the story he is planning to write. “Four” is confident that his story will make “cat” tearful, but instead “cat” falls asleep. “Four” insists on finishing the story in a low voice. This scene reveals the difficulty for the writer to give an ultimate explanation of the world and indicates the crisis of the century myth of enlightenment. In the opinion of these writers, intervention in life as a savior seems to be increasingly impossible. The torchbearers are probably the most helpless when they are put in the embarrassing situation of being ignored. The Ruined City and Ying Er differ from Cang River Daydream not only in content but also in narrative style. But they all express the failure of cultural reality. Both the narrator and listener in Cang River Daydream are spectators and outsiders in history and they do not have the “sense of experience” as participants. But the misfortune of history seems continuous and infective in this age and the intellectuals living in reality are deeply troubled by a kind of disillusionment. In The Ruined City , Zhuang Zhidie, a famous writer, is known to everybody in Xijing. Later in his life he has everything a man of letters is eager to have. As a writer, he has a reputation. As a deputy to the People's Congress, he has status. As a dealer in paintings, calligraphy and books behind the scenes, he is far from poor. As an ordinary person, he has

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friends. As a man, he has a wife and lovers. As an intellectual, he has a peaceful philosophy of “tranquility and passivity”. But the failure and disillusion in his life still haunt him like a devil and he still cannot escape the fate of spiritual bankruptcy. The story of Zhuang Zhidie is narrated by the author, and the author’s disillusionment is expressed by Zhuang Zhidie. Therefore, we cannot understand Zhuang Zhidie without understanding the writer's attitude. Jia Pingwa writes in the epilogue of The Ruined City : In those years, disasters came one after another. First, I got hepatitis B and was imprisoned in hospital for a year. If I got all the injections at one time, I would look as if shot by ten thousands of arrows. I have taken all sorts of herbs, the amount of which could feed a calf until it grew into a cow. After that, my mother became ill and had to have an operation and then my father died of cancer. After the death of my brother-in-law, my sister brought her young child and came back to live with us. And then I became involved in a case which brought endless trouble. After that I was involved in office politics because of other people and was humiliated enough. And before long I was trapped in another even more terrible morass, when gossip came from all directions towards me……Everything I had achieved by decades of efforts was smashed. The only thing left to me was my bodily and spiritually self and the three characters of my name, which had often been called, written, used and cursed by others.12

That is a monologue about a really disillusioned life, which is closely related to the disillusionment of the writer. But this is not the most essential reason for the problem. Over a hundred years there were many people who had suffered from greater misfortune, but their superior spiritual status and undaunted spiritual quest covered their pain in reality. At the turn of the century, the intellectuals had lost their pillar of life. They had totally lost their identity, which was the origin of the doomsday horror of Zhuang Zhidie and his friends. In order to redeem themselves, they had to believe in fatalism and to indulge in fortune-telling. They responded to absurdity with absurdity, so the author and narrator had to arrange the fate of his characters in the way of fatalism. The Ruined City is a sad and echoing sigh. This astonishing novel is an elegy to the desperation and disillusionment of a generation of intellectuals. Faced with reality, their mood of failure shows in their rejection of a reality with which they cannot identify and become involved in. Zhuang Zhidie was spiritually bankrupt because he lacked psychological

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endurance. Ying Er describes the disillusion of a “fantasy of a celestial kingdom” in a more absurd narrative style. We cannot deny that Ying Er is influential because it is an excellent literary work. Actually it is rather commonplace from the aspect of art. Its documentary style makes it lack imagination and it is rigid and inner-oriented, since it is limited to personal experiences. Its influence is due to other reasons rather than the text itself. It is not a “Confessions of Love”. On the contrary, it is a work full of contradictions. It is the confession of happiness and despair by a cultural fugitive, a misanthrope and a paranoid. It is the last testimony of fear and anxiety by a pseudo-idealist whose spiritual exile is endless. In his early years, Gu Cheng was a melancholy, imaginative and idealistic poet. He said he loved Spanish literature and the poet Lorca. “I like Andalucia in his poetry, a village with a windmill, moon and sand”. 13 In his works written in the 1980s he insisted on creating a pure heavenly world through the imagination of a “wanton child”. He believed in the fairy tales composed by himself. “Then I become a blue flower in a fairy tale…Just by a simple signal / Summon the team of stars, milk vetches and grasshoppers / Towards the uncontaminated remote place / Set off”. 14 At that time Gu Cheng as an idealist created an imaginary pure land amid the morass of human spirit. That dreamland was his individual spiritual home, an Other World where he could reject and escape from reality and also a form of protest since he could not make a contract with reality. So we can say that the fictionalized land of idealists is a world related to reality only by the imagination. However, such a land which only “virtually” exists in an imaginative world or spiritual world and conflicts with reality is aesthetically meaningful as a form of utopia. “So people trusted you”, Shu Ting wrote in praise of this “fairytale poet” with appreciation and affection. But the dream of heaven is illusionary after all. It can never be fulfilled in reality. Paradoxically, Gu Cheng was resolved to settle the imaginary Other World in reality and tried to realize the impossible transition. When he found a deserted island called the Isle of Torrent, he told Lei: “This is a place I have been seeking for 20 years. I’ve been lookin for it ever since I left school at the age of 12”. But when he tried to push things further into his fantasy, looking forward to the establishment of an imaginary celestial kingdom, the “Celestial Kingdom” completely collapsed. Gu Cheng, the poet who could never resolve the conflicts between the ideal and reality, also could never leap the huge gap between the celestial kingdom and the mundane world. There were also conflicts between the nonhuman ideal world of heaven and strong mundane desires. If Gu Cheng appeared as a godlike ascetic, who

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cherished romantic imagination within his heart and only spiritually roamed the celestial world, he would not have ended in helpless horror and anxiety. For example, he wrote a lot of romantic poetry in the 1980s and “lived elsewhere” in a celestial world he created, but it did not influence his normal life. However, on the Isle of Torrent his dream of a celestial kingdom was full of mundane desires. He took possession of a wife and a lover as a way of self-affirmation. But the celestial kingdom would not accept mundane desires. The hero not only adored and admired Ying Er, but he would also possess her. The author wrote three times on the topic of “first night” with great interest. It was actually a carnival night full of human lusts. The secret mentality of mundane men and women also existed in the poet who hoped to establish a celestial kingdom. He described every part of Ying Er’s body and their lust poetically and enthusiastically. At that time the designer of the celestial kingdom was indulging in the heavenly dream preset by himself and he had completely ignored or even forgotten the existence of another woman. Therefore, Gu Cheng’s wish to love two women at the same time had become the fantasy of a paranoid. During his revolt, Gu Cheng as a man in reality was inevitably affected by the secular standards of life and social morality. In the “massage” section, Ying Er and Gu Cheng recall anecdotes of their families in a poetic atmosphere. Ying Er tells him a story of her grandfather who ran away with a woman. Out of the usual social ethics, Gu Cheng said: “Why didn’t your great-grandmother (Ying Er’s grandfather's mother) prevent him?” It is not true that he did not know a man is not allowed to marry two wives, but he still imagined marrying them both regardless of the reality. He had never considered whether the two women were willing to accept this or not. Instead, he imposed mental control on them. The idealist became an autocrat, who dominated the two women in the way those he tried to overthrow dominated. So his failure was predictable. On the other hand, when Gu Cheng narrated from the point of view outside the hero, he became a sober realist and a normal “other person” who had no relationship with the affair. He became an authoritative interpreter of the hero, Gu Cheng, with calm and objective judgment. “How can he imagine marrying two wives in a modern civilized society? And how can the two wives live together in a modern civilized society? Leaving aside women’s rights, we should at least address human rights”. Such ambivalence existed within the same poet, who could not solve the problem and inevitably became the victim of his own mischief. Gu Cheng's failure and disillusionment was perhaps due to his personal ethos, but his dream of heaven is clearly a whim born out of spiritual despair. The past glory had gone, the loss of creativity determined that he could not continue with the past achievements. In despair, the only thing left for a

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man is to deal with women and find self-confirmation through them. On this point, Gu Cheng and Zhuang Zhidie were no different in nature. It is not by chance that these three works questioned the spiritual tradition of the past century and the authenticity of real life from different aspects. In some sense, such a mentality predicts another spiritual awakening of this generation of intellectuals. Almost all great social changes or upheavals stimulate the intellectuals to rethink. Jaspers said when describing the mentality of people after World War I: “Not only Europe is in twilight after World War I, so are all cultures in the world. The doom day of mankind and the re-foundry, which no nation and no person can escape, is predicted by the people, no matter if is destruction or rebirth”.15 The age we lived in is an age of turbulent transition and the central values of the society have collapsed. Faced with this age, some people try to seek and explore new beliefs and values with the courage to survive, some people drop the burden of absurdity and chant the death of their soul under the failure and disappointment in their life. These three works obviously chose the latter in different ways. They found what they had insisted on was in vain and recognized the reality in pain. They created stirring works at the price of cultural failure and wrote about the secrets of human life in exchange for readership, which was probably the most shocking literary fact since the 1980s. Since last century, the enlightenment as a great myth has become the starting point and destination of the action of the intellectuals. “Liberation” has become the key word of enlightenment. In the opinion of the torchbearers, when humanism and the liberation of every person is achieved, the promise of happiness can also be fulfilled. However, the development of history and the logical imagination of enlightenment are not identical. Especially since the 1990s, great economic development has brought modernization, which was dreamed of by the torchbearers, nearer and nearer. But reality ruthlessly exposes its cruel side. Life is full of absurdity and abundant wealth leadvertisements to further moral decay. People become greedy and take interest as their only goal. All kinds of potential desires become more and more superficial and “legalized”. The ultimate concern and universal values are replaced by immediate interests. In the face of such a picture of modern life, traditional idealists feel helpless. They cannot cope with the strange transition of the social mechanism and also cannot find a reasonable explanation for the reality. When the decline of universal significance intensifies their mental crisis, they become stray sheep moving aimlessly from pillar to post. The sense of failure and desperation makes writers fundamentally doubt the value and significance they have pursued and hoped to establish in the world.

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They have lost confidence in solidarity. The tragic aspects of modern people had already been exposed. Montaigne had already pointed out the human limitations, even before the day when people declared “Man is superior to all species”: Let us then consider, for the moment, man alone, without external help……Is it possible to imagine anything so ridiculous as that this wretched and cowardly creature, who is not even master of himself, exposed to threats from all things, should call himself master and emperor of the universe when he lacks the power to understand its least part, let alone to command it? And as for this privilege that he claims of being the only one in this great edifice who has the ability to recognize its beauty and its parts, the only one who can give thanks to the architect and keep accounts of the receipts and expenses of the world: who has granted him this privilege? 16

Montaigne relentlessly laughed at the stupidity and lack of self-knowledge of human beings. Therefore, in the absolute sense, the human tragedy is inherited and people cannot transcend their own limitations. Nevertheless “The poet can not live in despair. We cannot raise its absolute significance only because it provides the poets with a visual horizon, just as we cannot regard agony or poetry as an absolute value only because it makes the poets closer to the truth”.17 Disillusion and self-abandon reflect the mental crisis of some intellectuals. They have to doubt what they have devoutly believed. That is the psychological price the intellectuals have to pay after the collapse of the central values of society. It is not a stipulation of “postmodernism” or the spread of the “century disease”, but an inevitable spiritual birth pang. It indicates the necessity and possibility of cultural reconstruction. The questioning of ultimate concern and values has not disapperaed, because only the process of questioning is the way of self-salvation of the intellectuals and the necessary utopia that is indispensable for intellectuals.

The Boom of the “Leisure Tide” The sudden boom in “leisure” literature is also one of the cultural phenomenon which reflects the mentality of cultural setbacks. The “leisure tide” does not just refer to elegant essays on a “leisured and comfortable” life or temporary relaxation pursued by serious writers. In fact, the boom of the “leisure tide” has

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been a complicated process of accumulation. After the collapse of the central values, some mild nostalgic leisure works fill the spiritual blanks in people. These works are soon accepted by the cultural market because of their therapy function, and thus fundamentally change the cultural orientation of the age. Leisure, which is considered to be “a kind of yearning for classical transcendence and which represents the quiet and peaceful spirit of the ‘literati’ who pursue elegant tastes and style. It is the experience of a marginal and independent, hermit-like realm. It is romantic but not fanatical, poetic but not enthusiastic, full of experience and taste but still maintaining a certain detachment from life. ‘Leisure’ is not only a literary trend; first it is an attitude towards life”. 18 This assertion is generally right when we focus on the “text of leisure”. But the re-emergence of a “modern leisure boom" in the 1990s is implicit of a distinctive content of social life. People’s taste in leisure is definitely a taste of consumption, which ignores or does not clearly understand the complicated cultural background of the modern leisure tide. For the masters of modern leisure literature, their apparent tranquility does not mean they are fascinated by leisure tastes or yearn for classical transcendence. As an important figure of the “May Fourth” New Culture Movement, Zhou Zuoren was rather radical in his inner impulse to “thought revolution”. Even today, when we reread his People's Literature and Civilian Literature or the poem River which was the sign of the maturity of the New Poetry, we can still vaguely feel his youthful enthusiasm. But soon he found no hope in enlightenment. He thought it was better to make fun out of bitterness than to struggle in agony. He had hoped to “say something to make myself comfortable”, but when he was troubled by a slip of the tongue and felt even more uncomfortable, he decided to seek the fun of “pretending to be dumb”. Similarly with Zhou Zuoren, the mental dilemma between “promotion” and “retirement”, “success” and “obscurity”, “transcendence” and “secularity” is the most realistic and most basic contradiction faced by the Chinese intellectuals. The hesitation, wavering and agony felt by the traditional scholars facing this contradiction were all inherited by their successors. No matter whether in ancient times or modern days, the intellectuals have all experienced great hardship before they must retreat into mountain forests and temples after they have recognized their limitations. Mao Dun said in From Kuling to Tokyo : “If I declaim bravely like an impassioned scholar, maybe I will have more admirers. But I don’t have the spirit of a patriot with tears and swords and what a despicable coward I am, who can only write essays in a hiding house. So why should I suffer further humiliation by speaking stubbornly”.19 Zhu Ziqing said in On Nothing to Say : “Many people suffer from not being able to say what they want to say, while

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others suffer from having no place to speak. Their suffering is still within words, but my suffering of which I have nothing to say is beyond words. I feel like a dead leaf, a rotten paper in this great era”. 20 Yang Jiang noted a similar thought in the postscript of Drinking Tea . She thought people should be “humble”, which is an invisible cloak. In a humble status others will ignore you and will not care about you in their hearts. But many people cannot bear the contempt and neglect. They want to be the upper men, who are successful and outstanding and excel all other people. Yang Jiang thought that people should realize “what stuff are they made of and what function they have” and if they are satisfied with humility, there will be no pain. These thoughts are generally the same as the attitude implied in Qu Qiubai’s Excessive Words . So when the intellectuals’ access to the world is blocked and their superiority is shattered by reality and the limitations of men, they can only find self-affirmation in leisurable “purity and loftiness” out of personal considerations of making a living. The intellectuals find a reasonable excuse for their promotion and retirement, transcendence and secularity, according to the traditional saying “In times of success, scholars would make perfect the whole empire; in obscurity, they would maintain their own integrity”. It is probably part of the charm of traditional Chinese culture that it provides ways to success in various forms. Although Liang Shiqiu's “Leisure” was unsuitable for the time, he was not the same type as Zhou Zuoren who indulged in self-consolation. Liang Shiqiu practiced a kind of “radical” literary ideology. He practiced “Leisure” literature in resisting the practical literary slogan of “everything for the War of Resistance”. On December 1st 1938, he took charge of the “Ping Ming” supplement of Central Daily News and wrote the “Editor's Words”, which provoked severe attacks: “Now the War of Resistance is important above all, so some people never forget the war whenever they take up the pen. My opinion is slightly different. We sincerely welcome articles related to the War of Resistance, but those unrelated will also be accepted if written with genuine lucidity and fluency. They need not be constrainedly related to the War, as the barren ‘stereotype of the War of Resistance’ is beneficial to nobody”. The “leisure” of the Yashe Essays is closely related to Liang Shiqiu’s view on the relationship between art and utility. He made a metaphor that a man could take a kitchen knife to kill when he is in fury, but the function of a kitchen knife is not to kill. In war time, the men of letters used literature as this kitchen knife to save the nation. The end was grand but temporary. Literature is permanent, never out of time, and universal, never limited by space. It simply expresses the permanent and universal human nature. 21 Zhou Zuoren and Lin Yutang also expressed similar views. But the consumers of the “leisure” culture overlooked

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the cultural background which produces leisure literature, just as when they appreciated Ode to Red Sun , they neglected the cult of that age and its profound meaning. They entertained themselves with appreciation of the “spectacle”. It had become a “practical” commodity, or substitute, in an age lacking in concern. Thus the cultural market directed a fake “leisure tide” by the method of economic regulation of effective demand. In the 1990s the mentality of the producers of “leisure” literature was far from being as pure and transparent as that of the consumers. Suddenly retreating from struggle with reality, the lively literary landscape of the 1980s was just like a closed temple fair, where the ruins could only reflect past glory. However, the old dream did not disappear and the concern about universal significance and ultimate values still lingered on in people’s hearts. The desire to be involved in life and the traditional sense of hardship of the intellectuals was not completely abandoned because of sudden changes in social life. Leisure works such as Zhang Zhongxing’s three volumes of Small Talks in Winter Sunshine and works by traditional writers such as Wang Zengqi and Jia Pingwa do not prove that these writers really enter the classical realm of tranquility. Zhang Zhongxing’s Small Talks in Winter Sunshine is very famous in intellectual circles. Although the title means gossiping while bathing in the sun, none of the articles are “leisure” works. Lu Jiping critizes Zhang Zhongxing’s essays in a “preface”: “We can often taste bitterness in this kind of plainness and permanence and even the frequent humor also carries such a kind of bitterness, which shows nostalgia for the pleasant people and pleasant past, which have disappeared like the Guangling Episode, and devout and ardent expectations of people and events in the future. Mr, Zhongxing said that he wrote Small Talks in Winter Sunshine as both poetry and history. Maybe bitterness is the best interpretation”.22 A note in the “Introduction” by Zhang Zhongxing confirms Lu Jiping’s understanding. He said: “Half a century has gone in a blink. Sometimes I think about the quotation “Time goes by, just like a river flows”. When knowledge becomes a home truth, the only thing lingering in my heart is sorrow for the past. My prime years are gone, but I have done nothing. I am melancholy about the extinction of the flames”.23 “Sorrow for the past” expresses the author’s endless sentiment and melancholy. Obviously it not only means “prime years are gone” but also means the “unspoken” sadness in his old age, for which the reason is “having done nothing”. Surely these words are not suitable for describing the leisure of “chess playing”. Encouraged by the “Leisure Tide”, the Chinese and Foreign Cultural Publishing House published five books from 1988 to 1990: Anthology of Consolation compiled by Wu Zuguang, Anthology of Taste compiled by Wang

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Zengqi, Anthology of Breezes compiled by Yuan Ying, Anthology of Book Scent compiled by Jiang Deming, and Anthology of Criticism on Painting compiled by Duanmu Hongliang and Fang Cheng. The compilers invited famous writers to talk about food, tea, wine, painting and books. Almost overnight, the radical contemporary Chinese writers suddenly turned from the tradition of “making perfect the whole empire” to the tradition of “maintaining their own integrity”, from radical “intervention” to tranquil “transcendence”. But there is no sense of leisure in these five books, because the inner intensity of the writers is not soothed by the easy topic. On the contrary, the “subcontext” sensed by the readers is “indignation” behind the “goblets”. The book compiled by Wu Zuguang is entitled Anthology of Consolation . In the “compiler ’s invitation” he wrote: “Wine is the genius invention of a wise man, which symbolizes both joy and sadness and which can either bring happiness or soothe loneliness. It is also the accelerant and intermediate of art and literature, which makes life colorful and fascinating. Because of the charm of wine to both ancient and modern people, to myself and other people, I accepted the commission from the China Association of Wine Culture to compile an anthology on wine which is entitled Anthology of Consolation . I know that you are a famous writer and drinker, who has superior talent for letters and great capacity for wine, so I dare to invite you to write an essay on your passion for wine. To make wonders in the world, to arrange marriages for your sons and daughters…” 24 From this article, Wu Zuguang seems to be getting better and feeling comfortable both mentally and physically. However, since he entitled the anthology Anthology of Consolation he must have had some unhappiness to be consoled. He also said: “I have reconsidered whether to entitle the anthology Anthology of Consolation or not. Master Yang Xianyi wrote to me: ‘People drink to have fun, not to console themselves’. I wrote in reply: ‘We all worry about the nation and the people. Are there not a lot of worries?’ Then he no longer objected”. 25 The contemporary famous writers have no tradition of indulging in liquor and “We all worry about the nation and the people. Are there not a lot of worries?” is their real mentality. Shao Yanxiang wrote in On Drinking : “To drink, I think, is most ‘individual’. There’s no rule for drinking and no general ‘view on drinking’.” He talked about drinking throughout the whole article, but just like “the old drunkard doesn’t really care about wine”, he actually means “drunkenness is not a way to transcendence when I am faced with the sea of sorrow in the world”.26 Therefore, even when they talked about wine, they are expressing the mentality of “not daring to forget to worry about the nation, even when having low personal status” and “to worry before the whole world starts to worry”. The compiler of the Anthology of Breezes, Yuan Ying expressed a similar attitude in the “Foreword to the Anthology of Breezse”. He said:

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Tea is suitable for all ages and tastes, no matter if is Dawan Tea served in big bowls or Kungfu tea served in small wine cups. Whether you drink royal tea like “Big Red Robe” or fourth of fifth rate flower tea, even unprocessed mountain tea, you will be pleased and satisfied when you are thirsty and tired. Suppose you sit alone on a spring morning, or a guest visits you on a winter night, or you are both physically and mentally tired, or when you happily gather with friend, if you take a cup of tea in your hand you will be full of inspiration and meditation about happiness and sadness, poetry and essays, emotions and passions…Even knowledge and reflection on history, geography, philosophy, religion, science, folk customs etc. will add pleasure to the noisy or quiet life. While wine makes people drunk, tea makes people sober. After a few cups of tea, a cool wind seems to blow under one’s arms and makes one “want to go with the wind”. When I visited Kyoto a few years ago, I heard Mr. Sen Soshitsu, the host of the Sen family, introduce four characters in the Japanese tea ceremony: “harmony, respect, purity, tranquility”, which I didn’t quite understand, but I still felt there is something in common.27

When I first read this passage, I naturally thought of what Zhou Zuoren had written in Drinking Tea : “One should drink tea in a tile-roofed house with paper windows, using spring water to brew green tea and drinking in elegant china tea sets, with a couple of people. Such a half-day’s leisure is worth ten years mundane life”. However, Zhou Zuoren’s “to snatch a little leisure from a busy life and to seek fun from bitterness” is also familiar to scholars. So Yuan Ying did not actually transcend the common mentality of the men of letters and he continued: “Perhaps the famous lines ‘How can I console myself in worry? Only Dukang Wine can help.’ was only an inspiration of Cao Mengde. Those whi came after continually repeated the two lines, and yet continually denied them in their own understanding. In the boundless world, there are various anxieties, worries, sadness and troubles. How can Dukang wine dispel all of them? If you have a couple of friends chatting and drinking tea around a fire at night, whose voices are like spring water in a clear stream, then you can console each other and dispel the worries”.28 So for the contemporary Chinese writers the so-called “leisurely and comfortable” was a desirable kind of life but one which no one had experienced. The authenticity of the “leisure” mentality is even more doubtful when related to the historical environment of the sudden emergence “leisure culture”. When the central values of society are broken, when the humanistic spirit constructed by the intellectuals is overwhelmed by the flood of commerce, is it possible that they suddenly became mildly

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“leisurely”? Xie Mian resolvedly denied the possibility: “In term of personal interest, ‘leisurely’ gossips are better than battles of words. But I am still alert to the fad of leisure essays. Why are they so leisurely? Are they really so leisurely?” 29 Chen Pingyuan, the compiler of the modern leisure essays Leisure and Pleasure also said: “It is not suitable to take entertainment as the “taste of gentlemen”, only scholars are fond of rhetorical exercises on leisure instead of actual entertainment”. But meanwhile he also pointed out: “Those who write about leisure maybe not really leisurely” and “It is not wise for people to take leisure as something to be proud about”.30 However, considering the historical background to the contemporary “leisure tide”, there are many understandable yet complicated reasons. Roland Barthes wrote in Writing Degree Zero : “The choice and responsibility of a kind of writing represents a kind of freedom, but this kind of freedom is restricted in different ways at different historical periods. …The possible ways of writing are established under the pressure of history and tradition, so there is a history of writing”.31 If we agree with Roland Barthes’ point of view, we will form such an opinion on the undeclared “leisure tide” at the turn of the century: it is a writing of free choice and also a writing chosen under pressure. The discussion from this point of view also reminds us of the fate of Zhou Zuoren. Zhou once frankly admitted: “What a pity that I am a man lacking ‘enthusiasm’; my words are somewhat playful. I’m also in favor of radical ideas and I’d like to make efforts to challenge the theorists. However, just like Frenchman Labouré stops when he ‘will be burnt’, I don’t have the resolution to be a martyr. It’s just like a child who feels pleasure playing football, but he doesn’t expect to make any achievement. So he stops when he is tired and isn’t prepared to kick until his thigh is broken, for there will be only the football left”. 32 So Zhou Zuoren turned around and entered the utopia of “leisure”. The reason we call “leisure” a utopia is that it is a realm only in the imagination of men of letters and can never be realized. Shu Le wrote in an essay discussing Zhu Ziqing’s “mediocrity”: “Over the years, scholars have often considered the problem of advance and retreat, ‘maintain one’s own integrity’ and ‘make perfect the whole empire’——‘You are anxious not only when you get promoted, but also when you are retired. So when can you be happy?’——the dilemma of choice is related to worries and happiness, obscurity and success. It seems not suitable to simply be measured by right or wrong, active or positive….An ordinary cultivator probably seems to lack will and enthusiasm compared to the warrior who achieves much. However, if one is willing to give up playing the major role, to endure the solitude and to indulge in a kind of spiritual trudge, then for example, maybe it is also substantial to stay in the corner of scholarship and

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make splendid achievements. Although it is a kind of retreat, a compromise and often accompanied by the problems of life——where one comes from and where one goes, and the bitter problem of life and death entangled together by temptation”.33 The boom of “leisure tide” at the turn of century is related to these ancient topics of the literati, but the cause is that there is a “realistic” choice. In the past century, the radical and realistic discourse has formed a new literary tradition. The uniform of writing is not a suggestion but an order and the solemn topics or battle of words are the main tune of the literary circle. But all these only exist in texts and they do not appear and are not fulfilled in reality. At the turn of the century, the central values of society established by mainstream discourse and literary creation rapidly collapsed under the current of commerce and a profound disappointment and the traditional sense of worry both repress contemporary writers, who indulge in leisure but are never thoroughly leisurely. That is the real reason why the contemporary “leisure essays” express anxiety on the topic of leisure. Thus “leisure” stands for a sense of loss and a contemplation of the past cultural heroes in the commercial age.

The Loss of Criticism and the Vanity of Literary Creation The retreat of critics and the absence of literary criticism is one of the “problems” of literary criticism and a symbol of the cultural frustration of the literary critics. Ever since the1990s, the recession of traditional literary criticism, or aesthetic literary criticism, textual criticism, has become an unarguable fact. The critics have lost the patience to read and their confidence in criticism, or even interest to criticize. Interpretation and analysis of literary works has continued to decrease. The critics’ terms in the category of aesthetics have gradually been abolished and replaced by “conference criticism”, “journalistic commentary”, “impressive essays” and “sensitive dialogues”. Generally speaking, these critical “methods” are necessary, but can only be a supplementary form and should not be the main methods or styles of criticism. Because of the arbitrariness of such kinds of criticism, criticism has gradually lost its academic rigor and seriousness. The “popularization” and plebeian tendency of criticism make it the follower of fashion and the loss of its authority and seriousness make people no longer respect it. Thus “literary criticism” has gradually become a dispensable “trade” and a communication without objects. In some sense, the loss of literary criticism is the biggest failure of the critics. It silently declares the fate of literary criticism and the position of the critics. In

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the past, the critics were agitators of the social surge of humanistic passion and they were confident and proud. As culture heroes, they were interpreters and leaders of social aesthetics, whose guidance could even decide social aesthetic trends, and people hoped that they could to be their “spokesmen”. Meanwhile, the critics were charged with a sacred sense of mission and solemnity, full of feelings of “glory and dreams”. However, with the conversion of fashion, people no longer need the guidance and representation of the critics. With the disintegration of central values, the critics have lost solid ideological support and their living situation and spiritual situation have marginalized them. They no longer speak as the subject of history. Instead, they silently succumb to reality. More and more people take up fashionable genres, while the light and irrelevant essays are more favored by desolate scholars in Ming Dynasty. Those who are still willing to call themselves intellectuals and take up literary studies as a career and insist on occupying the shrinking cultural territory, rigidly insisting on their own opinions, make communication very difficult. The “common ground” has been broken and people have become personalized or individualized which make the critiques weaker and counteract each other. Under the influence of oversea Sinology circles and the first world theory, literary criticism has gradually been replaced by cultural criticism and cultural interpretation has replaced the concrete aspect of literary criticism; monologue has become a common phenomenon. People have not only lost the patience to read literary texts, but have also lost the patience to listen to different voices. Insightful critics no longer enthusiastically express their opinion of literature. It is not coincidence that in the 1990s critics give up their specialty of contemporary literature and turn to find pleasure in the study of history or more remote literary and cultural problems. Thus we see consumers of the popular “deconstruction theory”, who use unskillful discourse practice and a “pidgin” critical atmosphere, occupying most of the critical space. Those who are not acquainted with the truth will mistakenly think that there really have been “revolutionary” changes in literary criticism, having neglected the fact that they have ignored the rule of basic literary value because they are eager to get on the stage, and have based the method of “deconstruction” on nonsense. The underlying reason for the loss of literary criticism is related to our spiritual tradition. It is traditionally considered less important for the intellectuals to follow scholarship, which is not sufficiently respected and encouraged by society. Society encourages “good scholars to be officials” and to organize their own family, then to manage the kingdom and then to make the world peaceful. Their real purpose in life is to take up the career of an

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official and become a member of the state bureaucracy. On this point we are very different from the Western tradition of intellectuals who “would rather learn the causal relationship than get the Persian throne”. So scholars only reluctantly chose to take up an academic career when they are unable to become an official or are frustrated by bureaucracy. Their reluctance kept them from peaceful devotion to scholarship. Today, intellectuals are less eager to take up political career but that is not to say they have established the spiritual tradition of devotion to scholarship. Even before the new challenge and the effect that living conditions and superior social status are continually degraded, scholars had formed a popular mentality not to take up study or to think about a way out of it. The spiritual tradition denies the possibility of adhering to scholarship and this spiritual tradition is the common ideological background of every intellectual, just like an invisible hand which controls the depths of our thoughts. To what extent we can get rid of the traditional constraints decides to what extent we can have spiritual independence. The problems of literary criticism were concretely restored by some scholars. Xie Mian thinks that the criticism of 1990s is the “degeneration of criticism”, which means that “literary criticism has lost it sharpness because they have stopped talking about literary works and literary criticism is no longer literary”.34 It has become a common problem in literary criticism today. Another problem is that literary criticism is too sweet. In the past, there was no fight without intimidation; and nowadays there seems to be no literary criticism without acclaim and flattery. Some critiques may be exchanged; some critiques are a form of “advertisement”. After literary criticism lost its authority it has now even lost its sharpness, which is definitely sadness for criticism”.35 Hong Zicheng questioned the “popular color” of problems such as the role of critics, the scale of criticism, the method of criticism and the object of criticism, which obviously expressed his dissatisfaction with contemporary criticism. However, it is not hopeful that these reminders or questions will change the “normal” form of criticism. The loss of literary criticism and the falseness and vanity of creative writing was caused by the writers’ loss of ability to grasp reality and escape. The critics no longer point out their real understanding of literary works and the creative writers keep silent on reality. We see in a large number of literary works that there are two fashionable themes: one is best-sellers and audio-visual products on commercial warfare or romance; another is the so-called “big hits” produced by means of adapting classic works or historical materials. These two types of works ruled the consumer market of the 1990s, when “cultural anecdotes” were pervasive.

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The critics are keenly aware of this phenomenon. Lei Da pointed out in an article that realistic works are plentiful in numbers, but “the distinct problem is not the number but the artistic quality, which means whether the works are profound or shallow, its overall artistic merit, to what depth it reveals realistic relationships, whether the author has created typical or nearly typical characters, and whether they have actually grasped the pulse, direction, emotion and spirit of the time”.36 Such doubts and questions are also noted by avant-garde critics, among whom Chen Xiaoming said: “The creative experience in the ‘90s shows its deficiency and shortcomings. The literary narratives of the ‘90s are excessively private and personalized and their understanding of the present is rather narrow, so they cannot represent ‘the present’ in depth and scope. Their superficial writing on ‘the present’ have not reached a high artistic level and shows monotony and a lack of innovation. They cannot combine the expression of ‘the present’ with a high standard of artistic method. Because of excessive pursuit of market success, and dominated by all kinds of non-literary factors and interests, the writers in the 90s could not reach a higher artistic level”.37 The fact that these two different types of critics lacked a deep understanding of literature in the 1990s but reached an unprecedented consensus from some aspect shows the profound flaws in the literature of the 1990s. This phenomenon is clearly related to the cultural psychology of the intellectuals. Before the 1990s, art and literature which had been guide of the life of the time had created one trend after another, had led the spiritual life of society with a superior identity and had created a spiritual home which could not be rejected. But in the 1990s, this “home” was no longer a splendid shrine longed for and imagined by artists. It had become a deserted land. The “elite” who had been leaders now turned to pursue and adapt to the trend and the “spiritual home” was replaced by a paradise of carnival. No one wanted to have dialogue with a history even as close as the 1980s. The past seems to have gone with the wind and people are more interested in a night’s revelry. It should be noted that when the “elite” changed their identity to appear in the market as a person who follows the current trend, they defeated the fake writers without battle and easily won the market, which prevented the “artists” from losing face. Works such as Love Gallery and Lust for Passion became the most important works in the cultural consumption market in the 1990s. The vanity of the 1990s was not only noticed by the critics, but also profoundly felt by those writers with the ability to think. Wang Anyi said: “The purpose of fiction is to create an independent spiritual world. The landscape of the spiritual world in modern fiction——is more and more realistic, and the

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stranger the appearance is, the more realistic the heart is, which is opposite to the classic novel. The shell of the classic novel is realistic but its core shines with a sacred light. Modern fiction seems to be continually falling down like a wrecked ship and the scene of a sacred shining light is replaced by the landscape below the horizon. The picture of the inner world it provides us is depressed and desperate and no longer glowing with the exciting glory of mythology”.38 The commodity fetishism captivated the artists, who are always fascinated by spiritual life, with an irresistible spell-like force. The loss of ability to grasp the reality is intensely shown in the field of film and television. In the 1990s realistic TV series such as Heaven Above was already rare and “elegant” scenes representing the life of the new aristocrats and bearing very little relation to reality were the typical representation of a time of vanity. More and more people wanted to dilute and consume the classics. From the History of the Three Kingdoms, Empress Wu Zetian, The History of the Kingdoms in Eastern Zhou Dynasty to the modern classic Thunderstorm , all of these texts have attracted the adapters and undoubtedly became the highlights of the screen of the time. However, what on earth have these works provided for people? I have said that the 1990s was a mediocre and ambiguous cultural era, which made the cultural performers feel helpless. All kinds of cultural circuses gradually retreated. People despondently looked at the wasteland-like background and the lifeless empty stage, waiting for new sparkling spectacles. But the spectacle of reality was almost exhausted and the cultural producers turned to history and to the glory of the ancestors, where they found new resources to exchange for “secrets”. Then History of the Three Kingdoms finally had the opportunity to show people the glamour of various heroes. CCTV as an authoritative medium had been continually reporting the “great” TV series in program previews and people were waiting for it in great expectation. It reignited the enthusiasm of people to look forward to it, not only because the time provided everybody with boredom but also because it was advertised by an authoritative medium. When the TV series were broadcasted on time, it frustrated people as well as much as it had made people eagerly look forward to it. It was a bold attempt which failed to achieve the necessary results, which made mediocrity its biggest feature. If we can ignore the visual images in the TV series, the heroes in History of the Three Kingdoms and the historical events of that era appear mysterious and magnificent in our imagination. It is a great book of brilliance and wisdom that a nation can be proud of, whose imagination is great enough to render us some glory, and a dream which only exists in the imagination of generation after

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generation. However, the TV series only shows the director’s “ambition” and “guts” and as an audience we are not touched as expected. It is an adaption with no creativity at all and the director only used actors to illustrate the characters but did not add anything that could be called “secondary creation”. Especially the first part is almost unbearable. From Liu, Guan and Zhang to Lu Bu, the characters are all stiff, awkward and helpless and arouse great sympathy. It is obviously also an adaptation with vague intentions and it is ambiguous as to whether the director interpreted the original or hoped to exceed it. The adaptation of ancient classics has gradually moved to the adaptation of modern classics. First, a group of producers with the identity of writers adapted Mao Dun’s The Frost-covered Leaves Are Redder Than the Flowers of Spring into a TV series, which was hyped by the media before being broadcast but still got very little response. The difference is that the adaptation from novel to screen involved some contemporary understanding of the original by the group of writers which is not too far off the mark and even could be called an attempt. But the adaptation of Thunderstorm into a TV series needs more discussion. If we discuss the TV series Thunderstorm without seeing Cao Yu’s original play, we may reach another conclusion than that reached from the play. The director deliberately enlarged and exaggerated some particular plots and recreated the main characters. In director Li Shaohong’s words, the newly adapted Thunderstorm is indeed a “watchable” TV series and the assessment is that it is only suitable for the “ordinary audience who are not particularly familiar with the original play”. If we compare the TV series Thunderstorm with the original play, there is much to be discussed. Adaptation will inevitably add the different understandings of the adapters into the original, just as different actors will perform different Zhou Puyuans and different Fan Yis. However, the adaptation of the original can not be arbitrary and boundless. The reason why a literary work becomes a classic must be that it has some unchangeable characters. In Thunderstorm the explicit or implicit meanings and the plots and characters are organically limited to the specific conflicts. One might have different readings of the characters, but the regularized dramatic conflicts are the basis on which the characters are formed and develop their personalities and the reason why the work is a classic. Therefore, adaptation must respect this and limit itself within the qualified conditions. The difficulty of adapting classics is that they do have limitations and regulations. Unfortunately the TV series Thunderstorm has set itself a boundless and arbitrary premise by means of boundless imagination. The adapter has added no additional splendor to the work except for increasing its length. The reason why it causes dissatisfaction is more importantly because

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of the huge influence of the original. The TV series itself has provided a model for diluting and making use of the classics in a society full of commercial atmosphere. This is an age without classics. In the deconstruction “conspired” in by postmodernism and commercial materialism, all classic value, meaning and depth is “dismantled”. People no longer hold the cherish the classics with awe, and “despair” and the verb “transcend” is enough to conquer all the classics and their sacred words. The motive for arbitrary misinterpretation and alteration of the classics is clearly implied in the current fashion and the “secret” known by everybody. So Fan Yi is no longer a sympathetic “symbol of depression”, her boundless desire is to cater to the entertainment and consumption of the day. Zhou Ping is no longer merely a coward and an “elegant” fornicator, he becomes a triumphant “hero” from the mine to the court. It is not so much adaptation but rather sophistication. As a classic text the value of Thunderstorm is not only that it is “spectacular” but also lies in its rich connotations and characteristics of the time, which have no relationship with the current consumption. However, it is because the special relationship between Fan Yi and Zhou Ping is emphasized by the adapter that this spectacle has been made into a melodrama with a high audience rating. Such kind of adaptation is like a shallow third-rate actor who is not capable of a great role. A critic has pointed out: Cao Yu’s Thunderstorm and the TV series Thunderstorm are two entirely different stories. In fact, what really attracts the adapter is “the story” behind the scenes of Thunderstorm ——here we must point out——a story of multiple incest and adultery. The critic said: It is a “rare” story today. Who can find a more “exciting”, more commercial story? Today who dares to make up such a story? Who can adapt a story that cannot even be found in a flea market into a TV series and have it broadcast by hundreds of TV stations and even by the national TV stations? No one can. Only the classics, only Thunderstorm can “guarantee” and “escort” them to be broadcast. The “plot not unfolded”, which Mr. Cao Yu only mentioned or hinted at in Thunderstorm , was loaded with a completely different meaning, but now it is pushed to the front of the stage, picked from the whole story and then amplified, processed, attached, exaggerated and displayed. In the words of some theorists, it has unfolded the “pre-story” of this incest story and described it in details. This is the secret in filming a twenty-episode TV series, and it is a secret more secret than a commercial secret.39

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Undoubtedly, the critic’s words revealed the real intention behind adapting Thunderstorm . It shows that the adapters not only agree with and pursue the trends of today, but more importantly they have indiscriminately imposed their intentions upon the modern classics which have already become part of our heritage. This is no longer a personal act, but the betrayal of and challenge to the traditional spirit. There is no longer anything sacred for them. They have used such a kind of re-narration to worsen spiritual dilapidation.

