Modernization as Lived Experiences: Three Generations of Young Men and Women in China 9781138217201, 9781315441245

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Modernization as Lived Experiences

This book examines, in a culturally and contextually sensitive way, the particularity of what it means to be young in post-Mao China undergoing rapid and dramatic transformation by comparing childhood and youth experiences over three generations. The analysis draws on life-history interviews with Beijing young men and women in their last upper secondary year, their parents and their grandparents. The book offers a comprehensive coverage of the various aspects of life pertinent to youth experiences and compares each of these across three generations, treating them as interrelated and mutually affecting processes – childhood, intergenerational relationships, education and future plans, gender and sexuality. By offering both men’s and women’s accounts of their childhood and youth experiences, which for the three generations combined extend over nearly a century, the book sheds useful light on how gender and sexuality have evolved in China. Fengshu Liu concludes that the young generation’s lives feature a ‘maximization desire’, in sharp contrast to the two older generations’ childhood and youth experiences. The book meticulously weaves rich ethnographic details and individual life stories into a larger and unfolding picture of historical, social and cultural trends, while providing critical insight into Chinese modernization and modernity against the backdrop of globalization. It can thus be an enjoyable read also for people beyond the academia interested in China’s social and cultural transformation and its children and youth. Fengshu Liu is Professor of Education at the University of Oslo. Her research cuts across childhood and youth studies, comparative and international education, and sociology of education (e.g., gender, generation, family and modernization). Her earlier book is titled Urban Youth in China: Modernity, the Internet and the Self.

Youth, Young Adulthood and Society

Tracy Shildrick, Newcastle University, UK John Goodwin, University of Leicester, UK Henrietta O’Connor, University of Leicester, UK

The Youth, Young Adulthood and Society series approaches youth as a distinct area, bringing together social scientists from many disciplines to present cuttingedge research monographs and collections on young people in societies around the world today. The books present original, exciting research, with strongly theoretically- and empirically-grounded analysis, advancing the field of youth studies. Originally set up and edited by Andy Furlong, the series presents interdisciplinary and truly international, comparative research monographs. Transitions to Adulthood through Recession Youth and Inequality in a European Comparative Perspective Edited by Sarah Irwin and Ann Nilsen Youth, Technology, Governance, Experience Adults Understanding Young Lives Edited by Liam Grealy, Catherine Driscoll and Anna Hickey-Moody Youth, Risk, Routine A New Perspective on Risk-Taking in Young Lives Tea Torbenfeldt Bengtsson and Signe Ravn Rethinking Young People’s Marginalisation Beyond Neo-Liberal Futures? Perri Campbell, Lyn Harrison, Chris Hickey and Peter Kelly Youth in the Digital Age Paradox, Promise, Predicament Edited by Kate C. Tilleczek and Valerie M. Campbell Modernization as Lived Experiences Three Generations of Young Men and Women in China Fengshu Liu For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/YouthYoung-Adulthood-and-Society/book-series/YYAS

Modernization as Lived Experiences

Three Generations of Young Men and Women in China

Fengshu Liu

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Fengshu Liu The right of Fengshu Liu to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-21720-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-44124-5 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

In fond memory of Professor Jon Lauglo (1943–2019), who passed away on March 17, 2019 and who lives in my heart and in this book. Balance Exemplarity Adaptation Romanticism Inspiration Maximization Pragmatism Breadwinning (MP) Autonomy Orchard, ocean, fish – la Paloma Berries, fruit, plants, oils, spices – Scarborough Fair Excellence Imp . . . . . .

Contents

Acknowledgmentsviii 1 Introduction

1

2 Modernization and social change

17

3 The rise of the ‘priceless’ Chinese child: childhood in three generations

47

4 Daxue as the norm: the rise of the Chinese ‘schooled society’ over three generations

78

5 The aspiring male individual: the rise of chenggong as a new hegemonic masculine ideal

115

6 The aspiring female individual: ‘wanting to have it all’ as a new female ideal

144

7 An expressive turn with a Chinese twist: young people’s other-sex relations in three generations

176



Conclusion: the maximization desire: living modernization the Chinese way

204

Glossary223 Index228

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without Professor Jon Lauglo, who unfortunately passed away during the last phase of the writing of this book. I am immensely indebted to him for his extensive and constructive comments on the book’s earlier drafts. Jon’s constant enthusiasm about and appreciation of this book lent me extra moral strength to passionately carry on with the writing and revision – also during the past weeks in the midst of deep sorrow for him. It is sad that Jon is not here to share with me the pleasure of seeing the book’s completion now. But I wish to express my deep-felt gratitude to him for all he has done for and with me, not least for inspiring me to explore the relevance of certain salient traditional Chinese cultural traits for understanding Chinese modernity in this book and beyond. I have learned enormously from Jon – benefiting, for instance, from his extraordinarily rich vocabulary, his ‘magic touch’ of words, and his broad linguistic and historical knowledge. I dedicate this book to his memory. I owe much of my academic advancement since my post-doctoral years to the Norwegian Research Council (NFR) for its generous funding. This book is part of a larger NFR-funded project on three generations of young men and young women in China and Norway (2011–16). I give special thanks to all the research participants, the Chinese young men and women, their parents and grandparents, for their readiness and openness to let me into their lives. They shared their life stories with me even when it sometimes meant activating painful memories, especially for the two older generations. The young people squeezed time out of their precious last year before the gaokao (College Entrance Exam) for the interviews. Thanks to their introduction, their parents and grandparents also warmly received me, sometimes hospitably offering me meals at their homes. I have developed friendship with some of the families. I owe many thanks to my personal contacts at the two schools for helping me gain access to the ‘field’. I thank my colleagues at the Department of Education of the University of Oslo, many of whom have shown genuine interest and faith in my work all these years. The institute leadership granted me a sabbatical from autumn 2018 to spring 2019 to enable the writing of this book. My most heartfelt thanks go to Professor Ola Erstad, the department leader, for his unfailing support for and confidence in my

Acknowledgments ix

work, not least this book project. The larger project on which the book is based benefited from my participation in an earlier research group he led. I would also like to thank Professor Rachel Murphy and the Oxford China Center for hosting me as a visiting scholar in autumn 2018. My stay at Oxford enabled me to complete the first draft of the whole book, which laid a crucial foundation for where the book is today. The book has also benefited from my discussion with some colleagues there. The book proposal received a warm welcome from Routledge sociology editor Emily Briggs and Professor Andy Furlong, the Routledge series editor of Youth, Young Adulthood and Society. I am grateful to Emily and Andy for their enthusiasm about and faith in this book project. Special thanks to Elena Chiu, the Routledge editorial assistant, for her warm and reliable assistance, including the deadline extension that she readily gave me when some unexpected happenings in our department made it impossible for me to work on the book as originally scheduled. Also thanks to Lakshita Joshi, who took over Elena’s task in assisting me with the book during the last stage of the publication process. And also thanks to Ramachandran Vijayaragavan for his great help with my final tasks in getting this book published. Parts of the book’s empirical chapters have benefited from my earlier published journal articles (although each of these chapters has been substantially extended). Chapter 3 builds on an article published in Comparative Education Review, 60(1):105–30 (2016). Chapter 5 has its beginnings in an article in Men and Masculinities, 1–23 (2017). Chapter 6 has its very base in an article in Gender and Education 26(1):18–34 (2014). Chapter 7 is partly based on text adapted from an article in Sociology, 1–16 (2017). I thank these journals for permission to adapt text for certain parts of this book and their peer reviewers for valuable comments on earlier versions of these articles. I am extremely lucky to have a close and loving extended family. It is impossible to detail their substantial and unyielding support here because then the acknowledgments would have run many, many pages. Those who have given me extra support in this book project and in the larger project on which this book is based include Fengmin, Fengwu, Fengxia, Guojun, Guotong and Xiumin. I also thank my dearest son Yiguang Yang, also my ‘priceless child’, for serving as an extra and constructive proofreader of this book—and for being a greatest source of love, joy, purpose and meaningfulness in my life. Special thanks to my dear mother Guiying Zhang for being exemplary in keeping the heart and mind young, and for the continuing togetherness and belongingness without which my life would have been much impoverished. Fengshu Liu April 26, 2019

Chapter 1

Introduction

‘What a life today’s young people are living! The difference from my days is like the difference between heaven and earth (tiandi zhibie).’ This is a frequently uttered social commentary by my own 87-year-old mother. She also says that she is lucky to have lived long enough to see today’s society but regrets that her childhood and youth1 were during the 1930s–1950s rather than now. At the same time, she sometimes laments about today’s society and young people. Underlying her ambivalence about the condition of children and youth in contemporary China is a strong perception of dramatic change since she was young. I have often heard the same from other people during my conversations with my relatives and friends in China and from online or offline acquaintances. My mother’s generation – who has seen China’s transformation over nearly a century – is not the only one with a vivid perception of dramatic change, however. Talk about dramatic change by comparing today’s young people with one’s own childhood and youth is indeed common also among younger people, especially those who grew up before the mid-1990s, and even among people born in the 1980s. These younger age groups also tend to show both appreciation and complaints about the dramatic social change, albeit in ways not totally identical to how my mother’s generation does it. These lay people’s commentaries about social change touch on all the aspects of life such as parenting, childhood, generational relationship, schooling, gender and sexuality, incorporating both the material and non-material transformation of life. What is it like to be young in present-day Chinese society, referred to as postMao, or post-socialist, China? How has ‘being young’ changed in China over the recent generations? How have young people’s experiences been transformed regarding such aspects of life as childhood, education and future plans, family relationships, gender and sexuality? Although the predominant discourse is about change, what social and cultural continuities can be found from generation to generation? What can the generational differences and similarities tell us about the nature of China’s recent transformation? These questions will be best answered by listening to and comparing what people in the various generations tell us about their own lives. A generational comparative approach can be a useful way to capture the particularity of being young in the present by comparing it with the past. This book reports findings from life

2 Introduction

history interviews with three generations of Chinese men and women about their childhood and youth experiences. A voluminous literature now exists on post-Mao China’s transformation. Most scholarly publications analyze it from macro – and often economic and political science – perspectives, as reflected in concepts such as ‘the Chinese experience’, ‘the Chinese path’, ‘the Chinese model’ and ‘the Chinese miracle’. Many studies quantify economic, technological and material growths and their socioeconomic consequences. A number of books also look at the living of the transformation from a micro perspective using qualitative research methods on various topics such as family relations (e.g., Evans, 2008; Gonçalo, Santos and Harrell, 2017), childhood (e.g., Naftali, 2016), gender (e.g., Choi and Peng, 2016; Fincher, 2014; Song and Hird, 2014; Jacka, 2006; Wang, 2017), sexuality (e.g., Farrer, 2002), youth culture (e.g., de Kloet and Fung, 2017), education (e.g., Kipnis, 2011), rural-urban migration (e.g., Zhang, 2002), young people and the Internet (Liu, 2011) and modernity and individual psyche (Kipnis, 2012). These qualitative studies usefully counterbalance and complement the studies from a macro perspective. Much can be learned about people’s lives and about historical trends by examining actual personal lived experiences. This study purports to extend this latter body of research by focusing on urban young men’s and women’s lived experiences of post-Mao China’s modernization. It transcends the foci and approaches of previous research on contemporary Chinese youth and gender studies in three main ways. First, it takes a generational comparative approach. ‘Generation’ is an in-vogue term widely adopted in the media and academia to portray contemporary children and youth. However, generation is a contested term. Its definition may vary by ethnicity, geography, culture and time. There is relatively little consensus about the span of years to be used in defining a generation. There is also dispute as to whether generational differences exist that are significant enough to take into consideration in various contexts such as the workplace and higher education. My choice of a generational comparative perspective in this study is based on its particular usefulness for understanding social change, which may prove especially relevant to societies such as post-Mao China. Mannheim (1952) argues, for a group of contemporaries to form an ‘actual’ generation, they must share a set of experiences and social and economic conditions during their formative years. These shared experiences and conditions shape their generationally distinctive consciousness and mentality, pointing to their distinctive ‘generational locations’, each with ‘certain definite modes of behavior, feeling and thought’ (p. 291). The more rapid and dramatic such changes are, the greater the differences will be between generations. The generational differences and similarities that may emerge from generational comparisons may in turn help us assess the momentum, scope, nature and significance of social change. Greenfield (2009) argues: Generation comparisons are effective means to understand social change. The effects of social change can be studied by comparing generations at the

Introduction 3

same stage of life but at different historical periods (i.e., at different time points). One can also compare different generations at the same time. In both designs, intergenerational difference is the variable of interest. When the latter design involves parents and children in the same family, intergenerational conflict can be used to index intergenerational change. (pp. 406–7) I would add that generational comparisons also make it possible to document social and cultural continuity from generation to generation. In academic discussion of post-Mao China’s transformation, much focus has been on the dramatic change, but much less on continuity in terms of cultural values and social reproduction. It remains a question how both contemporary change and continuity are reflected in young people’s self-understanding, interpersonal relations and identity construction in general. Studying family generations will not only show intergenerational conflict, as Greenfield usefully argues, but it will also  – from the perspectives of both children and parents – show how meanings, including intergenerational identification and relationship, familism, attachment and intimacy, are co-constructed by the various generations to affect young people (and their parents and grandparents) (Brannen, 2004). This view agrees with the notion of ‘linked lives’: people in salient relationships with each other, such as parents and children, exert long-lasting mutual influence (Elder, Johnson and Crosnoe, 2003). This book compares generations at the same stage of life (childhood and youth) but at different historical times, drawing on life history interviews with three generations of family members whose formative years were in sharply different historical circumstances. Thus, these family generations also constitute three sociological generations in the Mannheimian sense. Notwithstanding the widespread interest internationally (e.g., among politicians, advertisers, employers and academics) in understanding post-Mao China’s transformation and its young people, few comparative studies of recent Chinese generations exist. Few previous studies have drawn on a combination of interviews with present-day youth and retrospective interviews with their own parents and grandparents about what life was like when they were young. Yan’s book (2003) Private Life under Socialism is not an explicit cross-generational comparison of youth but an anthropological study of the transformation of private life in rural China from 1949 to 1999. Generational change in values and gender is a strong theme in the book. But its young generation was rural youth born much earlier than the urban young generation in this present book. Evans’s (2008) book The Subject of Gender adopts a generational comparative perspective. But it focuses specifically on changing mother-daughter relations over two generations. Clark’s (2012) Youth Culture in China: From Red Guards to Netizens compares youth culture in 1968, 1988 and 2008, drawing on academic studies, films and photographs. It adopts an explicitly generational comparative approach. However, its focus and methodological approach differ substantially from the present study.

4 Introduction

The present work also purports in one study to offer a more comprehensive coverage of the various aspects of life pertinent to youth experiences, such as childhood, intergenerational relationships, education and future plans, gender and sexuality, as interrelated and mutually affecting processes and as components of the totality of life. Previous publications concerning these respective aspects of young people’s life exist and are useful for the analysis in this book. There are also a small number of books on Chinese urban youth (e.g. Cockain, 2012 and a previous book of my own, Liu, 2011), but these have other thematic foci, methodological designs and approaches and concern other age groups than the present study. Few studies so far have adopted a holistic approach to examine the different aspects of youth’s life as parts of an integrated whole. This book also combines a generational perspective with a gender perspective. Gender as a primary cultural frame for behavior and social relations offers a vantage point to examine social change concomitant to modernization and globalization. No previous book covers both men and women in China across three generations with regard to any of the themes dealt with in the present book’s empirical chapters. This book examines present-day young people’s gender conceptions and practices by including both women and men, treating gender from a relational perspective, and by comparing them with their parents and grandparents. By offering both men’s and women’s accounts of their childhood and youth experiences, which for the three generations combined extend over nearly a century, this study will shed light on how gender (including sexuality) has evolved in China. The one-child policy practiced in cities (until 2016) unintentionally created a child-centeredness in urban families with parents’ strong interest in investing in the only child’s education and high achievement expectations regardless of the sex of the child (Croll, 2006; Fong, 2004; Liu, 2006; Rich and Tsui, 2002). This contrasts to traditional ‘son favoritism’, suggesting that gender may have become less, or even no longer, influential for urban youth, in accord with Parish and Willis’ (1995) argument that educational expansion promotes gender equity. Previous research on Chinese only children has predominantly been quantitative and focused on parenting, consumption, and only children’s psychological development. The research literature usually only points to the one-child policy’s unintended promotion of the girl child’s education and family status, with scant attention to other factors that may also affect young people’s negotiation of femininities and masculinities, such as individualization, the post-Mao ‘natural sex differences’ discourse, the filial duty expected of the only child, and the notoriously imbalanced sex ratio. An important question this book will explore is: how do young men and women from the only child generation negotiate gender in the more general post-Mao circumstances? In short, this book seeks to understand, from the informants’ own perspective, being young at different points of time in history to shed light on social and cultural transformation and to illuminate the relationship between the logic of

Introduction 5

individuals’ innovative actions and the effects of system-level constraints and normative settings. Life history as a research method is well suited for such a purpose. Goodson (1995) defines life history as ‘stories of action within theories of contexts’ (p. 98). A life history informed study, such as the present one, emphasizes the importance of making connections between individual life stories and wider frameworks of understanding (Cole and Knowles, 2001; Goodson and Sikes, 2001). In this study, this means interpreting the findings, and making theoretical sense of them, by situating my informants’ life stories in the larger historical context pertinent to each generation’s childhood and youth. I shall accordingly view the experiences of the young generation – the starting point and main focus of this book, against post-Mao China’s rearticulated and revised modernization project. In doing so, I will draw on insight from critically examined concepts of ‘modernization’ and ‘modernity’. Since the changes in post-Mao China have been much influenced by global modernizing forces, there is much similarity to the transformation that has occurred in the West.2 However, China’s post-Mao modernization is unfolding in a national-local context with its own historical, cultural, social, economic and political particularities that interact with global forces to reconfigure China’s modernization into a unique experience. ‘Chineseness’ is also consciously sought in the state modernization discourse, as reflected in the notion of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ (Zhang, 2004), which represents a particularly Chinese ‘dual’ approach to modernity (Liu, 2011). Such a perspective on modernization, which is in keeping with the ‘divergence’ thesis (see Chapter 2), is not to simplistically pose the ‘local’ and ‘global’, or ‘Chinese’ and ‘Western’ (or the rest of the world) as bifurcated entities or a dichotomy, but to recognize the complexity inherent in post-Mao modernization in which young people’s lives are embedded. The contemporary Chinese model of modernization (Liu, 2011; Zhang, 2004), like any other version of modernization, not only involves profound material and institutional transformation, but it also constitutes a powerful cultural model with specific expectations, ideals, enjoinments and demands for people. It addresses individuals as certain sorts of human beings, for example, as child to parents, as man or woman and as student across a range of social sites, such as the family, the educational institutions, the labor market and the workplace. Individual reflexivity has to be exercised within, not above, both the material and ideational contexts, which together constitute the ‘structural condition’ for individual agency (Sewell, 1992). In this book, adopting such a perspective on modernization, I hope to understand how Chinese urban youth exercise agency while coming to terms with both the institutional and material conditions and cultural norms and ideals concomitant to post-Mao social transformation, and how in so doing they mark themselves as members of a particular generation, remarkably different from their parents and grandparents, and as gendered beings.

6 Introduction

Data and methods This study is part of a larger project on three generations of young men and women in China and Norway (2011–16). The data used in this book are 98 life history interviews conducted in 2011–12 with three generations of men and women. The young interviewees were 46 students – 25 boys and 21 girls, in their final year of upper secondary school in Beijing. These initial interviews were followed by interviews with 14 girls’ mothers (N = 14) and maternal grandmothers (N = 14) and with 12 boys’ fathers (N = 12) and paternal grandfathers (N = 12). Whenever necessary for the sake of clarity, the three generations are hereafter referred to respectively as the young generation, the middle generation, and the older generation, or the daughters/ sons, the mothers/fathers (or the parents), and the grandmothers/grandfathers (or the grandparents). Fictional names are used for the participants. All the 46 students were from the academic track of upper secondary school. Students in the ‘academic track’, in contrast with those in the ‘vocational track’, typically aim for higher education. This choice was to see how young people relate to education – which like other domains of life has undergone dramatic transformation – at their double transition to adulthood and to higher education or the larger society. Given the study’s interest in the urban only child generation, it was also natural to recruit informants from the academic track because most urban adolescents go to such upper secondary schools. To obtain some spread in academic performance and socio-economic background of the participants for exploratory purposes, I recruited boys and girls from one high-reputation ‘key school’ and one ‘ordinary school’ of average-mediocre reputation. Beijing’s secondary schools are ranked as either key schools or ordinary schools. Key schools have better qualified teachers and superior facilities. Key schools mainly recruit highly select students based on entrance exams (although subject to higher school fees, others with somewhat lower results may also enroll). Their students are at a considerable advantage in accessing university. The participants included ‘top’, ‘average’ and ‘low-performing’ students at both schools. Both schools are in the same district of Beijing. At both schools students come from varied socioeconomic backgrounds, but with higher average SES (socio-economic status) of parents at the key school. As only children and Beijingers, the informants at both schools were from China’s most advantaged urban community, especially compared to rural students. Differences by SES will be noted, but a focus on such effects is beyond the present scope. I shall refer to these two schools respectively as the ‘key school’ and the ‘ordinary school’. Of these 46, 24 were at the ‘key school’ while 22 were at the ordinary school. The sample included nearly equal numbers of boys and girls from both the schools. The boys and girls were recruited via personal contacts with head teachers I had been acquainted with who introduced my project to their classes and asked for volunteers. The parents and grandparents interviewed were traced through these boys and girls.

Introduction 7

The choice of Beijing as the research site was out of the consideration of starting with young men and young women in the capital city, which is supposedly at the forefront of the country’s modernity, as a possibly effective way to assess post-Mao modernization’s impact on young people’s lives.3 As the main focus and starting point were the young generation, it is accidental who the parents and grandparents were. The socio-geographical origins of the two older generations varied: some grew up in Beijing, others in rural or other urban areas. At the time of my fieldwork, most of the grandparents were living in rural areas or urban places other than Beijing. All the parents were Beijingers. Some of them grew up in Beijing; others became Beijingers through education, job allocation upon military retirement, marriage or Beijing municipality expansion. Thus, these ‘accidentally found’ parents may nonetheless over-represent Chinese in that generation who have achieved social mobility. The three generations were born in three distinctive historical periods. The young interviewees, born in 1993–94, belong to the post-1990s cohort of the only child generation. They spent their childhood from the mid-1990s – one and a half decades into Deng’s reform and opening up – to the late 2000s. This was a time characterized by post-Mao China’s further integration with the world economy, enormous growth in material wealth, vast improvement in living conditions, rapid advances in information and communication technology, prevalent consumerism and individualism, unprecedented emphasis on formal education and stark social stratification. Their parents were born during 1964–71. Some spent their childhood in the pre-reform era under Mao’s socialist collectivism, largely during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). Others’ childhoods straddled the Maoist era and the early years of the reform era. Born during 1930–45, the grandparents’ childhood occurred at a time of wars, natural disasters, famine, economic stagnation, and poverty – and for the majority, who grew up during the early years of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) established in 1949, also Maoist political campaigns. Most of the interviewees from the two older generations have multiple siblings. The interviews lasted one and a half to three hours. They were all conducted individually and face-to-face at various locations, such as the young people’s schools, at my temporary residence in Beijing, at the informants’ homes, coffee houses, restaurants or a rented hotel room, depending on the informants’ preferences and convenience. Interviewing the two older generations, especially the grandparents, often required me to travel long distances to meet them. The interviews were informed by both life history research and this study’s generational comparative design. The interview questions were designed in such a way as to allow for ‘storytelling’ in the informant’s own words. The interviews followed a chronological perspective covering childhood, the present and (imagined) future. The two older generations were invited to answer a similar set of questions about their childhood and youth periods to make possible a systematic cross-generational comparison.

8 Introduction

The older generations’ narratives drew on memories about their childhood and youth, unavoidably filtered by their present perceptions and experiences. Memories are always a reconstruction of the past from the vantage point of the present. Thus, retrospective interviews about one’s childhood and youth were admittedly open for possible biasing of what is recalled and reported by the interviewee. For example, the older generations might have understated views and behaviors now perceived as negative. ‘Forgetfulness’, especially among elderly interviewees, might also undermine the ‘truthful’ recollection of their earlier life. But experiences that made an impression on one’s life, especially during one’s formative years, may also follow a person for a lifetime. Such experiences and reflections on them may most likely feature into the narrating of one’s life, especially during a life history interview. Therefore, retrospective interviews’ value should not be discarded together with their possible weaknesses. In any case, the interviews with the older generations, like those with the young generation, conveyed an impression of open communication and articulate ‘narrativity’. For example, the grandparents had very little to tell from their youth about romance. But none displayed any reluctance to talk about its paucity. Rather, they elaborated upon how simple their life and minds and hearts were ‘back in those days’ in contrast to present-day young people. The high degree of isomorphism in the life stories by those in the same generation will be taken in support of the trustworthiness of their narratives. The analysis will also to some extent be triangulated by drawing on other sources about the conditions of life and opportunities available to the older generations. Since the young people had introduced me, I was also warmly received by their parents and grandparents. I was often invited to stay for lunch and/or dinner in cases where I interviewed the informants at their homes. This offered me an opportunity to observe their family life. Many of them said that they enjoyed talking openly to me about their lives. Sharing language and culture with them hopefully facilitated communication and trust. All the interviews were conducted in Mandarin, my mother tongue. As a native who was educated and worked in north China before leaving for abroad and having done several rounds of fieldwork in research on youth there, I  was probably perceived by the interviewees as a cultural insider. As an insider, I may also have interacted differently with the informants depending on their generation; but they were all asked questions about their childhood and youth. I was also sufficiently distanced for them to confide in me matters they might not have divulged to people close to them. For instance, many of the young people confided in me about their school romance and sex life, asking me not to tell their parents or teachers. The young interviewees also volunteered that it was useful for them at this life stage to talk with someone like me about their current situations and life plans. All the interviews were recorded and transcribed. Soon after each interview, I listened to the recording. Repeatedly reading the transcripts, both across the three generations and across the interviews within each of the generations, I looked for information that shed light on each generation concerning the various themes

Introduction 9

examined in this study. I also traced differences and similarities between generations to identify patterns of generational changes and continuities. It is a multifaceted process to make sense of the 98 life history interviews (including 26 three-generation families and 20 young people whose parents and grandparents did not participate in the project) – lives conditioned by individual and collective as well as historical and biographic complexities. Generalizations about the entire Chinese population cannot be empirically tested on my small and purposive sample. However, generational comparisons can nonetheless illustrate trends, which is my purpose in this study. The focus will therefore be on shared experiences among a generation’s members and on generational comparisons. That is, rather than chronicling each person’s life history, I have chosen to organize the text in the empirical chapters around topics and themes which cut across the individual life stories in each generation. Only brief notes will be made of individual differences by urbanity/rurality, gender, socio-economic condition, school performance, position in the sibling order, and parents’ personalities. This hopefully gives the book much analytic strength, but it inevitably means that the reader is not left with any holistic impression of each person’s life. However, while trying to weave the narratives by all the informants from each generation into a larger picture of that particular generation, I have also sought to achieve an effect of storytelling as much as possible by allowing the data to speak for themselves. The aim throughout this book is thus to strike a balance between representing the informants’ voices and perspectives and providing interpretation and theorization of their narratives in relation to the broader context of each generation’s childhood and youth and by drawing critical insight from relevant theories.

Organization of the book Modernization in any society today is an effect of the interaction between global and national-local conditions and forces. Thus, to understand post-Mao China’s transformation and young people’s experiences of it, it is necessary to critically draw on modernization theory and global modernizing trends pertinent to the themes that are to be examined in this book. Thus, Chapter 2 provides a brief overview of the evolution of modernization theory, reviewing the ‘convergence’ and ‘divergence’ theses. This chapter treats ‘late modernity’ theory as an extension of conventional modernization theory, incorporating its insights about contemporary social conditions into the larger theoretical framework. The larger part of this chapter will be a review of the relationship between modernization and changes in value and personality, interpersonal relations, including gender relations, parentchild relations and intimacy, childhood and education – themes pertinent to this book’s empirical themes. The global trends reviewed in Chapter 2 set the general backdrop to the more specific case of China concerning the transformation of childhood and youth experiences that this book will empirically examine. Against

10 Introduction

this broader backdrop, in each of the empirical chapters that follow, I will zoom in to the Chinese national-local context, offering a brief overview of the historical transformation of that specific aspect of life the chapter will conduct a generational comparison on. These global and national-local trends together are meant to provide a macro context for a more situated and nuanced understanding of Chinese urban youth’s lived experiences of modernization. Chapter 3, the first of five empirical chapters, examines how childhood experiences have changed over the three generations. I show that Chinese urban children, boys and girls alike, have become extremely emotionally ‘precious’ but economically useless to parents, with whom they enjoy (or at least desire) democratic relationship and expressive intimacy. Between the two older generations, there was much continuity in parent-child relationships and the meaning of the child. With the birth of the young generation and the contextual post-Mao changes, the rise of the Chinese ‘priceless child’ occurred, as evinced by three interrelated transformations: from ‘the dutiful and helpful child to parents’ to ‘the little emperor/empress’, from awe to expressive intimacy, and from ‘growing up naturally’ to ‘deliberate cultivation and training’. Parenting became an art or skill one is supposed to learn, rather than something one just does, as in the past. The change supports previous theorizing about childhood modernization. But in China both the ‘rise’ and the preciousness of the priceless child have been intensified by the dramatic post-Mao transformation, including the one-child policy. Modern parenting practices are also influenced by, and often in tension with, muchcherished centuries-old cultural values. The parents wished to strike a balance between these. Change in childhood and youth is very much reflected in how contemporary young people relate to education compared with the older generations. What does schooling entail for the young generation and their families in post-Mao China? How do present-day young people’s school experiences compare with those of earlier generations? How can the nature of the change be understood in the light of both the global education trends and Chinese local realties? These are the questions I deal with in Chapter 4. I argue that the generational transformation of educational experiences shows the rise in China of what David Baker (2014) calls the ‘schooled society’. China stands out as a prime example, and an intensified version, of the schooled society. Especially among the urban only child families, higher education has turned from merely being desirable but limited to a minority into an attainment that is seen as necessary for every worthy youth – producing over only three family generations, or more precisely, between the middle and young generation, the rise of the ‘higher education generation’. Going to ­university/college has become a characteristic of ‘normative youth’ and g­ etting into a prestigious university represents the ‘exemplary young personhood’, ­creating an extreme, and possibly internationally unique, pressure for academic excellence at the lower levels of schooling. The contrast with their grandparents’ talk of lack and irrelevance of education when they were young is extreme. It is also a far cry from the experiences of their parents, for whom higher education,

Introduction 11

even technical-vocational upper secondary school (zhongzhuan), was for a small number of top students. Besides globalization, this reflects China’s century-old and widespread reverence for education and its exemplary norm (Bakken, 2000; Dawson, 1915). It also has to do with the fierce competition for a ‘worthy’ livelihood in the post-Mao market economy without a sound, state-provided safety net, the inflation of higher education credentials, and the urban family’s strong desire to maximize human capital for the priceless child, who is also the ‘aspiring individual’ of the young generation. The following three chapters together explore how young people’s gender construction has been transformed over the three generations. Chapter 5 examines how the young men construct masculinity in comparison with their fathers and grandfathers, showing the rise of chenggong (success; outstanding accomplishment) as a new masculine ideal. As an exemplary norm that a man somehow has to come to terms with, chenggong constitutes a ‘hegemonic masculinity’. All the young men, regardless of individual biographical factors, family background or school performance, showed a wish, and even expectation, for chenggong. Their ideas of ‘the good life’, ‘the good person’ and ‘the good man’ all had chenggong as a prerequisite. They recognized that taking chenggong seriously entailed much personal cost, but the cost of not taking it seriously might be greater. The young men’s narratives contrast sharply with those of their grandfathers, for whom individual achievement was irrelevant and the notion of chenggong was hardly accessible. They also contrast with the talk among their fathers (including those who achieved what was viewed as a great accomplishment at that time) about lack of awareness, motivation or conditions for chenggong when they were young. The chenggong ideal fits the young men’s subject position as the aspiring individual. It is also their way to fit into the Chinese gender order. Although all the young women, who, as urban only children, share with their male counterparts the aspiring individual subject position, also expected or aspired to high education achievement and professional careers, the chenggong discourse was distinctly male. This will be further explained in Chapter 6, where I explore how the young women negotiate womanhood in comparison with their mothers and grandmothers. The young women held two seemingly contradictory subject positions: the ‘autonomous modern female’ and the ‘dependent modern female’ as they simultaneously ‘degendered’ and ‘(re)gendered’ themselves in their narratives. In so doing, they tended to want to have ‘the best of both worlds’ (the world of education and work, and the world of family life and private happiness) or ‘to have it all’. Not every young woman could be expected to eventually enact this ideal. Nevertheless, it was widely endorsed, and supported by their parents, despite variations in family background, school performance and individual biographical factors. With their high achievement expectations (or at least aspirations), the daughters contrasted with their mothers who reportedly lacked such awareness, motivations and possibilities when they were young. Both the post-Mao discourse of female independence and that of ‘natural’ sex differences were at work in the young women’s identity construction. These were also evident in their mothers’

12 Introduction

narratives about their young womanhood. However, what differentiates the two post-Mao generations of women are the daughters’ substantially higher expectations, or at least higher aspirations of life, and their greater level of articulateness (still as teenagers) and reflexivity in narrating about their female self. While they all managed to attend to both the family and work (in some cases not simultaneously), the mothers also typically conveyed the impression that they did not get the best of both worlds nor did they have it all. This perception of ‘lack’ or ‘inadequacy’ underlay their wish that their daughters would have the best of both worlds. The young women contrasted still more sharply with their grandmothers, who emphasized constraints by traditional and Maoist gender ethos as well as harsh living conditions and political control that rendered such ideas totally inaccessible and irrelevant when they were young. The grandmothers’ narratives about their young womanhood were mainly about self-sacrifice and self-denial for the interests of the family and/or socialist collectivities, in contrast to the younger generations’ growing individualistic sense of the female self. Just as the chenggong male ideal allowed the young men to simultaneously assume their subject position as the aspiring individual and fit into the gender order, this female ideal served the same purpose for the young women. Chapter 7 is a further exploration of transformation of young people’s gender construction through the lens of their other-sex relations. It examines young people’s attitudes towards and experiences of ‘pairing off’, sexuality and moving towards marriage in the three generations. I argue that the generational change constitutes an ‘expressive turn’ with a Chinese twist. Individual emotional expressivity has replaced traditional and Maoist asceticism. Individual emotional self-fulfillment, which seemed irrelevant to their grandparents but increasingly important for their parents, especially the mothers – but mainly in marriage – is now an important component of being young for the daughters and sons and for their expectations of adulthood. For the young generation, teen romance has become normal and other-sex relations are no longer closely related to marriage, as it was for their parents and especially their grandparents. But paralleling the rise of romantic love for the two younger generations, there is especially for the young generation a strong emphasis on pragmatic reasoning in choice of marriage partner. The young generation has become both more romantic and more meansends rational than their grandparents and parents were. For contemporary Chinese young people, expressive love and instrumentality can and should be combined. Moreover, with this generation there has been a demystification of the body, sexuality and reproduction. In contrast with the older generations, especially the grandparents, they showed knowledgeability and open-mindedness about sexuality, reproduction and premarital sex while still valuing female virginity and largely disapproving of sex at school or outside marriage. Despite the cultural continuity, the Chinese case fits theorizing about modernization of interpersonal relations. But in China, the expressive turn takes on an ‘instrumental’ twist, which may have been conditioned by the post-Mao discourse of ‘natural sex differences’, consumerism and individualization without an adequate state-provided safety net.

Introduction 13

The cross-generational comparisons of youth’s gender construction in the last three chapters, like the comparisons of childhood and schooling experiences in the first two empirical chapters, all point to the rapid and full rise of what can be called the aspiring individual with the young generation. Supported and urged by his/her parents, this new subject typically desires high individual achievement and shows high level of self-reflexivity in managing his/her own life, which is in keeping with the ‘individualization’ thesis (see Chapter 2). At the same time, however, the findings also show, over the generations, persistent, even increasingly stronger, influence of traditional gender norms. The young people seem to simultaneously – and equally strongly – endorse both individualism and the post-Mao ‘natural sex differences’ discourse based on the traditional yin-and-yang notion. They also maintained that expressive love and instrumentality can and should be combined in marriage. It is not the coexistence of seemingly contradictory forces that is striking. It is how the Chinese young men and women dealt with such apparent contradictions that is thought-provoking, with implications for understanding in a more situated and culturally sensitive way Chinese youth’s modernization experiences, which is the major task of the concluding chapter. In the concluding chapter, I shall integrate and interpret the main themes dealt with in the preceding chapters in the light of the modernization theory and global trends reviewed in Chapter 2. I shall conclude that much of what has happened over the generations regarding the various themes examined is in keeping with the global modernization trends. However, the transformation of childhood and youth experiences in China is by no means a wholesome westernization. Rather, it shows uniquely Chinese features that require a more culturally sensitive and contextualized interpretation. I argue that the young generation’s approach to and experiences of post-Mao modernization features a ‘maximization desire’, which denotes a strong wish and serious effort to maximize life and the self. Such a desire is co-constructed by the parents (and sometimes also the grandparents) and the young people themselves in the urban family. It invokes some century-old cultural ideals, traits or tendencies – exemplary norms (also integral to the Confucian veneration of education), traditional dialectics, and long-term/future orientation – as much as it is shaped by the specific post-Mao circumstances, thus giving the young generation’s narratives a Chinese turn. It addresses the present as well as the past and the future of the only child urban family. Maximization is expressed as a desire, a wish or an ideal. But it is also actual practice with serious effort. It also entails personal and familial costs. The concept of ‘maximization’ as used here incorporates psychologists’ understanding of it as a style of decision-making (Simon, 1956; Schwartz et al., 2002) and utilitarian philosophy’s concern about maximization of utility. But my use also goes beyond these disciplines’ particular focuses. I use the term in its most general sense: ‘the act of raising to the highest possible point or condition or position’, or ‘the process of making something as great in amount, size, importance, or function as possible’.

14 Introduction

The young generation’s ‘maximization of life and the self’ contrasts especially with their grandparents’ jiandan (simplicity/simpleness) – in all its material, cultural, educational, cognitive and affective terms. Jiandan, which denotes a minimal state of the mind and heart as well as of life conditions, also to a great extent characterized the middle generation’s childhood and youth experiences. The maximization desire emerged with the birth of the young generation because the older generations lacked the cognitive resources or the environmental affordances to maximize (Simon, 1956). Often what was practiced then was akin to ‘making do’, ‘satisficing’, or at most, ‘optimizing’ instead of ‘maximizing’. The maximization desire is a defining feature of the aspiring individual of the urban young generation, typically with an enhanced awareness of, and desire for, high achievement, individual self-realization and the ‘good life’ redefined in the post-Mao era. It reflects the extraordinarily self-conscious awareness among urban families, a privileged group (despite intragroup variations), of living in a new era strikingly different from even the most recent past. It represents a pragmatic response, among those who have the means, to the intensified complexities of human conditions in post-Mao China. It is an agentic strategy that the young generation, supported by their parents, employs to maximally secure the future in the Chinese ‘risk society’. It is also a way to come to terms with competing cultural discourses simultaneously addressing young people. In short, it represents a wish among urban only child families to take maximal advantage of the benefits of modernization. Long-standing cultural ideals and tendencies such as the exemplary norm, traditional dialectics and long-term or future orientation were activated to serve these ‘modernizing’ purposes and in this process get reinforced. Maximization can also be seen as a cultural competence required of ‘modern’ people within a tradition that emphasizes exemplary norms, education, balance and harmony and long-term orientation (or adaptation). Maximization, thus, as a cultural and social practice as well as a human desire, and with its personal costs, marks the young people in this study as generational, classed and gendered beings in a specific historical, cultural and socio-geographical context, giving their modernization experiences a uniquely Chinese twist.

Notes 1 In this book, ‘childhood’ comprises the period from birth to the end of lower secondary schooling (roughly age 15). ‘Youth’ refers to people aged roughly 15–24. 2 In this book, ‘the West’ and ‘Western’ refer to the United States, Western and Northern Europe, and other countries predominantly settled by ethnic Europeans. 3 This choice had also to do with the design of the larger project on three generations of young men and women in China and Norway, of which this present study is a part. In that project we chose to start with contemporary young people in the two capital cities to make the two sub-samples more comparable in their experiences of global modernization.

Introduction 15

References Baker, D. 2014. The schooled society: The educational transformation of global culture. Sandford: Sandford University Press. Bakken, B. 2000. The exemplary society: Human improvement, social control, and the dangers of modernity in China. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brannen, J. 2004. Childhoods across the generations: Stories from women in four-generation English families. Childhood 11(4): 409–28. Choi, S. Y. and Peng, Y. 2016. Masculine compromise: Migration, family, and gender in China. Oakland: University of California Press. Clark, P. 2012. Youth culture in China: From red guards to netizens. New York: Cambridge University Press. Cockain, A. 2012. Young Chinese in urban China. London: Routledge. Cole, A. L. and Knowles, J. G. 2001. Lives in context: The art of life history research. Oxford: Altamira Press. Croll, E. 2006. China’s new consumers: Social development and domestic demand. London: Routledge. Dawson, M. M. 1915. The ethics of Confucius: The sayings of the master and his disciples upon the conduct of ‘The Superior Man’. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. de Kloet, J. and Fung, A. 2017. Youth cultures in China. Cambridge: Polity Press. Elder, G. H., Johnson, M. K. and Crosnoe, R. 2003. The emergence and development of life course theory. In J. T. Mortimer and M. J. Shanahan (eds.) Handbook of the life course (pp. 3–19). New York: Kluwer Academic. Evans, H. 2008. The subject of gender: Daughters and mothers in urban China. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Farrer, J. 2002. Opening up: Youth sex culture and market reform in Shanghai. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fincher, L. H. 2014. Leftover women: The resurgence of gender inequality in China. London: Zed Books. Fong, V. 2004. Only hope: Coming of age under China’s one child policy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Goodson, I. F. 1995. The story so far: Personal knowledge and the political. In J. A. Hatch and R. Wisniewski (eds.) Life history and narrative (pp. 89–98). London: Falmer Press. Goodson, I. F. and Sikes, P. 2001. Life history research in educational settings: Learning from lives. Buckingham: Open University Press. Gonçalo, D., Santos, G. D. and Harrell, S. (eds.) 2017. Transforming Chinese patriarchy: Chinese families in the twenty-first century. Seattle: University of Washington. Greenfield, P. M. 2009. Linking social change and developmental change: Shifting pathways of human development. Developmental Psychology 45: 401–18. Jacka, T. 2006. Rural women in urban China: Gender, migration, and social Change. New York: M. E. Sharpe. Kipnis, A. B. 2011. Governing educational desire: Culture, politics, and schooling in China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kipnis, A. B. (ed.) 2012. Chinese modernity and the individual psyche. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Liu, F. S. 2006. Boys as only-children and girls as only-children: Parental gendered expectations of the only-child in the nuclear Chinese family in present-day China. Gender and Education 18(5): 491–506.

16 Introduction ———. 2011. Urban youth in China: Modernity, the internet and the self. London: Routledge. Mannheim, K. 1952. The problem of generations. In K. Mannheim (ed.) Essays on the sociology of knowledge. London: RKP. Naftali, O. 2016. Children in China. Cambridge: Polity Press. Parish, W. L. and Willis, R. J. 1995. Daughters, education, and family budgets: Taiwan experiences. In T. P. Schultz (ed.) Investment in women’s human capital (pp. 239–72). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rich, L. and Tsui, M. 2002. The only child and educational opportunities for girls in urban China. Gender and Society 16(1): 74–92. Schwartz, B., Ward, A. D., Monterosso, J., Lyubomirsky, S., White, K., and Lehman, D. R. 2002. Maximizing versus satisficing: Happiness is a matter of choice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(5): 1178–97. Sewell, W. H. 1992. A theory of structure: Duality, agency and transformation. American Journal of Sociology 98(1): 1–29. Simon, H. A. 1956. Rational choice and the structure of the environment. Psychological Review 63(2): 129–38. Song, G. and Hird, D. 2014. Men and masculinities in contemporary China. Boston: Brill. Wang, X. Y. 2017. Gender, dating and violence in urban China. London: Routledge. Yan, Y. X. 2003. Private life under socialism: Love, intimacy, and family change in a Chinese village 1949–1999. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Zhang, L. 2002. Strangers in the city: Reconfigurations of space, power, and social networks within China’s floating population. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Zhang, T. J. 2004. Self-identity construction of the present China. Comparative Strategy 23(3): 281–301.

Chapter 2

Modernization and social change

‘Modernization’ does not possess a singular and unitary definition. Despite overlaps, different disciplines each has their own variants (Brown, 1972). Modernization refers to the process of becoming modern. Classical sociologists such as Herbert Spencer, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, Karl Marx and more recently Talcott Parsons, all viewed modern society as radically different from earlier modes of societal organization or traditional society. For them, modernization is an interlinked process of structural differentiation, cultural rationalization and personal individuation, resulting in modernity (Schmidt, 2010). Sub-processes include industrialization, urbanization, bureaucratization, commercialization, technological advancement, mass communication and widespread literacy, mass education, democratization, secularization, rationalization, individualization and the formation of a nation-state. To note the advance of such processes, of course, does not logically imply any normative endorsement of the trends noted. For example, Max Weber was deeply pessimistic about the ‘iron cage’ implied for humanity by his envisioned spread of instrumental rationality in social organization. Modernization theory has had its opponents. Some have even suggested that the concept ought to be abandoned (e.g., Tipps, 1973). However, the concept remains widely used and succeeds ‘in bringing together a variety of phenomena within a single category’ (Brown, 1972, p. 201). Alexander (1994, p. 167) argues that modernization has always been a relevant term, tracing its origin to the 5th century when newly Christianized Romans wished to distinguish their religiosity from that of the pagans and of unregenerate Jews. Moreover, the processes referred to as ‘modernization’ are seemingly irresistible in contemporary societies. Modernization has become a globally linked process. There has been referral to ‘global modernization’ (Martinelli, 2005), ‘global modernity’ (Dirlik, 2003) and ‘modernity at large’ (Appadurai, 1996). Thus, Osella and Osella (2006, p. 570) argue: jettisoning ‘modernity’ as a useless abstraction or indefinable entity . . . illadvisedly ignores its salience in our lives and the lives of those with whom we work. While a ‘modernity’ corresponding perfectly to classical theories might never exist, concepts, ideals, and practices of something called

18  Modernization and social change

‘modernity’ certainly do exist and are continually appealed to in people’s economic endeavours, political projects, and identity craftings. With Osella and Osella (2006), I believe that modernization and modernity, ‘as an historically and ethnographically specific body of ideals and practices, will remain central to our understanding of contemporary societies’ (pp. 570–1). However, the analytic utility of the concept need not, of course, imply that one endorses the processes denoted by the concept. Young (2005) states that ‘honest scholars and political activists can neither be “for” nor “against” modernity; what they ought to do, however, is separate our description of these realities from a normative [prescription]’ (p. 496). The concept of ‘modernization’ (xiandaihua) is well established in China in mundane and academic language usage and in policy (Klein, 2014). China has gone through a series of social experiments for the sake of ‘modernizing’ itself, ranging from the ‘self-strengthening movement’ of the 1890s to the 1911 Republic Revolution, the 1919 May 4th Movement, the 1949 Communist Revolution, the Great Leap Forward (1958–60) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) (Calhoun, 2010). All these resulted in dramatic social change. However, their modernizing impact cannot measure up to the breadth and depth of Deng’s ‘reform and opening up’, which steered China onto a track of sweeping economic and technological modernization and merging with the world in economic, cultural, social and political terms. This book examines youth’s lived experiences of post-Mao China’s modernization and modernity. More specifically, it examines how youth’s experiences regarding childhood, intergenerational relationships, education, gender and sexuality have been transformed over three generations. Theorists tend to adopt either a psychocultural or a structural-functional approach to the question of how modernization occurs. The former examines the attitudinal and value prerequisites of modernity, while the latter focuses on the institutional changes needed for modernity (Randall and Theobald, 1985, p. 15). It seems to me hard to dispute the view that both psychocultural factors and institutional change play a role in societal modernization. Furthermore, modernization is not only caused by but it also leads to both structural-functional and psychocultural changes, and these two types of change feed upon and reinforce each other. The rapid and fundamental change in Western societies since the latter half of the 1900s in social organization of production and consumption, culture and knowledge, family life and communication – all of which are increasingly globalized and interdependent, has prompted some observers, such as Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck, Zygmunt Bauman and Scott Lash, to differentiate contemporary modernization from the earlier, or industrial, period of modernization by developing a special theory of ‘late modernity’. Other terms used include ‘high modernity’ (Giddens, 1990, 1991), ‘liquid modernity’ (Bauman, 2001), ‘second modernity’ (Beck, 1992, 2009), ‘reflexive modernization’ (Beck, Giddens and Lash, 1994) and ‘risk society’ (Beck, 1992, 2009).

Modernization and social change 19

In a contentious and frequently politicized discourse on social change, theorists may invent their own theory label to enhance their chance of controlling its connotations. The late modernity theorists do, however, share a position in the debate about contemporary social and cultural change in that they reject the postmodernist view that the conditions pertaining to modernity have been displaced by a fundamentally different set of social circumstances. In contrast to such postmodernists as Lyotard (1984) and Baudrillard (1988), who argue that we have entered a post-modern epoch in which it is no longer appropriate to apply grand theories and established concepts related to modernity to the study of social life, late modernity theorists maintain that the current age, in spite of differences from the previous stage of modernity, does not constitute a radical paradigm shift. It is rather a further stage of modernity brought into being by its own logic as a result of an intensification of processes characteristic of modernization. Beck (1992) states: ‘Just as modernization dissolved the structure of feudal society in the nineteenth century and produced the industrial society, modernization today is dissolving industrial society and another modernity is coming into being’ (p. 10). According to late modernity theorists, this has entailed further social and cultural transformation in the form of ‘individualization’. From a comparative perspective, two main strands in theorizing about modernization have evolved since the early post–World War II period, when the concept of modernization first gained popularity in Western (largely American) social theory (for a historical overview of the theory’s evolvement, see Alexander, 1994; Tipps, 1973): the convergence thesis and the divergence thesis. The convergence thesis characterizes many of the earlier theorists of modernization (e.g., Lerner, 1958; Parsons, 1960), who viewed modernization as a progressive and homogenizing process. It conceptualizes modernization in terms of a transition between the polar types of tradition versus modernity. This is evident in Henry Maine’s status versus contract society; Herbert Spencer’s warrior versus industrial society; Karl Marx’s feudal versus capitalist society; Ferdinand Tönnies’s Gemeinschaft (small-scale rural community) versus Gesellschaft (large-scale urban society); Alexis de Tocqueville’s aristocracy versus democracy; Emile Durkheim’s mechanical versus organic solidarity; and Max Weber’s patriarchy versus rationality. Modernization, it is believed, necessarily entails a shift from ‘traditional’ to ‘rational-legal’ values and towards more rational, complex and integrated structures in the economic, political and social spheres. Thus, eventually all societies will take on similar values and institutional forms. A modern society is often contrasted with the traditional society where agricultural villages operate with a decentralized, nonrational political system, where social and political statuses are based on ascription, where old ways are regarded as the best ways and where communications are highly localized and based essentially on word-of-mouth transmission (Brown, 1972, p. 202). In the face of an emerging reality that has not fully borne out these propositions, the convergence view of modernization has been hotly contested by proponents of a divergence thesis drawing on the realities in the global South and on experiences

20  Modernization and social change

of such industrialized non-Western societies as Japan (Bellah, 1985; Hamamura, 2012) and Thailand (Riggs, 1966). The convergence thesis has inter alia been criticized for ethnocentrism and Parsonian neo-evolutionism that takes the unilineal view that all societies sooner or later will structurally come to resemble Western European and North American societies (Eisenstadt, 2000; Goldthorpe, 1971; Inglehart and Norris, 2005; Mouzelis, 1999). For the divergence advocates, the local cultural and historical context is crucial for understanding a society’s modernization. In a reiteration of the divergence thesis, Inglehart and Norris (2005, pp. 482–3) state: Most previous models tend to neglect the fact that modernization is path dependent: A society’s cultural heritage shapes its future trajectory, so that where it is at any given time reflects where it started. Thus, although industrialization tends to propel virtually any society in a roughly predictable direction, there are multiple paths to modernization. . . . Early versions of modernization theory were too simple. Socioeconomic development has a powerful impact on what people want and do, as Marx argued – but a society’s cultural heritage continues to shape its prevailing beliefs and motivations, as Weber argued. Modernization-related values may conflict with centuries-old local cultures, especially concerning family life and gender, so that there is often tension, conflict, resistance or rejection (Deeb, 2006; Escobar, 1995; Thornton, 2005). Deliberate retraditionalization may also occur, not least because the detachment from tradition and the loss of cultural roots due to the homogenizing forces of globalization may cause resistance and an acknowledgment of the need to retain cultural uniqueness and identity (Bauman, 2004). The criticism of ethnocentrism has been mainly directed to the Parsonianoriented sociology of modernization, but late modernity theorists have not been exempted from it. Giddens, for instance, has been criticized for a tendency to view non-Western developmental trajectories as imitations of the Western pattern and to view capitalism as a major component of modernity (Mouzelis, 1999). From the divergence perspective it is thus more fruitful to talk about ‘alternative modernities’ (Gaonkar, 1999), ‘multiple modernities’ (Eisenstadt, 2000) or ‘path-dependent modernities’ rather than conceptualizing modernization as a uniform global process. In other words, modernization is not necessarily a total ‘westernization’, although much of it is modeled on the West. As Sun and Ryder (2016, p. 4) put it, ‘Modernization and westernization are neither completely independent processes, nor are they synonymous; modernization, in most parts of the world, unfolds in a context.’ A number of other observers have similarly argued that although ‘the West remains the major clearinghouse of global modernity’ (Gaonkar, 1999, p. 1), the ‘global’ is constantly redefined and altered through the local (Appadurai, 1996; Dirlik, 2003; Gaonkar, 1999; Robertson, 1995; Tsing, 2000), hence the notion of ‘glocalization’ (Robertson, 1995).

Modernization and social change 21

This theoretical development facilitates a more nuanced understanding of social realities in contemporary societies such as China, where the state, various sociocultural groups and individuals may define modernization and modernity in their own ways that are influenced not only by global or Western discourses but also by their own realities and their local historical and cultural contexts. Such understandings may in turn help redefine modernity’s contents. In studying social change in societies such as China, a theoretical approach which recognizes the importance of local influences upon the path that modernization takes would help avoid what Said (1978) called ‘orientalism’ (i.e., applying a Western-centric perspective for examining social reality and change in the non-Western world). Some scholars have called for greater attention to the ideational function of modernization, arguing that modernization is not merely an institutional and material process, but that it also constitutes a ‘cultural model’ in a Geertzian sense (Alexander, 1994; Thornton, Ghimire and Mitchell, 2012). Cultural models are models both of the world and for the world (Thornton, Ghimire and Mitchell, 2012, p. 2). They include schemas, worldviews, beliefs, values, attitudes and scripts which provide frameworks for understanding how the world works, how people should live and what things are good and how to achieve them (Johnson-Hanks et al., 2011; Thornton, Ghimire and Mitchell, 2012; Geertz, 1973; see also D’Andrade, 1984). As such, modernization functions ‘as a meta-language that instruct[s] people how to live’ (Alexander, 1994, p. 170). As a powerful cultural model, hence a system of legitimatizing and approval or disapproval, modernization enjoins a certain form of personhood with certain attitudes, values, competence and ways of relating to others and to the world, affecting people’s subjectivities and actions. However, in many contemporary societies, modernization as a cultural model competes with other coexisting and often conflicting cultural models. In short, modernization in each contemporary society needs to be seen as a multifaceted phenomenon reflective of both ‘global’ and local realities. It entails both material-structural and psychocultural processes. I believe that institutions, material conditions and cultural models all play an important role in people’s experiences of modernization. Although none of these is deterministic, individuals’ reflexivity or agency will have to be practiced within both the structural and material conditions and the various cultural models simultaneously at work. This is in line with Sewell’s (1992; see also Johnson-Hanks et al., 2011) ‘dual’ understanding of ‘structure’, which argues that the structural condition for individual reflexivity is a result of the interplay of ideational and material elements of society. In this book, such a perspective will hopefully shed light on how structural and material conditions, cultural norms and ideals and individual reflexivity have changed over the three generations. The findings will hopefully add some nuance to our understanding of modernization in our contemporary world. The close connection between the local and the global means that one cannot talk about Chinese young people’s experiences of modernization without referring to global trends. Therefore, the rest of this chapter will review the ‘global’ literature on modernization and the transformation of value and personality,

22  Modernization and social change

interpersonal relations (with a special reference to gender and parent-child relationships), childhood and education – themes central to this book. This is to serve as a broader comparative background for assessing change and continuity across the three generations in the book’s empirical chapters; in each chapter I will provide a brief review of the trends in China pertaining to the specific theme to be examined in that chapter.

Modernization and change in value and personality: the psychocultural effects of modernization The impact of societal modernization on values and personality characteristics has been a concern for many social scientists (e.g., Bellah et al., 2008; Inglehart, 1990; Inkeles and Smith, 1974; Kahl, 1968; Riesman, Glazer and Denney, 2001). It is argued that modernization both enables and requires the development of a modern personality type, the conception of which is rooted in Max Weber’s distinction between tradition and rationality. A strong correlation has been made between societal modernization and the rise of individualism. Westen (1985, p. 346) argues, ‘Modernization alters the content of culture ideal and ego ideal through greater individuation and heightened emphasis on the value and power of the individual self.’ The modern personality typically shows individualistic and secular-rational values and a cosmopolitan worldview. Inkeles and Smith (1974) proposed the concept of individual modernity, arguing that a particular set of psychological qualities, including attitudes, values and ways of being, is typical of an effective member of a modern society. In their study of six developing countries, they identified a coherent set of traits of the modern person, including such characteristics as openness to new experiences and ideas, readiness for social change, orientation to the present and future, dispositions to form and hold opinions and belief in the efficacy of one’s actions. A modern person, from this perspective, is highly independent and autonomous, open-minded, motivated and informed – the polar opposite of the traditional person in all details. Similarly, Hofstede (2001) in a cross-cultural comparison of work-related values in more than 40 national contexts found an unusually strong positive correlation (0.84) between individualism and societal modernization measured by GDP per capita. Likewise, Greenfield’s (2009) review of empirical research aims to show how modernization alters cultural values, learning environments, and developmental pathways as societies shift from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft. She concludes that through adaptive processes, movement towards Gesellschaft typically entails value change in an individualistic direction and developmental pathways toward more independent social behavior and more abstract cognition. She argues that the opposite is predictably true of the movement towards Gemeinschaft. Through a series of work conducted either alone or with colleagues, Inglehart (e.g., 1990, 1997; Inglehart and Norris, 2003; Inglehart and Welzel, 2005) developed a theory of modernization and change from ‘materialist’ to ‘postmaterialist’

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values. In their book Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence, Inglehart and Welzel (2005) analyze survey data from more than 80 societies containing 85% of the world’s population, collected from 1981 to 2002 by the World Values Survey and the European Values Survey. They find that whereas industrialization-related development effects a shift from traditional values to secular-rational values, as earlier modernization theory predicted, postindustrial socioeconomic development entails a shift from survival to self-expressive values, with what Inglehart earlier called materialist/postmaterialist values now conceptualized as ‘a key component of the survival/self-expression dimension’ (p. 115). This fits Maslow’s (1954) argument about the hierarchy of human needs. Self-expressive values include tolerance, interpersonal trust, subjective wellbeing, civic activism and aspirations for personal liberty. Postindustrial societies are characterized by a combination of self-expressive and secular-rational values. In a recapitulation of their main findings, Inglehart and Norris (2005) conclude that the worldviews of the people of rich societies differ dramatically from those of less developed societies across a wide range of political, social and religious norms and beliefs. With socioeconomic development, these values are changing in a predictable direction along two dimensions: from traditional to secularrational values and from survival to self-expression values. Changing values in these directions, in turn, have important consequences for the way societies function, promoting gender equality, good governance, democracy, individual freedom and child-rearing in line with self-expressive values (pp. 483–5). This is in keeping with Parsons (1973, with Platt) who refers to the general modernization of values as ‘the expressive revolution’. Bellah et al. (2008) similarly writes about increasing predominance of ‘expressive individualism’ in opposition to ‘utilitarian individualism’ in the United States. Continuing the sociological interest in modernization’s impact on value and personality, late modernity theorists assert that ‘self-reflexivity’ has become a central feature of the personality type in the postindustrial world experiencing a new stage of modernity (Bauman, 2007a; Beck, 1992; Giddens, 1990, 1991; for a comparison of Giddens, Beck and Bauman, see Dawson, 2010). Individual autonomy and rationality, typical of the modern personality type, are emphasized to an even greater extent in the late modernity theory. In their account of late modernity, the theorists highlight some major interrelated processes in our current era: detraditionalization, globalization/cosmopolitization and individualization. Already evident in industrial society, these processes are all intensified by postindustrial modernization. Societal detraditionalization, partly triggered by the globalization of capitalist structures, denotes that traditional sources of authority are increasingly questioned by new generations via reflexive engagement. In traditional societies, a uniformly accepted set of core values and norms served as external authority that provided answers to existential and ontological questions. External authority, for example, in the form of religion, kinship systems and the local community, was able to shape the scope of, and provide direction for,

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individual decisions, actions and conduct and thus determine, to a large extent, the destiny of the individual who exercised only limited autonomy (Giddens, 1991). Processes of modernization, in line with Weber’s notion of ‘disenchantment’, however, lead to a demystification and dissolution of external sources of authority so that privileges of rank and religious authority lose their force. Consequently, according to Giddens (1994), we live in a world ‘where the past has lost its hold. . . [and] preexisting habits are only a limited guide to action’ (pp. 93–4). In addition, the strong links between place and identity in traditional societies have also been dismantled due to globalization, as a consequence of which social activity is no longer bounded by the framework of local habits and practices. As their experiences are broadened by constant and ubiquitous access to mass communication systems and by other forms of interaction, individuals’ daily lives become a mixture of the local and the global. Individualization, a concomitant process and consequence of detraditionalization and globalization, constitutes the most central characteristic of late modernity (Bauman, 2001; Beck, 1992, 2007; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002; Giddens, 1990, 1991, 1992). The individualization thesis argues that postindustrial modernization has fundamentally transformed the role and capacities of the individual who is supposed to be a freely choosing and self-enterprising agent, but who is faced with constant uncertainty and risk. The processes of late modernity result in social conditions in which the contexts of action are multiplied and diversified and lifestyle choices proliferate. The individual is now, more than ever before, left to negotiate an ever-broadening expanse of choices and is faced with ‘day-to-day decisions about how to behave, what to wear and what to eat’ (Giddens, 1991, p. 14). Giddens (1994, p. 75) asserts: ‘We have no choice but to choose how to be and how to act.’ This requires people to put themselves at the center of their plans and to reflexively construct their social biographies (Giddens, 1990, 1991, 1992; Beck, 1992, 2007). Bauman (2007b) associates this ‘compulsory’ individual choice with behavior in the consumer market, arguing that individuals must engage in a constant updating of identity through consumption, thus rendering themselves or being rendered as objects of consumption. As a result of individualization, ‘the individual is becoming the basic unit of social reproduction for the first time in history’ (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002, p. xxii). The importance accorded to the individual and individual autonomy releases impulses for personal growth and translates into an enhanced potential for individuals to be freed from external forces and ascribed statuses, or what Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2002) termed ‘zombie categories’, that limit the kinds of identities possible. The social bonds of kinship, property and place are weakened. The usual life cycle, with its sequential stages of childhood, marriage and children, is disrupted. Nevertheless, negotiation about choices must be done within conditions of increased risk and uncertainty, hence the notion of ‘risk society’ (Beck, 1992; Giddens, 1991), which constitutes the downside of the late modern conditions. Giddens (1991) argues that we have to accept the central part played by risk in our lives, in which ‘no aspects of our activities follow a pre-ordained course, and all are open to

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contingent happening’ (p. 28). For him ‘living in the “risk society” means living with a calculative attitude to the open possibilities of action, positive and negative, with which, as individuals and globally, we are confronted in a continuous way in our contemporary social existence’ (ibid.). Beck argues that the unintended consequences of modernity force the individual to seek ‘biographical solutions to systematic contradictions’, and ‘at the same moment as he or she sinks into insignificance, he or she is elevated to the apparent throne of a world-shaper’ (Beck, 1992, p. 137). Thus, greater individual freedom is accompanied by greater levels of insecurity and anxiety. All this requires reflexivity which, the late modernity theorists argue, serves as a key structuring property of modernity that accounts for its dynamic character at both the individual and institutional level. At the individual level, reflexive awareness extends to the core of the self so that ‘the self today is for everyone a reflexive project – a more or less continuous interrogation of past, present and future’ (Giddens, 1992, p. 30). Self-identity is thus subject to constant reinterpretation and reconstruction in light of information about the many choices available. It is up to the individual to gain self-knowledge to ensure the authenticity of a selfreflexive biography and it is his/her obligation to pursue this self-actualization so that a coherent and rewarding identity is constructed and reconstructed in light of both past events and an anticipation of the future (Giddens, 1990, 1991). The personality type that is typical of, or enjoined by, late modernity is thus the self-enterprising, freely choosing and autonomous individual. Although the theorists do recognize the continuing effects of social structures on individuals’ newfound freedom and choice (Bauman, 2000, 2007a; Beck, 1992; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995), the overall emphasis is on individual autonomy and reflexivity. The late modernity theory has been widely criticized for exaggerating individual agency by downplaying the continuing effects of structural factors on individuals’ life chance and identity construction in late modernity and for lack of empirical grounding. Furlong and Cartmel (1997), for instance, argue that the notion of the autonomous and freely choosing individual reinforces a contemporary ‘epistemological fallacy’: people’s life chances remain highly structured at the same time as they increasingly seek solution on an individual, rather than a collective basis (p. 2). The notion of a ‘post-traditional society’ (Giddens, 1994) is criticized for treating the past and present, or tradition and modernity, as discrete social forms, thus misrepresenting social processes that are occurring simultaneously in our contemporary world (Budgeon, 2003). This is a mistake one should certainly guard against when examining societies such as post-Mao China.

