Formosa and the Fear of What's to Come

Formosa Betryaed, written by Will Tiao and directed by Adam Kane, is a 2009 Formosa Film release that explores the anxieties the inhabitants of the small island of Taiwan carry with them into the 21st century. A territory of mixed races passed through the hands of multiple imperial powers (e.g. Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese), the island now nervously contemplates its future just as one of its staunchest political allies, the US, now seems to be quietly observing its cultural, political and economic gravitation back towards mainland China. The official website of the film describes it in the following way: "Taiwan is a nation that struggles to be recognized, sometimes even by its own people, as an independent nation. Perhaps most significant is America's refusal to recognize Taiwan as a nation while protecting its right to democracy from the People's Republic of China government across the Taiwan strait."

The political thriller resurrects actual events that occured in the 1980s when the Taiwanese Nationalist government tracked down and murdered a number of intellectuals abroad who disagreed with plans to reunite with the mainland. An interesting twist in this cinematic interpretation of historical events is the presence of American officers and detectives seeking to track down the killers and uncovering a national conspiracy. Recently (Sept. 2009) the film was privately screened for US congressmen in hopes of raising consciousness of the contemporary cultural and political plights of Taiwan in a world of global powers gambling again with its fate.

Questions:

*How does the film's plot succeed in invoking a nationalist spirit to rally around?
*How is an overt American presence in the film relevant to the political message of the production?
*How might some Taiwanese reject this understanding of their nation?

Links:

*Caving in to the Chinese Economy (2010)
*Formosa Betrayed (official website)
*Article on private US Congress screening (Taipei Times)

From "I am!" to "What am I?": Bei Dao and Can Xue

After the death of Mao and the fall of the tyrannical Gang of Four in the mid-seventies, China felt the natural tremors of cultural change rumble to the surface after more than a decade of boundless repression. Maoism had demanded of the people a constant psychosomatic devotion to the communist party and its nationalist projects. After years of mental and physical conditioning in the methods of forfeiting their selves to and for the party, Chinese citizens seemed destined to remain passive to the eternal mandates of an external authority. Despite these strategies and tactics to vaccuum out its people individual essences, certain indominitable spirits survived. When Maoism and its ultra-militant champions were temporarily halted, intellectuals and artists who had sheltered their spark of individuality broke out to express themselves. During the 1980s, this frantic airing-out of individuality occured forcefully and moved briskly. From the simple, impassioned cries of affirmation of Bei Dao to the surreal, confounding explorations of the substance of subjectivity of Can Xue, Chinese writers rushed to articulate what it meant to exist individually in a post-Mao China.

Bei Dao 北島, Misty poet stand-out and co-founder of the controversial literary publication Jintian 今天 (1978-80; 1990-), is recognized as one of the first artists to break out after the collapse of Maoism to assert openly the possibility of assuming individuality in China. His poem "A Reply" 回答 demonstrates the forceful imposition of a singular voice against the colossal forces of history and reality that weigh down upon it: "I tell you, World! / I--Don't--Believe--You!"

From these initial outbursts of affirmation of post-Mao subjects, Chinese writers of prose moved quickly from the assertion of the "I" to explorations of its defintion in a new era of modernization/postmodernization. One of its most provocative and controversial writers, Can Xue 殘雪, originally a tailor, is an extreme example of how narratives have come to confront the meaning of subjectivity in Chinese literature. Her dizzying, Kafka-esque worlds of volatile identities and fluid personalities reveal the hyper-instability of the content of individuality. From a study of a selection of Bei Dao's and her work, we catch a glimpse of the frantic evolution of the search for subjectivity in late twentieth-century Chinese literature.

Readings:
*Selections from Bei Dao's poetry collections
*Selections from Can Xue's Old, Floating Clouds

Questions:
(1) What seems sure in Bei Dao's exclamations of individuality?
(2) How do the expository methods of Bei Dao and Can Xue contribute to their differing conceptions of individuality?
(3) What is stable in Can Xue's narrations?

Links:

*Hong King Bei Dao Archive

Supplementary references:
*Dian Li. The Chinese Poetry of Bei Dao: Resistance and Exile, 1978-2000. Edwin Mellen, 2006.