The Detainment of Utopia in the East On the one hand, the mood of cultural failure comes from the fact that consumption culture has covered the elite culture; on the other hand, it comes from the exaggerated narrative of the intellectuals. Under their exaggeration and somewhat narcissistic disillusioned imagination, it seems that the doomsday of the intellectuals is irreversible. But the fact is far from that. As a social class, the mundane life has never left their mind. From the traditional “gentlemen” to the modern intellectuals, they are always interested in the mundane life. What the intellectuals yearn for in their heart is everything from delicious food to beautiful women. Even when they talked freely about the state affairs, this was always accompanied by wine and music. Occasionally the intellectuals, typically those in the late Ming Dynasty, criticized those who “trifle with playthings and lose their lofty aspirations”, but these are merely necessary self-suggestion and warning——that one cannot delay important enterprises because of worldly pleasures. The early rulers of the Ming Dynasty “founded the empire on the principle of Neo-Confucianism” and said “Before the period of Chenghua, the canon advocated unity and scholars never studied the doctrines of other sects. The scholars regarded the theories of Zhou, Cheng and Zhu as their own limbs and always worried that they would be hurt”.39 Neo-Confucianism almost monopolized thought and scholarship for the first one hundred years of the Ming Dynasty. But the “unified” phase of “general control and revival”, “follow no other doctrine”, “scholars should learn no knowledge from other sects” passed and the Neo-Confucianism doctrine “to preserve the doctrine of heaven and to extinguish human desire” began to lose its influence. In the late Ming Dynasty, Yuan Hongdao claimed “Down with our own body, we should peacefully live like mundane man”. The scholars finally stepped down from the shrine and “melting into” the mundane world became the fashion. He thought that there were four ways of living: to live cynically, to live transcendently, to live peacefully and to live adapting to the world. An “adaptable life” was most

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suitable for him, since he talked eloquently about “pleasure” and “happiness”. He said that there were five kinds of “pleasure”, and “if a gentleman have one of them, he will have no shame in life and will grasp perpetuity after death”. At that time, not only Yuan Hongdao but also every famous scholar had such an ideal of life and realistic pursuit; the hedonist fashion was even more prevalent than today. Zhang Dai confessed twelve “hobbies” in his Self Epitaph: magnificent mansions, beautiful maids, handsome boy servants, fashionable clothing, delicious foods, swift horses, splendid lanterns, fireworks, dramas, music, antiques, flowers and birds, as well as “excessive tea and oranges, motheaten books and poetic ghosts”. Every “hobby” would make men of letters today turn pale whenever they talk about “hobbies”. Mundane humanism activated academic thought and literary reform at that time. However, this was only part of the academic ethos in the late Ming Dynasty, which nonetheless implies a contempt and challenge to the Neo-Confucianism. More importantly, the late Ming intellectuals were probably the earliest torchbearers of mundane humanism. Yuan Hongdao had already said the scholars should have “the heart to love the world”, but the “love of the world” also included concern for the common people and the dangers in society. Zhang Dai also said: “If the scholars had not such a heart the seeds of scholarship would have already been extinguished. Who then could take the universe on his shoulders?” So the late Ming scholars had the equivalent of “wine and meat in my stomach, the Buddha in my heart”. The combination of pleasure and concern was clearly in the spirit of mundane life. In modern times the requirement for and imagination of mundane life are still popular among the intellectuals. Yu Dafu wrote an essay called Words on Habitation , in which his imagination of habitation is as follows: It needs not take too much land and only half an acre of land for the palace and an acre of empty land is enough. The dwelling also need not be very magnificent, only a high building with a view and three level houses are all right, but there must be a library, a bathroom, houses for dogs and cats, a children’s playroom and a kitchen. Around the house there must be wide corridors; inside the house there needs to be bright light. Except that there should be trees and grass surrounding the courtyard and the paths through the grass should be paved with white sand. If there are the high walls of neighbor’s houses nearby, of course we need to plant some ivy to cover the walls. If there is an open area, a low palisade painted black will do. The doors and windows should all be made of thick glass and the roof tiles should be nailed with a sheet of lead first and then covered with thatch.40

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From this we can see that the literati or intellectuals do not actually reject the mundane life. The reason why they felt lost or found things hard to bear is that their identity was destroyed and their spiritual status was overthrown. This feeling did not come from a comparison with the ancient scholar tradition, because in the view of the doctrine of norm, “In times of success, scholars would make perfect the whole empire; in obscurity, they would maintain their own integrity”. Such a flexible life philosophy could not cause the confusion experienced by modern intellectuals. Therefore, the sense of cultural failure is produced by a comparison with the modern tradition of the 20th century intellectuals. In the early 20th century, the vigorous intellectual circle declared the intention “to overthrow Confucianism” and the won the battle of the “modern Chinese language movement” with the emotion and spirit of a “Young China”. Facing the monster called tradition, the intellectuals achieved a great leap for the first time, and despite the illusionary part it provided them with the self-confidence to establish an historical subjective consciousness. As spiritual mentors and spokesmen of the common people, the intellectuals played a role of guide to history. Their apparent identity is ambiguous and in the discourse of cultural dominance, they were considered filthy and born defective; as secular objects of reconstruction, they had to pay the price of humiliation and loss of personal dignity. However, this did not fundamentally change the cultural psychological superiority of the intellectuals. The respect and cordiality they received from the common people was the basic of their superiority, and this is secularly preserved in a “non-institutionalized” form in modern China. However, after the tide of secularization rose among the people in the 1990s, the intellectuals experienced a psychological crisis. They not only lost their former status among the people, in various narrative works they appeared for the first time as the general stereotype of a weak, useless, pedantic and humble person, which became the image of intellectuals. They were no longer those who take on the great task of “commenting on the world and state affairs” and no longer “enthusiastic”, bold and generous scholars. The crisis of the popular image of the intellectuals is the real crisis. Thus was the mood of cultural failure formed.

“Self Salvation” and “Humanistic Enthusiasm” Different from the decadent Zhuang Zhidie and Gu Cheng who committed suicide, some of the elite intellectuals adjusted their mentality in the crisis. They gave up the identity of spiritual tutors and the mentality of “making perfect the whole world”; they on longer spoke as the subject of history or the guide of spiritual life. Instead, they tried to practice self salvation in an age of

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great historical transformation so that they will not be overwhelmed by the sudden impact. Among the early self-reflections and critical consciousness is Liu Xiaofeng’s theological studies. Liu pointed out in the preface to Towards the Truth on the Cross in reply to those who mistakenly thought that he hoped to “save the nation” with Christianity: “I have never said I will use Christianity to save China and I have never had that idea. It is ridiculous to consider that I will use Christianity to save China. How could I save the nation? I am merely a scholar, how could I have the ability to save the nation? How dare I have the delusion of saving the nation? I have only thought of how to save myself. Anyhow, could Christianity save China? Could it save a nation? No! The faith of Christianity only saves individual souls. Moreover, does China need a ‘religion’ to save it? Is there anyone who doesn’t know that no religion could save China?! We must save ourselves from the ‘theory of saving the nation’, which is probably what we really need to do.”41 But in 1987 when Liu Xiaofeng wrote Salvation and Xiaoyao , although he was engaging in “self-criticism”, his expression is not quite the same. At that time he wanted to explore the “meaning of cultural values” and “the search for meaning is the essence of human cultural activities. It is through the activity of cultural construction that people can transcend the settled reality, revise the world without purpose, and then establish their value in history.”42 The latter is looking for something universal and the cultural ends of the former are less ambitious, namely only to achieve “self salvation”. From then on, “self salvation” as a phrase began to be popular. Zhou Guoping also used it in an interview: “With the acceleration of commercial development, people pay more and more attention to practical things and the humanistic intellectuals are further neglected, that is to say they are socalled marginalized. I think it is right to emphasize the spiritual life against a commercial background, but I don’t like the mood and sense of loss they stress in their discussion. I think for a humanistic intellectual, the important thing is they should have faith and he shouldn’t have a sense of loss, since he is engaged in spiritual profession, he is doing something he is fond of and he has his own pursuits. The intellectuals shouldn’t take on the role of saving the world. Today the most important thing is to save oneself, to follow one’s own way and to adhere to one’s own spiritual pursuits”.43 The self expectation of the intellectuals has begun to drop. They no longer have great goals and they no longer talk eloquently, but they do not exaggerate their disillusionment to make individuals depressed and spiritually dead. Meanwhile there is a difference from the ancient tradition of maintaining one’s own integrity. On the contrary, it is encouraged to establish a relatively pure academic tradition and spirit similar

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to ancient Greece which is only interested in the world of truth and keeps a necessary distance with the world of reality. The understanding of the intellectuals as to their function and of themselves diverged again. Some people never changed with the variable current and stubbornly adhered to humanistic enthusiasm. In an age without passion, they insisted on questioning the significance of the world and criticizing reality while they adhered to the heroic status of the intellectuals. Zhu Xueqin entitled one of his anthologies The Sounds of Wind, Rain and Book Reading . He thought “there are only three kinds of voices which can reply to the voice echoing in my heart these ten years”.44 He said that he respected those “academic men” among the intellectuals, but limited by his character he was only suitable to be “a man of problem” in this group and the “awareness of problem” was the drive for him to choose intellectual history as his major. He has analyzed his generation including himself in the following way: The generation named “1968” later experienced great changes and only a few people were lucky enough to enter the colleges of liberal arts. Even so, there are few people who are willing to concern themselves with both theory and “problem”. Whenever I think of that, I feel so sad. In those years this generation had reflected as non-intellectuals upon the problems which in normal circumstances were only of concern to the intellectuals. Of course this was because of the distortion of history, but it also forged the ideological life of this generation. If they give up the “consciousness of problem” and take up an academic career, after they have become intellectuals is it not a tragedy of thought of the whole generation, just like the story of buying the box and returning the pearl?

So he is willing to recite again the couplet written by the leader of Donglin Party with his comrades: “The sounds of wind, rain and book reading, all in my ears; the issues of home, nation and the world, all on my mind”. In an age of pervasive “mildness”, he could only find passion in history, so another voice has converged in this age. Zhang Rulun also expressed his feelings in “wind from the ocean”: “Ideals are a sign of man as a man, while animals have no ideals. The ideal expresses the nobility, dignity, wisdom and aggressiveness of mankind. The ideal is the product of human beings who hope to constantly improve themselves and their environment. Without the impulse and support of ideals, human civilization could not have been developed and maintained until today. The ideal is both the goal pursued by mankind and the motive for human

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beings to transcend themselves. Human beings would have no hope without ideals; the loss of ideals is the loss of humanity”.45 Interestingly, Zhang Rulun too could only find support from history: Through continuous dialogue with ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign masters, I gradually came to understand in depth about human ideals. The personality and model of the ancestors is always an inspiration for me. The greatest apocalypse of their remarkable lives for me is the strength of their ideals. Facing their spirits, a kind of noble courage——the courage to adhere to the ideal - is generated. The articles included here are records and witnesses of my pursuit of and adherence to the ideals, and a fragrant incense dedicated to them and a bunch of firewood to pass on the flame.46

These statement full of humanistic passion gives us the opportunity to hear a different voice in a time of cultural decadence. The sources of these voices are mostly the “school graduates generation”, so a discussion of “humanistic spirit” “mainly participated” in by this generation of scholars, inevitably took place at last.

The Discussion on the Humanistic Spirit Shanghai Literature (No. 6, 1993) published a dialogue between Professor Wang Xiaoming and his students——“the ruins on the wasteland—the crisis of literature and humanistic spirit”. Wang Xiaoming said: “The crisis in literature today is an eye-catching sign which not only marks the degradation of public cultural attainments, but also marks the continuous degeneration of the spiritual quality of several generations. The crisis in literature has exposed the crisis in contemporary Chinese humanism. The indifference of the whole society to literature has confirmed from one aspect that we have lost interest in developing our spiritual life”. This confession was the bitter prelude to the discussion of the humanistic spirit, which has continued until now and still has echoes. Although the origin of the discussion is directly related to the above statement by Wang Xiaoming it is also a question “related to oneself”, that is to say: “As modern intellectuals, where is our settling place? How can we continue the humanistic tradition of the intellectuals in our position?” 47 So this is also a “behavior of self salvation”. The discussion soon aroused responses from academic circles. The terms abandoned by deconstructionists such as “value”, “ideal”, “meaning”, “sublimity”, “morality” and “ultimate concern” were soon

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deployed again. Wang Xiaoming later summed up the discussion. He said: “First, it is a discussion of the spiritual problems in reality, which originated from our specific life experience and was brewed, developed and finally launched in the specific social, cultural and intellectual environment in China. Secondly, it is a discussion which is strongly critical and the critical range is rather wide Therefore, it is first a kind of deep reflection, which to a large extent may be taken as the self-questioning and self-purification of the intellectuals.” 48 “However, I think that perhaps it represents only the wishes and feelings of the initiator and participants of the discussion and in fact its complexity is far beyond the scope of any academy or knowledge and beyond the original intention of self-purification and self-examination by the intellectuals. Therefore, in the article Review and Response to the Cultural Debate in 1995, I wrote: “From the ideological source, it is the conflict between the local ‘consciousness of crisis’ and ‘musical culture’; from the point of view of role, it is the conflict between ‘cultural heroes’ and ‘cultural white-collars’; from the point of view of values, it is the conflict between the idealistic utopia and the ‘apologists’ for reality; from the point of view of attitude, it implies the contest between the hypothesis of social personality and the assumption of ‘sense of happiness’ and so on. Of course, its abundant connotations go far beyond the summary of ‘dual’ conflict. If we review it from the aspect of deep cultural psychology, it is closely related to historical ‘knowledge’ such as our spiritual tradition and literary tradition. Although some problems are not explicitly illustrated, they have apparently been touched upon…But as mentioned before, we lack the tradition of cultural debate and are not used to the habit of respecting ‘multiple ideas’, so we still often encounter articles in the authoritarian style or even the styles of battle”.49 The propositions were gradually made concrete and comment derived from specific cultural phenomenon and character.

The “Secret War of the Spirit” Before the discussion essay with a sense of the corruption of the facile pen and turn it an outburst was:

on humanistic spirit, Zhang Chengzhi had published an declaration——The Pen As a Banner . The essay criticized contemporary literary circle and said he would “lift my into the banner of Chinese literature.” The cause of such

The almost believable spectacle suddenly ended. The new age acclaimed by the comrades eight years ago or earlier has already entered the antique shop. Those who nauseatingly cheered for the

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golden age and who solemnly summarized the new age are now selling their articles by their beauty together with “Xi Shi”, just like “Dong Shi” was made up by a magic lipstick. People who struggled with manuscripts for decades but whose attention was really fixed on the documents of officials, who shouted to assault but never bleed and who were parasites on that tree——all revealed their true selves in a few months and escaped the empty place, just like the lines “flowers fall down after spring, finding their gates on their own”.But they have all emerged through the gates of merchants. Bai Juyi used “married a merchant when my prime was over” to deplore the doom of art, now it only shows that his point of view is out of date. The mob of the literary circle has disappeared just like the sparrows fly away without the sound of a firecracker…50

Zhang Chengzhi’s deep disappointment and indignity apparently stem from the mundane phase of the literary circle - forsaking goodness for the sake of gold. This initial comprehensive retreat of literature was the first time in this had happened in the history of Chinese literature over the past century. However, the group of intellectuals as a whole, including writers, did not immediately submit. At the turn of the 20th century and the 21st century, when the intellectual circle tried to establish a new spiritual tradition and clarify the independent spiritual and personality status of the intellectual using a personality model, they counted all intellectuals and found nobody except Lu Xun, Hu Feng, Lu Gang and Gu Zhun. They suddenly found that the traditional was weak. Under the pressure of “institutionalization”, the intelligentsia had not only lost the ability to resist, but even found it difficult to maintain silence. Since the early 1950s the calls for review had been endless and the loss of ability to think was probably the most astonishing spectacle in the intellectual circle in the latter half of the 20th century. If this “collective disarmament” could be explained by the great pressure, then the active “betrayal” in the 1990s showed the character of this group from the other side. So Zhang Chengzhi decided to “fight alone” and to “duel with the whole literary circle”. His personality and his principles insisted on for ten years decide that he is totally out of tune with the whole literary circle. His consistent idealism, his persistent spiritual longing, his lofty cultural goals and the expression “elegant essay” have made many people deeply respect him. Any outstanding writer created his time will arouse the pride of his contemporaries and their spirit of glory. Perhaps because of Zhang Chengzhi, the literature of our time is especially full of vividness, vigor, justice, conscience, love and anger, adherence, rejection, songs and dances.

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Many of his works are favored by young people, and one fanatic even took a special trip to write in his writing room and call the name of Zhang Chengzhi in the middle of street at midnight. The influence of Zhang Chengzhi on contemporary literature is incontrovertible. At the same time, Zhang Chengzhi has inevitably become a controversial figure. A cultural hero of his age, Zhang Chengzhi is always insisting he is “not without crankiness”. Could it be possible that some of his behavior is merely “gestures”? He is a warrior with a halbert, a lonely wanderer, a scarred and defiant noble fighter. Disappointed, he disdains the world and we can only gaze at his back as he oves away from us. His tall figure stands between the boundless heaven and earth and it is difficult for us to talk to him wholeheartedly as friends. So I must have some doubts while I greatly respect him. Then I think of the “heroic culture” created by our “cultural hero”. I think of “A great wind came forth, the clouds rose on high. Now that my might rules all within the seas, I have returned to my old village” and “How cold the wind and water is? The warrior will never be back”. “Thirty years of achievements and honor is just dust and earth; Eight hundred li of traveling under the moon and clouds.” Of course there is also “a strong shoulder to support justice; a skillful hand to write articles” and “Ten years facing the wall, I shall make a break-through, Or die an avowed rebel, Daring to tread the sea”, “To find truly great men, Look into this age alone” etc. No matter whether today or in the past, we can see their hearts, ambition, courage, worries, integrity and tragedy. Of course, there is also talent. This makes us respect and admire them and eventually this admiration turns into adherence. We learn that such a kind of life and literature is a tradition or even part of our life. But when we are affected we often neglect the heroic gestures of those “being seen” passed on from generation to generation. Do they deliberately let the little spectators like us see their lofty elegance in a tradition of “expressing one’s will” controlled by poetics such as mood, couplet, parallelism, expatiation and metaphor etc.? To what extent does spiritual agony and harassment enter their view? Are they concerned about the fate of the nation because they can realize their life goal only through such a kind of concern? Otherwise, why can so many outstanding figures who are blocked in their career and frustrated in their life only turn all their ambitions into “maintaining their own integrity”? The flexibility in the Chinese “norm” clearly revealed the purpose of the “cultural heroes”. So I want to ask, can the “heroic culture” be unreservedly trusted? Is it excessive to hold some hint of analysis and examination, while at the same time we respect and are proud of them? The discussion does not mean I deny the heroism and idealism of Zhang Chengzhi. On the contrary, in our trivialized cultural age, it is Zhang Chengzhi

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who has expressed his profound concern for the nation and has shown a bravery and honesty rare among contemporary intellectuals. So I prefer to explore his cultural anxiety and I do not agree with Wang Meng’s comments, whose purposes are worth considering, comparing to the “Aum Shinrikyo”. In my opinion, like the academic elites, Zhang Chengzhi’s cultural anxiety came from the split in the relationship with history. The social transition and change of views on values has made us lose a sense of history. The sky of 20thcentury China flew with the flag of idealism and Zhang Chengzhi was nurtured by Chinese culture. In the days he was educated and began to write, idealism was still prevalent. Now the topic of concern at that time seems to be from another world. We can no longer find friends who you can talk freely to, and people have lost the patience to listen to the topic of spirit. We seem to have lost contact with our compatriots, to have lost our historical roots and to have lost the identity of an idealist. Of course, we have also lost our tradition of devotion. In such a historical situation, Zhang Chengzhi vowed to re-find and continue the “history” he loved and he challenged the present moment and of course is challenged by the present moment. His banners are only fluttering under his pen and his spiritual longings, but in reality it is a hard patch of land to tread. A spiritual saint who can never change his direction and a writer who is over nervous to the reality must be anxious and rigid in the situation today. Therefore, the mental status and the spiritual yearning of Zhang Chengzhi are closely linked with the modern and the traditional. Then I think of the spiritual tradition of the Western humanistic scholars who calmly face reality. In the trend of secularization, they never rejected or resisted reality but rationally and calmly criticized it. When the West gradually entered the “post-industrial era”, the “protestant ethics” of capitalism gradually disintegrated and abnormal consumption and hedonism have become the only cultural spectacle. At this time, the Western scholars are not only indignant or agonized but also wield the sword of criticism. They can behave with the calm demeanor of learned men. They not only reveal the various problems of modern society, but also reflect their sincere love of humanity. Such a spiritual tradition may give us some revelation but it does not mean we ourselves have no value judgment or position. Maybe it is because we “suddenly encountered it” that we are in a fluster.

“Elusion” and “Reflection” Undeniably, Wang Meng is an important contemporary Chinese literary figure. His importance lies not only in the fact that he has kept writing vigorously, but

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also that he is always in the center or focus of discussion. No matter for those who approved of him and those who were against him, Wang Meng is always a eye-catching spectacle. In the 1980s he not only created a lot of works leading the trend, but also he recommended and protected many young writers. Even today, Wang Meng is still a very important reference (Zhang Chengzhi said) and his enthusiastic participation in many important topics nowadays is sufficient to illustrate this point. As such an influential figure, his involvement in the topic of the humanistic spirit, no matter whether actively or passively, is inevitable. The critic Xie Yong once in a dialogue mentioned what had been said about Wang Meng in the discussion of the humanistic spirit: “Recently a variety of discussions on Wang Meng in intellectual circles is very meaningful... The critics of Wang Meng were mostly intellectuals one or two generations younger than him. That is to say they are the Old Three Grades born around the 1950s and young people born around thw 1960s. This time the discussion of Wang Meng is different from the “porridge battle” of a few years ago. The person who started the “porridge battle” did not intend to fight with Wang Meng on the level of thoughts and culture, or views on values, rather they acted out of other practical intentions. Recently most people hold different opinions with Wang Meng but are generally interested in serious reflection on the spiritual culture. More generally speaking, they are as enthusiastic about the construction of Chinese culture as Wang Meng.” 51 The “porridge battle” hinted at a clear atmosphere of political conflicts and a kind of secularity and even mentality of killing. Wang Meng’s speech in the discussion of humanistic spirit represents a cultural value and an attitude to the spiritual situation nowadays. Except for a small number of impulsive articles, the main opinions on Wang Meng came mainly from two articles. One is Elusion from Elevation published in Dushu magazine, anf the other is Reflections on Humanistic Spiritual Problems published in Oriental . The former is mostly admiring of Wang Meng as compared with Wang Shuo. When the critical circle and the people discuss Wang Shuo they never agreed with each other. Wang Meng said: “He doesn’t seem knowledgeable, but he is intelligent and wise, and he is both daring and compromising——he never throws himself before the gun…He makes some jokes using hot air and exaggeration, but he seldom writes about big men (not even a secretary of a league branch secretary or a section director). Sometimes he writes about his friends but he is never impolite”. After Wang Meng published these articles, the critic Wang Binbin pointed out in a friend’s words that Wang Meng’s appreciation of Wang Shuo may be regarded as an appreciation to himself. There are many inner or explicit similarities between Wang Meng and Wang Shuo. I think this opinion is reasonable. Wang Meng of

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course is a very clever man. It is almost suitable if we use the words of Wang Meng about Wang Shuo to describe Wang Meng. In Elusion from Elevation , the way Wang Meng analyzed Wang Shuo could also be used for Wang Meng. “Between the novels of Wang Meng and Wang Shuo, are many things that are identical, related, close and similar, that is a kind of clever, ridiculous, slick and exaggerated narrative discourse... these are shared by the two writers. It is not accidental that Wang Meng has become Wang Shuo's close friend”.52 These opinions have formed an affair called the “debate between the two Wangs” and have become another episode in the discussion on the humanistic spirit. If the “debate between the two Wangs” was only a specific and local controversy, then Wang Meng had already fundamentally denied the discussion in his “Reflections on Humanistic Spiritual Problems”: Recently, a group of young critics wrote about the problems of the loss of humanistic spirit, which led to some of thoughts of my own. Is it the market economy that causes a desolate sense of loss? Is it the “money above all” pragmatism the origin of our moral decay? If it is “lost” now, then what was the situation of our humanistic spirit before the “loss”? Was it at its prime? Did it lead the trend? Had it become a tradition or “mainstream”? Had it declined from its prime? Some sense of loss is pointed at in popular literature and art. In the past when popular literature was not yet developed, such as in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, were we are filled with humanism? Some sense of loss is caused by the “ridicule literature” and “riffraff literature”. Before the ridicule, the riffraff and the popular, we had a proud literature of heroes and battles. So, is the humanistic spirit the spirit of heroes and fighting? Is ridicule anti-humanistic? How about humor? Is a sense of humor a sign of the loss of humanistic spirit, or the opposite? Is the connotation of riffraff literature just that it is riffraff among literature? 53

In Wang Meng’s opinion, it was totally unnecessary to have this discussion about the humanist spirit. It was a fabricated threat like “Here Comes the Wolf”. If Wang Meng’s above-quoted questioning and logic were valid, this discussion would certainly be an imagined illness by the intelligentsia, yet the reality was very different from his perception. The advocates of the humanist spirit, or those who stuck to idealism, did repeatedly mention history and the sages of the past, but no one had any nostalgia for the dictatorial rule back then. On the contrary, when they talked about the general principles of the humanist spirit, they particularly stressed

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that it “must be based on individualism in practice”, and took this as a very important constraint without which the general principles of the humanist spirit would possibly go to the other extreme of ethical absolutism, producing a Rousseau-style formula, “You are not free, and I’ll force you into freedom!” 54 The warning based on historical lessons had early on entered the vision of those who were discussing the humanist spirit. They even mentioned that there should be a prudent sense of boundary between the general principle and the individualist practice, or as our humanist ideals heat up, our modes of existence become more dangerous and more aggressive.55 So the call for the humanist spirit has no cultural links with the fighting heroism or literature, as it was never a nostalgic illness longing for a return to the past. As has been stated above, what it seeks to express is on the one hand the self-salvation of the intellectuals, and on the other hand the wish to re-create and rebuild social values after the old ones have crumbled. The main topic of the discussion and the objects of purging have never been popular literature or Wang Shuo’s writing style. So Wang Meng’s questioning, from the outset, was off the mark. On the other hand, the pursuit of modernity narrows the distance between us and the advanced Western countries, with our material life greatly improved and spiritual space vastly expanded, but the negative effects brought about modernization have not only caused the stubborn “modernity disease” in the developed countries are but also substantialized in our late-starting country. The negative effects include not only pollution, shortage of resources, increased unemployment, sprawling cities, decrease in cultivated land etc. but also various psychological illnesses such as anxiety, depression, manic-depression, boredom etc. None of these psychological diseases can be treated by abundant material wealth and the possession of money alone, as they are caused by the pursuit of that very wealth and money. A society is never a healthy one only through material abundance, which only produces the reign of a money regime. Facing the false “tenderness” and a false “paradise”, is not a call for humanist passions and a search for a humanist home the duty of humanist intellectuals? Wang Meng’s disdain for and questioning of this discussion were criticized by young scholars just in this sense.

Old and New Idealism In 1979, despite his manifestation of his “avant-garde” literary stance through his “radical forms”, Wang Meng still sat as loftily high as if he were up in the clouds. Zhong Yicheng’s “Shaobu spirit” by which he was willing to die

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of shooting once brought Wang Meng real excitement and glory. A dozen or so years later, Wang Meng abandoned Zhong Yicheng’s standpoint to go the “sublimity-escapist” way. Here we can see or understand Wang Meng’s introspective or self-negating stance, as Zhong Yicheng’s ignorantly stubborn “nobleness” filled with the rotten odor of feudalism is really to be reflected on and shunned, and his burlesque of self-abusing and self-esteemed “nobleness” has long ago come to its end and been forgotten by people. In Wang Meng’s text he found the formerly popular “pseudo moral sublimity”, which was applicable to Zhong Yicheng’s interpretation as well. He pointed out that the reason for Wang Meng’s “profanity of the sacred” was primarily “life’s profanity of the sacred”. From these remarks by Wang Meng we can again see that he made a casual revelation that he thought there was still the existence of the sacred in life, but what is hard to understand is that formerly he took “the sacred” to be the “ideal” narrated by ideology in the 1950s and the 1960s i.e. Zhong Yicheng’s “nobleness”, while now he regarded it as an unknown object that could not be described; or, his former “pure ideals” were “false”, while “true” ones did not really exist. How convincing this empirical understanding can be is in doubt. There is no need for anyone to tell us how the old idealism fooled people and about its disastrous consequences, as society has given its own answers. For now, the real question is not how to encourage and enlighten people to become secular and to learn to consume and live a hedonistic life, which never needs the attention of the wise, but its very contrary i.e. people’s general contempt for ideals and meaning after the disillusionment with the old idealism and their crazy pursuit of secular pleasures and the unlimited growth of their desires. This vogue bodes a true crisis, which some however, are trying hard to legitimize. All this proves that the spiritual environment we are living in is deteriorating. Since the late 1980s, the diverse literary and ideological trends have unleashed unstoppable tides, as new waves of avant-garde literature, “ease and comfort” literature, new urban novels, informal essays, and poetry manifest the different orientations of the literature of the new era, the most obvious feature of which is their replacement of the formerly political-ideological-minded writing style with freedom or even self-righteousness in their writing. The unreality and rigidness of the expression of collective illusions have been recognized by many authors, and in the opinion of the awakened writers the rationality of “the false” cannot be proven, despite its legitimacy. So people would rather go for “ease and comfort”, go to places of the people for a direct reflection of the crudeness and detail of life, and feel the pleasures in escaping the violent referent, than accepting the false narrative. This is a silent but far-reaching revolution of narrative, the meaning of which has far surpassed that of the wrong grafting of

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the “new methodology”. In the literary phenomena mentioned above, people find in the unlimited possibilities of the varied development of the arts and literature the great wisdom of the artistic creation of the human language, and the inexhaustible changes of the referent. It should be said that since the late 1980s, the mainstream discourse of the destruction of a unified literature by modern Chinese literature has been instrumental in breaking the constraints of rules and regulations and its integration. However, historical development often comes as a surprise to people, just as the narrative and expressive strategies of the special-era literature slid without any control of boundaries as if with inertia, and became the literary norm with their psychological will of “it should be so”. It became a new myth and enjoyed a kind of undisputable “legitimacy”, while some critics indulged themselves in the revelry of literature “turning a new leaf”, utterly forgetting about the social and historical background against which these literary phenomena occurred. It was not until 1995 that the critical circle discovered that the changes since the late 1980s in literature based on the needs of expression strategies had changed their original revolutionary meaning to become part of or spokesman for the urban consciousness in the era of the market economy. Both theoretical and narrative works are filled with the personality and character of the early lumpen-proletariat, who demolish, attack, and mock in unbridled ways while setting boundaries for themselves. All this caters to the psychological needs of the urban dweller: it both satisfies the need to vent undirected anger and to launch attacks with no enemies targeted while avoiding harming themselves, which sums up the wisdom and wit of the people. It is no exaggeration to say that the power of deconstruction in literature is still rather limited, similar to the finiteness of literature that we have recognized. The true power of deconstruction lies in the huge tide of the commercial economy and people’s greed for money as they are still not rich, which combine to become the greatest power for deconstruction of traditional values and are able to change the values of a time. However, when people celebrated with revelry they did not think of the “morning after the revolution”, which is when the true problem usually arises. It is not wrong to deconstruct the traditional values and world of meaning, but it is not necessarily right to prove the legitimacy of this with flat forms and the hedonist principle. Classical authors thought that perception of the metaphysical or the essence is always necessary, which is one of the fundamental differences between man and the animals. The “philosophy of basic needs” is the primary philosophy but not the only one, and a healthy society should not be producing “one-sided” persons, so it is questionable to arouse and guide people’s pursuit and fulfillment of happiness and desire in an unlimited manner. Since the late 1980s, and since

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the general practice of flat forms, the dispelling of modes of depth, the theory of deconstruction of meaning, the questioning of and the pursuit for man’s spiritual world have been objects of derision, losing nearly all discourse space, with the flaws of intellectuals exaggerated in unprecedented magnitude. “New populism” is rampant and consumerist writing has become the most en vogue discourse of the time. They comfort those who have temporarily abandoned the spiritual world with warm and consoling sentiments, sending them into dreams with peace. Literature turns from its former role of taker of dictation to a tool of happiness that can be taken or abandoned as one wishes. We can scarcely hear “voices from deep within the soul” and “true experiences” of this world anymore, as the greatest change taking place in literature has been its shift from political utility to the current secular utility, for which Liu Xinwu’s “facing up to the vulgar world” is the most frank statement. In such spiritual circumstances, we cannot but think seriously about the fate of literature and its future, for this has much to do with us as individuals. The real crisis in the spiritual environment has attracted greater and greater attention, and the totally irresponsible writing which takes itself to have found the position and methods of literature has caused general concern, based on which the critical group in Peking University had two rounds of discussion about the idealism of literature presided over by Xie Mian and Hong Zicheng. The fruits of the discussions have been published in the newspapers. In Xie Mian’s opinion, “The development of literature will ultimate influence man’s spirit. As an indispensible complement to the material world, literature creates its own ideal world that transcends reality. The intangible effect of literature is on man’s soul. It can ignore all before it ignores its own function of uplifting people. Literature should never identify itself with ignorant human life, so as to avoid degrading or even drowning itself”. 56 Hong Zicheng leveled fierce criticism at the state of literature since the 1980s, “The problem of spiritual independence discussed in the 1980s has not been ‘history’. ... At the time, there had emerged two interrelated kinds of phenomena in the discourse and writing of literature, one of which was to declare a world outlook that identified itself with the status quo and the current fashion with the authoritative stance of those who had been banished to the very lowest levels of society and had contained deep observations of the low people of China...” 57 The other of which was “to excuse oneself from introspection, and hence from responsibility to history and human life by way of shelving themselves in their ‘self-examination’ of history”. “Was not the atrophy of the spirit that had begun to show its symptoms since the 1980s a logical deduction of proof of the current life and literary attitudes of ‘Those who suit their actions to the time are wise’?” 58

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Xie Mian and Hong Zicheng’s opinions reflected true literary idealism from different perspectives. Xie Mian’s insistence on the purity of the arts and the authors’ conscience and integrity were based on the very pure standpoint and self-identification in an era of commercial spirit, as he expressed his literary views based on his insistence on the idealist spirit with his serious and nontime-serving perceptions. Hong Zicheng made manifest with critical and introspective attitudes his same stance in another aspect—that the critical spirit is part of the idealist spirit of literature, and is based on the very dissatisfaction with the status quo as it is constructed on idealism. However, many people would rather refuse idealism and practice their principles of happiness as they had been frightened by the “widespread use of literature in politics” when they are faced with the reissue of the literary spirit of idealism. When speaking of idealism, they would at once link it with the 1950s and the 1960s, with the “Cultural Revolution” and the “Red Guards”, with the “ideals” hidden behind the lucid political and ideological discourse. The frightful memories of those times seemed to have been carved into their bones, and a slight touch would bring the nightmares back. This phobia was not real, as its real aim is to cover up with historical lessons the possibilities of the discovery of new ideals, thus misleading the understanding of the idealist spirit. In fact the old idealism i.e. the Zhong Yicheng-type of idealism, had early on been rejected by intellectuals and the public, and if anyone dared to resume the “ideals” of that time it would certainly make them look like aliens, against which people’s general alert was far higher than that of those who reminded them of it. “Stories of yesterday” can never be repeated. So it is no more than a sense of self-claimed “will of truth” to negate any idealism with the stance of those who “had experienced history in a deepest sense” and boasted that “I’ve seen it all”. Of course, that is only part of the literary reality and in fact there are plenty of people who favor the idealist spirit. In recent years we have clearly found the idealist spirit of various orientations in the works of Zhang Chengzhi, Han Shaogong, Zhang Wei, Li Rui, Wang Anyi, Bei Cun and Shi Tiesheng, among others of the “educated youth generation” of writers, who no longer write as “educated youth” authors but as intellectuals. The anxiety to participate in the correction of reality might have destroyed the ability to narrate in some of them, so more of their works have been in the form of informal essays, telling of the true feelings of the inner world about the evils of the times. A farewell to the old idealism was reasonable, as that was one unified with political theology, a part of intra-system ideology in which “idealism” was “integrated” and compulsory, transforming the belief in and pursuit of narrative into the collective imagination in various ways in order to carve it into the “memory of the people”. It did not cover up its intention to