Modernization and the transformation of interpersonal relationships Changes in value and personality characteristics due to modernization have consequences for interpersonal relations. Social theorists widely observe that there

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has been a general shift in the postindustrial world toward a more democratic mode of managing interpersonal relationships (e.g., Bauman, 2000; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995; de Swaan, 1981; Giddens, 1992). Giddens (1992) talks about ‘a wholesale democratization of the interpersonal domain’ (p. 3). Turner’s (2005, p. 305) similarly argues that there has been a general social movement away ‘from cognitive rationalism to an affective-expressive culture’ since the first half of the 20th century. This, broadly speaking, is in line with Inglehart and Welzel’s (2005) argument about a shift from survival to self-expressive values emphasizing self-expression, tolerance, equality, personal liberty and a concern for the quality of life. Various societal developments related to modernization are believed to have been responsible for such a general transition. Besides material growth and increase in educational level of the population, both of which are found to be conducive to self-expressive values, this has to do with the emancipatory movements (de Swaan, 1981; Skolnick, 1997), at the center of which was the claiming of political and cultural rights by disadvantaged groups, including women and children. ‘Each movement learned from a preceding one and each time inequalities, considered natural until then, were abolished[.] [T]his instilled doubt about the inescapableness of other types of discrimination’ (de Swaan, 1981, p. 374). Public laws on child protection, the family, gender and compulsory schooling, which came into being partly as a result of such movements, tended to expand the citizenship rights of both women and children, affecting parent-child as well as gender relations. Another development that has contributed to the democratization of interpersonal relationships, according to de Swaan (1981), is the emergence and development of large organizations bringing about change in the nature of work and ‘increasingly subtle personal relations’ (p. 375). ‘Management by command’, characteristic of the earlier stages of the industrial mode with relatively low skills, proved to be no longer effective in postindustrial society with its more complex organization and a more highly trained and educated workforce. The development of such organizations has had a twofold effect on contemporary family life. First, the managerial culture of such organizations was transmitted to the sphere of the family by its middle-class employees. This organizational ‘professional-managerial’ middle-class, many of whom were women, expanding during the 20th century, became the arbiter of contemporary lifestyles and opinions. Second, a rapidly increasing proportion of the population became clients of such organizations such as schools, the health care system and the social services. The organizational middle-class’ modes of emotional and relational management were consequently transmitted to these new circles of clientele. Skolnick (1991) similarly refers to a ‘psychological gentrification’, whereby cultural advantages such as education and accompanying values once enjoyed by the upper classes are extended to lower social classes. Concerning family life, it has been observed that since the 1960s there has been a general trend towards a more egalitarian style of interaction between parents

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and children as well as between spouses in the West (e.g., Beck and BeckGernsheim, 1995; de Swaan, 1981; Giddens, 1992; Gullestad, 1996; Skolnick, 1997). Abraham de Swaan (1981) describes this process as a shift from the ‘command household’ to the ‘negotiation household’. A command household is ruled by the head of the family based on roles and statuses, while in a negotiation household people respect each other as individuals and decision-making is typically subject to discussion and negotiation. This latter mode of family management requires more communication among family members and more reflection by parents on their children’s education and socialization. Since the 1980s, much sociological and educational research has been testing the negotiation hypothesis. The overall trend towards an increased number of negotiation households is confirmed by nearly all empirical indicators, such as parental punishment, intergenerational learning and children’s participation in family decision-making (Vanobbergen et al., 2006). Bernstein’s (1971) notion of the ‘positional’ versus ‘personal’ (or ‘person-centered/oriented’) family has also been used to characterize such a transformation (Skolnick, 1997). The positional family features a status and authority hierarchy based on gender and age. In such a family the communication system is closed, whereby what one is allowed to say and how one is allowed to say it are largely dependent on the position one occupies in the family. Parents use imperative modes of control and simply give orders rather than use any personal appeals. Parents’ central concern is whether or not children behave or obey, not what they feel or think. In contrast, the more democratic, personal family treats its members as individuals who are allowed to communicate openly and freely. The ‘personcenteredness’ of the family implies that it has become a norm for parents to treat their children as unique individuals, if not equals. The child is controlled by personal appeals to feelings, motives and reasons, which requires sophisticated skills of persuasion. Parents are concerned with children’s inner feelings as well as outer behavior. According to Skolnick (1997), the West has witnessed a broad transition from the positional to the personal family since the 1950s and 1960s, when the personal family was mainly evident among the new postwar middle class employed by universities, large corporations and government bureaucracies, and when the positional family could be found in both the working and middle classes. Inglehart and Norris (2003) argue that the general shift from survival to selfexpression values in postindustrial societies has also brought about change in child-rearing values from emphasis on hard work toward emphasis on imagination, tolerance and subjective well-being as important values to teach a child. As I shall discuss later in this chapter, children have also largely lost their economic value but gained extra emotional value to parents. The notion of the personal family or negotiation household also denotes more democratic and egalitarian gender relations in the private domain, which both reflects and contributes to broader societal cultural changes. It is a widely shared view that modernization tends to have a generally positive impact on gender attitudes and relations (e.g., Davis, 1984; Goode, 1968; Inglehart and Norris, 2003;

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Inkeles, 1980; Kumar, 1995) – although this has been disputed by feminist scholars and/or activists who hold the opposite view (Luintel, 2014; Scott, 1995). A shift towards more egalitarian gender attitudes has been observed in most modern or modernizing societies, including those in East Asia (see Boehnke, 2011 for a review of related research). Research shows that in the economically developed world, people have generally become more accepting of gender equality. In their book Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change around the World, Inglehart and Norris (2003, 2005) examine the factors that transform gender roles in 70 countries through cross-national, gender-based and generational comparisons, drawing primarily on the comprehensive World Values and European Values Surveys, with over a quarter of a million respondents. The authors contend that the factor most associated with the growth of more egalitarian attitudes toward women is the degree of modernization and human development in each society studied. Modernization brings about significant shifts in cultural values as well as increases in paid work for women and a concomitant decline in fertility and growth in income and wealth. Thus, throughout industrial society, and even more strongly in postindustrial societies, large intergenerational differences exist in attitudes toward gender equality. These differences reflect a ‘rising tide’ of change toward greater societal acceptance of gender equality in particular, and human equality in general. (Inglehart and Norris, 2005, p. 491) In societies where modernization-related egalitarian gender ideologies and values prevail, household labor division is more equitable among men and women (Fuwa, 2004; Geist, 2003), and women are more likely to participate in the labor market and politics (Paxton and Kunovich, 2003; Pettit and Hook, 2005). Egalitarian gender culture also promotes female participation in education and academic performance (Marks, 2008; McDaniel, 2010; Penner, 2008; van Hek, Kraaykamp and Wolbers, 2016). There has been substantial increase in female attendance in the various levels of education since the latter half of the last century so that the number of boys and girls completing school has reached parity in many countries (Baker, 2014), often with females outperforming males (see Voyer and Voyer, 2014; van Hek, Kraaykamp and Wolbers, 2016 for reviews of related studies). A large number of studies show that women nowadays have surpassed men in higher educational attainment in most Western societies (e.g., Buchmann and DiPrete, 2006; McDaniel, 2010; van Hek, Kraaykamp and Wolbers, 2016; Vincent-Lancrin, 2008). Similar changes seem to be occurring across a growing number of countries undergoing modernization, as is reflected in adolescent boys’ and girls’ educational expectations (Lauglo and Liu, 2019). Modernization and changing gender relation is also a central theme for the late modernity theorists, who assert that people are now largely freed from traditional and ascribed gender and other roles (Beck, 1992; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995; Giddens, 1992); that is, gender relations, like other social relations, are

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transformed by greater individual choice and reflexivity. According to Giddens (1992), in late modernity, individualized lifestyles, whereby people are forced to put themselves at the center of their plans and to reflexively construct their social biographies, are also reflected in the ‘involvement of individuals in determining the conditions of their association’ (p. 185). Giddens (1992) contends that late modernity is characterized by the self’s orientation towards ‘pure relationships’, which means that personal relationships are based on trust and that individuals treat relationships as ends in themselves, rather than being bound by roles and group responsibility. The self is reflexively oriented to others in terms of his or her own personal growth. Giddens asserts that ‘pure relationships’ are now typical of couple relationships, in which partners are free to define the relationship themselves, which explains the increasing prevalence of cohabitation and divorce. Such couple relationships are solely dependent upon the partners’ needs and are likely to continue only so long as they are satisfactory to both partners. Couples stay together because of love, happiness and sexual attraction, not for the sake of children or out of duty or because of roles prescribed by tradition or law. Entering pure relationships, which also may involve trying out different relationships, is a process of self-discovery and self-fulfillment. Late modernity theorists note that gender remains central in contemporary life. Giddens (1992) points out that ‘deep psychological as well as economic differences between the sexes stand in the way’ (p. 188). In line with many feminist scholars (e.g., Hochschild, 1989), Beck (1992; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995) emphasizes the continuing gendered division of labor at home even when women, like men, also have an ‘individualized biography’ to manage, in which work becomes normal. He argues that individualization dislodges women from traditional roles, yet at the same time confirms and even reinforces traditional masculinity, causing new tensions over responsibilities for housework and childcare. In this process, women are forced to continue with the double burden of responsibility for childcare and the home while managing an individual biography often with work and career as central elements. Thus ‘the lives of women are pulled back and forth by this contradiction between liberation from and reconnection to the old ascribed roles’ (Beck, 1992, p. 112). This is not to say that there has been no change, but there is a gap between ideology and ideals on the one hand, and on the other, practice and reality. What has changed is the legitimation system, so that gender inequality, like other forms of social inequality, has become less legitimate (Beck, 1992; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995; Giddens, 1994) and it ‘demand[s] discursive justification’ (Giddens, 1994, p. 105). The late modernity theorists, especially Giddens, have been criticized by feminist scholars (e.g., Adkins, 2002; Budgeon, 2003; Jamieson, 1998, 1999; McNay, 2000) for failing to provide empirical evidence for pure relationships or to engage with evidence of resilient gender inequality in extant literature. Like his general thesis of the freely choosing individual, Giddens’ notion of individual choice and reflexivity in gender relations, particularly pure relationships, is seen as an exaggeration of individual agency. Giddens’ (1994) account of gender relations in late

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modernity is also criticized for ignoring the coexistence of tradition with individualized forms of relationships, and the practices and processes that couples may engage with in order to live with contradictions and inequalities (Thomson, 2009, p. 83). Thomson’s (2009) biographic study which followed young individuals’ lives over time, reveals that, contrary to the notion of pure relationships, gender inequalities are made in new and sometimes unexpected ways as an effect of intersections of race, gender, sexuality and social class, showing that gender is not simply ‘detraditionalized’ (see also Budgeon, 2003). Sociological analysis of societies such as the United States and Western Europe suggests that the ‘democratization of interpersonal relationships’ has been accompanied by an ‘intimate turn’ with greater emphasis on affective and communicative expressivity (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002; Gabb, 2008; Giddens, 1992; Jamieson, 1998). This entails a more psychological approach to life – greater yearning for warmth and intimacy in personal relationships (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995; Gabb, 2008; Giddens, 1992; Jamieson, 1998; Roseneil and Budgeon, 2004; Skolnick, 1997). The greater emphasis on emotions and intimacy in interpersonal relationships is especially evident in couple relations and parent-child relations. Jamieson (1998) argues that intimacy is at the center of contemporary family interpersonal relationships (p. 1). In couple relations, this is reflected in the celebration of romantic love, equating it with happiness, a companionate marriage ideal, and with a dating culture (Langford, 1999; Turner, 2005). Such ideals affect legitimation of action in other-sex relations so that when it comes to choice of marriage partner, romantic love has gained predominant legitimacy. Regarding parent-child relations, the intimate turn is reflected in the enhanced emotional value of the child in contemporary families with a greater ethos of emotional disclosure between parents and children. It also affects what it means to be a child and what constitutes a ‘good’ childhood (as discussed below). This expressive revolution with its valorization of emotion and intimacy has invariably in scholarly analysis been associated with individualism – be it the Protestant emphasis on individual emotional attachment and loyalty to Jesus (Turner, 2005) or the expressive individualism inherent in romanticism in 18th- and 19th-century European and American culture with its emphasis on the ‘authentic self’ and individuals’ emotional world (Bellah et al., 2008; Berlin, 2001). From the late modernity perspective, such a shift is a response to the isolation and vulnerability of the individual in contemporary society. For Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (1995), as for Bauman (2001), the individualization of postwar Western risk societies has released people from the traditional bonds of family and community, generating a stronger sense of uncertainty, fears, anxieties and loneliness. The search for intimate expressivity can be seen as a ‘counter to, refuge from the chilly environment of our affluent, impersonal, uncertain society, stripped of its traditions and scarred by all kinds of risk’ (Beck and BeckGernsheim, 1995, pp. 2–3).

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Modernization and the transformation of childhood It is impossible to talk about the transformation of family interpersonal relationships and the intimate turn without looking at the changing attitudes towards and valuation of children. Despite the divergence of opinions on the exact timing, momentum and extent of such a transformation, historical analysts such as Philippe Aries, Lloyd de Mause, Edward Shorter, Lawrence Stone, and Hugh Cunningham generally agree that a major shift, a ‘softening’, in adult attitudes towards children and the conceptualization of childhood took place between the 1600s and early 1900s in the West (see Cunningham, 2005 for a review of these). Norbert Elias’s (1994) sociological analysis of childhood from a historical comparative perspective also points to a similar trend. In his 2005 book Children and Childhood in Western Society since 1500, Cunningham argues that, notwithstanding various interruptions, ‘a prime focus on the spiritual health of the child’ was gradually replaced by ‘a concern for the development of the individual child’ in the course of the 18th century (p. 59). Cunningham attributes this to the emergence of a secular view of children in that century, influenced first by the writings of John Locke and then by the Romantic thinkers, especially Rousseau. [C]hildren began to cease to be seen as the embodiment of souls in need of salvation, and became instead either like the young of some domestic pet in need of habit training or like a seed which should be allowed to grow naturally. (Cunningham, 2005, p. 202) Over time, with the decline in the belief in original sin, children were transformed from being corrupt and innately evil to being angels, messengers from God to a tired adult world. . . . The art of childrearing became one of hearkening to Nature, giving free rein to growth, rather than bending twigs to a desired shape. (Cunningham, 2005, pp. 58–9) Childhood, as a result of this transformation, became a stage of life to be valued in its own right – and indeed, the best stage of life. Cunningham argues that the 20th century witnessed unprecedentedly rapid change in the conceptualization and experience of childhood in keeping with such understandings, although there was a long lead-in to this. Zelizer (1985) refers to this change as ‘sacralization’ or ‘sentimentalization’ of childhood, which resulted in the rise of the ‘priceless child’ in European and US families during the first decades of the 20th century – at once ‘economically useless’ and ‘emotionally priceless’ to their parents. She argues that this change had

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to do with the increasing privacy and comfort of upper- and middle-class nuclear family life with industrialization. Citing Carl Degler (1980), she states that the new conception of children as precious went hand in hand with the increasing domestication of middle-class women. This initially largely middle-class phenomenon spread the ideal (if not always the practice) of womanhood and childhood to the working class. The creation of a male wage earner and his dependent family in the early 20th century ‘was partly intended to implement the “cult of true womanhood” and “true” childhood among the working class’ (Zelizer, 1985, p. 9). Cunningham (2005) suggests that the tendency for parents to look to their children for emotional gratification continues in the 21st century. Furthermore, he argues that whereas they have lost any productive role within the economy, children increasingly have gained a new role as consumers: ‘children became the focus of expenditure by parents wishing to give their children a better childhood than they themselves had had, and seeing the means to this in expenditure’ (p. 186). The tendency of parents to look to their children for emotional gratification fits the contemporary emphasis on affective intimacy and expressivity. Cunningham (2005) shows that the emergence of a more child-oriented society was further reinforced by a series of developments during the 20th century, referred to as ‘the century of the child’ (Key, 1900), which aimed at providing all children with a proper childhood. Childhood became a major issue in politics and in everyday discourse, with the state’s intervention and support for the family, campaigns by activists and philanthropists, the emergence of multiple legislations about children, and particularly, a new significance attached to parenting – all favoring children. The universalization of compulsory schooling (introduced normally in the late 19th century) in the West served as a key factor in spreading the idea of a ‘proper childhood’ for all children. Schooling is highly indicative of separation of children from the adult world, whereby children lost their economic value. Children also began in the late 20th century to acquire rights which placed them more nearly on par with adults as the discourse of children’s rights expanded from childhood protection to their rights as individuals, as reflected in the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is noteworthy that becoming ‘economically useless’ does not necessarily mean that children are not practically useful at all. The ‘sentimentalization’ of childhood may affect different socio-economic groups differently. Although middle-class parents tend to give their children little housework to do, emphasizing their academic efforts, in practice many children, particularly girls and especially those in low-income, divorced and multiple-child families or households with working mothers, do participate to varying degrees in housework (Miller, 2005). While more generally children have become ‘economically useless’ and ‘costly’, some parents may well still find their children as practically useful and emotionally precious at the same time. It seems hard to tease the rise of the priceless child apart from the general modernization and democratization of family interpersonal relationships. Nevertheless, paradoxically, the personal family also emphasizes control of the now

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priceless child (Cunningham, 2005; de Swaan, 1981; Jamieson, 1998; Skolnick, 1997). Or as Cunningham (2005) puts it, ‘the greater freedoms of children’ are ‘balanced by greater adult concern for and attempts to control their time, their space, their bodies and their minds’ (p. 194). The notion of ‘intensive parenting’ (Hays, 1996) describes the tendency toward increased parental control in contemporary societies, where childhood is seen as a competitive race toward a future characterized by uncertainty (Espino, 2013; Quirke, 2006) and where dangers to the child’s mind and body have become a daily concern in many urban settings. Intensive parenting is thus both present- and future-oriented (Espino, 2013). How do these modernizing trends of childhood, especially the notion of the priceless child – economically useless and yet emotionally invaluable to parents, and enjoying ‘democratic’ relationships with them – apply to present-day China? Given China’s historical and socio-cultural specificities  – and in line with the thesis of diverse modernization paths due to ideological and cultural diversity among societies – it is simplistic to expect mere ‘convergence’ with a Western ‘modernity’. Filial piety is likely to have been much more salient in China than in Western countries. In traditional Chinese family life, children were viewed as subordinate, humble and inferior juniors, unconditionally obeying and serving their elders. All children were supposed to show filial care for aging parents. An even more clearly contrasting difference from the West is that in urban China, the vast majorities of children are singletons due to the strictly implemented one-child policy, which interacts with other sociocultural forces to impact family relationships and the emerging meaning of the child. In Chapter 3 I shall examine the transformation of Chinese childhood over three generations.

Modernization and formal education: the rise of the ‘schooled society’ Valuation of education is widely viewed as the most important driving force for as well as a result – and a sign – of modernity at the individual, societal, and national levels. Notwithstanding the differing views on how modernization takes place, there is general consensus about the central role of formal education as a modernizing influence in national development throughout the world and in all the various domains of life, such as economic, social, cultural and political, at both the macro and micro levels (Fägerlind and Saha, 1983). Education’s key role in economic advancement is supported by human capital theory (Schultz, 1960; Becker, 1964) which underpins many contemporary national development strategies and international development programs. The relationship between human capital, the accumulation of which is frequently associated with increasing levels of education, and economic growth has been the thesis of a large body of literature (see Hanushek and Kimko, 2000; Savvides and Stengos, 2009, for reviews of related literature). More recently, the quality of education is also emphasized as a determinant of human capital, which serves as a qualification of the earlier focus on the level or quantity of education

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(Hanushek and Kimko, 2000). There is also substantial evidence on education’s private returns showing that education in general tends to positively impact individuals’ economic status and life chances (see Blundell et al., 1999; McMahon and Oketch, 2013 for reviews of related literature). Education attainment also tends to yield a host of extra-economic outcomes such as better health, longevity and happiness (Chen, 2012; Pallas, 2000; Grossman, 2008; McMahon and Oketch, 2013). The positive association between education and health is particularly well established (e.g., Chen, 2012; Kemptner, Jürges and Reinhold, 2011; Silles, 2009; Grossman, 2008). Many studies have shown that educational level is one of the most important correlates of goodhealth indicators, such as low rates of mortality and morbidity and of work days lost and high rates of positive self-evaluation of health status. In their analysis of US national datasets, Ross and Wu (1995) show that high educational attainment improves health both directly and indirectly through better employment and economic conditions, richer social-psychological resources and a more healthconducive lifestyle (see also Silles, 2009). Compared to the poorly educated, the well-educated are less likely to be unemployed, are more likely to work full-time and to have fulfilling, subjectively rewarding jobs, high incomes and low economic hardship. People with more education also report a greater sense of control over their lives and health, and they enjoy higher levels of social support. They are less likely to smoke, are more likely to exercise and get health check-ups and to drink moderately – factors significantly conducive to health in all analyses. Education is also found to strongly boost various forms of civic and social engagement (Almond and Verba, 1989; Campbell, 2006; Lauglo and Øia, 2008; Putnam, 2000). In his book Bowling Alone, which analyzes trends in social capital in the United States, Putnam (2000) argues: ‘Education is one of the most important predictors – usually, in fact, the most important predictor – of many forms of social participation’ (p. 186). An important justification for the large expenditures on education in many countries is its social and civic, and not just economic, impact (Campbell, 2006). It is believed that mass schooling contributes to social and civic engagement by, among other things, socializing young people in values related to egalitarianism, democracy and individual autonomy – the dominating ideology guiding modern schooling (Valentin, 2011). The belief in education’s positive role in inculcating such values, hence civic and social engagement, persists at least as part of a developmental idealism, despite the contrary argument that modern schooling serves social reproduction rather than equality (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977; Bernstein, 1971; Willis, 1977), and despite the critique that modern schooling, instead of cultivating individual autonomy, tends to stifle it through disciplining (Foucault, 1995) and an emphasis on ‘uniformity’ (Levinson and Holland, 1996), and despite the widely observed decline in conventional forms of civic involvement in the face of increased levels of education in contemporary societies (Campbell, 2006). Modern schooling is a fundamental aspect of contemporary state formation by playing an integrative role (Glenn, 1988; Levinson and Holland, 1996). In spite of

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growing social and cultural diversity and despite the alleged aim of cultivating individual autonomy, modern schools reflect the state’s deliberate efforts to inculcate common attitudes, values and loyalty through centralized education systems and standardized curricula, textbooks and training programs (Glenn, 1988). This integrative role of education for the state has also been discussed from a Foucauldian perspective (Ball, 1990; Marshall, 1990; Vain, 1996). Foucault (1995) recognizes the centrality of education in the construction of modernity, pointing to the exercise of power in contemporary schools through disciplinary technologies aiming to forge a docile body ‘that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved’ (p. 136). For him, with the rise of the modern nation-states, institutions such as education and the army play a crucial role in governing and creating self-regulating, productive citizens. Education has been consistently shown to be the most powerful factor fostering and promoting modern values and attitudes, thus bringing about ‘individual modernity’, or the ‘modern personality’ (e.g., Kahl,1968; Lerner, 1958; Bowles and Gintis, 1976; Fägerlind and Saha, 1983; Inkeles,1969; Shu, 2004). In a cross-cultural survey designed to gauge the psychosocial syndrome of modernity, Inkeles (1969) concludes that in all six countries he studied, education is the most powerful factor in making people modern. Education was also found to be more significant a factor than other modernizing experiences, such as contact with the mass media and working in modern productive enterprises. Klineberg (1973) found that length of time spent in school affects modern attitudes even more strongly than academic achievement, parental attitudes and peer group associations. It has also been shown that education is conducive to postmaterialistic values. Park’s (1980) study of people’s (N = 422) values about education in Ghana, India and Brazil shows that the more educated a person becomes, the more likely he is to embrace the ‘expressive’ values of education, such as acquiring knowledge, cultivating intellectuality and appreciating culture rather than for instrumental purposes (e.g., getting a job and earning money). Individuals with more education are presumably more secure in terms of income and social status. They thus also tend to be more articulate about education’s potential values and to recognize ‘developing the whole person’ as education’s primary purpose. These studies’ findings are in line with the argument about a shift from survival values to self-expressive values resulting from socio-economic development including increased education (Inglehart and Welzel, 2005; Maslow, 1954). Education has long been emphasized as the most important factor in encouraging non-traditional gender attitudes at both the macro and micro levels, and it tends to have an especially empowering effect on women (Kane, 1995; Miettinen, 2001; Shu, 2004). Among other things, education may offer women resources for enhanced awareness of their subordinate status at home and in society (Kane, 1995; Shu, 2004). Research shows a negative association between education and time used on household tasks among women (e.g., Miettinen, 2001; Rexroat and Shehan, 1987; South and Spitze, 1994) and a positive association between men’s educational level and their participation in household work (e.g., Farkas, 1976;

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Rexroat and Shehan, 1987; Ross, 1987; South and Spitze, 1994). The ongoing improvement in females’ education, which in most countries is projected by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) even to result in a pro-female reversal of gender inequality in educational attainment, will no doubt affect gender relationships at home as well as in the larger society, the dynamics of which remains unclear and requires future research (Lauglo and Liu, 2019). These widely recognized benefits and functions of modern education reviewed here help explain its global expansion (Anderson-Levitt, 2005; Baker, 2014), despite the fact that its real relevance to people in the global South is sometimes questioned (Liu, 2004; Valentin, 2011), and despite the fact that many societies in the South lack the resources to facilitate such education (Fuller, 1991). The positive (and often normative) association between modernity and education simply makes it difficult, if not impossible, for governments, social groups and individuals to neglect it. Moreover, education and modernization seem to feed each other: education is a powerful agent for modernization in both psychocultural and material-institutional terms, while modernization of infrastructure, organizational structures, norms and values also facilitates the development of education systems. According to world culture theorists, there have globally been three major phases of educational development. From the early 18th century through the 1870s, the core countries of the global North established national schooling and achieved almost universal education. In the second phase, from the 1870s through World War II, other countries (including the colonial territories which later became independent states) gradually entered the system with their small but growing school population. By the 1950s, a sense of ‘global inevitability’ emerged when the spread of mass education accelerated rapidly so that ‘there seems to have been much less resistance to, or fewer alternatives to, mass education expansion’ (Anderson-Levitt, 2005, p. 992). Baker (2014) describes the worldwide expansion of formal education since the 1960s as ‘relentless and ubiquitous’ (p. 1): with each new generation, increasing numbers of children and youth globally attend schooling for an ever-greater number of years, and more attain higher education degrees, including graduate degrees. Thus, formal education has gone from a special experience for the few to an ordinary and mandatory one for the majority, and it ‘continues to expand at both ends of the life-course, with considerable public sentiment that it is the “right thing to do” ’ (p. 2). Thus, ‘what our grandparents’ generation considered a normal education would now be woefully inadequate’ (p. xi). Education existed earlier in all societies, but it is the modern form of education, which is both a powerful driver and a result of modernity, that has gained global legitimacy although resistance does occur (Levinson and Holland, 1996; Valentin, 2011). Western-style schools have displaced such traditional provisions of schooling as those that used to exist in China and Japan, although they still coexist with other (less dominating) systems of formal education such as Quranic schools (Anderson-Levitt, 2005, p. 991).

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The cultural implication of the dominance of Western-style mass education is a topic for many scholars (e.g. Levinson and Holland, 1996), including world culture theorists (e.g., Meyer et al., 1992; Fuller, 1991). Meyer and colleagues (1992) assert that Western-style schooling with its increasingly standardized curricula has come to overshadow virtually all other ‘means of the inter-generational transmission of culture’ (p. 1). Levinson and Holland (1996) thus argue that modern schooling plays a crucial role in creating the Western cultural hegemony in our contemporary world and that this role has often been downplayed by cultural studies emphasizing the effects of global commodity culture: If it is true that blue jeans, Coca-Cola, and Mickey Mouse define the cultural horizons of ever-increasing numbers of people, so too do the hegemonic forms of mass schooling and its ‘formal knowledge’. Diversity is not only threatened by mass culture, but by models of schooling increasingly divorced from, indeed antagonistic to, a wealth of culture-specific moral discourses and styles of learning. (p. 17) The historical rise of mass public-education systems has no doubt ‘generated powerful, and to some extent convergent or “global” construction of the “educated person” ’ (Levinson and Holland, 1996, p. 15). In his book The Schooled Society: The Educational Transformation of Global Culture, David Baker (2014) argues that the extensive growth since the 1960s in the world’s population’s participation in formal education, referred to as the ‘education revolution’, has transformed our world into a schooled society – a society that is actively created and defined by education. In the schooled society, there is a triple cultural belief: the belief in cognitive skills (particularly as promoted in schooling) as essential for all types of jobs and social roles; the belief in academic achievements as the chief legitimatization for social hierarchy; and the belief in education as a basic human right (p. 41). Baker notes two components of a schooled society which interact symbiotically over time to produce a whole new type of society: accompanying its universal growth, there has been an intensifying culture of education whereby education takes on deeper and broader significance for nearly every facet of human life: [The culture of education] justifies and intensifies the now widely held belief that formal education is the best way to develop all humans and their capacities; an idea that surpasses centuries-old notions unrelated to education about how to raise children, make productive employees, and create effective citizens. (p. 2) Formal education has acquired pervasive institutional power to define personal success and failure and has entered deeply into the cultural construction of

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self-image. Expanding upon Meyer’s (1977) notion of education’s ideology that in modern society individual success and failure are increasingly defined by the normative pressure for academic participation and attainment, Baker asserts: Schooling has become such an all-encompassing phenomenon in the lives of children and youth that it takes on important meaning well beyond just a route to an occupation, to the point that a person’s educational status has come to form a considerable portion of his public and private self. . . . Relative success or failure in school reflects upon the whole of the individual and even her family. (p. 219) In a schooled society, not doing well at school is a painful and frustrating experience. Not attending school is problematized and a dropout is often seen as a social problem that demands urgent solution and needs to be stigmatized. As shall be shown in Chapter 4, post-Mao China stands out as a prime example, and an intensified version, of the schooled society. Besides globalization, the intensified culture of the schooled society reflects China’s century-old and widespread reverence for education and its exemplary norm (Bakken, 2000; Dawson, 1915). It also has to do with the fierce competition for a ‘worthy’ livelihood in the post-Mao market economy without a sound, state-provided safety net, the inflation of higher education credentials, and the urban family’s strong desire to maximize human capital for the priceless child, who is also the ‘aspiring individual’ of the young generation. The intensified schooled society culture shapes contemporary Chinese young people’s childhood and adolescence experiences in particular ways (see Chapters 3–4).

Conclusion The concepts of ‘modernization’ and ‘modernity’, rather than being irrelevant, are crucial for understanding social change in contemporary societies such as China. But how are we to fit the social and cultural change over the three generations in this study into the global modernizing trends reviewed here – views and findings often derived from other societies and distant times? Many of the institutional, material and cultural processes pertinent to modernization that have taken place or are taking place in the global North and elsewhere are evident in contemporary China undergoing rapid modernization (Kipnis, 2012; Xie, 2011). We may then expect to find trends which are similar to those reviewed in the present chapter in the various domains of life to be empirically examined in this study. Yet, the Chinese case should by no means be seen as total ‘westernization’ or ‘the “reliving” of someone else’s history’ (Liechty, 2003, p. 20). In line with the ‘divergence thesis’, Chinese youth’s experiences of modernization will necessarily be qualified by factors unique to their own society, such as its history, tradition, culture, political system and demographic and other socioeconomic

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features. This general theoretical starting point will be further elaborated and exemplified in the empirical chapters. It is my hope in this book to capture the ‘Chineseness’ of post-Mao modernization as it is lived by contemporary youth at the forefront of the country’s modernity, while recognizing its link to global modernization, but without rendering China and the West (or the rest of the world) as a dichotomy. This study could be read as a contribution to the larger project of chronicling the global history of modernity. However, more importantly, my intention is to contribute to understanding China-specific modernization and modernity as lived experiences rather than using modernization as a grand theory or meta-category of analysis (Osella and Osella, 2006). I shall therefore seek to avoid relying on the nation-state as the unit of analysis – a tendency which was noted by Tipps (1973) some decades ago and which still seems to prevail in studying modernization and modernity. I shall instead focus on what has been much less studied: modernization as experiences of individuals whose lives are embedded in specific local sociocultural contexts. In line with the life history approach, my choice to focus on individuals’ experiences does not negate the relevance of what is happening at the macro level, which will be indispensable for my analysis of individuals’ life stories in this study. Thus, in the empirical chapters, I shall not just examine macro-level transformation in discourses and policies; I shall analyze it in the context of everyday life practices and processes of negotiation in an attempt to capture the links between individual experiences and historical, social, cultural, familial and demographic processes. The generational change and continuity that may emerge from the empirical analysis will hopefully shed light on the dynamics of social relations in China as an effect of the interaction between globalizing forces and local formations.

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46  Modernization and social change Voyer, D. and Voyer, S. D. 2014. Gender differences in scholastic achievement: A metaanalysis. Psychological Bulletin 140(4): 1174–1204. Westen, D. 1985. Self and society: Narcissism, collectivism, and the development of morals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Willis, P. 1977. Learning to labor: How working class kids get working class jobs. New York: Columbia University Press. Xie, Y. 2011. Evidence-based research on China: A historical imperative. Chinese Sociological Review 44: 14–25. Young, I. M. 2005. Modernity, emancipatory values, and power: A rejoinder to Adams and Orloff. Politics and Gender 1(3): 492–500. Zelizer, V. A. 1985. Pricing the priceless child. New York: Basic Books.

Chapter 3

The rise of the ‘priceless’ Chinese child Childhood in three generations

Yiyi, a 17-year-old girl (at the ordinary school) with a laid-off worker mother and a taxi-driver father, described her childhood as growing up ‘held in the caring palms of her parents and grandparents’. This statement reflects a common experience of the young generation in this study. The metaphor highlights the child’s status as the older generations’ love object and as the family’s cultivation and education project. Like many others, Yiyi also described her relationship with her parents, especially her mother, as ‘open, intimate and democratic’. How do the young generation’s life stories compare with their parents’ and grandparents’ childhood experiences? This chapter explores how childhood (from birth to around age 15) has changed over the three generations, as reflected in daily life, the meaning and valuation of the child, parenting and parent-child relationships. I shall show that Chinese urban children, boys and girls alike, have become extremely emotionally precious but economically useless (or even costly) to their parents, with whom they enjoy, or at least desire, democratic relationship and expressive intimacy. The present young generation’s childhood is a far cry from traditional filial piety and the meaning of the child in the past. Parenting this generation has become an art to be deliberately cultivated by their parents, in contrast with earlier generations’ ‘growing up naturally’. The generational changes fit previous theorizing about childhood modernization, particularly the notion of the ‘priceless child’ (Zelizer, 1985). But both the rise and the preciousness of the Chinese priceless child have been intensified by the post-Mao social transformation, including the one-child policy. Modern parenting is still tinted by, but may also conflict with, certain traditional values pertaining to parent-child relationship. The Chinese case thus adds contextual nuance to analysis of current global trends regarding childhood.

From parent-centeredness to child-centeredness Very clear prescriptions for childhood existed in Chinese tradition (Naftali, 2016). Hsiung (2005, pp.  21–8) identifies three aspects. The first refers to the child’s

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‘junior’ position vis-à-vis the ‘senior’. ‘It denotes the subordinate, humble, and inferior status of a child in a subservient role to that of his or her elders, ancestors and others in a hierarchically superior position’ (p. 21). A second and biophysical perspective views childhood as the earliest phase in a life span. Finally, ‘child’ denotes certain valued ‘childlike’ states of mind that anyone might display regardless of age or status, such as playfulness, liveliness, innocence and sincerity. This latter meaning is stressed in Taoist philosophy and religion and has strongly influenced Chinese medicine and health culture in its search for the body’s ability to regenerate itself. This notion resembles the Western Romantic notion of the child as ‘angel-like’ and innately good. Hsiung further notes that these three meanings are not isolated from each other and that no singular view dominated the overall conception or treatment of children and childhood in traditional China. However, the different understandings of ‘child’ may have been differentially influential in specific areas of concern (e.g., health, social and family life, philosophical thoughts). The first meaning of the ‘child’ was dominant for social and personal relationships. It concerned filial piety, the basic concept of the traditional Chinese family, which is an archetypal example of ‘the positional family’ (Bernstein, 1971) or ‘command household’ (de Swaan, 1981), with strictly hierarchical and role-based relationships by generation, gender and age. Parenting was authoritarian, with the father having absolute authority. Filial piety required ‘reverence, awe and duty of children towards parents, especially towards the father’ (Lynn, 1974, p. 33). Children were to respect and obey their parents unconditionally and not to express conflicting ideas openly. Obedience was ‘the first among the hundreds of ways of expressing filial piety’ (baixiao shun weixian). All children were supposed to show filial care for aging parents. The son was to provide material care and carry on the family line. Any offspring at whatever age must always assume the position of a child relative to the family elders. It was this social and relational meaning of the child that seems to have featured most prominently in traditional child socialization with the aim to teach children to take up their proper social positions and roles in the family and societal hierarchy. In contrast to the third aspect of child as discussed by Hsiung (2005), little value was placed on childhood in itself. Upbringing and education should instill adult standards in children as early as possible and correct ‘childish’ mentalities (Naftali, 2016). Attaching emotional value to children was not totally absent in traditional families, but the emphasis was strongly on children as junior members who were to obey and serve the needs of their elders as well as indispensably transmit the familial line. Thus, the valuation of children was predominantly instrumental rather than emotionally expressive. This is reflected in the popular belief that children (in particular sons) were to be raised for the sake of one’s old-age care (yanger fanglao). This instrumental perspective also implied that children should contribute to the housework and household economy, especially in lower-class families (Thornton and Fricke, 1987).

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The view of the child as instrumental and strictly subordinate to parents has been weakened since the early 20th century, when progressive intellectuals during the New Culture Movement (NCM) attacked all elements of ‘traditional’ Chinese culture, including the ideas about children. Public discourses began to draw on modern Western ideas about children and childhood. Many intellectuals called for emancipation of children, stressing the need to nurture children as individuals rather than pruning them to fit predetermined templates (Pease, 1995). Efforts were made to improve children’s welfare and education. Child psychology and educational psychology began to be established in China (Naftali, 2016). Both the suffocating atmosphere of childhood and youth in elite households and the hardships of toiling lower-class children who struggled for survival are important motifs in early modern fictions (Pease, 1995). Saari (1990) notes: By the end of the New Culture period (1915–1921), a veritable tide of feeling and arguments against filial upbringing and authoritarian education had swept through coastal and literate China. By then a historic restructuring of the process of growing up had occurred. (p. 39) Influential as it was among the coastal and literate elite, the short-lived NCM failed to eradicate the traditional attitudes toward children and parenting style. Nonetheless, it laid the foundation for Maoist socialism to further improve the social status of children and youth by more fundamentally undermining the traditional family. Through the expansion of schooling and mass propaganda campaigns, the Maoist regime sought to destroy the old kinship hierarchy and to transform children from loyal family members into dutiful citizens of the new socialist state (Baker, 1979; Parish, 1975). This weakened family obligations and undermined the age and gender hierarchy, thus empowering children of both sexes. Mao famously compared children and youth to ‘the sun at eight to nine o’clock in the morning’, clearly associating childhood with a special phase of the life cycle as well as with hope for the new China. The politicization of childhood typical of that era required that children be loyal to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and socialism (Chan, 1985; Lupher, 1995; Ye and Ma, 2005). Primary schooling expanded greatly, with a curriculum stressing self-sacrifice for the collective good (Unger, 1982). Young people were to listen to Chairman Mao and the Party, which indicates that their new political status did not fundamentally change their junior status as children. The younger generation, more educated than their parents and hailed as ‘revolutionary successors’, were during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) sporadically urged to teach their parents about Chairman Mao’s thoughts and to rid them of feudal ideas (Parish, 1975). It thus became more acceptable for young people to talk back, criticize or even rebel against their parents as well as other authorities such as their teachers. Nevertheless, their subordinate status was equally evident within the private

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sphere of the family, where traditional intergenerational relationships were not fundamentally transformed and filial piety norms remained strong (Evans, 2008; Parish and Whyte, 1978) The command style of management in the parents’ work units at that time might also have reinforced a similarly authoritarian style of family management (Kohn and Schooler, 1982; Yoshikawa, Niobe and Chen, 2012). Parents’ work conditions also affect children’s responsibility in the family (Miller, 2005). The fact that both parents were busily engaged in the ‘socialist construction’ meant that children were supposed to help with housework and family livelihood as much as possible, as also shown in the narratives by the middle-generation informants in this study. Since the 1980s Chinese childhood has been fundamentally transformed. In sharp contrast to the Confucian familial and Maoist collectivist views of children, a child-centeredness emerged soon after the commencement of the reform and opening up. Child-rearing and child development fast became a major preoccupation of urban and suburban parents (Croll, 2006; Naftali, 2010). This has been a combined effect of the population control policy, growth in material wealth, Western influence, growing individualism, the state’s call to raise high-quality (suzhi) children (Anagnost, 2004; Greenhalgh and Winckler, 2005), and not least parents’ ‘compensation desire’ – their strong wish to make up for their own material and cultural-educational constraints and deprivations during their childhood and youth under totally different conditions. The child-centeredness is especially evident in the urban family, which typically has only one child due to the one-child policy (1979–2015). Parents and grandparents typically lavish their love and attention on their one and only child, causing public worries about ‘drowning a child with love’ (Croll, 2006). The policy has also unsettled the traditional gender-specific treatment of sons and daughters. Regardless sex of the child, the one and only child has become parents’ focus of love, investment and hope (Fong, 2004; Liu, 2006; Rich and Tsui, 2002). Children have a major claim on family budgets in a context where child-raising has become increasingly commodified and driven by consumerism (Yu, 2014). Research since the 1980s of various socioeconomic groups found that parents uniformly prioritized their children’s needs and expenses (for related discussions, see Croll, 2006; Naftali, 2016). It is estimated that urban parents spend an average of 50%–70% of the total household’s income on their only children for their needs or desires, which range from education to designer brands (Lu, 2005). In addition, most urban children have their own discretionary savings from New Year gifts, birthday gifts and allowances. New clothes, treats, gifts and travels for the child are increasingly seen as ‘necessary’ expenditures. Urban children are quite influential in the selection of many family products and services, including food, vacations, clothing and restaurants (Croll, 2006; see also Naftali, 2016). Meeting the needs and satisfying the desires of children often leaves little for other family members. It is not uncommon in such families that one finds the unique phenomenon of ‘one-family two-tiered consumption’ – with parents spending less on themselves and using lower-tier brands in order to purchase

The rise of the ‘priceless’ Chinese child 51

premium brands for the child (Wang, 2008). Their status as the major consumer of the family, pampering by parents and grandparents, and preoccupation with education make it hardly possible for present-day children to contribute to housework, let alone to household economy, as previous generations of children did. Education and consumption have become the younger generation’s main activities (Liu, 2016). Chinese urban children and youth today are also known to have a more democratic and intimate relationship with their parents than did earlier generations. Parents increasingly tend to view their children as friends and encourage a more equal and interactive relationships (Jankowiak and Moore, 2017; Naftali, 2016). In contrast to the conventional view of Chinese parenting as authoritarian and restrictive, much research evidence suggests that parenting in urban families is predominantly authoritative, child-centered and egalitarian, aimed at raising happy, healthy and autonomous children (Lu and Chang, 2013; Wang, 2013; Way et al., 2013). Findings from child development studies also point to important shifts in child socialization ideals towards encouraging assertiveness and discouraging behavioral constraint and shyness, which is especially evident in urban families but increasingly so also in rural families (Chen and Li, 2012; Lu and Chang, 2013; Shi, 2017). Bashfulness and sensitivity have become associated with social disadvantage, in contrast with traditional Chinese culture which regards these as positive personality traits and which endorses bashful and sensitive children, boys as well as girls, as well-behaved – perhaps in keeping with the emphasis on obedience, modesty and humbleness, and as indicative of social accomplishment and maturity (King and Bond, 1985). Another notable change is that in contrast with the traditional detached ‘stern father’, Chinese fathers are increasingly involved with their children (Abbott, Zheng and Meredith, 1992; Chuang, Moreno and Su, 2013; Jankowiak and Moore, 2017). Analyzing a survey of 773 girls and 598 fathers in Shanghai, Xu and Yeung (2013) show urban Chinese fathers to be quite actively involved with their children with regard to leisure activities, education and communication. They tended to treat their daughters in ways that are contrary to the stoic stereotype of the Chinese father as typically focusing on his sons who were expected to carry on the family line and provide old-age care. Fathers were found also to have a warm and nurturing relationship with their daughters and are highly involved in many aspects of their daughters’ lives. Thus, though Chinese parenting is highly gendered in line with the post-Mao discourse of sex differences (Evans, 2008) and though the breadwinner role remains central to men’s identities (Zuo and Bian, 2001), contemporary Chinese urban fathers appear to have ‘softened up’ to their children and they have become more participatory than earlier generations in child-rearing. This transformation resembles what Brannen (2004) calls ‘from fatherhood to fathering’ – a change that she traced over four generations in the United Kingdom. The ‘parent-centeredness’ prevalent in families in the past has thus been replaced by a child-centeredness, or ‘children first’ culture, in the post-Mao era.

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Based on her own and others’ empirical findings, Croll (2006) concludes that there ‘has been a reversal in the generational hierarchies that were for centuries elderly-oriented and characterized by filial piety; now it is the young who are revered and indulged’ (p. 200). This trend is in keeping with modernization theory of childhood. Still, some beliefs and practices run contrary to the ideal of treating the child as an autonomous individual. The mounting pressure on the child of parental high expectations and intensive care can prove suffocating (Liu, 2011). Chinese parents may tend to impose their hopes and plans on the child, sometimes for parents’ own self-interests (Croll, 2006; Naftali, 2016; Jankowiak and Moore, 2017). Alongside detraditionalization and economic liberalization since the 1980s, there has also been a reemphasis on the filial duty that was never fundamentally challenged by Maoism; the ‘intergenerational contract’ (Ikels, 1993) remains at work (Liu, 2008). An even more clearly contrasting difference from the West is the strictly implemented one-child policy in the cities, which has in combination with other sociocultural forces affected family relationships and the emerging meaning of the child. In short, Chinese children now do enjoy much greater individual autonomy and material wealth than earlier generations of children. And yet, as Naftali (2016) points out, multiple discourses coexist whereby the state, the school, the family, the media, the market and children themselves all play a part in defining what it means to be a child. Thus, notwithstanding a modernizing trend, Chinese childhood should be regarded as ‘composed of distinct multiple categories that are products of ideational, demographic, and socioeconomics processes’ (p. 6). Furthermore, this development is uneven among children of different genders, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds and it has been accompanied by ambiguities, dilemmas and contradictions. How are the more general modernizing trends in childhood as well as the complexity involved in the Chinese case manifested in the lived experiences of young people at the forefront of Chinese modernity? What does it actually mean, then, to be a child in present-day urban China? How would their childhood experiences compare with those of their parents and grandparents? How can the transformation be characterized? Three interrelated themes of transformation were induced from the data analysis lending support to the rise of the Chinese ‘priceless child’. This dramatic transformation occurred with the birth of the only child generation. There is much continuity between the two older generations’ childhood experiences of family life. I shall therefore focus on the most recent generational change and only briefly refer to the grandparents’ childhood.

From the ‘dutiful and helpful child’ to the ‘little emperor/empress’ Toil often goes together with poverty and hardship, also for children. A common theme in the grandparents’ narratives is how ku (bitter; difficult; full of suffering)

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life was when they were young. Many experienced famine, poverty, wars, natural disasters and Maoist campaigns. Struggling for survival was the reality for most of them. As shown throughout this book, poverty and hard life affected all realms of this generation’s life, ranging from schooling to other daily activities, other-sex relations and gender construction. The grandparents recalled how helping with housework and livelihood-related activities became the order of their day as soon as they were a few years old, marginalizing both schooling and playing. A few had ample time for play since they were the youngest or because their families were better off than others. Most, however, had little time for playing. A typical rural childhood was portrayed by Ruiqin, who grew up in a mid-China village in the 1940s and early 1950s: I started doing housework at age 6: cooking, house cleaning, washing dishes, and feeding fowls and animals. I would go to the field to pick weeds for the pigs. The only playtime was after dusk. It was then hard to see. School was the one escape, but only when my family did not need me. As soon as I came home, I  had to work in the fields, or in winter, go out in the cold to collect fire wood. Had I not been the youngest, I would also have had to carry around a younger sibling. In my early teens, I started working regularly in the fields. We were too poor not to work hard. Most families were like that in those days. Besides house chores and toiling in the field, Ruiqin, like most of the other grandmothers in this study, especially those from the countryside, in her early teens also started sewing clothes and making shoes for herself and others in the family. Those in the city, especially men, did less housework but had to start earning money at an early age. With no schooling due to poverty, to feed himself Haiying at age 10 became an errand boy for the Japanese occupying northern China. He also recalled picking coal cores (the unburned part of used coal thrown away as rubbish by others) and carrying water for his family when he was younger. Jinxia, fourth among nine siblings in a city in northeast China, had to stop schooling and become a factory worker after primary school to help her family make ends meet, even though she was a top student. In another city, Guifen, third among six children, remembered how she used to peddle in the streets to earn money. ‘She said: My parents were very capable. But life was very hard. I did many other things too, everything: gathering wild vegetables, looking after my younger sisters, you name it.’ For the middle generation, hard toil was no longer typical. Schooling had become a main activity in both the city and countryside. But children still commonly did housework and contributed to the family livelihood because their parents typically worked long hours away from home and because their families often struggled economically. The amount and types of work varied. Rural kids worked more. Their parents did collective farm work under a rigid schedule in the Maoist era, when almost all women aged 16–60 were active in collective productive work and full-time housewives were rare (Croll, 1995). Under Deng’s economic

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reform, rural parents worked in fields leased to them under the ‘responsibility system’. With the responsibility for production, livelihood and welfare restored to the family, young people had to help much with agricultural work. Some recalled parents leaving time for them to do some schoolwork, but household-related tasks usually came first. Guojun, who was an outstanding secondary school student and who tested into a prestigious university, said he had to steal time for schoolwork. He loved reading but would be harshly scolded for neglecting his ‘real work’ if caught. Rural children’s tasks also included preparing meals, errands, housecleaning, washing clothes, minding younger siblings, tending animals, and collecting firewood. If one was the youngest of many siblings with both parents alive and capable, one might not have to help out much. But Xiaomin, whose father had died, dropped out of lower secondary education to help her mother with agricultural work because all her older siblings had married and left home. Poor health might free one from certain types of work. Xiaoxia, fourth among six children, was allergic to certain plants and unable to work in the field. So she was instead, at age 7, assigned to prepare family meals and mind her younger siblings. Work division was usually gender-based in the countryside. Girls did more housework and boys helped more in the fields. Ensheng said he had suffered from heavy physical work when he was young, in ways his son could never imagine: helping grow vegetables and twice a day pedaling the heavily loaded tricycle to the market at the county seat 15 km away: ‘As the only boy, I had no choice but to help.’ But many girls also had to work in the fields and some boys also had to do housework. Yulin, third among five male children with a sister as the youngest, said: ‘All of us brothers did housework in addition to farm work. That is why we are all good cooks now.’ The urban household work was easier thanks to better facilities, fewer kids, and the welfare package for urbanites still largely in practice in the 1980s. But most of the urban-origin middle-generation informants also did regular housework during childhood (cleaning, making meals and looking after younger siblings) and some also contributed to the family livelihood. Some recalled starting about age 6–7 to prepare the family meal and taking care of themselves. Yuxin at age 9 started making steamed buns, known to be a demanding task. Yanhua spoke about how she, as the eldest girl among four siblings, had to manage the house almost by herself alongside her schooling because her parents had little time and they were tired from work. She was a top student at school and a busy and dutiful daughter at home. When she managed to enter a technical-vocational school (zhongzhuan) that would take her far away from home, her mother regretted losing her help. There were exceptions in the city too. Yanli, as an only child, did little housework. She enjoyed better material conditions than other children because her father earned more than others. Her mother quit her factory job to become a full-time housewife – unusual at that time. Although boys normally did less housework if they had sisters, the work division seemed less gendered in the city than in the countryside, where it was less common for boys to do housework. The middle-generation men who grew up

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in the city claimed that all boys did housework in addition to other work; it was just normal. Hanlin recalled picking coal cores and renewable rubbish as major activities besides schooling and playing. He also did house-cleaning and cooking. Wangde said: As the eldest, I did all kinds of housework besides looking after my sister and brother. . . . I was six when I first made the family meal. I mistook the millet corn for millet meal and tried to make porridge. You can imagine how it turned out. . . . As a five-year-old, I would hold the hands of my two younger siblings, one on each side, walking them a long way to their nursery. One was 1 year old and the other 3 years. For this generation, as for the grandparents, helping out was not merely a necessity; it was also a filial duty. Being dutiful to parents was an integral part of growing up, in keeping with the filial piety norm. This was often contrasted with the young generation. Lifang said: ‘Our generation knew from an early age how our parents struggled and we were eager to show our care. Our own children are quite different.’ Despite improvement in life conditions compared with the older generation’s childhood, many from the middle generation also had vivid memories of material scarcity and poverty. Xiujun, who was born in 1965 and grew up in a village near a Beijing suburb, said: The hardships we endured are unimaginable for our children. We could fill the tummy, but could never afford to choose what to eat. We lived on corn meal and sweet potatoes – seldom any change, seldom meat or wheat flower and rice, considered delicacies at that time. Most of them had very little pocket money. Yulin said: There was no such a notion as ‘pocket money’. One was not supposed to ask for money from parents. People were poor. My mother would save the eggs from our hens and take them to the shop in exchange for salt and other necessities. A boiled egg would be the best possible treat but only on birthdays, if at all. Some said that it was only if one was sick that one might get a bowl of noodles (seen as a delicacy at that time). Snacks were rare. Lifang said: ‘the happiest moment was when my mother occasionally reached her hand into her pocket. That would mean we children were going to get a five-cent ice bar each on that day.’ She withdrew from a sports team in lower secondary school because her family could not afford clothes for that type of sport. Guotong recalled how children often wore clothes outgrown by older siblings and how he also usually wore patched clothes: ‘I had only one pair of unpatched trousers. I would carefully keep

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it for school use and change to the patched as soon as I got home.’ This generation was encouraged to save, rather than spend, money. Thus, they learned to do as much as possible with as little money as possible. This contrasts sharply with their own children’s consumerism. They typically saw their own learning to live on meager means and experiences of helping and caring for their parents as conducive to valuable personality traits: being strong-willed, capable of enduring hardships, considerate of others and capable of hard work. Or as Wangde put it, ‘I can endure all kinds of hardships and get by in whatever environment.’ This could be seen as a populist concept of cultural capital rather than stressing socially exclusive ‘high culture’. Eisenstadt (1971) observes that generational change is much reflected in children’s family role. While the middle generation talked about being dutiful helpers to their parents and contributors to the family’s livelihood, the young generation’s life stories are typically about being a ‘precious child’ and a ‘family consumer’, reminiscent of their epithet of ‘little emperor/empress’. For them, helping with housework or contributing to family economy is irrelevant. Rather, they normally receive much care and service from their parents and grandparents. Although schoolwork has replaced household-related labor for contemporary children in many societies and made the child ‘economically useless’ for parents, the Chinese case is especially striking because of the exam-oriented and fiercely competitive education system and the high parental achievement expectations of the one and only child. Some of the young informants occasionally did housecleaning and dishwashing. Many of the parents interviewed also said they asked their child to do some simple household chores, mainly to make the child learn to be helpful, take care of parents and others, and to learn basic living skills. However, such activities decreased as the child rose to higher school grades and had more schoolwork. It was simply too hard for the child to find time for housework, especially after starting secondary school, just as it was hard to find time for extracurricular activities – a complaint expressed by both the parents and the young interviewees. There was also the parental desire to pamper the one and only child; parents and grandparents did not have the heart to ask the child to do housework on top of the all-important and heavy school-related work. Besides, when the young informants were born in the mid-1990s, reduced family size and modern household appliances had made house chores much easier for the urban family. The living conditions of these young urbanites differed strikingly from those in which their parents grew up. Modern devices were then largely unavailable and most families had busy parents with multiple kids, for whom education had not yet become an all-important focus. That the only child did little housework applied to all the families interviewed regardless of socio-economic conditions, gender and whether parents were divorced or both were working. In the rare cases of children doing some housework, it was not by necessity or duty but arising from the young person’s own interest. Bo said: ‘I do not like other housework; but cooking is fine because it is creative.’ Others liked cooking because good food is part of a good life and they

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enjoyed cooking. Weiwei, determined to taste all the delicacies in the world, did cooking as a hobby and to relax from schoolwork. Unlike the ‘semi-neglected’ childhood of the two older generations who were left to look after themselves and care for their elders, the daughters and sons felt immersed in their parents’ care and attention. Especially care by their mothers ranged from regularly serving well-prepared meals, drinks and fruits to putting toothpaste on their teenage child’s toothbrush and even folding toilet paper for them. Some families also had the mother give up her job or career to be a fulltime housewife, which not only reflects the retraditionalization of women’s role in post-Mao China (Evans, 2008), but it also indicates the child’s importance as the family’s project. Guangshan would pummel his son’s back and massage his body at the end of the day. Such practices resemble Cunningham’s (2005) claim that parents risk becoming ‘slaves of their children’ in the United States today. Many of the Chinese adolescents felt it was normal that parents should pamper them. Their parents, however, were sometimes ambivalent or even resentful, contrasting it with their own childhood. Shuqin said: Nobody served us when we were young. . . . But children now are used to it. ‘Mom, bring me a glass of water. I am thirsty. Mom, peel an apple for me.’ You peel it, cut it up and insert toothpicks into the pieces before serving her. One day, I was angry: ‘Go get water yourself.’ She would then drink no water the whole evening. So I had to resume serving her. Children today, unlike us, do not know how much their parents strive. But at the same time, you can see she is really exhausted by school work. In sharp contrast to their own parents’ experiences of living on meager means and learning frugality, the young generation typically enjoyed much material comfort, ranging from clothes to toys, food, educational equipment and consumer goods, reflecting the general trends described earlier. Pocket money has become a norm. Even those from relatively low-income families reported having at least a couple of hundred yuan a month for pocket money besides a fixed sum for their daily meals. Many teenagers wished to have more for consumer goods such as clothes and cosmetics. Dawei complained that his parents gave him only 30 yuan a day: ‘It was hardly enough because I have a bigger stomach than others.’ (He was rather stout.) His father told me that they had been trying to help their son lose weight: ‘He always over-eats.’ Qiang complained that it was hard to swallow the dishes prepared by his working-class father who, according to the son, was too frugal: ‘The dishes he prepares are mainly vegetables, little meat.’ But he also said that his father never hesitated to spend money on books for him or on anything that would help him develop: When I was in primary school, I was learning the Saxophone and needed an instrument. My father bought the best type one could find in China. It cost about 2000 yuan. That was a lot of money for our family at that time.

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The child’s new status was also indicated by the socio-spatial provisions. Whereas none of their grandparents or parents had a room of their own during their childhood, all the adolescents had their own room, even if the family lived in a small apartment of some 50 square meters. This reflects what families now can afford. But it also shows the ‘preciousness’ of the child. The child’s own room expressed parents’ love and was an investment for developmental results. The child was also allowed to sit at the table with guests. In the earlier generations children were not normally allowed to sit at the table with guests. Yulin said: You would be scolded by your parents if you did not leave the room immediately when a guest approached the table. We were also very sensitive and attentive and would not wish to be scolded. One glance from a parent sufficed. When we were old enough, we would typically be serving parents and guests and would eat only after the adults had finished. The young interviewees reported having normally participated at the table when there were guests and often receiving much attention. The only child is supposed to be polite to adults, but a new urban norm is to include the child and give the child attention. Most of the young informants appreciated the intensive care from parents and grandparents. But some felt it was excessive, even stifling. Linchao said: ‘It can be too much. It is OK that they dote on me, but just not always follow me around.’ This echoes other findings on Chinese only children who expressed ambivalence by calling their parents’ love for them ‘the web of love’ – at once nurturing and suffocating and constraining (Liu, 2008).

From obedience and awe to communicative intimacy We did not even dare to talk to parents loudly, let alone talk back to them. Children at that time would be silenced by a mere stare from a parent. Although my parents, not like many others, were amiable, they were still high up there.