Love in a Time of Consumption

Love and sexuality are physiological phenomena that despite their apparent transperancy, are actually highly temporal and cultural specific. It is often taken for granted that human emotions and aesthetic responses are universal and universally translatable across times and cultures. The display of a sub-Saharan African child crying or the image of smiling Burmese elder might seem to be naturally comprehensible. What we intuitively grasp as the reasons for and meanings of these emotions are, in fact, culturally conditioned. The sub-Saharan child may not be crying because he is hungry, as decades of televised, American broadcasts have insisted, nor is the Burmese elder smiling because he lives an idyllic, oriental existence. We interpret emotions and feelings hastily and instinctively, but when confronting those of other cultures, it is important to take a step back to remember that the expressive rising and falling of emotions are themselves languages, culturally-specific codes that function differently in various contexts and are as susceptible to misinterpretation as any foreign gesture or word. Furthermore, those same culturally-specific codes are as subject to the evolutions of time as simple vocabulary. The influences of authority, history, cultural exchange, education, media, and the markets all impinge upon the changing manifestations of how people fall in love and how they express it.

In Comrades, Almost a Love Story (Tian mi mi)(1996), Peter Ho-Sun Chan reveals the susceptability of romantic sentiments to the recurrent pulsations of a global market. Li Xiaojun and Li Qiao embark on financial and sentimental quests in Hong Kong to find money and to nurture love. In these complicated processes of chasing down both goals, Chan demonstrates just how much love is affected and conditioned by capitalist consumption. The power and pervasiveness of the global market succeeds in producing a number of different ways of being Chinese and of being in love as such.

Questions to consider:
(1) What is the relationship of money to romance in the film?
(2) How does the continual presence of Teresa Teng's song "Tian mi mi" function in the film?
(3) How has consumption in Hong Kong affected the love of the main characters in the film?

Links:
*Censoring Dating Shows in the PRC (2010)

Secondary references:
*Chow, Rey. "By Way of Mass Commodities." Sentimental Fabulations, Contemporary Chinese Films. New York: Columbia UP, 2007. 105-120.

Ha Jin: “Affected by the Insufficiency”

Ha Jin (哈金) is the pen-name of Jin Xuefei (金雪飛). He was born February 21, 1956 in Liaoning, China to a family of faithful comrades. His father was an officer and Jin would follow in his footsteps by joining the PLA in 1969 at the height of the Cultural Revolution (文化大革命). After the demise of the Gang of Four and the rise of Deng Xiaoping, Ha pounced on the opportunity to seek higher education. Between 1981-84, he obtained advanced degrees in English and Anglo-American literature at Heilongjiang and Shandong universities. His opportunities for intellectual growth increased in 1985 when he and his wife moved to Waltham, MA to study at Brandeis University. While on scholarship there, he witnessed the attrocities of the Tian’an men incident from afar. The horror of the experience compelled him finally to emigrate permanently to the US to secure a better life for his wife and child.

After receiving his PhD (1992), Ha remained in the US. He is a unique and especially talented writer in that he writes exclusively in English about Chinese culture and history. Living in the US for only 20 some years, Ha has already become one of its most acclaimed authors, composing in a language that originally was not his own. His bibliography includes: Between Silences (1990), Facing Shadows (poetry)(1996), Ocean of Words (short stories)(1996), Under the Red Flag (short stories)(1997), In the Pond (novel)(1998), Waiting (novel)(1999), The Bridegroom (short stories)(2000), Wreckage (poetry) (2001), The Crazed (novel)(2002), War Trash (novel)(2004), A Free Life (novel)(2007), and The Writer as Migrant (essays)(2008). Ha is also the recepient of a number of awards: Hemingway/PEN (1997), National Book Award (1999), PENFaulker (2000). Currently, he writes and teaches as a professor at Boston University.

The following is a selection from a poem Ha is famous for that emphasizes the heightened role of language in the immigrant experience:

"In New York City

In the golden rain
I plod along Madison Avenue,
Loaded with words.
They are from a page
That show the insignificance
of a person to a tribe ,
Just as a hive keeps thriving
While a bee is lost [...]

No wisdom shines
Like the neon and traffic lights,
But there are words as true as
The money eyes, the yellow cabs,
The fact of pigeons on the sills."

Readings:
*Powell Books interview with David Weich
*The Writers as Migrant (2008)

Questions to consider:

(1) According to Ha Jin, what are the specific complications and challenges facing migrant writers?
(2) What are the specific ways in which you see Ha Jin managing his hybrid identity as an immigrant writer?
(3) How do you see him attempting a dual maneuver to preserve and to acquire original and new identities?