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reign over people’s inner world, so it was hegemony of an ideological system with ethical hues. This “idealism” did not stress man’s spiritual yearning to transcend reality, but encouraged all to forge a dream with all they had to give. It did not produce any spiritual care for man, but was a kind of spiritual slavery. For these very reasons people felt disappointed with the traditional idealism, the grand lies and promises of which could hardly be fulfilled and realized as they were utterly unreal. However, ideals can be rediscovered, as they have more than one form and are not necessarily a reminder of the past. To simplify my discussion, I would like to label with a certain clumsiness idealism as I understand it the “new idealism”. In the current times when the use of “new” and “-ism” are increasingly rampant, this label might be despised, yet it may be worth to name it so based on the reality of the huge spiritual vacuum left by the disillusionment with idealism and to differentiate it from the old idealism. My so-called new idealism understands literature thus: no matter what changes take place in the times, literature should pay attention to the environment of human existence and the human spiritual situation, conduct research on these, and think about them. It should devote honesty and enthusiasm to extricating man from his spiritual predicament. Writers have the responsibility to express the wish to defend the basic human values through their works and to comfort and light up the human heart with the spirit of idealism. Of course, they will not narrate collective dreams or fabricate illusions and false images anymore, but be critical as necessary based on a rational perception of reality. Conscience and a sense of honor are the basic spiritual elements of new idealism. Behind ideals, it does not decree any theological meaning, perform any religion-like functions, seek any new spiritual dominion over man, but just expresses its true concern for the human soul with its unique discourse, manifests the writers’ creativity and imagination within the domain of literature, and tells about man’s eternal need for “love” and “goodness”. They create “the secondary reality”, where their wisdom, character, personal integrity, and honesty of narrative, shine. Insistence on the idealist spirit is the necessary condition for literature to retain its seriousness and honesty, and is the spiritual resource enabling writers to keep to their pure path of artistic pursuit and avoid falling. This setting is not poorly grounded. In reality, whether historical or current, the outer constraints for writers are but violence and existence, which are no different to those of ordinary people. In the past we had a rich legacy of the idealist spirit under the threat of violence. In this legacy, we see the inner nobleness of writers that could not be stolen and their personal dignity like the snow-covered mountain tops. They are like numerous signposts along history, giving each passer-by an uplift in their heart and encouraging them

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to continue steadfastly toward their goals. In the 1950s, in a time of “unified” order, Cai Qijiao “sang otherwise” with great courage: “My brave, free heart, who dares to venture dominion over you? I cannot bear calls of violence, even more not the oppression of evil”.59 Xie Mian thought that Cai had retained his precious independence and principles. In the meantime, Lu Yuan was riding his “St. Maria” “sailing on the ocean of time, seeing no boundaries before and behind; no minutes or seconds, no day or night; no weeks, no months, no years.” But he was still resilient and confident, saying, “even though he could not ultimately reach India, he would find a new continent”. 60 Lu Yuan lived in his spiritual space within a sordid environment, supporting his difficult but confident yearnings with the idealist spirit, the value of which has been proved by history. Of course, we can see that this spiritual phenomenon was not an isolated occurrence from the works by many poets in the “China’s new poetry” school and the “July poetry” group. I want to make a special mention of Chang Yao and Wang Luobin, poets and artists banished to the frontiers who led hard lives at the bottom layer of society. It is not hard to imagine the pressure they came under but they were not frustrated by that, which had also forced millions into humble lives. We can sense a kind of spiritual power in Chang Yao’s Ci Hang, Row, Row, Fathers , etc. and Wang Luobin’s rich singing voice colored by the lyrical hues of the frontiers. As time passes, the works become ever more charming. Many works declared by the media to be classics have by now vanished from the scene, and people would laugh at the mention of some “classics” and discuss them as if they were talking about a joke, but they always have respect and reverence for Chang Yao’s and Wang Luobin’s works, which are not only the life of the arts but also obviously imbued with a power of character and a sense of dignity that can be felt keenly by later people. There is one thing artists would not trade in any setting, and that is the charm of the idealist spirit. Today is not to be compared with the past we have mentioned above as it provides a much more relaxed environment for people to retain some things that they should retain. However, just because of this more relaxed environment, some writers came to have a kind of superficial satisfaction and became the spokespersons of the urban ideology. In the recent period, the pursuit of the secular life happily unfolded in a form of a revenge on the past spiritual domination, while the inner fear resulting from the “terror” has verged on morbidity. This, in essence, were still submissions to the popular and were no different to the submission in the time of “unified”. So the core of the problem is still the matter of “spiritual independence” as pointed out by Hong Zicheng. Some writers may never have adhered to anything, and “spiritual

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independence” has nothing to do with them. The secularization of social life is its basic form of being, as man cannot go without clothing, food, housing, and transportation. The longing for improvements in living conditions and the desire to make them perfect are the natural and basic rights of man, as has been elaborated by classical authors. However, secular life needs its complementary forms, as the spirit of society and the soul of man cannot be uplifted by material means alone. Many people feel bored by life, “exhausted”, depressed, at a loss etc. just because they are in need of the necessary complement in life and their spiritual space is always spinning around a void. But the literature in the 1990s did not pay greater attention to man’s spiritual predicament, narrate true experiences or help man out of this predicament. Rather it made man’s spiritual condition worse with various kinds of false narratives, and expressed imagined happiness with forms even more exaggerated than life itself and with high exuberance. New patterns were formed, and the major referent of literature was easy to sum up. We are rarely moved by popular works and no longer experienced the romance in man’s spiritual world. The parts of man’s emotional domain that needs to yearn for something have mostly been excluded from representation in literature, and all was driven by real interests and desires. Some people no longer needed imagination, as some needed no literature, while others definitely needed idealism. “New idealism” is defined in just such a spiritual context. The detachment of new idealism from political ideology makes it a purely individual act. It needs no vast following and has no potential drive for a unified spiritual dominion. Its limitedness is determined by the limit of the intellectuals. For a hundred years until today, intellectuals have more than once played the roles of cultural heroes in China’s history and their tragic sense of responsibility produced in them an urge to sacrifice themselves. However, reality has proved that it is doubtful how much this urge of the intellectuals has had to do with the changes in or progress of history, as it is still in question what they can do on the stage of history without affiliation or adaptation to the power of politics. So intellectuals must return to their own domain to validate their own meaning, to unfold their own lives within their limited yet still meaningful fields, and to keep a lukewarm relationship with reality, which means participating in yet maintaining a detached relationship with reality. Intellectuals in humanist subjects, in particular, should do so as the spiritual production in which they are engaged does not produce any material commodities in the main battleground of reality and their “means of production” determines the degree of pressure in such a time. All the thinking they provide has no direct effect on social practice and can only influence society in quiet, unobtrusive, and imperceptible ways.

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This limit defines in essence the situation of intellectuals of social sciences in the times. They cannot become the “middle class” or “white collars”, popular as these are, and they must have the courage to face up to it as their choice of “profession” and living conditions determine that they must choose “idealism”. They must pay more attention to man’s spiritual domain, which has become the pivot of their existence. This perspective of seeing the world enables them to provide the ever-changing times with a kind of “idealist” character, personal integrity, and patterns of behavior, and to be believed in and revered by people with their “not-so-secular” image. New idealism is an “individual” ideal which “goes against” the times, because it is obviously outside the vogue. Among the torrents of thinking that “suit the world” it is willing to trade itself for another kind of spirit, to stand on the spiritual plateau where are few left. Here it is not tragically heroic, there are no crowds watching, and it no longer forms any scenes among the hustling and bustling world headed for money. But they have their own satisfaction as they can participate, in their effective domain, in dialogues of the soul with all those who understand life and love it, and they are willing to get the rich and not rich to shake off the feelings of loneliness, sadness, and exhaustion because there are people who are paying attention to man’s common spiritual sadness and who are willing to discuss the way out with them. We will work hard to discover idealism, although it is not that clear, or is even not within the foreseeable future. But the journey along the way will be very interesting.

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Chapter

The Media War and the Changes in Media Function

The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

Abstract Key words: a udience rating; circulation; standpoint; discourse power Despite the media’s change of their former uniform function of propaganda and compulsory form of broadcast, the dual identities and roles they have and play (as both part of the cultural industry and an ideological tool for the state) determine their Janus-faced function: on the one hand, they have to meet the market needs to ensure audience ratings and circulation, and hence bigger advertisement revenues, when they need the standpoint and practice of cultural populism (such as the slogan of the Life Space section of Oriental Horizon : telling the stories of the people). On the other hand, the media have to assume the role of voicing state opinions and forging a positive national image, when they need the standpoint and practice of cultural elitism (as in Topics in Focus). This contradiction of identities and roles is inevitable in the process of the rebuilding of the cultural leadership. However, it can safely be said that the media today are a primary source of most people’s cultural identity, and one of the most important bases upon which our tastes, values and even lifestyles are constructed. So the new cultural leadership is in the grip of the imperial discourse established by the media.

The Systematic Reform of Newspapers and the Transformation of Journals Literary periodicals were the most important carrier of and media for literary creation, criticism and theory in the planned-economy era, as well as being the barometer of the vicissitudes of the political world at the time. A periodical formed a “battle ground” on which it performed the function of promoting literary works while guiding public opinion, publicizing the literary and artistic guidelines and policies of the Party, and discussing major theoretical issues. Important theoretical periodicals such as Journal of Arts and Literature hosted by China Writers Association belonged to this type. Journal of Arts and Literature started publication on May 4, 1949. It was published weekly by the preparatory committee of the China National Literary

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Artistic Workers’ Congress. In the foreword to the first issue, the editors stated the aim of its publication as follows: the Journal had regular objectives of sharing experience, exchanging opinions, reporting on literary and artistic activities from all corners of the country, and reflecting public opinion, and it was particularly expected to perform these tasks: first, to report the proceedings of the preparatory work of the committee; second, to publish guidelines on tasks, organization, mode of working, and membership identification of future national literary and artistic associations; and third, to promote outstanding literary works from the past 5 to 6 years. The Journal at the time was just a temporary “bulletin board for the preparatory committee”, 1 and it was more of a mechanism for collecting opinions and providing services without its authority in professional circles being established. Under the leadership of chief editor Mao Dun and deputy chief Hu Feng and Yan Chen, the journal ended publication after 13 issues. The Journal of Arts and Literature resumed publication on September 25, 1949 as the official magazine of the Writers’ Association. The new Journal was totally different from the former “bulletin board of the preparatory committee” version, with its authority affirmed by the list of the generations of its editorial board. 2 Every chief editor of the Journal was a well-known CPC member in literary and artistic circles, which reflected the importance of the Journal on the one hand and showed the political sensitivity of the “battle ground” on the other. It can be said that each major ideological battle was launched by the Journal of Arts and Literature and fought therein. The political sensitivity of the publication required that the publishers of the Journal must be able to go with the tide of the times. The new publications in humanities, the academic world and arts and literature of the era, with no exception, included the most popular political mottos of the time in their forewords to expressly state their identification with the mainstream ideology. Ma Yinchu said in the foreword of Peking University Journal (Humanities and Social Sciences Edition) that: Teachers at Peking University are conducting studies into Marxist and Leninist theoretical studies following the principle of willingness. Currently there has been heated criticism of Hu Shi’s capitalist idealism in the various fields of social sciences. Though the alarm bell has been ringing, there may still be people not alerted. This has to wait for further checks and elimination, so that the correct Marxist and Leninist standpoints, views, and methods can be applied to scientific research.3

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The foreword to the inaugural issue of Movie Authoring says: Movies are one of the most effective tools for Communist publicity and education of the people by the Party. Through images on the big screen, the heroic deeds in the grand history of our nation and in the construction of socialism and Communism in China can be broadcast to the people in bright, precise, and vivid ways... The publication of Movie Authoring is to lay the artistic creation of movies, the first step of which is the screenplay, before the scrutiny and criticism of the Party and the people through the magazine, so that the movies we make can present a heroic panorama of the people’s revolution and socialist construction of our country with more precision and greater vividness.4

The vast campaign of the integration of periodicals was completed very soon. However, by the time of the Cultural Revolution almost all periodicals, particular artistic and literary magazines, stopped publication. Despite the nearly unconditional publicity and implementation of the Party’s guidelines and policies on the arts and literature by the periodicals, they were still regarded as going “bourgeois literary and artistic” and were not trusted. After the end of the 1970s the literary and artistic periodicals resumed publication one after another. By the 1980s they had ascended the pinnacle of their history. For example, People’s Literature enjoyed a circulation of over 1,000,000, while Popular Movies had a circulation of 8,000,000. Although it was still a time of planned economy periodicals, as an important branch of the media, became one of the major media through which readers received and understood current realities and future development of modern China through the close relations between literature, the arts, and mainstream discourse, and the readers’ expectations for and belief in the general objectives of national modernization. However, with the further development of the reform and opening up of China, the legitimate entry of the market economy into the social structure, the rise of alternative cultures and the development of a cultural market, the system of syndicated publication of newspapers and magazines gradually unraveled. Entertainment newspapers and magazines posed a great shock to intra-system publications, as they enjoyed huge circulations right from the beginning: the Stories published in Shanghai had a circulation as large as 6,500,000 copies; the Legends Ancient and Modern published in Hubei nearly 2,000,000; the Woodpecker published in Beijing 1,750,000; the Folk Literature published in

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Shanxi 1,000,000, with various street tabloids enjoying circulations somewhere between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000. As circulations were directly linked with the survival of the publication, a wave of “transformation of the magazine” swept across the nation. Guizhou’s Miao Mountains became Literary and Artistic World ; Anhui’s Yangtze- and Huai-River Arts and Literature was turned into Popular Literature , Tianjin’s New Port was changed into Guide to Novels, Beijing’s Selected Criticism became Literary Hotspots etc. Although magazines under state financial aid were still sticking to “pure and orthodox” ways of publication, it is not hard to imagine what their meager conditions really were. What we found was that by the 1990s many periodicals had their own “boards of directors” or “boards of administration”, well-known lucrative enterprises had begun to get themselves involved in the publication of periodicals, and there had been commercial advertisements published in these magazines. The deputy chief editor of Mountain Flowers Huang Zukang explained that their publication reshuffle in 1994 sponsored by the Huangguoshu Group of Guizhou was one example of transformation with the help of enterprise funds. However, after the spring of 2000 the Group’s business declined seriously due to the chaos on the cigarette market as local protectionism became rampant, and it declared in August 2000 that it would no longer be the sponsor of Mountain Flowers . Luckily, the Guizhou Corporate Decision-Making Research Society initiated jointly by the magazine and the Group at the time of their “marriage” had by now “grown up” and matured, so from the first issue in 2001 onwards the publication funds for the magazine were collected from the member companies of the society (of which the Group was still a member and it contributed RMB 300,000). That is to say, Mountain Flowers was still collaborating with enterprises. In Huang’s opinion, it was not difficult to take a market-oriented way as many publishers had been trying hard to acquire more periodicals so as to open up the market and muster greater strength in the field. If a periodical wanted to cater to the taste of the market and take the path of circulation determinism, there were plenty of opportunities. As long as you could find a master distributor, your magazine would be able to enter the market fully dressed overnight. Quite a number of magazines had fulfilled their dreams this way, while Mountain Flowers did not quite catch up with this trend. Ever since the start of its publication, Mountain Flowers had been taking “Championing the Cause of Literature” as its mission, which was also its objective of publication and the aim of their 1994 change-over. Since 2001, Mountain Flowers has been taking advantage of its brand columns to promote excellent new works and has created new columns such as “Selected Leading Overseas Authors” and “Urban Mirror”, while the “Wired” section delves deep into the circle of Internet

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writers. The new columns and section soon won the hearts of writers and the publishers have asked to put together anthologies. Huang said that on another front, we have been trying to push the existing influence of “avant-garde art” to its full and to pursue individuality in design. To add to the cultural element, we will upgrade “Avant-Garde Art” to become “Visual Humanities” in 2002 and engage the famous artist Ying Tianqi as deputy chief editor, who will be responsible for that column. We will devote as large a portion of the magazine to visual art rich in humanist culture, including various kinds of paintings, photography, architectural art, movies and TV, and graphic design, while we keep the portion devoted to literary works untouched. We will present specials of 12 top artists’ works and related information beginning from the first issue of 2002. Our plan has been warmly applauded by writers and artists at home and abroad. Our aim is to bring the devout readers of Mountain Flowers the highest possible artistic pleasure and the richest humanist information through the “perfect blend of the literary spirit and visual humanities” in our magazine.5 Yet it’s worth noting that such a plan, new as it was, did not and could never bring Mountain Flowers into the market. Such a publication strategy of relying on social funding and part commercialization was still highly fragile as it lacked any kind of system support (the collaboration between Mountain Flowers and the Huangguoshu Group was a typical example), although it did ease the hardships of existence for some magazines which had the ability to attract advertisements and solicit corporate sponsorship. The chief editors had to invest more energy into the securing of funds than into the publication of the magazine. The chief editor of Yan River , Zi Xin, said, “After the 1990s, such a predicament was not mitigated but only got worse and worse. Yan River has pursued innovation in the past few years by updating the structure of the magazine and publishing successive excellent works, which were reprinted in state anthologies and received various awards, earning our magazine high recognition among the literary and periodical circles. The media sang high praises of our glorious achievements. However, there are still problems with the direction of development and reform measures. To tell the truth, the economic and social benefits of a magazine are determined by its circulation. Since the mid-1990s our magazine’s distribution has not been at its best, the collaboration with enterprises has ended because of the slow growth of commerce, and the financial situation of our magazine has been worsening. Obviously, the essence of the deterioration is that magazines have not really known market operation and cannot reap economic benefits, and accordingly social benefits become smaller. In fact, generally speaking, since 1995 literary magazines nationwide have been facing serious challenges: a weak market and declining circulations, both are the heartaches of each leader of a purely literary magazine. Particularly

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in the recent couple of years, movies and TV have been very active as new forms of media and various kinds of fashion and life magazines have entered market competition, while Internet literature has been on the rise. As a result of all this, literary magazines nationwide have begun to change their devotion to their values, while authors dive into the sea of economic pursuits and many of them take up other professions, abandoning literature. As the commercial value of literature is becoming more emphasized every day, some editors cannot hold to their belief in their cause and begin to entertain different ideas about their career. Traditional editorial ideas such as copy editing have been gradually replaced by the new concepts of planning and creative editing; graphic editors’ job of drawing copy design, drawing pictures, adding end decorations and title images by hand has been outdated by the modern CAD – computer-aided pre-print processing, and graphic design. Particularly, with the new century comes, the application of high-tech in the printing and publishing industries has greatly added to the taste and quality of various premium, luxury, and elaborate magazines while our periodicals, confined in the previous Soviet Union-style system of publication, can only sigh and admire”.6 The “sigh and admiration” of this chief editor is highly representative of the industry. Chief Editor of Yalu River Liu Yuanju explained, “I’ve been at Yalu River for 20 years. Over these 20 years I’ve developed indisputably deep emotional links with the magazine. I have been through highs and lows with the magazine, and experienced the vicissitudes of the times. Some old editors encouraged me with their simple kindness, saying that they hoped the magazine could relive the past glory of its prime. What is its past glory? A circulation of 397,000 copies. Is that still possible in the future? We launched a campaign of the masses to try to distribute our magazine through the newsstands, but only for one day, and the next day the owners of the stands would not allow it any more. We even sent our magazines to supermarkets for display and sale. Imagine this: our good magazines go unnoticed in the supermarket, not even enjoying the fate of a pack of yoghurt...” 7 Some of the narratives of pure literature, or serious literature chief editors, were basically sighs while others were heroic expressions of empty ambitions such as saying “literature will never die”, “literature is a luxury” etc. Such remarks were certainly rich in pathos or tragic solemnity, but they could not help the magazines with anything practical or particular. For literary magazines not able to adapt to the market, survival will still be their paramount challenge in the future. Even in an era of commercial determinism, the romance of literature is not doomed to failure. The important thing is that the last guardians of literature must update their ideas of literature and literary production, and secure systematic support from the state, or their fate will not be changed.8

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On the other hand, the current condition of traditional literary magazines is an inevitable result of the system, that is to say that the system establishment, editing, and distribution of literary magazines are part of a traditional literary system. For instance, the China Writers Association published People’s Literature and its provincial branches published sub-People’s Literatures as their official publications, which even retained the order of genre arrangement from the mother magazine i.e. novels, essays, poetry, criticism, and several decades have passed without any changes being made. Such a system spawned a highly rigid manner of publication, which is one of the reasons why literary magazines could not meet the evolving demands of the readers. So as well as the improvement of outward conditions, the internal adjustments of literary magazines are as important.

The Media War and the Changes in Media Function Giving the reasons why literary magazines gradually declined to become minor or even marginal media in the time of China’s reform and openingup, a reporter said that in the 1980s literature was cross-playing too many roles, including those of politics, economics, culture, news, history, and even the future. The catharsis, the cry, the appeal, the questioning, all these often turned literature into impure inverted images of journalism, or conceptual echoes of history. On the other hand, literature at that time was a pair of crystal shoes, which millions dreamed of putting on. It was the dream of the young generation. These dreams supported a vast readership and supported the literary magazines within the traditional system. Even non-literary newspapers and magazines had to devote certain portions of their pages to be the literature section, which was even more important than the publication proper in the eyes of many chief editors, while in the editorial office the best editors were those dealing with the literary section rather than their news counterpart. For this reason, at the time literature became the pillar for any media to survive and prosper.9 However, by the 1990s, the establishment of newspaper publishing groups and the need for industrialization, the advent of entertainment, life, and practical publications, and the all-inclusive coverage of TV broadcasts, films, and other cultural products, combined to push literary magazines aside to the far corner of the stage. Moreover the already dominant media forms of newspapers and TV themselves entered an era of fierce competition. The competition among newspapers had its own gradual evolution. In the 1980s, newspapers were still tools for influencing public opinion with positive news reports. The purity and integrity of newspapers stood for the ideological

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orientation and national image of the time. However, in 1987, an immense fire at the Greater Khingan Range initiated a change in the situation. The fire was also the most devastating news story of the year as it drew great attention nationwide, with authoritative media covering the firefighting process day by day. A reporter described the change later: the CCTV’s News program, for half a month, daily reported on the fire and on the firefighting, with more and more heroes emerging, despite the fire roaring up high day by day. Until one day CCTV’s desription of the fire went from “fire” to “big fire” and ultimately “huge fire”. The sensitive China Youth Daily was the first to act: they sent reporters to the scene. They jumped out of the stereotypical “fire-fighting heroes” pattern of reporting, switching to a policy of “approaching the truest and most important information source”. Soon, the three news features on man and nature – Red Alert, Black Aria , and Green Tragedy came out. This series of reports were regarded as creating the pattern of panoramic reporting, and drove journalism onto the way of intervening in life. The highly influential CCTV program Topics in Focus was regarded as an extension of this kind of “in-depth reporting”. 10 The shift in reporting policy to some extent changed the image of the media as mere “tools”. If such exploration and reflection were still to some extent acts conducted out of a sense of destiny or solemnity, the change and competition among the media in the 1990s were characterized by secular aims. The Nan Du Daily , started in 1995 in Guangzhou, declared that it would put into practice the publication motto of the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, “the simplest way to increase circulation of a newspaper is to stop holding it high”. In their opinion, the popular media equaled newspapers people would love to read, and catering to the general taste of the public was a good way to win popularity. With such a guideline in mind, the Nan Du Daily completed a leap in advertisement revenue from RMB 3 million in 1997 to 18 million in 1998, and nearly 100 million in 1999. Advertisement revenue is not only the main source of income for newspapers, but also one of the major definitions of success of a newspaper. The actual objectives behind the efforts to increase circulation, or to “cater to the taste of the masses”, are simply to bring in larger advertisement revenue. To achieve this, newspapers spare no efforts. Chu Tian Dushi Bao (Hubei Metropolitan Daily) caused quite a sensation at the start of its publication with its distribution policy of “building penetration” i.e. no matter how high a building was and how strictly guarded its gate was, the salespeople of the newspaper would certainly get you to open your door and would extend their smiling invitation to you to open a subscription. In Nanjing a fierce war of prices between rival newspapers broke out, when Modern Express created .

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a newspaper sales miracle for the 1990s at its start of publication, with its 16 pages in 1/8 format selling at a price as low as RMB 0.1. Within two months its circulation rocketed to 300,000 copies, and with the surge in sales of copies its advertisement sales leaped as well. Sometimes there was even not enough space to cram in so many advertisements. Chengdu Business also found its secret of success in the abandonment of elitism, as it became a thoroughly bourgeois newspaper and abandoned its original elite form. Writers for this newspaper were mostly freelancers, who were not highly cultured, yet each had their special skills: some were familiar with the legal authorities, while others might be following beggar groups for days to no end. Chengdu Business succeeded in its shift to a policy of popular publication as by 1998, its advertisement revenue had exceeded RMB 100 million. The vulgarism in newspaper publication entailed low tastes, so celebrity secrets, political scandals, social crimes, entertainment, reporting on image trends and even “paparazzi” tactics became the most popular content and form of the 1990s newspapers. On the other hand, the increasingly clear class divisions provided greater space and possibilities of choice for newspapers and other media. As most newspapers cast their eyes “downwards”, the slogan “newspaper for the middle class” was put forward by Sources of Fortune in the 1990s. The middle class was part of the successful in society, including the wives of successful men. Magazines for the middle class and securities newspapers were mainly intended for this class to buy and consume. As the other industries in China became more and more saturated, newspaper publication became “one of the few hugely profitable industries now”.11 According to available statistics, advertisement revenue for newspapers in mainland China neared RMB 11 billion, rocketing by 145 times over that of 1983, and it was still growing by 15–20% annually in recent years. The fierce competition between newspapers and the trend of the times soon triggered competition between TV stations, despite the latter group’s general domination over the media environment. CCTV created Oriental Horizon in 1993, and Topics in Focus in 1994, the birth of both of which won great renown for the station. The then premiere Zhu Rongji said, “I watch Topics in Focus every day, as I can get first-hand material from it”. He explained that national policies and guidelines used the reports from Topics in Focus as a proving ground and that they sometimes served as cornerstones for his decision making. He even said Topics in Focus was “part of the CPC Central Committee’s work”. CCTV also claimed that the program was one of the highest rated, with its rating steady at about 30%, which meant 300 million viewers each day. Over 1,000 viewers wrote, phoned or emailed to the program every day. It drew

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widespread attention from national leaders and ordinary people. 12 In fact as popular media, TV was the first to take notice of its own popularity. As China had no experience in popular culture production, imported TV series from the US, Japan and Brazil, and particularly the family soap operas from Taiwan and Hong Kong, provided the first examples and experience for China’s TV series production. However, as the public soon became familiar with TV programs and their demands continued to increase,how to make TV programs more appealing to the audience became a problem. The “Hunan TV” phenomenon which emerged in the 1990s broke CCTV’s stranglehold on the market as the station took advantage of the wide coverage of satellite transmission. The successive entertainment programs produced by the station included True Love Matches, Lucky 99, Happy Camp, Date of Roses, Entertainment Express etc. and brought the genre to brand-new heights. The rating of Happy Camp in Beijing reached 27%, and Date of Roses 25%, while the broadcast rights for True Love Matches were purchased by over a dozen provincial and municipal TV stations. Statistics as of 2000 indicated that Hunan Satellite TV was leading in major indexes such as the number of outsideprovince cities connected to its network and the cable-connected population among the satellite transmitted provincial TV stations; the August 2000 survey conducted by “CCTV Research” showed that Hunan Satellite TV ranked top of the list of 37 satellite TV channels nationwide in a general review of the national audience. Data for the first half of 2001 (CCTV Research) indicated that Hunan Satellite TV had reached 58.3% of the households around the country, and was next only to CCTV in audience satisfaction, audience population, program competitiveness, and audience loyalty, ranking No.1 among all provincial satellite TV stations, with all the figures continuing to increase. In 2001, Hunan Satellite TV was selected the Most Promising TV Channel at Nanjing’s first College TV Festival; and Hunan Satellite TV’s coverage kept increasing, with brand-name programs presenting all kinds of wonderful shows, adding to the strength of the channel. Listed on this piece were the cable TV network of all the provinces, municipalities directly under the jurisdiction of the Central Government, autonomous regions, and district cities, excluding the county cable TV networks which received and transmitted Hunan Satellite TV and major corporate cable TV users. The network access campaign of Hunan Satellite TV around the country was being powerfully pushed forward, as it was preparing to enter the cable TV networks of Hangzhou, Kunming, Harbin and Shijiazhuang. From August 2001 on, Hunan Satellite TV would land on the public networks of Russia, Australia, Japan, the US etc. See the brief on Hunan TV’s official website. Later, the station presented Institute Millennia and

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New Youth. Despite the diverse comments on Yu Qiuyu’s lecture on Institute Millennia, it did cause a news sensation, promoting the program in another sense. First to come under pressure from the “Hunan TV phenomenon” was CCTV. Previously the eight channels of CCTV had enjoyed a rating of as high as 81%, with its advertisement revenue surging by an annual 50%. By 1997 the annual advertisement sales for CCTV had reached RMB 4 billion. However, by 2000, when the bids for advertisement time on Hunan Satellite TV’s Happy Camp and Date of Roses climbed to RMB 10 million, CCTV’s advertisement bidding revenue had declined by RMB 700 million, with a number of its ad time periods finding no buyer. By 1998 Hunan TV’s total advertisement revenue had reached RMB 250 million, while the amount for 1999 was 400 million. On March 25, 1999 “TV & Broadcast Industrial”, the corporate body operating the TV station under the Hunan TV Bureau, listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, becoming the true “No.1 media stock” of China. Its stock price soared after the IPO, as in 2000 the price had been floating around RMB 40 per share. The industrial reform of Hunan TV became the forerunner of the industrialization of China’s TV service. However, in the process of its industrialization, TV not only brought economic gain for the industry. It in fact produced a new ideology and life politics in the process of market competition, and the “fairy tale” of TV was underscored by itself. Happy Camp , as an entertainment program, was not like the vulgar entertainment shows on Japan’s TBS and the shallow orgiastic programs on Phoenix TV. Its youth, ease, and healthy pursuits created the new image of China’s entertainment programs, while the abundant prizes of various kinds hinted at its hidden motive from another aspect. Oriental Horizon was once analyzed as a case of cultural studies. In Wang Hui’s view, “Oriental Horizon is a TV product made jointly by independent producers, state propaganda, and huge advertisement revenue as seen from the system perspective”. “On the one hand, the state needs such programs for its own political interests, while on the other hand, its advertisement revenue is large enough to support the production of the show and to reap economic benefits. However, in China’s context, the former reason is still the most important. In other words, the state is not a total whole like an iron plate. The process of reform, particularly that of industrialization, will certainly lead to new forms of the ruling ideology, which will no doubt in turn lead to certain changes in function in the ideological state machine”. 13 In Huang Shuquan’s opinion, “The replacement of ‘the people’ and ‘the public’ with ‘the folk’ was itself a deconstruction of the political utopia in the grand narrative of journalism and the fashion culture utopia, representing a standpoint of humanism i.e.

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the folk standpoint and secular care. ‘The folks’ both broke free of the central framework of the political discourse, returning the abstract concept of ‘the people’ to the concrete, flesh-and-blood individuals, and drew a line between itself and the popular culture icon of ‘the public’. Its connotation was rich in traditional culture rooted in the concept of ‘the people being the superior ’, while its extension came with a width covering all strata of social life.” 14 Lu Gang pointed out that in the inner structure of Oriental Horizon , the “human life essence-packed” Oriental Figures stood in contrast to the “telling stories of the folk” Life Space . The former, of course, had all kinds of the successful (the meaning of which, if we could conduct research on the identity and exploits of figures appearing in Oriental Figures , and on why they were chosen as interviewees, would certainly deepen our understanding of what was “success” and what “success” meant in China’s 1990s, thus helping us with the analysis of the ideological structure of the fairy tale of “the successful”) jumping onto its stage one after another while the latter, in the words of producer Chen Meng, was just “a history of the nation written by the small potatoes”. The narrative of Life Space , telling “folk tales”, took as its point of departure its concern for the underprivileged and the minority in society i.e. the “unsuccessful”. Seen in an isolated perspective, the “urban poor, migrant workers leaving their countryside homes, the handicapped, cancer patients, abandoned new-born babies, ethnic minorities, poor areas” presented in the section of the program were “the blind area upon which the traditional mainstream media are unable to shine their light”, but if we juxtapose it with the various narratives of the “successful” (how was Life Space “embedded” into the general picture of a whole program?) and with the vision of overcoming temporary obstacles and racing towards bright futures together, then was not this “history written by small potatoes” organized into a larger historical narrative in the meanwhile? It could hardly ever help the true presentation of the true life of “the folk”, yet was likely to strengthen a certain kind of “ideological effect”.15 Such analyses are helpful to our understanding of the true intentions and objectives behind the media, or, although the competition among them facilitated their industrialization, so that their operation was gradually geared to international practices, the system reform of separating production and broadcasting and the relative relaxation of censorship enabled varied cultural productions and markets to grow. There were even “individual TV professionals” and “freelance TV writers”. On the whole the media were still dominant in discourse no matter how the means of production changed and how the media changed within themselves. This was particularly evident in TV, which McLuhan recognized to have great significance as a brand-new form of

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cultural communication as early as the 1960s. The reason was that the medium itself was more able to influence its audience than the message it carried. The difference between TV and printed matter was “that printed matter spawned different social classes with the discrimination against the reader ’s varying level of ability to interpret specially coded language, while TV enables all the audience, although of different social standings, to understand its message with a simple code accessible to everyone, thus crushing the boundaries between social groups. By combining different groups of the population into a whole, TV created a single audience, a single place of cultural activity”.16 Almost all members of society performed no less than two hours of “TV ritual” every day, especially the young people whose values, clothing, entertainment and language fashion was connected to TV. In particular, their catch words, or “youth language”, must have come from TV as an important source and communicator or we could hardly understand why words like “cool” and “wow” became so popular among fashionable young people almost at the same time. Changing fashion not only quickened the steps of inter-generation shift, but the superior feeling of being in the fashion taught the young contempt for and subversion of the authority of the old. In China, despite the media’s change of their former uniform function of propaganda and compulsory manner of broadcast, the dual identities and roles they have and play (as both part of the cultural industry and an ideological tool for the state) determine their Janus-faced function: on the one hand, they have to meet the market needs to ensure audience rating and circulation, hence bigger advertisement revenues, when they need the standpoint and practice of cultural populism (like the slogan of the Life Space section of Oriental Horizon : telling the stories of the folks.) On the other hand, the media have to assume the role of voicing state opinions and forging a positive national image, when they need the standpoint and practice of cultural elitism (as in Topics in Focus). This contradiction of identities and roles is inevitable in the process of the rebuilding of cultural leadership. However, it can safely be said that the media today have been a primary source of most people’s cultural identity, and one of the most important bases upon which our tastes, values, or even lifestyles are constructed. So, the new cultural leadership is in the grip of the imperial discourse established by the media.