Such statements were common from the middle generation. In line with filial piety, parent-child relationships were hierarchical, emphasizing reverence for and obedience to parents, with little change from the older generation. No rural-urban difference could be discerned in this regard. The traditional positional family remained largely unchanged despite the CCP’s socialist egalitarian ideology and its attack on the traditional family. The two older generations said it was normal for parents to tell their children off and scold or beat them for bad manners, misbehavior or not performing duties. Many recalled being beaten, in some cases heavily. Wangde said it was natural to be frequently beaten because being the oldest,

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his busy parents gave him many responsibilities: ‘I was spanked whenever I failed to do my duties well.’ Wangqiang said her bad-tempered mother would hit her, sometimes heavily, for minor infractions: ‘Once she slapped my face so heavily that I fainted. I learned what “eyes shedding golden stars” was like.’ If one was spared beatings or scoldings, it was mostly because the parents were unusually good-tempered. Male interviewees reported more beating and scolding. Possibly, traditional gender norms made it more acceptable to be rough with sons. Both the older generations distinguished between relationships with their fathers and mothers. In line with the ‘stern father and amiable mother’ (yanfu cimu) norm, many perceived their own fathers as ‘stern’, even bad-tempered, and felt some awe for them, while mothers were amiable and nurturing. The father’s authority as household head was taken for granted although the mother, equally entitled to lose her temper at any time with children and to beat them up, was also to be revered. Some were afraid of their fathers and disliked their presence. One grandmother secretly wished that her very strict and harsh father should die – a thought mixed with a bad conscience. A few from the middle generation recalled an amiable father. In rare cases the roles were reversed: stern and bad-tempered mother and ‘approachable’ or even caretaking father. Wangqiang, who was often beaten by her mother, said her father was good-tempered, helped her with homework and showed affection – possibly an effect of the Maoist gender egalitarianism. But in general, in this generation the father was ‘distanced and uninvolved’. The two older generations generally perceived their own parents as strikingly different from what the middle-generation interviewees themselves were: tender, affectionate, intimate, attentive, warm and involved parents. They recalled that it was unusual for their parents, especially fathers, to express affection by words or physically. Their parents never called them ‘treasure’ (baobei), as the middle generation typically did their children. A few of the middle-generation informants said that they were adored by their fathers but would then make a distinction between ‘then’ and ‘now’. Shuqin said: ‘I was the youngest among four. My father favored me, always giving me a larger share of anything for us children. But I cannot remember being hugged or kissed by him.’ Yulin said: ‘My father never openly showed affection to us. He seldom held us. My mother told us that when in rare cases he did hold us, he would be embarrassed and quickly put the child aside if seen by neighbors.’ Xuehong said: ‘Parents in those days were very different from us. Only if you were sick, might your parents hold you a bit, or come over to tuck you in. Otherwise, there was no shown affection.’ Moreover, parents and children rarely told each other what they thought and how they felt. The two older generations said that such communication would have been largely irrelevant because parents’ authority was then unchallenged: ‘We just listened to adults.’ Obedience also made quarrelling with parents rare. Open disobedience would also have strongly violated filial piety, especially when the grandparents were young. The two older generations also claimed that there was little need for them to argue or talk with their parents either, because, as they explained: ‘Children at that time had very few thoughts’ or ‘Children at that time

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did not have trouble. We were very simple-minded and simple-hearted (jiandan) and very silly (sha).’ Xiumin said when asked how he related to his parents during his puberty: People at that time did not even know about this concept. We were very simple-minded. One was supposed to be strictly obedient to parents. I never dared talk back and did not feel the need either. Children nowadays are very different. But in the middle generation it could happen that one occasionally resented or even protested what parents said or did. Yanhua argued quite often with her mother about house management and housework, for which she shouldered the larger share. Shuqin protested when her mother falsely accused her of deliberately avoiding housework. She then refused to speak to her mother for a whole week. A more striking example was Wangqiang, the aforementioned woman who was heavily beaten by her mother. She defied her dictator-like mother: ‘The more you forbid me to do something, the more I will do it.’ Such incidents might indicate that an emerging youth culture in the beginning of China’s reform and opening up to the outside world. Youth were then increasingly exposed to diverse cultural influences and began to think that traditional parenting styles were outdated (Yan, 2009). However, in most cases, one just quietly ‘swallowed it’. Xiaoxia said: ‘If you were unhappy, you just hid it in your heart. Rural kids then would not talk back to parents.’ But also those with an urban childhood said it was not normal for children to quarrel with parents back in those days. The child-parent relationships and interactions experienced by the two older generations would seem old-fashioned or ‘feudalistic’ to the young generation. A ‘democratic’ parent-child relationship featuring communicative intimacy was the ideal indorsed by all the young interviewees. This change reflects the child’s increasing emotional value to parents and the increasing emphasis on affection and emotional expressivity in aspirations for family relationships (Evans, 2008; Jankowiak and Moore, 2017; Yan, 2009). Most young people said they had a good relationship with their parents because the latter were open-minded, democratic, and informal. The family atmosphere was typically portrayed as relaxing and casual with few taboos. The few who found their fathers to be too ‘authoritarian’, strongly disidentified with such fathers. Physical punishment is no longer common and has taken on new forms, although parents in the only child family usually retain control. The few who recalled being beaten said it was ‘merely symbolic’. One could just be told to stand in a corner and reflect upon one’s misconduct. ‘Symbolic beating’ and ‘standing’ were mainly used to correct dangerous or unhealthy behavior or to discipline the child to study. Shangwu said: I beat my son once when he was 5 because he scared me badly by running behind my backing car. But I had to do it behind his grandparents’ backs. They would have been angry with me had they known I beat their grandson.

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Weiwei was beaten once by her mother because ‘I liked eating our sweet vitamin C tablets. Mom wanted to make me remember it is harmful to eat too many.’ Hanying bitterly recalled being lightly spanked by her parents when she refused to go to certain after-school courses: ‘None of my friends and classmates was beaten by their parents. I was the only one.’ A father beat his son once because the boy did not report to his teacher about a classmate trying to bully him. Sheng said that he was often beaten by his father for being naughty when he was small. But in such cases too, these adolescents generally viewed their parents as affectionate, close and warm. The awe which the previous generations felt, at least for their father, has largely disappeared. Contemporary parenting stresses personal communication between parents and children, rarely heard of in the previous generations (see also Evans, 2008). Rather than merely being instructed and corrected, the child has become more equal in conversations, regardless of gender and family background. Many of the parents would tanxin (have a heart-to-heart conversation) with the child when they felt the child needed correction or guidance. Such communication took place whenever the parents were together with their busy child. Chatting over a meal was common even in cases where the father reportedly appeared to be authoritarian. Tables with strict parents and largely silent children had been replaced by adoring parents, sometimes also grandparents, who selected the most nutritious and tasty pieces of food for their only child, and who chatted with the child about various topics such as schoolwork, shopping, prices, politics and future plans. Lifang would regularly bathe with her daughter, and they would chat while scrubbing each other’s back. Guangshan, who regularly massaged his son’s body, also said they would chat while doing so. Intimacy was also expressed by use of special appellations. Parents typically called the child ‘treasure’ (baobei) – which had never been experienced by the two older generations when they were children. Parents would also hug, kiss and touch their children. Though such intimacy declined as the child became older, some young people still experienced it late in their adolescence. Xuezheng said his mother would often wipe his body after a shower, stroking his head fondly. Cencen said her father often kissed her head. Some young people resorted to physical intimacy to get favors from parents. Linchao would hug his mother or kiss her face while nagging for permission to go out. Like the grandparents and parents, the daughters and sons differentiated between their mothers and fathers. Some reported being equally close to both parents, but most of them said that they felt closer to their mother. This fits Evans’s (2008) observation that the mother is at the center of the ‘communicative turn’ in the post-Mao parent-child relationships, although the urban ‘new’ father is also more affectionate and more involved in the child’s life than previous generations of fathers. The young people said their fathers were less involved in their daily lives and study compared to their mothers: ‘Father does not guan me’ or ‘It is mother who guan me more.’ Guan has four main meanings: ‘control or discipline’, ‘interfere or intervene’, ‘mind or care about’ and ‘tend to or look after’. Here the young interviewees used it mainly to mean ‘mind, tend to or look after’. All the young

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people reported warm, affectionate, intimate and open relationships with their mothers. ‘We are friends’ and ‘we talk about everything’ were often heard in the interviews both with the mothers and with the daughters and sons. Girls were more intimate with their mothers, but many boys also experienced much closeness and said they talked with their mothers. In contrast, several young people reported ‘not so good’ relationships with their father, criticizing him of being too authoritarian as father or as husband to their mother. They called such fathers male chauvinists. These fathers were described as ‘bad-tempered’, ‘having bad habits’, ‘ill-behaved’, or ‘lazy’. Cencen (at the key school) said: ‘I do not like my father. I do not talk much to him. He is only interested in my school performance, often scolding me for not doing well enough.’ Such complaints were never made by the older generations who had to submit to and accommodate their fathers. But the young generation could openly show their disapproval if the parents were not living up to the new expectation or ideal. Young men were in such cases determined not to become like their fathers. Young people wanted openness for negotiating, disagreeing, arguing and quarrelling with parents. Most of them had experienced what they called ‘small conflicts’ with parents. Some had let off steam to parents  – mothers in particular. Jinling, who said she and her daughter ‘talk about everything’, thought her daughter was very bad-tempered. The daughter said she felt stressed by schoolwork and could not help losing her temper. In this case, the mother and daughter appeared to have become rather ‘equal’ in their quarrelling. Nevertheless, a new freedom to confront parents was not taken for granted. Both the parents and the young people wished to strike a balance between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ norms about parent-child relationships by picking the ‘best’ elements from both. Parents still expected filial piety, often telling their children that it is wrong to annoy parents. Those parents whose children frequently quarreled with them felt, in Jinling’s words: ‘It’s improper for you to quarrel with me, for I am your mother.’ The young people did morally disapprove of being rude to parents or other elders. Serious quarrelling with parents might seem understandable and forgivable to them, but it was still bad. Some regretted earlier quarrelling: ‘I don’t quarrel with them now because I have grown up and know better.’ Xinxin said: ‘I know I shouldn’t but cannot help it. I will definitely stop when the gaokao (College Entrance Exam) is over.’ A few of the young interviewees, like some from the middle generation, lamented the present loss of traditional morality and were nostalgic for the old moral order, where children would show due respect to their elders. They thought that school should teach Confucian texts such as dizi gui (Standards for a Good Child). Nevertheless, the young people would negotiate with their parents about what a ‘filial child’ should mean today and applied the traditional concept of filial piety selectively. For them, it was important to respect, even revere, parents as one’s elders, but without any awe or absolute obedience. Negotiation was evident about ‘privacy’. Unlike their parents who claimed there was no privacy, or ‘matters of the heart’ (xinshi) during their childhood and

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adolescence, the young people took for granted their right to privacy and resented it if their parents showed insufficient respect for it. Most of the young people said their parents did respect their privacy, but a few wished their parents had been more respectful. Jia complained: ‘Mom doesn’t trust me. She read my diary!’ A boy resented that his mother had found out he was dating a girl by checking his cell phone. The privacy issue also arose regarding one’s room. Most of them said their parents did not knock before entering. Many said that they usually left the door open. ‘Free’ parental access was not necessarily because parents had insisted. But it could be strongly encouraged or imposed by parents. Shangwu had told his son: ‘Why do you keep your door shut? Since you have nothing to hide, why not just leave it open?’ Subsequently the son just left it always open, not caring to argue anymore with his father. Some wished that the parents would at least knock before entering. Fangfang complained: ‘I have asked my parents to knock. But they always forget.’ Parents would enter to deliver fruit, drinks and food, but could then also check what the child might be up to. Thus, a door kept open – like the new communicative intimacy more generally – could be a means of parental control that sometimes would be resented as intrusive by the young people.

From ‘growing up naturally’ to ‘deliberate cultivation and training’ The two older generations both drew on a discourse of ‘growing up naturally’ to describe their own childhood. ‘Natural’ might also have special connotations to each of the two generations. The grandparents’ childhood experiences varied by age, family conditions, socio-geographical location and gender, but all of them spoke about how little parental involvement, attention and investment they had received in contrast to their grandchildren’s upbringing. They saw their own childhood as a course of coming of age in the ‘natural’ habitat of their family and their community with strong and unchallenged norms. Since they learned to obey from an early age, there was little need for parental intervention later in their childhood. Many children had little time for mischief since they were usually toiling to survive next to their parents. The growing up naturally theme, like their talk about being dutiful helpers to their parents, went hand in hand with strong memories of hardships and suffering. In most families, the daily struggle for survival rendered parental education achievement expectations largely irrelevant even when (primary) schooling was rapidly expanding and becoming accessible to most children after the founding of the PRC in 1949. Having been spared famine and other extreme hardship and with greater educational opportunity, the middle generation perceived their childhood as much better than what it had been for their own parents. However, they too viewed their own childhood as natural in that their parents did not guan them much. Upbringing was largely by tacit modeling. Here all the meanings of guan were mobilized: ‘control or discipline’, ‘interfere or intervene’, ‘mind or care about’ and ‘tend to

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or look after’. Chunfang said: ‘There was nothing special. They just let nature take its own course. They did not guan us much.’ They called this mode fangyang (letting grow naturally with little interference; ‘sheep dogging’), the opposite of peiyang (cultivation; education; training), which they claimed characterizes their own children’s upbringing. Fangyang echoes the older generation’s growing up naturally, but it conveys greater freedom and less intervention by adults. The middle-generation informants said that they were left much to grow up on their own because their parents were preoccupied with work, either under Maoist socialism’s rigid work schedules or in the reform era’s market economy with its emphasis on productivity. They recalled a home life with often exhausted parents who started their workday early and returning home late. Fengxia, who grew up in the countryside, said: ‘No one looked after me. Children at that time looked after themselves. Our parents were too busy and exhausted to guan us.’ Some of those who grew up in the city recalled their parents having lunch at their work units far from home. Shangwu, whose father was an urbanite and mother a peasant near Beijing, said: My mother worked in the collective brigade before Deng’s reform and later in our own fields. The work was very heavy. My father worked in the city. He bicycled between home and work more than one hour each way. How could they find time and energy to guan us? Shuli, who grew up in Beijing as the youngest of three siblings, said: ‘My mother had lunch at her work unit. Father came home only once a week. They had little time to guan us. We ate left-overs: cold steamed buns or cold rice.’ Wangde, who had to take his two younger siblings to nursery when he was only five, said: ‘One was not guaranteed three meals. We just ate cold leftovers. Sometimes we just skipped a meal if there were not even leftovers. Our parents were too busy to guan us.’ Guangshan said: ‘Parents typically did not look after their children, unlike today. They just left their kids on their own.’ Although they were supposed to finish the chores assigned by parents and homework for school (which they described as ‘very little’), the middle generation recalled having much time to play with siblings and other playmates every day. Their time for such sha (silly) and feng (crazy) play varied between city and countryside and depended on one’s family condition and ranking among siblings, but nearly all thought they had much free time for play and little pressure to achieve. They therefore thought their childhood was happier than that of their own children. Their parents would rarely play with them or help set the stage for playing. There were few toys, but many games with simple gadgets made by the children themselves or by adults for them. Guojun recalled fondly how he would play merrily with mates using self-made toys: ‘We often chased each other with the water pistols we made ourselves. Today’s kids have never seen such things. We were happy even if we had very little to eat or to use. There was little competition or pressure.’ Guangshan said: ‘My childhood was quite common: no worries,

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no stress – unlike children today.’ Yuxin, who recalled a happy childhood in a city in northern China, felt sorry for her daughter: ‘My daughter has since grade 3 seldom played with other children. There are same-aged peers, but few playmates. All are studying at home. Few come out.’ The middle generation’s claim that their childhood was ‘natural’ was also based on their recollection of generally little deliberate shaping by adults, particularly little intellectual and academic cultivation. They received considerably more schooling than the older generation (see Chapter 4), but said that their parents lacked the awareness, knowledge or skills to help educate them. This was especially true of those who grew up in the countryside. Some said that their parents did not even know which grade in school they were in. When asked about her parents’ expectations for her, Chunfang, who left rural life by entering a technicalvocational school (zhongzhuan), only achievable by top students at that time, said: ‘None. They were typical peasants with no such awareness.’ Guojun, who scored into a top university and later even obtained a PhD, said that his parents never cared about his studying and kept urging him to help more with housework and farm work. Some adults, usually one’s mother, were remembered for occasionally saying: ‘Study hard, lest you will all your life stay a peasant and toil like us.’ ‘Studying hard’ simply meant ‘to be serious about the homework’. Yulin, who entered a technical-vocational school, said that his mother was eager to support her children’s schooling rather than asking them to quit school to help out with farming, but that she stood out as an exception and was seen by the whole village as behaving strangely. Even when the parents were aware of the importance of education, the schooling was largely left to the children themselves. Few got help from parents or other adults with school-related matters. Wenge, who succeeded in entering university, was grateful to her mother for transferring her from a village to a county-seat school with much better teaching. But she stressed that this was the only thing her mother deliberately did for her future. Actually her mother got a factory job in the county seat, escaping agricultural life herself – a rare and enviable case at that time. She was then allowed to bring along her children. Compared to their rural counterparts, the middle-generation interviewees who grew up in cities reported higher educational expectations by their parents who also might on rare occasions help them with schoolwork. Shuli’s parents tried to force her to complete upper secondary school because ‘your elder brother and elder sister both had an upper secondary diploma.’ Lili said: ‘My mother would be disgruntled if I got less than 90 points out of 100.’ Her mother would help her doing arithmetic with an abacus. However, also those who grew up in urban areas typically said their parents neither had any great education expectations for them nor minded their schooling very much. When asked ‘what ideals did you have as a child?’ Wangde, a lower secondary graduate who grew up in Beijing, said emphatically: ‘Ideals? Who would have taught me about such things? Parents at that time were very different from the kind of parents we are.’ Guangshan, a Beijinger with an upper secondary diploma, regretted not having worked hard for university entrance when he was young. He said that his parents did not have

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high educational expectations for their children due to their own low level of education. As the youngest he was, unlike his elder siblings, not asked to do much housework. But because his parents never urged him to study, he played instead of studying: Nowadays it is so common for parents to talk about children’s schooling and follow their own children up. This was not the case when I was growing up. There was for instance no such a thing as choosing a school. My parents did not even know how I did at school. Yuxin, a university graduate who grew up in a big city, claimed that her parents did not influence her much: I wished to go to university because I heard it was a good thing to do. One could find a good job afterwards. My parents did not care how I did in school. There was a period when I did not study much and did badly. But they did not guan me. It was only my teacher who scolded me. They might have valued education, but they did not know how to help. Nor did parents have the energy for such things. At most they would buy stationery when I asked for it. They could not help in other ways. There was a general sense that any advancement by means of education was due to accidental good fortune and that high educational achievers became so because of unusual aptitude and abnormally strong self-driven motivation rather than by family grooming. Such perceived lack of deliberate intellectual and academic cultivation by their parents, which was an important part of this generation’s talk of growing up naturally, helped shape their educational experiences which sharply contrast with their own children’s schooling and their own involvement as parents in their children’s education. In the young generation, their parents’ growing up naturally narratives were replaced by narratives of much deliberate cultivation and training with an overwhelming emphasis on education. Just as the middle generation talked about the lack of parental guan in all its meanings, the younger generation talked about intense parental guan in all its meanings. All the parents interviewed, regardless of their own education and income, or the child’s gender, wished to maximally peiyang (cultivate; educate; train), in their words, their child, which involved careful planning, heavy investing and constant monitoring. Peiyang was invariably about maximizing the child’s suzhi (quality), which was supposed to be allround (quanmian) and high (gao). In all this, one sees what I call in this book ‘the aspiring individual’ in the making from early childhood on. Every parent wanted to have a ‘perfect child’, with maximal bodily perfection, health, behavioral soundness, and not least intelligence. Investment and efforts for this goal started as soon as the child was born, or even prenatally. In most of the families the child was made to attend fee-paying courses in at least one

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form of fine arts (e.g., piano, violin, dancing, painting and martial arts), viewed by both the parents and the young people themselves as conducive to all-round suzhi. Such training was believed to be effective in cultivating fine tastes, building strong character and enhancing intelligence. In many families, such ‘perfecting’ efforts started as soon as the child reached the minimum age for such activities. Besides, the child also was sent, often already before starting primary school, to fee-paying extra courses in the core academic subjects of English, mathematics and Chinese, which were meant to help the child outperform peers at school. Most of the young interviewees recalled a childhood so preoccupied by such activities that little time was left for playing. Parental supervision and help with homework were common, though most of the young interviewees said that as they reached higher school grades, their own academic knowledge came to surpass that of their parents. Their parents would still keep an eye on how the child was progressing at school by asking the child and by staying in touch with the teachers. It would be a grave family concern if the child was struggling to keep up at school or had declining exam results. Thus, the peiyang discourse was predominantly about the child’s formal education. Ensheng, who grew up in a village near Beijing, failed to complete upper secondary school due to what he called his own ‘naughtiness’ and to lack of parental guan. He had been staying home but also occasionally doing some business. His family was quite well-off since they had received a large sum of money as compensation for losing their house to urban expansion. He picked me up in his car and received me together with his father (a retired worker, also my informant) and wife (a factory worker) in their two-story family house equipped with modern facilities. Ensheng devoted much of the interview to telling me about his experience in peiyang their only child son, a top student at the key school. Though apparently living a good life, he was determined that his son not follow his example. He decided to play a main role in peiyang his son, among other things, by drawing on lessons from his own experience so that the son would escape his fate although his wife was the one who looked after the child’s daily needs. This is a part of a long account of how he and his wife ‘peiyanged’ the son: We haven’t done anything special. We just wish very much to peiyang him so he will do much better than us. It is different now from our time. It will no longer do if one does not have knowledge. So we have paid special attention to his study from the very beginning. We have made no deliberate efforts other than just providing the condition for him as much as we can. For example, we had him start English and Olympic maths courses when he was 8 years old. In grade 3, noticing that he was quick at maths, we employed a private tutor. He has benefited much from this and has won several prizes. To develop a good relationship with the tutor, we not only paid him well but also invited him to a meal each time he was here. We remain good friends. . . . We have very clear expectations of our son. I decided to set a life goal for him when he was in his last year of primary school. I thought a goal would motivate him to

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work hard even though he may not take that road in the future. I thought that a doctor would be a nice profession. You save people’s lives, relieve them of pain, and nurse their wounds. It is a way to do good and accumulate merit (jide xingshan). As a doctor you will not only be respected but also well paid. I started to instill this idea in him from then on. Each time I took him to school and fetched him, I chatted with him, planning his future for him. I said you must have a plan about how you will spend your time and live your life and what you want to do in the future. I tried to instill my idea in him. He came to accept it by and by. I said to him, even though you will not become a doctor in the future, with this clear goal, you will have a motivation which will in turn improve your performance. He and his wife had paid special attention to their son’s psychological changes during puberty to discern any sign of matters that might distract him from his study. They had tried and succeeded in stopping him from having a girlfriend in his first year of upper secondary school. He continued: We did not buy him a cell phone until he started his upper secondary school for fear that he would misuse it. Because school finishes late at the upper secondary level, we need to know what he is up to and who he is with. We used to send him to and fetch him from school until he finished lower secondary school. The teachers also urge parents to do that as often as possible to keep track of what their kids are up to. For the middle generation, parenting of their only child was supposed to be an art, or craft, or even an accomplishment, to be deliberately learned, rather than ‘natural’, as it was the case when they were growing up parented by their own parents. Thus, parenting, at least in its exemplary form, turned from ‘being’ to ‘doing’ with the birth of the young generation. This change has to do with parents’ wish to raise a ‘quality child’ in a ‘scientific’ manner and with the parents’ ‘compensation desire’. It also reflects parents’ enhanced valuation of parenting as a human experience in its own right, especially seeing that having only one child also means only one single chance of being a parent, as some of them commented. Many of the parents interviewed were articulate about parenting as an art to be systematically cultivated. Some, especially those whose children were showing satisfactory developmental results regarding academic performance, spoke about their mastery of the art of parenting or their experience of learning that art. This can be illustrated by Lifang, who was a top student in her secondary school but ‘chose’ to go to a technical-vocational school upon graduation from lower secondary school due to family circumstances, thereby sacrificing the chance to enter university (she later self-studied for a two-year college diploma). Determined to peiyang her only child daughter, who was attending the key school, she practiced ‘prenatal’ cultivation (taijiao), taught her numeracy and literacy as soon as the

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child could talk, and invested in additional courses for the child in various subjects. She said: My heart and mind (xinsi) have since her birth been fully focused on my child. I have had little time for myself. Many things that I did not know I have learned for her sake. I hoped she would be extraordinarily intelligent and very happy. I bought and read many books and magazines: anything about childrearing, such as ‘the age-0 plan’ (lingsui fangan). I tried to be with her as much as possible, trying to peiyang her according to my ideas about what to do and to teach her according to her age and so on. I was very tired. We were not well-off. I had to make most of the teaching material myself. I wished to cultivate her into a ‘child prodigy’ (shentong). In the course of learning to be an exemplary, modern parent, she also practiced much self-reflection: ‘I regularly reflected on what I have done right or wrong in my parenting methods. I also compare my own child’s development with other same-aged children and discuss with other parents the best practice.’ Like the other parents interviewed, she adopted a discourse of self-transformation, or selfimprovement/perfection, as a parent. She would have had a second child had it not been too late (she was 47) so that she could have used the experience and lessons learned from rearing the first child. She also showed a strong sense of fatigue – a feeling shared with the other parents, especially the mothers, who were all looking forward to the day when they would no longer need to guan the child so much anymore: when the child would have entered university. Another thought that enabled her to focus all her heart and mind on the child was that this was the one chance for her to be a parent. She wished to maximally ‘do’ and ‘enjoy’ this human experience in its own right. Many tried to xuntao (indirectly influence), in their words, the child in order to cultivate the latter’s interest in study. Yusheng, a busy and successful entrepreneur whose son was at the key school, said that he attached great importance to peiyang his son: For me, everything else is inferior to education and peiyang. I was not much aware of this importance when he was first born, being immature and busy with the business at that time. But I quickly came to realize that no matter how much money you have, it would be useless if your child is not peiyanged well. He had repeatedly squeezed time from his busy business to keep his son company. Besides: Once home, I seldom turned on the TV. No matter how fatigued I was, I would instead take up a book and (sometimes pretend to) read it to create an atmosphere of study in order to xuntao him. I would also ask him about

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his homework and what he had learned on that day even though, admittedly, I often found my knowledge inadequate to help him. I just wished to show him that I cared about him and his development. Similarly, Yulin, a graduate from a technical-vocational school and a technical worker at a railway company, whose son was a good student at the ordinary school, emphasized the importance of xuntao his son by setting a good example of being fond of reading books: My wife and I never watch TV, never use the Internet, and never play majiang (a table game popular in China) in front of him. How can you expect your child to read books if you are watching TV or playing majiang? We both take up a book whenever he is at home. It does not matter whether we understand the contents or not. Some middle-generation interviewees emphasized, as part of their parenting art, the importance of collaboration between mothers and fathers in cultivating the child, although in most families interviewed it was the mother who was the main caretaker and who orchestrated the collaboration. Wenge, a psychologist by training, whose daughter was a top student at the key school, proudly told me about her daughter’s many skills, ranging from painting to playing the violin and singing as a claimed result of the mother applying her knowledge of developmental psychology and of the timely investment in special tutoring. ‘She is doing well in all the subjects at school, facing only one rival to become ranked first in her class.’ She even named her daughter’s rival in class. She had agreed with her husband that she would play the ‘harsh tiger mother’ when disciplining the child for peiyang purposes while he would play the role of a gentle and understanding friend. In her words: ‘One of the parents has to play the guy with “black face” and the other should play the “white-faced” one.’ This was because, she said, girls normally find it easier to have the father as a friend. She would tell her husband to talk to the daughter whenever she found it hard to get her ideas across to the daughter: There was a time when I was trying to persuade her not to accept a boy’s courting. She was very unhappy, finding it hard to accept my suggestion. I secretly asked my husband to have a chat with her. The two talked privately for some 20 minutes and my daughter happily accepted the idea that it is inappropriate to get involved in a romance in lower secondary school. Learning how best to communicate with the child was an important part of the art of parenting. It has become especially important because of the new ideal of communicative intimacy with one’s child. Many middle-generation interviewees believed that effective communication has much to do with praising more and criticizing the child less. It was emphasized that praising is more effective than criticism in making the child behave or study well according to ‘scientific ways of

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child-rearing’. In contrast to how they themselves were brought up, they therefore tried to use praise as much as possible. Lifang said: ‘My parents never praised us, no matter how excellent we were. That is why I lack self-confidence. I must learn a lesson. I try to praise my child whenever I have a chance.’ Those who admitted to losing patience with and scolding their child for improper behavior or inadequate effort at school, would commonly in my interviews with them criticize themselves for not having grasped the art of child-rearing yet – another sign of widespread faith in ‘scientific’ child-rearing among contemporary urban parents. The middle-generation interviewees, especially the mothers who were the main caretakers and nurturers, all found it demanding to raise a ‘priceless child’ given what it takes to be a parent today, especially an exemplary one. Many of the parents would have liked to have more than one child had they been allowed to. But, regardless of their SES, most also said that they were afraid of having another child. Another child would have proved to be an unbearable financial burden certainly for some of the families. It would have surely proven to be challenging for all the families given the intensive and extensive guan that raising a priceless child requires. Many declined the idea of a second child also because they did not wish to be constantly worried about still another child’s future in the precarious and fiercely competitive market economy and ‘knowledge’ and ‘schooled society’ of China. Contrary to findings in some earlier studies of Chinese only child families (e.g., Croll, 2006; Fong, 2004; Natalia, 2016), in this present study, the parents’ heavy investment in the child’s future and their intensive and extensive guan of the child did not suggest any self-interest but rather pure altruism towards the child. Regardless of SES, the middle-generation interviewees said that they would not rely on the only child for old-age material support. Rather, they showed readiness to help their children in the future if need be. They typically expressed a wish to contribute as much as possible to their children’s well-being as long as they themselves live, rather than expecting their only child to provide for them. However, they did wish to enjoy emotional closeness with their child. Their investment in their children’s peiyang was thus mainly out of parents’ wish to secure the best future for their child, showing unconditional parental love.

Conclusion This chapter has explored how childhood has changed, as reflected in daily life, the meaning and valuation of the child, parenting and parent-child relationships over the three generations. Three interrelated themes of transformation were induced: from ‘the dutiful and helpful child’ to ‘the little emperor/princess’, from obedience and awe to communicative intimacy and from ‘growing up naturally’ to ‘deliberate cultivation and training’. With these interrelated changes, contemporary Chinese urban children have become strikingly emotionally precious but economically useless to parents with whom they enjoy (or at least strongly desire)

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democratic relationships and expressive intimacy – in contrast to the two older generations. The change from natural growing up to deliberate cultivation and training with great stress on formal education has turned the child into the whole family’s educational project, requiring much investment, intervention, supervision and control. Parenting has become an art to be learned rather than something one just does, as was the case with the two older generations’ childhood. Formal education and training now constitute the major childhood activity, making it difficult for the child to participate in household chores, let alone contribute economically by child labor. Together with the child’s new status as little emperor/empress and as parents’ love object, this change means that children are no longer ‘helpful and dutiful’ to parents. Rather than serving parents, the child is served by the ­parents – contrary to filial piety ethics. Parents wish to secure the best future for their beloved child through investment in schooling and other cultivation activities. They also wish their child to enjoy a comfortable daily life which now is possible for urban only child families. There has also been a ‘softening’ and ‘democratization’ of the parent-child relationship, rendering obsolete the absolute obedience to parents that was very evident in the two older generations’ narratives. The Chinese trend supports earlier theorizing of childhood modernization, especially, the notion of the priceless child. Like children in the West, contemporary urban Chinese children have lost their economic value to parents but gained importance as consumers and love objects. Schooling has become their most important daily task. As in many contemporary Western families (Laureau, 2003), schoolwork is prioritized over housework in the Chinese family, and being smart and academically competitive are valued above housework skills. This shared feature of modern families reflects the changing function of education and the reorganization of the labor market (Baker, 2014). The emphasis on communicative intimacy found in these contemporary Chinese families may also be due to the influence by the global trends towards an ‘intimate-communicative turn’ since the latter half of the 20th century (Jamieson, 1998). Moreover, as in the West, where greater freedom for youth may not mean less adult scrutiny, contemporary Chinese parenting, although softened, involves much control over the child. However, the Chinese case also has unique features. Both the rise and the preciousness of the priceless child have been intensified by the post-Mao dramatic social transformation, including the one-child policy. The Chinese child became precious quite abruptly with the birth of the only child generation. There were some noticeable differences between the grandparents and the parents regarding their childhood conditions (easing of material hardship and expanded educational opportunity), but no dramatic generational change was discerned in parental attitudes and parent-child relationship. Several factors may have intensified the preciousness of the child in China. The one-child policy created a whole generation of urban singletons, adding momentum to family modernization. Parents will value a child more when they know it is their present and future one and only child and their ‘only hope’ (Fong, 2004).

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In the post-Mao context of a whole new range of possibilities for individual development and growing wealth, parents and grandparents may also wish to make up for their own missed opportunities by both indulging and pushing the young generation, getting some vicarious self-fulfillment through the latter’s happiness and achievement (Croll, 2006; Evans, 2008; Naftali, 2016). A similar ‘compensation desire’ may be found in other societies, but in the Chinese context it seemingly has been much reinforced by the sharp contrasts with the older generations’ own childhood experiences of constraints and deprivations: material shortage and political campaigns adversely affecting children’s family life, education and health (Croll, 2006). Intensified parental love is also in keeping with the new familial ideal of emotional expressivity in post-Mao China (Evans, 2008; Jankowiak and Moore, 2017; Yan, 2009), in contrast to the asceticism of Maoist socialism. Urban parents’ strong wish to peiyang their child has also been reinforced by the discourse of suzhi. The term suzhi, only roughly translatable into ‘quality’, is related to the post-Mao redefinition of the ideal personhood. Originally used by the party state to problematize the ‘low quality’ of the population in the 1980s (Anagnost, 2004; Bakken, 2000; Greenhalgh and Winckler, 2005; Kipnis, 2006), suzhi emphasizes both the birth of a healthy offspring and the post-birth fostering and cultivating of human beings. A justification for the one-child policy was to foster a whole generation of high-quality citizens. But the suzhi discourse is not limited to the only child generation. The party-state emphasized that the whole population’s quality must be improved and such quality is supposed to be allround (quanmian), which concerns not only one’s cultural level of knowledge and skills necessary for the national economic development and individual advancement, but also ideological, political, moral and behavioral aspects conducive to social order. Suzhi has become a measurement of one’s worth, with implications for social stratification (Anagnost, 2004). As China’s advantaged group (despite intragroup variations), urban only child families are both keener and better equipped than other groups to invest in their offspring’s suzhi. There has been a call for all-round development in the ‘education for quality’ (suzhi jiaoyu) campaign to rectify test-based education. However, academicattainment-based quality remains the most heavily rewarded in China’s stratification system, despite the multifacetedness of the term (Fong, 2007). This explains why ‘other’ extra-curricular activities than those which pertain to core academic subjects are usually dropped when the child starts lower secondary school to secure time for cramming for exams. Likewise, although many parents recognize the value of the child learning house chores for use in their future life, in reality the focus on schoolwork makes it impossible for the child to do much housework. Parents’ eagerness to invest in the child’s schooling may also be reinforced by the ‘intergenerational contract’: enabling the child to take care of the parents when the latter in their old age become dependent (Ikels, 1993). The persistence of such expectations in post-Mao urban China has both to do with the persistent cultural norm of filial piety and the lack of old-age social security in many families where the one and only child is the only source of old-age support (Liu, 2008). However,

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in the present study, the parents of the post-1990s cohort of only children made great sacrifices to serve and love their precious child and invest in the latter’s future, without hoping for repayment. This may mean that by the 1990s the material aspect of the ‘intergenerational contract’ in the only child family has been weakened by the growing affluence of urban parents, especially those in the capital city, where basic needs for even the most disadvantaged parents are guaranteed through a pension and other governmental subsidies. This, however, does not weaken parents’ wish to peiyang their children in a context where young people’s life chances are highly dependent upon educational achievement and where there is a tradition of education veneration. Thus, an eagerness to invest in the child’s education and high achievement expectations are expressions of parental love. Further, in both this study and a previous study on an earlier cohort of only children (Liu, 2008), young people themselves showed eagerness to repay parents’ love and sacrifice by becoming successful in the future and by further raising parents’ living standards. This is in line with Bregnbæk’s (2011) argument that for Chinese young people, studying diligently is an important way to repay parents’ sacrifice for them. The Chinese child is both ‘precious’ and ‘pressured’. In other words, in China’s cities, an upbringing style has emerged that combines much pampering with high achievement expectations and high parental control. This has implications for young people’s educational achievement and aspirations. Chinese urban adolescents may have higher academic achievement in the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) tests than their counterparts elsewhere. And yet that achievement has a cost in terms of stress and all-round development. The parents perceived a dilemma between, on the one hand, letting their precious children flourish naturally and spend a ‘happy’ and ‘carefree’ childhood in line with the Western liberal parenting ideal, and, on the other hand, enabling them to succeed in their education and future labor market (see also Kuan, 2011). The difficulty in following one’s own intrinsic interests while also cramming for exams constituted part of the young generation’s shared sense of ku (suffering; hardship) on top of exhaustion by schoolwork and achievement pressure. Notwithstanding the trend towards ‘intimate-expressive’ relationships and the erosion of authoritarian parenting and the ‘subservient child’ to parent, the Chinese family still differs qualitatively from the ‘personal family’ or ‘negotiation household’. A  modified version of the filial piety norm remains influential. No matter how precious the child has become, children are still supposed to show Confucian respect for their parents. Because of the high legitimacy of such respect, children easily feel a bad conscience if they have opposed their parents or quarreled with them. Thus, being the parents’ precious child requires balancing between striving for an equal relationship with parents and showing traditional (albeit adapted) filial piety which continues to interact with modernizing forces in shaping the parent-child relationship and what it means to be a priceless child in China. Moreover, given the child’s status as the family’s central cultivation project and ‘only hope’, Chinese parents seemingly exercise greater surveillance

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than their Western counterparts, albeit in a more communicative-intimate manner than the traditional harsh approaches. In contrast to the Western ideals of childcentered pedagogy, the pressure for educational achievement in the exam-oriented Chinese system has resulted in much conditioning of the only child according to the goals and plans parents have for their child. The rise of the priceless child in urban China is much about the middle generation’s wish and efforts to maximize love, altruism and investment and the young generation’s parent-supported or urged efforts to maximize suzhi and education. This is part of what I see as a more general tendency to maximize life and the self, or a ‘maximization desire’, in the young generation, which also cuts across the findings in the later chapters. Inherent in such a desire is an emphasis on such notions as ‘being the best’, ‘doing the best’ and ‘getting the best, the most or the highest’, which reflects and invokes the Chinese exemplary norm (Bakken, 2000; Dawson, 1915). Such a maximization desire is an inherent feature of the ‘aspiring individual’, a new subject, which, albeit somehow visible in the middle generation’s childhood and youth life stories, has fully come into being with the birth of the young generation. In this chapter, we see this aspiring individual in the making already in the early years of their life. In the next chapter, I shall show in further detail how aspiring for high educational achievement is a defining feature of this new subject. In the last three chapters, I shall explore how this new subject is meanwhile a gendered being.

References Abbott, D. A., Zheng, F. M. and Meredith, W. H. 1992. An evolving redefinition of the fatherhood role in the People’s Republic of China. International Journal of Sociology of the Family 22(1): 45–54. Anagnost, A. 2004. The corporeal politics of quality (suzhi). Public Culture 16(2): 189–208. Baker, D. P. 2014. The schooled society: The educational transformation of global culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Baker, H.D.R. 1979. Chinese family and kinship. New York: Columbia University Press. Bakken, B. 2000. The exemplary society: Human improvement, social control, and the dangers of modernity in China. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bernstein, B. 1971. Class, codes and control. London: Routledge. Brannen, J. 2004. Childhoods across the generations: Stories from women in four-generation English families. Childhood 11(4): 409–28. Bregnbæk, S. 2011. A public secret: ‘Education for quality’ and suicide among Chinese elite university students. Learning and Teaching 4(3): 19–37. Chan, A. 1985. Children of Mao: Personality development and political activism in the Red Guard generation. London: Macmillan. Chen, X. and Li, D. 2012. Parental encouragement of initiative-taking and adjustment in Chinese children from rural, urban, and urbanized families. Journal of Family Psych­ ology 26: 927–36. Chuang, S. S., Moreno, R. P. and Su, Y. J. 2013. Moving fathers from the ‘sidelines’: Contemporary Chinese fathers in Canada and China. In K. Chan (ed.) International handbook of Chinese families (pp. 343–58). New York: Springer.

76  The rise of the ‘priceless’ Chinese child Croll, E. 1995. Changing identity of Chinese women: Rhetoric, experience and selfperception in the twentieth-century China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. ———. 2006. China’s new consumers: Social development and domestic demand. London: Routledge. Cunningham, H. 2005. Children and childhood in western society since 1500. Harlow: Pearson Longman. Dawson, M. M. 1915. The ethics of Confucius. The sayings of the master and his disciples upon the conduct of “The Superior Man”. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. de Swaan, A. 1981. The politics of agoraphobia: On changes in emotional and relational management. Theory and Society 10: 337–58. Eisenstadt, S. N. 1971. From generation to generation: Age groups and social structure. New York: Free Press. Evans, H. 2008. The subject of gender: Daughters and mothers in urban China. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Fong, V. 2004. Only hope: Coming of age under China’s one child policy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ———. 2007. Morality, cosmopolitanism, or academic attainment? Discourses on ‘quality’ and urban Chinese-only-children’s claims to ideal personhood. City and Society 19(1): 86–113. Greenhalgh, S. and Winckler, E. A. 2005. Governing China’s population: From Leninist to neoliberal biopolitics. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Hsiung, P. C. 2005. A tender voyage: Children and childhood in late imperial China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Ikels, C. 1993. Settling accounts: The intergenerational contract in an age of reform. In D. Davis and S. Harrell (eds.) Chinese families in the post-Mao era (pp. 307–33). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Jamieson, L. 1998. Intimacy: Personal relationships in modern societies. Cambridge: Polity Press. Jankowiak, W. R. and Moore, R. L. 2017. Family life in China. Cambridge: Polity Press. King, A.Y.C. and Bond, M. H. 1985. The Confucian paradigm of man: A sociological view. In W. S. Tseng and D.Y.H. Wu (eds.) Chinese culture and mental health (pp. 29–45). San Diego: Academic Press. Kipnis, A. 2006. Suzhi: A keyword approach. The China Quarterly 186: 295–313. Kohn, M. L. and Schooler, C. 1982. Job conditions and personality: A longitudinal assessment of their reciprocal effects. American Journal of Sociology 87(6): 1257–86. Kuan, T. 2011. ‘The heart says one thing but the hand does another’: A story about emotion-work, ambivalence and popular advice for parents. The China Journal 65: 77–100. Laureau, A. 2003. Unequal childhoods: Class, race, and family life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Liu, F. S. 2006. Boys as only-children and girls as only-children: Parental gendered expectations of the only-child in the nuclear Chinese family in present-day China. Gender and Education 18(5): 491–506. ———. 2008. Negotiating the filial self: Young-adult only-children and intergenerational relationships in China. Young – Nordic Journal of Youth Research 16(4): 409–30. ———. 2011. Urban youth in China: Modernity, the internet and the self. London: Routledge. ———. 2016. The rise of the ‘priceless’ child in China. Comparative Education Review 60(1): 105–30. Lu, H. J. and Chang, L. 2013. Parenting and socialization of only children in urban China: An example of authoritative parenting. The Journal of Genetic Psychology 174(3): 335–43.

The rise of the ‘priceless’ Chinese child 77 Lu, T. H. 2005. Zhongguo xiaofeizhe xingwei baogao (Chinese consumer behavior). Beijing: China Social Sciences Press. Lupher, M. 1995. Revolutionary little red devils: The social psychology of rebel youth. In A. B. Kinney (ed.) Chinese views of childhood (pp. 321–44). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Lynn, D. B. 1974. The father: His role in child development. Monterey: Brooks/Cole. Miller, P. 2005. Useful and priceless children in contemporary welfare states. Social Politics 12(1): 3–41. Naftali, O. 2010. Recovering childhood: Play, pedagogy, and the rise of psychological knowledge in contemporary urban China. Modern China 36(6): 589–616. ———. 2016. Children in China. Cambridge: Polity Press. Parish, W. L. 1975. Socialism and the Chinese peasant family. The Journal of Asian Studies 34(3): 613–30. Parish, W. L. and Whyte, M. K. 1978. Village and family in contemporary China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pease, C. E. 1995. Remembering the taste of melons: Modern Chinese stories of childhood. In E. B. Kinney (ed.) Chinese views of childhood (pp. 279–320). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Rich, L. and Tsui, M. 2002. The only child and educational opportunities for girls in urban China. Gender and Society 16(1): 74–92. Saari, J. 1990. Legacies of childhood: Growing up Chinese in a time of crisis, 1890–1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Shi, L. H. 2017. Choosing daughters: Family change in rural China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Thornton, A. and Fricke, T. E. 1987. Social change and the family: Comparative perspectives from the West, China and South Asia. Sociological Forum 2(4): 746–79. Unger, J. 1982. Education under Mao: Class and competition in Canton schools, 1960– 1980. New York: Columbia University Press. Wang, J. 2008. Brand new China: Advertising, media, and commercial culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Wang, Q. 2013. Chinese socialization and emotion talk between mothers and Children in native and immigrant Chinese families. Asian American Journal of Psychology 4: 185–92. Way, N., Okazaki, S., Zhao, J., Kim, J. J., Chen, X., Yoshikawa, H., . . . Deng, H. 2013. Social and emotional parenting: Mothering in a changing Chinese society. Asian American Journal of Psychology 4: 61–70. Xu, Q. and Yeung, W. J. 2013. Hoping for a phoenix: Shanghai fathers and their daughters. Journal of Family Issues 34(2): 184–209. Yan, Y. X. 2009. The individualization of Chinese society. Oxford: Berg. Ye, W. L. and Ma, X. D. 2005. Growing up in the People’s Republic: Conversations between two daughters of China’s revolution. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Yoshikawa, H., Niobe, N. and Chen, X. Y. 2012. Large-scale economic change and youth development: The case of urban China. New Directions for Youth Development 135: 39–55. Yu, L. A. 2014. Consumption in China: How China’s new consumer ideology is shaping the nation. Cambridge: Polity Press. Zelizer, V. A. 1985. Pricing the priceless child. New York: Basic Books. Zuo, J. and Bian, Y. 2001. Gendered resources, division of housework, and perceived ­fairness – a case in urban China. Journal of Marriage and Family 63(4): 1122–33.

Chapter 4

Daxue as the norm The rise of the Chinese ‘schooled society’ over three generations

Before the education revolution began, an inability to do academics was for most, high- and low-born alike, not necessarily a major barrier to outward or inward success. It was seen as a deficit, to be sure, but not one with much long-term effect on the individual’s social chances, and there was little stigma attached to it, if any. But this has all changed. (Baker, 2014, p. 220)

Education, like other areas of social life, has undergone dramatic transformation in post-Mao China. What features characterize the transformation in education? How do the young generation’s school experiences compare with those of earlier generations? What does schooling entail for the young people and their families? These are the questions I will address in this chapter, which extends the theme on a shift in childhood from ‘growing up naturally’ to ‘deliberate cultivation and training’. Many earlier studies have described post-Mao educational transformation, but few have examined the nature of the change in the light of the global ‘schooled society’ (Baker, 2014); and few have examined how young people experience the transformation from their own perspective. Moreover, little research has examined the momentum and extent of change in young people’s schooling experiences from generation to generation (though Kipnis’s 2011 ethnographic study of Zouping county comes close to such an attempt). What schooling has entailed for the young generation and their families suggests the rise in urban China of a prime example, and an intensified version, of what Baker (2014) calls the ‘schooled society’. Higher education has turned from merely being desirable but limited to a minority into an attainment seen as necessary for every worthy youth – producing over only three family generations, or more precisely, between the middle and young generation, the rise of the ‘higher education generation’. University education has become a hegemonic norm for the young generation, and getting into a prestigious university represents the ‘exemplary young personhood’, creating an extreme, and possibly internationally unique, pressure for academic excellence at the lower levels of schooling. Besides

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globalization, this has to do with the fierce competition for a ‘worthy’ livelihood in the post-Mao market economy without a state-provided safety net, the inflation of higher education credentials, and the urban family’s strong desire to maximize human capital for the priceless child, who is also the aspiring individual of the young generation. It also reflects China’s century-old and widespread reverence for education and its exemplary norm (Bakken, 2000; Dawson, 1915). Before presenting the empirical findings showing dramatic changes across the three generations, I shall offer a brief account of education in China since the Communist takeover after which (modern) schooling became ­applicable to the oldest generation in this study (for discussions of education during China’s earlier historical periods, see, e.g., Barkey, 2007; Cleverley, 1991; Seeberg, 2000; Zhao, 2007).

Recent history Building a modern education system has been high on the state’s agenda ever since the founding of the PRC in 1949, soon after which the central government took over private schools and universities and reorganized them into a new system heavily influenced by the Soviet model (Löfstedt, 1980; Price, 1979), with primary schools, secondary schools (lower and upper), and universities and specialist institutes (Cleverley, 1991). Education as a right for all citizens was entered into the 1954 constitution. Throughout the Maoist era (1949–76), a struggle persisted between the moderates led by Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi who favored a meritocratic, stratified education system for economic development, and the radicals led by Mao who aimed at a mass education system catering especially to the ‘proletariat class’ (workers, peasants and soldiers) (Tsang, 2000). Mao condemned Confucian education for its elitist nature and separation from the world of work (Löfstedt, 1980). For most of the Maoist era the radicals’ policy predominated. Numerous schools and classes were opened by communes during the Great Leap Forward (1958–60) (Löfstedt, 1980), but they were of very low quality (Cleverley, 1991; Seeberg, 2000). Political activities and participation in production dominated the curriculum (Cleverley, 1991), in keeping with Mao’s assertion that education must serve proletarian politics and be integrated with productive labor (Gu, 2001; Pepper, 1996). The series of educational reforms from 1958 to 1966 led by the ‘moderates’ were eventually engulfed by the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), which took radicalism still further (Gu, 2001; Tsang, 2000). Education was employed as a tool for class struggle and schooling became preoccupied with political activities (Cleverley, 1991). Intellectuals and teachers were condemned as chou laojiu (literally, ‘stinky old no. 9’). Many of them were sent to the countryside to be ‘reformed’ through toiling (Cleverley, 1991). Promotions of students, especially for higher education, were based on political ‘redness’, as defined by one’s family being from a poor background and one’s political enthusiasm rather than on academic performance

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(Löfstedt, 1980; Tsang, 2000). Many schools and universities were closed for years. The College Entrance Examination (gaokao) was discontinued. There was complete stoppage in admitting undergraduate students for six years and graduate students for 12 years (Tsang, 2000). On the other hand, basic education in rural areas expanded (Han, 2000; Thøgersen, 2002). Primary school enrollment grew from 84.7% in 1965 to 96% in 1976. The promotion rates to lower secondary school and upper secondary school were respectively 92% and 63.7% of graduates from the previous level in 1976, compared with 44.9% and 26.4% in 1965 (Pepper, 1996, p. 417). However, schooling was heavily politicized and its academic quality was low (Cleverley, 1991). With Deng’s market reform commencing in the late 1970s, there was a renewed emphasis on education’s contribution to economic development (Bastid, 1984). Deng emphasized that science and technology are the key to modernization, and education is the means to develop science and technology. The first major reforms were initiated in 1985 and included nine years of compulsory education, decentralization of educational finance, expansion of upper secondary vocation-technical schools (zhongzhuan) and increased autonomy for colleges and universities. The Compulsory Education Law was promulgated in 1986. In 1977, the gaokao (National College Entrance Examination), cancelled during the Cultural Revolution, was reinstated. Admission based on Mao’s radically egalitarian ideology gave way to selection by merit based on competitive examinations (Agelasto, 1998). A system of ‘key-point’ schools and universities was reintroduced (Pepper, 1996; Thøgersen, 1990). All higher education institutions were ranked into the echelons of a hierarchy and ‘key’ subject specializations were identified and favored (Liu, 2016; Rai, 1991; Yang, 2016), with severe consequences for social inequality (Liu, 2016; Li et al., 2015). This process was reinforced by the more recent state initiatives to promote ‘world-class universities’ through the ‘211’ and ‘985’ projects (Yang, 2016; Kim et al., 2018). Credentialed knowledge was increasingly valued for its holders, in complete reversal of the Cultural Revolution policies. Formal education regained value and intellectuals regained respect. All these factors worked together to redefine the meaning of an ‘educated person’. Emerging from all this is a widespread and fiercely competitive pursuit for academic diplomas and degrees in ways reminiscent of ‘the credential society’ (Collins, 1979) and ‘the diploma disease’ (Dore, 1976). Besides stratification, post-Mao education (at various levels) is characterized by the interrelated processes of massification, prolongation and intensification. Education has been enormously expanded. Nine-year compulsory education has been fully implemented. The net enrollment rate of primary-school-age children had reached 99.1% by 2000 and 99.8% by 2014. The illiteracy rate dropped from 6.7% in 2000 to 4.1% in 2014; among adolescents, the illiteracy rate declined from 2.8% in 2000 to 1.0% in 2014 (UNDP, 2015). Higher education enrollment has grown dramatically due to marketization and massification (Chan and Mok, 2001; Shan and Guo, 2016; Yin and White, 1994) and increasing demand for college credentials notwithstanding the rising (and often hefty) private costs

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of higher education (Shan and Guo, 2016) and the employment difficulties for graduates (Bai, 2016). Data from the National Bureau of Statistics and Ministry of Education (MoE) show that China’s gross college enrollment rate of the 18–22 age cohort was 3.4% in 1990, 6% in 1998, and 22% in 2007. By 2015, enrollments had already reached 40% of 18- to 22-year-olds, the target set for 2020, pushing the Ministry of Education to revise the target to 50%. The number of those taking postgraduate students grew from 72,508 in 1998 to 560,482 in 2011 and to 2,639,561 in 2017. The number of master’s students and doctoral students in 2017 were 2,277,564 and 361,997, respectively, compared with 153,639 and 14,962 in 1998.1 Education has also extended at the lower end of the life course. Three years of preschool are common in many parts of the country (Kipnis, 2012). Improving access to early childhood education has been an important part of the post-Mao education policies and rhetoric. According to MoE (2018), in 2017, the preschool gross enrollment was 79.6% and in 2020, the gross enrollment rate will reach 85%. Alongside the rapid expansion, there has also been a shift in the purpose of preschool provision from liberating mothers for production work under Mao to nurturing ‘talents’ (Vickers and Zeng, 2017). Average estimated years of expected schooling for children commencing their education in 2015 reached 13.7 for girls and 13.4 years for boys, compared with the figures actually attained for the adult population: 7.2 for women and 7.9 for men (UNDP, 2016, p. 211). These figures show both dramatic expansion of formal education and an emerging reversal of the gender gap in education, in line with global trends (Lauglo and Liu, 2019). The dramatic expansion of formal education has resulted in credential inflation, whereby access to an elite occupation requires (often postgraduate) degrees from high-status universities, the entry to which has become increasingly competitive. This pressurizes lower secondary students to compete for admission to key upper secondary schools through the Upper Secondary Entrance Exam (zhongkao), primary students to compete for admission to high-performing lower secondary schools, and kindergarten children to compete for high-performing primary schools (Zhang and Bray, 2017). Education inequality has become a severe issue (Li et al., 2015; Liu, 2016; Rong and Shi, 2001; Wu, 2010). Those with the means and resources are able to acquire or at least keep an advantaged position in China’s education hierarchy in ways that resonate with both the ‘Maximally Maintained Inequality (MMI)’ (Raftery and Hout, 1993) and the ‘Effectively Maintained Inequality (EMI)’ (Lucas, 2001) theses for explaining education reproduction. Concomitant to the expansion and stratification, and contributing to these processes, is the intense and widespread ‘educational desire’ (Kipnis, 2011), which reflects the cultural tradition of education reverence and the older generations’ ‘compensation desire’. In urban areas, the enthusiasm for educating the younger generation is reinforced by the one-child policy. Urban families share an unprecedented enthusiasm for educating their one and only child regardless of family

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socio-economic status or the child’s sex. A report by HSBC (the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) (2017) shows that Chinese parents, compared to parents elsewhere in the world, are among those who are most committed to their children’s education. They spend more on their children’s education than parents in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada or France, and only marginally less than those in the United States. In addition to regular education, Chinese parents also extensively invest in their children’s ‘shadow education’ (Zhang and Bray, 2017). Never before in China have so many individuals and families devoted so much time, energy and resources to the education of young people as in the post-Mao era, with far-ranging consequences for the lives of children and youth and their families. Present-day China appears therefore to be an extremely telling example of the ‘schooled society’, which Baker (2014) asserts to be a global cultural phenomenon. Baker argues that the extensive growth since the 1960s in the world population’s participation in formal education has transformed our world into a global society actively created and defined by education. He notes two interrelated components of a schooled society – relentless and ubiquitous expansion and an intensifying culture emphasizing educational achievement and attainment with implications for one’s private and public self. How do Chinese urban youth and their families experience this cultural change? What unique local characteristics of the global schooled society can be discerned in China? What is historically unique about the place of formal education in present-day urban youth’s life as compared to the life of their parents and grandparents when they were young?

The grandparents: the largely irrelevant and marginal status of schooling The relevance of schooling to young people depends on its availability and accessibility, the family economy and education-conducive cultural resources, and the perceived importance of education as a means of improving one’s quality and chance of life. The grandparents’ narratives about their childhood and youth convey a sense of irrelevance and marginal status of schooling. Schooling took much less time ‘in those days’. It was not yet a major daily activity for children and youth. A couple of the grandmothers received no schooling at all. Most of the grandparents had some schooling ranging from just a couple of years to six to seven years and completion of lower secondary school. Two highly exceptional cases were one graduate from an upper secondary vocational school for nurses and one from an upper secondary teacher’s training school. Most of them obtained an opportunity for schooling after the founding of the PRC, when the CCP expanded schooling for the masses. Some got their first chance for school only when they had become teenagers  – an age they often perceived as ‘too old to be at school’. Of the few grandparents who were born in the city and grew up there, most completed lower secondary

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school. Those in the countryside mostly left school earlier because their families could not afford the small expense which schooling then entailed, because they were needed for labor at home or because it was embarrassing for them to sit in the classroom with younger children. Parents were reluctant to invest in girls’ education only to see them join a future husband’s family. Guizhi felt she had been greatly deprived of schooling by her parents; she did very well at school, but her parents forced her to leave after primary school ‘not only because they were poor, but because I was a girl’. Ruiqin, who grew up in rural northern China, said: I got only about four years’ of school. But what kind of schooling was that? You had to stay home whenever your family needed you. You could go to school only if there was nothing for you to do at home. I was already 15 or 16 then. My elder sister was three years older. She got no schooling at all. Our parents would not let us to go to school because we were girls. When talking about their own schooling the grandparents drew on a discourse of ‘lack’. Many of them said that they were meiwenhua (literally, ‘having no culture’; ‘uneducated’; ‘illiterate’). This lack was a natural part of a life characterized by struggling for survival so that, in their words, ‘there was no precondition for schooling.’ Widespread poverty, even famine, was named as the main condition that framed the place that schooling or its absence had in their life. The few who avoided starvation had to make do with soup and porridge. Fengshan, born in 1945 in a mid-China village, shed tears about his childhood. He had to leave school in the third grade due to grinding poverty: That was another age. Most people were very poor. My family was even poorer. I remember our old mud-block house. The mud would come off here and there when it rained. There were often natural disasters. Cornmeal was the best food but only better off families could afford it. For us, we would be glad to get hold of sweet potatoes. But even with sweet potatoes, there was no guarantee that you could fill your tummy every day. Chunhua, an 80-year-old grandma who was born and raised in Beijing, got no schooling: Life was extremely hard when I was young. No money for schooling. We were starving. The only available food was hunhemianer, ground maize cobs and maize leaves fermented in water with lime powder. Even that was hard to get. It was very hard to swallow. I was the youngest. So my mother gave me a special treat by asking me to go and buy a cornbread for myself. No sooner had I picked it up, when an adult grabbed it from me. Almost everyone was starving. . . . We were too hungry to play. One of my elder sisters starved to death.

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Fenglin grew up as the second eldest among eight siblings in rural mid-China. He excelled at school but could only complete primary school: ‘I succeeded in enrolling in the best lower secondary school in the county seat, but had to drop out after just a few days. My family was too poor to support me.’ Some cited wars and other disorders that rendered schooling impossible or irrelevant. Wensheng (born in 1930) was from a landlord family relatively well off compared to others. But he still had only three years of schooling because of the Japanese invasion and the civil war, which brought about disorder and economic stagnation. He started working as a coal miner at age 14: ‘There were also bandits who raided the village from time to time, plundering and taking away with them whatever they found.’ At a time of much poverty and starvation, it was also hard to recruit and retain teachers. Zhanglin, who had a couple of years’ of private schooling (sishu), said: ‘Our teacher worked only for a month or two each year and then left because of hunger. No teachers could persist.’ Some families were able to make schooling consistently accessible to their children. Suzhen was born in 1938 in Beijing in a business family before the ‘Liberation’ in 1949. She recalled living in an old-style Beijing quadrangle with fine furniture, plenty of food to eat and new clothes not merely for the Chinese New Year. She and her brother and two sisters all attended school regularly because her father was a successful businessman. Her primary schooling was not interrupted by the type of hardships reported by most of the other grandparents interviewed. Shuqing, an only child, grew up with her grandparents in a county seat while her parents were in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). With regular government subsidies, she easily completed lower secondary school. However, higher levels of education were rare, even for youth from such advantaged families; and gender still played a role. Suzhen said: ‘Had my family not had the money for schooling for all of us children, it would certainly be my brother who would be sent to school.’ Son-favoritism, especially by her father, was strong. Her brother was allowed to share the sauced beef (at that time a scarce delicacy) with her father: ‘We girls did not dare to reach out for it.’ Though high educational attainment was greatly respected, it lacked relevance for this generation because it mattered little for the types of livelihood they could hope for or for other goals thought attainable for ordinary people. Low-skilled agricultural or factory work did not require much education. Liude grew up in north China as the youngest of eight siblings. By frugal stretching of family resources, his family could support his schooling and had hoped he would complete lower secondary school. He nonetheless decided to stop after primary school because ‘no matter how much schooling, one would still have to labor (ganhuoer) sooner or later.’ Fenglin easily got a job with his primary school diploma and an introduction letter from his village leadership. It was the time of the ‘four great constructions’ in Beijing in preparation for the PRC’s 10th anniversary. Many male workers were needed from the countryside.

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The grandparents typically belittled whatever schooling they had attained. Even those who attained what at the time was commonly seen as a rather high level of education – lower secondary schooling or in very rare cases, upper secondary equivalents, saw themselves as meiwenhua (illiterate; uneducated). Liufang, born in a rural area near Beijing, said that his family was too poor to afford schooling for him. He started working for the Japanese occupiers as a servant boy at age 11. He learned to read and write in the ‘illiteracy eradication’ campaign when he was in the army during the Korean War. His grandson said: ‘Grandpa knows more ideograms than most others and is very good at calligraphy.’ But this grandfather said he was meiwenhua and lamented that he was unfortunately born at a time when there was very little opportunity for education. The grandparents, like many of the middle-generation informants, also frequently volunteered that the depth and scope of knowledge learned in their primary or secondary schooling could by no means compare with what children and young people are learning at the same levels of schooling today. In short, the schooling attained by the older generations appeared woefully inadequate to them in the light of today’s schooled society. The grandparents’ strong sense of educational deprivation resulted in an eagerness to vicariously compensate for their own lack through their offspring’s educational achievement. Fenglin regretted only getting primary school. He said that his parents were too poor to attach much importance to his schooling. He had resolved early in his life that when he became a father, he must have his children acquire as much education as possible no matter how difficult it would be for him to support them. He had always attended parents’ meetings organized by the school and kept telling his two children to appreciate their teachers’ efforts, including corrections of any bad behavior: My parents were both illiterate peasants. I had very little education. I wanted my own children to be educated. My son was a very good student and got a bachelor degree from a good university. But my daughter, his elder sister, did too much housework so that her study was delayed. We were very poor then. Both my wife and I had to work to make ends meet. When it now comes to my grandson, his parents and I all attach great importance to his education. He is a very good student too. I am content. In primary school he said that he would enter Harvard, the best university in the world. I keep encouraging him to keep up such ideals. He often used a booklet about how some famous people in history took pains to study to urge his children and grandchildren to work hard at school: I got it in 1975. It has become a family treasure. I keep telling my children and grandchildren about these people’s deeds. I hope each generation will do better than the earlier one. My grandson should achieve higher than his father did.