Links:
*Radio interview with Commentary.Ca' s Joseph Planta

Yao Ming and Olympic Dreams

If you've ever walked the streets of any major Chinese city and happened to mention that you were an NBA fan, you've almost certainly heard fired back at you the question: "You like the Houston Rockets?" At which point, you anticipate where the conversation is headed and jump right to the chase: "Yeah, that Yao Ming (姚明) is pretty good!" After rubbing the collective ego with that reply, I've sometimes felt impressed to actually share a personal opinion. I do not recommend doing so. It's a waste of air for the most part. "I'm actually a fan of the Boston Celtics." Blank stares... "You know, Boston's home team." (crickets chirping)... "Boston...it's near New York." At which point some nervous smiles and head-nods are thrown around. Like a lot of American's fleeting affairs with Lance Armstrong and cycling, one gets the sense that the majority of Chinese interest in baskestball is solely because one of their own is in the mix.

Yao Ming is NBA's tallest player and China's best-known athlete. He was born in Shanghai where he began honing his skills as a teenager with a local club, the Sharks. His height and skills later helped win Shanghai's veteran squad a CBA (Chinese Basketball Assocation) championship. In 2002, he entered the NBA draft and was selected by the Houston Rockets as the first overall pick. He has since started seven times in the NBA All-Star Game and has been named to the All-NBA team five times. In so many ways, he is the fortuitous symbol of China's modernizing aspirations, representing the superior athletic prowess and physical dominance that China's populations possess. Known as the "Great Wall of Houston," his successes are an appropriate prelude to Beijing's 2008 dreams of demonstrating on the world stage their athletic superiority.

By many accounts, the Beijing Olympics were a huge success. China provided the world with an army of capable volunteers and translators, showcased some of the world's most daring, new architecture and proved their superior athletic might by seizing the most gold medals of any participating nation (51). Furthermore, doubts about potential terrorist attacks or media altercations fizzled out with the extinguishing of the flame on August 24. China achieved its goal of hosting the world and showing off its progress while graciously treating and safely protecting its guests. With the success of this 29th Olympiad, however, have come a series of criticisms--some old, some new--that point to a number of blemishes on this pretty face of things: the violation of open media access, violation of human rights, boycotss, pro-Tibetan protestors, religious persectuions, surveillance of foreign hotels, manhandling of foreign journalists, protest zones, secret arrests, imprisonment and harassment of protestors, etc.

Questions:

(1) Why do nations pin nationalistic hopes upon their athletes?
(2) How do the different ways in which the Olympics were portrayed demonstrate the persistance of an East-West cultural and political divide that contradicts "One world, one dream"?

Links:
* Great Wall of Houston
* The Year of Yao
* 2008 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremonies
* Official Olympic Song (You and Me)

Secondary references:

* Xu Guoqi. Olympic Dreams: China and Sports 1895-2008. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2008.

*Susan Brownell. Training the Body for China: Sports in the Moral Order of the People’s Republic. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995.

*Rowan Simmons. Bamboo Goalposts. London: Macmillan, 2008.

Shakespeare, the Sonnet and China

One of PSU's own, Dr. Alexander Huang, recently published (June 2009) a benchmark study on the interpretations and performances of Shakespeare in Chinese over the past two centuries: Chinese Shakespeares (Columbia University Press). Whether you are interested or not in him (and you should be), Shakespeare's reception, influence and transformation as he has traveled through Chinese language, media and performance is something that sheds a great deal of light upon the main topic of this course: What does it means to be Chinese? As a locus classicus of the western world, Shakespeare carries more with him than bawdry witticisms, enduring plots and neologisms. His name embodies the sundry powers the West has exerted upon the world in its cultural and colonial imperialisms. How the Chinese have appropriated him in the modern era fashions its own virtual stage upon which we as critical observers may observe how the Chinese interact with an enduring paradigm of western culture.

In addition to examining the use of Shakespeare in Chinese in the recent past, we will also look briefly at how the western sonnet form was adopted by the Chinese during their New Poetry movement in the 1920's and 1930's. During this period of cultural renewal in China, following the May 4th (1919) watershed moment, the Chinese were looking to borrow and create their own, novel poetic forms that would depart from the traditional shi that had endured and stiffled creativity for millenia. The sonnet's reception and transformation in Chinese during this period is a testament to New Poetry's dedication to forming its own unique, Chinese creation.