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Chapter

The Virtual World on “A Thousand Plateaus”

The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

Abstract Key words: open-endedness; liberality; equality; net writers The Internet is just like the “nomad” culture described by Deleuze. It is in a sense “a thousand plateaus” on which anyone can roam, a free, indefinitely open public space where the myths of technology change and reconstruct everything. Since the space is “open” to everyone, it is simultaneously declaring the unceasing various possibilities of changing history, as if the world is in its grip as long as it wills so. The creation of the myth that the Internet was open, free, and equal spawned the hectic growth of Internet literature. No matter whether you had had any training in literary writing or not, and no matter whether you had been an author, you could be a wellknown “writer” overnight as long as you had the desire to publish online. The Internet provided each “writer” with unlimited space and possibility. Whether you like it or not, Internet literature has been one of the tokens of the time. It not only hailed its own heroes, but also created its own jargon. Without knowledge of this language, you could never breach the inner world of Internet literature. So the primary obstacle to accessing Internet literature was still a hierarchical/power relationship one, although the ideological discourse focused on “equality”. In the historical narrative of the 1990s, Bill Gates is known to virtually everyone. This young American not only established his “Microsoft” kingdom through his magical touch with technology, building a rock-solid stronghold to hold sway over this world through high-tech, he also became the richest man in the world. For this reason even in China, a country where “idealism” was one of the ideological pillars of society, the discussion whether Pavel Korchagin or Bill Gates was a hero could still be the focus of attention for the media and the audience, as in the 1990s edition of How the Steel Was Tempered . This manmade theme in the manner of a “mental disorder” 1 indicated the challenge faced by the traditional socialist values on the one hand, while on the other hand it showed the huge influence this American youth commanded, which could not to be overlooked. Dai Jinhua’s analysis of this wave of discussion was:

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Undoubtedly, as the embodiment of Communist values and an ideal image, the hero Pavel is closely linked to the history of socialism. The publication of the book and its spread were cultural facts within the socialist bloc. For this reason it can be said that this image was a product of the cold war, while Bill Gates was a “materialist demigod and success” in the post-cold-war era, or the era of globalization. Here there the logic is clear of “disorder” in that if we worship Gates as a hero, the history of Pavel as a hero would be ended – at most he would belong to his history, staying in our nostalgic vision when we look back at the past; on the other hand, if we still hail Pavel as a hero or example, that would mean we refuse the real-life and cultural logic of holding Gates as a demi-god, as what lifts Gates to the status of “hero” was far more than his genius, the prodigy of his ideas, and his hard working in business initiation; it was a far more objective index – his wealth and the vast empire designated by the name Microsoft, a multi-billion-dollar listed company. This is what Socialism and Communism sees as the source of all evil in a bad, bad world, which shall be doomed. However, it was no exception that the discussion launched by Beijing Youth Daily juxtaposed two seemingly irrelevant facts; it was a commonly seen cultural fact at the time in China. It was more presented as a somewhat absurd harmony than a kind of chaos. It reflected to us the unique political and cultural reality in China’s time of transition, a particularly real cultural experience in a socialist power in the midst of the process of reform and opening up. Faced with such a reality, words like cold war, post-cold-war, and globalization might be concrete or have a certain kind of impracticality. Of course, it must be pointed out here that Gates was not only a representative of the successful and the richest man in a broad capitalist world, the current man of the hour, but also one performing money-making miracles in the post-Ford or post-Rockefeller eras, and was closely connected to the description of the knowledge economy as fairy-tale successes in the 1990s China when China’s Internet and her Internet economy came nearly out of nowhere. What should be mentioned are two facts connected to this: one is the publication and huge sales of the Chinese translation of Bill Gates’ autobiography The Road Ahead , which was regarded as something of a “book of revelation”; the other is the coming out of nowhere of China’s Internet since 1997. In 1999 and 2000, huge advertisement boards used by transnational corporations were taken over by so many advertisements for Internet sites that Beijing, for a time, became a city filled with www.’s.2

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Such descriptions and analyses are no exaggeration. The Internet concept became hugely popular in China by the end of the 20th century, with more Internet sites being every day. China seemed to have embarked on her information highway overnight. In fact this phenomenon harbored the dreams of fortune dreamed by various modern elites. This Internet tornado roared its way across the country and would not let loose its firm grip. It not only had Bill Gates on the other shore of the Atlantic as an outstanding example, and also hailed “the national ‘Superman Jr.’ Richard Lee in the south and ‘senior master’ Liu Chuanzhi in the north as its national heroes, who developed ‘.com’ into a miraculous picture of “unlimited possibilities of wealth” with just a remark or a laugh. The smell of money burning permeated the air, a special idea would made dizzy by the amount of money thrown at it just after it was spawned, and then office space was rented, talented personnel were recruited, experienced professionals were tempted into leave their current employment, the general structure was formed, land was acquired, power relations were defined, and the huge sums of money made traditional advertising more prosperous than ever.3 However, things turned around in just about the blink of an eye. In early 2000, Shenzhen Weekly published a special – Have You Bought Internet Stocks? – the 2000 Stock Market as Seen from the Situation of a Week , saying: Stocks connected with the Internet were as mighty as the Taoist monks who had enjoyed the use of a magical wand, breaking all the boundaries of impossibility. Compared with the closing price on December 30, 1999, Shanghai Molin rose 268.57% by February 18, Chengcheng Culture 209.59%, Hualian Department Stores 136.375%, Qingniao Tianqiao 126.62%, No. 1 Foods 124.43%, and Entertainment Equity 123.01%, while on the Shenzhen market Yi’an Tech, CITIC Guo’an, Zhenhua Tech, ST Haihong, Qinghua Unis, TV and Broadcast Media, and Sichuan Hushan were seeing similarly amazing results. By February 15, Yi’an Tech which had been on the fast track since its IPO, crossed the 100-yuan threshold to be the first stock beyond that mark in both the Shenzhen and Shanghai markets since the stock breakdown campaign in 1992. The previous feelings of contempt, admiration, and bewilderment people had experienced in the past now all turned to jaw-dropping shock. Internet stocks were now the dearest child of the market. Going online and entering the Internet business world were also the fashion for listed companies. Shareholders’ previous greetings such as “What stocks have you bought?” or “Have your shares brought you anything much?” were now replaced by “Have you bought

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Internet shares?” and “Do you know where to buy Internet stock?” Market analysts said with as much certainty as they could muster about the Internet share explosion since January that only Internet high-tech shares were the true heroes and leaders in the market.4

Under the ideological call of “becoming well-to-do”, “being the first to be rich”, and “modernization”, in the wealth-showcasing practice of buying a private car and a second house, nothing was more appealing than the dream of making a fortune. The heat of “dot com” combined with the surging of Internet shares undoubtedly pushed the magical charm of the Internet to a hitherto unseen high in China. However, nothing lasts forever. Bad news first came from Gates’ home country, where “another ‘black Friday’, April 14, 2000, poured a huge bucket of cold water onto people’s overheated minds with the crash of high-tech stocks, even while the heat of investment in Internet business were still having its way with flowers, champagne, laughter, and the virtually crazy ‘strategic investors’ courting the shares. After the Dow Jones Industrial Index at NYSE dumped 616 points within one single day, tragedies of Internet businesses came pouring in one after another, with the high-tech-shares-led Nasdaq Index falling as much as 1,000 points within a week, registering a 25.2% slump. In the meantime the market value of Microsoft fell 239 billion dollars, Cisco 167 billion, and the 100-billion-dollar market value of Intel was nowhere to be found overnight”. 5 A bankrupt American “could hardly stand the thought that the ghosts of closing and bankrupt Internet companies had to suffer hunger, cold and homelessness, wandering the streets, and started a site called ‘Ghost Town’ where the names of closed companies were collected for ‘loving mourners’ to shed their tears over and to think of their past glories on the Internet”.6 The fairy tale of the Internet economy was utterly broken within two months, and China’s Internet shares also experienced a sharp fall from their “heaven-piercing heroic height” into the dark abyss. The forecasts of the market watchers and analysts were as useless as ever and the market value of Internet businesses did not enjoy better luck with their optimism but lack of judgment. Although netizens, net-geeks, and net-love were as active as ever, the Internet information highway was still reaching into all directions, and identification with “the” Internet did not suffer devastating blows, the Internet’s problems of lacking the abilities to transcend and to create anew were not solved. The dispute over, questioning of or disbelief in the Internet after it took its place in China and gained its control never stopped for one single day.

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Nomadic Culture and Network Ideology As early as in his futuristic works in the 1980s, Alvin Toffler had described the advent of new “nomadic” groups. These new groups would break free from social identities to fulfill their paramount objectives of satiating their own desire for personal freedom. They would go to any place of the world for work or travel. At almost the same time, “artist villages”, groups of “quasi-singers”, and “cultural workers” emerged in China. With the arrival of the 1990s came the appearance of “floating” groups which signaled the new “nomadic” groups in China. The famous US career consultant William Bridge pointed out in his Migration of Work that people worked at home in the agricultural age, when they hired themselves, while in the industrial age people go out of their homes into the cities and companies, and their pattern of work shifts from a self-hiring one to one of permanent hiring. The coming of the information era resulted in the “death of work” as employees do not have to work in offices. Social changes accelerate and tomorrow employees may not be able to do the work they can do today. Bridge considered “work” as the product of the industrial revolution, within the structure of which enterprises regarded employees as parts of a machine who had fixed places within a hierarchy, a fixed domain of work, and steady pay. As the rigid patterns of work gradually fade, people’s ideas about work and professions would also change. “New work” will no longer review the employees’ ability to adapt to working environments, but measure his work with each particular task he completes. In the new system, companies will hire temporary workers and consultants, while the old ideas about “work” such as that people must go to work every day, that there are promotion systems, and that people should retire at 60 etc. will cease to be.7 But in China, things were very different. Due to the special history of the nation, China’s different regions were drastically different in economy and culture, and China was a late starter in modernization. On the one hand, millions of migrant farm workers left their land to move to the central cities, and the reasons for this were the surplus of the agricultural workforce in the countryside and the scarcity of workable land, and the ensuing problem of survival. It had nothing to do with the “Migration of Work” described by Bridge, and it was also not identical with the division of labor in the industrial society. Because of the household registration system, educational background, professional skills, and identity, these migrant workers could neither complete what employers needed them to do – “specific tasks”, nor enjoy the “fixed workers” pay that had existed under the time planned economy. So they were

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not what Toffler would call “nomadic groups”. On February 5, 2001, Yangcheng Evening published a signed report entitled The Bitter-Sweet Valentine’s Day for the Wandering Migrant Workers , and the complete essay runs as follows: Valentine’s Day, a foreign festival many would think is enjoyed only by the cultivated and those in urban areas who “have taste”, was celebrated by groups of migrant workers in the Zhujiang River Delta region this year in their own special ways. Migrant-worker couples spending sweet nights at small inns On the day of the festival, the small inns in Dongguan enjoyed good business. The owners of the inns reported that most of the registered occupants of their rooms were migrant-worker couples, with some of them still unmarried. I met a couple in Dongsheng Hotel on Guantai Road in the city of Dongguan. They came from Chenzhou, Hunan, both working in an apparel factory in Huang Village, Dongguan. The husband worked as a guard, while the wife was a lathe worker. They worked in the same place, but lived separately in the crowded dorms of the factory, and could hardly enjoy a moment of union. As Valentine’s Day was coming, the couple discussed how to have a true festival and to enjoy a really good time. The husband had wanted to buy his wife a bunch of roses but she declined, saying that was too expensive as they had already spent as much as RMB 100 on the hotel expenses. The wife told me that the previous year they just went to each shop around the factory after they left work in the evening, spending nothing, yet had quite some sweet feelings. The husband also let out a small secret that they would rent a house after they got more money later in the year, and by the time of the next Valentine’s day they would have their own “home” to themselves. A Telegraph for the Lover Far Away On Valentine’s Day, there were many people in front of the Post Office Building in Dongguan. A Guangxi girl Alian was sending a telegraph to her boyfriend far away, saying, “On this special day, I miss you so much”. Alian told me that they were childhood friends and were now a couple in love. Although they had not been together for a couple of years, they were still deeply in love with each other, and on Valentine’s Day she wanted to tell her boyfriend about the feelings in her heart. Sichuan boy Xiao Li wanted to mail some flowers to his girlfriend back at home, and was asking how he could send them. Xiao Li said that

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he had been here in Dongguan as a worker for almost a year, and was always missing his girlfriend at home. He wrote her very often. He added that he had not known that there was a Valentine’s Day until he came to Dongguan, and he would like to mail flowers to show his love and to let her feel what the day was like here in Dongguan. To Sit Through the Night at the Bus Station On the steps of the shop across from the Dongguan General Bus Station, a young couple embraced each other as they sat on the same bunch of luggage, their headvertisements both lowered in silence. Ajian and Aying came out together after the Spring Festival to find work. They planned to make some money and go back home to hold their wedding ceremony with pride, but to their frustration they did not find any work days after they arrived in Dongguan. Ajian feared that Aying would suffer, and tried to persuade her to go back home. Aying would not do so, and had a quarrel with him. To save money, they just sat the night over on the steps, welcoming their first Valentine’s Day in their job hunting days. To stay or to return? They did not make the decision. Looking at the young people carrying flowers on the noisy streets, Aying wondered what their life would be like in the future. However, what she did know was that lovers did not only enjoy happiness together; they had to endure hardships together as well.

This report clearly outlined the difference between what it described and the life and mind of urban youth. The young people in the report were not “nomadic groups” in the information era, but “migrant workers” in China’s industrial age. This complex question is not what we are discussing here. On the other hand in the developed cities, particularly the central ones, verbs such as “to find new employment” and “to float” were no longer foreign to people. The young trend riders of the time had already put these new ideas about life into practice as they launched the second “identity revolution” in China’s time of great changes. They were well-cultivated, particularly those working in the media industry. “The flow of talents is even quicker than a kiss. Some famous media elites have nearly become professionals in the floating trade”. Reading Guide once conducted a special interview of several of these “floating lovers” and their opinion were, “I will move on as long as I feel uncomfortable”, “a man will die without flowing” etc. Their reasoning was, “there will never be any stability as we have chosen an unstable profession. In an industry that is by nature insecure, there will never be any concept of

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‘security’. It is not that I like challenges, but that I like freedom. Actually, work in the media industry means you work when you want to work. Your choices are plural, and of course there is your choice of media and the media’s choice of you. There are many variables here, and I think variables in the media are actually constants. There is no special feeling about this”. “Speaking about the reasons why you leave one place for another, that may be particular, but there is one big common reason out there i.e. you would want to find a place to better use yourself. If a more abstract reason is to be found, that should be that one just wants to find a freer lifestyle”.8 If the artists in the “artist villages” or the quasi-singers scattered all over urban and suburban places by the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s were still harboring expectations for their own success, and were still finding opportunities to be successful with a traditional outlook on achievement and fame (later it was proved that many of them did realize their dreams, as they not only leapt to great fame in entertainment and literary circles but also began to enjoy the most fashionable lifestyle of the middle class. As they were identified as artists, they usually took such a lifestyle as granted.), the “floating” people truly completed the second “identity revolution” as they experienced “freedom” in their life of “floating”. No matter how media professionals played along, they were in possession of a profession. Another kind of people – those who were engaged professionally in travel or freelance writing, might have represented the life practice of “nomadic groups”. They were on the road for years, without a certain objective or a permanent place to live, but the life they experienced gave them the life experience of freedom. Essayist Geng Zhanchun once said that travel and tourism were not the same thing. Tourism was a commercial act, before which the route, place, price, or even the ultimate purpose had been set, while travel was a completely personal act, in which a traveler independently decided their own course of action with the aim and significance of the travel left unspecified beforehand; they could only be manifested throughout the whole process of travel itself. Obviously this kind of travel, to be more exact, was a process of interaction and communication between the body and mind of the traveler and the nature, culture, and people along the way. ...travel was not only part of daily life and spiritual life, but also a kind of physical need.9 If Geng’s travel was filled with the inner worship of the “pilgrim”, taking the true “itinerant monk” as the example and hoping to obtain a kind of “observing things amidst the multitude of deep cultural contradictions of the current times”, Ajian’s travel was simpler and plainer. For him, travel was both a lifestyle of “letting in fresh air”, and “changing taste”, a “process of self-modification”, and a mode of existence, a way of living by “writing and selling travel books”.10 In fact, the

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free “nomadic” people banishing the self in various ways and pasturing freely in different places had not been uncommon. Seen as a cultural phenomenon, this “pastoral nomadism” was not only the establishment of a unitary culture after the advent of cultural pluralism, but also an act of decoding the established cultural encoding and cultural order with the cultural meaning it contained. This was as the French post-deconstructionist predecessor Deleuze said when discussing Nietzsche in his Nomadic Thinking , “in our system, nomadvertisements suffered tragic fates, and this has been the consensus. To get them a permanent living place, we try every way we can find, while they can hardly hold their ground. Nietzsche was just such a nomad, who fell as a shadow, ever moving in and out of rented houses. However, nomads were not necessarily migrants, as some travels happen in the same place. They travel in a compact way. Even seen in the historical perspective, nomads did not necessarily move about like the migrant, and on the contrary, they stayed put. Nomads, they just stay in the one place, dodging the encoding of settlers. We also know that for today’s revolutionaries, the problem is to unite for a certain objective of campaign while avoiding falling into the hands of despots and the bureaucrats of partisan ideology and state regimes. We seek a war machine that can avoid the reestablishment of a state machine, a nomadic body connected to the outside world, one that would not let an in-built body of despotism revitalize. Perhaps this was the deepest thinking Nietzsche had, and it signaled his level of separation from philosophy, at least in term of his proverbs. He made ideology a machine of war – an all-demolishing hammer, a nomadic force. Even if travel stayed put, even if it faced dangers hard to detect and predict, hidden far below in the earth, we had to ask ourselves ‘who was today’s nomad, who was the true Nietzsche?’” 11 In China, there was no such metaphysical “nomad” as with Nietzsche, but in the terms Deleuze used to express his ideas, the Chinese “nomadic groups” did practice thinking without a manifesto. The corresponding cultural phenomenon to the emergence of “nomadic groups” was the establishment of an Internet culture, which was something like what Deleuze described as a “nomadic” culture. It was like “a thousand plateaus” where one can travel freely, a public space changed and reestablished by the fairy tale technology featuring freedom, randomness, and unlimited possibility. Since the space was open to “everyone”, it was always declaring the various possibilities by which it could change history, as if the world was in its grip or at least in its control for as long as it wished. In 1991, the Internet was released by the US NSF, as that organization realized that the American government alone could no longer afford the operation of the Internet. The entry of private enterprises became inevitable, while in the same time

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commercial operation of the Internet was initiated. In fact, business was the real drive for the rapid development of the Internet in the 1990s. Statistics show that the total volume of e-Business worldwide would double by 1999 to 68 billion US dollars, equaling the total GDPs of Ireland and Poland combined. The growing speed of e-Business was 30 times that of the global economy. From 1999 to 2002, the total volume of e-Business reached 900 billion US dollars. A report released by the e-Business research center of the University of Texas indicated that the total production of Internet-related enterprises in 1999 had exceeded 507 billion US dollars, far higher than the 301 billion US dollars in 1998. The Internet industry, for the first time, would surpass the other industries to be America’s No.1 industry. By 2002, the industry’s production would reach 1.2 trillion US dollars. The total value of the 17 years of Internet development had neared the total value the automobile industry had created in its 100 years of history. In the meantime, Asia’s e-Business would grow from the 700 million US dollars in 1998 to 32 billion US dollars to 2003. In 2001, Asia’s Internet advertisement revenue would reach 1.5 billion US dollars. Advertisements and e-Business were regarded as the two primary sources of income for Asia’s Internet.12 As the Internet was creating economic miracles, politics was bound to be involved and Internet politics was thus spawned. The media was so closely related to political propaganda that politicians would never give up the opportunity to occupy Internet space. For Western politicians, the significance of the Internet for election campaigning was the first thing they found useful about the new-born domain. In fact the contribution of electronic technology to election campaigns provided a lot of politicians with abundant inspiration. Roosevelt broadcast his “fireside talks” on radio, which sent his political views to the houses of the voters; J. F. Kennedy delivered his campaign speeches on TV, through which his handsome image, grace and charm easily captured the hearts of the voters; Bill Clinton began to link the Internet with his election campaign as he posted his website address on the Internet, providing every voter with access to his information in both text and graphic form and even with channels for suggestions and advice. Even though Internet addresses could not replace campaign buses and town rallies, the Internet could still reduce the costs of the campaign process. The voters could freely visit a campaign website, express their opinions, important news could spread instantly, Internet could transmit rallies during a campaign speech, and ultimately there could be Internet voting in the not far off future. All these combined to assign the Internet a more and more important role in democratic politics. Of course, just as the politicians came to discover, the Internet was also a double-edged sword. Maybe Bill Clinton never thought that some years later his private sexual

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activities with the White House intern Monica Lewinsky would be posted on the Internet and spread worldwide in an instant. On September 12, 1998, the House of Representatives voted to decide that the Starr report should be published on the Internet for all the world to know. The political prominence of the main protagonist in the report, the level of sexual exposure in the report, and the magnitude and speed of its spread were all unprecedented. This case made everyone realize how deeply the Internet was involved in modern politics. If we only regard the Internet as a hub of news and opinion, its power would be underestimated. In the hands of some, a website can be a stronghold from which you can launch an attack. Former Russian President Vladimir Putin’s election campaign is a successful example. According to Putin’s campaign assistant Pavlovsky, Putin’s success over Primakov and Luzhkov was heavily dependent upon using the Internet as a weapon: Pavlovsky showcased the power of the Internet with his attack on Luzhkov (a relatively easy-to-hit leader in the union of “Motherland-All-Russia”). A string of Internet sites launched fierce attacks on the mayor. A website www.lujkov.ru (lujkov is another English spelling of the mayor’s name), which looked like the official website of the mayor, was displayed before each page of attack material you read. On another website, criminal cases in which Luzhkov and another leader of the Motherland-All-Russia union, mayor of St. Petersburg Vladimir Yakovlev were suspects, were displayed right beside photgraphs of the two. Such information was spread by this media and it was proved that this kind of attack was particularly effective.13 The emergence of Internet politics was not only seen in its use by politicians, but also in the life politics connected with the Internet established with its own discourse and realm of information. The concept of “life politics” was put forward by British sociologist Anthony Giddens, who took life politics to be the politics of lifestyles, for which every individual must connect their past experience with their imagination about the future in a logical and coherent manner so that the integration of information produced by the difference of experience transferred and the locality of life could be facilitated. We can see the relationship between life and the Internet very often, as in the phrases “net news”, “online shopping”, “net love”, “net speculation”, “net trade”, “net crime” etc. In a word, the Internet has become all-pervasive and almighty, so most employment advertisements require computer literacy. A computer illiterate is like an illiterate in the 1950s, who was not only to be jeered at but was to suffer in their life and even in their marriage. A lack of computer knowledge meant that you were not connected to the high life of the new age and you were now endangered, while someone with computer or network

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skills could get employment very quickly and was likely to make an overnight fortune. This is the Internet ideology, or Internet politics. Exaggeration of the Internet’s magical power was common. In the eye of the Internet hero, “In cyber space any computer can connect and communicate with any other computer, no matter where it is, and no one has more privilege than any other; even IBM or the American president have no more advantage than a teenage boy, as power, class, or even geographical location have no value in cyber space. Here everyone can be the center, and men tend to have equal relations with others, no longer subject to the control of hierarchies. Although the Internet was founded with the support and aid of the American government, as the 1990s arrived it had come to be a totally independent network. The decentralization of power became the most fundamental spirit of cyber space.” 14 In such a perfectly wonderful description, men seemed to be able to have any happiness imaginable, as if the Internet was not only a high-tech product but also the book of the Gospels that God had brought from the high heavens to his elect. However, even in the perspective of hierarchical systems, the hierarchical mindset had been fixed right from the beginning.

Internet literature The creation of the myth that the Internet was open, free, and equal spawned the hectic growth of Internet literature. No matter whether you had had any training in literary writing or not, and no matter whether you had been an author, you could become a well-known “writer” overnight as long as you had the desire to publish online. The Internet provided each “writer” with unlimited space and possibilities. Whether you liked it or not, Internet literature was one of the tokens of the time. It not only hailed its own heroes such as Anne Baby, Li Xunhuan, Cai Zhiheng, Ning Caishen, A Little Perplexed, Xing Yusen, Yu Baimei etc., but also created its own jargon. Without knowledge of this language you might be looked down upon like the first-time-in-the-city migrant workers by the suddenly-superior-feeling urban dweller, and you could never breach the inner world of Internet literature. So the primary obstacle in accessing Internet literature was still a hierarchical/power relation one, although the ideological discourse focused on “equality”. It should be pointed out that each change of the media was an advancement of democracy. If “print capitalism” enabled people to communicate without seeing each other, the Internet blurred the boundaries between time and space, making mass communication far easier than before. What was more

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important was that when the Internet broke free from censorship and the economic constraints in the processes of production and trade, “authoring” was possessed by more people. The technological revolution, in this sense, did bring “emancipation” and “freedom”. However, whether the technological revolution would set off a literary revolution is, at least now, in question. It is worthy of attention that the orgy of Internet literature catered to the cheap “game” desire of the time (such as the classics The First Intimate Touch, Journey of Lies to the West, History of the Monkey King etc.). It echoed the popular literature in the control of the consumerist ideology, and satisfied the call to change the function of literature in various forms. Of course, this was a rather personal issue. Ever since the birth of Internet literature, discussion of it has never stopped. Those who advocated Internet literature and sang its praises were not only unequivocal and radical in their attitudes, but also established Internet literature sites and set up Internet literary awards. Some sites received funding support from business elites and had the support of traditional literary celebrities works published first on the sites expanded their power of discourse and influence online and offline through winning awards and through the print media. One of the more influential sites was the literary site www.rongshu.com and its awards. Through its award presentations, the site expanded its influence and that of Internet literature in general, but the questions over Internet literature were also put forward collectively. The affirmative media comment was that “the 21st century had its new literature beginning on the Internet”, while the wait-and-see reports vaguely expressed their doubt with the metaphor of “a total mess, or hidden pearls in the shells”. Traditional author Chen Cun regarded Internet literature as “infinitely promising”, while Zhang Kangkang said, “Internet literature will change the media and means of communication of literature, the reading habits of readers, the vision, mindset, mode of thinking and presentation of the author, but how much can it change literature itself, such as the elements of literature like emotions, imagination, conscience, and language?” 15 Scholar Dai Jinhua once said, “It seems that Internet literature should be the most classical consumer literature, as it should be a more purely ‘throwaway’ thing than films, and an example of popular culture. So Internet literature becomes a self-contradictory being: the Internet as instant consumption ‘now’ contradicts literature, the most ancient art and a preexisting direction to ‘eternity’”.16 Another time she commented on Anne Baby’s August Weiyang saying, “I am shaken by Anne’s depravedness and gorgeousness, where life is like the vulnerable string of an instrument, individual like falling leaves. However, apart from her figures, apart from the delicate life and individual identity, there is no pinning and belonging, while there is a scarlet color glowing in a dying heap of ash”.17

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The opinions on Internet literature were not only connected to the current conditions of its writing, which meant a totally different language, emotions, and values from traditional literature, but also to the identity of the authors themselves. According to Xu Kun’s introductory essay, a forum was hosted by www.literature.org.cn and www.rongshu.com, with the theme “Shall Internet writers become traditional authors?” Guests were grouped as Internet writers and traditional authors. Lei Shuyan, Zhang Shengyou, Xu Kun, Zhou Jieru, Zhao Ning, and Zhao Bo were of the traditional camp, while in the Internet camp we found Ning Caishen, Li Xunhuan, A Little Perplexed, Mikko, Pass, Yu Baimei, and Xing Yusen. Traditional authors normally identified themselves with their personal history, educational background, literary achievements, and domestic and international influence, while Internet writers seemed rather “post-modern” in their self-introduction: Li Xunhuan: since his lazy, lengthy, love-laden scholarly Internet work since 1989, Li became instantly famous and was counted as one of the Internet literary youths. According to Li, as he was already familiar with the Internet community, he would continue his existence there and become an Internet celebrity from time to time. Works included Digital Hero, Flying Fashion, Love Lost between Internet and Reality . Now chief editor of Renren’s literary channel. Ning Caishen: famous Internet writer, usually male in the day, over 20, homepage professional having his own page. A sweet personality, over 1 meter in height, seriously near-sighted, slightly hunchback, may stammer when nervous or faced with a stranger. If you feel him worthy, you can talk with him about life and ideals, only spare him anything connected with literature. Works include Incomplete Handbook to Hunt down Your Boy/Girl in a Chat room, Be There or Be Square, Love me, Pester me etc. Now deputy COO of www.rongshu. com. Xing Yusen: several years ago an instant success on the BBS of Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications with the posting of his novel Living Like a True Man with the pen name of Nie Pan, and more since then. By now one of the “Big 3” Internet writers. Later wrote Soft Man, Year of the Silk Marriage , and Run Away from the Sea , among other popular Internet works. A Little Perplexed: musician, born in the 1960s, bewildered in the 1970s, dismissed in the 1980s, puffed up in the 1990s, caught up on the Internet in the 2000s, and since then has meddled with literature quite a lot and took it as a pleasure. Surely you’ll like his works. His Internet

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writings included Nurse Xiaowen, Cyan Clips, Today There May be Love etc. Pass: a self-styled rogue, who covered a lot of places along the great rivers and the Great Wall. Persistent in both business and literature, and his own experiences could fill a book despite his young age. Major works include Eight Days and Seven Nights of a Passionate Hunan Girl, For the Forgotten Remembrance etc. Yu Baimei: popular on the Internet with his Internet Summit: Who’ll Be the First to Wake from the Slumber . Some have commented on his magical shift of genre, language, mode of narrative, material, and the point of departure of his thinking and expression as often throwing the reader into nowhere, remembering only his humor and fun. Works include Ordinary Men and Women, Internet Summit: Anatomy of Stephen Chow . Mikko: famous Internet writer, recipient of the second award of www. rongshu.com’s first Internet writing competition. He is said to be an excellent person, different from others. Despite his continued squalid state of life to this day, he thinks he will be a success some day. Works include Age of Heroes, Year of Government Going Online etc.18

In the Internet writers’ self-introductions, we can sense a clear playfulness. Traditional authors became objects of deconstruction standing face to face with them. In their opinion, it was not necessary to be a traditional author and when facing traditional authors they even had a palpable feeling of superiority. But it is certain that the so-called “free” “discourse practice” did not have anything new or worth discussing, as such humor or wit, self-dismissal and buffoonery was not uncommon in “post-modern” literature, or even in Wang Shuo’s novels. So, the “image” of Internet literature was erected not because it posed any challenge to traditional literature, but because its literariness was still in question. For example, the Internet writing competition sponsored jointly by Sohu.com’s “Literary Community” and “Hanqing Culture” company had three anthologies published by China Worker Press, including volumes of novels, essays and alternative writing. Project planner Tang Min said in the “Preface”, “Anyone can connect to the virtual world with a single phone cable and get into touch with it on intimate terms, spiritually. This is a super-power experience, as all kinds of websites offer equal opportunities for everyone, BBS has become the best place where the public can write, and the once indescribable and uncommentable inner feelings finally find their echoes on the Internet. Writing is no longer lonely, as you can find the right people on the Internet and get your essays or passages appreciated, hence the unprecedented fervor for writing.

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Literature, once so far away and the domain of formerly seemingly lofty authors, is no longer distant and unfathomable as everyone’s talents and nature get fully displayed on the Internet.” Tang Min, “Who Says These are Junior Compositions?” 19 She was greatly satisfied with the event and the anthologized works. However, it is worth noting that an Internet writing competition should verify its “level” through publication in the traditional print media, which is a casual revelation that Internet literature is still somehow lacking in self-confidence. When Tang Min claimed that these Internet writers “have commanded certain levels of professionalism”, her criterion for literature is actually still the traditional standard. So the greatest freedom of writing online is that anyone can be an “author”, while whether one’s writing can be counted as literature is another question. In 2002’s first issue of Masters magazine, Lin Yan’s “media link novel” The White-Haired Girl in 1971 , which was regarded by Nan Fan and others to be a “revolution in Internet literature” and which claimed very high recognition for that, was published. This so-called “media link novel” was unique in its presentation of material which was difficult for printed magazines to deliver as the hyperlinks needed to be clicked on before they took the reader to particular websites for complete viewing. If the websites changed, or some of their contents changed, the novel would be different, and every reader might read a different version of the novel. It should be said that this great parody made full use of the world wide web. Although we could still get the general story line in the text, we might never be able to reach the true novel as the possibilities of changes in hyperlinks on the Internet were always there. The writer himself explained that Yahoo.com gave 6,170 web pages for the search of “white-haired girl”. Even the writer himself could hardly search all the pages containing the key words “white-haired girl”, let alone the readers. In this way, White-Haired Girl in 1971 was from the outset a work never to be completed. We cannot help but be amazed by the queer imagination of the writer, as he was really unprecedented in the use of the unlimited possibilities of the computer and the Internet. Some criticism pointed out, “This ‘media link novel’ was featured by its ‘openness’. Text, graphics, audio, interpretations, hyperlinks, all presented various possibilities. Reading such a novel, the reader will be interrupted in their impulses to read repeatedly, to go out of the traditional reading patterns sustained by plot and language, and embark on a true ‘reading adventure’, a bold playful reading, with a multitude of ‘reading clues’ provided by the author, breaking the ‘traditional linear mode of reading’ which sustains the reader’s interest through the text and creating the ‘dizziness effect’ of reading

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with a host of reading media. The writer engages himself in emotional and intellectual communication and ‘struggles’ in various ways with the reader in an open multimedia text. Faced with a wealth of artistic media, the creativity of the writer produced the ‘multimedia effect’ of writing i.e. the combined multiple impulse of creation stimulated simultaneously by graphics, audio, and text together with the same object of artistic creation: what ‘image’ shall I employ in ‘re-creation’, if the narrative is such? Into what kind of a story shall I import my already taken or edited ‘image’? Can I use music or my lens to write if I ‘find’ a story? The identity of the writer rebounds back and forth between text planner, director, sound engineer, editor, art designer, and photographer. Such artistic design could only happen in the time of the Internet, and such game rules can only be realized at this time”.20 This analysis, we shall admit, is acceptable. However, it is worth discussing the fact that up to now, the widely influential works have mostly been parodies, such as Journey of Lies to the West, History of the Monkey King, The White-Haired Girl in 1971 etc. The actors in The White-Haired Girl in 1971 did deconstruct the original characters, yet if there were no original play, could the Internet parody have ever be created? Another interesting thing is that, on the one hand, Internet literature is parodying, or “cloning”, works from the printed media, while on the other hand netizens or fans of Internet literature are protesting against, or boycotting, the possibility of “being copied” for Internet literature, or attempts at it. A passage titled Journey of Lies to the West: Super Impersonation said that the postmodern cultural classic in the Internet era, Journey of Lies to the West, was soon to be adapted for big screen through Hollywood. Yet the NBC in the US took the upper hand by presenting the TV version of The Monkey King . But, just like the ignorant US lawyer in the movie Gua Sha Treatment , the adaptation in which Monk Tang and Guanyin fell in love was really outrageous. Particularly as the actress for Guanyin was the good-for-nothing Bai Ling (who played the concubine in Anna and the King ) except that she was sexy, and the actor for the Monkey King was the mixed-blood Russell, who spoke only through his fists in Romeo Must Die . Not only the scholars of the original novel would be angered, but also lovers of Journey of Lies to the West would get angry. If Hollywood were really going to clone Journey of Lies to the West , then allow movie fans themselves to choose the cast! 21 So no matter what form a “classic” takes, there will always be some who protect it out of different motives. In this sense, the openness of Internet literature is still limited. Internet literature as a form of being, and the content of its literary ideological expression, are both rational in a cultural pluralism. But if we exaggerate or consecrate it, then its own problems will become the unsolvable force of deconstruction for Internet literature.

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Chapter

The Formation of New Social Classes and the Expansion of Discourse Space

The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

Abstract Key words: t he middle class; white-collar magazines; cultural symbols; body narrative A rarely-used concept – the middle class – is particularly eyecatching in today’s new social structure. Strictly speaking, this “class” did not exist in China’s past. Even in Mao Zedong’s discourse, the “national bourgeoisie” could be more exactly described as “national capitalists”. In fact, throughout waves of political movements and various historical texts, the concept of “capitalists” has more effectively designated the political status and social standing of the class than “middle class” could do. The effective expression of the emergence of a new class by the use of the “middle class” in the new social structure is on the one hand because it is part of global capitalism, and on the other hand because the “newly rich” in today’s China do have all the characteristics of the “middle class”. The pioneering “white-collar magazines” have all the characteristics of “middle class” magazines. Since the emergence of these magazines, the discourse of the middle class has been created; as these magazines became pillar products of cultural consumption and gained quick popularity, the middle class expanded their discourse. So as cultural symbols, these magazines become the narrators and spokespeople of this new class culture.