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Many other grandparents also said they were very supportive of their children’s schooling. Fengshan, who received only three years of schooling due to family poverty, was determined that his two sons must be educated: I have suffered enough from my meiwenhua. I know well how it is. I strongly hoped that they would complete lower secondary school and go as much higher as possible. I would support them no matter what. . . . No matter how tired I was, I never called them back from school to help with farm work as many other parents did at that time. We were still poor during the first years of Deng’s reform. But one of them left before completing lower secondary school, the other completed it but refused to go further. I beat them hard, but they just did not want to continue. This was his lifelong regret. Likewise, Xirong, who received no schooling because her parents made her stay home to look after her many younger siblings, hated to be illiterate and was determined to support her children in their schooling: ‘No matter how exhausted I was, I took care not to ask them to help with housework or farm work, but asked them to concentrate on school work.’ However, this generation’s averred support for their children’s schooling pales in comparison with the middle generation’s involvement in their children’s education.

The parents: education became more important and attainable than before, but not crucial The middle-generation interviewees were born during 1964–71 and belong to the first cohort whose youth and part of childhood were directly affected by Deng’s reform and open-door policy. This reform marked the turn from redistributionbased to merit-based education to train skilled personnel for post-Mao China’s modernization project. This was the time when the Chinese schooled society started to emerge. There were national and local efforts to universalize nine-year compulsory education. Expansion and marketization of higher education were underway, but not yet at full speed. This generation received considerably more education than their parents. It became increasingly common for young people to complete at least lower secondary school. Passing the zhongkao (Upper Secondary School Entrance Exam) and the gaokao (College Entrance Exam) became a goal for increasing numbers of young people in both urban and rural areas. Most of the informants completed upper secondary, including technical-vocational schooling (zhongzhuan), and a few entered universities earning a bachelor degree. One even earned a PhD. The rest, except two who dropped out of lower secondary school, obtained a lower secondary diploma. The link between educational attainment on the one hand, and career success and individuals’ self-concepts on the other, became much tighter for this generation. However, going to university/ college, although desirable, remained an exceptional attainment. Even attending a technical-vocational upper secondary school was a privilege for merely a small

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proportion. The middle-generation informants, including those who had been to university, reported that postgraduate studies had hardly crossed their minds. It was ‘natural’ at that time for college graduates to start working in an assigned job upon graduation. A common recollection, also among the educational success stories of that time who tested into daxue or zhongzhuan – was that there was little social pressure to excel in education, or in their words: ‘There was no pressure for higher education or for competitive survival.’ Few mentioned being overwhelmed by homework, at least not during primary and lower secondary school, or by any high parental achievement expectations for them. Therefore, they typically had ample time for playing and for helping out with household chores or with household-based livelihood work. Schooling in those days was thus much less intense and central to a young person’s daily life than today; and it was much less about preparing for higher education than it has become today. Many factors played a role in this. Educational attainment beyond lower secondary school was not yet crucial for the type of envisaged livelihood. Education success in the form of zhongzhuan or daxue would have improved one’s life chances and enabled upward social mobility. But only a small fraction of the age cohort was able to make such achievement due to such institutions’ limited intake. With the decollectivization, the family was restored as the main economic unit and young people’s contribution was needed to make the household economy survive or thrive in the increasingly competitive market. In rural families, especially if there was a shortage of capable laboring hands due to parents’ old age or to older siblings’ absence from home, young people’s help was needed to cultivate the fields newly contracted to the family. This, together with the rapid expansion of rural industry increased the opportunity costs of education, which partly underlay the perceived disadvantage of staying in school (Lewin et al., 1994; Liu, 2004). The range of possible ways to make a living was also expanding in the new market economy which called for active and creative ways of economic advancement. The new emphasis on moneymaking entrepreneurship made education appear less relevant for many young people, especially those without much hope of passing the zhongkao or gaokao. Both rural and urban families were making efforts to improve household economy not only for one’s basic needs, but also because of the new notion of the good life. ‘Becoming rich’ (zhifu) was seen as honorable, in contrast to the Maoist norm against materialism and individualistic advancement. Thus, young people needed to make rational choices between education and productive work as early as possible during their adolescence. Many quit school as early as seemed possible in order to engage in income-generating activities. Everyone could just start private business albeit in varying scales – ranging from small street stalls selling daily household goods to trading goods between places and opening factories or companies, depending on one’s resources at hand. Finding a regular job with stable income was still highly desirable for many young people, but in most cases, such jobs did not require more than at most upper secondary school education. For urban youth, a regular job – often factory

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or secretarial – was the most common choice. As the market reform deepened, there was increasing concern about unemployment, but it was still unusual to be jobless. It seemed still easy to become a factory worker – a still highly regarded social status in the first years of the reform era. Shangwu thought his level of education was too low from today’s point of view. But at that time it enabled him to find a good job easily: I graduated from the lower secondary school in 1983. It was a transitional period in education. There wasn’t much importance attached to education. There were many temptations, especially to make money. Besides, becoming a worker was still popular because workers still enjoyed a favorable status at that time. I started working in a factory immediately upon completion of lower secondary school. The motivation for much schooling was perhaps also weakened by the poor physical condition of schools and by long distance between school and home, especially in the countryside. Guixia thought it was only thanks to her strong will and to her vague belief that a lower secondary school diploma would be necessary for her to function in the new era that she managed to stick to the end of it: Our classroom was extremely cold in winter. It was about minus 30 degrees outside and there was only a little stove fueled by firewood in each classroom. The boys would surround the stove during the breaks. We girls could not get close. My feet were frozen. Sometimes I could not help crying in class. Likewise, Yulin who eventually made it to a zhongzhuan school was praised for his strong will. He said that he and his village peers could not afford to board at school. They would run to school in the morning, run home for lunch, run back to school after lunch, and run home again after school. It took about 30 minutes one way. He said that this helped harden his character. But many did drop out due to this hardship. Those who had to board at school because the distance was too great also described the life of boarders as ‘bitter’. Xiaoxia said she barely got enough money for food from her poor parents when she boarded because of the school’s distance from her home: ‘No pocket money, only enough for the steamed corn bread from the canteen which was swallowed with the help of pickles brought from home. I often felt hungry.’ In a study fielded in 2001 (Liu, 2004), Chinese rural adolescents also mentioned hard conditions at school as a reason for their dropping out of lower secondary school. The middle-generation interviewees generally saw their education level as ‘too low’ from the vantage point of today, a tendency especially true of those who failed to receive daxue or zhongzhuan, but also of most of those who were the educational success stories at that time. They attributed their low level of education attainment not only to the lack of conducive preconditions but also to their lack of awareness about education’s importance when they were young, hence lack of

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high achievement motivation, goals or ideals. They said this had to do with their parents leaving them children to grow up naturally without much guan, also about their schooling. Besides, and related to this, they emphasized that young people at that time were typically jiandan (simple-minded and simple-hearted), innocent and ignorant; they simply did not have so many thoughts, including ideas about education and achievement. As will be shown in Chapters 5–7, their ‘jiandan, innocence, and ignorance’, perceived as characteristic of their generational consciousness (Mannheim, 1952), also shaped their gender construction and othersex relations. The attraction of zhongzhuan Getting into a technical-vocational upper secondary (zhongzhuan) school was for this generation considered a great educational success and as more relevant and appropriate for young people than higher education. During the 1980s and much of the 1990s, the initial period of Deng’s reform, there was a rapid expansion of this kind of schools to meet the urgent demand for skilled personnel. A zhongzhuan diploma would then suffice for finding a professional job, which today would have required at least a bachelor’s degree. A zhongzhuan also allowed rural youth to obtain a much-coveted urban hukou (residence status) and escape rural life with its connotations of inferior social status and material and cultural conditions. Thus, rural lower secondary school students, especially good students, tended to aim at zhongzhuan rather than daxue (university/college) entrance. Zhongzhuan was also popular among urban youth since such a diploma would suffice for a good job (professional job) rather than just any job. Regardless their rural or urban origin, the interviewees all said that in those days the best students usually opted for zhongzhuan. Those who went to upper secondary school included mainly students who were also promising but from families who could afford longer studies. Upper secondary school at that time also allowed for another chance to enter zhongzhuan as well as higher education. Entry to zhongzhuan was highly competitive, with only a small share of the cohort admitted. The middle-generation interviewees who tested into zhongzhuan recalled that it was a highly regarded accomplishment at that time. Some said that it was comparable to the high regard which nowadays is given to entering a high-status university. The rural-originated informants who ‘tested into’ such a zhongzhuan school typically recalled they were the only student, or one of the very few, who in their area succeeded in that round of zhongkao – a great honor for one’s family and school. One was held up as a role model or even a local celebrity for younger students to admire and emulate. Anecdotal stories might even circulate in the community about the diligence and intelligence of a person who made it into zhongzhuan. Fengxia, who tested into a teachers’ training zhongzhuan in 1982, said that stories were told about her holding a book wherever she was. She was invited as a distinguished dinner guest by many villagers each time she returned home during the vacation. The villagers would typically say: ‘You

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have honored our village and us peasants.’ Xiaoxia recalled that upon getting the news of her admission, one of her teachers was so excited and proud that he took her to the street to tell everyone they met: ‘She is my student. She has tested into zhongzhuan!’ Such success could also cause envy. Yulin tested into a zhongzhuan school for railway engineering in 1984 and was assigned a job as a technician at Beijing Railway upon graduation – a very well-paid job at that time. He said: My brothers and I all did well at school. In 1984 I tested out of the countryside. In 1985, my younger brother did too. It caused much envy among the villagers: Two from the same family, but none from the other families in the village! My two elder brothers, belonging to the Cultural Revolution cohort, missed the era of good opportunity. Some villagers respectfully acknowledged the personal effort and talent in those who succeeded. Others might resort to supernatural explanations or attribute it to fate. Yulin told me that some people in his village said his educational success was thanks to the auspicious geomantic location (fengshui) of his family’s graveyard, similar to an explanation asserted by a mother interviewed in an earlier study on rural youth (Liu, 2004). To justify her support for her son dropping out of lower secondary school, the mother said that never had anyone succeeded educationally in her husband’s family because their graveyard was in the wrong place. Yunzhang, another zhongzhuan graduate, said folks in his home village believed that some are ordained by fate to be among the fortunate few to do well in scholarship, while others are doomed to remain peasants. He recalled his grandfather telling him: ‘You are doomed to fail in the exam. All those who pass it has a wenqü star. You don’t have it.’ Thus, the association between professional advancement and higher education was not yet that strong. However, higher education might still have been more desirable than zhongzhuan as it could have brought higher status and greater glory in both the urban and rural areas. This was indicated by stories of the fortunate few who received higher education. Aiming for zhongzhuan nonetheless made more sense in many cases. Besides the reasons mentioned earlier, higher education enrolled in the 1980s and very early 1990s only 3%–4% of the cohorts. More importantly, preparing for gaokao would have meant considerably higher costs for the family, which young people and their families needed to take into account when making educational choice. Many mentioned economic constraints in explaining their choice of what they now retrospectively see as too low an educational accomplishment in the present schooled society. For the middle-generation informants whose zhongkao scores exceeded the zhongzhuan admission line, there was usually discussion with parents about continuing to upper secondary school to prepare for the gaokao or taking up zhongzhuan to start working sooner. The temptation of zhongzhuan schools was an urban job through government assignment upon graduation. Zhongzhuan

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was also typically tuition-free and gave students a monthly subsidy. Teacher-training zhongzhuan schools also provided students with free food and accommodation. Going to upper secondary school to prepare for the gaokao would normally have taken at least another three years. Its school fees, food and accommodation would have meant a big sum for most families. Besides, there was no guarantee that one would succeed. One would have to compete with many others for the very limited number of places, and one’s own school performance might change for the worse. Thus, especially in financially stretched families, parents usually tried to persuade their academically successful children to take zhongzhuan – a very high accomplishment at that time anyway. So, what would then be the point of university? Most of the interviewees who went through such a process also said that they did not have the heart to add to their parents’ already great financial burden. So it was just natural that they ‘chose’ zhongzhuan. Adolescents were expected to be highly considerate and dutiful to their parents. But some did negotiate. Hanlin was an outstanding student at a Beijing key lower secondary school. His parents strongly wanted him to go to a zhongzhuan school and start working as soon as possible to ease the family’s financial struggle. He said: ‘My family had high debts for many years. . . . My younger brother and I would go and pick coal cores every day as soon as school was over.’ His parents, both of whom were workers with low incomes, had three children to raise. Originally hailing from the countryside, his father became a worker in Beijing in the 1950s and married an urbanite. He had to send money regularly to his parents in the village. Hanlin added: Zhongzhuan would mean a 10–20 yuan monthly stipend and a job upon graduation, but I felt that I should go to upper secondary school to try for university entrance because of my outstanding ranking in my class at the time. Seeing that I was so eager, my parents gave in. He tested into a high-status university to become an engineer. Some did not have their way. Lifang cried and begged her mother to allow her to go to upper secondary school, but to no avail. Her widow mother had to be hard-hearted and said no. ‘I also understood that we had no choice’, she added.

The daughters and sons: the daxue generation of the schooled society Kipnis (2011) uses the concept ‘education intensity’ to describe young people’s daily school life in his study of education in Souping. In the present study, I found that ‘intensity’ and ‘centrality’ characterized the young people’s general relationship to schooling. There is much evidence of a strong norm of going to university/college, of parental involvement and high expectations, of daily striving for academic excellence, of efforts to maximize productivity in studying, of a strong preoccupation with educational success and dread of failure by both parents and

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young people alike. All the families interviewed showed a strong desire to maximize education for the priceless child, who was (supposed to be) aspiring for high education achievement. This intense centrality of education contrasts sharply with their grandparents’ discourse of lack and irrelevance of schooling, and with their parents’ narratives about a childhood and youth when education was much less important. The ‘university complex’ and the ‘prestigious university (mingpai) dream’ Like the parents in Kipnis’s (2011) study of Zouping and in some earlier studies on the urban only child generation (Liu, 2006a, 2006b), every parent in this study hoped their child would go to a (good) university. This was not viewed as a particularly high expectation but just a normal one. A father (of a young man from the key school) who became an accountant after completing lower secondary school said: ‘Our family does not have high expectations of him. As long as he can enter a university, we will be content.’ Similarly, when asked about their parents’ expectations of them during childhood, the young interviewees typically said: ‘Nothing special. Just normal: test into a (good) university.’ The parents invariably had much to say about their children’s education, particularly in relation to testing into a university/college (kaodaxue), which seemed to be the most interesting topic for them. They often wanted to talk about it even when asked about their own childhood and youth. Some said they were interested in meeting me, an education professor from a Western university, because they wanted to ask me about how to improve their children’s school performance and they expected me to help with their child’s choice of university/college and specialization. Many saw me as an exemplary model of educational success for their child, hoping that I could influence their teenager to strive for higher goals. Some asked for advice about how to learn certain subjects if those were their child’s weak ones. Others wished to hear me talk about ‘advanced’ educational ideas and practices that could be used to enhance the child’s chance of entering a good university. They would start talking about the child’s current performance and trace the trajectory through all the previous years. They would volunteer commentaries on their child’s aptitudes, potential, attitudes, behavior and general personality and would especially like to have advice from me about such problems as laziness, low motivation, and weak will. Many knew by heart their child’s test results, ranking in class and in the whole class grade. Some parents even knew the child’s main rivals by name, especially if the child was a top student. They also spoke about their earlier initiatives to enhance the child’s school performance in the main subjects, from the very beginning of the child’s life. Some reproached themselves for not having taken enough of such initiatives. Grooming and cultivating the child for university entrance normally started already in early childhood and constituted a major part of child-rearing for these parents. As the child reached higher levels of schooling, all the parental early childhood enthusiasm for and

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investment in cultivating the child’s all-round qualities had increasingly become concentrated on academic excellence as a foundation for entering university. It was about pushing and helping the child to do well, first in the zhongkao and then in the gaokao – the two decisive exams around which the young people’s life revolved. The middle generation took their children’s daxue (university/college; higher education) for granted. Regarding their child’s gaokao, all the parents readily gave an assessment about which tier of higher education institutions they were hoping or expecting their child to enter. All had hoped that their child would test into a prestigious university. But, especially in the last year of upper secondary school when their expectations were more realistic than before, some also said that they would be content if the child tested into an ‘ordinary’ or even a ‘mediocre’ university. Some said they regrettably had to adjust their expectations because the child’s performance had declined in the course of upper secondary school. Others worried that their child’s performance in the gaokao might not be good enough for a regular undergraduate program. Those whose children were at the key school were confident that their child would at least enter one of the first-tier, or even the very top, universities. For all the parents, a bachelor’s degree was the minimum educational level they wished their only child would attain. They would like their children to have as much formal education as possible, or in their words, ‘the higher, the better’. The young people themselves also showed much eagerness for university/ college. They readily shared with me their worries about failure, their confusion about which subject and institution to choose, and their self-assessment as to which type of university/college one could expect to enter. They also talked about their hoped-for as well as expected results of the gaokao. They consulted me on how to improve the test scores in some subjects, particularly English, seeing me as an expert in this subject. Regardless of school performance, they tended to take going to university/college for granted, like their parents on their behalf. They all referred to university/college education as a direct transition from upper secondary school. ‘After entering university’, ‘after graduation from university’ and ‘I will be done with my university study in 4 years’ were common statements when talking about future plans. Linlin, like many others from the ordinary school, was struggling with several exam subjects. She worried that her gaokao scores might not suffice for even a third-tier college. However, she still said with confidence: ‘Upon graduating from daxue, I will seek further education through postgraduate studies if necessary for my career development.’ Peng (at the ordinary school) wanted to become a billionaire entrepreneur. Each time he mentioned his ambitions to his mom, she would say that she would support him after his university graduation: ‘My mom always says that my one-and-only task is to test into and complete daxue. I think that makes sense too. So I will go to university first.’ The strong norm for daxue among the young participants and their parents is of course to be expected, since the young people were from the higher-education preparatory track, or the academic track, at the two upper secondary schools, rather

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than a vocational track. To test into a university or college, one normally needs to test into this track through the zhongkao. Being channeled into a vocational upper secondary school by the zhongkao normally would mean academic failure (Ling, 2015; Woronov, 2015). Vocational school students, like dropouts, are often stigmatized as bad students for whom university entrance is usually foreclosed. Being in the academic rather than vocational track marks one off positively as ‘normative youth’ (Woronov, 2015). Youth in the academic track are also disproportionately from urban families. Vocational schools mainly recruit students from rural, migrant or otherwise disadvantaged or blue-collar backgrounds (Ling, 2015; Woronov, 2015). The parents, therefore, typically desired the academic track of upper secondary school for their children (see also Kipnis, 2011). This was also what the young people themselves strove for in their lower secondary school. However, entering the academic track of upper secondary school was just the beginning of more arduous effort and fiercer competition. The school one has tested into also has implications for one’s chance for higher education. The young interviewees were at two vastly different schools regarding their prestige and the students’ success rates in testing into well-reputed higher education institutions. The fact that the young people and their families took access to higher education for granted no doubt also reflects the wide accessibility of higher education for urban only child families – the advantaged group in China’s education market. Since the 1985 education reform, and especially since the mid-1990s, China’s higher education has been experiencing a wide-ranging marketization (Chan and Mok, 2001; Yin and White, 1994); higher education is provided by competitive suppliers, whereby educational services are priced and access to them depends much on consumer calculations and ability to pay (Yin and White, 1994). All the institutions in China’s vast higher education hierarchy are generally lumped as daxue, ranging from the first-tier, including the small number of top universities, to the second-tier universities/colleges, the third-tier universities/colleges, and the two-year vocational-technical institutions. The urban youth, especially those in the academic track, normally seem to be able to find a place for themselves in this hierarchy, depending on one’s score in the gaokao and one’s family purchasing capacity. Despite great variations in family economic capital ranging from merely a few thousand yuan per month to 100,000 yuan or more, the parents rarely saw supporting their child’s education as a problem. Poverty, or just financial constraints, is no longer a theme in the parents’ talk about their children’s education. Neither did the young people themselves see their family economy as a barrier to opportunity. What matters now is one’s own performance and choice. This contrasts with the two older generations’ narratives about the constraints on their educational ‘choice’. The young people were all aiming at obtaining at least a bachelor’s degree – also in cases where it seemed rather hopeless for them to score into a regular bachelor-level program. All said that if they ended up at a vocational-technical college, which might well happen to some of those at the ordinary school, they would continue towards a bachelor’s degree after their first higher education diploma.

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Most students at the ordinary school anticipated that they would not score higher than the cutting line for third-tier colleges in the impending gaokao. But they intended to upgrade their qualifications by postgraduate studies or by paying high fees to study abroad. Many students, especially at the key school, expected to pursue postgraduate studies, at least a master’s degree, because ‘a bachelor degree is not adequate nowadays for a good job.’ Bai (2016) notes that the most significant factor underlying the boom of postgraduate studies in post-Mao China is students’ hope to improve their competitiveness in the job market. In a context of mass higher education, those with means are trying to go for postgraduate studies, which is in keeping with the theory of maximally maintained inequality (MMI) (Raftery and Hout, 1993). The desire for shangdaxue was so intense that it constituted a ‘university ­complex’ – a phenomenon found also among an earlier cohort of only child families (Liu, 2006a), because it involves an exaggerated or obsessive concern about success in entering a university, hence a psychological ‘complex’. This university complex affected all aspects of the young people’s ‘possible selves’, here defined as conceptions of oneself in a future state involving an interplay of past experience and current and imagined identities – expected selves, hoped-for selves and feared selves (Markus and Nurius, 1986). Out of the university complex also emerged a still higher-level desire: a desire for prestigious universities (mingpai daxue) – a phenomenon which can be called the ‘prestigious university dream’ (mingpai daxue meng). For urban families today, it is not merely schooling that is desired but higher education; it is not just any higher education institution that is the goal but the top universities (Zhang and Bray, 2017). A discourse of mingpai daxue had accompanied the young people since early childhood. Nearly everyone recalled that parents and other family members kept telling them about Qinghua (Qinghua University) and Beida (Beijing University), the two very top ones known as China’s MIT and Harvard, holding these up as exemplary universities that young people should at least aspire to. It is quite common for parents to take their children on tours of the campuses to immerse the child for a moment in the setting of a top-brand university par excellence, hoping to cultivate in the child the high ideal of striving for this kind of university.2 Some of the young interviewees had had such top institutions as their very goal. Hanying, a top student at the key school, told me that she had always aimed at Beida; and now as the gaokao was approaching, this desire got stronger and stronger: ‘I stand a good chance, especially if my ranking is upgraded from no. 3 to no. 1 or 2.’ Some believed that only such universities count. Qiang, a good student at the ordinary school, was confident about his testing into a first-tier university: ‘It will also be alright if I fail. I have always believed that unless you test into Qinghua or Beida, any other university will make no difference.’ The young people were also well acquainted with the brand names of top Western universities such as Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Yale, Cambridge, and Oxford. The book Harvard Girl Liu Yiting, written by Liu’s parents about how they had raised their daughter to excel in education to get accepted by Harvard, was widely known. Such prestigious universities were

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largely inaccessible to the young interviews. They, nonetheless, like the national ones, served as exemplary daxue for them. In short, concerning higher education, it is not only about ‘the higher, the better’ but also ‘the more prestigious, the better’ for these young people and their families. Daxue and the worthy life and the worthy person: striving not to labor and not to ‘serve’ Especially the parents, but also the young people, were articulate about the benefits of university/college education in both instrumental and expressive terms. The importance that they attached to higher education is in line with the general cultural belief of the schooled society that ‘cognitive skill, particularly as promoted in schooling, is the essential human capability for all types of jobs and social roles, and remarkably even has come to define the successfully developed person’ (Baker, 2014, p. 41). Their narratives also carry local Chinese qualities. Much of the university complex in these families had to do with their belief that university education is now the precondition for a good job crucial to the good life, despite the wide range of possibilities of making a living in post-Mao China. It begs the question of what a good job and a good life meant for them. The rural or semi-rural parents in Kipnis’s (2011) study associated jobs in labor-intensive and service sectors less with modernity, hence as less desirable for their children, than white-collar professional jobs based on educational achievement. The parents and their children in the present study did not explicitly mention modernity but used timian (decent) and ‘good’ to express a similar wish. A good job means neither having to earn a living by manual labor nor to work in the low-paid parts of the service sector (such as hotel waiters/waitresses and nannies). When asked about his parents’ expectations of him, Bo, a key-school student who was aiming at a top university and intended to take a PhD, said: ‘They strongly hope that I will do well at school and have a decent (timian) job in the future – mental rather than manual work.’ Education as a means of maintaining social status or obtaining upwards social mobility is typical of middle-class families also in China. However, regardless of their own social status, urban Chinese parents tend to share a middle-class modernity dream for their children (Croll, 2006; Fong, 2004; Liu, 2006b). The young people in this study came from various parental occupational backgrounds ranging from laid-off workers to manual workers, business people, entrepreneurs and high-status professionals. All these parents keenly desired daxue, as good as possible, for their child and associated it with a good job. Wangde, a Beijing worker, was disappointed by his son, who had not been doing well enough to show promise for even a second-tier university: Of course I also hope that he will go to university so he will have a good job. But if he does not work hard for it, I can do nothing to help. He often says to me that he wishes to have a good job. I always say to him: Then you have to work hard to improve your scores and enter a university. Without that, who

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would want you nowadays? Who would give you a good job? Some people can rely on guangxi (social networks). But we ordinary people do not have that. The only way out is to rely on yourself to study well. Otherwise, you will have to do hard manual work with low payment or stay at home being idle. This father also expressed a sense of urgency commonly felt by the parents (and students): ‘It would be too late if he does not now start to work hard. Maybe it is already too late because only a few months are now left.’ The young people internalized their parents’ view that daxue is the very foundation for a good job and thereby for a good life. There was a widely shared worry among the students about the consequences of not obtaining a daxue degree; for them, there was ‘no other way out’ or ‘no other option’ than going to university. Wangjian, a good student at the ordinary school, sometimes doubted the necessity of going to university in order to live well, but he felt that he could not afford to opt out: To be frank, I sometimes feel it is not that important to go to university. However, daxue is the only one way out. Therefore, I must go to university. What else could I do? Nowadays, it is hard to find a job even for a master’s degree holder, let alone those without a bachelor degree. Therefore, one has no other way out. This is China’s exam-oriented education. Little can be done about it. The talk of ‘no other way out’ without university education is clearly not true. But the types of jobs that these urban youth desired would require such qualifications. They, supported by their parents, were trying their best to avoid their feared ‘possible self’: one who would have to settle for menial work merely doing other people’s bidding, receiving low payments, working in bad conditions without guarantee of labor safety and social security – the fate of many rural migrant youth. Xuexu (at the ordinary school) said: It is very important to have at least a bachelor degree. I often see youths on their motorbikes or wandering the streets, jobless or doing heavy manual work with very low pay. They don’t have much education and their future must be very terrible. Education has since ancient times been regarded as a social ladder in China (Cleverley, 1991). Historically, passing the Imperial Civil Service Exam, the gaokao’s prototype, served as the most effective, albeit not the sole, route to an official position with various economic and social benefits. The instrumental benefits of education, particularly higher education, are at least as much recognized in the post-Mao era as in the past, as also reflected in the association the urban families in this study made between higher educational attainment and a good job and a good life. For the urban young generation, however, higher education is not merely instrumental, but has broader benefits. This may reflect the traditional

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belief in education as key to both social mobility and self-cultivation. Raising a child with high and all-round qualities has always been a major concern of the urban family and it is believed that this requires education (Woronov, 2009), especially higher education. University education is also thought to add to, or even help create, a woman’s beauty as her gendered ‘quality’ (Liu, 2006a, 2006b). In China terms such as shangdaxue (going to university) and daxuesheng (university student) have many positive connotations. Daxuesheng often evokes the romanticism and idealism of youth. Daxue offers access to advanced knowledge and information and a variety of social and cultural activities. Therefore, it is believed to be the ideal way of spending one’s youth. Thus, the parents and young people interviewed maintained that it is a defect (quexian) and a regret (yihan) if a young person fails to have university education, especially in families where it is affordable. However, none of the aforementioned benefits could overshadow the crucial role higher education plays in the competition for a worthy livelihood that is worthy of the urban only children youth. The informants believed that the free market economy is based on the jungle law of ‘survival of the fittest’ and that in order to get a footing in this new type of society, one must constantly improve one’s suzhi, or one’s competitiveness – expressions often used by the young people and their parents. In the Chinese schooled society, one’s competitiveness relies on the type and level of education one obtains and the status of the educational institution attended. The high educational expectations for their offspring typically found among post-Mao urban parents have also been attributed to parents’ desire to compensate for their own lost opportunity for (higher) education during the Cultural Revolution (Croll, 2006; Fong, 2004; Liu, 2006a; Naftali, 2016). The ‘parents’ in this study are much younger than those in the earlier studies and therefore were not directly affected by the Cultural Revolution. Compared with the earlier cohort of parents they have received substantially more education. And yet, they also shared a sense of deprivation, or at least inadequacy, which resulted in a similar compensation desire. Those who failed to go to daxue, all wished their children to make up for their ‘failure to go to university’. Those who made it to daxue wished their children to make up for their ‘failure to go to a top university’ and/or ‘failure to do postgraduate studies’. The hegemonic norm of academic excellence and the mediocrity phobia Success in getting into a university, especially a well-reputed one, relies on relative academic excellence as measured by exam results. Therefore, closely related to the university complex and prestigious university dream is the hegemonic norm of academic excellence and mediocrity phobia, which also fits the Chinese exemplary norm (Bakken, 2000; Dawson, 1915). Having succeeded in getting into the academic track in upper secondary schooling does not

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mean that all are guaranteed university access. One needs to compete with and outperform classmates, schoolmates and peers in the same grade in the whole city and the whole country in order to enter university – especially a ‘good enough’ institution. On a daily basis, however, the competition typically takes place among classmates and schoolmates. This applied to students at both the key school and the ordinary one. Each student, supported by her/his family, was trying to outperform others in the hierarchy of his/her own school. Making it to the top or upper echelon of the school hierarchy would be crucial for one’s university entrance, either a first-tier institution for the ordinary school students or a top one for the key school students. At both the schools, life seemed to be about little else than studying, tests, scores and rankings. One’s position in the weekly or monthly rankings in the main subjects had direct implications for which tier of higher education one would end up in, because such tests simulated the gaokao (also see Kipnis, 2011; Yang, 2016). The tests’ results affected one’s status and general well-being. I was told that good or bad moods depended mainly on one’s test scores. As some of them said: ‘My happiest time is when I have done well in a test.’ Shite (at the key school) said: ‘My rank in my school grade fell from number 10 to number 30 in the last test. I am very upset.’ Yuxuan (at the ordinary school) said: ‘I got a happy surprise by my test result as that subject is not my strong one: I ranked number 5 in my class.’ Some even asked supernatural power for help. Meiya (at the ordinary school), who was struggling in most of her subjects and thus causing much anxiety for herself, her parents and grandparents, said: ‘I kneel down before each test and pray to all kinds of spirits and gods to help me get a good grade. But my scores are always disappointing.’ Most of the young informants got up at dawn and did not go to bed until after midnight, taking time off only on Sunday or part of it. Going to classes, reviewing lessons, doing homework, attending tutorials both at and outside school, they were all the time trying to raise their grades in the ranking of all students in the whole class and/or in the whole grade in the next test. On top of their standard school schedules, nearly all were receiving privately paid tutoring in the exam subjects, known as ‘shadow education’. This was regardless of their family’s economic conditions, although the extent to which this was practiced depended on one’s family socio-economic status and school performance; those doing well at school tended to have more such tutoring and paid more for it. Prices were reportedly at least 200 yuan per hour. Many were paying 500–600 yuan per hour. A sense of urgency was widespread in the narratives: it was the countdown time – the gaokao was in less than a year! One was supposed to put aside any other thought or activity and concentrate totally on preparing for the gaokao. The alarm had been on ever since primary school but rang louder and louder as one climbed higher up the ladder of schools. Extra-curricular activities (such as playing a musical instrument) unrelated to the exam subjects had been mostly dropped by the end of primary school and absolutely all were dropped by the beginning of upper secondary school.

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One was supposed to challenge one’s ‘extreme limit’, or tiaozhan jixian, in their words, in exerting oneself for better performance. Although girls reportedly studied harder and were generally more self-disciplined than boys, the themes of competing for academic excellence applied equally to both genders. Both were concerned about their scores. Boys were not worried about appearing less masculine by focusing so strongly on their schoolwork, as it might have been the case in some Western schools (Kipnis, 2011). On the contrary, academic excellence was perceived to make boys more attractive to the other sex. Some girls were attracted to boys who were top students or who were known to be extremely talented. This is in line with boys being strongly driven by the chenggong (success; outstanding accomplishment) ideal as a proof for their manhood (see Chapter 5), for in the schooled society chenggong is normally wrought through education (Liu, 2017). Girls were also trying to outperform their peers regardless of gender, which plays into their general construction of ‘modern’ womanhood, as will be shown in Chapter 6. Admiring academic excellence was also shown in their perceptions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ schools. Those from the key school were already successful ones in the highly competitive educational system. Having gotten into such a school meant they had already come far by outperforming vast numbers of same-aged peers. For them, the competition was no longer about a university place, but about which university. All expected to get into a first-tier university and some even into the very best. Many felt proud of their own school and felt lucky to have tested into it. Yuzhu said that with one point less, she would have ended up at a less prestigious school. Linchao said he was promoted directly from this school’s lower secondary stage and that was the last time his school enabled such promotion: ‘Luckily, I caught the opportunity.’ Others, however, wished that they had got into a still better school: ‘This school cannot compare with Beijing no. 4 secondary school. Their students can all enter Qinghua or Beida.’ The informants at the ordinary school were generally disappointed with their own school, showing a shared sense of being ‘caught in mediocrity’. Asked about their expected higher education, most of them said: ‘What can one expect? This school’s results in the previous gaokao show there is not much hope for a good university for me.’ They openly admired the key schools and their students: ‘No way do we compare with them! They have much better teachers, students and learning conditions.’ Some complained that they had ended up at such a school out of bad luck. Jia regretfully said: ‘I was a good student at lower secondary school. My score in the zhongkao was just one point lower than the cutting line for a key school.’ Like her, a few others also regretted missing the opportunity for a key school by just a few points, and thereby greatly reducing their chance of entering a first-tier university. Some said that it would be a lifelong regret. Nonetheless, there was keen competition at this ‘mediocre’ school too. Life there was also a struggle for academic excellence. The chance seemed slim, but there was still a lingering dream among those ranked as top students in their class of getting into a top university. However, they knew that they could only hope

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to enter a first-tier university if they did well, but not a top one. Yili currently ranked number 5 in her class. Her goal was to become at least number 3, otherwise she could have no hope of a first-tier: ‘It was mathematics that pulls my ranking down in each test. I attend private tutoring each weekend to improve my grades in maths.’ Some students at this school aimed for a second-tier university as a more realistic goal, though it might prove to be hard to achieve. Apart from working hard, one needed to make a ‘smart choice’ by staking on one’s strength. Xuexu said: I am striving to enter a second-tier university. I  must work harder. I  find maths, physics and chemistry really hard to learn. My advantages are English and Chinese. They pull my rank up so that I now rank among the first 5 in my class! This motivates me. But I am not satisfied with myself. I will devote more time to English and Chinese which are easier for me. Others from this school anticipated that they would not score higher than the cutting line for a third-tier university/college or a technical-vocational institute – as the only way to realize a daxue goal. But one was not supposed to give up striving for better result. Those who failed to work as hard as they were supposed to were reproached by teachers and parents and sometimes also by themselves. At both schools, the informants seemed to engage in constant self-evaluation, especially the girls: how one’s performance compared to one’s own potential and to others’ performance, how one had used one’s time, whether one was self-disciplined enough, and so on. Their self-assessment varied, ranging from seeing themselves as highly diligent, to in between or not diligent. But nobody believed they had done their utmost. Bo (at the key school) said: ‘I feel that I have been exerting myself nearly 100%; but I must challenge my own extreme limits further.’ Yu (at the key school) said: ‘I work hard, but I just cannot compare with those who stay up until early morning to study. I am too lazy to do that.’ Hanying, a top student at the key school, saw herself as very hard working. She did schoolwork until 1 a.m. each night and still would like her mother to remind her more often to work harder and to keep her from playing with the cell phone while studying. Lingwei (at the key school) thought one should not spend one’s youth only by striving for academic achievement. Besides studying, she therefore tried to organize her life around a range of other activities (such as reading novels and seeing movies). But she was getting more anxious by seeing how hard all others were working. She said: ‘I must control myself now. Otherwise, I will regret it.’ I was told that students at the key school would be seen as linglei (literally, ‘another type’; anomalous; unusual; extraordinary; non-mainstream; special) if they did not go all out for studying. Gaolin, who said he was a ‘playful’ type, said: ‘I am now trying hard to avoid being seen as a linglei.’ At both schools, some students blamed themselves for ‘being lazy’ and lacking self-discipline if they did not work until midnight even though they had relatively high academic rankings. Three students at the ordinary school found it hard to conform to the school discipline. They had played truant during the first two years of upper secondary school in order to

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pursue such personal interests as touring, practicing karate, attending concerts by favorite bands and seeing movies. Once they nearly dropped out of school. They believed that something was wrong with their mind. They had sought psychiatric help and had for the sake of the gaokao tried to improve themselves (urged to do so by parents and teachers). In short, it was common to evaluate oneself against the standard represented by the exemplary student. There was a common understanding that there was always a potential for working harder and for better school performance. Efficiency and productivity in studying: constructing the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ student There was a widespread concern about how to be more efficient and productive in pursuit of academic excellence. Should one sleep more and work less but with a more energetic body and mind? Or is it better to work longer hours and sleep less? (see also Kipnis, 2011). Does a high achiever need to work still harder or rely mainly on intelligence? Both the parents and the young informants tended to believe that greater efforts produce better results unless one is a prodigy. That is, effort is decisive: one must work hard for long hours. Cencen’s mother had thought that her daughter was such an exceptional prodigy who would not need to work so hard to do well. But she came to see that her daughter needed to work hard after all: ‘So I had to make her work harder.’ Yu (at the key school) said that she was not so diligent, but she was still content with her productivity: ‘I rank middle in my class, but I am content because I have not worked as hard as those who did better in the tests.’ A belief in the greater effectiveness of effort over talent is a defining feature of the Confucian cultural model of success (Cleverley, 1991; Lauglo, 1999). Numerous sayings and stories teach the decisiveness of effort: for example, qinneng buzhuo (‘Diligence can make up for slowness’); benniao xianfei (‘The slow bird needs to take off earlier’); and zhiyao gongfu shen, tiechu mocheng zhen (‘Even a thick iron rod can be ground into a sewing needle so long as one makes enough effort’). Historical stories are, for example, the case of a poor man reading by light from a hole he dug in the wall to ‘steal’ light from the neighbor house because he was too poor to afford lights himself. There is also the famous scholar who, to keep himself awake for studying, kept pricking himself with an awl. Another one tied his hair to a beam to keep from falling asleep while reading. Foreign examples are also cited, for example Thomas Edison, the great inventor, who reportedly said: ‘Genius: 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.’ This belief in effort seems to have survived culturally even under increasing psychologization about, and ‘scientific’ advice for, raising children with high IQ and talent in post-Mao urban China. The belief could also have been reinforced by the perception of competition: one cannot afford to opt out because one’s rivals are working long hours. To burn the midnight oil or not, or whether to study or play, was thus a dilemma for many of the young informants. Some parents, especially those whose children

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were doing well at school, sympathized with such a dilemma, feeling sorry for the child and meanwhile having to encourage him/her to work still harder. Many parents and grandparents, however, complained that their children or grandchildren were not working hard enough at school, hence not maximally valuing the present-day good educational condition. It was typical for the parents, especially those with children at the ordinary school, to complain that their children had not been studying hard enough. They tended to believe that their children were intelligent but too playful (tanwaner), lacked self-discipline for hard work or had low requirements for themselves. Yunxing said about his son, a mediocre student at the ordinary school: I believe that he is university material. He is clever. However, he never exerts himself enough, only at about 60% of effort. As soon as his effort reaches 70%, he stops. He lacks a spirit for eating bitterness (chiku). This is his typical mode of studying. Only if he exerted himself 90%, would he surely at least enter a second-tier university. I know my own child. He does not have high standards. Parents’ attempt at correcting their youngsters’ lack of effort and strong will was reportedly a major cause of intergenerational conflict. Leilei (at the ordinary school) said that whenever she quarreled with her mother, it was because ‘I am not studying hard. She says I am lazy.’ Linyu (at the key school), who thought his life should not only be about studying, reported conflicts with his father, a high-status engineer, who was displeased at his son’s ‘not going all out’ for his schoolwork. Whereas most informants agreed about the importance of exerting oneself, a couple of boys from the ordinary school believed talent to be more decisive for performance. Liuxin claimed: ‘Students at key schools will understand a problem at a mere glance. But we cannot solve it no matter how hard we work. So there is no use for us to work hard.’ Xuexu said: ‘The students at key schools use half our effort and achieve twice as much. Our school makes us study long hours and gives us much school work, but our scores are still so low.’ But even these students emphasized the importance of hard work. Dawei claimed: ‘Edison actually meant that genius depends 99% on inspiration and 1% on perspiration. But this 1% is the most decisive.’ With the strong association between unyielding efforts and success, how to minimize the student’s wasted time became a major concern in all the families interviewed. During upper secondary school, especially its last year, the whole family’s life much revolved around supporting the student in preparing for the gaokao, especially how to help him/her use time fully for schoolwork. Most families lived at least 40 minutes from the school by car or bus. Some parents and students thought commuting between home and school was no waste of time, for one could use that time for reviewing lessons. But most chose to board at school in order to save more time for studying. All, including those who did not board, ate lunches and dinners at the school canteen in order to save time. That did not

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mean parents, especially mothers, were exempted from the caring duties. Every little detail of the student’s daily life was being taken care of to maximize time saving for the student. Special attention was paid to enhancing nutrition for the child, who typically was exhausted by study. Some families, especially in cases where the child’s performance was promising for a good university, rent an apartment for the child to stay close to the school. Very often, the mother (or both parents) would then move to live with the child and to look after his/her daily life so as to maximize the child’s study time and to enable a bit more sleep for him/ her. Cencen’s (at the key school) home was located in a newly urbanized area of the Beijing municipality about an hour by bus from the school. Her parents used about half the family income (5,000 yuan) – a rather meager one in Beijing – to rent an apartment close to her school. Her mother explained: It is a big investment for us. But it is worth the while. She also gets a bit more sleep. My husband and I agreed this is what we should use the money for. We can spend less on ourselves. We as parents should make this sacrifice now. Otherwise, we would regret letting our child down (duibuqi haizi). She will not blame us later in her life for not doing our best for her. Earlier she used the bus, but the traffic was too jammed and slow. We bought a car to drive her to school, but the slow traffic and the cost of a car made us think that it is not efficient use of money or time. It was also too ku (bitter) for her. The apartment solution, the mother believed, would also help her daughter balance her mind needed for her effectiveness in study: She dislikes boarding especially since she would have been a latecomer among roommates. She does not like the food at school. All this would affect her mood, hence her study. It was clearly better to rent a place. . . . Studying productively is very crucial in this last year of schooling. . . . With this move I now have to commute about 1 hour one way by bus between the rented place and my workplace. That’s OK. We exhaust our resources for the sake of this one and only child who is also our one and only chance to be parents. Disciplining is another strategy for enhancing study productivity. Disciplined pursuit of excellence may be especially pronounced in China, known as ‘the exemplary society’, also a ‘disciplinary society’ in a Foucauldian sense (Bakken, 2000). The young people and their parents saw use of the Internet for fun and social purposes as detrimental to studying (see also Liu, 2011). Parents normally limited the child’s Internet use and TV watching. Many students found it challenging to discipline themselves in this respect. Some, especially good students, even asked their parents to help. Others, however, especially those not doing so very well at school, might find parental control to be too restrictive, hence occasional conflicts. School, even more so than the home, is a prominent domain for discipline and self-discipline. Like elsewhere in the world, modern Chinese schools are typically

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walled off from the community (Anderson-Levitt, 2005). However, life beyond the school wall may be full of temptations. Signs of rampant consumerism are ubiquitous, especially in the capital city: restaurants, department stores, supermarkets, movie theatres, discos, dance halls, coffee houses, teahouses, Internet cafés, MTV houses and so forth. These easily accessible recreation possibilities cater to the pleasures of the body and encourage ‘experience’ as an end in itself. The daily routine at the schools, which required the student to remain mostly at school cramming for exams, obviously contrasted with the ‘wonderful’ world beyond the school walls. These temptations demanded high institutional disciplining of and self-disciplining from the student. The semi-military management of students at school with gate guards and a highly regimented routine (see also Kipnis, 2011) purported to make students focus maximally on schoolwork within the school wall. Excepting the lunch break, students would normally need permission to exit the school gate. One was not supposed to venture much beyond the school walls, especially in the last year of upper secondary school. It happened that some students occasionally resorted to recreational places just for fun, or to escape from institutional and parental pressures. An example was use of the Internet cafés (Liu, 2011). But typically such students were reproached by others and also reproached themselves for lack of discipline. A few at the ordinary school said that during their first upper secondary school year they ventured into the outside world quite a bit behind their parents’ backs and against their teachers’ efforts to bring them back. But they now were trying to behave better. Leilei was seen as very intelligent by her mother and her teachers. She defined herself as ‘lazy and lacking self-discipline’, at least when it came to schooling (she reportedly displayed high level of self-discipline and diligence in practicing karate). She said: ‘I am now paying a price for my earlier lack of discipline. I just could not control myself.’ She started doing karate in her first upper secondary year and became so fascinated by it that she often skipped school, following her coach (also her idol) around for a whole semester without her mother’s knowledge. Her test results deteriorated. Her mother became extremely disappointed and angry. She said she must correct herself and stop disappointing her mother. At the time of my fieldwork, she was trying hard to catch up with her class in order to stand a chance of testing into a second-tier university, but she might have to accept a third-tier institute. Fangfang liked to follow her own whims. She was described by her mother and by herself as very clever. But ‘it is no good if I cannot control myself’, she said. Several times she just left home and school to follow her favorite band around the country. Once she was in Shanghai without telling her school or parents: ‘It was a very nice feeling. I was just wandering the streets, thinking about nothing, doing nothing. It was drizzling gently. I loved it.’ However, she was left far behind in her studies, causing her divorced single mother to worry greatly and risking not qualifying for even a second-tier university. The mother spent much of her interview talking about this daughter of hers. She blamed herself for not having disciplined the daughter enough, and for not giving enough time and energy to her education.

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The daughter was trying her best to discipline herself: ‘I hate to constrain myself. But I have to. Otherwise, I would regret it later in my life.’ In addition to their strict regulations and tight time schedules, the schools tried to discipline students through the school uniform and other rules related to appearance. Modern schooling is criticized for having been influenced by Descartes’ separation of the mind and the body: as schooling is mainly about education of the mind, the body is often policed to reinforce the education of the mind (Paechter, 2006). This seems to apply to China too, where there is a common understanding among educators, parents and students themselves that too much attention to one’s appearance will distract from study. Like most other Chinese schools, my informants’ schools required students to wear school uniforms – typically unisex, baggy and high-cut clothes. At both schools, students were supposed to wear it as long as they were at school. Girls were not supposed to use makeup or adornments. High heels were forbidden. Boys’ hair must be cut to no more than an inch. Girls were also encouraged to have short hair, and long hair must not hang loose or cover the eyebrows. There was occasional checking. If caught, one would be criticized or even fined, and rectification must be shown. Sometimes, the school inspector went around with a pair of scissors to cut students’ hair if it was not up to the standards. The uniform and related rules were meant to dampen social disparities demonstrated through clothes and adornments. This practice agrees with the Chinese socio-political context in which ‘social harmony’ is advocated and with the emphasis in both the traditional culture and communist collectivism on conformity rather than difference. It is also supposed to have a ‘degendering’ effect by minimizing or covering sex differences in appearance. Whereas there was resistance, especially among students who were not doing well at school, the young people I interviewed largely internalize the norm about the school uniform. As I shall show in Chapter 6, this kind of disciplining was also actively embraced by the young women, especially ‘good students’, as a degendering strategy in their negotiation of ‘modern’ womanhood. It seemed that the better one’s school performance was, the more one tended to internalize this norm. This agrees with Shaw’s (1996) finding about Taiwanese high school students in the 1980s: besides good school performance, conformity to group standards is what defines a good student. However, while reinforcing conformity within the school, the school uniform, typically with the school name on it, meanwhile serves as a status marker as it distinguishes students from different schools. Much of the ongoing discipling for greater study productivity was also targeted at young people’s school romance. Chinese parents and teachers typically oppose adolescent romance, calling it ‘precocious love’ (zaolian) and seeing it as detrimental to a young person’s general development, particularly his/her academic advancement (Li et al., 2010). Reflective of the shift in values among youth since the 1990s (Farrer, 2002), the young people interviewed endorsed school romance as just natural and normal, and all but a few reported having had romantic relationships during their school years and/or currently having a boyfriend or girlfriend.

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Some interviewees from the key school said that teachers tried to break up pairs. ‘The other day another pair was summoned for a talk by our head teacher. The girl came back to the classroom, weeping,’ said Linlin. Teachers might contact parents if they discovered romance. The parents interviewed all showed concern about their children having a romance. Successfully preventing their children from getting involved in such a scenario was part of ‘the parenting art’ that they talked about. They had typically been trying to prevent, or at least discourage, their daughters and sons from romance, urging them to wait till they enter daxue. Even those who were reportedly open-minded about this kept cautioning their children not to go too far: ‘It is OK as long as it does not affect your study and as long as you do not break the bottom line (meaning having sex).’ Parents would interfere if they detected dating; and some young people said that their parents were very sensitive to any sign of it. Linyu (at the key school) had a romance in grade one of upper secondary school. He said: ‘My mother would spy on our text messages on my cell phone. I took care to delete all contents, but in case I forgot to do that, it would be disastrous for me if she found out.’ Dawei, at the ordinary school, who was secretly fond of a girl who had not yet responded to his confession, said: I was surprised that my mother found out about my secret. I wonder how she found out. She had a serious talk to me, telling me that my main task now is to study: ‘You should do the right thing at the right time. Wait until university.’ There was thus a tension between adults’ disapproval, or at least discouragement, of school romance on the one hand and young people’s normalization of it on the other. Moreover, young people themselves were not without concern that their romance might well affect their school performance, and hence their future prospects. In Chapter 7, I shall show how this complexity is being played out in the young people’s narratives about their other-sex relations. There I shall show even if young people widely endorsed school love as normal and natural, and many did practice it, they had to adapt theirs to the exemplary schooled society culture of China, for example, by practicing what can be called ‘rational love’. Thus students’ self-discipline and the institutional and parental discipline reinforce each other in suppressing individual expression and desires for the sake of enhancing scholarly productivity and excellence. Self-discipline has always been seen as crucial for academic or other achievement, but it seems especially crucial for today’s young people in the context of the increasing temptations, consumerism and individualism that exist alongside the high pressure for academic achievement in the Chinese schooled society with its ‘exemplary norm’. Schooling is ‘bitter’ but ‘worth the while’: students as utilitarian individualists Exhaustion, boredom, frustration, anxiety, stress and lack of leisure, sleep and rest were common experiences, especially among those doing well at school. For most

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of the young interviewees, upper secondary schooling, especially its last year, was little less than mental and physical torture. Hanying, a key-school student who was aiming at Beida, said: Bitter (ku). This kind of life is too bitter. I will never study again once I get into university. . . . I fall asleep on the way even though the driving is only about 20 minutes. I fall asleep while doing homework and taking class. I am always sleepy. I always feel bored in class. I asked my classmates. They feel the same. Yu (at the key school), who was aiming at a first-tier university of much lower rank than Beida, said: ‘It feels like someone is whipping you all the time. I hate this kind of life.’ This is nothing new to people who are familiar with what it means to prepare for the gaokao, which is a test of one’s mental and physical capabilities (Cockain, 2012). A couple of the informants did say that the experience can become an asset since it hardens one’s will. The gaokao may also later be a collective memory for young people who took it in the same year to claim a group identity as people who endured hardship or chiku (literally, ate bitterness; endured hardship or suffering) to counter the widespread negative stereotype of the only child generation (Cockain, 2012) as lacking such experiences or qualities. Another way to rationalize was expressed by Xuexu (at the ordinary school): Who likes school? It would be a lie to claim that one likes this kind of schooling. However, what else is there to do? I feel luckier than rural youth who have to rely on themselves from a young age to make a living in the city. When I see how they live, I feel it is better to go to school. Most of them, however, could not help uttering their negative feelings about the gaokao. Many criticized China’s exam-oriented education system for killing creativity and cultivating a narrow focus on exams in a few subjects based on rote learning – criticism often made in the media. They felt trapped in a very problematic institution. Given the possible function of nostalgia in helping people cope with difficult circumstances, it may not be surprising that my informants often romanticized their childhood, as also noted in previous research on China’s only child generation (Liu, 2011). For such youth, nostalgia is a response to the overwhelming pressure of schooling and the labor market. Regardless of gender, childhood for the young generation was largely about cultivation of all-round and high suzhi, which often deprived them of free play. Nonetheless, these young people looked nostalgically back to their childhood as a very happy time. For many, the greatest regret in life was ‘not having played more’ during their earlier years, when there was more free time to play. They were all looking forward to the summer vacation right after the gaokao to do the playing that they said a young person is entitled to, but they themselves had been deprived of. Typical remarks were: ‘I

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am determined to make up for the lost time’ and ‘I will see all the movies I like.’ This is a story about ‘youth with regret’. The young people also romanticized the future, as another reaction to the stress caused by schooling and to motivate themselves for educational success. Linchao, a key-school boy who wished to enter the best medical university in China, said when he was stressed and exhausted by schoolwork, he would devote a whole study hall period to fantasize with his desk mate about their ‘good life’ in the future. They felt re-energized for work by such fantasizing. Especially among boys under great expectation to achieve great accomplishment (to be shown further in Chapter 5), there was often a wish to retire from working life at the earliest possible time in order to relax and enjoy what they like doing but had no time for it when young. The future ‘good life’ for them, then, ‘must be relaxing. One must have time to oneself and to have fun’, as they put it. But this vision of the ‘good life’ was also shared by their female counterparts. Jingjing, a top student at the key school, wished to live an easy life without needing to work. A rich husband would enable her to do all the things she wanted to do but had got no time for, such as reading her favorite books, practicing yoga and traveling. She said: ‘I don’t like hard work. I don’t want to use my brains. I just want to relax and do what I like.’ And yet, one must persist. After all, all this effort is a worthy investment for one’s future. ‘It will pay off’, many asserted. Or, as Yangyang (at the key school) said: ‘One must have the capital first before one can talk about other things.’ Beneath all the romanticizing of both the past and the future is the pragmatic self, typical of Chinese only children referred to as ‘dismal pragmatists’ (Yan, 2006). They typically practice ‘utilitarian individualism’ (Bellah et al., 2008) by enduring hardships, suppressing individual expression and deferring gratification.

Conclusion Dramatic changes took place in young people’s relationship to schooling over the three generations. Against the backdrop of transformation in conditions of life over the three generations, education – especially higher education, has gained paramount importance for the young generation. With this generation has risen the daxue (university/college) generation. Given all the perceived importance and benefits of higher education, the competition for university entry has high stakes for urban youth and their families. Going to higher education has become a characteristic of ‘normative youth’ and ‘getting into a prestigious university’ represents the ‘exemplary young personhood’. The cultural faith in education has become turned into a popular belief in higher education. Therefore, becoming a person without a university degree is a ‘feared future self’ that young people, supported by their families, tried hard to avoid. Thus, intensity and centrality and a hegemonic norm of academic excellence characterized the young generation’s schooling experiences. The contrast with their grandparents’ talk of lack and irrelevance of education when they were young is extreme. It is also a far cry from the experiences of their parents, for whom

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daxue and even zhongzhuan was for a small number of top students. Compared with the grandparents, schooling and educational success had become much more important and accessible for the middle generation when they were young. But their narratives also commonly conveyed a relaxed attitude to schooling – in contrast to the great pressure and conscious effort for high educational achievement and attainment in the young generation. These dramatic changes in China merit the label of an educational and cultural revolution bringing about an epitome of what Baker (2014) calls the ‘schooled society’, which he perceived as an emerging globally pervasive trend. The schooled society is characterized by a vast expansion in education provision and by concomitant cultural and institutional norms that strongly affect how and what we are. In such a society, Baker (2014) argues: Concepts of the self, along with understandings of personal failure and success, are increasingly defined by the logic of education, as are mechanisms to ensure a normal life. And all types of traditional ways for individuals to find a place in society have been supplanted by the logic behind academic degrees. (Baker, 2014, p. xv) The Chinese schooled society has been intensifying since the 1980s with China’s new project of modernization, education modernization being a crucial part of this national project. Schooling and reverence for it have a long history in China, but throughout its long history access to schooling has been extremely limited except for the last two generations covered by this study. The emergence of a schooled society in China reflects global educational trends in keeping with the world culture theory (Meyer et al., 1997). But the global schooled society culture is not simplistically singular. It exists along with many local sources of meaning (Baker and LeTendre, 2005). In this sense, there are as many schooled societies as there are countries. It may not be overstated that the Chinese case represents an intensified version of the schooled society. It seems that in few other societies is the schooled society culture so intense and widespread, and so keenly felt by young people and their families, as in post-Mao China (although cross-cultural comparisons are needed to assess this statement). This has to be viewed against the specific post-Mao circumstances featuring relentless competition for life chances, individualization without a sound, state-provided safety net, changed notions of the good life and the educated person, commercialization and massification of higher education, the one-child policy, vastly improved material conditions, and parents’ ‘compensation desire’. The intense schooled society culture also fits an unusually long-standing tradition of strong legitimacy and reverence for education and scholarship (Cleverley, 1991; Kipnis, 2011; Lauglo, 1999; Smith, 1991; Weber, 1951). Smith (1991) notes: So ingrained in the psychology of the Chinese is the value of education that it is often characterized as the true religion of the people. . . . In the west,

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the foundation of civilization, at least since the early Middle Ages, has been religion; in China, education has played this part in the people’s moral and ethical lives and has continuously been the ballast for social evolution. (p. 9) The emphasis on academic excellence, hence mediocrity phobia, in the Chinese case also reflects the emphasis on exemplarity, or the exemplary norm, in Chinese culture, in contrast to average norms (Bakken, 2000; Dawson, 1915). The Confucian ‘ideal personhood’ embodies a strong emphasis on self-cultivation through education and the exemplary norm: one is supposed to aim at constant self-improvement and at the best (Dawson, 1915). The exemplary norm goes together with a cultural model of success based on unyielding effort. The market norm for competition, the schooled society culture and the Chinese exemplary norm may have reinforced each other to result in a hegemonic belief in academic excellence. The schooled society’s emphasis on cognitive skills for modern personhood may, in China, also have been reinforced by a cultural belief that mental work is superior to manual work. Confucius is known to have looked down upon manual work and practical skills. Widely circulating sayings include ‘Those who work with their mind rule and those with their hands are ruled.’ and ‘Everything else is of low value and grade. Only reading books is above all else.’ This fits the schooled society culture that Baker (2014) has described. The unique one-child policy has also greatly contributed to the intense desire for education. With the newfound resources, only child parents typically invest heavily in the education of their one and only child – girl as well as boy – also their only hope, not only to secure the best possible future for the young but also very often trying to make up for the older generations’ sense of their own cultural and material deprivations during their own childhood and youth, and in some cases also to secure better old-age care for themselves. Thus, although the emergence of a schooled society seems to be a nationwide phenomenon, its culture may be most intensely felt in the urban only child families, many of which have joined the main body of China’s middle class. The young generation’s schooling experiences and their aspirations and even expectations for high educational achievement indicate their status and subject position as the new aspiring individual of post-Mao urban China with a desire to maximize life and the self. In the following three chapters, I shall show how gender affects the young men’s and young women’s identity construction as such a new subject.

Notes 1 See MoE’s (Ministry of Education) statistics on student enrollments at various levels for various years. Website: www.moe.edu.cn. 2 I came across a few aquaintances on Beijing University’s campus in spring 2018. They were touring their primary school kids there before they would tour Qinghua University.

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Chapter 5

The aspiring male individual The rise of chenggong as a new hegemonic masculine ideal

‘I hope that my chenggong (success; outstanding accomplishment) in some years will make you proud to have met me.’ Thus Peng (at the ordinary school) bid me farewell at the end of an interview in which he elaborated plans and strategies for becoming a successful entrepreneur. He repeatedly invoked chenggong. This term was also much used by the other young men interviewed, including a few who felt less confident about themselves or did not expect any unusual accomplishment. Thus chenggong has become a new masculine ideal that seems to have gained hegemonic power. This sharply contrasts with their grandfathers, for whom thoughts about ‘great achievement’ were reportedly absent during their youth and who as young men felt bound to guorizi (literally, ‘passing the days’; getting by in a livelihood; making ends meet). It also contrasts with the fathers who said they had few ideals, ambitions or goals for high achievement when they were young. This chapter will explore how being a young man has changed with China’s recent dramatic social transformation. There are multiple masculinities in a society. Some are more prestigious and more associated with power (Carrigan, Connell and Lee, 1985). The most culturally endorsed masculinity has been referred to as ‘hegemonic’ because its high legitimacy gives power to define the world and win the consent of both heterosexual women and subaltern men. ‘Hegemony’ implies that the masculine hierarchy need not be based on force. ‘Cultural consent, discursive centrality, institutionalization, and the marginalization or delegitimation of alternatives are widely documented features of socially dominant masculinities’ (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005, p. 846). Hegemonic masculinity embodies the most honored way of being a man. It need not be the commonest pattern in daily life. Only a minority of men may succeed in enacting it. However, hegemonic masculinity is certainly strongly normative and requires all men to position themselves in relation to it. Any specification of it typically involves formulation of cultural ideals (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005). Hegemony is partly expressed in exemplars of admired masculinity (e.g., sports stars) and authority symbols. Hegemonic masculinities emerge in specific circumstances and are open to historical change resulting from women’s resistance to patriarchy and men’s practice of alternative masculinities (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005).

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The content of hegemonic masculinity thus varies with time and place (Chen, 1999, p. 587). Moreover, more recently research reveals an expanded range of culturally legitimized masculinities in contemporary societies (e.g., Anderson and McCormack, 2018; Roberts, 2018), which challenges the notion of ‘hegemonic masculinity’. Nevertheless, it may not be overstated that in many contexts the various masculinities remain hierarchically ranked. Given the centrality of exemplary norms for constructing ideal personhood in China (Bakken, 2000; Dawson, 1915) and the hierarchical nature of Chinese society, the notion of hegemonic masculinity fits the Chinese case well. Exemplary norms also matter for masculinities and femininities; and such gender norms have been pronounced in most historical periods in China. Gender ideals are constructed in relation to hierarchical differentiation of persons, thus serving as means of both social control and social distinction. How one internalizes, complies with, or resists the exemplary gender norms reflects a person’s social position. Chinese masculinity has attracted scholarly attention since the beginning of the 21st century, but analysis has mainly referred to pre-modern literary texts, historical and cultural icons, and official and popular media, prioritizing ideology and discourse over experience. Exploring how gender discourses are enacted by individuals and groups ‘is, however, necessary if we are to consider masculinity as more than a set of abstract codes, and if we are to pursue a properly grounded notion of “identity” which includes autobiographical experience’ (Roper, 2005, p. 345). This chapter explores normative prescriptions, self-perceptions and personal experiences in the narratives by young men who are members of China’s post1990s cohort of the only child generation, to contribute to a more empirically grounded understanding of contemporary Chinese masculinities. It poses these questions: What ideals do they have? What kind of masculine subject position are they adopting? How does it relate to who they are and who they wish to become, and to the general masculine hierarchy in today’s China? How do their narratives about being a man compare with those of their grandfathers and fathers when they were young?