Materials:
*The Banquet (2006)

Questions:
(1) Is this Shakespeare or Feng Xiaogang? Why should this question matter?
(2) What does the inclusion of a pseudo-Shakespearean plot add to the re-imagination of Chinese history?
(3) What are the reasons New Poetry intellectuals gave for adopting the sonnet?

Links:
* Shenzhen Daily, Banquet review
* Movie Review Query Engine, Banquet reviews
* Imdb, Banquet reviews

Secondary references:
(1) Huang, Alexander. Chinese Shakespeares: Two Centuries of Cultural Exchange. New York: Columbia UP, 2009.
(2) Zhang Xiaoyang. "Shaju yanchu yu shidai shenmei yishi." Waiguo wenxue yanjiu 3 (1988): 68-74.

Zhang Yimou and His Girls

Zhang Yimou is internationally the most well known of a renowned group of modern Chinese directors called the Fifth Generation. The group gets its name from the order in which it graduated from the Beijing Film Academy (Class of 1982). Zhang's is a history laden with the greatest of hardships and the highest of successes. A citation from a recent interview with Bright Lights touches briefly upon the lingering angst of his past:

"I think my experience represents a wealth of assets for my life and my work. During the ten years of the Cultural Revolution, I went from age sixteen to age twenty-six. I experienced a lot of chaotic situations, and I saw a lot of terrible, tragic things happening around me. From all that I got a deep understanding of human life, of the human heart or spirit — of human society, really — and I think that it benefits me today: in my work, in my thinking, and even in how I deal with personal problems.

The Cultural Revolution was a very special period of Chinese history, unique in the world. For many years, I wanted to make movies about that period — to discuss the suffering and to talk about fate and human relationships in a world that people couldn't control and which was very hostile. In today's political climate, such a project is impossible — as To Live (1994) has proved, at least in my native country — so I'll just have to wait."

The film we prepared for today, Raise the Red Lantern (1991), is a modern International classic based on Ni Zhen's 1990 novel, Wives and Concubines. It represents nicely two of the most salient characteristics of Zhang's cinematic art: (1) stunning visual beauty, and (2) the centrality of female protagonists. The film tells the story of a young woman, Songlian, who becomes the fourth concubine in a powerful family during the Warlord Era (1916-28CE). She is warmly received only to become slowly entangled in the poisonous machinations of the household. Her position is ultimately compromised and the trauma she is forced to endure changes her forever. The screenplay was approved initially by Chinese censors but later banned for rumors that it doubled as a veiled allegory of an oppressive communist China.

Materials:
Raise the Red Lantern (1991)

Questions:
(1) How is the feudal institution of polygamy portrayed in the film?
(2) How do women exercise power in a system where they are often made politically powerless?
(3) How does color contribute to the interpretive force of the film?

Secondary references
*Cardullo, Bert. "Beyond the Fifth Generation: An Interview with Zhang Yimou" Bright Lights Film Journal 58 (2007 Nov).
Chow, Rey. "Not One Less: The Fable of a Migration" Chinese Films in Focus: 25 New Takes. Ed. Chris Berry. London: British Film Institute, 2003. 144-51.
*Levitin, Jacqueline. "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero, and House of the Flying Daggers: Interpreting Gender Thematics in the Contemporary Swordplay Film-A View from the West" Asian Cinema 17.1 (2006 Spring-Summer): 166-82.
*Huang, Yiju. "Weaving a Dark Parody: A Psychoanalytical Reading of Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower" Film International 6.2 (2008): 41-51.
*Lan, Feng:. "Zhang Yimou's Hero: Reclaiming the Martial Arts Film for 'All under Heaven'" Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 20.1 (2008 Spring): 1-43.
*Beus, Yifen: "The Road to Modernity: Urban and Rural Scenes in Zhang Yimou's The Story of Qiu Ju, Not One Less, and The Road Home" Representing the Rural: Space, Place, and Identity in Films about the Land. Ed. Catherine Fowler. MI: Wayne State UP, 2006. 276-91.
*Li, David Leiwei: "Capturing China in Globalization: The Dialectic of Autonomy and Dependency in Zhang Yimou's Cinema" Texas Studies in Literature and Language 49.3 (2007 Fall): 293-317.