Social Differentiation and the Formation of New Social Classes The classical analysis of China’s social classes is Mao Zedong’s Analysis of China’s Social Classes written in 1925. For many years to come this Analysis was the most important criterion by which we defined social classes and their relationships. Through class division, Mao Zedong set the standards for determining “enemies” and “friends”. In Mao’s view, the different economic conditions of the classes determined their political attitudes, and hence their relationship with the revolution. The criterion was in use until the time of the Cultural Revolution. It is worth noting that Mao also used the concepts of the “middle class” and “small bourgeoisie”. “The middle class mainly refers to

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the national bourgeoisie”, Mao said in his document, thinking that this class had a dual character and did not have “independent” revolutionary ideas with the class itself at the center of the stage. 1 Yet in the long historical narrative of China’s 20th century, the concept of “middle class” did not get used often. Of course, this had something to do with the difficulty of growth for this class “representative of China’s urban and rural capitalist relations of production” in the historical predicament of the country facing all kinds of domestic and foreign problems at the time, and with their contradictory attitude towards the principle of China’s revolution. Different from the “middle class” was the concept of “small bourgeoisie”, which was further divided into three types – those of left, center, and right political standings – according to their different economic background. Yet no matter what their attitude towards the revolution was, they would at last participate in the revolution. It is worthy of attention that despite its sympathy with or participation in the revolution, the fate of the small bourgeoisie was almost definitely tragic, or, in real life, the “small bourgeoisie” as a class could still live a peaceful life although they were not the main owners of the state, and did not lose anything much. What was frightening was that if you were named one of those “small bourgeoisies”, you were designated as an “alien”—suspicious, unclean, or even dangerous. So before the 1970s there was not much economic sense in the concept of “small bourgeoisie”, which was more meaningful in the political sense. In fact it was kind of a remark on an individual’s or a group’s relation to and attitude towards the mainstream ideology, and on their standpoint. The most likely group to be named “small bourgeoisie” were the intellectuals. After the Cultural Revolution, due to the end of the ideological line of class struggle, the class division Mao Zedong drew for the country was no longer relevant to the interpretation of China’s society. As the legitimacy of economic life was established in the social structure, and it became a new ideology to let some be the first to become rich, it came to be “politically not right” to analyze social life using the “class struggle” theory. And, in a sense, such analysis even became a kind of “taboo” in society. However, the changes taking place in the relations of production and in people’s economic status were bound to facilitate the formation of new social classes, particularly after the 1990s, and the phenomenon drew greater and greater attention. According to official reports one of the major research projects of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, “Research on the Changes of modern China’s Social Structure”, divided the social groups in China into ten kinds. The Report on Contemporary China’s Social Strata was published by the Social Sciences Academic Press

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(China). The report made the first detailed analysis of the changes in China’s social strata since the beginning of the reform and opening-up. Presenting a general analysis of the contemporary social strata in China’s society, the report suggested a new system of dividing social strata based on profession and possession of organization, economic, and cultural resources, resulting in a new map of 10 strata: national and social management, business management, private enterprise owners, professionals, clerks, business individuals, business services, industrial workers, agricultural workers, rural and urban jobless, unemployed, and underemployed. The report gave definitions including the status, characteristics, and number of people for each social stratum. Researchers pointed out that the reform and opening-up had caused great changes in China’s society, and the transformation of the economic system and the advancement of modernization had also facilitated the structural changes of China’s social strata. The previous “two classes and one stratum” (the worker and the farmer classes, and the stratum of intellectuals) social structure was drastically further broken down with the formation of some new social strata. As there were increasingly clear differences between the social and economic interests and pursuits, lifestyles and interest identifications of different social groups, the new social strata system based on profession would gradually replace the previous system based on political identification, household registration, and political administration. All these signs indicated that a new system of social strata had emerged and stabilized.2 The emergence of new social strata was not only confirmed by mainstream research findings but also proved in the observations and experiences of daily life by humanist intellectuals. Shanghai scholar Wang Xiaoming once explained that people like himself who had been familiar with words like “class”, “exploitation”, and “economic structure” would first think of the great changes that had been taking place over the recent decades in social strata when they spoke about the new differences within the society. It is true that the most obvious result of the “market economy reform” is its total reshuffle of the “socialist” social structure, which had existed for 30 years. On the one hand, some previously-existing strata such as workers, farmers, state cadres, soldiers, and intellectuals, despite the new changes, are still there; on the other hand, a range of new strata emerged in coastal areas and big and medium-sized cities, the formation and development of which has been so quick that one of them is nearly dominant in society while society is still searching for a name for it. Taking Shanghai as an example: after about 15 years of “market economy reform” there have been at least 4 new strata formed out of the previous social groups i.e. the “newly rich” owning tens of millions of RMB or even more;

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the “white collars” who work hard in the neatly compact modern offices; the unemployed called euphemistically “off job”, “job terminated”, or “waiting to retire”; and the “migrant workers” who come from the countryside and take on most of the non-professional menial jobs. The continual expansion of these new strata greatly changed the economic, social and cultural maps of Shanghai. The “white collars”, who are actually young and middle-aged fatigued men and women, have been hailed as the icon of China’s modernization and the source of a vast new buying power by so many media and advertisements that Shanghai’s consumer product manufacturing, service, and housing and real estate industries today focus on them, regardless of their actual situation and the fact that the percentage of such “white collars” in the total population not comparable to that in European and American societies. Compared with the drastically exaggerated social influence of the “white collars”, the case of the “migrant workers” is just the opposite. “Migrant workers” do not have Shanghai household registration, so they are not counted as “Shanghai natives”, and they are often overlooked in statistics and reports. At meetings discussing Shanghai’s current conditions and “development” planning, it is as if they do not exist at all. But in fact this by now over 2 million strong social group of “migrant workers” have clearly become the most active VCR- and cinemagoers in the city, the main readers of Kungfu and romance novels, and of the cheap popular magazines on street newsstands. Their cultural tastes have been exerting greater influence on the film and TV lists of cinemas and VCR playrooms, and on the topic selection of many publishing houses and popular magazines. To a certain extent, the “migrant worker” stratum is quietly leading a large part of Shanghai’s cultural production, and things well beyond that.3 In fact, what was important was not that Wang Xiaoming described the fact that China’s society was being divided into different strata, but that he was greatly shocked by the huge chasm between different strata created in a relatively short time period. The following remarks described both a familiar scene and a certain kind of standpoint of a scholar: in the streets and alleys of Shanghai, new social groups are residing mixed with old ones. It’s very likely that in the same apartment, the father is worrying over the meager salary which can hardly cover the daily expenses, while the young son just returned from working for a foreign-invested company is proudly thinking about his plan for buying a car with his saved money in the future. Looking out of the windows of this house, one can see the crude huts of the migrant workers looking over to the luxury plazas encircled by high walls. Looking at such a queer view, anyone would have a strong feeling that even in the same small place there are already been a multitude of totally different social systems, orders, rules, ethics, and

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even tastes. Let us just take the wealth distribution system of this society as an example. If you just look at the bike riders on their way to work every day, you will feel that the secondary distribution of wealth in the socialist society is still functioning stably. At least, when an “off job” worker applies for government aid at a civil administration organ, they can complain in their right and selfconfident way that “the Party should at least feed me”. They still believe that they are entitled to “secondary distribution”. However, if you turn your eyes to other areas, such as the continual rise in the prices of public services (transportation, energy, medical care, communications, housing...), and the gradual “marketization” of education beyond junior middle school, let alone the successive closing of some state-owned enterprises, you will have to admit that the “secondary distribution” system is being replaced by other totally different systems. If you go on to wander into some of the membership clubs along Huaihai Road and Hengshan Road etc., witness the grandeur and luxury therein, and see how those “newly rich” take their stranglehold over multiple “ways” (the so-called “red”, “yellow”, and “dark” ways of seeking sway over others), and how they spend money like water, you will come to believe firmly that some new economic order with deceit and force as its features has been functioning rather effectively. You will understand with this that the huge wealth which should have been put into “secondary distribution” has been transferred into the pockets of these “newly rich” through these new orders and channels. A rarely-used concept — the middle class — is particularly eye-catching in today’s new social structure. Strictly speaking, this “class” did not exist in China’s past. Even in Mao Zedong’s discourse, the “national bourgeoisie” could be more exactly described as “national capitalists”. In fact, throughout waves of political movements and various historical texts, the concept of “capitalists” has more effectively designated the political status and social standing of the class than the “middle class” could do. The effective expression of the emergence of a new class by the use of the “middle class” in the new social structure is on the one hand because it is part of global capitalism, and on the other hand because the rich in today’s China do have all the characteristics of the “middle class”. The father of America’s leftist movement, Wright Mills, once made analyses of the new and old middle classes of the US. In his analyses, the old middle class were just a “world of small entrepreneurs”, “small entrepreneurs are establishing their world following the middle class line: this is an extraordinary society established in a balanced way, in the center of which there is little or no need for authority. What is needed is just a thorough scrutiny of the tradition and a small group of guardians of wealth”. 4 “America’s industrialization,

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particularly after the Civil War, did not bring many opportunities to small business owners but to the industry leaders. They were the first impression of the middle class as entrepreneurs by our nation, and never ever could any people else replace them. In the traditional imagination, this leader was both a skilled constructor and a resourceful financier, but beyond all that he must be a successful person. He was the aggressive owner of the industry he created and operated, and in his rising enterprise nothing connected with business could evade his searching eyes or be left out of his active watch. As an employer, he could provide opportunities of work to the best guys he selected, and these guys would save part of their salary for small private investments to double the money. If they borrow some with their personal integrity, they would be able to be something with their own business”.5 As now they were in possession of personal wealth, the old middle class had their personal work domain and so were independent. But the new middle class, usually referred to as white collars, are essentially different from the old. In Mills’ analyses, the old middle class were farm owners, merchants, and the self-employed, while the new middle class are managers, salaried professionals, salespeople, and office clerks. By 1940, the number of people belonging to the old middle class had declined to 1/5 of its previous figure, and the drastic decline of the percentage of the old middle class and the rapid rise of the new turned the US into a nation of employees who, however, had no personal wealth to boast of. So Mills said, “Pessimistically speaking, the change taking place in the middle class was one from possession to nonpossession; optimistically speaking, this is a shift from the wealth criterion to the new professional criterion by which we define social strata. The nature of the old middle class and their health conditions can be best explained with the wealth of the entrepreneurs, while the nature and conditions of the new middle class can be best explained with professional economics and professional sociology. The decline in number of the old middle class was a side result of the concentration of wealth, while the increase in the number of salaried employees was due to the emergence of various professions (which formed the new middle class) produced by the industrial structure”.6 Mills’ analyses of the old and new middle classes may be very helpful in our understanding of the class. The new middle class we speak of today is both similar and different to the new middle class in the US. The similarity lies in the specialized common professional traits. In China, white collars are an important part of the middle class. White collars in China are department managers, senior management in transnational corporations, technological experts in big companies, leaders or organizers in high-tech industries. Yet it is unique that China has in its middle class

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entertainment stars and contractors who made a fortune by taking advantage of the abnormal economic order. Since the 1990s, the criticism of the gap between rich and poor, and of the newly rich, has become one of the topics focused on in the media. Despite the frequent use of the concept “middle class”, there is still no clear definition of it in China. In the US, the middle class includes families with an annual income of 25,000 to 100,000 dollars, which make up 80% of the total population. They are regarded as the bulk of American society, the icon of developed capitalism in the US, and a major guarantee for social stability. But in China, people do not have a clear understanding of the concept “middle class” as it may refer to white collars and people with medium or higher income, while the ambiguous concept clearly outlines the fact that social strata have already emerged in China. For cultural studies, perhaps what we care about more is not the particular income of the class or its percentage in the total population, but the permeation and penetration of their cultural tastes throughout all corners of society after the establishment of consumerism and commercialist hegemony. This is just like the America that Mills described in the 1950s, “In this whitecollar society we can find the main characteristics of life in the 20th century. Due to their increasing importance and their numbers, the white collar profession has overthrown the prediction in the 19th century that a society should be made up of the two parts of business owners and salaried workers. As their lifestyles have been popularized, they have changed the sense of life and its experience of the Americans. In the most public forms, they transmit and experience psychological problems representative of our age. No matter which way they take, any mainstream theoretical school will not leave out these problems. In a word, they are a new group of performers, performing the major plays of the 20th century”. 7 As a late-starter in modernization, China has developed its own standard version of the cultural tastes of the “middle class” in advanced capitalist countries under the coverage and influence of global capitalism, while the quest to be “middle class” has become the largest unspoken fashion of our time.

The Establishment and Expansion of the Discourse Space of the Middle Class At the turn of the 1980s and into the 1990s, the most popular magazines on the cultural market were still Popular Movies, World of Movies, Chinese and Foreign TV , and basic entertainment popular magazines such as Modern

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Apparel, Shanghai Fashion , and Bodybuilding . The hierocracy of reading had not been established yet. But in the early 1990s, in the “folk” distribution channel of books – newsstands – one could find the exquisitely-printed “tenyuan magazines”: “‘ten-yuan magazines’ is just an umbrella term, under which are grouped the magazines selling at less than ten yuan, and targeting urban white collars. The international 1/16 format plus imported bond paper plus fancy cover design, all these combine to mark the nobility of the new group of magazines on the newsstands as being head and shoulders above the others” explained 8. These “noble magazines” included World Fashion Show, Vogue, Modern Pictorial, Dandy, Celebrities Today, World Metropolis etc. Now these magazines sell at around 20 yuan and include Ruili, Brides etc. An interesting fact is that these expensive magazines started their glory on the very “folk” newsstands. Famous scholar of cultural studies Dai Jinhua once said, “Such magazines were selling at such high prices at the beginning of publication that they were beyond the consumption power of most newsstand-goers, but they not only survived but also prospered. This certainly showed that the division, or structure of strata, in consumption has begun, but it also indicated an interesting thing: those who do not belong to the expected readership may also be the buyers of like publications, as the cover forms of the magazines have already carried the planning of ‘future life’ on them, and ‘making it successively” is an expression of belief about the future. So magazines of this kind entered our cultural vision in the role of avant-garde presenter and guide. After the mid-1990s, the successors of these magazines started publication comfortably in their ideal place – the lobby of star-rated hotels or the premium publication sections of luxury shopping places. By this time the strata of consumption had been stabilized with the division of society”.9 These white collar magazines can also be called “bourgeois” magazines. Since their emergence, the discourse of the bourgeoisie was established; as they became pillars in the cultural consumer market and instantly popular, the bourgeois discourse was expanded. So as cultural icons, these magazines functioned as the narrator and spokesorgan for this class culture. The most representative of these magazines is Fashion magazine started on August 8, 1993.10 In the nearly 20 years of its publication history, Vogue has become the symbolic magazine of China’s bourgeoisie. As it was a subordinate publication under the State Tourism Commission, the magazine kept a low profile at the start of publication and stated its concepts and philosophy of publication as follows:

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In our busy mundane life, we find it ever truer that with the ongoing social progress, economic development, and idea updates, people have been paying ever more attention to the quality of life and the feeling of being en vogue. ………… Vogue is no drifting fashion, nor is it unconventional in a shallow sense; Vogue is a culture, a taste, a social phenomenon rich in meaning. Vogue is not about blind spending or ludicrous squander; Vogue is the realization of value, the outward appearance of cultivation, the allround manifestation of one’s qualities in consumption. As a magazine on travel consumption, Vogue will reflect the latest trends at home and abroad, guiding people in civilized spending in the six areas of modern travel i.e. catering, accommodation, transportation, tourism, shopping, and entertainment, thus becoming a practical guide. Vogue magazine is a lively report on the latest trends, and will open a brand-new window for the quickly-expanding white collar class. With new professions, new challenges, new experiences, may each modern youth catch up on the life of the times, and enjoy wonderful lives. Vogue is the vogue of the times, which tries hard to reflect the impact of the changes in lifestyles on people’s ideas, and focuses on the spread of consumerist culture.

Vogue magazine did fulfill its self-stated mission of guiding consumption and the vogue of the times. Flipping through the pages of the magazine over the past 20 years, its constant pursuit has always been to reflect the tastes of the middle class. In the inaugural issue, “White Collar Beauties’ Outlook on Life”, “Fashion”, “Beauty”, “Premium Product Corridor”, “Shopping Vogue”, “Fine Eating” etc. were its main sections. At the beginning of the 1990s, this kind of basic guidance to consumption emerged like Vogue magazine to be the identity icon of the middle class, and agreed quietly with the bourgeoning commercialist ideology. So Vogue not only led the times, but also gained legitimacy for its agreement with the mainstream ideology. However, “consumption does not alleviate social evils by uniting individuals around core values such as comfort, satiation, and status (this view is related to an immature theory of need, and can only return to an abstract hope i.e. to get people back into extreme poverty to force them into revolt); on the contrary, consumption is to tame them with certain codes and the corresponding competitively collaborative unconscious discipline. This is not to be achieved by cancelling convenience, but by getting them to observe the rules of the game instead. Only in so doing

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can consumption replace all ideologies single-handedly and shoulder the integration of the whole society alone, just like as hierarchy or religious rituals did in primitive society.” 11 In the inaugural issue of the Mr. Vogue special, the “first remark” is, “Mr. Vogue is a modern man who has a love for life, broad interests, and fine tastes in life.” But this “Mr. Vogue” locked down his taste strictly in the “premium franchise shops at the Peninsula Beijing Hotel”, where there was famous British men’s wear G. Hawkes, the French brand Celine, the Italian brand Magli leather shoes, handbags, Versace, premium Louis Vuitton, and of course Davidoff selling Swiss cigars, pipes, perfumes, ties etc. So we can see that Mr. Vogue’s “taste” is but to pursue status and respectability through the imagined pleasure of consumption. “This pursuit of status and respectability is based on symbols i.e. it is not based on things or wealth themselves, but on differentiation. Only by this can we explain the paradox of ‘sub consumption’ or ‘invisible spending’ i.e. the paradox of over differentiation, through which one boasts oneself not in a high-profile manner (i.e. the “eye-catching manners” described by Veblen), but in a prudent, analytical, and clipped and selected manner. This kind of over differentiation was always an excessive luxury, a redundant growth of highprofile which goes against it, and so is just a more subtle differentiation”.12 If these superfluous and decorative symbols are the “tastes” that the middle class found for themselves, such “middle class” are really very few in today’s China. 13 It is worth greater attention that, “in the whole set of devices of consumption, there is one thing more beautiful, more precious, more dazzling than anything else – it carries even more than the car, which itself carries all that much meaning; it is the body. After 1,000 years of Puritan inhibitions, the rediscovery of the body as itself and a symbol of ‘sex freedom’, and its (particularly the female body, there should be research into the reason for this) emergence on the stage of advertisement, fashion, and popular culture – people wrap it up with the auras of health science, dietetics, and medical studies, pursuits ever devoted to youth, beauty, manliness/womanliness, and the ensuing care, diets, bodybuilding practice and the fairy tale of pleasure surrounding it – all these today have proved that the body has become a thing of redemption. In this psychological ideological function, it completely replaces the soul”. 14 Besides, the symbolic “decency” of the middle class not only manifests itself in the not-so-high-profile outward exaggeration, but also in the cultural belief with “physique” as the central pursuit for men, and “beauty” for women, which is another hidden form of the middle class rhetoric. In these magazines, bodybuilding and cosmetics are ever-hot topics. Bodybuilding is not only for a strong physique, but also for a “slim figure”. The “slim figure”

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becomes a middle class fashion, which we get to know from an advertisement slogan cited in Paul Fussell’s Class : “Your weight is the manifesto of your social class. 100 years ago, being fat was a symbol of success, but that age was in the past and has gone forever. Today, obesity is the symbol of the lower middle class. Compared to the upper middle and middle class, the number of lower middle class is four times greater”.15 Obesity is an intolerable aesthetic intrusion in the eye of the middle class. A spokesperson of middle class aesthetics once so described the offspring of immigrants to the US: generation after generation, these family members eat to become typically American. Today they are all alike in their bodies: the similarly broad buttocks, the same huge bellies, the similarly turkey-loose jaws and sperm-whale bulks, and no one with a visible neck. Women cram their bodies into pink stretch pants, while men’s bodies bulge from every crack and from between every two buttons of their checked shirts and polyester fiber slacks.16 Huge body narratives were symbols of success in the past, but today they are intolerably vulgar in the eyes of the middle class. Baudrilltard revealed the biggest secret herein in his analysis of the middle class “body”: the repossession of the body is not based on the independent objective of the owner, but on a standardization principle of entertainment and hedonistic benefit, an instrumental restraint directly linked to a rule of social code and standard of manufacture and consumption guidance. In other words, people manage their own bodies and take care of them like a kind of legacy, for they take it as one of the referents of social standing.17 To achieve its objective of “slim figure”, the middle class discourse has hailed its various idols and examples, of which movie and TV stars are the commonest icons. Sohu.com published photos of Brigitte Lin after her delivery of a child, and appended the following text to the photos: After giving birth Brigitte inevitably began to be fat, and to conquer the “pull of the earth’s center” and return her own body to its former slender figure, she invented the following: For each serving, eat only half of the food on the plate, leaving the other half. When the desire to eat chocolate or ice cream surges, replace the food with water. Weigh yourself every week. Enjoy Chinese food, which is both delicious and fatless. Cook with low-fat vegetable oil, and spray salad oil with a sprinkling can. Do not pour. Eat roasted meat rather fried meat.

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Bring chewing gums along, and eat one when hungry to subdue the appetite. Eat one banana for breakfast, the 8 calories of which can fill the stomach. Refuse white food – rice, sugar, white bread, dairy products, ... then you can avoid many temptations. Chopped turnips, peppers, small cucumbers, cauliflowers and celery can all be kept as snacks in the fridge, or brought along with one. Put some foods that would reduce your appetite in the fridge, and you’ll feel upset when you open it, thus avoiding eating too much. Never eat after dinner.

Body narrative, of course, does not belong to the middle class alone. With the avant-garde female writers, we have become familiar with the self-statement or monologue from deep in their hearts. However, for them, the body narrative not only directly expresses their feminist pursuits but also indirectly poses extreme challenges to the ethical order and practice at the level of discourse does not mean that they have to practice it in real life. But the “body consumption” of the middle class has to be put into practice. When the total exposure of the female body is not proper, the partial exposure of the body, which concerns love and care, becomes a token of identity. “Langsha” silk stockings expose the slender legs of women; the advertisement catch phrase “an ample bosom, a lovely woman” encourages women to stand more erect with their chests elevated; an “expert on slender figures” exposes the slim waistline of women... for the middle class women, to be beautiful has become something of a religious doctrine. Beauty is not a natural effect, not an appendage to ethical qualities, but an identity women cherish and care for as they do their souls, particularly their face and figure. This God-selected symbol of the body is like success in business. Both beauty and success have the same mystic foundation in their respective magazines: on women’s bodies, it is a sensitivity being developed and reminding others of all the body parts; for owners of businesses, it is the acumen for the various potentials of the market. They are both symbols selected by God for redemption, which is not far away from Protestant ethics. In fact, the reality is such and beauty becomes such an absolute order just because it is a form of capital.18 What is more interesting is that the middle class discourse needs to “create” the vogue, and needs to attach meaning to the vogue that they create. The 4th issue in 2002 of Vogue explained its choice of the summer ’s popular colour, saying that as was known to all, spring and summer did not start peacefully

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in 2002 for the fashion world. The October 2001 spring and summer fashion release followed the world-shocking September 11 attacks. People craved to be far away from war, so designers unanimously chose to use romantic flowers and white peace for the coming 2002. The creation and expansion of the middle class discourse aggravated the sense of poverty and worries of people striving to be “well-to-do”. The website for China Homes once published a short essay which vividly revealed the other side of middle class life: 1995 was a year when China’s society became quickly commercialized, as everyone realized the importance of money. The community of “alternative rock” also faced the onslaught of commercialization. “The ‘alternative’, who were once my examples, were equally bent on making a fortune. Cui Jian became rich, and Wu Wenguang too... Idealism can wait, survival is the primary question”. Zheng Hao understood “the importance of money” and began to harbor ideas of entering the business world. He grabbed the opportunity of participating in the advertisement of “Taiyangshen tonic”, and then took a role in the MTV of Jing Gangshan’s Only You are in My Eyes , becoming famous in that circle. Zheng Hao’s motto was “I just cannot let money slip away before my eyes”. It is not that he was so greedy; only that he had had a major change of attitude, that “being poor cannot bring you fame, but can prove your inability”. Zheng Hao described the currently “money-crazed” society as being “riding the waves”, as no one was idling away time in the circle he was familiar with. Everybody was seeking information as to where they could make money, and everyone was afraid that they would lose a chance. “Isn’t Zhang Yimou producing commercials for ‘Huanghe Electrics’ and ‘Midea Electrics’, and isn’t Gong Li appearing in advertisements in ‘Yeli dry red’?” “I am not an artist, a commercial director, one creating things according to market rules”. “CCTV3 has almost been my private shop windows, every day they have two or three of my MTV clips showing”. Zheng Hao shot as many as two to three clips every month, and even now is making one every month. His intensity of work is easy to imagine. “It’s common to work for ten days and ten nights in a row for 20 hours a day without sleep”. Formerly Zheng had some habits like dancing disco, or going to a bar, while now when work is heavy all hobbies have to be thrown away. No life, just work. “To be rich, you have to work yourself to death like this”. Zheng does not have the ambition to be a second Li Ka-shing. What he wants is just the “life of the middle class”.19

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The middle class cover up the fact that they are extremely fatigued by work as they show off with their sense of superiority over others. What is worse is that they pay a huge spiritual price in dignity as they enjoy systematic and formatted material life, which has never been described in their discourse.

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Chapter

The Writing of the Proletarians in the Capital Myth Time

The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

Abstract Key words: marginalization; the proletariat; problems; idealism On today’s world stage, the existence and meaning of a class is far less important than a financial oligarch or a high-tech superman. So when writers exaggerated their discussion about their “marginalization”, the truly marginalized proletarian class was no longer a problem to be talked about. However, the proletariat is still there. Here the concept of the “proletariat” refers not only to their real identities and financial status but also, more importantly, to their spiritual and value orientation, their inheritance of the proletarian culture as scattered individuals, and the relationships between the problems, groups, standpoints and feelings that they care about, and the proletarian culture. Proletarian literature was one of the most important literary phenomena of the 20th century. It depicted the hardships of life of all the oppressed around the world, and sculpted the revolutionary images of proletarian heroes. More importantly, it came with immense ideological power and received widespread recognition among the lower classes. Today, as part of the 20th century’s most important cultural heritage, proletarian literature still much for us to inherit and cherish, particularly as the critical resources were nearly exhausted in the process of modernization.

Global capital today is both a ubiquitous ideological entity and a real life force controlling global life. China is still socialist as a state, yet this does not necessarily mean that the various social groups do not come under the control and influence of this force. The most obvious examples are the terms “entry into the GATT”, “entry into the WTO”, and “international financial capital”, which are frequently used in daily life. The popularity of terms is not just a symbol, as it will manifest a huge power in real life. So we see a split in China’s camp of writers in the late 1990s. The fairy tale of capital left some intra-system writers in obscurity as they were not able to fight on the main battle ground, while it helped “media heroes” like Yu Qiuyu and Wang Shuo to success. The era of capital myths relentlessly abandoned anyone without market value, while creating and showcasing new miracles. It had become nearly a luxury to have true literary writing in this era, but then amidst the heated discussions off the mark and secular sighs about the decaying of values, a new group of writers – I call them “proletarian writing” groups – suddenly surfaced after a long silence

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and exerted widespread influence on society. In the era of capital myths the “proletariat” is a frightening concept, as if it were still the class “attacking landlords and dividing lands”, killing, staging revolutions, and seizing political power. In fact, the tempestuous revolutions have become history and as a class, the fight of the proletariat has been gradually subdued by the reign of capital. On today’s world stage, the existence and meaning of a class is far less important than a financial oligarch or a high-tech superman. So when writers exaggerated their discussion about their “marginalization”, the truly marginalized proletarian class was no longer a problem to be talked about. However, the proletariat is still there. Here the concept of the “proletariat” refers not only to their real identities and financial status, but also more importantly to their spiritual and value orientation, their inheritance of the proletarian culture as scattered individuals, and the relationships between the problems, groups, standpoints and feelings and the proletarian culture.

The End of Proletarian Literature and its Fate Proletarian literature is one of the most important literary phenomena of the 20th century. It delineated the hardships of life of all the oppressed around the world, and sculpted the revolutionary images of proletarian heroes. More importantly, proletarian literature came with immense ideological power, and received widespread recognition among the lower classes. Its most representative work is L'Internationale created jointly by the French transportation worker Eugène Edine Pottier and the Lille industrial worker Pierre Degeyter: “Rise, slaves suffering cold and hunger! Rise, the oppressed around the world!” “Never say we have nothing, we’re to be the owner of the world!” “The rich do not shoulder any responsibilities, and the rights for the poor are just lies”.1 L’Internationale revealed the fact that the society was unequal and unjust, and facilitated the proletarian revolutions around the world with its great appeal. Lenin wrote passionately when commemorating the 25th anniversary of Eugène Edine Pottier’s death, “an enlightened worker, no matter which country he comes to, where fate has cast him, how he feels that he is a foreigner, knows no local language, has no relatives, and is far away from his home country, he can find himself colleagues and friends with the familiar tunes of L’Internationale ”.2 L’Internationale became the most famous example of the revolutionary literature of the proletariat and presented the most essential quality of proletarian literature in a most focused way: whatever

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breeding and knowledge background its author might have, he/she must speak for the poor and the proletariat, and help in the most widespread possible social mobilization for the ultimate seizing of power by the proletariat. Proletarian literature formed the most important characteristic of its authors in the process of participating in the completion of the grand mission i.e. to speak for the people, the proletariat, and create the conditions for their emancipation. A person must have the life experiences of the lower classes in addition to lower class emotions before they can write for the proletariat. Lenin’s advice to “go beyond St. Petersburg” and Mao Zedong’s call for art workers to merge with the people are thought to be effective ways for proletarian writers to acquire lower class life experiences and emotions. Under this guidance, writers from the lower classes had inbred advantages over those from other backgrounds. Maksim Gorky of the former USSR and Zhao Shuli of China are irreplaceable examples of this literature. The literature they created was filled with the hardships of life, which greatly stimulated the desire for revenge in the lower classes. Particularly in the literary works singing praises of the process in which the proletariat seized political power, people read “swords and blood”. The lower classes not only had the pleasure of revenge in their reading but also developed their tendency of appreciation and recognition of violence, on which was bestowed revolutionary significance. Violence was not to be abhored but to be hailed as the main token of revolutionary heroism. By the end of the 20th century proletarian literature had declined, which of course had much to do with the fate of the international Communist movement in general and with the dogged understanding and decrees of this literature after the proletariat seized power. As proletarian literature continued to decline, Western literary trends became popular in the East. As Georg Lukács said about the regained attention to Western philosophical trends in the East, “When people in the socialist countries were disappointed by the distortion of Marxism by Stalinism, they turned to Western philosophies, which were understandable, like a woman cheated by her husband will throw her love at someone else. The reason is the same”. But he also said, “Psychologically, I can understand why today’s Marxists always turn to the West to look for support for their reforms, but realistically speaking, I don’t think it’s right. I think we shall understand Marxism correctly, and return to its true ways”.3 If as a Marxist, Georg Lukács’ above-quoted analysis had much to do with his beliefs, then the Russian religious idealist Frank also pointed out the declining process of European cultural beliefs in Russia, “As we, the poor in both material and spiritual terms, Russians who have lost all in life, turned to European mentors for ideological guidance, we were surprised to find out that we had none to learn from and nothing to learn. Maybe when we came to sum up the agonizing experience of

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our misfortunes and had suffered what we deserved, we could offer something helpful to mankind”. 4 Both analyses were but to tell people that our own perception and understanding of history and reality were far more important than learning from Western mentors. However, as far as China’s literature since the 1980s was concerned, a totally reverse direction was taken with enthusiasm to learn from the West running in almost all new literary trends, while the question of whether there was still a legacy in proletarian literature now that it had finished its lifespan was left almost totally untouched. Proletarian literature, in a sense, had been regarded as identical with the extreme leftist culture, or that of the Cultural Revolution. This judgment has behind it a defense for the new ideology, as it takes no risks but just a fashionable stance of rejection. On the other hand, proletarian literature was put to unprecedented use in another sense after being packaged to cater to market needs. On the cultural market, the “red classics” were thoroughly showcased in rather queer forms. They were exploited by those who took advantage to make huge profit, and were made up with bizarre decorations. Yet still, they were legitimate. So we can safely say that the tragic fate proletarian culture suffered late in its life had much to do with its “demonization” by two kinds of philistines/speculators. This is a new problem in solving the “problems” of proletarian culture, which draws our attention just because it is “politically right” yet hides deadly vulgarism behind its back.

The Emergence of Proletarian Writing Groups The tragic end of proletarian culture was inevitable, as it was linked to the political practice of the proletariat after it seized power. Proletarian culture was the product of the political ideal and practice of the proletariat, and it was bound to come under the influence of this ideal and practice. However, as a relatively independent domain, proletarian culture experienced all kinds of complexities in its development: it advocated and supported the proletarian revolution with the use of force, yet after victory it severely criticized any heresy; in the meantime, it forcefully revealed and criticized the social inequality caused by capitalism despite its own legitimate cover-up; proletarian culture was able to receive widespread recognition as it was characterized by its spirit of criticism, fight, and idealism, the latter of which was the main feature of China’s contemporary proletarian writing groups. It must be pointed out that China’s contemporary proletarian writing groups are loose ones, as they are not the total inheritors of the cultural heritage of the proletariat, and they are

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the very liquidators and critics of the problems in proletarian culture. They do not have a common manifesto, and are not a pre-planned cultural movement, so they are not united under one banner and have no prominent figures or spiritual leaders. In the current times, when culture has been completely marketised, they are totally marginal. They are almost fighting two wars at the same time: on one battle ground they have to clear out the history of oppression of spiritual space by dogmatism and cultural absolutism, and to heal the huge wounds caused on the heart of the intellectual or even of the whole nation by the inhumane culture; on the other battle ground, they have to criticize the current vogue which takes the white collar culture as an icon, and to hail openly what is worth inheriting and valuable in proletarian culture. So the proletarian writing groups today are different professional writing “returning to its proper place”, and distance themselves from the white collar culture and writing that are taking the market way. In a cultural era filled with warmth and sweetness, it is proletarian writing that rekindles the flame of cultural and spiritual criticism; in a time of ever finer academics and ever more mediocre creation, it is proletarian writing that manifests the weight of thinking and the charm of the spirit. It does not need to concealed that many of the contemporary proletarian writers have life experiences in the lower strata of society, which establish emotional links between them and the lower classes that linger foe ever. After the proletariat was declared to have been completely emancipated and “lifted up”, Mo Luo was still sleeping at his aunt’s on a bed shared with his cousin, whose huge bulk made the “lift-up” of Mo Luo virtually impossible. His aunt’s home was but a crude hut known as a “house”. Later he wrote, “when I recall my aunt, I can still only think of that hut. For me, the hut is the beginning from which I came to know China’s cities, and particularly its urban poor. It was the very hardships of life and the humble days in that crude hut that completed my experience in the low life – I am now aware of not only the low life in rural places, but also of that in the urban area. Because my aunt was as humble, poor and living as hard a life as my relatives and friends back in my rural home, I finally got to know a complete and true poor China”. 5 Young critic Xie Youshun, who has drawn widespread attention in recent years, was born in a mountain village in the west of Fujian province. Only two years ago did people there begin to enjoy the convenience of electricity, and even now there are no paved roadvertisements. Xie studied at the poorest middle school in the county, and did not even know what a League member was before his junior middle school graduation.6 Young scholar Kuang Xinnian was born in rural Hunan and was intimate with hunger throughout his boyhood. He did not have a permanent

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place to live even after his doctoral graduation, and when he tried to live in his office he was driven off time after time. Middle school teacher Wang Kailing “for eight years lived all alone, without a permanent living place, holding a junior professional title with a meager salary, not knowing cold or warm, mixed with hunger...” 7 Freelancer Yang Jing did jobs such as furnace worker, small clerk etc. for survival.8 And although Liu Yeyuan, Kong Qingdong, Lian Zi and Yang Zao among others might not have had such hard life experiences, it is certain that they did not come from prominent backgrounds. I am not identifying their natural links with the proletariat employing the ideological tools of “class theory” or “bloodline theory” in pointing out the background and experience of the proletarian writers. In fact contemporary Chinese writers, particularly those already enjoying high renown, are mostly linked with rural China or have links with low life. However, the hardships of poverty have been “romanticized, solemnized, and poeticized” 9 in their writing. What they seek to present is the natural need for revolution in the proletariat and people of the lower classes, the ethical ideals with which they create history and lead life, and the great courage with which they demolish the old world. This kind of writing has been controlled by the cultural hegemony of the proletariat. Although there are still praiseworthy and excellent works in such writing, its freshness and vitality has been fading away since the proletariat gained political power, while conceptualization and preaching have become their belief in literature. They have lost the courage to face the hardships they experienced in low life, and the power of thinking that their writing should have as well. The proletarian writers are different. Their low life experiences are recorded minutely, and more importantly, this is the point of departure from which they perceive the outer world and reconstruct their inner world. They face their personal predicaments with courage, and transcend personal lamentation over them in their writing, while investing more and greater questioning and exploration into the domain of the human spirit. Xie Youshun said, “each time I go back to the countryside and see the different faces whose vitality has been sucked out by hardships, oppression, and injustice, these problems would come back to torture me. This is an inner struggle, from which my contradictory feeling, doubt and pursuit of reality started. If your heart were open to these things, you would very naturally feel with sensitivity the keenly-felt pain transmitted by each detail of life”. 10 So he needs dignity in his writing, “a true writer should not be a painter of regional scenery or memories of ethnic history. What he faces is the common spiritual tasks of the human race...” 11 The acquisition of this correct standpoint, “first comes from one’s sensitivity

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and alertness to the existence and circumstances of the self, without which a critic must drown in ignorance, and all his judgments will only start from his knowledge, which once it transcends the heart will become a matter of pure discretion. This kind of knowledge and the criticism spawned by it will be rather suspicious. I can hardly imagine an intellectual in humanist studies who can overlook the spiritual hardships suffered by his folks and himself”. 12 So in Xie’s writing, concern for spiritual matters becomes a key issue and his indignant questioning and eloquent expression pour out like floods over the water gate. This is the true charm of Xie’s writing. Mo Luo was called a “spiritual champion” by Qian Liqun at his emergence,13 as he “supplies the missing link in the tradition of spiritual champions”.14 In Mo Luo’s writing we can see his persistent quest for spiritual freedom, and his staunch defense of the uncompromising personal dignity. What is different was that on the one hand Mo Luo admired giants in ideology, following Aleksandr Herzen, the Decembrists, Lu Xun, Vera Figner, Henri Rousseau etc. and ardently recommended them to modern Chinese students, while on the other hand he detailed his subhuman existence poignantly as he felt “shame” when personal dignity could not be defended in basic terms. For that he named his first book Journal of the Indignant . He said in his Chewing Shame , “we can no longer sense the loss of dignity, the loss of the right to change our utter poverty. We have no longer any sense of rights and dignity, and this is the most tragic and most total poverty”. 15 This idea of Mo Luo’s did not come from textbooks, “for the past twenty plus years, I’ve been struggling together with the lowest peoples in China. In my view, everyone is a history of miserable hardships. At the sight of them, I cannot help thinking of Run Tu, of Hua Xiaoshuan’s dry coughs, of Xianglin’s wife, of A–Q who steals turnips to fill his stomach. What miserable people they are! They totally lost their ability of self-defense and self-salvation. Who will come to save them? Who will work for their interests? Who will taste their hardships with a human conscience, and revive their right to a dignified existence?” 16 Xie Youshun and Mo Luo are not spokespersons for a certain class or group. They do not have such aims, and they are just expressing their true life experiences with their deep perception of the life of poverty, reestablishing their spiritual beliefs, and checking their conscience based on these. It is worth noting that Mo Luo is not a writer of poetic misery, as his exposure of man’s existence and spiritual pain does not stay at the level of outpouring or venting heartfelt traumas, but reaches the level of awakening people’s ability to sense and discern hardships. So he said, “It’s not enough just to understand hardships, which do not contain in themselves any elements of fighting themselves. Only when we sense shame in hardships do we have

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reflections on them, and can we rise and fight them, so that hardships cannot consume people, and man can transcend himself”.17 Mo Luo has deep sympathy for the lower classes, but he is not a populist, as we can find strong criticism in his sympathy. When comparing the spiritual and cultural soils of Russia and China, he pointed out the rich humanist atmosphere and the staunch and definite historical conscience, reason, and courage in Russians, while in China, “every farmer dreams of making a fortune, every landlord dreams of becoming a government official, and landlords are but farmers who have made a fortune, while the emperor is but a landlord living in the royal palaces. The trinity of farmer, landlord, and emperor just turns round and round in the same spiritual and behavioral pattern in cycles, and in terms of cultural breeding (the values layer) they are a united whole”. He borrowed words from Du Yaquan, saying, “After these lumpen-proletariat seized power, they very soon became corrupt and repeated the failures of previous dynasties, and did not help to change the organization of society and the development of the nation”. 18 This kind of criticism of the deep-rooted evils in the national character is different from the respectful praise of the imagined loftiness of the lower classes by China’s leftist culture, and carried on the tradition of Lu Xun. Another thing worth noting about the proletarian writers is their respect for and attraction to Russian thought and culture. In their writing the Decembrists, Aleksandr Herzen, Vera Figner, Leo Tolstoy, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Sergei Aleksandrovich Esenin, Dostoyevsky, Ilya Ehrenburg and other Russian cultural heroes and national elites are revered as spiritual lighthouses, and when they pay tribute to these spiritual idols and express their wish to follow them, their writing becomes most moving and beautiful. The first three chapters of Mo Luo’s Journal of the Indignant are about Russian thought and culture, where he wrote about Aleksandr Herzen, the female revolutionary Vera Figner, and Belinskiy, Russian giants already forgotten by today’s fashion and who now regained their fascinating glow under Mo Luo’s pen. Mo Luo felt deeply attracted to them and was greatly moved. Here, this “deeply indignant” youth became soft in his heart. The 15-year-old Herzen, with his friend Nikolay Ogarev, going to the Sparrow Hill near Moscow on their outing at dusk on a day in 1827, could only be imagined by Mo Luo who could never be there in person, which added even more to the charm and appeal the giant held for Mo. Having read Banaev’s Era of Shining Stars he even had “a small wish that those who are in control of me can show mercy enough to me by casting me into 19th-century Russia, even to the Russia before the abolition of serfdom. Although the Hades there might be colder than in here, there at least was the Banaev-like owner who would be kind to me and would show mercy”.19 Mo

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Luo’s identification with Russian culture and attraction to it was deeply echoed by Wang Kailing. In his Excited Tongue , Wang Kailing wrote an essay entitled What on Earth Does Russia Have more Than Us? , which was his reflections on reading Mo Luo’s Why Giants Are Giants . In the essay, Wang Kailing sang high praises of the cultural soil where giants were born with Mo Luo-like enthusiasm, “Just because such beautiful ‘windowsills’ and starlike folk heroes shine in the Russian sky, the champions downcast in the dark haze might avoid total despair, the cause might avoid total failure, and people might have the courage to fight after defeat, and carry on...” 20 The repeated mentions of distant foreign history by these young men not only reflected their disdain for the present chaos in China that could be described as “the despicable modern China, vulgarism is rampant and fashion flashes everywhere”. 21 What is important is that they still remembered the glorious past of humankind. Through the smog of history, this light still shone upon these young hearts. Xie Youshun made special mention of the advice given by some to Solzhenitsyn, who was writing his The Gulag Archipelago : “let the past be past”, and “if you always remember the past, you’ll lose one of your eyes”. 22 Yet Solzhenitsyn added, “The next half of this proverb is, if you forget about the past, you’ll lose two”. The remembrance of hardships is to remind people that history cannot be repeated, while the remembrance of the past is to help great ideas and traditions find their inheritance. Perhaps it is just for this reason that Kuang Xinnian gave staunch support to Kong Qingdong’s fair remarks about Mao Zedong. Kong Qingdong said in his The Charm of Character in Selected Writings of Mao Zedong , “Mao Zedong’s essays are a bright color, a space where there is all sunshine”. “The Selected Writings of Mao Zedong has a kind of strength, which is clear and definite. Only when one is very confident and knows very deeply about a problem can they express their ideas about it with very lucid and lively language, which is Mao Zedong’s language style”. 23 Kong Qingdong tells about his true feelings in plain language, and in Kuang Xinnian’s opinion, “in the 1990s, there were few who could say a fair word or two about Mao Zedong, and Kong was one of these few. No matter how much criticism of and resentment against Mao Zedong Kong had deep down in his heart, he did not follow the general trend of belittling Mao. This was not based on a class feeling, but more on a kind of independent integrity and independent thinking”.24 Kuang Xinnian further engaged in theoretical discussions of Mao Zedong’s huge contributions to the establishment of a modern China in another of his essays Thinking under the Asian Sky .25 These viewpoints and opinions have already been labeled as “new leftist”, but as the academic elite know

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nothing other than partisanship among academics they will never be able to understand how these experiences are acquired, and never know how these similes are made. Proletarian writers’ deep life experiences and their true needs deep down in the heart are irreplaceable. They do not identify their enemies, but in their struggle in a “no-enemy” battle what they approach is their own heart and soul. All their needs can be summed up in one single remark: one should speak about true experiences, and return to common sense, in order to revitalize the heart.