Changing masculinity ideals The post-Mao social transformation has greatly undermined the legitimacy of the Maoist masculine ideal as well as the traditional wen-wu ideal (Hinsch, 2013; Song and Hird, 2014), although revolutionary and traditional discourses are sometimes invoked in defining ‘modern Chinese masculinities’ (Song and Hird, 2014). With China’s economic reform and opening up to the outside world since the late 1970s, male images have become increasingly diversified and hybridized (Hinsch, 2013; Song and Hird, 2014). But not all forms are equally valued. Hegemonic masculine practice is characterized by sex differentiation, heterosexuality, virility, consumerism and achievement of status, power and wealth.

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In the 1980s the cultural elite criticized Mao’s radical policies for erasing humanity and individuality. There was a revival of humanist and individualist perspectives, especially concerning gender and sexuality (Baranovitch, 2003). Themes of love, gender and sexuality flourished. There was a widely voiced desire among men, especially the cultural elite, to redefine themselves as free and autonomous subjects. They argued that Maoist gender ideology had alienated both sexes from their ‘true nature’ and that the gender-sameness policies, the state’s alliance with women’s emancipation and tight political control had emasculated men by stifling their personal ambition and creativity. Maoist socialism was criticized for feminizing men while masculinizing women. Such criticism led to a search for ‘the real man’ and ‘the real woman’ based on a discourse of ‘natural sex differences’ reminiscent of traditional gender-role expectations. Growing individualism, the one-child policy and global cultural influences have enhanced the opportunity and motivation for personal achievement among both men and women. Girls often outperform boys in education (Farrar, 2012). Slightly more years of education may be projected for girls than for boys according to UNDP estimates based on Chinese official enrollment statistics (UNDP, 2016). Nevertheless, the normative value for a woman still mainly lies in wifehood and motherhood and for a man in his achievement (Evans, 2002, 2008; Jankowiak, 2002). Although in most cases both husband and wife are required to contribute to the family economy, the revived gender roles coupled with the relative disadvantage confronting women in the labor market tend to define ‘breadwinning’ as mainly a male role in the post-Mao market economy, which has seen the fading of the ‘iron rice bowl’ and the state’s withdrawal from family welfare provision (Zuo and Bian, 2001). The reconstruction of masculine ideals in present-day China may also have been influenced by expressions of anxiety about the ‘quality of Chinese men’ and the rising nationalism since the 1990s. With China’s re-entering the larger international arena, its economic and political position in the world was again seen as based on the quality of Chinese men, reminiscent of the ‘masculine crisis’ in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Song and Hird, 2014). The renewed search for ‘manly’ men was reflected in media discussions (Louie, 2012; Lu, 2000; Song and Hird, 2014; Zheng, 2015), music (Baranovitch, 2003), and films and TVdrama series (Song, 2010). The ‘tough man’ ideal derives inspiration from foreign (mainly Western) images of tough, strong and virile men in the media, as well as from Chinese revolutionary and traditional masculine ideals (Song and Hird, 2014). The concern about manhood is also shown in laments about effeminate boys lacking in toughness (Liu, 2006b) and about feminine men referred to as ‘fake women’ (weiniang), perceived as disgusting and destructive of social order (Zheng, 2015). The toughness of a ‘real man’ is not merely about physique, for the real man must acquire modern attitudes and competence. The powerful driving force for the discourse of desirable masculinity is a new capitalist economy that emphasizes masculine entrepreneurial spirit (Zheng, 2015). ‘As productivity and consumerist

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values gradually and unmistakably replaced the Maoist legacy of class and class struggle in the official ideology, the selfless and asexual Maoist revolutionary hero lost his audience allure’ (Song and Hird, 2014, p. 8). The modern male value system promotes new heroes embodying accomplishment in line with individualism rather than communism (Jankowiak, 2002). The emphasis on wealth and consumer power in the post-Mao male ideal has been repeatedly noted in research (Chen, 2002; Farrer, 2002; Louie, 2002; Osburg, 2013; Song and Lee, 2010; Song and Hird, 2014; Zhang, 2010). In short, the growing body of research on post-Mao Chinese masculinity shows that although globalization, liberalization and individualization have created space for alternative masculinities, and male images in popular culture have become increasingly plural (see, e.g., Louie, 2012 on the popularity of girlie boys and boyish girls), it is the highly accomplished, virile and white-collar professional who embodies ‘hegemonic masculinity’. As such it becomes an unusually strong norm that all men should emulate and its hegemonic status renders other possible masculinities inferior. However, and as with any other hegemonic masculinity, how one enacts this ideal and the extent of its possible achievement will vary greatly. A question worth pursuing is how men of different social groups appropriate this ideal in constructing modern manhood. This chapter explores how young men from the post-1990s only child generation enact the exemplary gender norm which emphasizes individual excellence and achievement, and how in doing so they may revise as well as perpetuate the Chinese masculinity hierarchy. Few studies have examined how only children young men construct gender within this overall sociocultural context and in relation to their women counterparts who are also under great pressure for high individual achievement. I show that their construction of masculinity revolves around the importance of chenggong (success; outstanding accomplishment). Chenggong denotes the most prestigious masculinity. All desire it but not all can attain it. It is perceived as the prerequisite for ‘real’ and ‘desirable’ manhood in its various manifestations. Its asserted importance for all interviewees indicates that the chenggong ideal has achieved exemplary and hence hegemonic status for them. Striving for a position which is worthy, complete and superior in the social order as ordained by the exemplary norm of chenggong entails great effort and sacrifice. Before showing the rise of chenggong as a new masculine ideal in the young generation, I shall provide a brief account of what it meant for the grandfathers and fathers to be men when they were young to highlight the generational change.

The grandfathers: ‘No such thoughts’ When asked about childhood and youth ideals or ambitions for themselves, the grandfathers unanimously reported that they had no such ideas. To be sure, many of them, like their female counterparts, were influenced by Maoist idealism. But the type of personal individualistic achievement ideals and goals which

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were common among their grandchildren, were reportedly absent. Individualistic ambitions and ideals were rendered irrelevant or impossible either by the struggle for survival, or by political conditioning, or both. There was simply not much room for that kind of imagination or idealism. As they put it, ‘there was no precondition for such thoughts’ or ‘no way out’ – expressions of helplessness and of ‘being trapped’. They stressed that ‘people were very jiandan (simple-minded and simple-hearted) at that time.’ As shown throughout this book, jiandan, which denotes ‘simpleness/simplicity’ or ‘singleness’ of both the mind and the heart – as well as simple (and even shabby) material conditions – was used by both the grandfathers and grandmothers to characterize their mentality and experiences in various respects of life. This commonality despite the effect of gender reflects their ‘generational location’, in Mannheim’s (1952) term. The periods of the grandparents’ youth ranged from the mid-1940s to the late 1960s. They all said life was ‘bitter’ at that time – a perception sharpened by their comparison with present-day life. The grandfathers, like the grandmothers, emphasized that life was all about guorizi (literally, ‘passing the days’; getting by in a livelihood; making ends meet), in their words. Especially the way they used it, guorizi conveys a sense of the mundane, everyday routine. It was also about the practical and pragmatic way of making ends meet and keeping life going by satisfying one’s most basic needs. It was thus about survival. Guorizi, especially as this generation experienced it, seldom allowed for any excitement, luxury or great ambitions. Guorizi was not an individualistic notion; it was about how to sustain one’s family life, which was no easy task under conditions of low productivity, multiple siblings (sometimes also aging parents) to feed, widespread poverty and sometimes natural disasters, wars and strong political control. Two things were most important for young men during this generation’s youth, both revolving about guorizi. In keeping with the traditional familial norms, one important marker of normative transition to adulthood for youth was getting a wife as early as possible in order to have children, especially sons, to carry on the family line, as a strong part of being filial to their parents and ancestors. Getting a wife also meant adding an important contributor to guorizi. In most families the wife was expected to be a capable hand in manual labor as well as in housework. She was also expected to be a dutiful daughter-in-law. Despite the wife’s multiple roles, the norm was that once married, the man’s role was to yangjia hukou, which literally means ‘provide for his family and feed their mouths’, while the woman’s role was caochi jiawu, which means managing housework and domestic affairs. Men’s role as main provider was undermined by Maoist gender ideology that called on women to work like men in income-generating production. But the gendered expectations of husband and wife remained strong. Children and youth were socialized to assume their gendered roles as early as possible. The norm of getting married as soon as one reached a marriageable age (depending on the historical period of one’s youth) was strong, even for those who spent their youth under Maoism that discouraged early marriage and condemned traditional gender roles. Some said: ‘For a man the most important were three tasks: getting a wife,

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building a house and having children.’ However, some postponed their marriages to their late twenties due to preoccupation with revolutionary work or simply due to lack of the necessary precondition for marriage. Closely related to the family goal of getting a wife was the necessity for young men to start contributing to family livelihood as early as possible. In both the countryside and the city, young men typically started working in their middle or late teens (some even earlier). Those who were in the countryside were engaged in manual labor. Toil was the order of the day under conditions of poverty, primitive tools, poor lands or collective farming under Maoism. Shortage of food and starvation were not unusual. Being handy and useful were valued traits in men (as in women). As teenagers, many of them were also helpers with housework as well as hardworking farmhands. One was supposed to be useful in whatever ways needed for the family’s guorizi in the harsh, self-sustaining rural life. This could sometimes deviate from a strictly gendered division of labor. It was possible for a small number of rural young men to get an urban job in the 1950s to help with the construction of the capital city after the founding of the PRC, which was viewed as a good fortune because one could then have a regular salary – albeit only a meager one – to help with his family back at home. Bingzhong, who got a job as a gardener in Beijing upon graduation from primary school, had to remit most of his 30 yuan monthly salary to his family of two grandparents, two parents and six siblings to help them guorizi. Urban young men typically got factory jobs. Those who had had urban work talked about gongzuo, which evokes a modern notion of a ‘job’. It was also mainly manual work. Chiku nailao (enduring hardship, sufferings and hard work), wusi (selflessness) and renlao renyuan (accepting hard work and unfairness or complaints) were desirable traits in men (and women), qualities conducive to guorizi both in the countryside and the city. Endorsement of these qualities became reinforced under Maoism. Jianku pusu (a hard and plain life) was praised and one was to show selflessness in contributing to the socialist construction rather than to one’s own family, as reflected in the notion of dagong wusi (acting selflessly for the collective cause) and ‘defying both hardships and death’ (yibu paku, erbu pasi). Like many women interviewees from this generation, many men were influenced by this socialist-revolutionary ideal, especially those spending their youth in the city. Being a factory worker under the new socialism meant unconditionally obeying job assignments by the Party, being bent on doing well in one’s job, and aiming for exemplary productivity and loyalty to the Party. It would be a great honor to get recognition for such exemplarity, especially for being named a ‘model worker’. Fenglin responded to the Party’s call to join the army while working in a Beijing factory because he was jiji (enthusiastic about and active in contributing to the socialist-revolutionary cause), which delayed his finding a wife and getting married. Liupu talked about unconditionally accepting a job assigned to him in a city far away from home and in much harsher conditions. Joining the Party was also seen as indicative of youth progressiveness and upward political-social mobility. As Zhuyu said: ‘One was to go upward, not downward.’ Chunrong at

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age 17 became a factory worker in Beijing where he was born. He soon became a level-8 grinder with many apprentices – the highest achievement in the system. He was also an amateur poet dedicated to praising socialist workers through his poetry. To learn to write poems, he read hundreds of literary books on top of his work that started early in the morning and ended late at night. He said that he got the moral strength from the main character Pavel Korchagin, the main character in the Soviet novel How the Steel Was Tempered: I had no opportunity to read books when I was younger. I borrowed the book and read it. I was determined that I must learn from Pavel: defying both hardship and death. I would not give up even if I would have to vomit blood or face death. Finally I tempered myself into a poet! In short, these grandfathers’ narratives about their youth were framed not by individualistic ideals, ambitions or goals but by an ethos of self-sacrifice and the ability to endure hardship either out of necessity due to poverty and other constraints or influenced by ideals of selfless contribution to the collectivist cause of Maoist socialism. One was supposed to live a largely prescribed life of labor or work and establishing a family, and above all, guorizi. Possible selves for young people were mainly farmers like their own parents or factory workers. They also stressed that the typical jiandan of their generation meant lack of complex desires and thoughts, including ideals.

The fathers: ‘No ideals, nor ambitions’ The middle generation’s youth in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s coincided with the early stage of the post-Mao reform and opening up. The life chances and range of possible selves for youth were expanding thanks to improved material and educational conditions, market choice and greater individual freedom, multiplying cultural influences and rising individualism. It also coincided with the post-Mao reassessment of the Maoist gender ideology, which was criticized for alienating both men and women from their ‘true’ nature. Chinese men were to reassume their main provider role, allegedly lost during the Cultural Revolution. Exemplary masculinity was increasingly associated with individual accomplishment, not least in the form of entrepreneurial endeavor and financial strength. Accompanying this change was a growing desire for personal happiness and selfrealization, especially among young people. The older generation’s notion of just guorizi was challenged and increasingly replaced by a desire for guo hao rizi (living a ‘good life’). The young people, men as well as women, were no longer content to live their parents’ kind of life with little social and geographical mobility, much poverty and toil. This is reminiscent of the post-war generation in Norway (Øia and Vestel, 2014). In other words, in a context of expanding choices and opportunities for education and livelihood, life was no longer to be mainly about struggling for, and getting by in, a livelihood. Maoist Puritan and non-materialistic

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values were replaced by a widespread desire for moneymaking and material comfort, which was to rely on individualistic efforts and achievement. The informants adopted a series of strategies in order to achieve the ‘better life’ or the ‘adequately good life’, depending on a host of biographical, social and economic factors and in keeping with the then opportunity structure. As mentioned in Chapter 4, some, especially those doing well in school, tried to test into a technical-vocational school (zhongzhuan) or even into higher education (daxue) to acquire a professional urban job, which was an elite route for the very top performers. Zhongzhuan or daxue would enable youth to escape rural life – a great achievement at that time. It would also guarantee a good (mental or technical, and relatively lucrative) job for urban youth. Joining the army was also an option, which often went with Party membership. Haichen from the countryside joined the army after lower secondary school and was assigned a job in Beijing upon retirement from the army. One could be assigned an urban job upon retirement from the army, especially if one became a leader in the army. One would at least be prioritized in the selection of village leaders, who in post-Mao China typically do not participate much in agricultural work and are treated as salary-earning public servants. However, only a minority could join the army, perhaps not so much because the army had rather selective requirements regarding educational level, physique and political soundness, which was also true. But in the countryside, joining the army meant one would be taken away from farm work for a few years, which in turn meant labor loss for the family when Deng’s reform returned farming responsibilities to individual households. Parents might therefore be unwilling to send their sons to the army. In the city, it would mean loss of a few years’ income. Moreover, the market economy, which encouraged moneymaking and opened up possibilities for creative ways of livelihood, rendered joining the army (and taking education, even striving for zhongzhuan or daxue) less attractive for many young people. By the same token, joining the CCP seemed to be less popular for this generation of youth than for the previous generation. However, some did so, especially those who went to zhongzhuan and daxue, which may indicate persistent popularity of Party membership among some youth at that time, not necessarily for political identification, but definitely for a plus in one’s personal file (geren dangan) (see Bakken, 2000), with implications for job assignment and career advancement. Making money and getting rich became the main attraction for many young men. This reflects the increasing valuation of male financial strength and the widespread sense of financial insecurity in the new market economy in which men were to reassume their role as the main provider. Making money also became necessary in a context where poverty was still prevalent and appeared increasingly unacceptable when the good life was increasingly more visible through the expanding media. Or as Hanlin put it, ‘it was still urgent to meet one’s basic survival needs.’ But increasingly, it was not only about satisfying basic needs, but about ‘getting rich’ (zhifu), which was encouraged by the state’s slogan ‘it is honorable to get rich’ (zhifu guangrong). The men recalled that everyone at that

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time wished to become a 10,000-yuan household (wanyuan huer), which would not only eradicate household poverty but also enable a wealthy life. Thus, it would be a great accomplishment – or as Guojun, who tested into a university from a village and later got a PhD, said: A whole family’s income for a whole year was only about 100–200 yuan then. Think about the temptation of 10,000 yuan. It would have sounded like at least a millionaire in today’s terms. I was determined to become one if I had failed to enter university. Thus there was much enthusiasm for making money by starting as early as possible in life and as directly and efficiently as possible. The middle-generation men who did not enter zhongzhuan or daxue all did business as young men, or what they called gan geti (running one’s private business), ranging from peddling wares to running a small shop and establishing one’s own company. A couple of them gave up their regular jobs in order to become entrepreneurs, showing ambition and boldness for economic success – a phenomenon known as xiahai (literally ‘jumping into the sea’) in post-Mao China. Yusheng became successful by starting with trading goods with a truck and later opening a factory for artificial flowers. But most of them came to understand that it was difficult to earn money in the fiercely competitive market and that it would have been better if one had gone for a professional career, hence their regret for not obtaining higher education qualifications. As one was approaching the age of marriage (early to mid-twenties), one was also to settle down to a more stable life by taking up a regular job, often much less paid, but more stable. Doing business, especially by transporting goods between different places, was risky and it often meant irregular routine due to the constant required traveling, which was deemed unconducive to family life, which may reflect the emerging emphasis on ‘happy conjugal life’ for this generation. With their varied youth experiences, some saw themselves as having achieved very little. Others thought that they achieved what was in their time viewed as great accomplishments such as becoming wanyuanhuer or testing into zhongzhuan or daxue. However, when asked about their achievement ambitions, ideals and goals when they were young, they typically claimed that they ‘had no ideals, nor ambitions’. Some said that they lacked goals for life. Hanlin, who went to a top university against his parents’ wish that he should just enter zhongzhuan due to family financial constraints, said: ‘No such complex thoughts then. I just wished to find a good job. I did not think much.’ Rarely did one intend to achieve anything ‘big’, in their words. Guojun, who achieved a PhD, did it when he was in his thirties, motivated not only by his urge for more knowledge, but more importantly for getting a ‘better’ job. Moreover, those who made it to zhongzhuan or daxue were quite pragmatic in their choice of subjects and schools, focusing on what would lead to a lucrative job, or what was more accessible, rather than on personal interests. Whatever one did when young was, thus, mainly about making

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a living, although what counted as a living had changed compared with the older generation’s notion of guorizi. They did not count theirs as ideals or ambitions from the vantage point of today. They typically saw themselves as rather commonplace and hoped that their own sons would accomplish something. They explained that their lack of high achievement ambitions, ideals and goals was because people at that time were typically ‘innocent, simple-minded and ignorant’; they simply did not have so many complex ideas. This recollected ‘lack’ concerned not only schooling but also life in general. Guangkui, an upper secondary school graduate, said: ‘I did not think so much about my future. Every­ body I knew was playing. I did not have many thoughts, unlike young people today. I just started to work at 17.’ Hanlin said: ‘I wanted to test into a university, but I did not know why, neither did I know what subject to choose. I did not think much about it. All was done intuitively (ping ganjue).’ He regretted not having taken postgraduate studies. Wangde, a lower secondary school graduate said: ‘I had no ideals. Young people just typically spent their days without high aims at that time.’ The men emphasized that individualistic ideals and imaginations were still rather limited due to the historical conditions in which they were coming of age, which in turn conditioned their thoughts about their possible selves. They attributed their alleged lack of complex thoughts, particularly achievement ideals and goals, to their parents’ failure to inculcate such ideas in them due to the parents’ low education level, preoccupation with survival and lack of sophisticated thoughts. They also emphasized that society was still rather closed (fengbi) at that time, so there was very limited access to images of alternative lives that would have required great ideals or ambitions. More importantly, they argued that their generation’s jiandan (simple-mindedness and simple-heartedness) had to with the material constraints at that time – a view in keeping with a Maslowian understanding of motivation: that satisfaction of basic material needs serves as a prerequisite for developing more complex needs. Guangshan, who grew up in Beijing and who self-studied to be an accountant after graduating from upper secondary school, said: ‘People were living a very simple material life. The electric light and the radio were the only electronic apparatuses. Nothing else. So we were very simple-minded with few thoughts about our future.’ The importance of material precondition for ideals and ambitions is further exemplified in the narrative by Youren, who grew up in a village outside (and now part) of Beijing: I had no ideals. I stopped schooling at the end of the second grade in lower secondary school. . . . Who did not wish to jump out of the countryside then? However, there was no way out. Doing housework and toiling in the field to help my parents left little time for study. We were very poor. I had to help. For parents in those days, the most important was that the child be capable of labor. . . . The quality of our schooling was also very poor. Very rarely did anyone test into a zhongzhuan, let alone daxue. So I was not motivated. I lost interest in school, especially after a fire accident that burned the only suit of

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winter clothes I had; and my family could not afford to buy me new clothes. It was too cold to go out. There was once an opportunity for him to escape rural life and even to do what he really loved to do, but he had to give it up: I was good at singing. Once the Central Music Institute was selecting young talents. I entered for the test. The institute said they would come to fetch me. But it rained next day and they never came. The road was too bad. I was for many hours waiting for their vehicle in the rain at the school gate. . . . I could by no means walk there myself. . . . I had borrowed clothes to dress up for the occasion. . . . It is a lifelong regret. No way out. We were poor at that time. After dropping out of school he did ‘almost everything’ to earn money such as peddling fruit and vegetables with a four-wheeled cart or with a rented truck, and with very low pay, being an apprentice to a tile layer. He did not want to become a tile layer. It was his father’s idea. Eventually he returned to his village to get married and do agricultural work and became a village leader. Thus, many of the men stressed the lack of possibility for any great achievement ideals or ambitions when they were young. But some of them, especially those who failed to enter zhongzhuan or daxue, tended to blame themselves for their ‘failure’ on their own taiwaner (self-indulgent playing), the opposite of diligence. Shangwu, a lower secondary graduate, said that if he could live his life all over again, he would definitely work hard to get into a university: ‘I was not enough aware. Who should have thought that society would develop so fast? I don’t blame anyone but myself. There were people who did well. I played too much.’ He said that he had just missed the opportunities that had been there. In short, when the middle-generation men were young, finding a regular urban ‘good job’ and/or making money became the main concerns and the highest attainable goals, which nonetheless revolved around a preoccupation with livelihood, albeit a better livelihood than what was attainable for the older generation. ‘Selflessly for the collective’ lost its appeal. The achievement of those who at the time were thought to have done exceptionally well had come to seem quite mediocre when compared to the much higher ambitions (even expectations) of their sons interviewed in their last year of upper secondary education.

The sons: ‘I must achieve something great (yousuo zuowei)’ The post-Mao masculine ideal of achievement and excellence has a striking appeal to the young men in this study. Regardless of family background, school performance and personal biography, their narratives all featured chenggong. Understood as outstanding accomplishment here, chenggong characterizes all aspects of

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the young men’s ‘possible selves’ – expected selves, hoped-for selves, and feared selves (Markus and Nurius, 1986). All those from the key school, and most from the ordinary school, asserted that they must achieve ‘something big’ to rise above becoming a nonentity (pingyong zhi bei). A white-collar professional job was hardly enough. They wished to become a billionaire entrepreneur, a famous scholar, a high official (at the state level), a distinguished expert or a world-class scientist or engineer. Expressions such as ‘not willing to be commonplace’, ‘want to be somebody’, ‘success’ and ‘great achievement’, ‘accomplish something great’ (yousuo zuowei) and ‘make a difference in society’ were frequent. Strikingly, chenggong also mattered for the few who said it would still suffice to only achieve an ordinary job and to be an ordinary person (putongren). The seriousness of chenggong was evinced in their striving to excel in school for the sake of attaining the relevant higher education and in their preparatory reflection, planning and accumulation of relevant experience, which typically had started in their childhood. Many said that cultivating a strong will and awareness of chenggong through books and parental admonition had been part of their upbringing. They typically talked about life itself as striving for high accomplishments. They seemed enchanted by the power, wealth, charm, lifestyle, social recognition, self-realization and self-worth associated with chenggong. The goal of becoming an outstandingly successful entrepreneur featured strongly in many narratives. An entrepreneurial spirit with mental toughness, resourcefulness and perseverance was highly admired. Billionaire entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Li Ka-shing were repeatedly mentioned, although chenggong for some also included more moderately defined accomplishments such as establishing one’s own company, which normally connotes considerable economic success. These findings support the argument that entrepreneurial spirit and consumer power constitute the most culturally valued male qualities in contemporary China (Chen, 2002; Farrer, 2002; Louie, 2002; Osburg, 2013; Song and Lee, 2010; Song and Hird, 2014; Zhang, 2010; Zheng, 2015). Peng (at the ordinary school) positioned himself as an exemplary entrepreneur in the making. He would establish his own family enterprise whose success could match those owned by the famous entrepreneur Li Ka-shing. He had already started his long climb because, alongside his schoolwork, Peng was advising his mother in successfully running a ‘not-so-small’ company, which the mother ‘found very helpful’. He was proud of his father, a peasant boy who became a military college graduate and a high-level military officer in Beijing, and of his rural-born mother, who became a college graduate and school teacher turned entrepreneur. Both his parents represented high achievements for people in their generation. However, Peng thought he must achieve much more than his parents because he had better resources than them. He said that his upbringing had been ‘Western style’ because his parents had tried to inculcate in him a ‘self-making’ ethos and kept telling him: ‘Your future is in your own hands. We merely provide some resources.’ He thought his parents’ achievement would be a helpful foundation for his chenggong but emphasized that his own manly toughness and self-making spirit would

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be the most crucial. He felt lucky to have inherited his father’s ‘military man’ (junren) genes of self-reliant toughness and thought it had been reinforced by an upbringing in keeping with the popular belief that a boy should be raised through hardships and a daughter through comfort and luxury. ‘I am not afraid of setbacks and obstacles’, he asserted. He had read about exemplary revolutionary figures such as Korchagin in the Soviet novel How the Steel Was Tempered, heroes in Chinese classics and contemporary successful men. He liked biographies of entrepreneurial celebrities from China and abroad and knew by heart their paths to chenggong. He thought the common traits of these chenggong renshi (successful people), a term used by all the young men, were a strong will, perseverance, innovativeness and risk taking that he admired: I just like their spirit. They never give up. They are full of insight and audacity. They never tread old paths. I read about them all the time. I have just bought a biography of Steve Jobs to learn about his management methods so I too can blaze a new path. Chenggong cannot be copied. It is striking that Peng used Korchagin for his individualistic achievement purpose, whereas some of the grandfathers used the same role model to temper a strong will for exemplary socialist-revolutionary contribution. He had done much reflection and planning: ‘I use most of my leisure to think about my future, reflect upon myself and read books.’ He had been analyzing the opportunity structure for entrepreneurship: If you wish to become famous in business in China, there are only a few paths: steel and iron, real estate and the Internet. You must first accumulate capital from business in one path and then invest in another, as Li Ka-shing has done. Thoughts of marriage and family also featured in his planning chenggong and linked with patriarchal familism and desirable manhood: ‘Because I want to establish my family enterprise, I need at least two sons and one daughter. It is less ideal to have only daughters.’ Asked when he wished to get married, he replied: ‘If I meet someone suitable at twenty-nine, I will just marry. Otherwise I shall wait until after age thirty-three because age 30–33 is a man’s golden opportunity for achieving something; it must not be wasted on family life.’ Thus, career must come before family life. He also saw sport as a means to prepare for entrepreneurial chenggong. He had showed interest and talent in sports since boyhood and believed that sport is the most effective means of cultivating strong will, perseverance, competitiveness and endurance: I set myself a goal and keep practicing until I achieve it. For example, my height of 170  cm makes ‘slam dunk’ very difficult in basketball. I  kept

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practicing while others took breaks and did it after six months! I was injured many times. But the happiness is heart-felt when you finally succeed. When I can prove myself, I am very proud. When you win a race – even if only by one second, all that painful training becomes worthwhile. I do have the talent but must train harder than others to succeed because I am shorter and started later. As a student at a ‘mediocre school’, his chance of entering a first-class university to study finance and business was rather slim, unlike the students from the key school. However, that did not matter much for him. Self-cultivating entrepreneurial spirit was so important that he planned to enter a sports university because ‘a sports university will further temper my character.’ He thought studying finance and business at university was not crucial for his plan, although he might later pursue a business degree abroad, which was also his parents’ wish. Eagerness for entrepreneurial chenggong was also clearly expressed by many other young men interviewed. Like Peng, the others from the ‘ordinary school’ with such an interest tended to disassociate entrepreneurial chenggong from business-related university subjects. They all saw at least a two-year vocational college as their next step after high school, to be followed by studies at the bachelor or postgraduate level if necessary. They were often uncertain about their college major but mostly mentioned computer science or some other vocational subjects. However, all wanted to have their own companies and envisaged striving for entrepreneurial accomplishments as their main post-college preoccupation. Yong remained optimistic although, to his family’s dismay and his own regret, he had ended up at the ordinary school due to his addiction to Internet games. He wanted to have his own company to earn much money and travel the world. Those from the ‘key school’ who asserted entrepreneurial chenggong all envisaged majoring in finance and business at a top university (not unrealistic given their high performance) and saw advanced specialized knowledge and skills from formal education as crucial. When asked about life goals, Xuezheng replied: ‘I want to become outstandingly accomplished – to make big money.’ He had decided it would be best to major in finance and business at a top ranking university – The People’s University or Central Finance University, to be followed by a master’s abroad: I will need more knowledge to be at the field’s cutting edge, possibly even a doctorate. I must lay a very good foundation before it becomes too late. I will then practice this expertise in employment before establishing my own company. Chen said: What is certain is that I shall study business and finance and also study informatics on the side because many chenggong renshi did not excel in their first

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majors but later became very accomplished in another field. . . . I must not be ordinary. Great achievement matters lest I betray my heart. Their predominant emphasis on economic achievement fits earlier research on post-Mao masculinity. However, entrepreneurial accomplishment was not the only possible form of chenggong for the young men. Rather, chenggong was a generic concept at the core of their desired and expected manhood. Other possible selves portrayed, especially by those from the key school, included famous scientists and famous scholars or other top-rank professionals and politicians. In these alternative future selves, wealth was not explicitly prioritized but an assumed result of doing well. Linchao (at the key school) was determined to major in surgical medicine at Beijing University, the best in China. He admired international football stars. He wished to become a first-class surgeon and heal both star players and ordinary people. Earning money was not his major concern, but he was sure to do very well financially too. For some young men, financial success was a first-step means for accomplishment in other fields. Ming (at the key school) was planning an extraordinary biological research project to change humankind’s future by transferring genes across species. This would make him a well-known scientist but would be too controversial for funding by any state agency. Therefore, ‘I will first study business and finance at a top university, and then establish my own company to finance this project myself.’ A few expected outstanding accomplishments within social sciences or humanities. A high-level political career was also mentioned. Thus cultural and political achievements were other alternative routes to masculine success, which seems to have been downplayed in earlier research on post-Mao Chinese masculinities. Bo, whose father graduated from a two-year vocational college and whose mother graduated from an upper secondary vocational school, was a social sciences and humanities major at the key school. He emphasized that his family’s expectations were only about the general direction of his life and in line with the traditional saying ‘Those working with their body are ruled. Those working with their mind rule.’ Bo wished to become a great historian. He wanted to take a PhD and do research at university. He had a clear idea of the best universities for history and worked hard to qualify for admission. As a backup, he might rest content just being a middle-school teacher, but his ambition was to become like Jiang Tingfu, Huang Renyu, Fei Zhengqing and Guo Moruo – all renowned male historians who he said were also highly accomplished in such fields as literature, philosophy and politics. He said: ‘I want to reach their level and make my unique contribution to historical studies. Some of them studied in the US.’ He would improve his English while acquiring a solid foundation in Chinese history before further studies abroad. He was also open to becoming a government official – but at top level: ‘appearing in CCTV news daily’. He believed high academic accomplishment would enable him to become a leader, citing the Confucian saying: ‘Those doing well in scholarship are to become officials.’ He did not explicitly mention Party membership, but this route implied it. Most of the young men, like their female

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counterparts, said they would not like to be a Party cadre because they thought politics in societies such as post-Mao China could be ‘dark, dirty and exhausting’, to use their words (see also Liu, 2012). However, many would not mind joining the Party if their chenggong required that, which reflects Chinese youth’s pragmatism (Yan, 2006). The chenggong discourse was especially strong among the key-school students whose positive ‘possible selves’ had likely been boosted by good academic performance (Markus and Nurius, 1986). A couple of the ordinary-school young men were much less assertive about their own chenggong. They largely defined themselves as putong ren (ordinary people) for whom ‘ordinary accomplishments’ could be satisfactory with adequately good income from a white-collar profession or from one’s own company. However, they still explicitly recognized chenggong as an exemplary norm. Chenggong would have been highly desirable, be that in an admirable professional career, entrepreneurial success or immigrating to a Western country. It featured in their ‘hoped-for selves’ and ‘feared-for selves’. Sheng, born to parents who were both ordinary workers and lower secondary school graduates, was the only boy among his group of cousins, and therefore favored by his grandparents who were retired workers. He said the parents and grandparents had hoped he would go to a good university. His early school performance had been promising, but in upper secondary school his ill health and poor performance had made him adjust his wishes and plans. His greatest wish was now to teach primary or middle school because he liked children, and teachers have vacations and stable income. But it would require a bachelor’s degree from a four-year teachers’ university, which seemed beyond his performance level. So he aimed for a major in computer studies at a two-year vocational college. Nonetheless, a wish to achieve ‘something great’ still loomed large in his mind: ‘I really want chenggong, but I am afraid I may not achieve it. After college I may join a friend who is running a company. I may also eventually establish my own company.’ He admired the main characters in his favorite novels who ‘succeeded despite many obstacles. It would be nice to be like them.’ He showed awareness of barriers to chenggong and the need to compromise. However, the commonplace is hard to accept for those forced to compromise. Compromising can threaten one’s manhood when the norm of outstanding accomplishment has become hegemonic for young men and their significant others. The young men’s wide endorsement of and desire for chenggong resemble the findings in an earlier study (Liu, 2006a) of young adults from the urban post1980s cohort of only children. Most of the young men in that study said emphatically that they must accomplish something great in life. Some said that they hated the idea of becoming a nonentity. Chenggong and the good man and husband Both the young men and the young women in this study embodied the new subject that I call in this book ‘the aspiring individual’. This new subject typically longs

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for, aims at, or seeks ambitious accomplishment by dint of one’s own effort. Compared with their parents and grandparents, they expressed substantially higher achievement expectations, or at least higher ideals, and showed greater level of articulateness and reflexivity in narrating about these ideas. For the young generation, life is no longer about survival, basic needs and livelihood, which characterized their grandparents’ (and to a considerable extent also their parents’) youth life stories, but about something much more and higher. This aspiring individual is rooted in and reflects ‘the desiring subject’ with ‘a wide range of aspirations, needs and longings’ that has emerged with China’s reform and opening up against a past of ‘constraints and deprivations’ (Rofel, 2007, pp. 4–5). This subject position shared by the young men and women indicates their common ‘generation location’ (Mannheim, 1952) and the family culture of the urban only child, also the ‘priceless child’. However, chenggong is mainly a male discourse, showing how gender interacts with the aspiring individual subject position in producing gender-specific subjectivities. The men frequently used expressions such as ‘as a man’ (zuowei nanren; zuowei nanzihan) when talking about their expectations and aspirations. Male chenggong is also constructed in relation to their female counterparts’ womanhood ideal, in keeping with Connell and Messerschmidt’s (2005, 848) argument: ‘Gender is always relational, and patterns of masculinity are socially defined in contradistinction from some model (whether real or imaginary) of femininity.’ Unsurprisingly, as shall be shown in further detail in the next two chapters, the young men’s gender construction perfectly agrees with and is complementary to the gender conceptions and practices of their female counterparts. The young women endorsed ‘modern’ values of gender equality and female independence and strove for educational and professional achievement. However, such concretely specified and unusually high expectations, as uttered by the young men, hardly appeared in their narratives. This consensus constitutes what I labeled the ‘post-Mao cultural sex agreement’ (Liu, 2017) based on a discourse of ‘natural sex differences’. This is evident in both the men’s and women’s talk about sex differences, their ideals for future marriage partners, gendered labor division and ideal family life. To be sure, like their women counterparts, and in line with contemporary Chinese youth’s individualism, the young men thought that everyone is supposed to get his or her individual potential fully developed by maximizing his or her interests, competences and abilities in line with their ideal for high and all-round individual qualities. In family life, both husband and wife are expected to attend to both career and family and to perform both ‘instrumental’ and ‘expressive’ functions. Most of the young men and women argued that it would be very limiting to focus on only one of these while neglecting the other. Most of the young men would like to have a wife who can take care of both her career or work and the family, although some preferred to have a full-time housewife. Many would loathe living with someone who focuses on only one of these while neglecting the other. Women’s career or work was seen as necessary not only for the family’s economic welfare but also for the female individual’s self  – financial independence, a sense of equality, a

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richer life and broader horizon and connection with the outside world. Both the men and the women said that just as women’s competitiveness and competence in work or the market economy are viewed as positive, if not strictly necessary, in a modern society, men’s softness and caretaking qualities are also desirable. The young men criticized and disidentified with their fathers in cases where the latter were ‘male chauvinists’ in their words (see also Jankowiak and Li, 2014). They said they would relate to their own future families differently – practicing gender equality at home and treating both the wife and children with tenderness and care. In line with Xiying Wang (2017), they thought that male tenderness is an extra quality besides accomplishments to win the hearts of women in contemporary China, where, as will be shown in Chapter 7, men’s ‘pampering capacities’ have become an important criterion in women’s choice of marriage partners for the two younger generations. Such views have a ‘degendering’ effect for both sexes. But the degendering serves as a mere extension of traditional gender-specific qualities and roles, not as a total subversion. Like their women counterparts, the men thought that men tend to be more ‘intelligent’, hence more inclined for higher achievement. A couple of them added: ‘It depends on what area and what tasks. Females are better at social sciences and humanities. They are better at tasks that require carefulness.’ The young men generally favored ‘gentle and soft’, ‘virtuous wife and good mother’ and ‘good looks’ for their ideal wife. Just as it was hard for the young women to accept a man with lower career and income prospects, the young men preferred a wife who would have a ‘slightly lower’ (sometimes even ‘much lower’) achievement and earnings profile. ‘A wife at my own level is OK, but ideally not higher’, said a few of them. If the wife were to earn more or have higher achievement, ‘it would impel me to work harder lest I fall behind her.’ Or, if they were to marry a highly talented wife: ‘with her talent, she can then better assist me in my career.’ The men’s prescribed labor division between husband and wife matched the young women’s view: that the man’s mission or responsibility is to be the pillar of the family and that the wife normally should take the greater share of house management and child-rearing. Here is an excerpt from my interview with Xuezheng (at the key school): FENGSHU:   What role do you think you will play in the family? XUEZHENG:   Making money, big money. I am the pillar of the family. I am not the

type to exert powerful control at home. I think I will be henpecked because I lack resistance by nature. FENGSHU:   You mean you will assume the traditional male role? XUEZHENG:   In fact it does not mean that ‘men are superior to women’ (nanzun nübei’). After all a man ought to contribute more to the family/household. FENGSHU:   What is the woman’s role then? XUEZHENG:   Managing the house, but she should also make contributions. FENGSHU:   Like your mother, staying at home as a housewife? XUEZHENG:   No. That would be too limiting. Not good. She should also have her own social space and activities. She should have her own career or job. That

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is important. Otherwise, she would be nagging on others all day long. There would also be more to talk about between us. It is more fun if both have their own jobs. FENGSHU:   What should your ideal partner be like? XUEZHENG:   Thoughtful, caring about others, and good at managing the house. I get to decide about big things and she can decide about more trivial things. FENGSHU:   What is your ideal life like? XUEZHENG:   All my family are living a good life. I can go to work happily every day. I drive my kid(s) to school and my wife to her workplace on the way, pick them up on the way back and then have dinner together with them. I will enable my parents to live in a big house or apartment, have much money to spend, do whatever they like to do, and in short, enjoy the happiness of old age. A few of the young men would not mind – or might even prefer – that the wife stays at home as a quanzhi taitai (full-time ‘lady of the house’ or homemaker), because this would show others that the man’s success is so great that his income suffices for the whole family. Zhu (at the ordinary school), who expected to have his own company after college, said: I have no special requirements for my partner. She can stay at home, assisting her husband and bringing up the child (xiangfu jiaozi), or she can strive outside; but she should not strive too hard because I alone will be more than enough. Hai’s view was similar: ‘If my income allows it, I would like to have a wife full-time at home. She should be more responsible for the child’s upbringing. It is enough that I make money.’ Asked if he would accept to be a full-time homestaying househusband, he said, echoing the other young men, ‘Definitely not!’ Their understanding of ‘the man as the family pillar’ transcended the idea that a breadwinner must provide for the family’s basic material needs. For these young men, basic material needs would be unproblematic, given their own chenggong and the wife’s supplementary contribution. An exemplary man must create the good life for his family. A  desire to display such capability is reflected in the importance they attached to ‘a decent wedding’, which, as Zhe (at the ordinary school) put it, ‘conveys the message that with me my wife will have no worries about food and clothes (yishi wuyou) and more importantly, that she will have a good life with high taste (gao pinwei)’. The gender differences mentioned earlier require that the man be ‘bigger’ and ‘higher’ than the woman, encompassing, nourishing and protecting her, which in turn requires chenggong. This is further illustrated by Peng: I like Chinese girls who are somewhat traditional – not smoking, not drinking and not frequenting nightspots (yedian). She should at least understand that her husband’s work outside the family is not easy. She should assist her husband and bring up the child (xiangfu jiaozi). Her family background does not

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matter to me. It is enough that I like her. She should be virtuous and generous. She should at least be a graduate from a vocational college. She may have lower qualifications than me. When asked ‘What if she were more capable than you?’ he replied: ‘Well, that would also be OK. She would then have more advanced ideas and more insights that she can use to assist me.’ When asked ‘What if she does better in her career than you in yours?’ he replied: Then she would look down upon me or would not be attracted to me. The man ought to do better in his career than the woman in hers. A strong woman (nü qiangren) tends not to make for a happy family. I do not like strong women. I do admire Wang Xuehong, the strong woman Taiwanese entrepreneur I told you about; but I believe her family life must be unhappy. Such a woman will have very little time for her child(ren). The child(ren) will lack parental love. It is no use just to give the kids material wealth. The mother should communicate as much as possible with the child. However, he also wanted his wife to be ‘independent’, although his own success would allow her to escape from hard work outside the home relatively early: I do not like the type that depends entirely upon me for provision because she will then lose her own worth. She should strive to prove her own worth before age 30–40. When she tires from work and no longer wishes to continue, she can stay at home as a quanzhi taitai. She would then have proven herself. Chenggong’s implications for the ‘good life’ and the ‘good person’ For the young men, chenggong’s attraction also inheres in the kind of good life and good person it implies. Their good life had both material (wuzhi) and spiritual (jingshen) aspects; and they perceived the former as a foundation for the latter. Their shared goal or strong desire was to have such material comforts as a spacious house or apartment with modern devices, nice cars, money for vacations, traveling, recreation, sociability and children’s education – all of which requires wealth. Financial success was therefore necessary, although they also said that money was not important for its own sake. This type of material life was also strongly desired by the young women in the present study. However, both the men and women asserted that it should mainly be the husband’s responsibility to create such a life for the family though the wife should also contribute. Wealth was perceived as the most socially telling sign of a man’s true capability, as illustrated in Xin’s (at the ordinary school) ideal for his wedding: ‘A wedding shows a man’s living standard, hence his achievement and shili (real ability).’ He wanted a huge banquet with many people and a long chedui (parade of cars), and a honeymoon

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abroad. By spiritual life the interviewees meant high-status recreation and sociability and such cultural experiences as education, reading books, music, and traveling, which is reminiscent of the pinwei (taste) discourse about the most desirable masculinity in post-Mao China (Song and Hird, 2014). Some young men might never be able to achieve this type of good life because of various obstacles such as lower family SES and poor school performance; but all showed a desire for it. For most of them, the good life also meant working and living in the most developed cities in China, preferably Beijing, where they and their parents were already living. This meant fierce competition with others in the urban labor market. Some wished to emigrate to make their fortune in a more economically advanced country, even if this might seem unrealistic. Xuexu (at the ordinary school) was striving to do well enough in the gaokao to enroll in a second-tier university. But his greatest wish was to emigrate to North America, or preferably to a Nordic country. Chen (at the key school) had life shown in American movies as his ideal: ‘relaxing, wealthy, free and fun’. For him and several others, immigration would indicate chenggong. They all named a ‘happy and full’ (xingfu meiman) and warm (wennuan) family as crucial for material and spiritual enjoyment, hence for the good life. It would include the man himself with a wife and child(ren) as well as his parents who could live separately from the young people. ‘Nothing should be lacking’: health, love and material comfort. The relations among all family members should be harmonious, especially between husband and wife, and the wife and her in-laws. Besides being the capable main provider for wife and child(ren), a man must also fulfill filial duty. Some young men wished to live under the same roof with their parents (and even their grandparents). Others preferred living as a nuclear family with one’s spouse and children. Most of them wanted to improve their parents’ (and even their grandparents’) living standards, even in cases where the parents were quite well off. Many wished to enable (through their own achievement) their parents to travel the world or better enjoy their old age in other ways. Liang (at the key school) wanted to buy a better car and better clothes for his mother, who already had her own successful enterprise. A common requirement for a future wife was ‘she must be dutiful to my parents.’ All this could reflect a widespread wish among these urban only children, regardless of their gender, to repay their parents who typically show maximal valuation of the child and invest heavily in the child’s future (Liu, 2016). As shall be shown in further detail in Chapter 6, the young women expressed a similar set of wishes concerning their parents to these uttered by the young men. In so doing, they assumed the role as ‘substitute son’ to their parents, which entailed a degree of degendering of the female self. But filial duty may still normatively matter more for men because of its stronger association with exemplary manhood. There was also a strong emphasis among the young men to win honor through their own chenggong for their jiazu (family) – a term with patriarchal connotations, which seemed absent from the young women’s narratives. They also said that a husband’s chenggong enhances a wife’s dutifulness not only to her husband but also to her parents-in-law, for men with chenggong

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tend to attract exemplary women – good-looking, gentle, virtuous and dutiful. For the young men, chenggong is thus both an expression of filial love and a means of fulfilling filial duty. While reflecting the traditionally central place of the family in China, their ideal for family life also reflects the contemporary emphasis on personal happiness for which a harmonious family remains crucial. Their emphasis on both material and spiritual well-being for an ideal life also resembles the Party-state’s trope of ‘two civilizations’ – one material and one spiritual in which the latter presupposes the former. But these young men’s talk of ‘spiritual life’ as personally enriching cultural and expressive experiences contrasts with the Party’s socialist-collectivist ethos (Bakken, 2000). They are not necessarily opposed to those values, but their own focus is on their private life, in keeping with Yan’s (2009) observation. Nevertheless, there is in many narratives also a wish to contribute to the larger society. A sense of justice and responsibility for the larger society is a traditional marker of exemplary masculinity in Chinese culture. It is also exemplified by the most culturally and politically endorsed masculine figures referred to by the young men as chenggong renshi (successful people). Xuezheng, who wanted to ‘make big money’, said: ‘My motivation is to provide a good life for my own family. Secondly, I want to do philanthropic work. Life is more meaningful if one can do something for more people.’ Peng expected to become a business celebrity. But he also wanted to help needy people: I would be content to live a simple life with basic comfort. Steve Jobs, an idol of mine, paid himself a salary of only one dollar a month while creating a new epoch. If you are rich, you should do something for society. Many children are starving and many lack access to school. When society provides you with good conditions for creating wealth, you should give back to society, as written above the gate of Harvard University. A human being ought to create something for society during his life. When you are really rich, money becomes just a pile of numbers. The ‘repaying society’ discourse is reminiscent of such successful entrepreneurs as Bill Gates and Li Ka-shing, whom the young men idolized. Other ways of making a wider impact were also mentioned. Bo wanted to make greater contributions to society than ‘ordinary people’ by becoming a famous historian or a top-level state leader. His idol was Premier Zhou: His charisma is my great moral inspiration. He made extraordinary contributions, displaying a noble sense of social responsibility. I’ve read many books and biographies about him. I admire him for his ability to settle both national and international conflicts. I may not compare with Zhou, but his spirit will be an ideal for me whatever I will do. I share with him a willingness to make great contributions. Zhou was highly respected in the world as well. I may not accomplish as much. But I should at least do my best to attempt it.

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Other examples of wishing to make a positive difference beyond one’s own kith and kin – sometimes far beyond, include improving humankind conditions through scientific breakthroughs, becoming someone who can ‘push society forward’, saving lives and healing wounds by being a doctor, or just taking up a profession that helps other people. The exemplary norm of chenggong is thus closely associated with ideals of the ‘good life’ and a ‘good and worthy person’, both of which were perceived as part of desirable manhood. For these young men, serving familial and societal collective interests is not contradictory to one’s individual success. Rather, individual chenggong is a precondition for great contributions to one’s family and for making a positive difference for the larger society. Making a great social contribution indicates unusually great and widely extended chenggong. While such unusually high ambitions may show youthful altruistic idealism, the desire for fame surely also shows a strong desire for social recognition. It obviously need not conflict with individualistic desire for self-fulfillment. For them, chenggong implies unusually great power. They were aspiring to become chenggong renshi (successful people), whom they perceived as people who exemplify the ideal life and the ideal personhood. Running fast just to stand still: the toll of chenggong As chenggong relates to one’s manhood embodied in the good life and the good person (as son, father, husband or contributor to society), the stakes are high. It is hard to achieve chenggong in the highly competitive education system and market economy of post-Mao China. People are supposed to be responsible for their own well-being by dint of their own effort and by making smart choices. Like young people in earlier studies on Chinese urban youth (e.g., Liu, 2008, 2011), the young men in this study endorsed this individualistic approach to life. They believed they have only themselves to blame if they failed. Unsurprisingly, with the strong and shared norm of chenggong went also a fear of failure and a need for alternative fallbacks. Xuezheng, who was determined to make big money, said: ‘I am worried about failure. My ambition may prove greater than my talent.’ They all thought finding a job would be hard. But it is imperative for a man to have a job to at least provide for himself. Thus, job and income stability were the baseline concern, even among those with a highly promising school performance. Chang (at the key school), whose ‘plan’ was to become a famous entrepreneur, was also open to falling back on becoming a local public official or a schoolteacher: ‘Common to these walks of life are stability and low pressure. So that is good.’ Others thought of other ways of earning a living if they should fail in their strongly desired ‘choice’. This preparedness for ‘a need to adjust’ resembles theorizing of Western society by Giddens (1990) and Beck (1992), who argue that a calculative attitude to positive and negative possibilities and consequences gains importance under the conditions of ‘high modernity’ or ‘risk society’. But in the Chinese risk society, the stakes and risks may be greater than in the West.

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Despite the worries and anxieties about failure, however, most of the young men, especially those from the key school, not only declared distinctly high achievement ambitions but also asserted strong confidence in chenggong and were making deliberate efforts for that goal. They believed that a good life with little stress, stable income, and spiritual and material well-being would eventually be waiting for them. Meanwhile, their enthusiasm and determination for chenggong were accompanied by an already deeply felt exhaustion and a wish to be able to see the end of their struggle as soon as possible. They said that they would need to strive hard for the next 20 years but would then relax and enjoy the fruits of this struggle when they had achieved their goals. Linchao (at the key school) said: I want to be a doctor. Then I must at least become a specialist. Therefore, I shall not relax at university, but will continue working hard. By age 40, I should be a doctor counting as a pillar (zhizhu) of my medical specialty, someone who can authoritatively supervise young people. Then, in my early to mid-fifties I shall retire to enjoy life. Some already had vivid anticipations of their retirement. Xiang (at the key school) said: I keep imagining and looking forward to life after retirement. Every day I shall then gather my friends to chat, play cards, watch football and drink tea. No worries, no pressure. I am cheered whenever I conjure up this pleasant picture. When exhausted from my schoolwork, I can spend a whole study-hall period to chat with my desk mate about life after the gaokao and university and in retirement. It cheers us up right away. Thinking of my old age (after age 50) motivates me for the struggle now. Their universal wish to relax at the earliest possible age could be a reaction to the immense pressure by the gaokao they were preparing for and to the expected need to strive hard for many years to come. Adhering to the chenggong norm has a high price. But chenggong is also hard to resist. Peng said: Living as I do and as I will be doing is very tiring. You have to strive for money, for networks and for everything. The road is long and difficult. The pressure is very heavy. It is a mental burden. When asked ‘Then why do you still persist?’ he replied promptly: ‘Because I get satisfaction from striving and perseverance. I like the prospect that it all will pay off in the end.’ For him, striving for success is his destiny – as a man. Even the few who saw themselves as ‘an ordinary person’ who should be content with ‘an ordinary life’ recognized adverse consequences from not pursuing chenggong. Yong (at the ordinary school) said: ‘Outstanding accomplishment is not itself essential. The most important is to feel happy.’ However, for

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him and others, happiness depended on living up to the expectation that ‘a man must achieve something.’ In short, there is also a price to pay for not achieving chenggong.

Conclusion The young men’s masculine construction revolved around chenggong with an emphasis on outstanding individual excellence and accomplishment. They perceived chenggong as a prerequisite for the good life, the good person and the good man. Chenggong’s benefits were envisaged to come at substantial personal costs. The influence of chenggong for all these young men suggests that it has achieved hegemonic status, at least for those in the present study. The young men’s chenggong ideal sharply contrasts with their grandfathers’ narratives about the absence of ideas of ‘great achievement’ during their youth. Life was predictably bound to guorizi (literally, ‘passing the days’; getting by in a livelihood; making ends meet), and male identity was largely ordained by traditional gender norms and also by Maoist socialist masculine ideals (if one had been young under Maoism). It also strikingly contrasts with their fathers, who reported lack of any consciously high ideals, ambitions and goals for their future when they were young. The rise of chenggong as a new hegemonic masculine ideal has transformed what it means to be a young man in China. Chenggong as an exemplary or hegemonic norm refers to a position that is worthy, complete and superior in the social order ‘rather than a fixed set of essential characteristics’ (Chen, 1999, p. 587). Much effort is required to achieve it. This positioning entails high personal costs as reflected in their worries about failure, sense of fatigue and longing for a life in retirement from their early mid-life, especially among those most strongly driven by chenggong. Given chenggong’s hegemonic power, a young man would find it hard not to measure himself against it. However, like other forms of hegemonic masculinity, one will likely ‘more often than not, find oneself wanting’ (Kimmel, 1994, p. 124). High regard for achievement is found in masculine ideals in many societies (Vandello and Bosson, 2013). What counts as achievement and the degree of emphasis upon it, however, vary with time, society and social group. In this study, the Chinese young men’s masculine ideal reflects the predominant emphasis on financial success shown in earlier research on post-Mao masculinity (Chen, 2002; Farrer, 2002; Louie, 2002; Osburg, 2013; Song and Lee, 2010; Song and Hird, 2014; Zhang, 2010). But their chenggong also transcends that emphasis. It was chenggong in its generic sense of exemplary accomplishment that was central to their masculinity ideal. Alternative routes to chenggong were also well articulated. Money alone is not enough, one also needs to show high suzhi (quality) and pinwei (refined taste) (Song and Hird, 2014). The importance of chenggong for all the young men might indicate their shared membership in a relatively advantaged group: post-1990s urban only children and often sons of middleclass parents. Their path to adulthood has been accompanied by great parental

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investments in, and expectations of, their son’s achievement. It is possible that rural young men, for instance, would show another attitude or level of confidence and interest in chenggong. The discourse of chenggong is part of China’s individualization featuring the state’s withdrawal from welfare provision and rising individualism. For some, chenggong is at best a hoped-for possible self; obviously many will fail to achieve unusually high accomplishment. For others, chenggong is a strongly asserted expectation. Despite this intragroup difference, their shared ideal of chenggong suggests internalization of the norms and values of attaining unusually high status and prestige by dint of one’s own effort. Prevalently high aspirations likely reflect the belief that the mobility structure is meritocratic and based on individual achievement and that failure is to be blamed on the individual. This individualistic approach to life is fostered by the post-Mao free market economy and by influences from global neo-liberalism. The current emphasis on individual chenggong is a defining feature of the aspiring individual of the young generation, which not only expresses a historically new drive for individual self-realization in line with ‘expressive individualism’. It was also perceived by the young men as crucial for securing the good life modeled upon a perceived Western type of middle-class lifestyle for oneself and for one’s family, the achievement of which entails ‘utilitarian individualism’ (Liu, 2011). Hegemonic masculine ideals are ‘associated with the taken-for-granted conceptions about the “nature” of men and women, of masculinity and femininity’ (Chen, 1999, p. 586). Chenggong is primarily associated with being a man, and much less with being a woman. As is demonstrated by this chapter and the two following chapters, the men and women shared a perception of ‘natural’ sex differences and faced gender-specific expectations in keeping with the ‘post-Mao cultural sex agreement’ (Liu, 2017). The young people’s ideals for men and women showed certain degree of degendering both sexes. Nevertheless, the ‘core’ gender role for men and women respectively was also emphasized. Men are to be the main provider, the ‘pillar of the family’ and the ‘maker of the good life’ for wife and child, sometimes also for their own parents. Women are supposed to be the main ‘emotional worker’ in charge of domestic affairs and child-rearing (Evans, 2008). Chenggong, like other forms of hegemonic masculinity, involves tremendous striving and fierce competition among men while excluding or discrediting women. The young men positioned themselves as ‘bigger’ and ‘higher’ than women, relegating women to the role of ‘supporters’ for men’s success. The ‘natural sex differences’ discourse and the hypergamous expectation of the young women, who often achieve at least as well in school as their male peers and who themselves have high achievement ideals and goals, push young men to strive for still higher achievement. The pressure for male chenggong may also be intensified by the notorious sex ratio biased against men in the Chinese marriage market. But the particular gender relation which the Chinese young men – and their women counterparts – endorsed may not necessarily mean negative consequences from a Chinese perspective which emphasizes ‘mutual complementarity’ based

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on Chinese traditional dialectics. Rather, mutual complementarity is seen as necessary for a win-win effect for both men and women – a point I will return to in the concluding chapter. The relational nature of hegemonic masculinity construction extends to how the young men related to their parents and the larger society. Filial duty, an important marker of exemplary masculinity in Chinese culture, remained highly relevant to these young men. There was also the ambition expressed by many, especially those excelling at school, to contribute to the larger society which may fits traditional and collectivist masculine ideals, now reconstructed through the images of many contemporary highly accomplished figures who mostly (but not exclusively) are business entrepreneurs. It could also signal that postmaterialistic values are emerging also in China. Self-realization, serving one’s family, the nation, the larger society and even humanity were not for them mutually contradictory to chenggong but derivatives of it. The emphasis on achievement and excellence accords with the exemplary norm in Chinese culture – as contrasted with ‘average’ norms (Bakken, 2000; Dawson, 1915). Such exemplary norms fit the post-Mao state’s attempts to promote an ideal personhood that serves the larger social political goals in the new age: aspiring and self-enterprising individuals without disturbing social stability, which relies at least partly on stable gender and family relations. The young men’s articulateness about their future ‘possible selves’ and their readiness to take long years’ pains for chenggong also seems to accord with the argument made by some cultural psychologists that Chinese tend to be more future or long-term oriented than other cultures (Hofstede, 1991). The young men’s chenggong ideal, like the young women’s desire for ‘the best of both worlds’, fits a general tendency in the young generation to maximize life and the self.

References Anderson, E. and McCormack, M. 2018. Inclusive masculinity theory: Overview, reflection and refinement. Journal of Gender Studies 27(5): 547–61. Bakken, B. 2000. The exemplary society: Human improvement, social control, and the dangers of modernity in China. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baranovitch, N. 2003. China’s new voices: Popular music, ethnicity, gender and politics, 1978–1997. Berkeley: University of California Press. Beck, U. 1992. Risk society: Towards a new modernity. London: Sage Publications. Carrigan, T., Connell, R. W. and Lee, J. 1985. Toward a new sociology of masculinity. Theory and Society 14: 551–604. Chen, A. S. 1999. Lives at the center of the periphery, Lives at the periphery of the center: Chinese American masculinities and bargaining with hegemony. Gender and Society 13(5): 584–607. Chen, N. N. 2002. Embodying qi and masculinities in post-Mao China. In S. Brownell and J. N. Wasserstrom (eds.) Chinese femininities, Chinese masculinities (pp. 315–30). Berkeley: University of California Press.

142  The aspiring male individual Connell, R. W. and Messerschmidt, J. W. 2005. Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the concept. Gender and Society 19(6): 829–59. Dawson, M. M. 1915. The ethics of Confucius: The sayings of the master and his disciples upon the conduct of ‘The Superior Man’. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Evans, H. 2002. Past, perfect or imperfect: Changing images of the ideal wife. In S. Brownell and J. N. Wasserstrom (eds.) Chinese femininities, Chinese masculinities (pp. 355–60). Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. 2008. The subject of gender: Daughters and mothers in urban China. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Farrar, L. 2012. Young men in China struggling to catch up in class. New York Times, May 27, 2012. Retrieved January 2016. Farrer, J. 2002. Opening up: Youth sex culture and market reform in Shanghai. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Giddens, A. 1990. The consequences of modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hinsch, B. 2013. Masculinities in Chinese history. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Hofstede, G. 1991. Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. London: McGraw-Hill. Jankowiak, W. 2002. Proper men and proper women: Parental affection in the Chinese family. In S. Brownell and J. N. Wasserstrom (eds.) Chinese femininities, Chinese masculinities (pp. 361–80). Berkeley: University of California Press. Jankowiak, W. and Li, X. 2014. The decline of the Chauvinistic model of Chinese masculinity: A research report. Chinese Sociological Review 46(4): 3–18. Kimmel, M. 1994. Masculinity as homophobia: Fear, shame, and silence in the construction of gender identity. In H. Brod and M. Kaufman (eds.) Theorizing masculinities. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Liu, F. S. 2006a. Modernization as lived experiences: Identity construction of young adult only-children in present-day China. PhD dissertation. Oslo: University of Oslo Press. ———. 2006b. Boys as only-children and girls as only-children – Parental gendered expectations of the only-child in the nuclear Chinese family in present-day China. Gender and Education 18(5): 491–506. ———. 2008. Constructing the autonomous middle-class self in today’s China: The case of young-adult only-children university students. Journal of Youth Studies 11(2): 193–212. ———. 2011. Urban youth in China: Modernity, the internet and the self. London: Routledge. ———. 2012. ‘Politically indifferent’ nationalists? Chinese youth negotiating political identity in the Internet age. European Journal of Cultural Studies 15(1): 54–70. ———. 2016. The rise of the ‘priceless’ child in China. Comparative Education Review 60(1): 105–30. ———. 2017. Chinese young men’s construction of exemplary masculinity: The hegemony of chenggong. Men and Masculinities, 1–23. doi: 10.1177/1097184X17696911 Louie, K. 2002. Theorising Chinese masculinity: Society and gender in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2012. Popular culture and masculinity ideals in East Asia, with special reference to China. The Journal of Asian Studies 71: 929–43. Lu, S. H. 2000. Soap opera in China: The transnational politics of visuality, sexuality, and masculinity. Cinema Journal 40(1): 25–47. Mannheim, K. 1952. The problem of generations. In K. Mannheim (ed.) Essays on the sociology of knowledge. London: RKP.