Idealism in “Ultra-genre” Writing Genres are part of the literary production system of modern times. From People’s Literature to the various literary magazines published by regional writers’ associations, columns and sections are unitarily set up according to genres. Behind this uniform standard of magazine setup are hidden the strict rules of the production system. However, with the proletarian writers, it is hard to name their genre which is a mix of familiar essay, political treatise, translation theory, prose, essays etc., although many of them have received formal education and training in literary creation. They just wrote according to their heart, whether they were writing angry criticism or beautiful lyrical lines. They do not follow the standards of traditional genres, which indicate their freely running style of writing. Their genre itself is a challenge to and questioning of the traditional system of literary production. In this kind of ultra-genre writing, almost everyone harbors a strong idealism. Xie Youshun expressed his deep concern over the loss of idealism in his writings, “Formerly literary works have almost been the last fortress of man’s idealism, as they carry a huge dream which makes us forget about the real-life pain, at least temporarily. If we lose this last drop of idealism, we’ll have nihilism left at the last. The spiritual crisis of modern man does not come from the inadequacy of production or technology, or the needs of life left unsatisfied, but from the threat of the unnamable force of nihilism”.26 Mo Luo did not employ the concept of “ideal” but he said nearly the same thing as Xie Youshun, “Literature has been in secular life since ancient times, but it has existed through the need for it by the soul i.e. one shall criticize and transcend secular life. So literature always stands in the perspective of observing and scrutinizing secular life. Good literary works stand like a huge banner penetrating the smog of mundane life, hanging up high in the sky of the soul, casting a light on the darkness of the spirit, lending a slice of comfort

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to the agonies of the spirit, and looking for more ways and broader space for spiritual development”.27 Wang Kailing even cried out his “literature fighting for idealism” motto directly, saying “Literature should fight for idealism! This is no longer a slogan or a manifesto, but a kind of life practice amid the desolate silence”.28 For him, the hope in despair is to hold fast to dreams. Yang Jing referred to his defense of idealism with the concept of a “spiritual home”, “as the times bow deeply to money, as people worship pomp, the lost heart is drawn to the paper idols like flies over decayed food. Starving people fill the land, white flags cover the ground, humanity is losing its last breath, and dignity is cut into halves. Having nothing, we stand up alone from the debris, crying and wailing, wanting to go home”.29 This home is “the revitalization of the heart, the re-finding of the finer feelings between men”. 30 The persistent need for idealism has been a lonely cry on today’s literary scene. It is not as sorrowful as “L’Internationale will surely be realized”, but still it carries on the idealist spirit in proletarian literature. Hearing these, one seems to hear the cries full of passion for life from deep down in history. The views and emotions expressed by proletarian writers are contradictory to the ideology of the era of capital myths. Hegel Sr. told us that as people become sophisticated in society, they become more powerful in real society. Or, the more people identify themselves with the mainstream ideology, the better they will live in this society. Today the biggest myth and controlling ideology, capital, can do anything it wants to on the cultural market, because it has actually been licensed by the mainstream ideology to proceed unobstructed. Both Yu Qiuyu and Wang Shuo are the dear children of the era of capital myths, not only because they can enter the cultural market, but also because they can add “diverse” cultural ornaments to the times. In this sense, the proletarian writers are no doubt tragic. However, in these vulgar times, perhaps just the existence of such a loose group of writers has maintained the last dignity of modern literature.

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Chapter

Globalization / The Rebellion and Carnival of the Asian Youth

The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

Abstract Keywords: P ower/Dominance; Cultural Hegemony; Rebellion; Revelry The vision of globalization cannot cover up the continuation of history. In theory, in a globalization context, radical theorists and Marxists have discovered its hidden power/dominance relationship and the legacy of colonialism, in which postcolonial theory as cultural critical theory appears. In practice, popular cultures in China, Korea and Japan which have made exchanges with each other in the Asian region are not only a form of globalization, but also a stand against Western cultural imperialism and cultural hegemony. Although having recognized cultural hegemony in the globalization context and the destiny of being dominated by the power of some other culture, we deeply feel that the spirit of criticism is willing but the flesh is weak. There are no heroes and theorists fighting against cultural hegemony, but if there were such a hero, life is still intensified with globalization. Perhaps theory cannot change the current situation, but it is hoped that a new culture can be explored through criticism. The new culture is presently difficult to describe, but what is certain is that this culture belongs to neither the past nor the West.

Cultural Hegemony: Discourse and Practice In the 1980s, an era of reform and opening up for China, Chinese culture had a strong impulse to “go out to the world”. This might seem ambitious, but it precisely implied an appeal that a weak culture desired to be accepted in the First World. But the rhetoric “go out to the world” has itself put Chinese culture in a marginalized position in world culture. More than ten years later, when there is no time to delve into the question of whether Chinese literature had already gone out to the world, “globalization” has quietly landed in China. No matter how surprised or puzzled we are by it, globalization has become an idea or context. It is generally acknowledged that because the network integration of international trade, finance, transnational capital and global technology have been changing time and distance, all production and consumption is

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shared. More importantly, this rapid development has transplanted people’s relationships in daily life from a definite region to the whole world and a global common “cultural experience” has been formed. From a daily life point of view, this is all around us. But when globalization is considered as a “cultural destiny” whether in disgust or in delight, “irony and resistance” abound. A vision of globalization still cannot cover up the continuation of history. In theory, in the globalization context, radical theorists and Marxists have discovered its hidden power/dominance relationship and the legacy of colonialism, in which postcolonial theory as cultural critical theory appears. In practice, popular cultures in China, Korea and Japan which have made exchanges with each in the Asian region are not only a form of globalization, but also a stand against Western cultural imperialism and cultural hegemony. Some scholars of non-Western origin have found the obscurity the mysterious part of globalization. Professor Arif Dirlik of Duke University, in one of his papers Formation of Globlization and Radical Policy , analyzed with accomplishment some issues such as identity, racial problems of sub-nation and super-nation, and the relationship between local and global. He pointed out insightfully, “That cultural globalists who have not discussed power has mystified the space of globalization and its side effects. Moreover the rise of globalization to a transcendent status makes globalization into a mysterious power that compels all people living under its rule to follow it at all costs”.1 Dirlik’s finding reminds us of a classic scene in Orientalism by Edward Said: Europe created the East in imagination and then identified it. Thus, “between the West and the East there are relationships of power, domination and hegemony”.2 Once the power/dominance relationship was declassified a more radical cultural criticism theory, cultural imperialism, emerged. James Petras of New York State University said in Cultural Imperialism in the Late 20th Century : cultural imperialism is “penetration into and control over people by the Western culture system, aiming at remodeling the oppressed people’s values, behavior, social systems and identity and subjecting them to the interests and objectives of imperialists”. 3 Some people did not agree with the theory of cultural imperialism, and issued a cross-examination called “who has a big say”. For Tomlinson, neither cultural imperialism nor the relationship between domination and being dominated in cultural globalization exist. He analyzed the discussion of cultural imperialism in two ways. First, the argument or debate involves continuing observations often proposed by scholars from “a group of a global community of their own”, through academic journals, books or conference papers and other media. But this community is not just loose, it is

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also meaningless. Meanwhile the discussion cannot do without the publication of academic books and journals, but what kinds of books will be published also relates to “who has a big say”. Therefore, the global dialogue on cultural imperialism not only does not exist, it will never appear. Second, when we say “national culture is invaded,” “The Third World has something to say,” “leftists have something to say,” or even “intellectuals have something to say”, we are taking risks with the semantic meaning. Here there is always a “spokesman”, and as a group or a class the “national culture”, “the Third World”, “leftists”, and “intellectuals” are unable to speak, and their various supporters never have the opportunity to speak. There seems nothing wrong with Tomlinson’s views, but the problem is that in the context of globalization, the power/dominance relationship is not just a dispute of theory, attitude and position, it has become a process of practice. The Filipino’s love of US pop music, the Chinese “academic elites” looking with anxiety and enthusiasm for listeners in the West, as well as fashionable youth’s acceptance and pursuit of “Nike” and “Adidas” all express the ubiquity of the dominance of cultural hegemony. Scholars in China have made varying responses to globalization and its cultural hegemony. But these responses are much less acute and profound than those of other scholars born in the Third World, such as Said, Spivak, Homi Bhabha and other post-colonial theorists, who have made insightful interpretation and criticism of globalization and cultural hegemony. Our Chinese scholars mostly either have not elaborated or have taken an ambiguous attitude when dealing with these issues. This is the result of cognitive differences and theoretical resources, and the fact that our situation is full of contradictions. On the one hand, cultural globalization has changed the way of daily life so that it becomes possible for everyone to extract him/herself from the collective will and the importance of the individual can be emphasized; on the other hand, we therefore, are included in another value system and have to succumb to the domination of cultural imperialism. As a result, the question of identity begins to trouble and haunt us. In such a context we hear it said that globalization is both an objective fact and a trend which, whether admitted or not, inexorably affects the progresss of world history as well as of China’s (Yu Keping); another lost voice is that there is no voice from China in today's world literary theory (Huang Weiliang); and there is no one who has created an influential literary theory system (Ji Xianlin). These descriptive views, at best, only demonstrate a neutral or lost state of mind, and do not yet constitute a relationship with globalization, let alone criticism. Therefore, as for our Chinese scholars in a Third World country, we are still an “outsider” in the global discourse. In this sense marginalization may be our destiny. Although having realized the cultural hegemony in the globalization context and the

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destiny of being dominated by the power of some culture, we deeply feel that spirit of criticizing is willing but the flesh is weak. There is no hero and theorist fighting against the cultural hegemony, but even with such a hero, life is still intensified with globalization. Perhaps the theory’s revealing and resisting still cannot change the current situation, but it is hoped that a new culture should be explored through criticizing. The new culture is presently difficult to describe, but what is certain is that culture belongs to neither the past nor the West.

Cultural Practice: The Rebellion and Carnival of the Asian Youth While popular culture’s production and consumption have gained legitimacy in China, it is no longer considered a “culture carrier”, but popular culture still has the possibility of multiple explanations: it has the nature of a commercial culture and a corresponding ideology of cultural commercialism has emerged, which intellectuals have mainly criticized. However, in the process of global capitalism, when a strong culture has penetrated and exploited the vulnerable cultures of other countries and regions, it is indisputably rational for developing countries and regions to resist the commercial domination of the strong culture and to develop their own national and regional popular culture to meet the production needs of the growing cultural consumption. China’s popular culture has apparently gained the rationality. China, East Asia and Southeast Asian countries and regions in recent years have exchanged popular culture frequently and formed a new cultural trend, which has been growing in the world cultural pattern mentioned above. Since the 1980s, Japanese films and television programs such as Hunt, Call of the Mountain, Sand Traps, Witness, Blood Suspect, A Xin and the cartoon Astroboy have been gradually introduced to China. These were welcomed by the Chinese audience, and a group of Japan’s young movie stars became idols. This was related to the Sino-Japanese cultural exchange after the establishment of diplomatic relations, but it also objectively broke down the impact of American culture in China. In the late 1990’s, Korea’s pop culture began to enter China. According to the relevant statistics, China has broadcast many plays in succession such as Stars and Love, What is Love, The Surging of My Heart, The Trap of Youth, Marigold, and Men and Women in the City . Although these were in many aspects an imitation of Japanese TV and dramas, their number has already quietly taken the leading position. Ahn Jae-wook, Choi Jin-sil, Kim Heeseon, Jang Dong-gun, Ryu Si-won, Lee Young-ae, Won Bin, Song Seung-hun,

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Shim Eun, and Song Hye-kyo etc. became the idols of many Korean TV fans. Some media said: “Compared with the Japanese slim male idols, Korean are relatively more rugged and simple. Both Jang Dong-gun in Project Runway and Ryu Si Won in The Man behind Have Become idols . The Korean female stars are not as hot and bold as the Japanese, but rather more gentle and feminine, which is more acceptable to the Chinese public. Good evidence of this was the frantic scene of “the first beauty in the Republic of Korea” Kim Hee-sun in Beijing meeting fans. Kim Hee-sun became popular overnight through Sunflower and her smile is fascinating. Another superstar in Sunflower is Ahn Jae-wook, whose gentleness has won the audience’s heart. Some people have even said they watched Sunflower just because they liked the smile of Ahn Jae-wook. In Stars and Love his smiles appealed to countless fans. And he sang love songs in the play, showing his impressive vocals. Another handsome man is Jang-donggun in Project Runway, who interpreted vividly the complexity in the inner heart of the hero, which made the audience unable to help loving him while hating him”. There is much idealism in Korean TV which pays much attention to the lives of ordinary people. This caters to the cultural tastes of Chinese TV audiences and also has provided young people a cultural feeling they long for in entertainment. There are common problems shared by pop culture in Korean TV programs, such as identical mode or plot, but they put emphasis on delicacy of feelings, attitude changes, small collisions in daily life and language humor which is more affecting and sincere than Japanese TV drama series. This is one reason why Korean TV is attractive to Chinese audiences. Not only Korean TV but also South Korea's young pop singers have been very popular in China. HOT, NRG and other organizations had become the most influential in China. Some reports have described HOT as follows: “this is a South Korean five-person-group SMAP, the No. 1 group with a charming stage show, whose momentum has long overtaken other Korean groups currently popular in Taiwan, such as CLON, JUJUCLUB etc. HOT is composed of five persons: Ahn Chil-Hyun, Moon Hee-jun, Li Yuan, Jang Woo-hyuk and An Shenghao. The group name HOT is short for High-FiveofTeenager, referring to the musical victory of the five energetic young people and the new generation. Dancing groups usually have a fixed pattern, in which a member is responsible for singing and the others are responsible for rap or dance or chorus, while a distinctive feature of HOT is that every member is able to dance and sing and the group has become rather professional. HOT, five boys with an average age of less under 20, have released two albums in Korea with a sales volume of more than 2.5 million. Since the group enjoys much popularity, a large number of fans always chase after them and scream for them. In a few days the group

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will introduce HOT’s new visions and stunning stage effects with the most subversive attitude of self, creating the Korean fashion in Taiwan. In HOT’s songs there is plenty of hope, freedom and the wish to use their own abilities to defeat authoritarian adults’ stereotyped behavior, and then to create a new world for young people”. Due to the popularity of Korean stars and the craziness about them among young people in China, these stars have not only entered the advertising industry in China but other top stars such as Ahn Jaewook also even hope to enter into the film industry in China. Chinese film companies are also optimistic about the market appeal of these stars, so that their cooperation has quite promising prospects. The reason why Korean pop idols became so popular in China was not only because of their exaggerated clothing but also because of their healthy young spirit and momentum. Therefore, whenever these artists appeared there were always bursts of screaming and cheering, and even popular pop singers in China had to give way to them. Young Korean singers’ songs were called “energetic songs” by Chinese youth, which expressed their understanding of the Korean singers. Under the influence of Korean popular culture, Ahn Chil-hyun’s hairstyle became popular, Korean clothing and cosmetics became desirable, and Sarah Burr restaurants turned into a new fashion. This was not merely an inevitable consequence of popular culture, since cultural output is born with the demands of economic interests. The South Korean government attached great importance to the “Korean Wave” flowing through China as it wanted through the wave to export more cultural products to China and thereby enhance the exports of the Korean cultural industry. Against this background, the South Korean Ministry of Culture and Tourism published the program of “Korean Wave” cultural industries at the end of 2001. The program said that “Korean Wave” Experience Halls would be established in Beijing, Shanghai and Seoul, so that more Asians could experience the charm and fun of South Korean popular culture. The governmental Korean Cultural Industry Promotion Homes and the non-governmental “Asian Cultural Exchange Association” would also be established to promote the flow of high-quality cultural products into the Chinese market. CD-ROMs, audio, video and games in Korean were to be made, and the South Korean co-production version was to be given preference; good performance companies would be encouraged to make overseas performances. Kim Sue Chung, at that time the dean of Cultural Industries School in ChuGye University for the Arts in Korea, stated in the report The Effect of the Beijing Olympic Games on the Korean Culture Industry: taking China’s accession to the WTO and the holding of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games as an opportunity, China’s cultural products market will expand dramatically. He believed that

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South Korea would take at least 10% of the share of the Chinese cultural market. The “Korean Wave” not only offered the opportunity for Korean products to enter the Chinese market, but also aroused the interest of Korea’s economic sector in China. The “Korean Wave”, like other fashion and popular culture, is not a myth and nor is it the true essence and representative of Korean culture. In fact both its rise and fall were instant. In February or March 2002, when a TV series Meteor Garden adapted from the Japanese text was broadcast in Taiwan, the “Korean Wave” quickly ebbed. HOT’s stars were also rapidly replaced by F4. However, this was not the case with the representative works of Korean classical culture, such as Subway No. 1 . This “rock opera” with 1,200 performances has an enduring popularity in Korea and is also commended by other viewers, especially the intellectuals in China. This opera does not have a plots in the strict sense. It is staged in aSeoul subway line carriage where passengers can only get off the train on the left, and the clue is that a girl named “Fairy” from Yanbian in China goes to South Korea to find her fiancé. It depicts various people in Korean society: small traders, drunks, soldiers, rich women, religieuse... Since everyone’s life is full of bitterness and disappointments, the actors shows them with exaggerated expression, revealing ruthlessly some of the social problems haunting them. In the stage performances, the humorous language style makes all the audience from different education levels feel happy and satisfied. Known as the dean of Korean theater play, Kim Min Ki, in order to be more realistic and pointed, adjusts details of his play every year in accordance with social conditions. Kim Min Ki once visited China when the show was put on Chinese stage and he said that Subway No. 1 not only lets foreigners know more about the original Korea and Korean lives, but also provides a mirror to their own nationals and makes them calmly reflect on the real problem. What stands out in Subway No. 1 is that it is pioneering and experimental. It has been called a “rock musical”, but it has employed a variety of musical resources and integrated jazz, pop music and other musical style, which makes the audience feel it is novel and special. While Japanese and Korean culture have entered China, Chinese culture also has gone to these neighboring countries. In the 1990’s My Fair Princess and other TV programs were loved by the Korean people. “Little Swallow” became the idol of South Korean youth, and Chinese Miscellaneous sauce noodle gained great popularity in South Korea. In Japan, not only has Chinese food long been established but in recent years, “Chinese costume” is all the rage. Confucianism has had and still has a great impact on East Asia. A common cultural background is the premise of the East Asian cultural exchange and mutual

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recognition. The exchange of popular culture between China, South Korea and Japan can not only enable East Asia’s youth to know more about the status of popular culture in neighboring countries, but also give them a common interest and spirit, from which they can experience joy and excitement. We bless it. Nevertheless, it is obviously worth addressing today how to guide the taste and cultural concerns of young people, how to make them care for some of the more important things without losing happiness.

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I

Appendix

The “Betrayal”, “Runaway” and “Death” of Intellectuals

The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

Abstract Keywords: Chinese Contemporary Literature; Novels; Intellectuals Since the beginning of the 21st century, the images of intellectuals in novels have changed dramatically. In particular the humanities intellectuals are no longer superior torchbearers or wise saviors of the world. In novels whose protagonists are intellectuals, the most common outcomes are emotion betrayal, running away in anger, death of body and soul and etc. It is certainly not a historical process, nor an inevitable path of intellectuals, but why at the beginning of the new century have most of these intellectuals become tragic protagonists? Why are these images out of step with society and why are intellectuals exiled or abandoned or “killed” by the times and society? This paper analyzes different images of intellectuals from different perspectives and then offers literary reasons for the outcome. In Chinese contemporary literature, the norms and models of the intellectuals’ image that Song of Youth built had a profound influence until the early 1980s. When they were triumphant, the belief in “dying a thousand times without regret” of “right-wing intellectuals” that we saw in the “reflection literature” was in fact a reflection of the identity reconstruction and ideological regeneration of Lin Daojing. They experienced suffering, which could not change but instead strengthened their ideological belief. This “intellectual writing” problem has been partly cleared up in contemporary literature works. Interestingly, since the early 1990s, “betrayal” and the “running away” phenomenon surfaced in quick succession and spectacularly view after Deserted City was published and Zhuang Zhidie ran away. The intellectuals in novels have become the new “remnants” or “superfluous people”. We can see this from a large number of works such as Yan Zhen’s Waves , Zhang Wei’s Hollyhock , Zhang Kangkang’s Tossing Woman , Mo Huaiqi’s Classical Relationship , Zhang Zhe’s Disciples , Wang Jiada’s The So-Called Writer and Dong Libo’s Mi Xiang . In an era in which literary ideas have differentiated, why did these writers coincidently choose “betrayal” or running away to exile? Why did intellectuals set foot on the lost journey of life? These are new problems which are obviously worthy of interpretation and analysis.

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The “Betrayal” of Intellectuals In novels, the intellectuals’ mentality of contradiction, hesitation or loss of mind when they were faced with reality, especially in the face of revolution, is expressed in the most adequate, focused and true manner in Lu Ling’s Children of the Moneybags . But these are not “betrayals” in reality or in the mind. The typical betrayal image of intellectuals was Fu Zhigao in the red classic Red Rock . His sentiments on the petit-bourgeois intellectuals, taste and final apostasy have been logically extended under the control of the political idea. Literary narratives in the 1980s brought changesd the intellectuals’ uncleanness and wavering: their bodies suffered but their political beliefs were always firm. The authenticity of this was later challenged with no explainable response, so literary values in the 1980s were greatly devalued. In the 21st century, the images of intellectuals have been re-written. Treachery and even “betrayal” make the images of the group or class become shocking and the complexity of their souls and the richness of literature are complementally expressed. Dong Libo became famous after the publication of Bai Dou , which made him involuntarily one of the hottest or most popular writers. Not long ago Dong Libo published his new work Mi Xiang, in which it is easy to detect a blood relationships with Bai Dou in subject and background, in people and stories —— they are bred in a distant land and they are both related to human nature, desire, power, violence, and that special history of the era. If you look only at the simple, beautiful and forgiving after being deceived Mi Xiang as narrated in the novel, there is nothing new compared with Bai Dou apart from different times and environments. The extraordinariness of Mi Xiang is that there is another woman named Song Lan in the story. The comparison of the two women’s fates and their contrasting characters makes Mi Xiang full of strands of unexpected light even when using a plain narrative way. Song Lan was a “borderland” young person from Shanghai, while Mi Xiang had fled to escape the floods at home; Song Lan was literate. She could read How the Steel Was Tempered , while Mi Xiang was almost illiterate. But fate never arranges itself in accordance with their social status. After she was raped by Xie, a shepherd, Song Lan married a vulgar local. Xie reshaped his wife in the local way, mainly through violence. At that time, Song Lan’s submissive character changed in a revolutionary way. Finding life unbearable and even wishing to die, Song Lan beheaded Xie’s pet, a yellow dog, and in the same violent way she changed or “subverted” Xie’s violence. After that, Xie and Song Lan began to love each other and live in peace and have a good life. After the policy was

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issued that educated Shanghai youth could return to Shanghai, Song Lan still did not feel its lure and continued living with Xie in this land which she did not love at first but later could not leave. Mi Xiang’s fate was completely different. In the writer's design her fate was tortuous and complicated since she was the protagonist of the novel. Although she was of humble origin and almost “illiterate”, she aimed high and loved intellectuals with a nice appearance and a romantic nature. Her tragic fate was doomed by her humble origin and contrasting character. Mi Xiang, regardless of her humble origin, had the right to choose her personal life and love. However, because she determined to give her love to Xu Ming, a man with an intellectual temperament, and even consented to engage in sexual intercourse with him despite all the criticisms of secular society, she was deceived. Xu Ming chose fame rather than Mi Xiang’s love when facing the choice and at last abandoned her, which was a devastating blow for Mi Xiang and completely changed her. She indulged her body in an attempt to retaliate or resist her injustices and suffering. Although her indulgence made her “the happiest woman in the distant land”, she could never find what she wanted. Therefore, Mi Xiang was the real tragedy in that distant land. In addition to the morals of the times, the direct reason for Mi Xiang’s tragedy was a supporting role in the novel – the “intellectual” Xu Ming. Just as an old saying goes, “Character is destiny”, in the novel Mi Xiang should have been Song Lan, and Mi Xiang’s character, romantic nature and tastes should also have belonged to Song Lan. But their characters were accidentally replaced by the writer so that the two both had to a destiny which should have not belonged to them. Contingency and absolutization are the most remarkable features in Mi Xiang. No contingency, no reversed fates of two women; no absolutization, no thrill in Mi Xiang and Song Lan’s life. They changed themselves in an absolute way. Mi Xiang’s love for intellectuals was played out through Xu Ming. Cowardice and humbleness are a common image of the intellectual and “first in chaos and finally discarding”, a narrative prototype, is a basic structure of fiction. But the intellectuals’ betrayal became a decisive factor in Mi Xiang’s tragedy. If Xu Ming had not betrayed her, Mi Xiang would not have profaned her life and body. The reason for Xu Ming’s betrayal was simple. When he was just a distressed “intellectual”, Mi Xiang offered her love to him when he most needed it, which created an immortal Xu Ming. But then, faced with the allure of “fame”, Xu Ming chose “fame” and gave up Mi Xiang’s love. This story might be another stereotype, but in 21st century Dong Libo still used the prototype, which from one aspect expressed his suspicion or mistrust of this group. Xu Ming’s story is not only a history of intellectuals but their story which continues today.

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If we say Xu Ming in Mi Xiang was a betrayer of love, then Chi Dawei in Yan Zhen’s Waves was a moral and spiritual betrayer. It is true that the richness and complexity of Waves can be interpreted from many angles, such as the relationship between intellectuals and traditional culture, the dominant influence of the privileged group on social life, spiritual life and the psychological structure, the relationship between desire and human values in the commercial society etc. These are sufficient to testify to the creativity and literary value of Waves . But in my view, what is the most worth discussing or attaching importance to is the attention to intellectuals’ mentality and choice in the market economic conditions, the intellectuals’ outburst after their underlying desire is activated by external compression, the insight into coercive acceptance in the social dialogue, and the crisis of politics and dignity admitted by the current society. The structure of the novel with the hero Chi Dawei, who moves from being a traditional lofty intellectual to a modern member of the bureaucracy, may not share the same model with Julien in “Red and Black”. There is no substantial difference in the psychological structure between Julien’s longing for the upper class and Chi Dawei’s longing for authority. The only difference is that Chi Dawei’s plan was not as deliberate as Julien’s. Although Chi Dawei was of humble origin, his simplicity and aloneness were his “traditional spiritual garden” that he hoped to maintain. This thinking was not only incompatible with modern society but also incompatible with intellectuals’ enthusiasm for participation in the modern society. The question of whether it is proper to try to maintain the quiet inner mind of Chinese scholar-bureaucrats should be further discussed because it is still a dependency on the old culture. If this is a personal choice and should be respected by society, the difficulties Chi Dawei confronted came not from himself but from his dialogues with “others”. Modern cultural studies show that each person’s self and lifestyle are determined not by an individual’s desire or by themselves but by “dialogues” with others. In these “dialogues”, those that have a positive impact on us are known as “meaningful others”, whose love and concern have a profound influence on us and then polish us. Chi Dawei’s father was this kind of “other”. However, seven years after graduation, Chi Dawei was still a worthless clerk. At that time a feeling of serious imbalance and difficulties with his situation arouse in his inner heart. More importantly, he had gone through a long dialogue with his wife Dong Liu, director Ma Chuizhang, retired clerk Yan Zhihe and an invisible interlocutor, his son, Chi Yibo. These different societies and family relationships recreated Chi Dawei. Especially after life confession and coaching by the “modern hermit” Yan Zhihe, his luck was on the turn as he not only

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got promotion three times in short succession but also moved house twice and finally moved into a big one. At this time Chi Dawei was assessed differently by society and his family, which at last made him achieve self-recognition and a “sense of dignity”. These are under the premise of acceptance from the society and family “recognized”, where the “sense of dignity” comes from. Thus the problems which the novel raised were not limited to Chi Dawei’s mentality and changes in attitudes. Its sharpness and seriousness lie in summarizing political life which is widespread in society and which can be perceived but never experienced. That is, “recognized politics”. Charles Taylor once pointed out in his study: that if a group or an individual is not recognized by others or only gets a distorted recognition, it will suffer from injury or distort which then becomes a form of oppression. This can imprison people in a false, distorted, and derogatory situation. Distorted recognition not only causes terrible trauma to the objects but also causes the victim to bear deadly selfhatred. Refusal of “recognition” exists in any society to varying degrees, but it had become common in Chi Dawei’s environment. At first Chi Dawei had been rejected, and then he designed a poor and lowly image and internalized it. The image was further confirmed in his intimate relationship with his wife Dong Liu and in his relationships with Ding Xiaohuai, a shallow and ignorant man, and Director Ma, an arbitrary and despotic man, and even in his relationship with the next generation. No recognition, no more dignity at all. Chi Dawei’s “awakening” happened because of loss of dignity. There seemingly exists the same dignity in modern life and also the possibility to enjoy social equality. As Taylor cited as an example, everyone can be called Mr. and Miss. or master and mistress. But the false equality will never go deeper into the internal life and will never become the dominant civilization in everyday life. In particular, in our social life, that dignity comes from social status or social role is a deeprooted concept needing no declaration or unwritten provision. The birth of modern civilization means the decay of the society with a strict social hierarchy. What modern civilization pursues is an ideal called “self being” by Herder. That is, each of us has a unique way of being as a human being and everyone has his or her own principles. Unified “norms” have died. The voice from one’s own heart expects us to live in this way rather than to imitate someone else’s life This way of life means the realization of one’s true potentiality, and also the realization of personal dignity. However, in Chi Dawei’s environment, his “self being” was just a beautiful dream. If he had wanted to keep his own style and the way of life of the “Chinese scholarbureaucrats”, several years later he would have been another “Yan Zhihe”, which not only his wife would not agree with but was also a path he himself

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ultimately would not choose. If he had chosen this path, he could not have changed his poor and lowly image and then he could not have obtained dignity and been separated from the “untouchable” class. Then, "recognized politics" pervaded everyday life. It was produced by the privileged class, but was also desired by civilians. In Chi Dawei’s life, Dong Liu and Ma Chuizhang were typical of the two classes, and Chi Dawei became the object of the next generation’s admiration or the representative of some kind of “norms”. After reading through the novel, I was filled with panic. In today’s social life, how will a person be “recognized” and how can we ease the crisis of a person’s dignity? Therefore, intellectuals today should adhere to the spirit of independence, which is a process of spiritual transformation. This process will not be completed until intellectuals first betray their own soul and then overlook the temptation of reality.

The “Runaway” of Intellectuals In the novels of the 20th century, the running away of intellectuals is a classic scene. They are unable to tolerate patriarchism or the darkness of social reality but can do nothing, so that aimless “running away” became the fate of many intellectuals. This was a usual means with which writers dealt with intellectuals. Indeed, no one knew where intellectuals should go. Lin Daojing was probably an exception since she had found a “destination” after running away. She thus became the first hero in China’s “quasi-growing-up novels”. At the beginning of a new century, Chinese intellectuals began a new “hike.” In many novels, “running away” was an outcome in common shared when the protagonists are intellectuals. The difference was that “running away” was not due to social persecution or the persecution by others, but often a self-imposed exile, a migration after the disillusionment with a grand vision or for a utopian dream. That the intellectuals in that era were powerless or obsolete was proved again. Mo Huaiqi’s Classic Relationship is a novel about the lives of ordinary people which is mainly targeted at a group called the “intellectual class” – its main characters all have higher education backgrounds. In novels nowadays there are two themes which are the most eye-catching: one is the young, known as the “1970s”; one is “successful people”, who possess high position and authority. The way of life and ideology expressed in the two themes are shocking. In the description of the literature, we thought that changes in social life were limited to these particular groups or classes. However, after reading

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Classical Relationship we can recognize how many unexpected changes have occurred in the times in which we live. In other words, these unnoticed changes of social groups in daily life are the real changes. In the past public opinion or ideology, the “intellectual class” and the garden they dwell in have been veiled in mystery. In different narrations they still work as the last bastion of the spirit and of morals. They still cherished different life beliefs or moral requirements from those of the common people, and they still lived in a vision made in their minds. But in fact, in the mid-1980s, intellectuals’ internal change had started. The difference is that the changes and infirmness of intellectuals at that time were scrupulous as they left the campus or the study room with mixed feelings. After entering into the 1990s, there was a major discussion about intellectuals doing business, which some insightful people had strongly supported. We can see from now that the discussion itself is a reflection of the problems of intellectuals: the armchair and then the pontificating class are used to manipulate words rather than in practice. But brave young people did not scruple to achieve self-liberation, and they followed their heart to choose their favorite profession and also new values. If we say that it was a different value system that made Chinese scholar-bureaucrats cling tightly to the aspiration of being officials before 1905, the year when Imperial Civil Examination System was abolished, there is no essential difference from today’s intellectuals clinging tightly to books. When society provides the conditions for an identity revolution, this group was always hesitant at first and became a back-seat driver. The characters in Classical Relationship are not armchair and then pontificating ones. No matter whether their choices were active or passive, they all conformed to the trend of times and through their choices a new “classic relationship” had been built. Classical relationships were the most common daily relationships, which are the relationship between husband and wife, father and son, father-in-law and son-in-law, teachers and students, lovers, and other blood and non-blood relations. However, when the position in the structure of social life changed, these relationships would be no longer traditional, which implied new content, interests or crises. In the “classic relationship” built by the author, the father-in-law Dongfang Yunhai, a geological engineer, was in a core position which was in fact artificial. Within the fragile family relationship his core position was just a symbol whereas in real life his position was quite marginal, and he even had difficulty participating in family relationships. Although his children abided by the traditional filial piety, he could not control their lives with his authority. He committed suicide because he felt he was too obsolete for society, just as in the

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case of Wang Guowei. It seems that Mao Caogen, Nan Yueyi, Dong Fanghong, Motuo and even Mao Tou were in the central position, but this was not true. In the story, everyone is self-centered, even the ten-year old boy who shoots at his father just for an “aunt” and leaves only “one and a half” eyes in his handsome father ’s face. The “classical relationship” among self-centered people, once revealed, surprised us and and made us shudder with its drama and cruelty. At this point we need to talk about “modernity”, which seemingly has become a cliché because we have no other way of explaining it. Modernity is the complex historical context which is never under our control. The history that we are making is actually also making us. No one would have thought that the self-righteous Mao Caogen would have gone into business under the “coercion” of his student and lover. No one would have thought that Dong Fanghong would have calculated that his elder sister and Mao Caogen’s desire would have no rest until finally he was framed by his own son. The “classical relationship” is both very complex but also simple. Its complexity lied in the fact that the figures must be involved in many relationships without which there are no interests, and then desire cannot be fulfilled. Its simplicity lied in that everyone was self-centered and no one could really decide their own destiny within this dangerous relationship although they still had traces of conscience and they were as warm and vibrant as before. Mao Caogen made the rehearsal of Chant on the River an excuse to escape from the network of “classical relationships”. It seemed that he was fond of art, which was also a kind of running away. Since a mercenary economy was not his arena, he would have to leave to go back to where he should be. Zhang Kangkang’s Tossing Woman is a unique novel. The heroine called Zhuo’er is a young woman and a “campaign” pioneer of the era.She is also an adventurer. We do not know why she tossed herself. It was difficult to explain in from a secular point of view. She had a good educational background, a decent job and the same decent income. She could have dealt with life and found someone to love in peace, but she just felt this boring and worthless. We will never know what Zhou’er wanted, we only know that she wanted to be different and to continue to construct her goalless life journey in her imagination. Tossing is a desire everyone cherishes but not all people dare to toss like Zhou’er or have the capability. The relatively free environment and the establishment of commercial hegemony have triggered or expanded an invisible restlessness referring to nothing. There has been no an era like today in which everyone desires to do something but does not know what to do. Zhou’er is an exaggerated reflection of every one of us. This is an inevitable consequence of

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secularization, which has been described in detail by the novels in the 1990s especially in the intellectual class. Zhou’er is just an epitome. Therefore, Zhou’er’s desire is not about sex, regardless of men or women, imagination or practice. In this sense, this is not a feminist work. Zhou’er’s instability was due to a desire to escape to freedom because she could not tolerate any restraint from the secular world and she wanted to do what she liked. Zhou’er in a sense had realized her own expectations. She quit from Woman Weekly and began her “tossing” journey. But any freedoms are limited and absolute freedom does not exist. We find that Zhou’er’s every tossing cannot be without surrounding relations, especially those with three men. In Zhou’er’s point of view, we can see that the three men, Old Joe, Lu Hui and Zheng Dalei are in fact different symbols, which symbolize sex, civilization and money. If this analysis is right, Zhou’er’s tossing was always linked with her desire. That is, if we say Zhou’er’s wanted to be free, we could rather say that she wanted everything. In deed she had experienced the joy of freedom: she was free to go anywhere; she could have sex with strangers; she could have men who loved her at her disposal; she could use her imagination to show her talent... but finally she got nothing. Only Zhou’er herself knew the price of freedom. She once worried about funds for the South Pole and she once cried alone deep in the night because of loneliness. At the end of the novel Zhou’er had no choice but running away, and what she finished with was only a goalless “Tossing Woman” campaign. Zhuo’er ’s running away for the second time is profound and meaningful. Since the 20th century began there have been many Zhou’ers in every transitional time in China who wanted to be independent and who were against the secular society. But they were not tolerated by society, or society has never been prepared for any such individual. The ideology of a society is a passport into that society. In other words, the degree of a person’s recognition of the ideology determines the degree to which that person is accepted into society. The constant failures of the Zhuo’ers in the 20th century proved that they have not got their “passport” yet. In a hierarchical society labeled with roles, Zhou’er abandoned her social role and family role and selected not to marry and not to give birth. This is an undeclared renunciation. She was not accepted by society because she was some kind of latent disturbance, which is the success of Zhuo’er as a fiction character. Her desire is one shared by all of us, but she had the courage to act more boldly and more directly than each of us. Thus Zhuo’ers’ “absoluteness” makes her precisely a “typical” figure. When we say goodbye to her, we will miss her.

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The “Death” of Intellectuals Death or betrayal of the intellectuals in the West has already happened. The verdict was full of disappointment and even despair, which was associated with the understanding of intellectuals’ social functions. The French thinker Julien Benda believed that the intellectual class should be one which engages in art, academic issues, the metaphysical, and pursue pleasure of a special perfectness. Their activities are never practical. Benda’s understanding is mostly the same as Kant and Gramsci. Yet Benda was criticized when he attempted to give as a duty an eternal value and meditation to intellectuals. In fact, the charge of intellectuals’ betrayal or death is mostly due to the understanding of intellectuals’ function. “Death” in novels of the early 21st century did not come from theoretical analysis but was a meaningful metaphor. Young novelist Zhang Zhe’s Disciples can be viewed as a new The Scholars or a new Fortress Besieged . The Scholars is harsh, but reveals the problems of intellectuals’ inner heart. In the imperial era it was generally acknowledged by intellectuals that being an official was a realization of their life value, and that whether the expectation would come true or not should be their greatest anxiety. After the termination of the Imperial Examination System in 1905, modern intellectuals gradually appeared whose most obvious sign was the identity revolution. They could be an official, but it was not their only choice. They could be a teacher, a journalist, a freelance writer and so on. Therefore, the identity revolution was a great mental relief for intellectuals, which did not mean that intellectuals had no problems. Fortress Besieged told us a story of modern intellectuals. The Scholars and Fortress Besieged both sharply satirized intellectuals and uncovered the other side of their inner world. This has become China’s non-mainstream tradition of modern fiction. Mainstream concerns the relationship between intellectuals and revolution. In the 1950s, the problem of intellectuals was ideological remolding; in the 1980s the “returning” generation’s problem has been described as finding a way to maintain a political “chastity”. After the mainstream tradition started leading the trend in intellectual writing, the non-mainstream traditions were almost cut out until Li Xiao’s Continuing Practicing , from which we can vaguely discern the humble desire of intellectuals and an interesting landscape. Intellectuals’ anxiety on campus had not been alleviated by the 1990s. In a very humorous way, as with Fortress Besieged and The Scholars, Disciples revealed some current problems in intellectuals’ inner heart, of which the main problem was indulgence and the release of desire after its suppression. There

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is no essential difference between intellectuals’ desire and society’s desire. The novel is a work of fiction and imagination, but it is rightl that this non-realistic form revealed from some aspects the real problems of intellectuals. Disciples tells us a story of the mentor Shao Jingwen and his disciples, which is a typical story in the modern secular movement. It is a very interesting novel, which highbrows and lowbrows alike can enjoy. At present serious literature and popular literature have their different but clear-cut stands. Disciples forms a special bridge. In other words, the novel can be both exciting and full of profound ideological content, from which different readers can deduce different things. If it is to be analyzed, the novel offers a variety of complex: symbols: Professor, PhD, Master, boss, prostitute, poor peasants, evil village officer, as well as one-night stand, love at first makebelieve but true in the end, murder etc. Modernity means complexity and contradictions. The campus should maintain a certain distance from society, which is a precondition that university should adhere to for independence. Nevertheless, nowadays everything that is in society is also in universities and some of them are even more fully expressed there. Despite the humor in Disciples, its sharpness is still clear. It has pitilessly torn off the veil of gentleness, showing us hypocrisy and artifice in a once mystical, sacred and pure land. Shao Jingwen, called “boss” by his students, a PhD supervisor, was satisfied and high-spirited since he was in his right time. As a professor in the new era he had everything that the elites and secular society looked forward to. He was open-minded and had a harmonious relationship with students, and his academic status and control of institute politics made him like a duck in water. But he went so far that he was stabbed by his lover one hundred and eight times, and his body was just like a sieve with a pearl in each knife cut. Professor Shao’s death was entirely due to the expansion of his personal desires. When he no longer performed the functions of an intellectual and fully became a businessman, his death became the death of intellectuals. The writer Hu Ran’s death in The So-Called Writer written by Wang Jiada is different from Professor Shao’s. In commercial society, the writers’ aura is gradually fading. This phenomenon is not only due to profound changes in social values, but also to some “mysteries” that writers have given up. However, the writer will no longer be a writer as we originally imagine them after these changes and the loss of writers’ “mystery”. The So-Called Writer is a special novel set against this background. It is an interesting novel since Hu Ran’s tragicomedy not only vividly describes the dilemma of the writers in this era, which shaped writers’ different characters, but also plays a bleak and sorrowful tune for this group as its final elegy. The short-lived careers of Hu Ran, Ye

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Feng etc., and their keeping company with prostitutes, or their satisfaction and frustration with “literary power”, even their inner world behind the “elegant” veil... all of these completely destroyed the last boundary between real life and the spiritual world of writers. The event involving an ancient city in one article and the final fate of the writers seems the epitome of the intellectual group in that era. The social environment and personal psychology of Hu Ran’s death were profoundly constructed. His main efforts was expended in dealing with Yu Tianzhen, Zhang Guiying, Yang Xiaoxia and Shen Ping and the relationship between these four women, and what made people returned to a deserted city were “four famous Dan actors” in the art field and the cultural and living environment which permeated every corner of the ancient city. There was a conceptualization problem in the novel as the portrayal of the unscrupulous, skittish women, sex and faithlessness, showed only a superficial understanding of women and so was not profound enough to depict characters. The rural woman Tianzhen’s faithlessness and their reuniting is a fable about intellectuals and people and land – in a sense, the writer was still constrained by the radical thinking of the 20th century. However, it was profound enough in the description and criticism of traditional intellectuals, and the negative attitudes towards their tastes, feelings and opinion of women. If the death of Shao Jingwen is a death from desire dominated by current tendencies, the death of Hu Ran is a consequence of being abandoned by the times. The times are not ready for everything the Hu Rans have ever longed for. For them, the bankruptcy of spirit and survival is fated as they are remnants of the old culture. Thus the death of Hu Ran is a way for a writer to exile or abandon the remnants of the old culture. The images of intellectuals of the new century in the novel – “betrayal” – “running away” – “death”, is likely a coincidence, or a “structure”. But to some extend this has unconsciously expressed some problems about “identity”, destination and the drifting of the spirit which are still not resolved. Developments have made intellectuals lose their feeling of superiority. That they are not acclimatized and not strong in their inner heart has meant that they are exiled or abandoned or “killed” by the times and by society. If this is so, there still is a long way to go to integrate intellectuals into society and enable them to realize self-identity. (First published in Literature and Art Study, 2005(2))

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II

Appendix

The Specter of Totality and the Tradition of Being “Revived”

The Chinese Culture at the Turn of the 21st Century

Abstract Keywords: t otality; tradition; secret culture; scholars’ interests; ultra-stabilized culture In different historical stages, the “inheritance” or “promotion” of a tradition is the almost immutable and always “politically correct” slogan. Therefore, it has the quality of “meta-discourse” for contemporary Chinese culture and literature. But how to succeed tradition or what is our culture and literary traditions are always a perplexing and controversial problem. Tradition has a lingering potential appeal. Only by associating with tradition can we confirm our cultural identity, which is nationality. In the past theoretical representation, only the national can be popular and be the Chinese work style and Chinese manner; in the context of globalization, only can the national become the international and only can the national guarantee state cultural security against take-over or assimilation by the strong culture. It should be said that the ideology constructed by the utilitarian appeal of these two understandings has its historical reasons based in different historical stages. But traditional culture is far beyond the formulation of utilitarian ideology. In the process of pursuing modernity, general traditional culture can hardly be illustrated because of the radical evolvement of a society seeking things new and special. But tradition still exists like a ghost in the deliberate or casual expression of mysterious things, “marginal culture”, scholars’ interests, and local customs and ethics in literary works, and its revival is quietly starting. Traditional culture is a hugely complex subject in contemporary Chinese culture and literature studies, and the almost immutable and always “politically correct” slogan is the “inheritance” and “promotion” of tradition in different historical stages. Therefore, it has the quality of “meta-discourse” in contemporary Chinese culture and literature. How to succeed tradition, or what our cultural and literary tradition is, is always a perplexing and controversial topic. Without doubt, it is necessary to respect or inherit traditions. But in dealing with the issue of tradition, there is a lingering potential problem: Only by associating with tradition can we confirm our cultural identity, and that

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is nationality. In the past theoretical representations only nationality can be popular and be the Chinese work style and Chinese manner; in the context of globalization, only can the national become the international and only then can nationality guarantee the cultural security of the state against assimilation by a strong culture. It should be said that the ideology constructed by the utilitarian appeal of these two understandings has its historical reasons in different historical stages. But traditional culture is far beyond the formulation of a utilitarian ideology. In the process of pursuing modernity, the general traditional culture can hardly be seen owing to the radical evolvement of society seeking things new and special. The life we lead today, amid a forest consisting of steel and cement and a new fashion united with international fashion, and especially with the new media centered on television and the Internet, has thoroughly changed the way in which we perceive and experience the world. Tradition is fading daily amid the billowing real world. On the other hand, tradition is the mother of our culture. No matter how much society changes, tradition still has ghostly control of our mode of thinking and ways of acting. Even as we become more and more acquainted with Western theories or creation methods in literary activities, the cultural tradition still survives. In recent literary activities the “revival” of cultural tradition is becoming a remarkable phenomenon, This is folk culture, the scholars’ interest and rural customs and ethics which have appeared in recent novels.

Mysterious Things and Folk Cultures I proposed the idea of “marginal culture and ultra-stabilized culture” through observing and analyzing the creation of the new century novels. This view derives from the cultural resources in numerous novels, which used to be ignored, criticized and even abandoned, but which are now noticed again and with new understanding. The occurrence of this phenomenon is on the one hand related to the squeeze of strong Western culture, and on the other hand it is related to the authors’ new understanding of their native culture. Squeezed by strong Western culture and the induction of “formal ideology”, our literature is full of anxieties, and with the psychological need to acquire the acknowledgment of the West can only “follow”. This hurts the pride of Chinese literature. Consequently, authors have consciously sought resources from native culture, and this has become the trend. White Paper Door is such a conscious and characteristic work in this trend.

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“Snow in the twelfth moon is crazy and is drifting profusely and disorderly; with a tearing wind blowing, it makes a large stretch of the gulf whiten. Some old boats like old turtles are berthed here and there in the white snowfield. The old man Geda was sitting cross-legged on the edge of the brick-bed with a round cushion made by red algae under his bottom, warming himself by a brazier and smoking his pipe. He glanced at the door-god with turbid eyes, and extended his gaze beyond the window. Seeing that the desolate beach had been covered by snow layer upon layer, his spirits rose immediately. He thought that it was the season to catch seals. He hooked his pipe sent by his apprentice Souzihua on his belt, started to stretch his back, and got off the brick-bed. He took a shining fork off the black wall, and the fork’s color was just the color of the big iron pot. He hummed some tunes of leap year, picked up a lasso, and put on a greasy sheepskin coat and a sealskin hat. Swinging his arms, he rushed clumsily towards the snowfield”.

This is a scene extracted from Guan Renshan’s full-length novel White Paper Door . Compared to daily lives in other regions, there is an obvious difference: It is a winter in Xuelian Gulf on the northern Hebei coast. A fisherman is smoking a pipe by a brazier and is a little bit dispirited and idle. When he sees the snow on the beach lashed by strong wind, he suddenly bucks up and then rushes towards the snowfield clumsily. Impressively, in the opening pages of the work, there are some special keywords with which we are unfamiliar: red algae, door-god, Suozihua, big iron pot, tunes for a leap year and so on. In in the opening passage of White Paper Door — The Snow Eagle’s Back , these kinds of keywords appear 49 times, and they are the headlings of 49 chapters in White Paper Door . It is a noticeable that no annotation or explanation of these keywords are given by the writer throughout the novel. Is this an intentional omission or an unconscious mystification? This is novel which reflects the recent rural daily life. But these daily lives are just the literaturlised presentation of the writer ’s existing experiences, such as the situation of rural reform today, in what direction the changing countryside continues to develop etc. But we can see that these daily lives are more like a “pretext” in the novel, more like an unreal thing expressed by these “daily lives”. This is also a novel that depicts human nature, however, this kind of human nature is not the good or evil which we usually see during the communication process between the people and is not an incident, but exceeds the human mind and actions expressed in the dramatic scenes. All human nature seem to have been brought under the control of a “discipline”,

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and a supernatural force makes humanity have fear or awe so that unrestrained actions barely exist in the Xuelian Gulf. The novel seemingly begins with the livelihoods and characters of three generations of the Wangs: Qinainai, the old man Geda and the greatgranddaughter Mailanzi, but it is not just a family novel. This family has a close relationship with the customs and habits of the Xuelian Gulf, and it can even be said that the history of the Mais is also the history of the Gulf. The customs of the Mais has influenced or modeled the culture or life style of Xuelian Gulf. The novel’s scenes are set in the Gulf, but its beginning of time is an unverified long history. And this history still connects with the Mais: “In ancient times, there was a tsunami in Xuelian Gulf and it became a world of waters. Qinainai’s ancestors had the paper cutting handicraft, and they usually pasted paper-cut Zhong Kui on the door. Every house were flooded expect the Qinainai ancestors’ house, so the white paper doors were popular. Every family brought white paper and asked Qinainai’s ancestors to cut the Zhong Kui image for them. Discerning people saw that every family had a white paper door in Xuelian Gulf.” There were other things related to the door culture: if a man died the left-hand white paper door should be buried with the dead; in the case of a woman it should be the right-hand white paper door; and if new families moved into the house, they should replace the door and paste up a white paper Zhong Kui image scissored by Qinain’ai. This custom was passed down generation to generation in Xuelian Gulf, and it may be the only “entry” that has an annotation by the writer in the novel. The other “entries” that have no explanations are all hiding in the life dictionary of the Gulf. Perhaps in the writer’s eyes, the secret of folk life can be understood, but not explained, and the intentional “omission” is exactly what constitutes the excellence of the novel. The old man Geda and Grandma Qi are the main characters in White Paper Door , and they are also the defenders and symbols of the “old culture” in the Gulf. The old man Geda not only strictly abides by the doctrine of fairness in social life but also thinks that fairness itself defends dignity. When fighting with animals, he treats them in a fair way as well. He never uses a modern gun to hunt seals, but a “fork”. The first reason for this is that he should obey the ancestral rules; the second is that he would never do anything stupid that may cause their home to cease to exist. However, when faced with “modernity”, the old man Geda can not only stop young people from using guns but also control himself. After becoming a village official, he has a Janus-faced hesitation and perplexity on his aged face which has been changed by the folk old cultures. When tradition encounters “modernity”, the tradition’s helplessness is due to

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fearlessness of “modernity”. Although dares to dun for the village, the money received is used to buy a car for the village secretary. Even if the secretary “Xiaoluezi” is brought to justice, how many people will Grandma Qi’s “rules” restrain and for how long a time? Because of pollution from factories, a great mass of red algae disappears from the Gulf. Grandma Qi erects her white paper door, but could she keep the red algae? Therefore, White Paper Door expresses the conflict between traditional culture and modern culture, and shows the perplexity and worry resulting from the uncontrolled development of modernity. Of course, it also criticizes the consequences of our exclusion, discarding and ruin of traditional cultures within a century. Thus the deepest impression White Paper Door makes on us comes from its presentation and depiction of folk cultures or folk customs and habits. It is like “mottos” and “incantations”, which cannot change reality but can predict reality. We can say it is “superstitious” and irrational, but it is the folk belief in the Xuelian Gulf. Folk belief is a kind of sense formed by belief in the supernatural and attitudes and actions formed under the governance of this sense. This kind of supernaturalism includes both personified forces (such as gods) and impersonal forces (such as magic arts). Generally speaking, because folk belief lacks a united pantheon, fixed organization and unified religious doctrine, it has a significant difference with systematized religion in form and it thus is usually referred to as “superstition” to emphasize its oppositeness to science — and especially its difference with “religion” in the narrow sense (advanced religion). But folk belief is essentially in accord with the other advanced religions. Both from objective experience and from the scientific angle, they all belong to the non-rational category. In anthropology and folklore, folk belief is described as “diffused religion” when compared with systematized religion. Some scholars define Chinese folk belief as “folk religion” and regard it as a religion that belongs to the Chinese people.1 The specialists in cultural anthropology or folk culture correctly point out the function and value of “folk belief”. The return of White Paper Door to folk culture once again expresses reverence for and attention to secret things, and has an important significance. Guan Renshan is a famous representative writer of the “realism shock wave”, and his works such as Unscented Snow, The Return of the Native in September, High as Heaven and Deep as Earth have all acquired a very high reputation among the mainstream critics. Compared to his previous works, White Paper Door represents a dramatic change. When referring to this work, he has said that, “If a writer has no definite folk standpoint, he also has no clear scale by which to judge life and he finds it difficult to establish his values. After years of thinking, I find it is very important for a realistic writer to form a folk standpoint. If he can establish his folk standpoint, he will form his own

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independent spirit. In the creation of The White Paper Door, I consciously took a step towards a folk standpoint. Although it is a little bit hard and may cause some loss of my interest, it is still worthwhile”.2 From his soliloquy, we can feel that this change was difficult or even hesitant. But after all he has achieved the “breakthrough” and exceeded himself. The only thing I am dissatisfied with is that in the novel, reality and tradition have not established an unobstructed internal relationship and have not attained an invisible unification or fusion. There is still a chasm between them. Therefore, the traditional customs and habits are just like a temple fair which is not natural. Is this situation related to the writer’s shortage of direct experience or to the gradual disappearance of tradition? I have no answer, but I always feel that the book is not well welded in such places. But in an age of lack of reverence and scruples, Guan Renshan has again revived these old things which have been sealed up for a long time, has showed us the pent-up folk culture in the stable culture structure of Chinese villages, and has given us have a new light on and perception of the “secret things”. This alone suggests that he has done great deeds. Yang Liguang’s The Old House in Yuanqing Avenue is almost like a family novel. But it is not. It is a history novel that puts an end to the two dweller groups that live in the old house and reflects the ever-changing age and history: The family history stops in the old house, and the residents’ life in the premodern or undeveloped era comes to end with the burning of the house. It is a story that can bring despair as well as joy. Quiet on the surface but the dismal and dangerous on the inside, the family history is an eternal one; the bustling and messy lives led by different families mixed together will be a history too. The ending of the two eras symbolizes the dramatic changes in China’s social history and is a characterization of that history. However, when the old house is burnt to ashes, “almost all the people who lived in the old house came back and stood around the ruins silently”. It should be a ceremony of celebration for the coming of a new age, but the scene is full of sorrow as if the people are attending a funeral, and it becomes a farewell ceremony. The old house’s disappearance means the disappearance of history. The writer ’s mood is complicated when describing the extinction of this part of history. On the one hand, the old house contains a lot of secrets known to very few people, such as all kinds of tales similar to mythical stories: “a fox spirit”, a vocal cinerary casket, a huge snake swallowing chickens, a turtle that creeps out of the sewer and so on. Some are factitious tricks, and some are secret folk culture. Meanwhile there is a beautiful and moving love story between Qi Sheding and Mei Xiang in the old house; there is Xie Caifang who is considered

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a “fox spirit” for several decades and who wants to find the Qis’ movable property, Zhang Heshun who is satisfied with gaining petty advantages, Cheng Jitai who used to be the son of rich family, Qian Qifu who sells cultural relics, Du Yuanyuan who resells refugee clothes, alcoholic Laosan, widow He Huifang, new youth Cheng Hu and so on. There are great differences among these people’s family background, education, life and fortune. When they were living in the old house, old house was a gathering place of memorable love and busy life but it was also a seminary of tragedy and misfortune. But this is all the life that they have. The old house’s tenants may not realize its implication at the time, but once it is gone they seem to lose their connection with history. That is the reason why these tenants did not or could not cheer and be happy congratulate when the old house was burnt to ashes and a new life would begin. This also caused the writer to feel confused, depressed and in a dilemma where there is the desire to speak but also rest, a start to speaking but also hesitation. This novel assembles different people in the old house but does not become a traditional family story; it does not make the old house into a single warren, but mingles the two together. It presents two kinds of entirely different lives. The patriarchal clan system of the Qi’s old house is strict and impartial, but it kills the love between Qi Sheding and Mei Xiang, and here the old house should go away; in the era of the warren, the rough conditions mean no privacy among neighbors and cause countless contradictions, and here the old house should also go away. However, history never could and will never supply a perfect life for these residents. The beautiful and sad love and the love-hate neighbor relationships are fading away with time. Therefore, it is hard to say whether these people and the narrator are living in the past or living in an imaginable real present and future. That is the dilemma of modernity. The most glorious section in the novel is the depiction of the love between Qi Sheding and Mei Xiang and the mysterious stories. This kind of love only appeared in Ba Ji’s novels or Cao Yu’s dramas. The unforgettable emotion and separation between the hero and heroine are common tactics in romantic novels. But today, although romanticism is lost, we are still moved by these stories. Although the artificial mysterious culture as an imaginary supernatural force is different from the “diffused religion” of folk belief, it is a literary element and can effectively control the development and change of the novel’s rhythm and plot. At the same time, it is also the important basis for our understanding of common customs. At the end of the novel, Cheng Hu goes to Shenzhen which is likes the youth leaving for the countryside in those years. But they left because they had no choice, while Cheng Hu has a choice. The old house has gone and an era has ended, and it means the same thing to all of the residents. Their

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history has finished, but has not disappeared. So Chen Hu’s leaving does not depart from the stereotypes of the “moving” novel in the May Fourth period. It is part of exploration, self-criticism and inheritance of tradition to write about the traditional folk life. T.S. Eliot pointed out: “historical sense is not only related to the past, but also related to now. The oppression of history forces every writer when writing not only to have the people of his generation in mind but also to feel that the whole of European literature which started with Homer and in which the literature of his nation is included is coexistent and build a coexistent order. This kind of historical sense is both timeless and time, and it is timelessness and time sensed simultaneously which gives an author the character of tradition. It also makes the author realize his precise location in time and his own modernity”.3 In modern China, the traditional folk lives which include living interests cannot be expressed any more and these kinds of lives are now defined as the opposite of modern life. Far from it. When Said discussed Eliot’s viewpoints on connecting the past, present and future, he pointed out his problem of idealism although he admitted the correctness of his central theme. He said: “the way that we elaborate and display the past forms the understanding and viewpoints of the present”.4 The young writer Xu Mingtao’s Cricket is a full-length novel which writes intensively about traditional cultures and lives. And it is surely an exception in the pattern of current full-length novels. It is a strange story, it is an attractive and suspenseful novel, it is a folk secret history about the past and it is a revelation that reflects contemporary customs and secret thoughts. It is outside all kinds of fashion and it is inside our cultural scene that is constantly renewed and yet is eternal and immutable. The story’s time and background are both gentle and obscure, and we can only infer from the uncertain depiction that this is a story which happened in the Chengs’ compound in Laoqiao town and the whorehouse Cuiyuan Garden in the late Qing and early Republic of China period in the region of Chaohu. The walled-in privacy of the compound and the institution of a whorehouse indicate this is a story of the past. Once it is opened, we will instantly smell an old and decayed odor that cannot spread. This both familiar and unfamiliar odor is what we desire but makes us feel discouraged: the shopkeeper Chen Tianwan who has lots of wives and concubines, the young master Chen Jingkun who bears a deep-seated resentment, the concubine A Xiong who is exceedingly fascinating and charming, the concubine Mei Liang who can not change her natural instincts, the foster son Wang Shiyi who seems to be learned and refined but has ulterior motives, the affectionate man Qin Zhong who is always absent but haunted, a steward and two magistrates. They all appear on the stage with a heavy heart.

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There are two different scenes: one is a private manor house, the other is a public whorehouse. But the two disparate scenes imply common humanity and desire. In the two places, semblances of love and hate are performed within countless lies. The master of the Chen’s courtyard Chen Tianwan indulges in cricket fighting throughout his life, and his life and death, joy and sorrow, are all closely bound up with crickets. He loves the cricket more than the concubine, but he must say that he loves his concubine A Xiong; the concubine Mei Liang is involved with the young master, the magistrate and the foster son Wang Shiyi who gets her pregnant; Wang Shiyi who seems to be genteel and his wife Dou’er do not made good bedfellows, and he has coveted his adoptive father’s two concubines for a long time and returns evil for good to Chen Tianwan; the steward keeps up his outward allegiance to his master and has planned for long to steal the assets of the Chens…but all of these are covered by lies. Alhough there are many rumors and much hearsay outside the courtyard wall, the inside lives are fading away within the concealment and lies. Nevertheless, the little cracks finally lead to a terrible disaster. Ownership of the Chen’s courtyard changes to the boy who has a mother and an unknown father. Although his identity is obscure, because of his eye and brow, his walk when lifting a cricketpot and his obsession with crickets, the other people believe that he is the son of Chen Tianwan. The neighbors feel relieved and the courtyard is tranquil, but the boy named Sizhao definitely is becoming another Chen Tianwan no matter who his father was. He will certainly inherit the Chen’s courtyard — it is the most fusty but charming style in Chinese traditional lives. This kind of meaningful ending makes Cricket an implicational novel. The story is structured in the following way: Cricket has both a light thread and a dark thread: one is the theft of the long jawed cricket; the other is the secret dying of Qin Zhong. These two thre advertisements control almost all the psychological and physiological lives and bring about all these people’s fears and joys. The haunting ghost of Qin Zhong not only hangs over every one of the Chens, it even disturbs the two magistrates. The Chens are absent-minded and reticent whenever other people mention the death of Qin Zhong. In fact the truth of this event is not complicated, but it is the key to understanding the novel; Manager Chen may not lose his ambition, but the infatuation with the cricket leadvertisements him to be doomed eternally at last. The theft of the long jawed cricket finally causes his rootless end. The culture and the dominant culture of traditional China in Cricket have a relationship as well as differences: the infatuation with the dissolute life of high officials and noble lords is the same in nature with life in the Chen’s courtyard but they also possess feelings or ambitions, whether to benefit all the people in the world or to be

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righteous alone. Unlike this, the Chen’s courtyard as the symbol of decadent folk culture gives out only an incurable overripe smell. This kind of culture is just like poppies in the wind, and behind of the flickering horrifying beauty hides a killing. I am amazed at Xu Mingtao’s acquaintance, refinement and manipulation of this kind of cultural smell. His understanding of revelries and control of decadent beauty is incredible and makes readers laugh, generating strong curiosity and interest. That is the oriental wonder and is “the flower of evil” of Chinese culture.

The Rhetoric of Fiction and the Tastes of Literati Before the formation of the stratum of modern intellectuals, these people who toy with the pen were all called “literati”. The literary man now is the cultural man. Although these employees and bosses are also well-educated and may possess some characteristics of the literati, their identities restrict their life style and way of feeling. So they cannot be defined as literati. Officials, public servants, lawyers, engineers, teachers etc. nowadays are literate, for they are politicians or specialists, but they cannot be classified as literati. In traditional China, the “literati” were both a marginal population and a mostly free group. They were conceited and contemptuous, unconventional and unrestrained, and ignored scholarly honor or official rank, drunk to excess and indulged in dallying with prostitutes. Their behavioral pattern and values are reflected in the poems and essays of scholars of all times. After the May 4th movement this kind of tradition was despised and its staleness was not tolerated by the radical modern revolution. Thereafter the traditional “literati” atmosphere in novels was discontinued for quite a long time. Since the nineties, with the publishing of Jia Pingwa’s Deserted City , Wang Jiada’s The So-called Writer and so on, we have had an opportunity to appreciate the novel’s “literati” atmosphere. Zhuang Zhidie and Hu Ran are modern literati, but their interests, desires and life styles have the distinct mark of traditional literati. Although they are writers and have a social identity, their every act and every move has a kind of “flavor” distinguishes them from the other social classes: they have a family but do not lack other women; they are rich but still like money; they are brilliant poets and artists, but are also decadent and self-indulgent; their sorrow and happiness are written in their expressions. If the characters in works such as Deserted City and The So-called Writer still retain the habits and interests of the old literati, then the young writer Li

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Shijiang’s Free Wandering is a novel that illustrates the modern literati flavor. Li Shijiang is a genius of the era. The initial works that I read were More False than Love and Loving You Means Hurting You . My instinct told me that he was the biggest literary exception of the period. His novels are far beyond our usual reading experiences. These two novels have similar subject matter and methods of narration, and are both fascinating. His subject matter is all related to today’s particular life style and circumstances that especially apply to people like him, and are related to the way in which he observes the world and the style in which he talks. He lives between the society and the academy. He unmercifully reveals the hidden or inherited problems of the group which was previously thought to be the most pure. This the group of intellectuals, no matter whether young or old. The trifling, senselessness, inanition and weakness that are exhibited by some of them are exposed thoroughly. His cruelty derives precisely from his cognition and perception of this group. The true face can only be discerned when there are only two people together, when their life is not yet in the public sphere and the people do not have to conceal anything but can act as they think. The life scenes presented by Li Shijiang involve a lot of two person private contact, and then he creates sufficient chance and opportunity to remove the false cloak of human nature. In his work we not only see the spiritual world that was not revealed before, but also see the younger generation’s attitudes of freedom, unihibitedness and optimism. Therefore, in our changeable and complex lives of the present, they are the masters of unrestricted life and the explainers and interpreters of youth. Free Wandering continues Li Shijiang’s consistent language style: his writing is natural and smooth, surprising and reasonable, humorous and fluent. It is not a sad novel, but the superficial “free” contains the profound grief of life; it is not a “picaresque novel”, but the uncertain life represents real spiritual wandering. Behind the drift and homelessness it shows a kind of innocence and helplessness without a moment’s sense of belonging. This evaluation may be reasonable but perhaps too “Western”. If we interpret this novel from another perspective, I think it is a contemporary “literati novel”. The characters who turn up in the novel are neither ancient bureaucracy who are concerned with the peace of all ages nor modern intellectual who are concerned with the affairs of the world. They are not the enlighteners or the wise saviors who know everything about the world. They are just a marginal population in society, live among the common people and have their own interests and groups. They are bold and not humble, and they persist I their own ways and are right-minded. They have the qualities of the literati in the Ming Qing dynasty. People such as Li Shijiang and Wu Maosheng in the novel have all kinds of unacceptable bad

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habits and customs, such as that they lack disciplineand organization, and fail to keep faith. They do not stick to trifles. However, they are affectionate, prize loyalty and have a deep love of life and women. They have no stable lives and seemingly do not envy or want to be “successful people”. They are more like a bystander of life, and they know that everything may come by chance but not through diligent search. Although they struggle for a living and wander, they are still resigned to the situation and muddle along. They often get cheated but never bewail the times, and they pity the people. It seems that all life passes by in their licentious words. Li Shijiang and Wu Maosheng have no great ambition and they neither talk about national affairs on the wider scale nor love on the small scale. All of these things are luxuries and unreasonable to them. Hence the characters in Li Shijiang’s novels are all unconventional and broad-minded. This is the temperament of the “literati”. These comments on Li Shijiang’s novels pay more attention to the modern side of him, which I think is right, but seemingly pay no attention to his inheritance and development of traditional culture. Li Shijiang turns the novel get back into a “story”. He goes back to correct the tradition of “big narration” created by modern novels and inserts personal life, secret life and literary interest etc.into novels again. Seemingly the writer Li Shijiang does not care about the issue of the novel’s Westernization or localization, but he acquires a free and pleasant sensation when writing. As a result, his novels are modern because everything here is concerned with modern life and spiritual situation; his novels are traditional because there in them there flows a kind of Chinese literati atmosphere. The full-length novels of Jia Pingwa are mostly closely related to reality, and especially to the problems of Chinese rural modernization. However, his novels are not completely realistic. He always put some not too realistic feelings or personal experiences into novels. In particular his perseverance in literary interest is just the part that mostly possesses literary elements. Happy is the first novel called after a human name. According to the current popular view, it belongs to the genre of writing about the lower classes. Liu Gaoxing, Wu Fu, Huang Ba, Thin Monkey, Zhu Zong, Xing Hu etc. are all urban “junkmen” who come from villages. Less and less arable land is left in the villages because of urban expansion and the erosion caused by modern civilization. The predicament of subsistence and the temptation of the city make these people start an urban wandering life. Their main way of earning their living is to collect scrap. However, when describing these people who live at the bottom of Chinese society, Jia Pingwa does not compassionately write about their endless suffering or eternally doomed fate. Liu Gaoxing as one of “the others” is not a true master of the city, but their philosophy of existence

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determines their way of life. They are not a symbol of hatred and resentment, and they have their own rough and frank way of understanding life. The strong woman Xing Hu made a plan for herself after her husband died: find a man to marry again within one year and pay off half of her debt within two years. And finally she found Zhu Zong and married him. She did pay off half of the debt through working very hard all day long. She made another plan: one year to pay off all debts, and overhaul houses. And she succeeded two years later. Then she re-planned: how to provide for their children to go to college, to build a new house in the old yard and run a company in the county town and so on. She said: “you should never think that you are useless, and you have many, many things need to do!” She worked carefully and was kind to others, but also dared to play bold tricks on men. Xing Hu’s philosophical, optimistic and honest character is more expressive of real existence or the spiritual situation than endless sufferings. Of course, Liu Gaoxing is the main subject of the novel. This pretentious, somewhat lofty farmer who thinks of himself as a city people does indeed have a wisdom that ordinary farmers do not have. With a few words he takes down the guard who spites Wu Fu, recover Cui Hua’s ID card with cheap suits and shoes, and even chivalrously jump on the front bonnet of a car to overpower the driver who is trying to escape from an accident. All these show that he excels. But, after all, Gaoxing is just a marginal man who collects scrap in the city. Although he has wisdom and humor, it is difficult to resolve his problem of an urban identity. Interestingly, when Jia Pingwa was shaping Liu Gaoxing, he intended to use the “gifted scholars and beautiful ladies” narrative mode of traditional novels. Liu Gaoxing is a distressed “genius”, the prostitute Meng Yichun is a “beauty”. They both live at the bottom of society, and it is not important whether life is like that or not. The importance is that Jia Pingwa establishes an emotional relationship between them in an imaginary way and gives them the characteristics of romantic feelings. Their acquaintance, relationship and everything that Liu Gaoxing did to rescue her are complicated but deeply heart-warming. We could even say that the love story between Liu Gaoxing and Meng Yichun is the most readable text in the novel. This strange combination is a stroke of genius, which not only gives readers great imaginary space but also provides a number of possibilities for other writers’ creations. However, it is because of the “Romantic” mode that there is no story of “clients and prostitutes” in the story of Liu Gaoxing and Meng Yichun. Their emotions are not only pure, but also have a higher value and spiritual meaning. Jia has apparently inherited the narrative mode of classical Chinese vernacular fiction and drama as romantic love in distress is one of the most romantic love

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narrative methods. It is also worth noting that the novel consists almost of simple description throughout the text. Calm and sophisticated, it shows a true skill with words. It does not have ups and downs in plot, and the details form the whole of the novel. We usually agree that the details in a novel pose the biggest test for a writer, and the most exciting places often lie in the writing or description of detail. The achievements of Happy on this point could be said to be the most prominent among the novels of recent years. After Deserted City we have not seen another such text, but in the dilemma of full length novels Jia firmly searches for and mines the resources of traditional literature. He not only finds a new path for his own novel creation, but also shows the vigorous and literary ambition “to continue the extinct knowledge of the sages”. Actually, Happy obviously does not just make up a literary-style “gifted scholars and beautiful ladies” romantic fiction for us. Behind the romantic story facade is implied Jia’s huge and lingering anxiety: this is the process of modernity and the way that Chinese farmers will it. They are forced to flee from their village, but the city does not accept them. When they try to return to the rural areas it is only a wish. Not only is it difficult for their heart is to come home but the body’s return is also a great difficulty. It is imposible to bury Wu Fu. He can only be cremated as a person of the city. Gaoxing can stay in the city temporarily and may survive, as in their days of scavenging. However, what about the fate of the village and land which are closely associated with their history, life, living style and emotional patterns? Are the local customs which they are used to and familiar with really slowly going away for ever? Thus although Happy is set in the city, it is still a sad elegy for rural China.