The aspiring male individual 143 Markus, H. and Nurius, P. 1986. Possible selves. American Psychologist 41: 954–69. Øia, T. and Vestel, V. 2014. Generasjonskløfta som forsvant: Et ungdomsbilde i endring (The generation gap that disappeared: A changing image of youth). Tidsskrift for Ungdomsforskning 14(1): 99–133. Osburg, J. 2013. Anxious wealth: Money and morality among China’s new rich. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Roberts, S. 2018. Young working-class men in transition. London: Routledge. Roper, M. 2005. Between manliness and masculinity: The ‘war generation’ and the psychology of fear in Britain 1914–1950. Journal of British Studies 44: 343–62. Rofel, L. 2007. Desiring China: Experiments in neoliberalism, sexuality, and public culture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Song, G. 2010. Chinese masculinities revisited: Male images in contemporary television drama serials. Modern China 36(4): 404–34. Song, G. and Lee, T. K. 2010. Consumption, class formation and sexuality: Reading men’s lifestyle magazines in China. The China Journal 64: 159–77. Song, G. and Hird, D. 2014. Men and masculinities in contemporary China. Boston: Brill. UNDP (United Nations Development Program). 2016. Human development report 2016. New York: United Nations. Vandello, J. A. and Bosson, J. K. 2013. Hard won and easily lost: A review and synthesis of theory and research on precarious manhood. Psychology of Men and Masculinity 14(2): 101–13. Wang, X. Y. 2017. Gender, dating and violence in urban China. London: Routledge. Yan, Y. X. 2006. Little emperors or frail pragmatists? China’s ’80ers generation. Current History 105(692): 255–62. ———. 2009. The individualization of Chinese society. Oxford: Berg. Zhang, L. 2010. In search of paradise: Middle-class living in a Chinese metropolis. New York: Cornell University Press. Zheng, T. 2015. Masculinity in crisis: Effeminate men, loss of manhood, and the nationstate in post-socialist China. Etnográfica 19(2): 359–77. Zuo, J. P. and Bian, Y. J. 2001. Gendered resources, division of housework, and perceived fairness. A case in urban China. Journal of Marriage and Family 63(4): 1122–33.

Chapter 6

The aspiring female individual ‘Wanting to have it all’ as a new female ideal

Yangyang (at the key school) took me on a Sunday afternoon to her maternal grandmother’s home 70 km from her school. There I was to interview her, her mother and her grandmother. It was the only afternoon that she could find time to be interviewed because she was busy with schooling and attended after-school classes the rest of the week. She was going to return that same evening to her school, where she boarded, for the evening study hall, as the beginning of another week of busy preparation for the gaokao which would be in the following June. The interviews with the women in this family happened to be the first ones during my fieldwork. Yangyang was striving to enter one of the very top universities in China. She wanted very much to get the highest degree the educational system can offer, a PhD, and asked me for advice. Asked about her ideal for women, she said: ‘I admire women who do remarkably well in all respects of life, with both a successful career and a happy family.’ Her mother, a zhongzhuan graduate, reportedly did not have such clear and high ambitions when she was young in the 1980s and early 1990s. Her grandmother’s narrative about being a young woman in the 1950s and early 1960s featured traditional and Maoist gender norms and severe material hardships which rendered such thoughts out of her reach. This cross-generational pattern was also found in all the other families where I interviewed three generations of women. Clearly, ‘having the best of both worlds’ with ‘(the world of education and work and the world of family life and private well-being) or ‘having it all’ was a new female ideal that has emerged with the young generation. Not every young woman may eventually enact it, but this ideal was widely endorsed by all of them despite variations in family background, school performance and individual biographical factors. They were all articulate about the importance of doing well in both aspects of life. Their deliberate emphasis on both entailed simultaneously a degendering and (re)gendering of the female self. In doing so, they positioned themselves as both the ‘autonomous’ and the ‘dependent’ modern female.

Changing ideals In much of China’s history womanhood was defined by the ‘three obediences and four virtues’ in Confucian gender ethics, which claimed that ‘males are superior to

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females’ (nanzun nübei’). A woman’s role was confined to being ‘a virtuous wife and good mother’ who ‘assists her husband and brings up children’. Domestic harmony was said to ensue when ‘the husband leads and the wife follows.’ Education, emphasized in Confucianism, was largely for males. It was believed that ‘a man is assessed by his talent and a woman by her appearance’ and that ‘a woman without talent is a virtuous one.’ If a woman shows talent, she should use it to assist her husband without usurping his power, for that would bring misfortune (Croll, 1995). These norms changed dramatically after the PRC (People’s Republic of China) was founded in 1949. The new constitution and marriage laws stipulate that women have equal rights with men in all respects of life. Women’s participation in production and politics was both necessary for national development and a prerequisite for their improved status. Mao’s dictum that ‘women can hold up half of the sky’ was widely quoted. Women were to demonstrate that they ‘can do whatever men can do’, especially during the Cultural Revolution. The ‘iron girls’ (tieguniang) who were able to compete with males in physical strength, vigor, speed and skills in doing tough tasks were held up as models. The ‘iron girls’ typically wore the unisex blue trouser suit and displayed strength and gestures no different from male peers. Chinese women portrayed in the media were generally asexual, self-assured, strong and highly committed to the socialist cause (Eber, 1976). Assertion of a feminine identity was discouraged, even condemned. Despite these efforts at erasing gender differences, a gendered division of labor prevailed at work, where men held management and decision-making positions, and within the family, where women continued as homemakers (Croll, 1995; Riley, 1997). The ‘reform and opening up’ policy, with the consequent collapse of Maoist hegemony and the individualization of society (Yan, 2009), was followed by a reappraisal of the Maoist gender ideology and a ‘refeminization’ of women. It was commonly thought that women had been alienated from their nature due to the emphasis on collective interests and masculinization of the female with a ‘consequent loss of image, demeanor and perceptions distinctive to women and different from the male other’ (Croll, 1995, p. 153). Led by the cultural elite, there was in the 1980s a surge of interest in reclaiming the female self as well as the male self by emphasizing sex differences. This led to a renewed emphasis on qualities in traditional culture thought to be uniquely female such as ‘female gentleness’, ‘female beauty’ and the ‘virtuous wife and good mother’ (Croll, 1995; Evans, 2002). This discourse of ‘natural’ sex differences has since been expanded, revised and made more complex as the global consumer culture, the mass media and the state all compete in redefining femininity. With renewed patriarchal-familial norms, increased female unemployment and less state protection, the association between the female and the world of ‘private’ life was reasserted. Women were urged to take on qualities of caring, emotionality, communicativeness and gentleness deriving from their role as reproducers and nurturers (Evans, 2008). This underlay a trend in the 1990s for women to give up work and career and go home. Desirable qualities of marriage partners indicated by men include ‘soft’, ‘gentle’, ‘dutiful’, ‘virtuous’ and ‘good-looking’. This preference

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is often claimed to be a precondition for conjugal harmony. It is also seen as necessary to counter the toughness and pressure that men, who now are normatively assigned as main providers of their families, experience under market competition (Croll, 1995; Evans, 2002). Females with high academic degrees or career success were called the ‘third gender’ that men try to avoid as marriage partners to maintain the yin-yang balance (Liu, 2006a), which partly underlies China’s ‘leftover women’ (shengnü) phenomenon (Fincher, 2014). Reassertion of sex differences, referred to as ‘retro-sexism’ (Whelehan, 2000), is also widely found in Western media since the 1990s as an expression of the neoliberal ‘postfeminist sensibility’ (Gill, 2007). Despite its shared implications with the post-Mao ‘natural sex differences’ discourse for perpetuating patriarchal values, retro-sexism in the West has more subtle forms such as parody, humor and irony (Whelehan, 2000; Williamson, 2003). Against Maoist feminism’s denial of women’s sense of self and with a tradition of ‘non-antagonistic’ gender relations (Spakowski, 2011), the Chinese (re)claim of sex differences has taken the form of an explicit desire and a serious pursuit rather than ‘retro-sexism with an alibi’ (Williamson, 2003). An understanding of gender relationship based on ‘natural’ sex differences is often grounded in the notion of ‘interdependence’ and ‘mutual complementarity’ of the two sexes. This is also reflected in the narratives by the young people in this study. This Chinese embeddedness does not mean, however, that the Chinese gender culture is not also affected by Western-dominated global forces. Since the late 1980s, the consumer market and the mass media have reinforced and fed on femininity. Information and products related to fashion, beauty, health, sex and lifestyles catering to women proliferate. In contrast to the androgynous, austere and ‘masculine’ Maoist woman, women are encouraged to indulge in the possibilities and pleasures of feminine expressions within a context of widespread consumerism, greater wealth and greater individual freedom created by the market, private entrepreneurship and celebration of sex differences. A new range of possible female identities emerged, such as ‘the busy professional’, ‘the strong woman’, ‘the media celebrity’, ‘the full-time housewife’, the ‘super girl’, the ‘sassy girl’ (Wang, 2017) and even the extramarital lover to a rich man. Advertising features multiple ideals: ‘nurturers’, ‘strong women’, ‘flower vases’ and ‘urban sophisticates’ (Hung, Li and Russell, 2007). Thus, in contrast to the singular female image of the Confucian or Maoist past, a new range of possible identities has emerged as women construct modern identities by ‘appropriating resources and inspiration from official and popular discourses, as well as from various previously rejected historical and cultural gender projects’ (Huang, 2006, p. 88). Despite overlaps with the commercial versions of femininity, the official discourse emphasizes the balance between the ‘modern’ and the ‘Chinese’ in defining ideal womanhood (Johansson, 2001). While encouraging women to be avid consumers, the state urges them to cultivate and display female qualities in line with Chinese tradition rather than the stereotypically individualistic, assertive,

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hedonistic, or even defiant Western woman (Moeran, 2004). The official ideal woman is gentle, hardworking, caring, modest, decorous and undemanding (Hung, Li and Russell, 2007). Role models include female scientists, entrepreneurs, celebrities, and workers who have won recognition in mundane and lowpay work. However, the message is also clear that despite career success, the woman has not lost her desirable feminine traits such as gentleness, dutifulness as wife and mother, female beauty and elegant appearance based on both inner selfcultivation and smart commercial choice (Andrews and Shen, 2002; Evans, 2002). The attempt to strike a balance between the modern and the Chinese accords with the general Chinese ‘dual’ approach to modernity (Liu, 2011). The post-Mao transformation has also imposed new pressures and expectations for women to be the independent, knowledgeable and competent subject of the market economy and ‘knowledge society’. Lifestyle magazines and the official media run stories about successful women who can plan and enjoy their life (Andrews and Shen, 2002). This is in keeping with the post-Mao discourse of female independence, which continues to emphasize economic independence as a measure of emancipation and equality but which also emphasizes ‘independence of the female person’ (Croll, 1995), as expressed by popular sayings such as ‘A woman is not the moon’ and ‘Women’s gods are women themselves.’ This call to take charge of one’s life reflects awareness of women’s subordinate position as well as growing individualism. It also fits the individualization thesis of the late modernity theorists. Regardless of gender, class and ethnicity, people are expected to take on individual life projects based on self-reflexivity and choice. Some studies assert that this notion of individual self-making has become prevalent among the Chinese younger generation (Hoffman, 2003; Liu, 2008a). Thus, the post-Mao notion of female independence reflects influences of both Maoist gender ideology and Western forces. However, what is strikingly postMao Chinese is that this new notion of female independence goes hand in hand with a ‘shift in importance to the self that is also female and merits separate definition, discussion and deference’ – an emphasis on women’s self-referential qualities (Croll, 1995, p. 150). In other words, despite the diversifying ways of being a woman in post-Mao China, the most socially and officially endorsed female ideal, or ‘exemplary femininity’, combines the ‘independently female’ and the ‘uniquely female’ qualities. This new ideal implies an enjoinment for women to strive to get ‘the best of both worlds’, or ‘to have it all’. However, women from different social groups varied by generation, age, class, socio-geographical locations, and ethnicity may relate to and enact this new female ideal in different ways. How did the two postMao generations of women in this study, the mothers and daughters, enact this ideal in their construction of young womanhood? How do their narratives compare with the grandmothers’ life stories about being young women? Scholarly discussion of changing feminine ideals in post-Mao China, like studies on neoliberal/postfeminist ‘new femininities’ in the West (e.g., Gill and Scharff, 2011; McRobbie, 2009), has mainly focused on popular media and

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literary representation of young women. It is important to go beyond media representation of new femininities to explore young women’s gender conceptions and practices in particular historical socio-geographical conditions.

The grandmothers: the self-sacrificing females When the grandmothers were young, the state campaigned for female liberation. Young women were mobilized into productive work and politics to contribute to building a socialist New China but also to become economically independent of men and their parents. Nevertheless, the Maoist ideology of gender equality and female independence as a new cultural model was still to compete with the traditional gender and familial culture to exert its full influence. In reality, young women found themselves still heavily constrained by patriarchy in both their private and public lives. At home, they were expected to conform to traditional filial piety and gender norms; in public, they were expected to conform to masculine norms by enacting the Maoist gender equality ideology. Both required them to be self-sacrificing. Concepts related to individualistic thoughts about one’s personal life such as ‘career development’, ‘ambitions’ and ‘personal happiness’ were expressions reportedly absent from the daily vocabulary at that time among both women and men. Parents stressed girls’ ‘female virtues’ much in line with the ‘three obediences and four virtues’. It was extremely important for a girl to show self-restraint and to show good family upbringing by obeying their elders. If not, one would lose one’s face as well as that of one’s family, with severe implications for her desirability in the marriage market. Suzhen, who grew up in a rich family in Beijing, was scolded by her father for ‘not behaving properly’ when she forgot to greet her elder brother upon coming home from school. Xirong, who grew up in a village in northern China, said her mother would scold her for not walking in a girl-proper way if she rushed out of the house instead of walking steadily: ‘Don’t you know how to walk properly? You are such a big girl already!’ Her desirable personality as reflected in her not complaining about things, tolerance of unkindness, gentleness and female modesty on top of her excellent needlework and housework skills made her highly wanted by many families for their sons. Young womanhood, just like young manhood, was also conditioned by the harsh material circumstances at that time. Girls, like boys, were socialized by their families and communities mainly for the purpose of guorizi (literally, ‘passing the days’; getting by in a livelihood; making ends meet), but in largely gender-specific ways. For a girl, besides being a dutiful daughter to her own parents, girlhood was much about learning to guorizi with a view to preparing her for life after getting married into the husband’s household in which she was supposed to play the role of ‘virtuous wife and good mother’. Getting married at the proper time, which varied depending on the cultural and political norms about this when one was young, was the main life project for young women, just as it was for young

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men. Young women who were good at guorizi as reflected in the ability to make the most out of the least and good housework and needlework were especially desirable in the marriage market. Most of the grandmothers said that they excelled in needlework and housework as young women. Yangyang’s grandmother (mentioned at this chapter’s onset) showed me the sofa covers and cushions she had sewn and embroidered for her apartment, which displayed sophisticated skills. Yet she claimed that she used to be much better when she was young. Girls who failed to learn needlework and housework well risked contempt and ill treatment by their future in-laws. Xiuying spoke of an aunt who committed suicide because she was abused by her in-laws for not being good enough at needlework. That tragedy was a warning to the girls in her village about the consequences of ineptitude at such work. Yufang recalled being scolded by her father for not being able to sew clothes by age 13. He worried that she would suffer in marriage. Many of the grandmothers, especially those from the countryside, reported having started in their early teens to sew clothes and shoes for themselves and others in their family. Schooling, if possible at all, was secondary to this gendered project of guorizi; parents typically favored sons at that time in education. Related to guorizi, desirable traits in young women also included physical toughness in productive work. Being capable of hard, physical work was a necessity in the harsh context of struggle for survival, which sometimes rendered gender irrelevant. Yulan, the eldest of four siblings, said that although she was very thin when young, she was much used to and capable of hard, physical work because she had to help her sick parents and be the main worker in the family. That became an asset by enabling her, with a mere two years of schooling, to marry an ‘educated person’ with a non-rural job, a school teacher in her rural home place: ‘All families wanted for their sons a young woman capable of hard physical work at that time.’ She added: ‘When I was first introduced to my husband, my motherin-law worried that I was too thin for hard physical work. But the matchmaker reassured her that I would prove the toughest at work despite looking so thin.’ Capability of hard physical work was reinforced by the Maoist female ideal, which called upon women to ‘do whatever men can do’ as in productive work. Many of the grandmothers recalled enthusiastically responding to the Party’s call to do so. It was despicable to appear weak or soft in a ‘typically feminine’ way. As the youngest of four and the only one left at home, Xiulian, who grew up and married a man in a mid-China village, recalled that she was for years doing all the housework and taking care of her aging and sick parents at home as the most dutiful daughter would do. But she was also striving not to lag behind others in her brigade’s productive work. Her female virtues and capability of hard work, together with her pretty face, attracted many suitors who sent matchmakers to her parents, asking for her hand. Having good looks was no doubt part of women’s gender capital also for this generation. A few grandmothers whose youth was earlier than the Cultural Revolution recalled being haomei (literally ‘loving beautifying oneself’; love looking nice) as teenagers. They wore long plaits and sewed new clothes for themselves.

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They even wore makeup and adornments (e.g., flowers in their hair). But most of the grandmothers reported a lack of awareness or experiences of ‘beautifying’ themselves. This was mainly because there was ‘no such precondition’ (meitiao jian), in their words. Some said: ‘People did not even have enough to eat. One would have been lucky if one could cover the body totally.’ In most families, younger siblings used hand-me-down clothes from older siblings or clothes remade from old parts. Most of the grandmothers said they knew nothing about cosmetics when they were young. Chunying recalled with tears in her eyes: At age 11, I was still wearing my grandmother’s old winter coat. It was too big for me. A rope had to be tied around me with a big knot. When I was 16, my mother made a new blouse for me, thinking I was old enough to pay more attention to how I looked to prepare me for suitors. But my father found out. He was enraged with my poor mother, saying it was too much a luxury for us. The lack of conditions for women to beautify themselves continued under Maoism and was reinforced by the then prevailing norm against feminine tastes and expression and by the Party’s call for a ‘hard and plain life’. This contrasts with the growing emphasis on female beauty for the two younger generations, especially the daughters. Selflessly serving and helping one’s own family and/or enthusiastically exerting oneself for the socialist cause made young women’s personal needs largely neglected. In short, the grandmothers’ young womanhood was influenced by both the traditional gender norms and Maoist gender ideology that had both a liberating and masculinizing effect on them. These influences, together with the harsh living conditions and political control, made it irrelevant and impossible for most of them to entertain individualistic achievement ideals, think about their personal happiness, or devote attention to beautifying their appearance. This is not to say that they never felt happy as young women. To be sure, people may derive much sense of meaningfulness, if not happiness, from their selflessness or even from self-denial. Many from this generation recalled having great fun working in the collective production or participating in propaganda work. But deliberate pursuit of personal happiness and individual achievement would have contradicted the socialist as well as traditional gender norms, both of which stressed self-denial and self-sacrifice for others’ well-being.

The mothers: the emerging feminine self Reflective of their common ‘generational location’ (Mannheim, 1952), the men and women in each of the three generations had much in common in their narratives about ‘being young’. By the same token, youth for both the men and women from the middle generation was no longer just about guorizi. Spurred by the new circumstances initiated by Deng’s reform and opening up, this generation was to live a better life than their own parents, which became possible but had to be

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wrought by individual and familial efforts in the market economy and the emerging Chinese schooled society. The women’s accounts of striving for such a life, be it by means of education or otherwise, were much similar to the men’s life stories. Certified education was becoming increasingly important for this generation of youth – both men and women. One might expect parents to have favored sons, especially in rural areas. But the women reported little differential treatment by parents of themselves and their brothers concerning education, in contrast to the previous generation. This also applied to some other socialization aspects. In contrast to the grandmothers, few of the middle-generation women recalled being urged by their parents to learn needlework, although they did learn much about housework by helping their parents. Some said they were not good at needlework at all. Others, especially rural girls who failed to enter zhongzhuan or daxue, said they did learn the basic skills or they were actually quite good at needlework. But they added that compared to their mothers, their own skill paled. Neither did their parents deliberately emphasize gender-appropriate behavior, manners or appearance for a girl. This might be thanks to the gender egalitarianism their parents had been exposed to under Maoism. But it also accorded with the ‘growing up naturally’ of this generation, whereby children were largely left on their own. Schooling, being a daily routine for this generation, could also imply decreased emphasis on gender-specific skills. In terms of eagerness to escape rural life, no differences can be discerned in the men’s and women’s narratives. Testing into zhongzhuan or daxue was the most effective way to achieve this goal, but as mentioned, only a small number were able to succeed. Obtaining zhongzhuan or daxue was also getting increasingly crucial for urban young women (as well as young men), who increasingly looked up to professional jobs as ‘good jobs’, although only a small number were able to get such jobs; the vast majority had to settle for a factory job or jobs in the rapidly growing service sector, which catered especially to women. Joining the army was a largely male choice. But one woman did join the army (as a civil soldier) upon graduating from lower secondary school and after failing to test into zhongzhuan. Like their male counterparts, some of the women also actively incorporated Chinese Communist Party (CCP) membership in their life plans when they were young. The one who joined the army and some of those who entered zhongzhuan and daxue did so. Fengxia joined the CCP at her zhongzhuan school. She explained: At that time normally only good students who also showed exemplary morality were accepted – and only after long time of ‘joining-the-Party education’. Therefore, it was a form of self-improvement and social recognition. Party membership would also mean an advantage in job assignment upon graduation. The discourse of ‘getting rich’ also called on young women – albeit to a lesser extent than young men, to go for entrepreneurial pursuits or at least do small-scale

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business. Shuqin, who grew up in Beijing, used to have a stall selling soft drinks and water at Beijing Railway Station. Lili, who grew up in another city, ran a fashion store for females. The middle-generation women echoed their male counterparts in asserting that when they were young they were typically jiandan (simple-minded and simplehearted), innocent and ignorant, therefore lacking complex ideas about the world and human life, including high achievement goals, ideals and ambitions, offering similar explanations for this as the men did. Fengxia did not know that a ‘normal school’ was for training teachers: ‘Only after the first week of school introduction did I realize that this school was for training teachers.’ Chunfang, a top student at a rural school who tested into nursing zhongzhuan school in 1982, recalled taking zhongzhuan for a university because she had no idea about the various degrees in the education system: I guess many people were like that. Young people were very simple-minded at that time. I did not even know what an ‘ideal’ was. Society was very closed (fengbi). We had no TV, only a radio with one channel for children called The Little Trumpet (xiaolaba). I did not know what professions or vocations existed. I only heard about teachers, nurses and doctors. . . . My parents and all my siblings and relatives were ordinary peasants. The only outing was visiting relatives in other villages during the Spring Festival. The siblings took turns to accompany our parents; usually the younger ones got more chances. We were occasionally visited by relatives. But there were few such occasions and all were poor. Relatives got together only during my grandma’s birthdays and Spring Festival, weddings or funerals. I did not know, or think about, what I wanted to become. Xiaoxia grew up in a family of six children where the parents were striving very hard to make ends meet in an out-of-the-way southwest mountainous village. In 1985, she was the only student (certainly the only girl) who tested into zhongzhuan from a rural lower secondary school. She said when asked about her childhood and youth ideas about her future: I had no ideals or goals. Young people did not even know about such things at that time. We had no complex thoughts. It was accidental that I continued in school. Or you might call it fate. All my siblings were farming. They got only a couple of years’ schooling. But I was allergic to certain plants and got sick each time I worked in the field. My parents feared I would not survive as a farmer. So they scraped the family purse to keep me at school and made me help with housework only when I was free from school. I wished to quit school because the road between home and school was very scary to walk. I was the only girl in the village going to school. I had no company. Crossing rivers and climbing mountains, I imagined there were ghosts and wild animals jumping out of the bushes to get me. . . . But my parents insisted that

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I must continue; and so they arranged for me to board at school for the latter half of my lower secondary school. When asked how they related to ‘female independence’ when they were young, the middle-generation women said they did not think about it, in keeping with their avowed jiandan. But self-reliance was rather taken for granted. It did not even cross their minds that they would rely on a man to provide for themselves, because they themselves were able to provide for themselves: ‘Our generation is good at survival by our own effort.’ They said that they were tempered by earlier experiences of material shortage, even poverty, taking responsibilities at home and helping and taking care of their busy and exhausted parents. Many recalled being dutiful daughters to their parents. Some of them occasionally washed their parents’ feet in the evening to relieve the latter of fatigue. Many helped their parents as much as possible in agricultural work and/or housework while schooling as teenagers, which sometimes entailed self-sacrifice. Chunfang recalled using every single minute of her off-school time to help her busy parents: One summer vacation, I worked so hard in the field that every morning my hands were swollen and full of pain. I  could hardly straighten the fingers. But I was eager to ease my parents as much as possible. The more I did, the less they would need to do it. . . . Each time I had to return to school, I would work to the very last minute before I had to rush to the only bus available in the village. Xiaomin dropped out of lower secondary school to help her mother with farming when her father passed away because all her elder siblings had married and moved out of home. She did all kinds of heavy agricultural work. Such experiences equipped these women with what they saw as valuable character traits that they said their own daughters typically lacked, such as selflessness, thoughtfulness, industry, perseverance, endurance and frugality – qualities conducive to self-reliance and useful to them in the new and competitive market economy and in their educational endeavors. Like their talk of being ‘simpleminded, innocent and ignorant’, this self-understanding shows continuity with their mothers as well as commonality with their male counterparts. Like their male counterparts, the women were to live a life with greater individual autonomy than the previous generation of youth. But they were also much more aware of their ‘female self’ than their mothers had been able to. In other words, what set them apart from the older generation and from their male counterparts was their deliberate cultivation of the ‘uniquely female’ qualities. This is reflected in their choice of occupations. Among those who succeeded in entering zhongzhuan or daxu, women typically entered teachers’ training or nursing, and men engineering. But more importantly, the intense and tough physical work and the type of self-denial that their mothers were used to were being increasingly rejected by this generation of young women. Unlike their mothers,

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who accepted physical toughness as an integral part of (exemplary) girlhood, many of the middle-generation women recalled disliking it if they were seen as physically tough. Fengxia used to be physically strong and helped her parents much with hard agricultural work. She was often praised by the older generation of neighbors for this. When she was leaving home, her parents regretted the loss of her labor. She was glad to help her parents but felt annoyed that she was being treated as a boy: ‘I did not like it at all when one day my mother proudly said to a neighbor that I was just like a boy working in the field. I felt insulted because I did not want to be masculine.’ She felt liberated from masculinization when she left home for the zhongzhuan school 200 km from home and would visit home only during vacations. Her story parallels Guan’s (1993) report of five women college students who in the early 1990s established a successful candlelit café on campus. The women were annoyed when dubbed ‘the five warrior attendants’. They would rather have been known as the ‘five golden flowers’, although they also wanted to be appreciated for their business success. This represents disidentification with the ‘iron girl’ role model, showing that this masculine or asexual female image had largely lost its appeal to this generation, just as the Maoist socialist male image had lost its appeal to the middle-generation men. The media and the market had also reinforced the post-Maoist enthusiasm for femininity among young women. Soon after the reform started, a rapidly growing beauty industry catering to women emerged, ending the era when ‘gendered tastes in hairstyle and dress were coerced into a monotonous uniformity of shape and color’ (Evans, 1995, p. 358). Most of the women who spent their young womanhood in urban areas recalled beautifying themselves by using cosmetics and fashionable clothes already at secondary school, although their parents and school authorities still frowned upon it, associating it with ‘bad morality’ and bad school performance. Lihua’s mother scolded her for having her hair curled. Xuehong was criticized by her teachers for wearing high heels. But the urge to look nice was hard to stop at a time of growing purchasing power, an exploding market for means of feminine expression, and increasing social pressure for young women to look good, not least from men. Lili said she was always fashionable. She opened her own fashion shop after graduating from upper secondary school. She was known for her good looks and attracted many young men. Yurong said that she had had a strong love for clothes since her teenage years. Buying clothes and makeup was her hobby. Kangqing, who grew up in Beijing suburb in a worker family, recalled how she loved ‘a top’ with laces and flower patterns that she bought with her savings from selling herbal medicine roots after school: ‘I still vividly remember how it looked. It was lilac, with laces on the edge, very girly. I would always wear it when I went out.’ Those growing up in the countryside reported not paying much attention to their appearance until they left school because they were too poor or because they devoted themselves to schooling in order to test out of the countryside. Some also said they did not know much about such things because rural society was so closed. Besides, ‘people would criticize you for being frivolous if you dressed too

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fashionably.’ Those young women who escaped to town typically caught up with urban youth in realizing the importance to look good. They then became role and fashion models for other girls in their village at a time when the beauty market was rapidly penetrating also rural areas. Not everyone was keen to beautify themselves. Some narratives show persistent influence of the Maoist norm of ‘a plain and hard life’. Fengxia recalled that her zhongzhuan school principal and some teachers praised students who showed such virtues, including herself. Further, despite the strongly predominant interest in looking good, this generation lacked the preoccupation with ‘being thin’ widely found among their daughters. They said that they did not worry much, or did not even think, about looking fat or thin. This contrasts with their daughters’ preoccupation to lose weight even when in fact they did not seem to be chubby at all. The ‘tyranny of slimness/slenderness’ (Chernin, 1981) had apparently not yet gripped Chinese young women in the middle generation’s time. Apart from their attention to feminine good looks, ideal young womanhood for the middle generation was also to show such ‘uniquely female’ personality traits as gentleness, decorousness and modesty. Some recalled being fond of the female main characters in Qiongyao’s novels, popular among young women at that time. These characters are typically pretty, gentle, sentimental, poetic, pure-hearted and loyal to love. It was also important to behave respectably (zizhong), the opposite of being ‘frivolous’ and ‘promiscuous’. Lili said she was much admired for her female gentleness and good looks. She described herself as a xiaoniao yiren (a soft and sweet beauty like a little bird). She left her own flourishing business to return home in order to look after her daughter and support her husband, who was running a successful business. Not everyone would like or could afford becoming a full-time housewife. But the women in this generation took it for granted that a woman should first of all be a ‘virtuous wife and good mother’, no matter what else she might be or accomplish. Most of them thought they had largely lived up to that expectation. Another indication of their identification with being ‘uniquely female’ was their tendency to want ‘pampering’ from their men. They asserted that it is a woman’s right and part of her ‘special natural needs’ to be pampered and protected (hehu) by her husband. Nonetheless, when talking about their preferences for marriage partners, the middle-generation women did not emphasize that the man must be ‘higher’ than the woman in terms of career, social status and income, which their own daughters explicitly emphasized. They drew on a discourse of danchun (pure-heartedness) to describe their relationship with men when they were young (see Chapter 7). The women’s working life varied, ranging from school teacher in Beijing which required a minimum of a bachelor’s degree, to factory worker, bus conductor, accountant, bank clerk, pharmacist, the self-employed (which often means unemployment in post-Mao China) and full-time housewife. Some of them were success stories of their generation because they tested into zhongzhuan or daxue.

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Most of them had also upgraded their qualifications through self-study programs. However, like their male counterparts, they commonly saw themselves as not having achieved anything worth much mentioning in their life, which was much attributed to the retrospectively perceived inadequacy of their own education achievement. They talked mainly in terms of having had jobs (gongzuo) rather than a career (shiye). Even the professionals said that their work did not much qualify as shiye. To them, people like professors, scientists, doctors and women entrepreneurs were examples of shiye. They all wished that their daughters would have their own shiye: ‘It is too late for me. I hope my daughter will make it.’ Meanwhile, they all thought that they had managed to attend to both the family and to their work. They typically saw themselves as good at housework and work in general thanks to their personality traits favorable for such tasks shaped by their earlier life experiences. But they also typically felt that they failed to become what they should have. There was a sense of being ‘commonplace’ and of having had few, or having missed out on, opportunities, due to material and cultural conditions and lack of personal awareness of possibilities when they were young. This perception partly underlies their strong wish for their daughters (with their substantially improved life chances) to now have the best of both worlds or to have it all.

The daughters: wanting to ‘have it all’ by getting ‘the best of both worlds’ The daughters’ identity construction draws on both the discourse of female independence and the discourse of ‘natural sex differences’. While the former refers to ‘degendering’, ‘defeminization’, or even ‘masculinization’ of the female self, the latter concerns ‘regendering’ or ‘refeminization’. Simultaneously endorsing both, they positioned themselves as both the ‘autonomous modern female’ and the ‘dependent modern female’. In doing so, they showed a desire and confidence for the best of both worlds or to have it all. Degendering the female self Despite variations in family background and school performance, the young women invariably framed their narratives in terms of aspiring for individual achievement and taking charge of their own life through ‘proper’ choice and planning and personal efforts, in line with their subject position as the aspiring individual who endorses the individualization discourse of personal freedom and responsibility. Female independence was imperative for all. Everyone emphasized that they were themselves the most reliable source of their livelihood and welfare; it would be unrealistic or too risky for a woman to rely on a man. This was not only because it normally takes two incomes to maintain a modern household, especially given the newly defined ‘good life’ based on the promises and temptations of modernity. It also showed awareness of the often precarious nature

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of sexual relationships in contemporary China (Wang and Zhou, 2010; Zhang, 2010). They therefore emphasized that even if one marries a rich guy, one still cannot afford to be without having one’s own career or at least a job: ‘What if the man discards you? You would have nothing left.’ They disapproved of ‘relying on a rich man’ (bang dakuan), or ‘gold-digging’, a strategy pursued by some young women (Shen, 2005; Xiao, 2011). Weiwei (at the ordinary school) said: A celebrity once told the story about four women in one college dormitory. One was studying hard far into the night. The others were talking about clothes and cosmetics. They mocked her, saying, ‘Nowadays all are trying to find a rich man to rely on. Who cares to study?’ The studious one responded, ‘that trade is even more competitive than other ones. Even if you succeed, you may well be discarded as soon as he finds one prettier than you.’ So, it is much more secure to rely on yourself. Female independence for these young women not only means economic independence, but also ‘having one’s own life’, independent of men or other people. This reflects the post-Mao redefinition of female independence. Cencen (at the key school) said: Everyone, man or woman, should have his/her own life. A living given by others feels different than one you have earned by yourself. Why should you rely on another to provide for you? You have hands and brain yourself. You should achieve something yourself. It is then yours, your own. It is also about actualization of your potential as a human being. ‘One’s own life’, despite variations in details, typically means economic autonomy based on a career, or at least a job, leisure and personal space (geren kongjian). While emphasizing the importance of personal space, most of the interviewees see a happy family with a nice husband and adorable child(ren) as a crucial part of the ideal life. A few wished to have only one child. Most of them wanted two. An only child would be too lonely, as shown by their own experience, but more than two children would take too much personal freedom away and could be a burden on the family economy. A couple of them said they might get married at about age 25 or 26. Most of them envisaged a later marriage: ‘I must lay a foundation first.’ For several young women, freedom is so important that they wished to live a more radically independent life on their own by not getting married and/or not having children, thus rejecting the traditional female role as wife and/or mother. Yiyi (at the ordinary school) said: I may not get married at all. My mom keeps saying she is looking forward to seeing me in the wedding gauze. I keep telling her to forget about it. I want to play. I plan to strive for achievement until the age of 30. When I have laid a substantial foundation, I will play and travel around the world. I don’t like to

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be constrained by a family or drag a dependent family (tuojia daikou). Being on my own I can go wherever and whenever I want. Just pick up my bag and leave. They thus positioned themselves as the autonomous modern female eager for self-actualization and self-expression. Such a subject position entails identification with ‘masculine’ values, resulting in degendering of the female self. Three major strategies were employed in degendering their female self: practicing utilitarian individualism, assuming the role as the ‘substitute son’ and ‘deliberate masculinization’. Young women as utilitarian individualists Despite individual differences, ‘the good life’ outlined by the young women featuring material wealth and personal freedom would rely on substantially high achievement. As shown in Chapter 4, the young women, like the young men, were typically striving for high education achievement or were at least under great pressure to do so. Supported by their parents and with faith in individual effort, they were seeking to outperform their peers regardless of gender (see also Fong, 2004). By pursuing academic success they defy the traditional Chinese norm that men are valued for their talents and women for their appearance, which is similar to the Western traditional association of masculinity with the mind and femininity with the body (Bordo, 1993) Striving for educational success required the young people to practice utilitarian individualism by suppressing individual expression and deferring gratification. Among other measures, the school uniform, typically baggy and high-cut, was employed for this purpose. This austere and asexual appearance was to discourage the lure of the other sex by covering up the (post)puberty body (as well as to minimize the visibility of social disparities among students which would have otherwise been displayed in clothing and adornments). This explanation would be rare in official texts but was clearly recognized by my informants, especially the parents. Rules and uniforms that divert attention from the body were admittedly applied to both sexes. But the surveillance of the body and sexuality tended to be stricter for girls than for boys because femininity is often seen as ‘contaminating’ and because the feminine ideal is much more appearance based so that girls are under greater pressure to look nice (Leavy, Gnong and Ross, 2009). This could explain why the school regulations concerning appearance were more in line with a male style (at least from a conventional perspective), and why in Mao’s time it became normative for women to conform to male standards in appearance. A few interviewees resented and sought to evade the restraints on their appearance. Nan, a mediocre student at the ordinary school, used her naturally curly hair (unusual among Chinese) as an excuse for devoting much attention to her hairstyle. The school had many times summoned her mother to rectify this breach of correctness. Also, she never cared to wash the school uniform, since ‘it looks so ugly that it is not worth it.’ Cencen, a good student at the key school, tried

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oiling her nails against the school rule and her parents’ will. Some young interviewees said that wearing their favorite clothes beneath the uniform was a common practice among the female students. Since there were few rules concerning shoes (except no high heels), some students would use their shoes as a means of self-expression. Some girls said they changed to their favorite clothes and put on makeup and adornments wherever and whenever they had a chance. Some wore adornments and other clothes than the uniform for the interview when it occurred outside the school. Nevertheless, most of the girls did not wish to fundamentally subvert the school uniform regulations. They supported the strong norm that students should dress like students, saying that it was quite OK to wear the school uniform and not to use makeup and adornments. Tingting, a top student at the key school, said: ‘I do not even have the time for dressing up and putting on makeup.’ They thought the uniform was necessary, arguing that pursuit of fashion and individual expression would have jeopardized doing well at school, hence their future prospect. Many, especially the key school students and those doing well at the ordinary school, welcomed the uniform’s degendering effect as ‘liberating’. Hanying said: ‘It frees one from the pressure to compete for good looks and from showing off clothes and adornments.’ Yangyang said: ‘It directs my attention away from how I and others look.’ Yili said: ‘If not for this rule, much precious time would have been wasted on one’s appearance and on shopping for clothes. It also saves much money.’ Thus, a gender-neutral physical appearance was viewed as an important component of one’s identity as a student, especially as a good student. For them too (as for the parents and teachers), an exemplary student pays little attention to her appearance beyond keeping herself tidy and clean. Some said that a student who does not clothe herself in a ‘student-proper’ way is despicable. Linlin (at the key school) talked about an encounter with girls she met at some after-school classes who she said were obviously from a mediocre or vocational school: Their appearance (daban) was very strange: wearing high heels and carrying a purse. Some of them had their hair dyed. Obviously, they are not good students. No one is like that at our school. We despise such students. I think they also despise us. For the same reason, being ‘sexy’, which the young women interviewees took to mean ‘exposing one’s body parts’ or ‘having an S-shaped figure’, appeared inappropriate to them for this stage of life. Some of them asserted: ‘We are too young for that.’ This is a period when one is supposed to restrain and suppress all desires and ‘irrelevant desires and thoughts’ for the sake of gaokao. In short, keeping one’s appearance as gender-neutral as possible signaled total devotion to studying. It was necessary for a student, especially a female student, to work in a ‘genderless’ body. Like the other forms of sacrifice and discipline, the young women viewed this as mostly worthwhile, in keeping with utilitarian individualist values that require them to defer enjoyment for the sake of future

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success. They all knew that this sacrifice was only temporary and they believed one would make up for it throughout the rest of one’s life, especially when one had succeeded in getting into a university. After all, in their view, beauty, or at least good looks, are important for females. Similarly, the parents interviewed in a study on parents’ expectations of their only child disallowed their primary school daughters to pay much attention to their appearance while asserting that good looks are important for females. A mother kept telling her top school performer daughter: ‘When you have entered university, mom will buy the best clothes for you. For the moment, just wear your school suit, my dear’ (Liu, 2006b, p. 498). Such ‘gratification deferment’ contrasts to the young female subjectivities in Western feminists’ accounts of postfeminist media culture. An emphasis on pursuit of pleasure, hedonism and sexual freedom was clearly missing from the Chinese young women’s experiences, though they shared with their Western counterparts an emphasis on educational and professional success. Young women as substitute sons Both the young men and young women in this study took their filial duty for granted, which reinforced their strong motivation for high achievement. Such a wish is remarkable because as Beijingers, their parents can expect at least a minimum pension and enjoy more favorable welfare support by the state than most other citizens. Thus, it will be unnecessary for the child to ‘provide’ for them, as confirmed by both the young people and their parents, who typically said that they would not rely on their child for material support in old age. The parents also typically wished to contribute to their child’s welfare as long as they live. A wish to fulfill filial duty in parents’ old age fits the male familial role in the Chinese tradition. But the young women’s wish, which was at least as strong as, if not stronger than, that of the young men, to take care of their parents in old age entailed a new subject position for them as ‘substitute sons’, which resulted in certain degree of degendering the female self. Filial duty in the Chinese tradition prescribes that both sons and daughters are to contribute to parents’ welfare, but in gender-specific ways. Daughters, like sons, are supposed to love, show respect and serve their parents. But it is mainly the son’s responsibility to take care of his parents in old age in both material and emotional terms. Although a daughter is supposed to be dutiful to her own parents, once married, the weight of her filial duty shifts to her parents-in-law; she is supposed to help her husband fulfill his filial duty to his parents. Although state legislation encourages equal obligations of sons and daughters (Qi, 2015), the traditional norm of gendered distribution of filial duty is still prevalent in China (Eklund, 2018). Failure to practice filial duty to one’s own parents is indicative of failed masculinity. However, the young women in this study talked about their filial duty in much the same terms as their male counterparts did. Keeping parents company and not staying away for a prolonged time (fumu zai, buyuanyou) are important requirements for a dutiful son according to the filial scripts. Today, this also seems to

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apply to the urban only child daughter acting as a substitute son. The young women all envisioned a future of living close by their parents. Some wished to live under the same roof with their parents even after they get married. Although they would like to explore the larger world, most of them said they would return to the capital to find a job or make a career, not only because the capital promises better opportunities but also because their parents are there. If they were to end up elsewhere (which they did not think was likely), they said they would want their parents to come to live with them. In the Chinese tradition, a filial son has a dutiful wife who assists him fulfill his filial duty. An exemplary wife is one who not only ‘assists her husband and brings up the sons’, but also serves her parents-in-law in a selfless way, as shown in many traditional dramas. This tradition has been weakened because most young couples no longer live under the same roof with the husband’s parents. However, young men may still prefer a wife who is dutiful to his parents, especially given the implications of this for his masculinity. The young men in this study did say that their future wives must be dutiful to their parents. On the other hand, maintaining that her husband be dutiful to her parents was traditionally much less relevant for a woman because she was to join the husband’s family. But in talking about their standards for choosing a husband, the young women in this study said that it is important that the man be nice and dutiful to her parents – in much the same way as their male counterparts talked about their criteria for a wife (see also Liu, 2008b). When parents’ basic needs are not an issue, the only children daughters, like their male counterparts, then wished to raise the parents’ living standard to a higher level. What is so striking is that the wish to give parents a better life was common to both the few girls whose families belonged to the working class with minimum incomes and those whose families were wealthy. Leilei, to be introduced in the following section, said: ‘I am determined to make lots of money. I must enable my mother to live a rich lady’s life.’ Xinxin (at the key school) said: ‘I will enable my parents to live the life they wish to live. . . . My mom loves new clothes. I can, for example, open a fashion store for her. My father likes coffee. I would like to open a coffee house for him.’ Such projects would require considerable economic capital. Besides a wish to repay parental love and investment, the daughters’ shared wish to fulfill filial duty reflects the persistence of the filial norm in present-day China (Eklund, 2018). It also has to do with the one-child policy, which, together with the more general post-Mao transformation, has had a degendering effect upon urban daughters, who internalize the expectation that they assume the role as substitute sons, thus crossing traditional gender boundaries. Deliberate masculinization of the female self: appropriating ‘manly’ qualities Given that ‘masculine’ qualities are required to meet new institutional and cultural demands, it is not surprising that the young women, as post-Mao aspiring

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individuals, admired and made efforts to cultivate such qualities. This ‘deliberate masculinization’ was done either by identifying with boys, ‘claiming a share of male power through acting as an honorary boy’ (Paechter, 2006, p. 257), or by renouncing certain aspects of stereotypical femininity and appropriating certain aspects of masculinity. ADMIRATION AND CULTIVATION OF ‘MANLY’ QUALITIES

There was a tendency to admire manly qualities, especially among those more successful at school. Most of them thought it is quite OK to be a girl, but nearly all the girls from the key school and a few from the ordinary school admired boys. Males, according to them, are stronger than females, freer, more confident, more open-minded, more broad-minded, more intelligent, oriented towards larger issues rather than trivial ones and they make friends with each other more easily. Girls and women tend to be the opposite. Since xiao nüsheng (‘girlie’) represents all these qualities, they did not wish to be one. The data do not show how this male admiration had evolved over time. But it was reflected in parents’ gendered attitudes towards their children (Liu, 2006b). As I shall show later, such male admiration did not seem to be affected by the girls’ positive perception of themselves as the ‘luckier sex’. Their admiration for ‘typically manly’ characteristics was largely framed in essentialist terms. Nevertheless, they deemed it possible and important for girls to cultivate these qualities. Some saw martial arts and sports as means for this purpose, regretting that one hardly found time for such activities during the upper secondary years. Xinxin (at the key school) felt fortunate to have practiced two years of martial arts at primary school, which she believed made her less ‘girlie’. A few took up class representative responsibility to become bolder, less narrowminded and more mature, thus less ‘girlie’. Weiwei (at the ordinary school) said working as class monitor changed her from being very timid into someone much bolder and confident. But she said she still needs to become less ‘girlie’. A few of them had deliberately made friends with boys (as well as girls) in order to ‘learn from boys their ways of thinking’. Those who were seen by themselves or others as ‘boyish’, viewed it as an asset without any concern about ‘failed femininity’. Yuzhu (at the key school), who called herself a tomboy, having dismantled the boundary between femininity and masculinity, said: I feel very good. I am not a typical girl. I am sporty. I am like a tomboy. I play freely with both girls and boys and have friends from both groups. I believe that I am happier than the girlies. I do not want to change that part of me. The admiration of manly qualities fits an earlier study of parental expectations of the Chinese only child (Liu, 2006b), in which a new ideal for their daughters was found among high SES couples. While insisting on the importance of gentleness and beauty (as the other parents did), they wanted their daughters to develop

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some manly characteristics (e.g., strong will, toughness, boldness, ambitiousness, competitiveness, independence). They therefore encouraged their daughters to play football, mix with boys, travel alone, quarrel or fight with boys and enter traditionally manly professions (e.g., politics). They believed manly qualities would help their daughters achieve success in a competitive and male-dominated world. ‘I LOVE IT THAT OTHERS TREAT ME AS A BOY’: LEILEI’S STORY

Leilei may be an extreme case of wishing to be powerful in a masculine way. But her story coincides with the general admiration of manly qualities among the participants. Her narrative revolved around cultivating manly traits in herself. Such a self-project was initiated by her parents who disliked typical ‘girlie’ characteristics: ‘My parents brought me up as a boy. They dislike a girl’s way of behaving – niuniu nienie, jiaorou zaozuo (coy, affectedly bashful and shilly-shally; affected, artificial). I have also been cultivating myself into a boy.’ At aged 17, she had apparently achieved a manly character and was proud of it: I am called ‘Brother Lei’ by all classmates. Whenever we form teams for sports, the boys will say, ‘Why don’t you join the boys’ team, Brother Lei?’ I love it that others treat me as a boy. It feels more powerful. To help harden her ‘manliness’, Leilei took karate courses even when she should have devoted herself exclusively to schoolwork. She rode a motor bicycle to school (mostly a manly vehicle in China), and wore manly or gender-neutral clothes. She made it clear that the type of self she was trying to mold served her expression of individuality: ‘I hate to wear the same clothes as others.’ She repeatedly pointed out that it also empowered her. Leilei’s manly identity was strengthened by her karate coach, who became her idol: I started worshiping her as soon as I met her. She is a female coach, but very, very shuai (handsome). Oh, the type of power radiating from her! She represents what I have wanted to be. I worship her. She is a girl. And yet, a boy, even though he is much taller than her, will be awed by her once she stands there. Throughout our conversation, this idol was frequently mentioned. Following her idol around, Leilei hardly attended class during her first upper secondary school year. All this took place without her mom’s knowledge. But Leilei had no regrets, even though it had been detrimental to her academic performance and she was struggling with all her school subjects at the time of the interview. Leilei looked up to ‘female strong persons’ in general. Her professional ideals included doctor, policewoman, lawyer, film or TV postproduction staff. She had been suspected of being lesbian because of her masculine practices and the close

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relationship with her coach. This she denied, claiming to be totally heterosexual and feeling disgusted with gay people. HANDSOME GIRLS (SHUAI NÜSHENG)

Renouncing ‘girlie’ femininity also applied to ideals concerning appearance. Talking about favorite clothing styles, many of them said that nowadays most girls dislike the typically ‘girlie’ appearance. Rather, they prefer to appear shuai (handsome). Shuai as a noun means ‘commander in chief’ and as a verb means ‘to command (the army)’. It has come to be used as an adjective to describe handsome young men, as in the popular expression shuai ge (handsome guy). It overlaps with the English ‘handsome’, but shuai is also associated with being dynamic and strong, even tough. It is often used with the expression ku (cool), as in another popular expression shuai dai le, ku bi le (literally, ‘nullifyingly’ handsome and ‘killingly’ cool). Increasingly, shuai is also used for describing young females who contrast with normative femininity. Shuai nüsheng (handsome girl) is a new form of female attractiveness competing with conventional bodily femininity. Such female images have been central in the popular ‘Supergirl’ TV singing contests. Androgynous or boyish ‘Supergirl’ singers, such as Li Yuchun and Zhou Bichang, are hailed as emblems of individuality by their viewers. Some of my informants mentioned having ‘Supergirls’ as idols, calling them shuai. A shuai girl represents other qualities than the ‘softness’ and ‘fragility’ embodied by the xiao nüsheng. It is the addition of ‘toughness’ or ‘hardness’ that seems appealing to many young women. The notion of shuai nüsheng is related to female individuality and playful experimentation in tastes based on consumer choice. But it also displays inner qualities distinguishing them from the ‘girlies’, as in Leilei’s depiction of her shuai female coach. The daughters typically did not refer to gentleness/softness (wenrou) as part of their female ideal. This together with their preference for ku appearance contrasts with their mothers’ general emphasis on female gentleness also in appearance, as reflected in the image of ‘a beauty as gentle and sweet as a little bird’ mentioned earlier. Fangfang (at the ordinary school) explicitly rejected this female image that her mother identified with and was proud of: ‘I don’t wish to be like my mother at all. She is too soft.’ This change may be a backlash on the post-Mao refeminization of women rather than just an expression of individuality. But it also fits the argument that globally, masculinization of the female self may be generally true of women’s changing role, because in education as well as in professional and business domains, ‘it is primarily the assertiveness and authority of masculinity rather than the aesthetics of femininity that is required and rewarded’ (Reay, 2001, p. 165). Nevertheless, what makes the Chinese case interesting is that alongside the defeminization of their female self, the young women also (re)gendered themselves by endorsing the discourse of ‘natural’ sex differences and strongly wishing to maintain certain aspects of the traditional gender role.

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The (re)gendering of the female self The young women (re)gendered themselves through an essentialist discourse of sex differences, thus positioning themselves as the ‘dependent modern female’, contrary to the ‘autonomous modern female’. With this discourse of ‘natural’ sex differences, the Maoist gender sameness and the image of the genderneutral aspiring individual depicted earlier gave way to a reversal to genderspecific expectations for men and women, at least in the job and career market and family life although not necessarily in education (Lauglo and Liu, 2019). ‘Men and women are born different’ All my informants asserted that men and women are ‘naturally different’, arguing that males are born stronger, more powerful or ‘better’ than women. This essentialist view was reflected in their admiration for manliness. It was even more centrally expressed in their general view of men and women and their gender-specific expectations. They provided ‘scientific’ evidence for the ‘natural’ differences. Yinyin (at the ordinary school) said: ‘I once read that a boy is born as an inverted triangle because he is supposed to be the pillar between heaven and earth (dingtian lidi).’ Qingqing (at the ordinary school) argued: ‘Why does a female produce only one single egg each month, whereas a male has thousands of sperms? That is because a male is the strong one (qiangzhe).’ That males are ‘stronger’ builds on still another ‘natural’ difference. Regardless of academic performance, school or family background, nearly all said that males are more intelligent than females. Yili (at the ordinary school), who perceived herself as an ‘atypical girl’, said: ‘Boys are definitely more intelligent than girls. I am the more intelligent type among girls. Boys’ minds react faster. Girls’ minds slow down as they get older.’ It was a shared understanding that boys think more rationally and logically. Parents in the aforementioned study of expectations of their only children (Liu, 2006b) also believed that males are more intelligent than females and have ‘natural’ qualities for great achievement. Such a view is also widely found in other societies (e.g. the belief that if a girl achieves, it is mainly due to her diligence, whereas for a boy, it indicates intelligence) (Liu, 2006c), a view also expressed by the participants from all the three generations in this present study. ‘A man ought to do better than a woman’ Essentialist views about sex differences yielded different expectations of males and females. Like their male counterparts, the young women endorsed both ‘soft’/expressive and ‘hard’/instrumental qualities and roles for both men and women while leaving the core gender role for men and women intact in their gender construction. Their ideals and expectations for men included, to use their own words: ‘strong/powerful’, ‘striving/fighting’, ‘responsible’, ‘aspirational’, ‘ambitious’,

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‘enterprising’, ‘capable/competent’, ‘successful’, ‘generous’, ‘career-oriented’, ‘mature’, ‘breadwinner’ and ‘pillar of the family’. Some also mentioned other desirable male qualities: ‘loving’, ‘kind-hearted’, ‘gentle’, ‘good tempered’ and ‘handsome’; but these were much less emphasized than achievement-oriented qualities. They frequently said: ‘The most important is that he has ambitions and works hard for them. Appearance is not so important though shuai would also be desirable.’ For women and wives, they used the words ‘independent’, ‘capable’, ‘have her own career/job’, ‘dash between family and career/job’, ‘pretty/beautiful’, ‘elegant’, ‘graceful’, ‘kind-hearted’, ‘good-mannered’, ‘reasonable’, ‘cherish one’s good name’, ‘dutiful’ and ‘assist the husband and bring up the child.’ They were much less articulate about women than about men concerning achievement, although they typically wished to achieve something. Most of them did not seem to have such clear and high achievement goals beyond university education as their male counterparts did. They reasoned that because men are born stronger, men should achieve more and husbands should shoulder more family responsibility. It was unacceptable for these young women to get a husband who would be less capable, earn less money or have a lower career profile than the wife  – a point I  shall elaborate further in Chapter 7. Lingwei (at the key school) said: ‘I like talented men. It might be OK if my husband makes less money than me, but not too much less. It would tell much about his ability.’ When asked how she would react if her husband earned less money than she, Cencen, a top student at the key school, said: ‘That would be too bad. Then I would deliberately want to earn less.’ Xinxin (at the key schools) believed that a husband who makes less money than the wife is meibenshi (incapable) and therefore deserves to be despised. Like many others, she could not imagine conjugal harmony with such a husband. Jia, a good student at the ordinary school, who asserted that conjugal happiness would be extremely important for her, said: Why should a man make less money than a woman? I cannot accept it. A man should be better than a woman in all respects. Even if he doesn’t achieve academically, he should find another way. He must accomplish something! Their insistence that men must achieve more in life also had to do with the different roles and responsibilities they expected of males and females. Tong (at the ordinary school) described her standards for a husband: Someone with great accomplishment. His material condition should not be too bad. All women wish to find a rich husband. He should not be a farmer. Farmers are too poor and miserly. In short, he should be very good in all ways and better than me in all respects. Since ancient times men have always been more powerful than women. To be sure, there are nowadays women who do better than men. But men ought to do better than women and they ought to look after women. It is true that women can also take care of men. But I believe men should look after women first.

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Tong added that a husband’s main role is to be the breadwinner, but it is also important that he ‘asks about warmth and cold’ (xühanwennuan). That is, the man should attend to the woman’s material and psychological-emotional needs. But she added: ‘He should not be too soft, though. He should not appear too feminine’ (tai niang le). Not all thought that the man should be better than the woman in all respects, but they shared with varying emphasis the view that he should shoulder more responsibility and contribute more to the family’s material welfare. However, they did also think it is important for a woman to have her own career, or at least a job, for the sake of personal fulfillment and independence. Jia (at the ordinary school) said: ‘It is important I have an occupation. I would not like to confine myself to the home every day. I am sure I will not accept that.’ Nevertheless, it would feel wrong if the woman were the family’s main provider. In Lulu’s (at the ordinary school) words: ‘It is not for a woman to provide for the family. She may help with the economy, but she should not be the main breadwinner.’ That is, a woman is neither born as the pillar between heaven and earth, nor is she expected to be the ‘pillar’ of the family. All of them believed housework and child-rearing should be shared between husband and wife. Most of them said that both men and women should have careers and both should attend to the family. But an exemplary woman is one ‘dashing between her job or career and her family’, whereas a man should focus mainly on his career although he is also supposed to participate in housework, if he can, and look after kids and care about the family’s daily life. Many of the young women said it is natural that wives do more housework and child-rearing, just as it is natural for men to ‘fight/strive’ (dapin) outside the family. Only one girl (at the key school) thought that the one whose career is more successful should receive more support from the other. She added: ‘But usually it is the man who should be the family’s pillar and the one who fights/strives outside.’ A few said they hated housework and would like their husbands to do more, but they also looked down upon men who ‘focus on housework at home instead of striving for accomplishment outside’, just as they despised men who ‘eat soft meals’ (chi ruanfan), that is, relying on their wives for survival instead of striving outside. A few suggested hiring a maid for house chores, a practice increasingly common among middle-class families (Sun, 2009). For some, it is acceptable that a woman give up her career if her husband is so successful that he deserves her total support. But it was hard for them to imagine a man giving up his career to support his wife. Leilei, who worships ‘strong females’, nonetheless saw another possibility: I have two ideal female images: the ‘strong female’, e.g., CEO of a foreign enterprise, and the full-time housewife. The former is very competent and can choose to rely only on herself and not to marry. If you cannot be the former, then you can devote yourself totally to the family and taking care of your husband who fights/strives outside. The latter is also successful! Thus, the young women, in consensus with their male counterparts, placed husband and wife in their respective roles or ‘comfort zones’ as ordained by ‘nature’.

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Such a position is at odd with both the Maoist state feminism and the Western notion of gender equality. ‘Second-sex’, but ‘first-class citizen’? Far from being oppressive, the participants claimed, gender relation based on ‘natural’ sex differences favors women. Many felt lucky to be female. Thus, a ‘fortunately female’ discourse emerged. Lingwei (at the key school) said: ‘Females are at an advantage. Under greater pressure to achieve, males live a harder life.’ Nobody thought this view was self-contradictory, because how could life be harder for males if they also are more capable physically and mentally? Even those admiring males and trying to masculinize themselves agreed about this gender difference. They might admire males for their strength and freedom, but had no envy for their mission. Such celebration of the ‘lucky girl’ was especially evident among those girls who were not doing well academically. Wenwen (at the ordinary school) said: ‘I feel so fortunate being a girl.’ Jia (at the ordinary school) elaborated: ‘I don’t envy boys. Females are luckier. If you don’t achieve academically, you can still marry well: someone rich, or who can make money to make life easier for you.’ When asked if this contradicted their independence ideal, they said that girls/ women are also supposed to strive for success, but that achievement expectations are weaker for women. Xinxin (at the key school) explained: ‘I also want to have my own successful career and be independent, but I am not expected to buy an apartment for us. It is the man’s duty.’ Female and beauty/good looks The young women used adjectives such as ‘beautiful’, ‘pretty’, ‘elegant’, ‘graceful’ and ‘showing good taste’ in describing their ideal women who should also be capable. They all thought ‘good-looking’ is more important for women than for men. As mentioned earlier, the young women, especially the ‘good students’, typically disciplined themselves not to pay ‘undue’ attention to their appearance in order to enhance their concentration on study. This does not mean they downplayed the importance of good looks. They were merely deferring gratification in this respect, just as they did in other respects to maximize their chance of testing into as good a higher education institution as possible. They all expected to make up for this ‘loss’ once the gaokao was over. Xinxin (from the key school) said: ‘I think I have natural talent for dressing up. But I have to wait till I am done with the gaokao to display it.’ She wished that she would have a job helping actresses to dress up. Lingwei (at the key school) said that she had put away all the New Year and birthday gift money she had saved (50,000 yuan) for new clothes once she entered university. When asked what kind of life she would like me to see her living in her dreamland, the first thing Yili (at the ordinary school) said was: ‘I wish to be better looking. After all I am a girl.’ Yuzhu, the key school girl who

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called herself a ‘tomboy’ and who felt good about it, replied when asked about her ideal female image: ‘Oh. I will never be able to qualify as one. An ideal woman is a tall and slender one with a pretty face and long flowing hair.’ Lulu (at the ordinary school) said: ‘I am not pretty. It is my parents’ fault, not mine. But I can make myself graceful. Good looking does not necessarily mean a pretty face, but graceful demeanor and good taste.’ Even though they typically downplayed clothes, makeup and adornments, the young women were concerned about how they looked in other ways, particularly their body shape. A few of them regretted being too short. Some wished to have fairer skin. What is striking was a shared worry about being too fat, even though none of them looked overweight and some even looked overly thin. Some were trying to lose weight on a diet while working hard to prepare for the gaokao. Xinxin (at the key school) said that she kept skipping lunch and eating very little, sometimes only fruit, for dinner. She was disappointed because ‘I have lost only 3 kilos. I wish to lose 5. So I must eat less. It seems that I gain weight even by just drinking water.’ Physical exercise was not an option for keeping the body slim, because one could hardly find the time for it. Besides, not everyone liked sport (in contrast to many of the young men interviewed). This contrasts with their mothers’ reportedly little concern about their own body weight when they were young, although they were also concerned about looking good. The young women offered various reasons for their emphasis on women’s good looks. Good looks will please yourself and enhance well-being. Cencen said: ‘When you look at yourself in the mirror, you will like the image if you look good. You will then be more self-confident and happier.’ A couple of them said it makes you charming and attractive to the other sex: ‘Who does not wish to be attractive?’ Some also said that good looks would enhance one’s chance of getting a good job. This resembles a Chinese young woman interviewed in 2005 by the Norwegian National Broadcasting Company (NRK, 2015), who had spent much money and was suffering great pains to have her legs lengthened so she could be taller. She believed that this was worthwhile because the ‘better’ physical appearance would enhance her competitiveness in the labor market. Some also made the point that a woman who knows how to live a fulfilling life also knows how to take care of her female self. Investing in her own beauty is an important part of such self-care. The emphasis on female beauty is an integral part of the post-Mao gender retraditionalization which stresses the ‘uniquely female’ qualities in women. It also has to do with the enormously expanding beauty industry that encourages women to claim and enjoy feminine self-expression through active consumption. For the young women in this study, it is an important part of their desire for getting the best of both worlds or having it all, as a way to maximize their benefits from modernization and also to fit into the post-Mao gender order. To be sure, contemporary Chinese young men may also be under greater pressure than previous generations to look good. The rise of the social media that popularize the ‘perfect’ female and male body images, the related market, the rampant consumerism and the narcissistic selfie culture address men as well as

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women. At least, some such pressure was indicated in the narratives by the young men in this study. Most of the young men were satisfied with their own appearance. But a few were not content with certain features of their body such as dark skin, small eyes, short stature and being overweight. Some of them also said that they must lose some weight. A couple of them (mainly at the ordinary school) were trying to eat less and squeezing time out to do some physical exercise for that purpose. Others (mainly at the key school) said they would wait until after the gaokao to do regular training and eat less for that purpose because ‘at the time being I need the nutrition for the hard school work.’ However, they also believed that it is after all more important for women to look good than for men. Those who wished to lose weight did look at least somewhat obese. That is, the young men might also want to have it all, but their ‘all’ differed from the young women’s ‘all’. Whereas good look is desirable also for men, it is his chenggong that is most crucial for his core gender role, hence his self-worth. Beauty, on the other hand, seems to be much more naturally related to the gendered expectations of women and her core gender role.