Super-stable Rural Customs and Ethics Literature has the eternal theme of itself, and this problem has been discussed and will be discussed over and over again, just as with the praise of love, justice, goodness and beauty, heroes, hardworking etc; and the criticism of evil, ugliness, hatred, war, greed etc. These have been generally recognized by literature creators and recipients. However, these abstract concepts must be attached to a specific behavior and cultural style and in this way it is possible to receive a specific message. In my opinion, among the different regions, races and groups those cultural structures with a “super-stable” sense and those cultural structures that have dominated and controlled life styles, behavioral styles, thinking styles and the ethics of ethnic groups are the eternal theme that literature should find and express. This kind of “super-stable” sense of culture,

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although it is being continuously constructed and reconstructed, in essence does not change with the time or with changes in the social system. This kind of “super-stable” cultural structure is fully expressed in rural China. In the history of Chinese literature in the past hundred years, rural China has always been the most important narrative object. At the beginning of the era of modern literature, rural narrative was divided: on the one hand, poor farmers due to ignorance are treated as the object of enlightenment; on the other hand, there is poetry in the quiet countryside. Thus there was contraction in the imagination of the countryside in that era. The emergence of rural narrative integrity and the Chinese Communist Party’s goal of establishing a modern national state are closely related. Farmers account for the vast majority of China’s population, and to mobilize the participation of this class in the process of establishing a modern nation-state is essential, as is proved by history. Thus since the Yan’an times, and especially with the publishing of novels such as The Sun Shines on the Sanggan River and The Hurricane which both reflected and expressed the land reform movements, the knitting together of the overall narrative of Chinese rural life and the process of social history development was created. “Local literature” was replaced with “rural themes”. After that the integral narrative of contemporary literature on rural China was almost all written in accordance with this model, and the “epic” is the basic and final pursuit of these works, such as History of Starting an Undertaking, Great Changes in a Mountain Village, Three Mile Bay, Keep the Red Flag Flying, Bright Spring Day, Golden Road, The Yellow River Flows East etc. The creation of “integrity” and “epic” have two bases and traditions: The first is the Western philosophy of history since Hegel which forms the philosophical basis of “epic” creation; the second is the “biographical tradition” of Chinese literature, which provides the basic paradigm for “epic” writing. As a result, the epic became a scale for evaluating the arts over a fairly long historical period and is also the scale for evaluating revolutionary literature. However, the overall narrative soon encountered a problem. Not only was Liu Qing’s History of Starting an Undertaking hard to continue, but Zhou Keqin’s Xu Mao and His Daughters with the style of “real life” questioned integrity after the eighties. The presentation of the “super-stable structure” of village life and the handling of the relationships of social changes in Chen Zhongshi’s White Deer Plain led him far from from this integrity and gave this work a “distinctive character”. In Zhang Wei’s Scandal or Romance , history only exists in a woman’s body. This kind of change is at first alienation of historical development and “purposeful” imagination, or, after the occurrence of problems with the given path of historical development, the real rural China does not fully follow the “route chart” of historical development because rural China cannot find anything

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they need in this “line”. When this kind of change is reflected in literature, there appears a history which it is difficult to integrate. Disintegration or fragmentation of the integrated narrative is replaced by the writing of the “super-stable culture”, and this is one of the most important features of the current novels about rural China. Tiening’s Ben Hua is also a novel that writes about the history of a village. It narrates the historical development of Benhua village from the late Qing Dynasty until the mid 1940s — the end of the Anti-Japanese War. However, it is worth noting that the historical evolution of the nation is more like a virtual background, and Benhua village’s history is more concrete and sensible, lively and vivid. Therefore, we can say that Ben Hua is a novel looking back at history, but it is also a folk tale told against the historical background of the nation and is a novel that interweaves “grand narrative” and “small narrative”. It is not generous and tragic like an orthodox novel and nor has it the arbitrary crossflow of an unofficial history. The fate of the Xiangs is embedded in the nation’s fate, Xiang Zhonghe and his children Xiang Wencheng, Qu Deng and Xiang Wencheng’s two sons are all related to the history of this period. But they do no, and cannot build or even become the “miniature” of this period of history, although “Xiang Zhonghe” and “Qu Deng” embody national heroism. The really impressive things in this novel are the daily life in Benhua village, the three marriages of Xiang Zhonghe and its stories in the shack. The “shack” in Benhua village is a classic scene in this novel. It is like a stage shrouded by dark night: both uneasy men who want to see flowers and pickflower women whose hearts are like a cotton blossom; there are wandering peddlers who sell candy and beat their dumb gongs. The numerous shacks are both confusing and full of temptation, and they form a unique and ambiguous landscape in Benhua village. It is both the custom and the amorous feeling of the village. All kinds of people related to Benhua village come and go, and in Benhua village it is a well-known open secret. Like an “enclave” of matters between men and women, it is a civil “exchange” that involves boundless temptation and cotton. But Benhua village takes it for granted and does not evaluate or discuss it from the moral point of view, except that in extreme conflict they occasionally utter the curse “bitch entering the shack”. However, these trades which happen in the “shack” express the character, temperament, and good and evil of people in the most essential sense. Xibeiniu, Xiangqiang, Shiling, the peddlers, Xianggui, Xiaoaozi and so on all have different relationships with the shack. Even Qu Deng is eventually raped and killed by the Japanese devils in the shack. The shack is just a corner on the novel’s big stage, and the characters

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connected to the shack are not the main roles in the novel. But in this nightcovered corner, the leisured narrative of the novel illuminates many past abstract or self-evident concepts. Just as “people”, “the public”, “the masses” and so on are alleged to have a natural link with the revolution, they are sacred and cannot be violated and queried. But in Ben Hua , they can either enter the shack or go to school, either join in the anti-Japanese movement unconsciously or defect and collude with the enemy easily. The young girl called Xiaohaozi is a typical case. She differs from her predecessors Xiang Xi and Xiang Zhonghe and also from her contemporary Qu Deng. She does not have the old people’s national integrity or the revolutionary ideals of the younger characters. She is just an ordinary person and only hopes to survive the turbulent years, but yet is executed in the end. Such figures are passively involved in the writing of Benhua village’s history. Ben Hua is a novel that expresses the love of home and country as well as the freedom of the village. The love of home and country is expressed in a low-key and very tragic way through Xiangxi and his children; the freedom of the village is presented through the “super-stable” folk style of the “shack” in Benhua village. Therefore, it is a folk legend presented against the historical background of the nation and it is a folk tale within the grand narrative framework. It is sure that the validity of Tiening’s exploration brings new experiences to rural China’s historical narrative. When globalization, modernism, postmodism and other issues burst forth in urban literature, we also find that the novel with truly powerful impulsive force still exists in the writing and expression of rural China. The reason is not complicated. First, vast areas of China today are still the rural areas that have not changed in essence, but this does not mean that the countryside’s material life is still in the original closed or self-sufficient state. Rather, on the conceptual level, although there are shocks or interventions from the “modern” on the surface, the conflict that the “rural” are longs for and is resistant to, accepts and disrupts, the “modern” is still common. Second, in modern China, the narrative of country is almost a “tracking” type and will give rise to the writer’s strong interest and expressive enthusiasm. This accumulates rich experience for China’s rural theme literature and constructs a looming “literary politics”. However, the “super-stable” expressive forms of country life, such as religion, ceremonies, marriage, entertainment, celebrations and even gender relations and other customs and habits go beyond the era even the social system, and continue. The vitality of these are far stronger than we imagine. The story in Fan Xiaoqing’s Barefoot Doctor Wan Quanhe moves from the “Cultural Revolution” to the reform and opening up and lasts for decades.

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Wan Quanhe experienced both the “Cultural Revolution” and the reform and opening up. The two periods represent two different times in China’s political life. But the big changes of the era, the turbulence and large events are all relegated to a background status. We can infer that the novel is set against the background of the “Cultural Revolution” from the establishment of administrative units in the country, Wan Quanhe’s identity, the criticism and denouncement meeting, and some popular political terms. But when we are reading the story, we find that daily life in Houyao Village does not change fundamentally, and traditional customs and habits are still continued and dominate the Houyao villagers’ life style. These vibrant and vivid characters did not change their temperaments and appearances because they were in the period of the “Cultural Revolution”. We clearly see the images of pre-modern cyclic daily life in rural China from the female roles such as the indolent “bride” Wan Limei, the fascinating and coquettish Liu Li, the simple, pungent and calculating Liu Eryue, and Qiudafengzi - full of resentment but with no way to vent it. After entering the period of reform and opening up, these characters’ natures and temperament remain the same. The invariable super-stability of local Chinese folk customs is also confirmed by the male roles and other scenes in Houyao Village. Wubao is a typical country man and he brazenly has sex with various women both before and after the “Cultural Revolution”. Although he is once criticized and struggled against, the formalized scene is not serious but rather like a funny romance comedy: ···Liu Yu and Wubao stood side by side, and Liu Yu laid her head on the shoulders of Wubao. Wubao was grinning cheekily and bantering flirtatiously with a bride who was watching the fun, and he said: “if you keep staring at me, you will get pregnant with my child”. The bride blushed. The people around mocked him, saying that the bride had a baby already. Wubao smiled, “that child will be like me”. The bride said: “impossible, how could it?” Wubao wanted to whisper closely with her, but was stopped by Qiu Erhai. So Wubao stood back and winked and said: “come, I will tell you how”. The bride almost came up to him, but then she found it was not allowed and just stood still. Wubao whispered: “because there are too many people here, I will tell you when we meet in the bamboo forest this evening”. People all laughed, and Wubao shook his body proudly. Liu Yu pulled at him and said: “Wubao you must stand still and be serious, we are in a criticism meeting”.

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This scene is one of political culture in rural China. On the one hand it is maintaining the new morals and criticism of improper sexual relations. On the other hand, sexual relations are a recreational “cultural life” in the rural community. We can see this through a variety of folk songs or folk tales. Thus even in the period of the “Cultural Revolution”, the public did not take seriously the people who were the objects of criticism. Political campaigns were more like cultural activities to amuse the public. This scene is similar to the “shack” story in Tiening’s Ben Hua —the public do not judge sexual relations morally. Of course, the development of rural Chinese society is not a simple natural history but the physical time which meets changes with constancy. The fluctuation of the political situation in modern China has profoundly affected the development of rural China. Not only have the political identity and economic status of Chinese peasants changed fundamentally, but also the social structure of rural China has changed considerably after a hundred years of social reform. One important phenomenon is the disappearance of the “squire”. The “squire” had a very important role in the society of rural China, and very similar to Western civil society played the role of heading the church, trade union, school, social assistance organization, cultural groups etc. Of course, the function of the “squire” is not perfect as in Western civil society. However, the non-governmental and non-organization gentry have a certain authority in the Chinese rural social structure and to a considerable extent are the cultural leaders of the public. This is recognized as a part of rural Chinese cultural traditions. Parents, elders, doctors, teachers and so on maintain the order of natural villages and adjust the various relationships of society. They play an irreplaceable role. In White Deer Plain , Bai Jiaxuan is such a figure. In Barefoot Doctor Wan Quanhe , the barefoot doctors Wan Renshou and Wan Quanhe should be characters of the “squire” type in rural China. However, during the period of the “Cultural Revolution”, the barefoot doctors as a new thing naturally could not perform the duties of a “squire” or play the function of a “squire”. But we can clearly feel the respect, admiration and love they received from the ordinary people. The attitude of ordinary people was not related to the “new thing-barefoot doctors” but to their “status” as a rural doctor. However, Wan Renshou and Wan Quanhe were not squires. Wan Renshou was even interrogated, and Wan Quanhe’s position became precarious after several ups and downs. This situation illustrates the change in social political life in the social structure of rural China. The continuous decline of culture or civilization in rural China can be fully recognized in this phenomenon. The barefoot doctor Wan Quanhe is nurtured and nourished in such a

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cultural environment. He is innately dull, honest and sincere, and has become an ancient of more than three generations. He is out of date, and cannot keep pace with the times. His helplessness and innocence, failure and tragedy all make us feel a biting sadness. Thus Barefoot Doctor Wan Quanhe is a distant imagination of and visit to humanity, public feeling and way of communication as they are cultivated in rural China, which means the original society of rural China and demonstrates the folk picture or demagogic prospect of the premodern or less developed period in the Chinese villages. Wan Quanhe is an ordinary person and a doctor. What he wants to heal is the sick village. The relationship between doctors and patients is to save and to be saved, but in this novel Wan Quanhe is always powerless and reluctant. He is constantly under attack, ridiculed cheated and even calumnated. And the perpetrators are those people formerly known as the public, the populace and the masses. Such people are often encountered in novels criticizing the national character. However, we rarely meet them in the nostalgic novels or other literary forms. This change in the complex feelings of rural Chinese is meaningful. After the frustration of attempting enlightening discourse, the superior position of savior no longer exists in Wan Quanhe. In the book, the plane graph of Wan Quanhe’s life shows that Wan Quanhe’s house is getting smaller and smaller and his living space is getting narrower and narrower, until he reaches bankruptcy. In this way, an “intellectual” in the countryside lives on the brink of bankruptcy both in the spiritual and material life. His dilemma and helpless situation indicate the existence of a super-stable culture and simultaneously express the heterogeneous characters caused by the change of social history to rural China. Wan Quanhe is neither Zhu Laozhong nor Liang Shengbao, and is certainly not Xiao Changchun.But Wan Quanhe is neither Ah Q nor Chen Huansheng. It is difficult to find out his pedigree. He is much like the variation of the image of earth mother in rural literature’s women. As a fictional, imaginary character, he is clever but looks foolish, submissive, obsequious and feeble. He is not like a man and is not masculine. However, we have seen too many chivalrous people, too many smart philistines, too many all-powerful heros and too much blood and violence in modern literature. People like Wan Quanhe who is humble, honest and sincere, willing to suffer, and philanthropic, are rare. We face a dilemma: we do not know whether we should affirm or criticize Wan Quanhe, and whether we should pity or blame him. But this dilemma is the victory of Fan Xiaoqing’s narrative ethics. She surpasses enlightenment, compassion, sympathy, great sorrow and great happiness, grief, joy and such other aspects of main narrative hegemony. She objectively describes the naturally formed strength of human spirit, including things that we can accept or which we find

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difficult to accept in Wan Quanhe. Thus, Wan Quanhe is ahe special literary figure in rural China. Discussion of the experience of Chinese literature is under way. It is noteworthy that, while urbanization proceeds faster and faster and the urban population is ceaselessly expanding, we have not yet acquired the urban cultural experiences of China. The fashionable or trendy urban lives just express a kind of false emotional revelry at the most superficial level. The real experience of Chinese culture or literature still hides within the cultural memories of traditional China. Cultural tradition, the spectre of totality, is constantly being reconstructed, “revives” in the process of construction, and dominates us no matter whether we like it or not. (First published in Modern Literary Magazine, No 6, 2008)

300

Notes Introduction Mental Changes and the Carnival of the Gods 1. Gan Yang 1987: 7. 2. Ibid: Preface. 3. Chen Pingyuan 1995. 4. Ibid. 5. Li Xiaobing 1996: 69-70. 6. Daniel Bell 1989: 75. 7. Samuel Huntington 1996: 356. 8. Li Tuo 1996 (4). 9. Li Tuo 1995 (2). 10. Zhang Rulun 1996 (5). 11. Cai Xiang 1996 (5). 12. Tao Dongfeng 1996 (3). 13. Xu Ming 1996 (2). 14. Samuel Huntington 1996: 334.

Chapter 1 The Increasingly Blurred Cultural Map 1. Yu Wujin 1993: 3. 2. China Today, see Poetry, 1984 (10). 3. Li Zehou 1987. 4. Ibid. 5. Xie Mian 1996. 6. Wei Chengsi 1992: 478-479. 7. Deng Weizhi 1986. 8. Wei Chengsi: 304. 9. Yu Yingshi 1992: 236. 10. Li Zehou: History of Thought in Modern China, p 262. 11. Deng Qiyao 1988. 12. Gu Xiaoming 1986. 13. Wei Chengsi: 906-907. 14. Ibid. 906-907. 15. Chen Pingyuan 1995: 102-103. 16. Yang Xiaosheng 1996: 66. 17. Hu Angang and Wang Yi 1996: 81-83. 18. Farewell to Revolution. 1995. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Cosmos Books Ltd, 14, 16, 18. 19. Han Shaogong 1994: 124-127. 20. Wen Hui Daily, 1992-02-15. 21. Yang Xiaosheng. An Emergency Appeal by the Soul of China, 144-145. 22. Wang Shuo 1993 (1). 23. People’s Daily, 1981-3-11. 5th edition. 24. Article of Yang Minwang 楊望文. The People’s Music, 1981 (7). 25. Zheng Dahua 1994: 255. 26. Li Luxin 1993: 73. 27. Zheng Dahua: 257. 28. Wang Yi 1994: 162-163. 29. Chen Gang 1996: 28. 30. Chen Gang 1996: 134-135.

Notes

31. Ibid: 137-138. 32. Qingchun fangchengshi – wushi ge Beijing nu zhiqing de zishu, houji 青春方程式──五十個北京女知青的自述．後記 (Youth Formula – Self-statement of Fifty Female Educated Youths from Beijing, Postscript). 1995. Beijing: Peking University Press. 33. Fan Xing 1996.

Chapter 2 State Will and the Mainstream Cultural Resources 1. Yu Wujin 1993: 377. 2. Literature and Art, 1997-3-20. 3. See through the “Red Sun” Spree, Youth Daily, 1992-3-31. 4. Everyone Thinks in his own Way and Expresses his Opinion – Opinions on the “Red Sun” Tape Fever, Music Weekly, 1992-4-3. 5. Ma Fu 1996. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Zhao Yuehong 1996. 9. Ma Fu 1996. 10. Wei Lijun 1997 (1). 11. Yan Gang 1982: 144. 12. Jin Jingmai 1965 (4). 13. Ibid. 14. Jin Jingmai 1965: 402. 15. He Jiesheng 1997 (3). 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Fu Lixin 1997. 19. Announcement of Best and Worst Films of the Fifth Jinling Film critics, Chinese Actor and Actress Weekly, 1997-3-20. 20. Literature and Arts, 1997-3-8. 21. Wu Shian 1997.

Chapter 3 Present-day Fashion and the Leaders 1. Chen Xiaoming 1993. 2. Zhang Yiwu 1993 (4). 3. Yuan Kejia 1982 (11). 4. Ibid. 5. Quoted from Chen Xiaoming: Endless Challenge, 12. 6. Wang Yuechuan 1992: 305-309. 7. Ibid: 159, 317-381. 8. Ibid: 159, 317-381. 9. Dewey Fokema and Hans Burston 1991. 10. Wang Yuechuan 1992: Introduction. 11. Xie Mian 1993. 12. He Yi 1995 (3). 13. Kuang Xin’nian 1997 (3). 14. Daniel Bell 1989: 55. 15. Chen Gang 1996: 95. 16. Chen Danyan 1997: 248-253. 17. Jin Najiao: From Nun to Millionnaire. 1996. Technology and Enterprise. 1996. The original article does not state the author’s name. 18. Chen Gang 1996: 71. 19. Zhang Yan 1994 (4). 20. Bao Yaming 1997. 21. Refer to Interview Zhou Guoping, Oriental Art, 1997 (2). 22. Xu Youyu 1997. 23. Zheng Yefu 1997.

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Notes

24. Quoted from Wang Ke: Is it Good or Bad that Scholars Become Stars, Literature Press, 1997-4-10. 25. Zhao Yifan 1994: 179-180. 26. Ibid: 179-180. 27. Samuel Huntington: 263-264. 28. Quoted from W. D. Pardue. 1994. Western Sociology, Shijiazhuang: Hebei People's Publishing House, 420. 29. Daniel Bell 1989: 91. 30. Huizhi 1996. 31. Ibid. 32. Wen Ye 1996. 33. Daniel Bell 1989: 91. 34 Wen Ye 1996. 35. Su Mang 1996 (1). 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Words of President Marie Claire, see Fashion, Beautiful Girls, 1996 (4). 40. Fashion, 1996 (6). 41. Daniel Bell 1989: 90. 42. Daniel Bell 1989: 63. 43. Zhang Yiwu 1993 (4). 44. Kuang Xin’nian1997 (3). 45. Zhou Guoping 1996. 46. He Yi 1995 (3). 47. Ibid. 48. An Jixin 1997 (1). 49. Qiu Huadong 1996: 215. 50. Refer to Focus, the first issue in 1996. 51. Liu Jia 1997 (17). 52. Ibid. 53. Ibid. 54. Ibid. 55. Jin Shan. 56. Ibid. 57. For the above information, refer to Wang Jianyi: Urban People also Need Aid, published in Focus, the first issue in 1995.

Chapter 4 Lower Case Culture: Two Kinds of Time in Popular Culture 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Daniel Bell 1989: 120. Ibid: 91. Robert Escarpi 1986: 78-79. Plywest Wald 2000. Ibid: 17. Daniel Bell 1989:120. Refer to Concise Encyclopedia Britannica. 1985. Beijing: China Encyclopedia Publishing House, II 414-415. Zhou Yang 1946. Mao Zedong 1991. Wang Xiaoming 1993(6). Huang Yuhuang 1997: 488-489. Hannah Arendt 1998: 87.

Chapter 5 Swan Song and Oriental Utopia 1. 2.

Sun Zhiwen 1994: 7. Huang Ping 1996 (6).

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Notes

3. Chen Gang: 37. 4. Hai Zi 1991: 184. 5. Xi Chuan 1991: 309. 6. Hai Zi 1991: 45. 7. Xi Chuan 1991: 310. 8. Xi Chuan 1991: 310. 9. Liao Yuan 1991: 348. 10. Chen Dongdong 1991: 338. 11. Wu Xiaodong, Xie Lan 1989 (6). 12. Jia Pingwa 1993. 13. Gu Cheng 1985 (3). 14. Shu Ting 1982. 15. Jaspers 1984: 41. 16. Liu Xiaofeng 1988: 210-212. 17. Ibid: 76 18. Zhang Yiwu 1993: 223. 19. Mao Dun. 20. Zhu Ziqing 1994: 3. 21. Chen Shuyu 1989 (8). 22. Lu Jiping 1992. 23. Zhang Zhongxing 1992. 24. Wu Zuguang 1988. 25. Ibid. 26. Shao Yanxiang: 36 27. Yuan Ying 1990. 28. Yu Si Weekly, No. 7, 1924-12. 29. Yuan Ying 1990. 30. Meng Fanhua 1992: 6. 31. Chen Pingyuan 1990. 32. Roland Barthes 1995: 10. 33. Zhou Zuoren 1988: 303. 34. Shu Le 1988 (3). 35. Xie Mian 1997: 5. 36. Hong Zicheng 1997: 5. 37. Lei Da 1997: 5. 38. Chen Xiaoming 1997(4). 39. Wang Anyi 1997: 5. 40. Zhu Xiwen 1997. 41. Meixuan cungao, xu 眉軒存稿．序 (Scripts of Meixuan, Preface), Taiquanji 泰泉集 (Anthology of Tai Spring), 35. 42. Homepage of Yu Dafu 郁達夫. 2003. Hangzhou, Zhejiang wenyi chubanshe 浙江文藝出版社 (Zhejiang Art and Literatur43. Publishing House). 43. Liu Xiaofeng. 44. Ibid: 11. 45. Interview with Zhou Guoping, Oriental, 1997 (2). 46. Zhu Xueqin 1994. 47. Zhang Rulun 1996. 48. Ibid. 49. Chen Sihe 1994 (3). 50. Wang Xiaoming 1996. 51. Meng Fanhua 1995(6). 52. Zhang Chengzhi 1993 (3). 53. Xie Yong 1995 (3). 54. Wang Binbin 1994 (6). 55. Wang Meng 1994 (5). 56. Zhu Xueqin 1994.

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Notes

57. Zhu Xueqin 1994. 58. Xie Mian 1995. 59. Hong Zicheng 1995. 60. Ibid. 61. Cai Qijiao 1982: 87. 62. Lu Yuan 1983. 63. Liu Hongquan 677-678.

Chapter 6 The Media War and the Changes in Media Function 1. 2.

Liu Hongquan 677-678. Hong Zicheng gave the most detailed list of all the generations of chief editors and members of the editorial board of the Journal to date in his 1956: Time of A Hundred Flowers Blossoming. Each change in the list was an important reflection of the struggles in the artistic and literary circles. The book was part of the series “General Anthology of Chinese Literature of the Century”, published by Shandong Education Press in 1988. 3. Liu Hongquan, Liu Hongze. 1996: 677-678. 4. 600 Forewords in the 100 years of China’s Magazine Publication, 229. 5. Refer to http://www.sina.com.cn,2001/09/06/18:33. 6. Refer to http:// ww.sina.com.cn,2001/09/06/18:33. 7. Same as above. 8. An essay titled Going to the Market in the “Literary Monthly” section in the February 2000 issue of Modern pointed out, “The nonliterary magazines have completed their marketization early on, while literary magazines are far behind in this respect. What is most tragic is that currently literary magazines are dealing in a buyers’ market when they face readers, while dealing in a sellers’ market when facing authors. Any sellers’ market is not a healthy one. China’s literary magazines cater not to readers, but to authors; it’s the readers who pander to the authors, not vice versa. In fact, all the reform measures taken by magazines are to change the relations between readers and authors.” This view is very constructive indeed. 9. Liu Yong 2000: 300-301. 10. Ibid: 35-37 11. Ibid. 12. See the brief on Topics in Focus on the CCTV website. 13. Wang Hui 1996: 264. 14. Huang Shuquan 1995(5). 15. Luo Gang. 16. Diana Crane 2001. 17. Yu Hongmei, 2000: 216.

Chapter 7 The Virtual World on “A Thousand Plateaus” 1. Yu Hongmei, 2000: 216. 2. Ibid: 216-217. 3. Yan Dong 2001. 4. Feng Tao 2000. 5. Liu Zixin 2001. 6. Ibid. 7. Zhu Guanglie 2001. 8. Liu Santian 2000. 9. Yuedu daokan 閱讀導刊 (Reading Guide). 2000. 10. Ibid. 11. Jinri xianfeng 今日先鋒 (Pioneers Today). 2000. Tianjin: Tianjin shehui kexue chubanshe 天津社會科學出版社 (Tianjin Social Science Press), 9. 12. Zhang Guoliang 2001: 145-146. 13. Nan Fan. 14. Nan Fan 2000(5). 15. Zhang Kangkang 2000.

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Notes

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

Dai Jinhua 2000(3). Dai Jinhua 2001. Xu Kun 2000(6). Tang Min 2002. Nan Fan 2002(1). Wu Wei, see China Literature website.

Chapter 8 The Formation of New Social Classes and the Expansion of Discourse Space 1. 2.

Maozedong zhusuo xuandu 毛澤東著作選讀 (Selected Readings of Mao Zedong’s Works). 1986. Beijing: Remin Press, I 4-10. See the April 2 2002 Report on the official website of the China Academy of Social Sciences. According to surveys, China’s current Gini coefficient is 0.458, exceeding the internationally recognized cordon of 0.4 and entering the zone of unequal distribution. According to the survey conducted by the State Statistics Bureau in 2000 on the income of 40,000 urban households, 20% of highincome people owned 42.5% of the total wealth. In the recent couple of years, the growth rate of rural residents’ income per capita has been far lower than that of urban residents’ disposable income per capita, and the gap between rural and urban residents is becoming wider. 3. End of the World, 2000 (6). 4. Wright Mill 1988: 85. 5. Ibid: 21-22. 6. Ibid: 85. 7. Ibid: 1-2. 8. Huizhi 1996. 9. Dai Jinhua 2000: 265. 10. Vogue started publication on August 8, 1993. Since January 1997, Vogue became a monthly, dividing itself into two versions of Miss and Mr. for publication. In September 1997 the magazine founded the Shizhishang Advertisement Company jointly with IDG to seek international cooperation on copyright. In April 1998, Miss Vogue collaborated with America’s famous female magazine COSMOPOLITAN on copyright issues. In April 1999, Vogue Home started publication and in January 2000 ended publication for the lack of an independent serial number. In September 1999, Mr. Vogue collaborated with America’s famous male magazine ESQUIRE on copyright issue. These successes of Vogue magazine indicated an obvious international standing and a cultural identification with globalization. 11. Jean Baudrilltard 2001: 89. 12. Ibid: 85. 13. In Vogue’s third issue of 1996, a director of men’s apparel explained the men’s wear philosophy of the middle class: light but fine. His guidelines include: at least 10 suits; casual wear: a jacket or a suit-replacement short coat for each season, and two brightly-colored, fashionable, and comfortable casual coats for holidays; trousers: four pairs of regular-colored formal trousers for each season, and at least two casual pants in corduroy or canvas; shirts and ties: as many as possible. At least 7 ties, two of which are first class brands, and one or two bow ties, 2 to 4 silk ribbons, and a dozen shirts. In addition, there should be overcoats, sportswear, shoes, socks, underwear, handkerchiefs, accessories, and leather things fit for the middle class identity. 14. See Vogue, 1996(3). 15. Paul Fussell 2002: 84. 16. Ibid. 2002: 86, 143. 17. Ibid. 2002: 86, 143. 18. Ibid: 144. 19. http://www.home666.cn.

Chapter 9 The Writing of the Proletarians in the Capital Myth Time 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Lenin 1999: 34. Lenin 1999: 209. The Autobiography of Georg Lukács. 1986. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 42, 275. Frank 1999: 101. Mo Luo 1998: 376. Xie Youshun 2000.

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Notes

7. Wang Kailing 2000. 8. Doudou 2000. 9. Yu Jie 余傑, see Mo Luo. Journal of the Indignant: Preface 2. 10. Xie Youshun 2000: 3. 11. Ibid: 27. 12. Ibid: 27. 13. Qian Liqun. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid: 192, 206. 16. Ibid: 192, 206. 17. Ibid: 24, 129, 194. 18. Ibid: 24, 129, 194. 19. Ibid: 24, 129, 194. 20. Wang Kailing: 308. 21. Kong Qingdong 2000: 75. 22. Xie Youshun: 8. 23. Kong Qingdong: 32-33. 24. Kuang Xinnian. 25. Tianya 1999 (3). 26. Xie Youshun: 70. 27. Mo Luo: 346-347. 28. Wang Kailing: 18. 29. Yang Jing 2000: 23-24. 30. Yang Jing 2000: 23-24.

Chapter 10 Globalization / The Rebellion and Carnival of the Asian Youth 1. 2. 3.

Arif Dirlik 1999: 25. Said 1999. An interpretation of Tomlinson’s Cultural Imperialism, see Tomlinson. 1999. Cultural Imperialism, Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe 上海人民出版社.

Appendix II Th  e Specter of Totality and the Tradition of Being “Revived” 1. 2. 3. 4.

An Deming 2006. Guan Renshan 2007. Herder, German Theologian, Quoted form Lu Xiaohui 戶曉輝. 2004. Xiandaixing yu minjian wenxue 現代性與民間文學 (Modernity and Folk Literature), 87. Edward W 2003: 2.3

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Zhou Guoping 周國平. 1996. You suo jingwei 有所敬畏 (Have Awe), Serve for you . Zhou Yang 周揚. 1946. Lun Zhao Shuli de chuangzuo 論趙樹理的創作 (On the Composition of Zhao Shuli). Jiefang ribao 解放日報 (Liberation Daily). Zhou Zuoren 周作人. 1988. Yu youren lun xing daode shu 與友人論性道德書 (A letter to a friend on sexual morality), see Yutian de shu 雨天的書 (Book of Rainy Day). Beijing: 人民文學出版社 (People's Literature Publishing House), 303. Zhu Guanglie 朱光烈. 2001. Xiandaihua jincheng zhong di jige xinqushi 現代化 進程中的幾個新趨勢 (New Trends in Modernization). Zhonghua dushui bao 中華讀書報 (Chinese Reading). Zhu Xiwen 朱西雯. 1997. Jianghe yongyuan shi jianghe 江河永遠是江河 (Rivers are always Rivers). Wenyi Bao 文藝報 (Art and Literature). Zhu Xueqin朱學勤. 1994. Fengsheng, yusheng, dushusheng, zixu 風聲、雨聲、 讀書聲．自序 (The Sounds of Wind, Rain and Book Reading, Author's Preface. Beijing: Sanlian shudian 三聯書店 (Sanlian Bookstore). Zhu Ziqing 朱自清. 1994. Lun wuhua ke shuo 論無話可說 (On Nothing to Say), see Zhu Ziqing sanwen 朱自清散文 (Essays of Zhu Ziqing), II 3, Beijing: Zhongguo guangbo dianshi chubanshe 中國廣播電視出版社 (China Television and Broadcasting Publishing House).

Chinese Translation Arif Dirlik. Formation of Globalization and Radical Policy , see Post-revolution Aura . 1999. Beijing: China Social Science Press, 25. Daniel Bell. 1989. The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism . Beijing: The Joint Publishing Company Ltd, 55, 63, 75, 90, 91, 120. Dewey Fokema and Hans Burston ed. 1991. Walking to Postmodernism, Postscript . Beijing: Peking University Press. Diana Crane. 2001. Cultural Production: Media and Metropolitan Art . Shanghai: Yilin Press, 4. Edward W, Cultural and Imperialism . 2003. Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 2. Frank. 1999. Russian Intellectuals and Spiritual Idols . Shanghai: Xuelin Press, 101. Hannah Arendt. 1998. Public Field and Private Field , see Wang Hui and Chen Yangu ed. 1998. Culture and Public Character. Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 87. Jean Baudrilltard. 2001. Consumer Society . Nanjing: Nanjing University Press, 85, 89.

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Lenin. 1996. Eugène Edine Pottier , see Lenin's Complete Works . Beijing: Renmin Press, Vol 36, 34, 209. Paul Fussell. 2002. Class . Nanning: Guangxi People's Press, 84, 86, 143, 144. Plywest Wald. Culture and Bacteria Carriers – "Typhoid Mary" and Social Control Science , see Wang Fengzhen. 2000. "Strange" Theory. Tianjin: Tianjin Social Science Publishing House, 17. Roland Barthes. 1995. Essays by Roland Barthes . Tianjin: Baihua Art and literature Publishing House, 10. Robert Escarpit. 1986. Sociology of Literature . Hangzhou: Zhejiang People's Publishing House, 78-79. Samuel Huntington. 1996. The Goals of Development , see Luo Rongqu. The Reexploration of the Theory of Modernization and Historical Experience . Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House. Said. 1999. Orientalism, Introduction . Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore. Wright Mill. 1988. White Collars – the American Middle Class . Hang Zhou: Zhejiang Zhejiang People's Press, 1-2, 21-22, 85.

English Materials Samuel Huntington: Political Order in Changing Societies , 263-264.

320

Index Ahn Jae Wook 259-61 Aleksandr Herzen 248-9 Bai Dou 267 Beijing Literature 312-13, 315, 317-18 Bell, Daniel 76, 92, 303-5, 321 Benhua village 295-6 Blurred Cultural Map 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33 Cao Guanghan 145-6 Capital Myth Time 241, 243, 245, 247, 249, 251, 253, 308 celestial kingdom 149-50 Chen Gang 303-4, 306, 311 Chen Pingyuan 158, 303, 306, 311 Chen Xiaoming 66, 74, 162, 304, 306, 312 Cui Jian 30, 238 cultural hegemony 12, 34, 36, 247, 256-9 cultural imperialism 257-8, 309 culture with bacteria 127-8, 130-1 Da Lu 145-6 Dai Jinhua 233, 308, 312, 319 Dawei, Chi 269-71 Deng Lijun 27-8, 30, 50, 119 Dushu 311, 313, 315-16 educated urban youths 36-9 elite intellectuals 10, 18, 31, 133, 168 Expansion of Discourse Space 225, 227, 229, 231, 233, 235, 237, 239 folk belief 284, 286 folk culture 121-2, 130, 133, 281, 284 globalization 121-3, 207, 255-9, 261, 263, 280-1, 296, 308-9 Gu Cheng 5, 149-50, 168, 306, 313 Guan Renshan 282, 284-5, 309, 313

Haizi 311, 313-14, 318 Hollywood 61, 120, 222 Hong Zicheng 181-2, 306-7, 313 Hua, Ben 295-6 Huntington, Samuel 303, 305, 322 idealist spirit 182-4, 252 intellectual elites 2, 7-9, 69, 84, 88 Internet literature 195, 206, 217-22, 312, 316 Jia Pingwa 148, 289, 291-2, 306, 314 Jin Jingmai 59, 304, 313-14 Lei Feng 62-3, 318 Li Shijiang's novels 291 Li Xunhuan 217, 219 Liang Shiqiu 119, 154 literary criticism 67, 140, 159-61, 318 Liu Hongquan 307, 314 Liu Xiaofeng 169, 306, 315 Lu Xun 16, 147, 173, 248-9 Luo Yihe 143, 311, 313-14, 318 Luoyihe zuopinji 311, 313-14, 318 Mainstream Cultural Resources 45, 47, 49, 51, 53, 55, 57, 59, 61, 63 Mao Caogen 273 Mao Zedong 16, 48, 59, 131, 226, 230, 244, 250, 305, 316 mass culture 10-11, 27, 35, 66, 72-3, 89-90, 92, 98-9, 118, 120, 123, 125-35 mass culture production 27, 118-19, 132 Media War 191, 193, 195, 197, 199, 201, 203 Mi Xiang 267-8 Mi Xiang's love 268 Mo Luo 246, 248-51, 308-9, 316 modernism 68-9, 75, 139, 296

Index

Najiao 82-3 Nan Fan 221, 307-8, 316 Nietzsche 214 Ning Caishen 217, 219 Ouyang Hai 55, 58-9, 313-14 postmodernism 67-70, 72-6, 100, 139, 152, 165, 319-21 proletarian culture 242-3, 245-6 proletarian literature 242-5, 252 Qi Sheding and Mei Xiang 285-6 Qian Liqun 248, 309, 316 Qionghua 52 rural China 113, 247, 293-300 Samuel Huntington 303, 305, 322 Song Lan 267-8 Spring Festival Gala 89-90, 121 vogue 186, 233-5, 237, 246, 308 Wang Kailing 250, 252, 309, 317 Wang Meng 18, 175-9, 306, 317-18 Wang Shuo 22, 72, 176-8, 303, 317 Wang Xiaoming 171-2, 229, 305-6, 317 white-collar class 92-100, 102, 126 Xie Youshun 247, 250-1, 308-9, 318-19 Xu Youyu 86-7, 304, 319 Yang Jing 252, 309, 312, 319 Zhang Chengzhi 172-6, 182, 306, 320 Zhang Wei 182, 311, 313-14, 318 Zhang Xianliang 8, 11-12, 16 Zhang Yimou 31, 33-5, 238 Zhang Zhongxing 155, 306, 320 Zhong Kui 283 Zhong Yicheng 178-9

322

Zhou Zuoren 119, 129, 153-4, 157-8, 306, 321 Zhou'er 273-4 Zhu Ziqing 153, 158, 306, 321 Zhuang Zhidie 147-9, 266 Zi, Hai 141-4, 306, 311, 313-14, 318