Conclusion The young women in this study simultaneously held two seemingly contradictory subject positions: the ‘autonomous modern female’ and the ‘dependent modern female’ as they both degendered and (re)gendered themselves. Underlying this tendency was a desire to have the best of both worlds. Such a twin ideal is implied in the post-Mao definition of exemplary womanhood that enjoins women to be both independent and uniquely female. The former positions women as aspiring individuals in the free market economy while the latter positioned them as gendered beings who are supposed to observe ‘natural sex differences’. Just as the chenggong male ideal allowed the young men to simultaneously assume their subject position as the aspiring individual and fit into the gender order, the female ideal of having it all by getting the best of both worlds served the same purpose for the young women. Not every young woman may eventually enact this dual ideal, but it was widely endorsed by all and heavily sponsored by their parents, despite variation in family background, school performance and individual biographical factors. The young women’s gender conceptions and practices resemble the findings in an earlier study (Liu, 2006a) fielded in 2004 of youth from the urban post1980s cohort of only children. The young women interviewed in that study also attempted to make the best of both worlds by working hard to qualify for a career while also cultivating ‘uniquely female’ qualities to fit into a gendered social order. They, including those who were aiming at postgraduate studies at top universities, said they were not interested in any extraordinary accomplishment lest that would make them less feminine or less desirable as women. Wishing their daughters to have the best of both worlds was also a shared strong wish among the high SES parents in a study of parental expectations for their only children (Liu, 2006b).

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The ‘independently female’ and the ‘uniquely female’ discourses were also both evident in the middle generation’s narratives of their youth experiences. However, what differentiates the two generations of women are the daughters’ substantially higher expectations (or at least higher aspirations) of life, and their greater level of articulateness (still as teenagers) and reflexivity in narrating about their female self and in evoking the twin ideal. The daughters’ high expectations or aspirations of life contrast with their mothers’ lack of such awareness and possibilities when they were young in the 1980s and early 1990s. The mothers all managed to attend to both paid work and the family. So they did have some achievement in both worlds; but they did not think that they had had the ‘best’ of these two worlds. Or rather, they, at least some, might have achieved what was seen at that time as the best, but that best was no longer valid in the light of what seems possible for young women today. So they wished vicariously and thought it possible for their daughters to have it all by having the best of both worlds. The daughters’ dual ideal contrasts still more sharply with their grandmothers who emphasized the constraints by traditional gender norms and the Maoist gender ethos as well as by severe material hardships which rendered such an ideal irrelevant and inaccessible. It was impossible for them to entertain individualistic achievement ideals, or desire personal happiness, or take care of their female self in ways that the two younger generations, especially their granddaughters, did. The grandmothers’ narratives about their young womanhood are mainly about self-sacrifice and self-denial for the interests of the family and/or socialist collectivities, in contrast to the younger generations’ growing individualistic sense of the female self. The young women’s degendering constitutes self-empowering. Such empowerment is necessary for successful identities within the new economy that favors masculine values and qualities. It is an agentic response to individualization in a context where fierce market competition goes without a sound, state-provided safety net and where women are treated as equal competitors with men within a male-favoring social structure. Femininity, especially ‘emphasized femininity’, combines with ‘hegemonic masculinity’ to position women as powerless or less powerful (Connell, 1995). Therefore, opposing normalized femininity is to reject the disempowerment that comes with it (Paechter, 2006). The young women’s self-empowerment also fits their subject positions as ‘aspiring individuals’ and ‘substitute sons’. Though degendering the self in certain ways, the young women also (re)gendered themselves. The latter reflects the post-Mao female ‘refeminization’ with an emphasis on the ‘uniquely female’ in defining ideal womanhood. Although it remains trapped within patriarchy and helps to perpetuate it, explicitly embracing certain aspects of femininity may also represent informal power. Reclaiming femininity can be a way of counteracting the ‘masculinizing’ effects of China’s market reform and the one-child policy. Masculinizing the self, albeit liberalizing, can also mean alienation of the female self and devaluation of ‘femaleness’ (Butler, 2004), which underlies the backlash against Maoist feminism. The young

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women perceived a vested interest in maintaining the essential division of gender. Claiming to be ‘born weaker’ legitimatizes the expectation that men shoulder more responsibility. Rather than indicating compliance with patriarchy, such ‘doing gender’ serves as a relief for these only children girls from the overwhelming pressure for achievement in a still male-dominated world. Moreover, femininity may be worth reclaiming in China as elsewhere because the performance of femininity is no longer regarded as supporting a patriarchal system, but it is rather to be freely enjoyed primarily through active consumption (McRobbie, 2009). In this sense, it would be misleading to view their narratives as sheer reiteration of the essentialist gender discourse, or retro-sexism in a Western feminist sense. Their understanding of gender relationships seems to agree with a strong ‘no’ to Deutsch’s (2007, p. 117) question: ‘If difference can and usually does support gender oppression, must it?’ To make the answer negative, however, will depend upon negotiation requiring creativity and agency (Risman, 1998). This may prove challenging given the effect of ‘status expectation’ (Ridgeway, 2001), which means if men are considered more competent, with greater achievement and contribution, they may well continue to be the more valued. Despite some commonalities (such as the emphasis on educational and professional success), the Chinese young women’s expression of autonomous girlhood differs from the Western neoliberal postfeminist young womanhood which is predominantly based on a discourse of autonomy and independence (Gill and Scharff, 2011; Ringrose and Walkerdine, 2008). A systematic comparison with Western young women is beyond the present scope. However, a strong belief in ‘natural’ sex differences is strikingly absent among the Norwegian girls interviewed for the larger project which the present study is part of, likely reflecting a particularly strong emphasis on gender equality in Norway. In talking about their preferences for future marriage partners, the Norwegian young women maintained it is not important that the man has high achievement or ambitions for it – in contrast with the Chinese young women’s preferences. Compared with the ‘can-do’ girls in Western contexts, such as the United Kingdom, who are to be totally self-reliant in enabling themselves to have it all, the Chinese young women tended to resort to a consciously self-curtailed version of modern female autonomy. While aware of the limitation of a China/West dichotomy in cultural analysis, I suggest that the findings in this study also reflect a particular approach to modernity, which a Western feminist notion of neoliberal young womanhood does not capture. The young women’s gender construction agrees with a particularly ‘Chinese approach’ to modernity that makes a virtue of ‘duality’ in keeping with traditional Chinese dialectics (Liu, 2011). Thus what is seen by Western feminists as the uneasy and problematic coupling of contradictory and irreconcilable ‘postfeminist’ discourses, such as ‘a discourse of freedom, liberation and pleasure-seeking alongside the equally powerful desire for heterosexual monogamy’ (Gill and Herdieckerhoff, 2006), may not appear contradictory at all from a Chinese perspective. Such a dualism is part of the young generation’s more general tendency to maximize life and the self, as I shall discuss further in the concluding chapter.

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References Andrews, J. F. and Shen, K. 2002. The new Chinese woman and lifestyle magazines in the late 1990s. In P. Link, R. P. Madsen and P. G. Pickowicz (eds.) Popular China: Unofficial culture in a globalizing society (pp. 137–61). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Bordo, S. 1993. Unbearable weight: Feminism, Western culture, and the body. Berkeley: University of California Press. Butler, J. P. 2004. Undoing gender. London: Routledge. Chernin, K. 1981. The obsession: Reflections on the tyranny of slenderness. New York: Harper and Row. Connell, R. W. 1995. Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press. Croll, E. J. 1995. Changing identity of Chinese women: Rhetoric, experience and self perception in the twentieth-century China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Deutsch, F. M. 2007. Undoing gender. Gender and Society 21(1): 106–27. Eber, I. 1976. Images of women in recent Chinese fiction: Do women hold up half the sky? Signs 2(1): 24–34. Eklund, L. 2018. Filial daughter? Filial son? How China’s young urban elite negotiate intergenerational obligations. NORA – Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research 26(4): 295–312. Evans, H. 1995. Defining difference: The ‘scientific’ construction of sexuality and gender in the People’s Republic of China. Signs 20(2): 357–94. ———. 2002. Past perfect or imperfect: Changing images of the ideal wife. In S. Brownell and J. N. Wasserstrom (eds.) Chinese femininities/Chinese masculinities (pp. 335–60). Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. 2008. The subject of gender: Daughters and mothers in urban China. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Fincher, L. H. 2014. Leftover women: The resurgence of gender inequality in China. London: Zed Books. Fong, V. L. 2004. Only hope: Coming of age under China’s one-child policy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Gill, R. 2007. Postfeminist media culture: Elements of a sensibility. European Journal of Cultural Studies 10(2): 147–66. Gill, R. and Scharff, C. (eds.). 2011. New femininities: Postfeminism, neoliberalism and subjectivity. New York: Palgrave. Gill, R. and Herdieckerhoff, E. 2006. Rewriting the romance: New femininities in chick lit? LSE Research Online. Retrieved June 2013. Guan, S. J. 1993. The candle-lit café. Women of China, September (1): 1. Hoffman, L. 2003. Enterprising cities and citizens: The re-figuring of urban spaces and the making of post-Mao professionals. Provincial China 8(1): 5–26. Huang, X. 2006. Performing gender: Nostalgic wedding photography in contemporary China. Ethnologies 28(2): 81–111. Hung, H. K., Li, S. Y. and Russell, B. W. 2007. Glocal understandings: Female readers’ perceptions of the new woman in Chinese advertising. Journal of International Business Studies 38(6): 1034–51. Johansson, P. 2001. Selling the new Chinese woman: From hedonism to return of tradition in women’s magazine advertisements. In S. Munishi (ed.) Images of ‘modern women’ in Asia: Global media, local meanings (pp. 94–122). Richmond: Curzon.

174  The aspiring female individual Lauglo, J. and Liu, F. S. 2019. The reverse gender gap in adolescents’ expectation of higher education: Analysis of 50 education systems. Comparative Education Review 63(1): 28–57. Leavy, P., Gnong, A. and Ross, L. S. 2009. Femininity, masculinity, and body image issues among college-age women: An in-depth and written interview study of the mind-body dichotomy. The Qualitative Report 14(2): 261–92. Liu, F. S. 2006a. Modernization as lived experiences: Identity construction of young adult only-children in present-day China. PhD dissertation. Oslo: University of Oslo Press. ———. 2006b. Boys as only-children and girls as only-children: Parental gendered expectations of the only-child in the nuclear Chinese family in present-day China. Gender and Education 18(5): 491–506. ———. 2006c. School culture and gender. In C. Skelton, B. Francis and L. Smulyan (eds.) International handbook of gender and education (pp. 425–38). London: Sage. ———. 2008a. Constructing the autonomous middle-class self in today’s China: The case of young-adult only-children university students. Journal of Youth Studies 11(2): 193–212. ———. 2008b. Negotiating the filial self: Young-adult only-children and intergenerational relationship in China. Young 16(4): 409–30. ———. 2011. Urban youth in China: Modernity, the internet and the self. London: Routledge. Mannheim, K. 1952. The problem of generations. In K. Mannheim (ed.) Essays on the sociology of knowledge. London: RKP. McRobbie, A. 2009. The aftermath of feminism: Gender, culture and social change. Los Angeles: Sage. Moeran, B. 2004. Women’s fashion magazines: People, things, and values. In C. Werner, D. Bell and W. Creek (eds.) Values and valuables: From the sacred to the symbolic (pp. 257–81). Oslo: Alta Mira Press. NRK 1. 2015. (Norwegian National Broadcasting Company). News report (Dagsrevyen), May 1, 2015. Paechter, C. 2006. Masculine femininities/feminine masculinities: Power, identities and gender. Gender and Education 18(3): 253–63. Qi, X. 2015. Filial obligation in contemporary China: Evolution of the culture-system. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 45(1): 141–61. Reay, D. 2001. The paradox of contemporary femininities in education: Combining fluidity with fixity. In B. Francis and C. Skelton (eds.) Investigating gender: Contemporary perspectives in education (pp. 152–63). Buckingham: Open University Press. Ridgeway, C. L. 2001. Gender, status, and leadership. Journal of Social Issues 57(4): 637–55. Riley, N. 1997. Gender equality in China: Two steps forward, one step back. In W. A. Joseph (ed.) China briefing: The contradictions of change (pp. 79–108.). New York: M. E. Sharpe. Risman, B. J. 1998. Gender vertigo: American families in transition. New Haven: Yale University Press. Ringrose, J. and Walkerdine, V. 2008. Regulating the abject. Feminist Media Studies 8(3): 227–46. Shen, H. 2005. ‘The first Taiwanese wives’ and ‘The Chinese mistresses’: The international division of labor in familial and intimate relations across the Taiwan Strait. Global Networks 5: 419–37.

The aspiring female individual 175 Spakowski, N. 2011. ‘Gender’ trouble: Feminism in China under the impact of western theory and the spatialization of identity. Positions 19(1): 31–54. Sun, W. N. 2009. Maid in China: Media, morality, and the cultural politics of boundaries. London: Routledge. Wang, Q. and Zhou, Q. 2010. China’s divorce and remarriage rates: Trends and regional disparities. Journal of Divorce and Remarriage 51(4): 257–67. Wang, X. Y. 2017. Gender, dating and violence in urban China. London: Routledge. Whelehan, I. 2000. Overloaded: Popular culture and the future of feminism. London: Women’s Press. Williamson, J. 2003. Sexism with an alibi: Supposedly ironic, even kitsch, ads still keep women in their place. The Guardian, May 31. Retrieved June 2013. Xiao, S. W. 2011. The ‘second-wife’ phenomenon and the relational construction of classcoded masculinities in contemporary China. Men and Masculinities 14(5): 607–27. Yan, Y. X. 2009. The Individualization of Chinese society. Oxford: Berg. Zhang, Y. T. 2010. A mixed-methods analysis of extramarital sex in contemporary China. Marriage and Family Review 46(3): 170–90.

Chapter 7

An expressive turn with a Chinese twist Young people’s other-sex relations in three generations

Yu (at the key school) said during the interview: ‘I also have many stories about my current boyfriend.’ She then told me about falling in love with her fourth boyfriend, having described three others since she was 12. She also had close friendship with other boys. Her reflexivity and emotional ups and downs in these relationships show a striking complexity of the heart and mind absent in the two older generations’ recalled experiences. Some of the other young interviewees had less experience. However, Yu’s view of teen love as normal, her knowledge about sexuality and reproduction, her openness, articulateness and reflectiveness about love, and her explicit criteria for a suitable marriage partner were common in the young generation. How do the young women and men in this study relate to the other sex compared to their parents and grandparents when they were young? This chapter examines their attitudes towards and experiences of ‘pairing off’, moving towards marriage and sexuality in comparison with the two older generations as an extension of the exploration of their gender construction conducted in the two preceding chapters. I argue that the generational change in other-sex relations constitutes an expressive turn with a Chinese twist.

The rise of individual emotional expressivity Earlier research (Evans, 2008; Yan, 2003, 2009) points to the rising importance of emotional expressivity and communicative intimacy in post-Mao China as a new component of the individual’s sense of worth in personal relationships. With newfound individual freedom, growing material comfort, consumerism and Western influence, personal desires and emotions have gained legitimacy (Rofel, 2007; Yan, 2009). Rofel (2007) shows the rise of ‘the desiring subject’, an ‘individual who operates through sexual, material, and affective self-interest’ (p. 3). Yan (2009) argues this is one of the most important individualizing changes in China. Sensual love has publicly gained unprecedented recognition (Farrer, 2002; Jefferys and Yu, 2015; Pan, 2006; Yan, 2003, 2009). Passionate love was found in literature and songs; and a discourse of expressive love may have existed in certain historical periods among urbanites (Lee, 2007). However, in China’s Confucian

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history it was generally viewed as a threat to the social and political order (Higgins et al., 2002) and subordinated to the collective interests of the extended family (Goode, 1959). The volatile and disruptive effects of love and sexual desire were regulated, restrained and suppressed by rules of marriage, reproduction, inheritance and women’s position and behavior (Higgins et al., 2002). Rather than a matter between just two individuals, marriage was a family business for procreation and filial duty and arranged by parents for economic and political purposes. The Maoist era (1949–76) provided new social spaces for other-sex relationships. The 1950 Marriage Law endorsed individual freedom in choice of mate, late marriages, simplified rituals, greater gender and generational equality in families and freedom to divorce and remarry (Yan, 2003). The Party mobilized youth for revolutionary work in production and ideological-political activism. Together with expanded schooling, this enabled young women and men to meet and weakened parental control. However, Maoist idealism featured an asceticism that discouraged private emotions. Evans (1995, p. 358) writes: ‘Attention to matters of love and sex was treated either as shamefully illicit or as bourgeois individualism and thus detrimental to collective welfare.’ Romantic love was denounced as corrupt and reactionary, and sexuality was tabooed (Honig, 2003; Jefferys and Yu, 2015; Yan, 2009). Spouse selection was to be based on ‘revolutionary love’ featuring self-sacrifice for Communist ideals. During the Cultural Revolution, ‘the slightest suggestion of sexual interest was considered so ideologically unsound that gendered tastes in hairstyle and dress were coerced into a monotonous uniformity of shape and color’ (Evans, 1995, p. 358). Romantic feelings could only be expressed underground as depicted in the ‘scar literature’ (Honig, 2003). In the post-Mao context, intimacy and romantic love have become a new ideal for youth’s other-sex relationships. Hershatter (1984) contends that in the early 1980s courtship, love and marriage became topics that were discussed more than at any time since the May Fourth Movement of 1919 and such discussion was no longer limited to daring intellectuals. There came a steady stream of lyrics, music, literature, advertisements, TV series and movies featuring love and bespeaking desires, passion and indulgence – all remote from life under Maoism (Gold, 1993). Increasing emotional intimacy and expressivity in courtship from the 1970s to the 1990s is illustrated in Yan’s (2003) rural ethnography. The popularization of the Internet and cell phones has further facilitated communication about love and sexuality (Liu, 2011). It appears that Valentine’s Day and the Chinese ‘qixi day’ have become fashionable among urban youth. Love in marriage was, of course, not new (Jankowiak, 1995). But love had never before been given such prominence. Jankowiak (1995) concludes that a new urban generation came of age in the 1980s with expanded expectations of emotional satisfaction in marriage. For them, marriage was primarily for happiness and emotional security. The contemporary marriage laws endorse mutual love as the basis for marriage, contributing to its ‘privatization’ (Davis, 2014). In the 1980 Marriage Law, love and mutual affection replaced the traditional emphasis on favor and gratitude (enai), at least in theory (Pan, 2006).

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Sex has become a popular topic in public arenas (Farrer, 2002; Jefferys and Yu, 2015). There is increasing awareness of sexual rights and more tolerance of different sexual orientations. Expressing physical intimacy in public is common among young couples. Chinese youth may ‘lag behind’ Western counterparts in endorsing teen sex, but premarital sex has become more widely accepted (Li et al., 2010). Pan (2006) notes a shift from ‘sex for reproduction’ to ‘sex also for pleasure’ in the populace. A longing for sexual autonomy and its realization are expressed by such ‘beauty writers’ as Mianmian and Weihui and by Internet celebrities (e.g., Mu Zimei and Sister Furong), who are either lauded or criticized for overt portrayal and celebration of sexual freedom and pleasure. Thus, there is rising importance of individual emotional expressivity, but there appears to have been few studies on other-sex relations during youth based on a systematic comparison of different generations of interviewees. This chapter explores how the expressive transformation is manifested when recent generations are compared by focusing on their attitudes towards and experiences of ‘pairing off’, moving towards marriage and sexuality.

The grandparents: jiandan The grandparents’ narratives about their other-sex relations stressed jiandan (simpleness; simplicity). Jiandan goes beyond plain and simple material condition. It is also about the simplicity and brevity of procedures and processes. It also meant to them a simple heart and mind. Their life stories conveyed asceticism conditioned by harsh material conditions, traditional gender norms and Maoist ideology. Other-sex relationships revolved exclusively around marriage. Breaking a relationship, especially for women, spelled socially disapproved fickleness or disloyalty and made it difficult to find a new partner. All grandparents said they had stayed with the same partner since the prenuptial agreement, even in cases where one reportedly ‘did not get along at all’ with the partner or had suffered severe abuse such as beating. Nearly all the urban-born grandparents interviewed had attended (coeducational) lower secondary school. Most of the rural-born grandparents received two to five years of schooling after 1949. A few attended lower secondary school. A very small number of them (regardless of rural or urban origin) attended technical-vocational school (in teacher training, nursing or accountancy) after lower secondary school. The grandparents’ youth at least partly coincided with the first two decades of the PRC dominated by Maoist socialism. A couple of the oldest grandfathers (born in the 1930s) joined the army led by the CCP and joined the Party before the founding of the PRC in 1949. Those born later in the countryside typically joined the ‘mutual help groups’ (huzhuzu) in their villages and/or later the People’s Commune (renmin gongshe), where they earned workpoints as income from work. Some became cadres in production brigades, folk militia, or propaganda groups. Many, especially women, were in political study groups, performance troupes or other propaganda work and fondly recalled

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such activities as fun (see also Yan, 2003). Those in the city were typically assigned to work in factories. These public arenas provided new spaces for young men and women to meet and potentially fall in love, especially with the encouragement of the CCP’s campaigns to promote gender equality against traditional patriarchy and arranged marriage. Schooling and participation in collective work, both of which made it possible to meet the other sex away from parental supervision, empowered youth, especially young women who now became parents’ economic assets. Previously females had mainly stayed at home. Nevertheless, pairing off and romantic love were rare. The grandparents typically reported that tanlianai (literally ‘talking about love’; romance) was alien to them: ‘It was not common because people’s minds were extremely simple’; ‘It was not popular to tanlianai in those days’; or ‘I neither understood it nor thought about it.’ They associated tanlianai with present times when everything is fundamentally different in contrast to their own times characterized by ignorance, harsh struggle to survive, traditional gender norms and Maoist socialism: ‘We were like idiots compared to young people nowadays.’ The state and the family were the main guides. Radio programs were mostly Party propaganda and few rural households had radio. Many recalled having a ‘single-minded’ socialist-revolutionary enthusiasm (jiji) which left little time and thought for the other sex. It was glorious to neglect personal needs. Being publicly praised for hard work was a great honor. Xiulan was one of few rural girls who received lower secondary schooling after which she toiled in a brigade during the day and did propaganda work during evenings. She taught literacy class, acted in performance troupes, and wrote propaganda boards. People praised her for her hard work, revolutionary zeal and talent. She said: ‘I did not think about men at all.’ In urban locations, some proudly recalled mentions of their achievement in factory loudspeakers and receiving honor certificates. Chunrong, a level-8 grinder in a Beijing factory (denoting the highest achievement in his trade) and a revolutionary poet and CCP member, said when asked when he started tanlianai: ‘It was not tanlianai at all. Tanlianai was unpopular at all at that time. We did not understand tanlianai. I had no time for those things, only wishing to do well in my work. I didn’t have other thoughts.’ The grandparents’ striking lack of tanlianai experiences was not only due to strong sanctions against romance and sexuality under Maoist socialism (Evans, 1995; Honig, 2003; Jefferys and Yu, 2015; Yan, 2009); it was also in keeping with traditional gender norms. Some said one dared not show it if one had such desire. This was especially true of young women. Pairing off with boys was improper. Mixing with boys was frivolous, violated chastity norms and damaged one’s own and the family’s reputation; the less such involvement, the better one’s reputation. Most grandmothers emphasized they were ‘exemplary’ girls with strict parents. Xirong talked about two girls in her village who were criticized by their brigade leaders and became despised by all for showing interest in boys: ‘They did not mind losing face! Very shameful.’

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Tanlianai was even more difficult for young people (mostly men) who were in the army, where finding a partner and marrying were forbidden. The few men who spent their late teens and young adulthood in the army typically got a marriage partner and married later than most other same-aged men. Due to poverty, Fenglin left school in the first year of lower secondary school to start a job in Beijing in the 1950s when rural young men were recruited to help construct the capital city. As an expression of his jiji, he joined the army while in Beijing in response to the Party’s call. He got married at age 28, rather late compared to others. He said: Even if it had been permitted, it would have been unrealistic. There was little chance to meet the other sex in the army. Even if there had been chance, who dared to tanlianai? Those who tried to find marriage partners secretly, once discovered, were severely criticized and punished, such as losing one’s Party membership. The rule would loosen up only when one approached retirement. Economic constraints could also contribute to young men’s delay in considering finding a partner. Fenglin said he could have found someone to marry before he joined the army. However, his family did not have the preconditions needed for him to establish a family and therefore it was out of his mind: ‘It was not possible for me to consider my own matters’ (geren de shi). Most relied on matchmakers to find a spouse, although many had a say about going further after the introduction. A matchmaking introduction was normal even if the pair had long known each other. Suzhen knew her husband well as a schoolmate. A relative still had to formally introduce them before they could become ‘a pair’. It happened, albeit still rare, that young men and women did tanlianai, in the sense that they got attracted to each other and showed interest, especially among those younger ones of the older-generation interviewees who in theory were endowed with the right to pair off freely. But it was then strictly associated with finding a spouse. And as soon as their inclination was evident, their families were to intervene, and the young couple was not to be alone for long episodes for that would especially have spoiled the reputation of the young woman and her family. And again a matchmaker was normally involved when the two families hurried to organize formal engagement and prepare for the marriage. Fengshan, born in 1944, said that he found his spouse by himself: Our houses were close. We met every day at work for the brigade. We talked, joked and played together every day. She was very active and lively, good at singing. After a while, we haole (literally: ‘became good’; became lovers). He courted her. Soon afterwards, his relatives (his parents died when he was very young) sent a ‘matchmaker’ to her parents to persuade them to give their daughter’s hand to him and push on towards marriage. In short, regardless of whether one’s experiences could count as tanlianai, other-sex relations for the grandparents were uniformly for the purpose of finding

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a marriage partner, seldom for romance. Or as they put it, ‘It was jiandan, unlike young people today.’ Even the few who did pair off by themselves did so to find a marriage partner, and one would typically marry that very person one had paired off with. They disidentified with the modern notion of tanlianai. Two grandmothers had ‘paired off’ without any help from others. One explained: ‘No introduction was needed. We were cadres in the village.’ The other agreed to be courted by a factory workmate. Both denied having done any tanlianai. The urban grandmother asserted: ‘People did not know about tanlianai then. We went out occasionally during weekends, but never alone.’ Asked what they had looked for in a spouse, they typically said they gave it little thought or they had no requirements because ‘people in those days were jiandan.’ A grandmother said: ‘We had so few requirements, desires or wishes.’ Nobody used the term ‘love’ as a reason for agreeing to a marriage. I was told that it was embarrassing and even shameful to use this word when they were young and that they ‘still find it hard to utter it nowadays’. This need not mean there was no love in their relationships, as shown in Fengshan’s case, which resembles tanlianai. But some of them emphasized: ‘Xihuan (liking/loving) was not so relevant in those days.’ Other criteria mattered, but they described these as jiandan. A few said they wanted someone they could get along with. Fenglin said: ‘I did not have requirements, except that she should not be “higher” than me in terms of political rank and earnings, lest she would look down upon me.’ Since a ‘plain and hard life’ was praised and all were poor, wealth was not supposed to matter. Indirectly, social mobility prospects and material security may have mattered, especially for young women’s choice of spouse, if indicated by jiji in revolutionary work, Party membership, chengfen (class background), being a cadre and non-agricultural job. But all said that such concerns were nothing compared to the importance young people nowadays, especially women, attach to a man’s family status and wealth. Spouse choice was mainly about guorizi (literally, ‘passing the days’; getting by in a livelihood; making ends meet). Young men and their parents preferred virtuous and dutiful young women who were also hardworking and capable both in the house and outside and who were benfen (well-behaved; abiding by social norms and rules; loyal). But most young women in those days were capable of work and benfen conditioned by the harsh material conditions, Maoist asceticism and traditional gender norms. Young women and their families preferred men who were laoshi (well-behaved; unadventurous or not risk-taking; conforming to norms and rules; honest, reliable and loyal), which overlaps with benfeng mainly used about women (although it can also be used about men). It was not hard to find such a person in a context where political and familial control of young people was strong and individualistic risk-taking and adventures were discouraged. A factory girl in Beijing married a man introduced to her because he was laoshi – not merely because he was a truck driver, an urban and ‘decent’ job then. Being capable and hardworking was self-evidently desirable also in a man as spouse given its crucial role in this generation’s struggle for survival.

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Good looks were of course desirable for both men and women, but such considerations were largely irrelevant in an era when the main concern was to guorizi in a context of widespread poverty and struggle for survival, and to contribute to socialist construction under an ethos that discouraged expression of sexual interests by any gender-specific use of makeup, adornments and clothes, or by other abstentious grooming of one’s appearance: ‘One would be content just not to have holes in one’s clothes’, as a grandfather put it. Many narratives showed Maoist influence. Guilan was a village teacher. Against her father’s will but with support from her mother, she made it to an upper secondary vocational school for training teachers and thus enabled herself to leave agriculture – a rare opportunity for rural girls. She showed revolutionary jiji by volunteering to teach in a remote mountainous area. She was too jiji to marry early: ‘Marriage would make it harder to do the work well.’ Being introduced to her husband at age 25, her one requirement was jiji at work and political zeal. A non-agricultural job mattered. Looks were unimportant (though ‘he was handsome’). Everything else was left to a comrade matchmaker. They married quickly to leave time for political campaigning. There was a simple ceremony at her husband’s work-unit: a few comrades, some candy and peanuts and revolutionary songs. Chunrong, the revolutionary poet and exemplary grinder, said: I did not want to marry early because I was all bent on my work. I got married at 29, about one year after my wife was introduced to me. There was no wedding. We just moved together after we picked up our marriage certificate, each bringing our own beddings. I was extremely busy. Grinding is a hard craft, requiring high degree of precision. I was also busy writing poems after work. Contrary to some previous studies on marriage under Maoism (e.g., Evans, 1995; Honig, 2003; Jeffery and Yu, 2015), the selection of spouse was not necessarily ‘political’. However, it was certainly jiandan, as the grandparents emphasized. For some, especially those older interviewees in this generation, such processes were entirely traditional and parent-arranged. Xiugu grew up in a remote village. At age 15 she was introduced to her husband and soon married him: ‘I was just like a simpleton. I did not understand what the introduction meeting was about. Just saw a man there. My parents decided and left everything to the go-between. That was common at the time.’ But she had resolved not to marry if it would have meant climbing mountains or crossing rivers in everyday life, as in her native village. Chunfu was born in 1933 and grew up in a mid-China village. His parents engaged him to an 8-year-old neighbor girl when he was 10 years old. They got married when he was 18. Traditional marriages also occurred in cities. Guirong, born in 1932 in Beijing, married at 17: ‘My parents decided everything for me. All marriages were arranged at that time. I did not want to be married off. I cried much.’ Her husband did not beat her. They did not quarrel much. So she was content.

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In some cases, ‘choice’ centered on survival. To her regret, Yulan left school after two years due to her family’s needs and poverty. With a chronically ill mother and a mentally retarded father, she was the family’s ‘pillar’ as the oldest of four children. During the late 1950s and early 1960s with widespread famine, people were struggling on meager ‘rations’. At 17 she was introduced by her aunt to a village teacher. But his main attraction was not only a non-agricultural job with regular salary, but the daily grain ration of 10 liang (0.5 kg) in his village; it was only 3 liang in her own. She said: ‘My one condition was that he would help my family.’ An important factor that enabled her to ‘marry up’ was the fact that she was extremely tough and capable both in and outside the home. Fengshan found his spouse through what can be called tanlianai from today’s perspective. He lost his mother as an infant and was raised by his father. To his great regret he received only three years’ schooling. He had to do everything that a housewife would normally do as well as toil in agricultural work. His active mingling with the young woman who was to become his wife was a necessary initiative because ‘my father had passed away by then. I only had myself to rely on for finding a wife.’ He needed a wife as soon as possible because ‘I would then have someone to do the sewing and patching (fengfeng bubu) and cooking so I could work more outside.’ He liked that she was lively and good at singing. But more important, she was very capable: ‘She did all kinds of heavy work like a man. She was also good at needlework and housework. I badly needed such a person.’ Xiulan ‘chose’ her husband rather irresponsibly due to her jiandan which led to a disastrous marriage. She told me how she had suffered from her husband who often beat her and who was very lazy, refusing to work hard in agricultural tasks and doing nothing to help her in and around the house. Being extremely capable at work both home and outside, she was the one who did the absolute larger part of everything for the family. Her mother-in-law also abused her misusing her power as an elder and being partial to her husband. She was shedding tears through most parts of the interview. But she said: ‘I have only myself to blame. I never thought about men before I reached the age of 21 when my best friend from the same village introduced me to my husband.’ This friend married to a man in another village and was eager to get Xiulan over for company. Xiulan also wanted to live close to her. Her parents left it to her to decide for herself and she just trusted her best friend: ‘I was only thinking about living close to her so we could be together every day. I did not ask about the man’s personality. She did not know much either.’ She sometimes could not help hating this friend. She stayed with the man and had three children with him while being abused by him and his mother for many years. She thought her life was a total disaster. She would have taken suicide if not for her three children’s sake. But she remained married to that man because it was a shame to divorce. The ‘engagement’ was also jiandan. Most married within a year. Students or soldiers had to wait longer. In most cases, only after the engagement could they start meeting. Urban couples might occasionally go to the cinema, walk in the park, and visit each other’s home with parental approval. Rural possibilities

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were more limited; most couples visited each other’s home but not before the formal engagement. Staying overnight at future in-laws’ was mostly forbidden. No physical intimacy was allowed. Holding hands in public was ‘promiscuous’. A rural grandmother added: ‘We did not hold hands even after marriage.’ Another grandmother said that even talking with her fiancée during the evening visits was forbidden – while now her grandson’s girlfriend ‘has been living with him here for two years.’ Before marriage, there was much ignorance about reproduction, sexuality and the body. The grandparents again attributed it to their ‘simple mind and heart’. The grandparents, especially the grandfathers, usually had little to say about such topics during the interviews, although I tried to ask about such matters in an indirect way. In a culture where sex and sexuality were largely tabooed topics, they would be too embarrassed to talk about such themes, especially with a much younger woman than they were, like me (I too shared their shyness in this respect). They would just repeat that ‘people were very jiandan at that time. We did not know much about such things.’ This might also indicate that such topics were still tabooed for them after decades of ‘opening up’ in post-Mao China. Most of the grandmothers knew very little about menstruation, what would ‘happen between spouses’ and of ‘making children’. Parents did not normally explain such matters. No other source of such information existed. Interest in sex and even talking about menstruation and childbirth were shameful or embarrassing. Virginity was extremely important. Yulan said premarital sex did not even cross her mind: ‘A white cloth topped the sheet on the wedding night. It was to be bloodied in the morning.’

The parents: danchun In the middle generation’s narratives, ideals of personal emotional self-fulfillment gained importance in contrast to the older generation’s asceticism although this generation was also influenced by socialism and traditional familism in their youth. They repeatedly said they had been danchun (simple and pure; simpleminded and pure-hearted) in relating to the other sex. Danchun evokes the grandparents’ notion of jiandan, but it adds unworldly pure-heartedness to it. Schooling had come to matter much more for this generation. Lower secondary schooling became common also in the countryside, and university was rare but possible. Most of the interviewees completed upper secondary, including technical-vocational, school. A few of them obtained bachelor’s degrees. One got a PhD. Such considerably long coeducational schooling facilitated ‘pairing off’. This generation was also exposed to ideas of romance through an expanding market of popular music, movies, TV and fictions that were spreading into China in the reform era. Some women recalled how love novels and movies made them long for romance and how they identified with the female main characters. A few women were popular with boys. Lihui recalled finding notes from boys secretly tucked in her schoolbag. But all the middle-generation

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interviewees emphasized that romance at school was unusual at that time. In rare cases, there were ‘pairs’ among schoolmates. Normally such pairs did not dare to be open about their relationships. Official policy banned students’ pairing off or marrying. There was also strong social sanction against teen love viewed as immoral and shameful, hence contemptible: ‘You would lose face if discovered.’ It was also mostly associated with ‘bad students’, namely those who were not concentrating on schoolwork or not obeying school rules, thus not behaving as a proper student was supposed to do. But most importantly, the interviewees said, it was mainly young people’s danchun that kept tanlianai largely at bay in those days. They associated their danchun with strong obedience among young persons of their generation, reinforced by submission to authority and norms of filial piety. Lihui’s parents kept telling her, ‘if you wish to gaoduixiang (find a marriage partner), you must wait till you start working.’ She added: ‘So I did not think about it until after upper secondary school when I started working. Young people were danchun and obedient in those days.’ There were exceptions. Wangqiang, whose mother was ‘extremely controlling’, said: ‘The more she was against my tanlianai, the more I did it.’ Her romance with a man she later married started during her final year of upper secondary school. In general, however, the norm against tanlianai at school was widely internalized, especially by ‘good students’, who were typically devoted to studying and who were also exemplary in obeying school rules. Many attributed the rarity of ‘teen love’ to ‘late awakening’ – another danchun indicator. They contrasted themselves with their children, who ‘know and desire so much at an early age, unlike young people in the past’. Shangwu said: ‘I became mature late’ (wanshu). Yuxin, who grew up in a big city, recalled one or two ‘underground’ pairs in her high school: ‘I was late and very danchun compared to them. At age 22 it dawned upon me that I must start tanlianai lest I be left over. This must seem silly nowadays.’ While describing themselves as danchun, others, especially from the countryside, attributed their ‘late awakening’ to singleminded dedication to studying in order to escape to town. They therefore had no time for ‘meaningless matters’, in their words. Some of the men claimed that they did not think about tanlianai until they were well into their twenties. Guojun, who tested into a top university in the 1980s, did not start tanlianai until his late twenties. He said: ‘It was forbidden to tanlianai at university. But my generation was in any case very danchun. I did not even understand things between the two sexes.’ He was introduced to his wife when he was 29 and got married at 30. Yulin got married at 28. He tested from a village school into a zhongzhuan (technicalvocational) school to major in railway engineering and was assigned a job in Beijing upon graduation. He explained: Somehow I  did not think about finding a partner until I  was 25. All were males at my zhongzhuan school and later at my work unit. Life was very simple for me. I resided at a collective dormitory and would hang out with

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the other young men (gemener) after work every day. I had very few thoughts about other things. I was very danchun. But my parents were worried. Shyness also played a role in their abstinence from tanlianai. They said that their generation, unlike their own children, was typically shy and bashful. All the women said they were too bashful to contact boys. This agrees with Hershatter’s (1984) observation about Chinese young women in the 1980s. Some recalled fancying a boy but only ‘looking at him secretly from a distance’. Jinling fancied a boy but could only write about it in her diary. Most of the men also said that they were too shy to talk to the other sex or they did not know how to talk to girls, or they felt awkward talking to girls. Shangwu was good at making friends with other men far and near, but too shy to initiate a conversation with a girl: ‘I did not know how to pursue girls. I am also introverted.’ Wangde said: ‘it was a headache each time I had to start a talk with a girl, even at work.’ There was widespread sex segregation at school, especially in the countryside. Boys and girls were not supposed to mingle, or even talk to each other. If others saw it, one risked public ridicule. Some said that their head teacher assigned boys and girls to be desk mates to minimize disruptive talking during class, knowing that it was against the norm for them to talk. Further, it was not unusual to draw a line in the middle of the desk to remind desk mates about the gender boundary. This line was popularly known as the sanba xian, meaning ‘the 38th Parallel’, the military dividing line between North and South on the Korean Peninsula, set up at the end of World War II. Sex segregation weakened at and after upper secondary school. Some recalled that boys and girls did talk to each other and mingle more then, but ‘it was all very danchun. We did not think about tanlianai. We just played together.’ Yusheng recalled clear signs that a girl at his upper secondary school was interested in him. He also had ‘butterflies’ in his heart whenever he saw her. But ‘it was very danchun and mengmeng longlong de (dim; obscure; hazy).’ They never expressed their feelings to each other. After adolescence, all the interviewees from the middle generation experienced some tanlianai, although few started before they were in their early twenties. Unlike the older generation, the middle generation said that their parents did not interfere much in their choice. Most of them found their partners through introduction or matchmaking by classmates, friends or relatives, followed by a period of tanlianai. However, it was also not unusual for young people to pair off by themselves, in which cases it was normally the man who took the initiative. As Fengxia put it, ‘Girls did not dare to take initiative at that time even if one was interested in a boy. It happened but very rarely. I did not have the guts.’ Several of the women remembered being ‘pursued’ by men. Some relationships evolved smoothly towards marriage. Others were turbulent. Tanlianai typically involved dating, especially in cities: excursions, dining out, strolling in parks or streets, movies, letters (if far apart), and chatting for long hours. Lili tanlianaied with a young man who pursued her: ‘We walked along the seashore, talking endlessly. It was unforgettable.’ Youren tanlianaied with a

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girl, his later wife, from the same village: ‘Their house was just around the corner from ours. We often played together. We became lovers after a while.’ He recalled going to the cinema and strolling along the streets with her. ‘Whenever I wanted to see her, I would whistle and then she understood immediately what it was about and would come out to meet me.’ Like the grandparents, the middle generation reported much ignorance before marriage about sex, reproduction and the body. At her first menstruation, Lijuan wondered ‘why red bean soup got spilled on my skirt’. Jinling did not know what it was when she got her first period: ‘I was scared. I  did not dare to tell others.’ Most did not know how children are made. Some said they were very ‘traditional’. It was embarrassing and shameful to talk about sex-related matters, including reproduction. Being danchun, they did not think much about sexuality or thought sexual love was impure. Holding hands in public no longer signaled promiscuity; but Lili, who had done much tanlianai, would still not let her boyfriend touch her hand when dating. They could go out with a boyfriend, but within strict parental rules (Home early!). Some had premarital sex. Shuqin did because ‘he asked for it. It was OK because we were about to wed.’ But in general, the middle generation recalled that ‘premarital sex was seen as a great shame at that time.’ The topic about sex, reproduction and the body when they were young could be discussed especially with the women interviewees. The men typically found it too embarrassing to talk about such topics (I also found it embarrassing to talk with them). But they made general remarks such as ‘Young people then did not know much about things between men and women.’ Apparently, it was less taboo among young men than among young women to talk about sex and to seek out information about it. The women reported that it was not at all usual to talk about such things among girls. It was only accidental that Shuqin, at the age of 20, learned about what would happen between a man and a woman after marriage. She discovered under her elder brother’s pillow a book titled A Must Read for the Newly Wed. She believed that her brother either borrowed it from a male friend of his or bought it. She read it secretly with great shame. It is evident that for this generation tanlianai was mainly for future marriage. They used tanlianai interchangeably with gaoduixiang (literally, ‘getting a partner’), tanduixiang (literally, ‘talking to find a marriage partner’) and zhaoduixiang (finding a spouse). Many of them used the latter three terms instead of the former. They said tanlianai chengle (yielded fruit; succeeded) when it led to marriage. Tanlianai was not seen as a meaningful experience of its own right, as it is for the young generation. Tanlianai with many a person might indicate promiscuity and cause a bad reputation, especially for women. Many of them said that they just tanlianaied with one person and it was chengle. Others tanlianaied with more than one, but normally just a few, before achieving chengle. Yuxin, introduced to her husband at age 22, said: My neighbor introduced three men. I only responded to this one and we chengle. When I told my daughter, she exclaimed: ‘chengle after just one

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boyfriend?!’ But the chengle rate was higher then because we were danchun, with fewer ideas, desires and requirements than youth today. When asked about ideals for a spouse, many reiterated that they were danchun. But being danchun did not seem to mean exactly the same for men and women. The women called themselves danchun because they concentrated their feelings on the one man with little attention to income and family background. Some instrumental preferences were, however, evident. Many mentioned that at least ‘comparable’ (‘at least not lower than mine’) education level was important for it signaled communication capability. Higher education level was seen as indicative of talent with implications for material as well as non-material welfare. Wenge grew up in the countryside. At university she was attracted to her husband, then a military officer, out of ‘love’ but also because ‘I knew he would do well since he was valued by his leaders.’ Lifang said that she preferred men who were reliable and honest, but who should also show entrepreneurial risk-taking spirit. This contrasts with the grandmothers’ preference for laoshi men, which might reflect increasing awareness of what it takes for a man to do well in the post-Mao market economy (see also Yan, 2009). However, this middle generation, especially the females, paid clearly less attention to a spouse’s status, income and career prospects, than did the young generation – especially the young women. Lifang was introduced to her husband at age 22 after breaking up with a college graduate who loved her. She strongly valued ‘the educated’. But ‘love needs to be shown and he was no good at showing feelings.’ Her husband had less education and lower career prospects. But she chose him because: He had a good sense of humor and expressed himself so well! I was very happy with him, very relaxed. It did not matter that his family was poor and his health was poor. In those days tanlianai was very danchun. What mattered were feelings. Young women nowadays consider so much else. Lifang’s emphasis on expressivity and love, which was shared by the other middle generation women, contrasts with the grandmothers’ narratives, a change showing the rise of the expressive female self as a culturally legitimate ideal in the postsocialist era (Croll, 1995; Yan, 2009). They used such expressions as ‘happiness’, ‘common language’ (shared values and understanding), ‘having things to say’, ‘treating me well’, and ‘understanding me’. Pampering mattered: ‘He must be good to me.’ They said that women by nature need chongai (pampering) and hehu (protection) from men. Chongai meant ‘lavishing on me love, attention, respect, admiration, money and gifts whenever possible’. Yanli was introduced to her husband at age 22. She had rejected those introduced to her earlier because ‘I could not see how they would treat me well. They were stingy and too lazy to help with housework.’ She reiterated: ‘He must treat me well. He must pamper me, love me and spend money generously for my

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sake. My husband is not rich but will always do his best to look after me, putting me first.’ Other aspects of ‘pampering’ were ‘not annoy me’, ‘cheer me up when I am unhappy’, ‘put up with me’, ‘allow me to decide things’, ‘not allow me to do heavy work’, and ‘trust me to manage family income’. The importance of pampering for women was also recognized by the middle generation men. Wangde said: ‘Women emphasize feelings. As long as you treat them well and pamper them, they would be content. It is actually not decisive to give her material wealth.’ To ensure pampering, some of the women said they had looked for an older man. Nearly half had husbands five to eight years older; and all these women said ‘pampering me’ was decisive for marrying. Shuqin eventually married a man six years older after refusing younger ones: ‘The man must be at least 3 years older, ideally 8–10 years. Older men pamper more. I was much inspired by Qiongyao’s novels. I also urge my daughter to choose a much older man for husband.’ One might submit to pampering even when not emotionally attracted. Xiuqin was courted relentlessly by a former schoolmate after college graduation. She was unable to make herself fall in love with him but accepted him because ‘it would be hard to find another man who would pamper me so much.’ However, years later he had an extramarital affair. She thought of divorce, but ‘if he had been faithful to me, I would have remained contented even if he had only pampered me half as much as before.’ Yan (2009) also notes a similar emphasis on pampering by men, including preferring older men as marriage partners, among rural young women in the 1980s–1990s as indicative of the increasing desire for expressive intimacy in other-sex relations in post-Mao China. Most of the men also indicated that love, or at least having ‘a common language’, was important for choosing a wife. They also shared with the women interviewees the view that today’s young people attach too much importance to the material conditions and social status of the spouse. Nevertheless, the men’s notion of danchun was much less about pure-hearted focus on feelings than it was for their women counterparts. For them, danchun was mainly about being simpleminded, or lacking complex thoughts in choosing a spouse, or just focusing on the practical, which is much reminiscent of the older generation’s jiandan. Wangde said: ‘I don’t have so many stories.’ He said his experiences lacked romance. When asked about their requirements, criteria or ideals about a spouse when they were young, the men typically said they did not think much about it. Youren, who married a girl from the same village, said when asked what requirements he used when choosing a partner: ‘Really. I did not think about it. I did not have so many ideas. Just wished to get married and get on with life, unlike young people nowadays.’ Such requirements or ideals as they had for a wife, were ‘simple’ or ‘not high ones’, in their words. Shangwu who found his wife through self-initiated tailianai, said: ‘We were very danchun. Mutual love was important. But the most important was that she is a nice person, dutiful to my parents and loyal to me. I did not like talkative women as I was very tacit myself.’ Xiujun, a lower secondary school graduate in a Beijing suburb, said that he did not have high standards

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for a spouse: ‘I am very practical and realistic (shiji). My educational level was low. I am just an ordinary person. We were just ordinary and mundane (pingping changchang). It was not that complicated.’ He added: ‘The most important for a man is self-respect. She must not hurt my self-esteem, for example, by talking negatively about me in front of my friends.’ For this man and a few others, it was important to find someone from a similar social background (mendang hudui) in terms of income, educational level and family socio-economic status so that neither would look down upon the other. Like some of the women interviewees, the men said that knowing the partner’s upbringing well, or zhigen zhidi (literally, ‘knowing the roots and bottom’; knowing one thoroughly) was an important concern when they chose a spouse. Hanlin, who tested into a top university, did not start tanlianai until he was introduced to his wife from his neighborhood after starting work. He said: ‘Her family background was similar to mine. The two families knew each other very well. Her parents were very respectable and reliable people. It was important to know thoroughly the kind of person one is marrying.’ Some men said they did not have other requirements than wishing to find someone wenrou (gentle, soft). Being danchun, Guojun did not think about finding a partner until he finished his studies at a prestigious university and started working. He said about his requirements for a spouse: I did not have many requirements. I just liked gentle and fair-skinned women. I  had wished to find an English-major so we could improve our English together. But I failed to find any. Later I wished to find a doctor to make it easier for me to see a doctor. I was introduced to one, but I felt she was a bit too dark-skinned. Many men cited good looks and gentleness as desirable. In the city, housework skills remained valued and it was important to have a job. Physical toughness and other masculine features in women were no longer desirable, as they had been for the grandparents. In the countryside, the qualities conducive to guorizi, including being capable at farm work were still valued. However, in both the city and the countryside, there was increasing emphasis on the ‘uniquely female’ appearance and personality that fits a ‘virtuous wife and good mother’ (xianqi liangmu). Not all men named xianqi liangmu as their youth ideal for a spouse. But it was a default wish for all the men, or as some said: ‘Who does not want a xianqi liangmu?’ The notion of a ‘virtuous wife’ (xianqi) was closely related to filial duty which many men cited as a consideration when they chose their spouses. Yusheng, a successful entrepreneur in Beijing, saw himself as an exemplary filial son. He started a romance with a former classmate in upper secondary school a couple of years after they graduated. But his mother disliked her because the girl ‘had her hair curled and used lipstick’: It was a time when Western culture clashed with our traditional culture. For people with traditional values, such women would not prove to be virtuous

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wives and good mothers. So I broke up with her. Later I was introduced to my wife. My mother liked her. I thought, ‘OK. As long as you like her.’ He also added that he had never hated his mother for this interference because he believed that it was for his sake, another way to express parental love: ‘Parents believed that young people were not mature yet and they wished to keep the gate for them. It was out of a sense of responsibility.’ Related to filial duty, a man’s choice of marriage partner was also affected by his role as the eldest child in the family. Wangde said: One must be realistic and practical. As the eldest son, I had to consider how in the future I would be able to hold the family up. I am responsible for my parents and my younger sister and brother. I could not marry a beauty who is just good to look at, but not capable of any work, or who would be unwilling to do any housework. She must help me to hold up the whole family. He was content with his wife who he said qualifies as a ‘virtuous wife and good mother.’ In short, the men’s narratives about choosing a spouse, like the women’s, reflect the influence of the post-Mao discourse of ‘natural’ sex differences, which rejuvenated traditional gender roles. For a man, it was important to be the main provider and pillar of the family and to fulfill filial duty through marriage and beyond. This may partly explain why the men, compared to the women, tended to be more practical and instrumental in choosing a partner, placing less emphasis on feelings than the women. However, the middle-generation men, like their women counterparts, did not emphasize that the man must be higher than the woman in marriage in terms of income, career, family background and social status. More emphasis was placed on the ‘fit’ of personality, upbringing and family background. The men did not sense the pressure for great achievement that their sons felt, just as the women did not emphasize that the man must be ‘higher’ or at least no lower than them, as their daughters did. The one requirement that definitely played a crucial role in both the men’s and women’s choice of spouses was hukou (household registration) and the urbanrural divide. Urbanites could not afford to disregard a partner’s hukou because it was hard for a rural person to move to a city, while it was a common, but unrealistic, desire for rural people to marry up to an urbanite or at least someone with a non-agricultural job. Xuehong, a Beijinger, fell in love with a rural military man. Her parents would not let her follow him to his rural hometown and only approved when he had retired from the army for a job in Beijing. She appreciated their view. Jinling, who had no special requirement for a spouse other than ‘treating me well’, excluded anyone from the rural areas. Talking about his choice of a spouse, Guojun, who eventually got an urban job upon graduation from a top university, said: I did not have clear requirements. But a rural girl was simply out of the question. I have just managed to escape rural life. At that time the disparities

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between the city and the countryside were enormous. It was unpractical to find a rural woman. Likewise, for the other middle-generation men who made it to the city by means of education, one hard and prioritized requirement for a spouse was an urban hukou while often finding their own rural background in their way in finding an urban person.

The daughters and sons: rationally romantic No single self-descriptive Chinese concept dominates in the young generation’s narratives about their other-sex relations. But their stories show a complexity of the heart and mind absent in the previous generations’ narratives about their youth. This is shown by their view that teen love (including homosexual love) is and should be normal, their elaborate thoughts (already in their teenage) about a spouse and marriage, their equal emphasis on love and instrumentality for choosing a spouse, knowledgeability and openness about sexuality, and by their depth of reflection on these matters. Compared to their parents’ recall of their youth, the daughters and sons attached much greater importance to friends. This generational difference is probably authentic since pleasant relationships of some durability tend to be well remembered. Further, some middle-generation interviewees said that due to their being danchun they had little need for close friends for sharing private feelings. The younger generation’s need for close friends might also arise from lack of siblings. It also fits observations of rising expressivity in personal relationships in postMao China. They spoke of many friends, occasionally also online friends. They spoke of close friendship with a selective small group, or sometimes just one to two friends, with whom they regularly communicated about everything, including secrets – in contrast to their parents and grandparents, who claimed that adolescents did not have personal secrets or xinshi (matters of the heart) in their days. Friendship with the other sex was also normal although same-sex friendships still dominated. Boys and girls could even be zhixin (literally ‘heart-knowing’) friends. Free socializing between girls and boys widened opportunity for tanlianai in a context where school romance was prevalent. Most of them had had at least one romance by the time of the fieldwork. Without exception, they perceived high school love as normal and natural. Linyu (at the key school) said: ‘I do not like the term zaolian (precocious, or premature love). Love is love. As long as it occurs, it is not too early. It is just normal.’ Others insisted that it is merely a personal choice: ‘If one likes it, one can do it.’ They also said tanlianai was common at school. Some said classmates had told them they were wasting their life without experiencing love while at school. Tanlianai was also found among ‘good students’. Some asserted that the optimal state is not to miss out on either study or tanlianai, ‘as students at the most prestigious Beijing secondary school typically do’. Nor was initiating pairing off taboo for girls. Some girls did take initiative. The Internet and cell phones made it easier to express feelings.

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Normalization included same-sex love. At both schools, the interviewees said same-sex pairs existed in their school, especially among girls, and that novels about same-sex love were popular among schoolmates. Tolerance prevailed, although a few disapproved. Yangyang said she was heterosexual but: ‘Homosexual love is also love. There is nothing wrong about it.’ Chen claimed that he himself was straight and that it was not his business to interfere with those who love the same-sex: ‘It is their own business.’ A couple of the girls volunteered that they were lesbian. Such relationships were no secret among classmates and friends but must be hidden from parents and teachers. Meiya said she had been with three girls. Tong spoke of many earlier girl lovers. She now had a boyfriend but thought she might fall in love with women again. She said her mother did know about her close relations with both boys and girls, but refused to believe that they were serious: ‘For her it is just play.’ Despite their normalization of school love, it had to be practiced in a context where parents and school authorities still opposed heterosexual (certainly samesex) romance at school, referring to it as ‘precocious’ and harmful to academic performance and personal development (see Chapter 4). Pairing off must still be hidden, at least partly, from parents and teachers. My interviews with parents showed disparity between what they thought they ‘knew’ and their children’s reported love experiences. Pressed by parents and teachers to act responsibly students experienced conflict between emotion and reason. Jia (at the ordinary school) tearfully told me about her lost romance: He is the most handsome boy in our grade. I had long been interested in him. He expressed interest in me on the Valentine Day. He is very responsible. He would sit with me on my bus after evening class. My mother found out. She and his parents interfered. Mother kept nagging that full devotion to schoolwork is crucial this year. I agree with her. I could stand it no longer. I told him we should just stop, to make life ‘livable’. He was badly hurt. I am totally exhausted. Jia felt that her mother was really cruel. Some other young interviewees also thought it was cruel of parents and teachers to break up pairs. However, like Jia, many other interviewees, especially the ‘good students’, recognized that indulging one’s feelings could jeopardize their future because the gaokao (College Entrance Exam) was approaching. Thus, though love was ‘normal’ and many practiced it, they also tried to control their emotions. Many, especially those from the key school, drew on a discourse of ‘rational love’ (see also Liu, 2014) in talking about school romance: One may love, but one must not let it affect one’s study. I was told that when lovers were together, they were supposed to spend the time by largely doing things related to their schoolwork, such as reviewing lessons or doing homework together and helping each other with the subjects. Cencen said: ‘Lovers at this stage do not talk much about other things [than school].’ Some of them had turned love into motivation for academic achievement. Jing (at the key school) said she and a boy had been deeply in love for years. But they agreed not

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to treat each other as lovers until university. They had agreed that both would work hard to get into the same university, a very prestigious one. She added: ‘If one of us fails, it will likely be the end of our relationship.’ Yu (mentioned at the onset of this chapter) said love had greatly enriched her life, but she was also proud to do well in school despite her tanlianai. However, she thought she now needed to discipline herself to qualify for a first-class university. A  very small number of the young interviewees reported not having had a girlfriend or boyfriend. They wished to have one, but at the same time they saw this absence as an advantage because ‘after all one is supposed to go all out for the gaokao now.’ Some, mostly from the key school, deliberately kept love at bay. Hanying, a top student at the key school, was proud that she had not fallen in love yet because ‘I don’t have the time for that now. I think one should do certain things at certain stages of life.’ Yiwei, another top student at the key school, said: ‘I’ve no time to lose. I cannot afford to divide my mind and heart between study and love.’ Liuchao (at the key school) had come to see tanlianai as very mafan (bothersome) and hence time-consuming just from observing how it was with his friends. He anticipated that he would not tanlianai until in his late twenties: ‘It is a waste of time. Very meaningless. It does affect your study too. I try to persuade my best friends not to tanlianai. But they don’t listen to me.’ Compared to their parents and grandparents, the daughters and sons were much more knowledgeable and open-minded about sexuality, reproduction and the body. They said that sex is just natural. Liuchao criticized Chinese society for being still very closed in this respect: ‘In China people are afraid of talking about sex. Their will pale at the mere mention of sex. But sex is just natural. Since one will know about it sooner or later, why not as early as possible?’ Po (at the key school) appreciated what he saw as a historical progress in post-Mao China: During the Republic Era, love was emphasized at the expense of sex treated as contaminating love. In the Maoist era, marriages typically lacked both love and sex. Since the reform started, people increasingly want both love and sex. This is a positive development. Most of the girls said that their mother had explained menstruation. But sexuality was not a topic for talk with parents, neither between father and son, nor between mother and daughter. One learned such matters from peers and the Internet. Several girls seemed better informed than their own mothers. Some of the mothers also said their daughters were more knowledgeable when it came to such topics, so they perceived no need to explain anything. Some mothers found it embarrassing that their daughters did not care to hide things related to menstruation, even from the men in the family, ‘but she doesn’t care at all.’ Information and open attitudes, however, did not mean ‘doing’. A few of the young interviewees said it does not matter and it is up to each couple if they wish to debut sex. Liuchao, who said he would not tanlianai until his late twenties, believed ‘it does not matter when one starts having sex, early or late’, because he

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was open-minded. Huan (at the ordinary school) volunteered to tell me that he had sex with his former girlfriend: ‘It is just natural. There is nothing bad about it.’ However, the majority of the young interviewees, especially girls, said it is unwise to have sex ‘too early’ and sex should wait until after age 18, or better, after marriage. Thus, sex is no automatic ‘next step’ in romance, nor necessarily part of it. They said that having sex was extremely rare among secondary school students but it did occur, especially among students at academically weak schools. Like the older generations, most of the young women valued female virginity as gender capital for one’s marriage. They did not categorically oppose premarital sex but insisted it should only be with the man one has decided to marry. Yu was glad she had not had sex: ‘We almost did it and I am lucky we didn’t. One should not give it to a man casually. It would have cheapened me later in my husband’s eyes.’ The young people’s general objection to ‘too early’ sex was, however, mostly based on reflections about its practical consequences rather than about ‘losing face’ or ‘bad morality’ when ‘losing virginity’, as was the case for the older generations. Early pregnancy was impractical and would damage one’s future. They also believed teen sex could harm one’s health because ‘one is still growing.’ Thus, in talking about teen romance and sex the young interviewees framed it as a matter of being responsible. Common comments were that ‘it would be too irresponsible’ and that responsible boyfriends won’t ask for sex. One illustration of contemporary youth’s attitude was provided by Bo, citing the example of a girl at his lower secondary school who got pregnant with a boy from another school and had an abortion: Somehow, her story was disclosed. Everyone learned about. After the discovery, she herself did not seem to mind that, nor did she try to hide it. Most of us just thought that she was very linglei (literally, ‘another type’; anomalous; unusual; extraordinary; non-mainstream; special). We did not judge her behavior as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Some might even have viewed her as representing the vanguard of modernity. We just felt that she was just different from the majority. We were just surprised, wondering how it must have affected her study and health. She, or the man, was irresponsible. In keeping with their openness and especially in contrast to their grandmothers’ and mothers’ recollection of feeling shy and ashamed to talk about fertility and childbirth when they were young, the young interviewees, even girls, were all ready to articulate their fertility desires, such as the desirable number of children and the timing for the first birth. Yu said she had already decided to get married on February 22, 2022 and would like in that year of the dragon to have a ‘dragonand-phoenix’ birth: a boy and a girl as twins. In striking contrast with their grandparents and parents, for the younger generation tanlianai was no longer closely linked to finding a spouse. Most of the interviewees were active in tanlianai, but doubted that they would marry: ‘We are still

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so young; there are so many unforeseen changes and so much unknown in our lives.’ Lingwei’s boyfriend had asked her to marry him once they would reach the legal age for marriage: ‘I have agreed. But I am not sure I will when the time comes.’ Bo wished that he would eventually marry his girlfriend whom he has been deeply in love with for years. But he said: ‘I am afraid that reality may prevent it. There is no guarantee.’ Tanlianai’s separation from marriage went with the new notion that tanlianai itself is worthwhile. Many argued that teen love enriches life. Yu, who was starting her fourth romance since age 12, each with ‘many stories’, said: ‘All my love experiences have made me grow up.’ She was proud of having a ‘good head’ and a ‘rich heart’: ‘I am sensual and appreciate friendship and love.’ She liked love novels and love movies from all over the world. She said it would be untrue to herself to deny her desires: ‘If you really want it, you should do it.’ Dawei (at the ordinary school) said: ‘It is actually beneficial to experience tanlianai in school so that one will gain useful experience for adulthood. One would be at a loss about tanlianai in the future if one has never experienced it earlier.’ Many said it had also taught them how to get along with others: ‘Being the only-child, I was very selfish before.’ Some said tanlianai is more ‘lighthearted’ than marriage and therefore more enjoyable – implying that emotional hedonism is legitimate. Romance can also provide relief from academic pressure and other frustrations. It was not unusual that one changed partners frequently, especially those at the ordinary school, although some students from both the schools criticized such behavior as indicating lack of earnestness. Fangfang (at the ordinary school) could not recall how many boyfriends she had had: ‘My case is nothing compared to some of my classmates. One of my friends has had 12 boyfriends since lower secondary school.’ Huan (at the ordinary school) had had six girlfriends since he started lower secondary school and was looking for a new one when I interviewed him. Lingwei (at the key school) said: ‘After all, tanlianai is not marrying. It does not matter how many boyfriends or girlfriends one has had. If the two enjoy being together, just be together. If not, just break up.’ She did not know if she wanted to marry. For the moment, she saw no need: ‘You can just stay together.’ Several others said they might not marry, but they would tanlianai – in sharp contrast to the previous generations. Nearly all had clear criteria for what a spouse should be like, no matter whether one was to marry or not. Like the middle generation, the daughters and sons appreciated love in marriage. The young women typically said a husband must ‘treat me well’ while the young men believed that it is a woman’s natural right to be pampered by her husband. But this generation emphasized mutual love more. A couple shouldn’t marry without loving each other. For the young women, ‘even though a man is very good to me, I will not marry him unless I love him too.’ Some thought that many marriages in the past, including their own parents’, were unhappy due to lack of mutual love and they wished to avoid that. For them tanlianai and marriage are not necessarily related, but they did say that marriage

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should ideally rely on extensive tanlianai as a good emotional foundation. Bo said he must avoid what he saw as typical of marriages in the past: They relied on introduction, or matching by others to find a partner and got married without substantial tanlianai. How could such marriage be happy? My parents serve as an example. They were introduced by others and after merely one year, they got married. They did not know each other well. My mother regrets having married my father. They did not, and do not, love each other. They do not want to divorce either lest others look down upon them. I  will definitely make sure that we love each other through tanlianai. My girlfriend and I have been lovers for five years. Despite their emphasis on love, they also had clearly reflected ‘instrumentally rational’ criteria and ideals for a marriage partner, a topic both the young men and women were articulate about. Such criteria and ideals were in keeping with the core gender role and gendered resources in marriage expected of men and women respectively (Chapters 5 and 6). For this generation, a man’s talents and potential for accomplishment mattered much more than it had for the two older generations. The young women commonly believed that a husband must have talents, good earnings and social status, which was also internalized by the young men as ‘just natural’ and ‘understandable’. Whereas women ‘marrying up’ may always have been the trend in China and it may have been somewhat true also of the grandmothers and mothers in this study, the extent to which the young women explicitly endorsed marrying up sharply contrasts with the older generations’ women. Jia’s view was typical: ‘I really believe the husband should be higher than the wife, at least not lower. After all, the man is supposed to be the pillar of the family. Otherwise, married life will be full of conflicts.’ All women liked handsome men, but other factors mattered more, and there were some who worried about too handsome men: ‘He mustn’t be repulsive, but not so good-looking that he attracts other women.’ Yili’s (at the ordinary school) ideal man was a certain very handsome, adventurous and enterprising film star with many accomplishments. However, this was her ideal for a boyfriend. For a husband, she would like someone with a good income, but also very steady, reliable, not risk-taking and not too handsome – someone to make a stable and happy family life with. This contrasts with but is also complementary to the young men’s emphasis on good looks as an important criterion for their future spouse. The young men mentioned gentleness, care taking, and thoughtfulness as desirable traits in their future wives. Like their women counterparts, they also said that their future spouses must be dutiful to their parents. Thus, their approach to marriage shows much deliberate reflection about balancing expressive and instrumental considerations. However, for them these instrumental considerations do not contradict romantic love. They frequently and strongly asserted that the two aspects are not contradictory. Rather, they complement and reinforce each other and therefore they should be combined. Talents

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and ability are among the very qualities that make men loveable and attractive to women; and one would be unlikely to fall in love if the man lacked such qualities. When asked if she would accept it if her future husband had lower achievement, income or social status than her, Weiwei (at the ordinary school) replied: ‘I won’t be able to like him then. Besides, he would not be attracted to me either.’ The aspiration for both material wealth and emotional self-fulfillment is summarized by Yuzhu (at the key school), for whom it was important to live a better life than her Beijing working-class parents: ‘A rich man will not necessarily not love you or not treat you well.’ The young women’s ideal for a future husband totally agrees with the young men’s talk about their future marriage partner and conjugal life. Liuchao (at the key school) claimed that being open-minded, he is totally for gender equality and that he is for a companionship marriage: It would be very boring to have a traditional ‘virtuous wife and good mother’ type, doing housework all the time. I prefer someone who can do things together with me. We will go traveling all over the world together. We must also have interesting things to talk about together. Therefore, we must not be working in the same company like my parents. All they have to say revolves around that company. Asked if he would accept someone with higher social status, more capable and earning more than him, he did not answer the question directly, but said without hesitation: ‘I would then work harder. I do not mean that I must be better than her. But I should not be lower. It is a man’s inherent duty to be the pillar of the family.’ Just as the young women believed that it would be hard to be attracted by someone lower than themselves as marriage partner, the young men also thought a man would not be able to attract women if he is lower than the latter, or as some of them said: ‘Then she would not accept me.’ Such ideas partly underlay their sensed pressure for chenggong. Thus, while emphasizing mutual love also in marriage, the young-generation interviewees were more means-ends rational about marriage than the older generations when they were young. Their narratives about other-sex relations feature simultaneously a culture of romance and love and what can be called a ‘rationally romantic’ ideal.

Conclusion The narratives show dramatic changes in young people’s attitudes towards, and experiences of, other-sex relations from the mid-1940s into the 2010s. The grandparents’ experiences featured jiandan which denotes simple-mindedness and simple-heartedness, brevity and simplicity of procedures and processes, and plain and simple material conditions. Jiandan was shaped by harsh economic conditions, traditional gender norms and Maoist ideology. Romantic pairing off was rare. Opposite-sex relationships were mainly about getting matched by others

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for marriage. They recalled few thoughts and few requirements for a marriage partner. Emotive attractiveness seemed largely unimportant. What mattered was the spouse’s usefulness for their life, which was mainly about survival. Wealth seemed irrelevant when all were poor and when ‘plain and hard life’ was both values and necessities. There was little ‘dating’ before formal engagement. Postengagement meeting was also very limited and strictly supervised, especially for women. Premarital sex was usually unthinkable. The grandparents described themselves as ‘ignorant’ about the body, sexuality and reproduction. For this generation, individual emotional self-fulfillment was not a major goal in other-sex relations. Much had changed when the middle generation reached adolescence in the 1980s and early 1990s. This generation was the first to be affected by the expressive transformation that accompanied China’s reform and opening up. Like their parents, their path to adulthood straddled a dramatic transition from the old to the new, but what was ‘old’ and ‘new’ had changed. The middle generation’s intermediate position is captured by danchun which was demonstrated by their lack of complex thoughts and privacy concerns, little knowledge about sexuality and the body, obedience to authorities, and single-minded dedication to task (here, schooling), and late ‘awakening’ to love and sexuality – showing considerable commonality with the grandmothers’ jiandan. Teen love was largely kept at bay despite society’s ‘opening up’ to love and sexuality and more years of co-educational schooling. Despite the ‘late awakening’ (mostly not before their early twenties), tanlianai gained unprecedented importance. Dating became widespread in the city and increasingly common in the countryside. However, it was largely confined to finding a husband. Thus, notwithstanding the increasing popularity and endorsement of tanlianai for in this generation, in sharp contrast to the older generation, a ‘love culture’ or ‘romantic culture’ in the true sense of the word, had not yet come into being when they were young (see also Whyte, 1984). However, the middle-generation interviewees cited mutual love, or at least a ‘common language’ and personality fit, as important in marriage, setting this generation apart from the grandparents’ largely non-expressive approaches to their choice of marriage partners. The new elements accord with the increased importance of intimate expressivity in the 1980s and 1990s. The middle-generation women’s emphasis on love and pampering by a husband distinguished them sharply from the grandmothers. Earlier generations of women might of course have also enjoyed such love and pampering, but with this generation we may see the first appearance of the emotionally expressive female self as a widespread culturally legitimate ideal. A woman’s personal needs became socially recognized as part of a life worth living, no longer merely subsumable under devotion to work and family. This observation also parallels Beck and Beck-Gernsheim’s (2002, pp. 54–84) account of women’s individualization in Germany as a shift from ‘living for others’ to ‘a life of one’s own’. In China, such female individualization was also a backlash against Maoist masculinization, leading to reassertion

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of ‘natural sex differences’ and of ‘uniquely female’ bodily expression and personality (Croll, 1995), and of the ways in which women wished to be treated by men. Likewise, the post-Mao discourse of ‘natural’ sex differences also underlies the men’s more practical-instrumental approach to marriage compared with their female counterparts who reported a greater emphasis on pure-hearted feelings in choosing a marriage partner. Together with their preference for female gentleness and good looks, such an approach fits men’s reclaim of ‘lost masculinity’, including their role as the main provider and pillar of the family. The post-Mao discourse of ‘natural’ sex differences endorses female hypergamy, which may always have existed to some extent in China. However, the middle-generation women, and their male counterparts, did not explicitly emphasize that the man must be higher than the woman in marriage in terms of talents, income, career, and social status. This contrasts with the young generation’s strong emphasis on female hypergamy. As the first generation of youth after Maoism, the middle generation remained influenced by socialist egalitarian gender ideology, which compounded by their danchun, resulted in a weaker emphasis on sex differences in marriage compared to the young generation. Danchun, which denotes a general lack of complex thoughts, desires and knowledge for both genders – and for the women, a pure-hearted focus on feelings in other-sex relations, also distinguishes the middle generation from their daughters and sons. The young people’s narratives show a level of complexity of the heart and mind absent in the older generations’ life stories about being young. An eagerness for individual emotional self-expression is much less constrained among the young generation raised in the strongly child-centered urban only child family, with access to new information and communication technologies and exposure to global consumerism and enjoying much more affluence than the two previous generations. Individual emotional self-fulfillment, which seemed irrelevant to their grandparents and which was important for their parents, especially their mothers – but mainly in tanlianai for marriage, is now an integral part of being young for the daughters and sons, and for their expectations of adulthood. Teen romance in secondary school is normal or natural and desirable; and tanlianai is seen as an enriching experience. No longer is it something to be ashamed of, nor is its practice confined to mediocre school achievers. It is a matter of individual choice, not subject to moralizing. A love culture of its own right, rather than mainly related to finding marriage partners, thus emerged with the young generation. The rise of individual emotive expressiveness over the three generations is so striking that it justifies the label of an ‘expressive turn’. It has likely been influenced by the romantic-love ideal in the global media flow and the more general trend from cognitive rationalism to an affective-expressive culture. But the Chinese case also has its indigenous roots, momentum and features. The Western expressive turn took longer. In China it has risen over just one or two generations, and it may be a backlash against Maoist emotional asceticism. But what

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gives the Chinese case a more distinctively local and generation-specific quality is that the expressive turn also shows an instrumental twist. The young women and men emphasized achievement potential and earning capacity as indispensable requirements of a future husband, while also insisting on expressive love as crucial in marriage. Valuing both qualities is not new among Chinese (Farrer, 2002; Hershatter, 1984; Jankowiak, 1995; Yan, 2003); it was also discernible in the middle generation despite their danchun. Pragmatic reasoning undoubtedly also conditions the practice of other-sex relations in other countries (Jamieson, 1998; Swidler, 2001). What is, nevertheless, distinctive of the Chinese young generation is that they frequently volunteered and strongly asserted that the two aspects are compatible and should be combined in marriage. It is noteworthy that this applies to adolescents, rather than to mature adults who have learned from earlier failed relationships. The way that the Chinese youth dealt with these seemingly contradictory considerations seems to parallel Jane Austen’s treatment of ‘sense’ and ‘sensibility’, that both are needed. However, in the West, the paramount legitimation of mutual emotional attachment – a key legacy of the 19th-century romantic movement, has eroded the legitimacy of regard for wealth and occupational status in intimate other-sex relations. There has been a general shift from cognitive rationalism to an affective-expressive culture in other-sex relations, with one dominant form of individualism replacing another. But in post-Mao China, expressive individualism has co-developed with utilitarian individualism and youth seem to embrace both (Liu, 2011). Insights from a small-scale qualitative study do not suffice for firm generalizations. Nonetheless, the findings contradict the argument that the more individualistic a society becomes, the more its people legitimate romantic love in other-sex relations, including marriage, to the exclusion of instrumental considerations and rational planning (Dion and Dion, 1996; de Munck, 1998, pp. 24–5). Despite their more individualistic values, the young generation has become both more romantic and more means-ends rational than their grandparents and parents had been in their youth. The young generation, especially women’s, instrumental criteria for a suitable marriage partner are legitimated by the post-Mao discourse of ‘natural’ sex differences. Instrumental calculation could also arise from insecurity about one’s future material welfare in a context of individualization without any adequate stateprovided safety net and of rampant consumerism. Their assertion that expressive love and instrumentality can and should be combined also fits traditional Chinese dialectics to treat seemingly contradictory elements as compatible and complementary components, both needed for a balance and for harmony. The coupling of ‘sense’ and ‘sensibility’ among contemporary Beijing young people shows considerable affective and cognitive complexification over three generations and gives the expressive turn a Chinese twist. Such a complexification fits what I see as the young generation’s general tendency to maximize life and the self, as a particular approach and response to modernization.

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References Beck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E. 2002. Individualization: Institutionalised individualism and its social and political consequences. London: Sage. Croll, E. J. 1995. Changing identity of Chinese women: Rhetoric, experience and selfperception in the twentieth-century China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Davis, D. S. 2014. Privatization of marriage in post-socialist China. Modern China 40(6): 551–77. de Munck, V. C. 1998. Romantic love and sexual behavior: Perspectives from the social sciences. Westport: Praeger. Dion, K. K. and Dion, K. L. 1996. Cultural perspectives on romantic love. Personal Relationships 3: 5–17. Evans, H. 1995. Defining difference: The ‘scientific’ construction of sexuality and gender in the People’s Republic of China. Signs 20(2): 357–94. ———. 2008. The subject of gender: Daughters and mothers in urban China. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Farrer, J. 2002. Opening up: Youth sex culture and market reform in Shanghai. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gold, T. B. 1993. Go with your feelings: Hong Kong and Taiwan popular culture in greater China. The China Quarterly 136: 907–25. Goode, W. J. 1959. The theoretical importance of love. American Sociological Review 24(1): 38–47. Hershatter, G. 1984. Making a friend: Changing patterns of courtship in urban China. Pacific Affairs 57(2): 237–51. Higgins, L. T., Zheng, M., Liu, Y. and Sun, C. 2002. Attitudes to marriage and sexual behaviors: A survey of gender and culture differences in China and United Kingdom. Sex Roles 46(3/4): 57–89. Honig, E. 2003. Socialist sex: The cultural revolution revisited. Modern China 29(2): 143–75. Jamieson, L. 1998. Intimacy: Personal relationships in modern societies. Cambridge: Polity Press. Jankowiak, W. 1995. Romantic passion in the People’s Republic of China. In W. Jankowiak (ed.) Romantic passion: A universal experience? (pp. 166–84). New York: Columbia University Press. Jefferys, E. and Yu, H. Q. 2015. Sex in China. Cambridge: Polity Press. Lee, H. Y. 2007. Revolution of the heart: A genealogy of love in China: 1900–1950. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Li, Z. H., Connolly, J., Jiang, D. P. and Pepler, D. 2010. Adolescent romantic relationships in China and Canada: A cross-national comparison. International Journal of Behavioral Development 34(2): 113–20. Liu, F. S. 2011. Urban youth in China: Modernity, the internet and the self. London: Routledge. ———. 2014. From degendering to (re)gendering the self: Chinese youth negotiating modern womanhood. Gender and Education 26(1): 18–34. Pan, S. 2006. Transformations in the primary life cycle: The origins and nature of China’s sexual revolution. In E. Jeffreys (ed.) Sex and sexuality in China (pp. 21–42). London: Routledge. Rofel, L. 2007. Desiring China: Experiments in neoliberalism, sexuality, and public culture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

An expressive turn with a Chinese twist 203 Swidler, A. 2001. Talk of love: How culture matters? Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Whyte, M. K. 1984. Urban life in contemporary China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Yan, Y. X. 2003. Private life under socialism: Love, intimacy and family change in a Chinese village, 1949–1999. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ———. 2009. The individualization of Chinese society. Oxford: Berg.

Conclusion The maximization desire: living modernization the Chinese way

Comparative information about childhood and youth experiences over time is valuable for understanding the complexity entailed by social transformation in today’s world, especially in societies undergoing dramatic change such as China. I hope that the generational comparison conducted in this book regarding the various aspects of life pertinent to youth experiences – childhood, intergenerational relationships, education and future plans, gender and sexuality – has shed some light on the particularity of being young in present-day China and has also enabled the tracing of social and cultural change and continuity. I also hope that the life-history approach has usefully illuminated the interplay between individual agency and structural conditions, which is understood in this study as consisting of both the institutional and material conditions and cultural norms and ideals, in shaping young people’s experiences. The common experiences by the individuals in each of the generations have been taken to indicate trends in social transformation – although I have not meant to explicitly generalize about China’s vast population based on my small sample. So how has ‘being young’ changed in China over the recent generations? What theoretical sense can be made about the particularity of the life stories by youth coming of age under post-Mao China’s modernization project? Much of what has happened over the generations regarding the various themes examined in this book is in keeping with the global modernization trends. This is reflected in the rise of the ‘priceless child’, the ‘schooled society’, the ‘aspiring individual’ and the ‘expressive turn’. Thus, although the young men and women interviewed did not much use concepts such as ‘modernization’ and ‘modernity’, their self-narratives are marked by ‘modern’ values and attitudes in ways impossible for the older generations when they were young. Therefore, in many ways, they are unmistakably modern and even late modern. The changes in general indicate a trend from preoccupation with meeting basic needs to self-actualization. This fits the findings about modernization and changing values, particularly Inglehart’s (see Chapter 2) argument about a shift from survival to self-expressive values. It also appears to fit Maslow’s (1954) argument about the hierarchy of needs, where the activation of self-actualization (the highest level) presupposes the satisfaction of ‘lower-level’ physiological needs. The rise of more self-expressive values

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with greater emphasis on democratic, equal and intimate-expressive ideals about human relationships may also have to do with the young generation’s expanded interaction and communication – in increasingly complex ways – with the wider world, as Elias (1994) and more recently Pinker (2011) would have argued. Such arguments remain disputed; but the change in life conditions, values and attitudes of youth in China traces a strikingly similar path across only three generations: from a hard life focused on survival and basic needs at the time of the grandparents’ childhood and youth, to individualistic self-actualization ideals and goals (which also may include service to others) in the most recent generation of youth. Though these findings are from a qualitative study of a small sample, the pattern is clear and consistent. However, despite the commonalities with the global trends, the transformation over the three generations is by no means a wholesome westernization. Rather, it shows unique local features so that just as one can use the concept ‘modernization with Chinese characteristics’ to describe post-Mao state policy, one can also apply it to contemporary urban youth’s modernization experiences, albeit not in totally identical ways. Their narratives are about living modernization the Chinese way. In each of the empirical chapters, I have discussed both the convergences with and divergences from the global trends in the specific life domain examined in that chapter across the three generations. But what uniquely Chinese features are discernable when the findings are taken together? How can these features be interpreted in a more culturally sensitive and contextually specific way to do justice to the young generation’s lived experiences of post-Mao modernization? One general, and more obvious, feature that makes the Chinese case rather unique is the rapid – even abrupt – and dramatic nature of the generational change in all the domains examined. In the global West, such shifts started much earlier and took much longer time than in China, where the transformation largely took place at the shift of only the two most recent generations, although in some life domains such as schooling and gender and sexuality changes were already underway during the middle generation’s childhood and youth. Thus, although there were also remarkable differences between the two older generations, the differences between the young and the middle generation are by far more striking. This reflects the rapid and dramatic nature of the post-Mao transformation, in keeping with Mannheim’s (1952) argument that the more rapid and dramatic social changes are, the greater the differences will be between generations. At first sight, these changes over the generations may suggest that Chinese youth are catching up with their Western counterparts in their modernization. Indeed, given the leapfrogging speed at which China is modernizing, Chinese urban youth, especially those in the country’s cosmopolitan centers such as the capital city, have much in common with their Western counterparts (Fong, 2004; Liu, 2011). Such catch-up effect is possible, as is also shown by Nielsen and Rudberg (2000) concerning Norwegian young women compared with their contemporaries in Demark and Sweden, where urbanization started earlier than in Norway.

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Nevertheless, such a linear comparison is too simplistic. It fails to do justice to the fact that, as in other societies, modernization in China at all levels – the national, the group, the familial and the individual – is full of contradictions and tensions, hence a much more complex process than the linear model could capture. The Chinese young generation’s modernization experiences defy distinctive concepts such as modern and traditional, Chinese and Western, collectivism and individualism, and independence and interdependence often used in discussion of modernization and modernity from a linear perspective. What has emerged is a reconfiguration of all these, showing what can be characterized as a ‘maximization desire’, denoting a strong wish and serious effort to maximize life and the self. The maximization desire has been co-constructed by the young people and their families within the specific historical, institutional-material and ideationalcultural context of their own society in which their lives are embedded and in which they exercise agency and reflexivity, albeit against the larger backdrop of globalization. It is manifested in maximizing the valuation of the child, maximizing parental love, support, attention and investment, maximizing (both horizontally and vertically) young people’s suzhi and education, maximizing efficiency and effectiveness of study, striving for excellence and the concomitant mediocrity phobia, the young men’s chenggong (success; outstanding accomplishment) ideal, the young women’s wish to ‘have it all’ or ‘have the best of both worlds’, ‘versatilization’ (quannenghua) of both men and women, practicing ‘eclectic dualism’ for a win-win effect, and the wish to realize one’s full potential and to live a full and happy life. This maximization desire invokes some century-old Chinese cultural ideals, traits or tendencies – exemplary norms (also inherent in the Confucian education veneration), traditional dialectics and long-term/future orientation, as much as it is shaped by the specific post-Mao circumstances. Maximization has been expressed as a desire, a wish or an ideal. But it is also actual practice with serious effort. It takes both a horizontal and vertical dimension. It addresses the urban family’s present as well as its past and the future. It entails personal and familial costs. The young generation’s ‘maximization of life and the self’, supported by their families, contrasts especially with their grandparents’ jiandan (simplicity; simpleness) – in all its material, cultural, educational, cognitive, and affective terms. Jiandan, which denotes a minimal state of the mind and heart as well as of life conditions, also to a great extent characterized the middle generation’s childhood and youth experiences. The maximization desire rose with the birth of the young generation because the older generations lacked the cognitive resources or the environmental affordances to maximize (Simon, 1956). Often what was practiced then was akin to ‘making do’, ‘satisficing’, or at most, ‘optimizing’ instead of ‘maximizing’. It marks the young people in this study as generational, classed and gendered beings, whose lives are embedded in the specific social and cultural complexity concomitant to post-Mao China’s modernization.

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Maximization and exemplarity The maximization desire related to the young generation in the urban families in this study invokes the Chinese exemplary norm which enjoins people to emulate ideal rather than average standards (Bakken, 2000; Dawson, 1915). The maximization desire is much about being, doing and getting the best possible and achieving the most or highest possible, which implies excellence and exemplarity. Thus ‘maximization of life and the self’ and ‘being exemplary’ are interdependent practices and they reinforce each other. China has been referred to as ‘the exemplary society’ (Bakken, 2000). Since ancient times this norm has been at the center of constructing the ideal personhood, the creation of which holds the key to order and welfare for the individual, the family, the nation and even the universe. Exemplarity underlies Confucianism’s well-known emphasis on education and self-cultivation: every normal human being cherishes, or should cherish, the aspiration to become a superior person – superior to others if possible, but surely superior to one’s past and present self (Dawson, 1915). Thus, constant self-improvement or self-perfection is central to the Confucian self-cultivation ideal. Exemplarity has also served as a more general guide for human behavior and life: one is supposed to aim at the best in whatever one does and in fulfilling one’s various roles – parent, teacher, student, child, friend, woman, man, subject and ruler. Role models are frequently and ubiquitously employed. It seems that the exemplary norm is very much alive today as it was in the past. Bakken (2000) shows how exemplary norms, in contrast to ‘average’ norms, are strategically activated by the post-Mao party-state in molding and disciplining its subjects for social order as well as economic development. Exemplary norms are also implied in President Xi’s notion of ‘the Chinese dream’, which emphasizes young people’s lofty ideals and excellence for national revitalization. In this study, the exemplary norm is evident in many parts of the three generations’ narratives, such as the grandparents’ talk about striving to be a model socialist subject or the middle generation’s wish to become exemplary in developing their household economy under Deng’s reform policy. But more strikingly, it seems most evident in the various themes pertaining to the young generation, themes pointing to the making and the rise of the aspiring individual who, supported and urged by their parents, shows a strong desire to maximize life and the self. The exemplarity-informed maximization desire in the urban only child family is integral to the themes about the ‘priceless child’. In keeping with the rarity value principle, parents interviewed perceived their one and only child, and their one and only chance of being a parent, as extremely valuable. They showed maximal valuation of the child as both a love object and as the family’s educational project, which is invariably reflected in parental love, appreciation, intimate expressivity, care, service, support and investment. They were willing to make all kinds of sacrifice for the sake of the child without expecting the child to repay them in the

208 Conclusion

form of future filial duty. This shows unconditional love and pure altruism. They also wished that their children would get as much suzhi and education as possible. They were also trying to maximize the comfort, enjoyment and the overall wellbeing of the child’s everyday life. They wished to maximally ‘do’, and if possible, also maximally ‘enjoy’, parenting as a human experience in its own right, which partly underlies the shift between the older generation and the middle generation from ‘parenthood’ to ‘parenting’ in child-rearing, whereby parenting changed from what one just does to an art one needs to learn and cultivate. This entailed extensive and intensive guan of the child in all its senses. Inherent in all these forms of maximization is the exemplary norm about the best possible parent, the best possible child-rearing and the best possible childhood. The intensive parenting narrated by the parents was much about maximizing suzhi, and related to this, education, for the child. The young people’s narratives were also much about how to maximize suzhi and education for themselves. A term ubiquitously used in post-Mao China, suzhi is invariably about evaluating individuals or groups and ranking them along a scale of low and high quality. Those with allegedly gao suzhi (high quality) and quanmian suzhi (all-round quality) are held up as examples for others to emulate (Bakken, 2000). Since such ranking has implications for one’s worth, suzhi has been increasingly connected to the maximization of the capabilities and value of the human body (Anagnost, 2004). As China’s advantaged group (despite intragroup variations), urban only child families are both keener and better equipped than other groups to invest in their offspring’s suzhi. The young person’s all-round suzhi, which can be seen as ‘horizontal maximization’, was highly desirable in the families interviewed (although their understanding of suzhi’s ‘all-roundness’ was less political than – albeit not necessarily contradictory to – the state’s definition). Investment in and training for the child’s all-round suzhi typically started early in life, sometimes, prenatally. The cultivation targeted at the child’s artistic, bodily, mental, intellectual and moral ‘quality’, reflecting a shared wish to have a ‘perfect’ child, who is supposed to be maximally happy and who can realize his/her full potential. The ‘all-round quality’ ideal is also reflected in the young people’s gender construction. Reflective of their individualism, the young interviewees thought that everyone, regardless of sex, is supposed to get his or her individual potential fully developed by maximizing his or her interests, knowledge, experiences, education, competences and abilities. Their ideals for ‘modern’ manhood and womanhood incorporate both ‘hard’/instrumental and ‘soft’/expressive qualities and roles for both men and women. This could be seen as a tendency towards what can be in Chinese referred to as human quanneng hua (becoming an all-rounder; versatilization), which refers to a shift for both sexes from being competent for a single role or a single type of tasks towards having all-round abilities, skills and competences. A quanneng hua man or woman offers reconfigurable or flexible resources. He/She is multi-skilled, multi-talented, multitasking and multi-roleplaying in both private and public lives. This ideal or expectation does not change

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the core role expected of men and women respectively. But it is in keeping with the maximization desire of this generation. The desire and efforts to maximize the young generation’s high quality, which can be seen as ‘vertical maximization’, was at least equally resonate as the desire for all-round quality. ‘High quality’ does not necessarily contradict all-round quality; they even depend on each other in some ways: an all-rounder is often seen as indicative of high quality. However, in the young people’s narratives, and their parents’ talk about them, one’s high quality was invariably associated with high levels of achievement. Reflective of the urban only child family’s high achievement expectations of the child, who also typically embodies the subject position as the aspiring individual, the young people all had high achievement goals, ideals or ambitions, which is evinced by the men’s chenggong ideal and the women’s ideal to have the best of both worlds. Whereas one can gain high quality in many ways, education is viewed as the most effective means, so that high suzhi is often associated with the ‘educated person’. Against the backdrop of transformation in conditions of life over the three generations, and a long tradition of education veneration, university education has become a norm for the young generation, rather than the exception it was for the older generations. The middle-generation interviewees typically wished their children to have as much education as possible – or in their words, ‘the higher, the better’ – and from a university as prestigious as possible. Regardless of gender and socio-economic background, they expressed a wish and confidence to support their child as long as the child will go on in his or her education endeavor. Internalizing the ‘university complex’ and ‘prestigious university dream’ their parents had for them, the young people were striving for higher education of maximal quality as well as maximal level. Their daily life was much characterized by striving for excellence. There was a prevalent concern about how to maximally make use of time and maximally enhance productivity in study to develop maximal competitiveness and to maximally outperform peers so that one can test into a university as high up as possible in the educational hierarchy in China and even beyond. Many would fail to realize such a maximization ideal or expectation, but all were supposed to make maximal effort or do their best and practice selfreflection against the standards of the exemplary student. The paramount importance attached to education in these urban families reflects the culture of the globally spread schooled society. But in the Chinese case, the schooled society culture appears unusually – and perhaps internationally uniquely, intense. This has been reinforced by Chinese parents’ ‘compensation desire’ and the typically high parental achievement expectations and newfound resources of the urban only child family in which the child is priceless and (expected to be) aspirational. But it also fits the strong and widespread cultural belief in education, which often invokes the exemplary norm, in the Confucian tradition, in which education is viewed as crucial for both self-cultivation and social mobility. Such reverence of education goes along with a strong belief in maximal personal efforts as decisive of success – the Chinese cultural model of success (see Chapter 4).

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The emphasis on maximal efforts also fits the Weberian (1951) thesis that Confucianism emphasizes rational adaptation to the world, which ordains maximal resilience and patience. As I shall show in the following section, the exemplary norm often goes together with traditional Chinese dialectics in informing the contemporary Chinese maximization desire.

Maximization and ‘complementary oppositions’: eclectic modernization and Chinese dualism Maximization of life and the self is also reflected in the young generation’s eclectic approach to modernity that often takes the form of what I see as a particularly Chinese dualistic approach, or what can be called ‘eclectic dualism’ that rests well with traditional Chinese dialectics. The major idea of traditional dialectics is the notion of the ‘permeation of opposites’ or ‘complementary oppositions’ (xiangfan xiangcheng) (Tian, 2005). This philosophical thinking seeks ‘to merge seemingly conflicting elements into a unified harmony’ (Meisner, 1977, p. 257). It asserts that harmony, highly valued in Chinese culture, is achieved only by striking a balance between seemingly conflicting elements, such as yin and yang, heaven and earth, male and female, light and dark, strong and weak, and father and mother. Seemingly contradictory elements are strategically employed in complementary pairs in the hope of achieving a certain effect – balance, hence harmony. It is the coupling of opposites, or seemingly conflicting elements – not each of such elements alone, that is needed for the best effect, hence a win-win for both. Thus, inherent in such a dialectics is the notion of ‘maximization of positive effects’ by complementary combination of seemingly conflicting elements. Such an eclectic dualism could be discerned in the middle-generation interviewee’s wish to inculcate their child with traditional virtues related to filial piety at the same time as they endorsed modern notions of child-centeredness and individual autonomy in their child-rearing ideal and practice. While lamenting the difficulty to combine the two, they nonetheless thought it was possible and would be ideal to strike a balance between the two. The young people themselves also thought it is desirable to combine ‘democracy’ with traditional filial piety (albeit in its adapted form) in relating to their parents and other elders. Thus, in the modern urban family, one can observe a wish to strike a balance between the positional and personal family culture for the most desirable mode of intergenerational relationships and child-rearing. The exemplary family is supposed to exhibit a balance between the two by absorbing the best rudiments from each. Eclectic dualism is most evident in the young generation’s gender construction based on mutual complementarity. The young men and young women had totally identical gender-specific views, attitudes, expectations and ideals about men and women, husband and wife, and family life. They shared an endorsement of the maximization of human quality for all regardless of gender, which somewhat degendered both sexes. But they also insisted on the core gender role

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for both, especially in marriage. For a woman, having a job or career is supposed to be an extension of her core role as the homemaker. Although the extension is important for her self-fulfillment and also, in most cases, for the family economy, it is the gendered core that is most essential for her womanhood. Likewise, for a man participating in housework and child care is an extension of his core role as the main provider and ‘family pillar’. Striving for chenggong is most essential for his manhood. This finding is in keeping with Zuo and Bian’s (2001) study on Chinese couples’ perceived fairness. They showed that although housework division remained unequal in dual-earner household, the wives and husbands saw it as fair, and they would be satisfied with the partner, as long as husband and wife fulfill their expected gender role as breadwinner and housekeeper respectively. The gendered expectations release a husband who has fulfilled the provider role from the obligation to share housework equally. Likewise, they release a wife who combines paid and domestic work from an equal responsibility of breadwinning. Thus, rather than the unequal distribution of housework, it was the failure to bring adequate gendered resources to a marriage that caused a sense of unfairness and dissatisfaction. Both men and women are expected to bring into the family maximal gendered resources while practicing ‘subsidiary degendering’. Totally switching roles would have been unimaginable for them. For both the men and women, their sense of self-worth is closely related to their gendered position. This explains why chenggong is primarily associated with being a man but much less with being a woman. By the same token, the young women simultaneously degendered and (re)gendered themselves and in so doing positioned themselves as the autonomous and dependent ‘modern’ female; both are needed in order for them to have the best of both worlds. It is hard to miss the notion of yin-yang, the archetypical example par excellence of Chinese traditional dialectics, in the young generation’s gender views. Yin-yang does not have a simple correlation to men and women and it has a much wider use than gender in traditional Chinese culture. Nevertheless, the yin-yang notion is much evident in Chinese ideal gender relations. A man is expected to encompass yin as well as yang, but yang is supposed to be the main defining feature for him, and vice versa for a woman. It is the ideal of ‘proper amount of yang and yin’ in men and women respectively and their interdependence and mutual complementarity that is emphasized. Zhong (2000) observes that yin and yang ‘were used in direct correlation to gender relationships and configurations’ in the post-Mao era, as reflected in the expression yinsheng yangshuai, which simply means ‘women are too strong and men are too weak’ – a lamentation about ‘lost’ or ‘besieged’ masculinity in Chinese men that resulted in searching for real men, and hence real women (p. 40). It seems that such an understanding of gender has become increasingly, and even more unambiguously, endorsed over the three generations. Rather than inequality, such an understanding of gender relationship is grounded in the notions of interdependence and complementarity of the two sexes for the

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best of both, which is a way to maximize mutual benefits. Thus, what might be seen by Western feminists as an uneasy and problematic coupling of contradictory and irreconcilable postfeminist discourses, may not appear contradictory or paradoxical at all from a Chinese perspective. For Chinese, thus, it is totally possible to combine ‘the drive for freedom and the craving for belonging’ in a harmonious combination, which is viewed as a ‘dilemma’ or incompatible from a Western perspective (Bauman, 2003, p. 34). Such a relational approach seems also to have informed cultural conceptions of happiness in contemporary Chinese societies as based on dialectic balance and role obligation, in comparison with the Euro-American conception of happiness as based on personal accountability and explicit pursuit (Lu, 2005). Eclectic dualism is also evident in the young people’s attitudes towards marriage which show much deliberate reflection about balancing expressive and instrumental considerations. Valuing both qualities is not unique to this generation, neither is it unique to Chinese people. It was also evident in the middle generation despite their danchun. It also seems to parallel Jane Austen’s treatment of ‘sense’ and ‘sensibility’. However, what seems to be a uniquely generational and Chinese feature is that the young interviewees frequently volunteered and strongly asserted that the two aspects are compatible and should be combined. For them instrumental considerations and romantic love do not need to contradict each other, but are mutually reinforcing and interdependent – a far cry from the conventional definition of romantic love as excluding any means-ends rationality. Thus, what de Munck (1998) has referred to as the ‘modern erotic relations predicament’, in which people are torn between the enchantment of romantic love and the cold reality of the ultimate valorization of rationality and competitiveness in the market economy, may not constitute a predicament from a Chinese perspective. Eclectic dualism concerns not only gender relations, but it seems to be a more general Chinese approach to modernization. In an earlier study on post-Mao urban youth and modernity (Liu, 2011), the young interviewees, like those in this study, also showed a tendency to view as unproblematic, and even desirable, to pair seemingly contradictory elements as mutually complementary and interdependent rather than as conflicting. For them, both sets of qualities are required for a balanced and maximally functioning modern person. This is also in keeping with Lu’s (2003) notion of the ‘composite or bicultural self’ among contemporary Chinese people which, she argues, intricately integrates the traditional Chinese construct of ‘self-in-relation’ (interdependence) with the Western construct of ‘independent and autonomous self’ (independence). Lu also views this bicultural self as rooted in the traditional dialectics. Youth’s dualistic approach to modernity coincides, and may have been influenced by, the party-state’s eclectic dualism inherent in the theory of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ (Liu, 2011), although the former is far from just a copy of the state ideology. Ever since the end of the 1970s, when China initiated its market economy and opened itself up to the world, it has ever since found

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itself in the current of two forces – modernization at home and globalization in the world. Seeking, on the one hand, to maximally capitalize on globalization for rapid economic development, and on the other hand, to maximally avoid the dangers which ‘Western culture’ poses for the political and cultural order, the Party leaders coupled in its state policy two seemingly contradictory ideologies: economic liberalism and political authoritarianism combined with a cultural particularism (Zhang, 2004). This process has entailed two apparent paradoxes, which appear to be unproblematic, and even desirable, from a Chinese perspective: a search for ‘continuity with, as well as a departure from, the socialist legacy and cultural tradition of the past, and integration with, as well as resistance to, global capitalism’ (Yu, 2009, p. 6). Such an eclectic dualism also underlies the ideal, or exemplary, personhood, of which the suzhi discourse is an integral part, enjoined of ‘modern’ Chinese subjects. An exemplary modern subject is supposed to embody both ‘material civilization’ and ‘spiritual civilization’. One can hardly miss its continuity with the notion of ‘both red and expert’ (youhong youzhuan) required of the exemplary socialist subject under Mao and with the traditional ideal for a talent ‘possessing both virtue and competence’ (decai jianbei). The exemplary norm and the eclectic dualism are thus brought together in the Chinese definition of the ideal personhood in the context of post-Mao modernization, as they were in history. Being exemplary means being able to practice such an eclectic dualism. This represents a hybrid approach to modernity. Hybrid approaches to modernity are by no means uniquely Chinese, but apply also to youth in many other contemporary societies (Arnett, 2002; Nilan and Feixa, 2006). Young people’s identity work in many other societies, as in China, has to be done within a context of unprecedented complexity and apparent confusion due to the various ‘glocal’ forces. Often they need to negotiate between apparently contradictory cultural discourses on offer at all the local, regional and global levels in making a modern life and forging a modern self. What seems to make the Chinese case unique, however, is its eclecticism – picking the best and most useful from different sources, which fits the Chinese exemplary norm. Furthermore, the Chinese eclectic approach tends to take the form of a dualism by coupling seemingly contradictory elements, in keeping with the Chinese traditional dialectics. In short, it seems that coping with apparent dualism (between contradictory forces and elements) and making it into a duality (which does not necessarily denote contradiction), by even making it a virtue seems to be a uniquely Chinese approach to modernity at both the individual and state policy level (Liu, 2011, p. 195). Apparent contradictions are of course not a uniquely Chinese characteristic – neither at the level of individual (and group) identity construction, nor at the level of government policy. But, it seems to be very Chinese to make a virtue of duality so that seemingly contradictory elements appear not as conflicting but as complementary components of a harmonious balance needed for achieving the best effects, or for maximizing the benefits for both. Thus, what may appear

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contradictory or paradoxical from another cultural perspective, need not appear to be so at all from a Chinese point of view. The young interviewees’ tendency to couple apparently contradictory elements into harmoniously balancing dyads for best effects may be because we as researchers access the informants’ realities mainly through their self-narratives. Narratives such as elicited in life history research are typically characterized by narrators’ efforts for a sense of coherence, which stands for attempts at coping discursively with the complex, and at times confusing, human conditions. Social commentators (Chang, 2010; Lu, 2000; Kipnis, 2012; Yan, 2009) have highlighted the complexity of the contemporary Chinese social condition by arguing that post-Mao China’s modernization represents ‘compressed modernity’ (Chang, 2010), characterized by ‘the superimposition of multiple temporalities; the premodern, the modern, and the postmodern, which coexist in the same space and at the same moment’ (Lu, 2000, p. 146). Kipnis (2012) argues that elements of both the ‘first-order’ and ‘second-order’ modernization (or ‘reflexive modernity’) in the late modernity theorists’ terms exist in present-day China. As such the Chinese approach to modernity does not negate real contradictions, dilemmas and confusions entailed by ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ and their consequences for young people’s lives. It is just that, for the Chinese youth interviewed, it seems that the coherence of their self-narratives relies much on their eclectic dualism.

Maximization and long-term orientation: maximally ‘de-risking’ the future The Chinese urban family’s maximization desire has important implications for the present in that it informs how the young generation and their parents (are supposed to) live their daily lives. But it can also be seen as a backlash against the constraints and deprivations of earlier times. Maximization is possible only when its cognitive, material and cultural conditions are in place; otherwise, making do or satisficing would have been more applicable (Simon, 1956). Meanwhile, it is also strongly future-oriented. The urban family’s wish to maximize the child’s suzhi and education not only reflects a post-Mao ‘humanism’ embodied by the aspiring and desiring individual. But it is also a strategy to secure future welfare for the child in the Chinese ‘risk society’ characterized by individualization without a sound, state-provided safety net, the changed notion of the ‘good life’, sharp social stratification, precarious youth transition, and a competitive market economy increasingly integrated with the global knowledge society and schooled society. The maximization thus can be seen as ‘de-risking’ or securing the future, which also fits some cultural psychologists’ observation that Chinese tend to be more future or long-term oriented than other cultures (Hofstede, 1991). A Chinese cultural tendency for long-term orientation is also inherent in Weber’s thesis on the Confucian ‘adaptation to the world’. As a measurement of human worth, suzhi serves as an effective mechanism for social categorization, hence stratification. Those with the resources, such as

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the urban only child families in this study, thus try to maximally cultivate their offspring’s suzhi. Suzhi is a multifaceted term, but credentialed education seems to be the most heavily rewarded by the stratification system, in keeping with Baker’s argument about the schooled society. Thus, education, suzhi, qualifications, social mobility, and the good life are interrelated concepts in present-day China. The desire to maximize education has been intensified by the credential inflation due to the expansion and further stratification of higher education in the Chinese schooled society. Whereas in the 1980s and early 1990s, a degree from any university, or even a technical-vocational school diploma, sufficed for an elite occupation, access now requires a degree from high-status universities and often post-graduate degrees. The change in higher education has a trickle-down effect on the lower levels of education (Zhang and Bray, 2017, p. 68), which underlies the intensity of the young interviewees’ schooling experiences characterized by various efforts and strategies to maximally enhance academic performance. The widespread belief in present-day China, as in many other ‘credential societies’ (Collins, 1979), or ‘schooled societies’ (Baker, 2014), with the ‘diploma disease’ (Dore, 1976), that one should get as much (credentialed) education as possible in order to cash in on career advancement fits Brown’s (2003) notion of ‘the opportunity trap’. It is a trap because in realizing the broadened range of choices or opportunities in the neoliberal economy, few can afford to opt out of the competition for a livelihood, and meanwhile the expectation of such an investment seems hard to cash out. Those who are advantaged ‘are having to run faster, for longer, just to stand still’ (Brown, 2003, p. 142). Such a trap is reinforced by the fact that transition to adulthood in many societies has become typically precarious and ‘emerging’ (Arnett, 2000), in contrast to the previous generations who tended to have ‘normal biographies’ (Du Bois-Reymond, 1998) or ‘niches’ (Evans and Furlong, 1997). In post-Mao China, the precariousness of youth’s ‘emerging adulthood’ may be especially serious due to fierce market competition, lack of employment and professional opportunities even for university graduates, individualization without a state-provided safety net, and changed notion of the worthy job and worthy life. Thus, the wish to maximize education not only expresses a historically new drive for individual self-realization, it is also perceived by the young people and their parents in the present study as crucial for securing future welfare, which requires the young people, supported or urged by their parents, to practice utilitarian individualism, featuring hard work, perseverance, patience, self-discipline and pleasure deferment. The young people’s eclectic dualism in gender construction can also be seen as an adaptive and coping strategy to maximize future welfare as well as to fit into the social order. The eclectic dualism, especially the way the young women practiced it, represents a way to come to terms with simultaneously existing and conflicting cultural demands by individualization and retraditionalization based on a discourse of ‘natural’ sex differences in the post-Mao era. Simultaneously taking up two apparently conflicting subject positions in negotiating modern womanhood represents a particularly Chinese strategy to cope with the two sets of

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conflicting expectations of contemporary femininity related to the home and the workplace – a challenge also faced by their Western counterparts (Beck, 1992). Women’s degendering is necessary for successful individual identities within the new economy where masculine qualities are required to meet new institutional change. Individualization which enjoins all people to be autonomous and selfenterprising individuals positions women as equal competitors with men without eradicating the male-favoring social structure. Likewise, their (re)gendering of the female self, while reflecting and helping perpetuate the ‘natural sex difference’ discourse, may represent informal power. Positioning men, who enjoy more favorable conditions for individual success, as having greater accomplishment capacities than themselves, hence the ‘family pillar’ and ‘main provider’, may serve as women’s ‘self-protection’ against the post-Mao state’s withdrawal from a serious commitment to gender equality and from overwhelming pressure for individual achievement. Combining instrumental calculations with romantic love in marriage could also be a way to secure future material welfare in a context of individualization without an adequate state-provided safety net and of rampant consumerism. Given the relational nature of gender, it is unsurprising that the young men, while also identifying with ‘soft/expressive masculinity’, may be more preoccupied with chenggong not only as proof of manhood but also to fit in the Chinese gender order and the future marriage market where young women themselves are also ambitious individuals and where there is a severe sex-ratio imbalance against men. The emphasis on complementarity or interdependence may also be more needed in a society where human connectedness is threatened by market competition and the family has become the main, if not sole, welfare unit for individuals, and where traditional familism remains strong. Indeed, the ‘cultural sex agreement’ with an emphasis on complementarity of men and women has to do with the making of the modern middle-class family life which is supposed to be ‘happy’, ‘full’, ‘harmonious’ and ‘warm’, enjoying both material and spiritual well-being – expressions the young interviewees used to describe their ideal future family life. Such a family is the prerequisite for ‘true manhood’, ‘true womanhood’, and ‘true childhood’ – all redefined based on both modern and traditional values. Such an ideal requires that husband and wife complement each other by bringing in their maximal gendered resources into this relationship without overriding the core gender boundary despite the expectation of both to become an all-rounder. For men, who are expected to strive hard for chenggong with its high stakes, such a family life gains extra importance as a counterbalance to the overwhelming pressure for accomplishments. It may also serve as a haven for women from the individualized risk society in which she also needs to strive for rather high achievement. Besides, such a family ideal already fits her ‘natural’ position, enabling her to be true to the ‘uniquely female’ self allegedly lost in the recent past. Thus, like expressive intimacy in personal relationships, the complementary approach to gender appeals to these aspiring individuals because of its expected therapeutic function.

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The need to maximally secure the future by striving for high achievement may also be reinforced by young people’s wish to fulfill filial duty – as an important marker of exemplary masculinity in Chinese culture and as a new moral duty for the only child girl as ‘substitute son’. Many urban parents, thanks to new-found resources and maximal altruism to their priceless child, may not expect their one and only child to provide for them in old age. Nevertheless, the child may still wish to fulfill filial duty out of gratitude for parents’ maximal love and heavy investment.

Maximization’s price The maximization desire came at substantial costs. Maximally valuing the ‘priceless child’, maximally appreciating their one chance of being parents, and being maximally altruistic may have meant maximal self-denial for the parents. The financial expenses ranging from daily consumption and suzhi and educational investment might have proved challenging for families with even an average urban income. To maximally satisfy the priceless child’s needs, the parents at the lower end of Beijing’s income hierarchy had to be frugal in spending for their own needs. Maximizing love and maximizing the child’s suzhi and education entailed intensive and extensive guan in all its senses, which not only caused widely shared exhaustion among the parents but also left little time and energy for the parents themselves, especially the mothers, to follow their own interests. Thus, many of the parents would have liked to have more than one child had they been allowed to, but at the same time they dreaded the idea of another child. Maximizing suzhi and education in the Chinese schooled society is also clearly exhausting for the young people. The Chinese priceless child is indeed both ‘precious’ and ‘pressured’. The pressure for achievement by both parents and the education system, and internalized by young people themselves, underpinned the young generation’s talk about ku (bitterness; suffering). The older generations, especially the grandparents also talked much about ku, spending their childhood and youth in a time of material, political, educational and cultural constraints and deprivations. They envied present-day young people’s material condition and educational opportunity. The young generation’s ku has nothing to do with material shortage or lack of educational opportunity, but it is directly related to schooling and the pressure for high achievement, which the older generations were saved from. Fatigue, boredom, frustration, anxiety, stress and lack of leisure, sleep and rest were common experiences, especially among those doing well at school. Many of them wished to relax at the earliest possible age by retiring from work to a life without stress or pressure, just relaxation and fun. ‘Maximizing life and the self’ as they did required the practice of utilitarian individualism by deferring gratification and pleasure. One must live for and in the future, not the present. The young people, members of China’s ‘me generation’, were torn between their self-expression needs and utilitarian individualism. Many

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were in a dilemma as to how to have a youth period that would not be regretted in the future. If one plays or follows one’s interests ‘too much’, one may later regret for not having disciplined oneself and worked hard enough in case one fails to do well in one’s life. If one does not play enough, one may regret not having been ‘young’ as one should have been. In coming to terms with the conflicting demands of ‘living in and for the future’ and ‘living in and for the present’, they were supposed to practice ‘rational love’ in cases where one fell in love. Likewise, youth responsible for their own future were not supposed to follow their personal interests and whims, for example, by breaking the rule about the school uniform or by pursuing music and sport using the precious time for schoolwork. Those who tipped the balance the wrong way invariably faced its consequences: frustration and anxiety for themselves as well as for their parents. Thus, making a virtue of duality by practicing eclectic dualism may appear discursively unproblematic for the Chinese youth. But in reality it may well prove to be dilemmatic and tensionladen, hence hard to do. Likewise, in raising the priceless child, parents perceived a dilemma between, on the one hand, letting their precious children spend a happy and carefree childhood in line with the Western liberal childhood ideal, and, on the other hand, much parental control, supervision and interference in order to maximize the child’s suzhi and education for success in the Chinese schooled society and market economy. The balance was usually tipped towards the latter, resulting in much conditioning of the only child according to the goals and plans parents have for their child. The young people practiced yin-yang-based eclectic dualism in gender construction especially in their ideals for conjugal life. They did not seem to question its implications for gender equality, but instead idealized it as the ‘natural’ way and as for the ‘best’ of both men and women. Even if the insistence on sex differences may not necessarily mean gender inequality, it may still reinforce and perpetuate patriarchy. It is most likely that given the effect of ‘status expectation’, if men are considered more capable of achievement and contribution, they may well continue to be the more valued (Ridgeway, 2001). Besides, the young women’s insistence on ‘natural sex differences’ in their hypergamous ideal, which legitimizes themselves for lesser accomplishment than men, may factually undermine the chance of fully realizing their own individual potential. The young people’s simultaneous embrace of individualism and ‘natural’ sex differences tends to render feminism of little appeal and inaccessible to them (Thornham and Feng, 2010). This may have consequences for gender equity in the true sense of the word, especially in a society where the state has withdrawn from serious intervention with gender inequalities. In a context of rampant consumerism, a popular middle-class lifestyle, severe sex-ratio imbalance and high achievement expectations also for young women, the post-Mao discourse of ‘natural sex differences’ has highly demanding implications for what it takes for a man to be a prospectively successful main provider. The chenggong ideal, with its high stakes, may have implications for men’s

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well-being. Thus, rather than a win-win for both men and women, such gender construction may well prove to be detrimental to both. However, it is important to bear in mind that such views were uttered by adolescents whose worldviews and values may well change as they grow older, with more exposure to adult life in the family and the labor market. Many of the young men, if not most of them, may have to adjust to much lesser actual accomplishments. Both genders may have to develop more gender equitable attitudes while coming to terms with the double demands of family and work for both men and women. It could also be the other way round – a return to more traditional gender norms. These are among the questions for further empirical research. The aspiring individual ideal, with its emphasis on maximization of life and the self, and on individual choice and self-making downplays the extent to which gender and socio-economic conditions shape opportunities and available identities for individuals. Like the discourse of ‘girl power’ in the West (Harris, 2004; McRobbie, 2009), the female ideal of having the best of both worlds masks the inequalities preventing some young women from having it all. Likewise, not every man may be able to live up to the chenggong ideal although it addresses all young men. The young people in this study belong to the advantaged social group, but there were also great intragroup disparities, which partly underlies their school choice and academic performance, with implications for their future life chance. It remains a question for future research to trace how these individuals are faring in their post-secondary years and beyond.

Concluding remarks The notion of ‘maximization desire’ or ‘maximization of life and the self’, is not meant to romanticize the Chinese features or to be blind to the involuntary elements in Chinese young people’s experiences of modernization. The maximization desire that came with the young generation reflects and invokes century-old Chinese cultural ideals and inclinations, but it is also shaped by the post-Mao social reality with all its complexities and contradictions. Despite its inherent challenges and risks, this new era also offers unprecedented temptations, promises and possibilities for individuals and their families. The maximization desire is a defining feature of the aspiring individual of the urban young generation, also the only child generation, typically with a strong wish for high achievement, individual self-realization and the good life redefined in the post-Mao era. While embodying modern and even late modern individualistic values, this new subject meanwhile strongly endorse the post-Mao ‘natural sex differences’ discourse based on the traditional yin-yang notion and some elements of traditional filial piety. Such considerable cultural continuity with the past, however, should not be read as an uncritical return to tradition. Rather, traditional values and cultural traits as well as modern values are mobilized for their purpose of maximizing life and the self.

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Their maximization desire reflects the extraordinarily self-conscious awareness of the urban family of living in a new era strikingly different from even the most recent past. It is an agentic strategy the young generation, supported by their parents, employ to de-risk or secure the future in the Chinese risk society. It represents a pragmatic response, among those who have the means, to the intensified complexities of human conditions in post-Mao China. It is also a way to come to terms with competing cultural discourses simultaneously addressing young people, for instance, the coexistence of individualization and gender retraditionalization. In short, it represents a wish to take maximal advantage of the benefits of modernization. Long-standing cultural elements, such as the exemplary norm, traditional dialectics, and long-term orientation, were activated to serve these modernizing purposes, and in this process they became reinforced. Maximization can also be seen as a cultural competence required of modern people within a tradition that emphasizes exemplary norms, balance, harmony, education and long-term/ future orientation or adaptation. The maximization desire was not possible, or not even accessible, for the two previous generations, especially the grandparents. Maximization, as a cultural and social practice as well as a human desire, and with its personal costs, thus marks the young people in this study as generational, classed and gendered beings in a specific historical, cultural and socio-geographical context, giving their modernization experiences a Chinese twist.

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222 Conclusion Zhang, T. J. 2004. Self-identity construction of the present China. Comparative Strategy 23(3): 281–301. Zhang, W. and Bray, M. 2017. Micro-neoliberalism in China: Public-private interactions at the confluence of mainstream and shadow education. Journal of Education Policy 32(1): 63–81. Zhong, X. P. 2000. Masculinity besieged? Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Zuo, J. P. and Bian, Y. J. 2001. Gendered resources, division of housework, and perceived fairness: A case in urban China. Journal of Marriage and Family 63(4): 1122–33.

Glossary

baixiao shun weixian  (obedience is the first among the hundreds of ways of expressing filial piety 百孝顺为先) bang dakuan  (to rely on a rich man 傍大款) baobei  (treasure 宝贝) Beida  (Beijing University 北大) benfen  (well-behaved; abiding by social norms and rules; loyal 本分) benniao xianfei  (the slow bird needs to take off earlier 笨鸟先飞) caochi jiawu  (managing the housework and domestic affairs 操持家务) chedui  (parade of cars 车队) chengfen  (social class background 成分) chenggong  (success; outstanding accomplishment 成功) chenggong renshi  (successful people 成功人士) chengle  (yielded fruit; succeeded 成了) chiku  (‘eating bitterness’; enduring hardship and sufferings 吃苦) chiku nailao  (enduring hardship, sufferings and hard work 吃苦耐劳) chi ruanfan  (‘eat soft meals’ 吃软饭) chongai  (pamper; pampering 宠爱) chou laojiu  (‘stinky old no. 9’ 臭老九) daban  (appearance 打扮) dagong wusi  (selfless for the collective cause 大公无私) danchun  (simple and pure; simple-minded and pure-hearted 单纯) dapin  (fight and strive 打拼) daxue  (university/college 大学) daxuesheng  (university student 大学生) decai jianbei  (possessing both virtue and competence 德才兼备) dingtian lidi  (to stand like, or serve as the pillar between heaven and earth 顶天立地) dizi gui  (Standards for a Good Child 弟子规) duibuqi haizi  (to let the child down 对不起孩子) enai  (favor and gratitude 恩爱) fangyang  (letting grow naturally with little interference; ‘sheep dogging’ 放养) feng  (crazy 疯)

224 Glossary

fengbi  (closed 封闭) fengfeng bubu  (sewing and patching 缝缝补补) fumu zai, buyuanyou  (not going far away from where one’s parents are 父母在，不远游) ganhuoer  (to labor 干活儿) gao  (high 高) gaoduixiang  (find a marriage partner 搞对象) gaokao  (the College Entrance Examination 高考) gao pinwei  (high taste 高品位) gao suzhi  (high quality 高素质) gemener  (men sharing a homosocial bond; brothers 哥们) geren dangan  (one’s personal file 个人档案) geren de shi  (personal matters 个人的事) geren kongjian  (personal space 个人空间) gongzuo  (job 工作) guan  (control or discipline; interfere or intervene; mind or care about; tend to or look after 管) guangxi  (social networks 关系) guorizi  (‘passing the days’; getting by in a livelihood; making ends meet 过日子) guo hao rizi  (living a ‘good life’ 过好日子) haole  (‘became good’; became lovers 好了) hehu  (to protect and take good care of; protection; care 呵护) hukou  (residence status 户口) huzhuzu  (mutual help group 互助组) jiandan  (simplicity/simpleness; simple-hearted and simple-minded 简单) jianku pusu  (hardworking and plain-living; to live in a plain and hardworking way 艰苦朴素) jide xingshan  (to do good and accumulate merit 积德行善) jiji  (active; enthusiastic; enthusiasm; being active; activism 积极) jingshen  (spiritual 精神的) junren  (military man 军人) kaodaxue  (to test into a university/college 考大学) ku  (‘bitter’; full of suffering and hardships 苦) ku  (cool 酷) laoshi  (well-behaved; unadventurous or not risk-taking; conforming to norms and rules; honest, reliable and loyal 老实) linglei  (literally, ‘another type’; anomalous; unusual; extraordinary; non-mainstream; special 另类) lingsui fangan  (the age-0 plan 零岁方案) majiang  (a table game popular in China 麻将) meibenshi  (incapable 没本事) meitiao jian  (no precondition 没条件) meiwenhua  (‘having no culture’; uneducated; illiterate 没文化)

Glossary 225

mendang hudui  (with or having a similar social background 门当户对) mengmeng longlong de  (dim; obscure; hazy 朦朦胧胧的) mingpai daxue  (prestigious university 名牌大学) mingpai daxue meng  (prestigious university dream 名牌大学梦) nanzun nübei  (males are superior to females 男尊女卑) niuniu nienie, jiaorou zaozuo  (coy, affectedly bashful and shilly-shally; affected; artificial 扭扭捏捏，矫揉造作) nü qiangren  (strong woman 女强人) peiyang  (cultivation; education; training 培养) ping ganjue  (intuitively; following one’s intuition or feeling 凭感觉) pingping changchang  (ordinary and mundane 平平常常) pingyong zhi bei  (nonentity; nobody 平庸之辈) putongren  (ordinary person 普通人) qiangzhe  (strong one 强者) Qinghua  (Qinghua University 清华大学) qinneng buzhu  (diligence can make up for slowness 勤能补拙) qixi  (July 7 by the Chinese traditional calendar; the ‘lovers’ day’ 七夕) quanmian  (all-round 全面) quanzhi taitai  (fulltime ‘lady of the house’; fulltime homemaker; fulltime housewife 全职太太) quanmian suzhi  (all-round quality 全面素质) quanneng hua  (becoming an all-rounder; versatilization 全能化) quexian  (defect 缺陷) renlao renyuan  (accepting hard work and unfairness or complaints 任劳任怨) renmin gongshe  (the People’s Commune 人民公社) sanbaxian  (‘the 38th Parallel’, 三八线) sha  (silly 傻) shangdaxue  (go to university/college 上大学) shengnü  (leftover women 剩女) shentong  (child prodigy 神童) shiye  (career 事业) shuai  (handsome 帅) shuai dai le, ku bi le  (‘nullifyingly’ handsome and ‘killingly’ cool 帅呆了， 酷毙了) shuai ge  (handsome guy 帅哥) shuai nüsheng  (handsome girls 帅女生) sishu  (traditional Chinese private school 私塾) suzhi  (quality 素质) taijiao  (prenatal cultivation 胎教) tai niang le  (too feminine 太娘了) tanlianai  (‘talking about love’; romance 谈恋爱) tanwaner  (too playful; indulgent in playing 贪玩) tiandi zhibie  (the difference between heaven and earth 天地之别) tiaozhan jixian  (challenge the extreme limit 挑战极限)

226 Glossary

tieguniang  (‘iron girls’ 铁姑娘) timian  (decent 体面) tuojia daikou  (dragging a dependent family; to be constrained by a family 拖家带口) wanshu  (mature late 晚熟) weiniang  (fake woman 伪娘) wennuan  (warm 温暖) wenrou  (gentleness/softness 温柔) wusi  (selfless(ness) 无私) wuzhi  (material 物质的) xiandai hua  (modernization 现代化) xiangfan xiangcheng  (permeation of opposites or complementary oppositions 相反相成) xiangfu jiaozi  (assisting the husband and bringing up the child 相夫教子) xianqi  (virtuous wife 贤妻) xianqi liangmu  (virtuous wife and good mother 贤妻良母) xiaoniao yiren  (a soft and sweet beauty like a little bird 小鸟依人) xiao nüsheng  (‘girlie’ 小女生) xihuan  (liking/loving 喜欢) xingfu meiman  (happy and full 幸福美满) xinshi  (matters of the heart 心事) xinsi  (heart and mind 心思) xühan wennuan  (‘to ask about warmth and cold’; showing care about somebody’s welfare 嘘寒问暖) xuntao  (indirectly influence 熏陶) yanfu cimu  (stern father and amiable mother 严父慈母) yanger fanglao  (to raise children/sons for the sake of one’s old-age care 养儿防老) yangjia hukou  (to provide food and shelter for one’s family 养家糊口) yedian  (nightspots 夜店) yibu paku, erbu pasi  (defying both hardships and death 一不怕苦， 二不怕死) yihan  (regret 遗憾) yinsheng yangshuai  (flourishing ‘yin’ versus declining ‘yang’; women are too strong and men are too weak 阴盛阳衰) yin-yang  阴阳 yishi wuyou  (no worries about food and clothes 衣食无忧) youhong youzhuan  (both red and expert 又红又专) yousuo zuowei  (to become somebody; achieve success; accomplish something great 有所作为) zaolian  (precocious, or premature love 早恋) zhifu  (get rich 致富) zhifu guangrong  (it is honorable to get rich 致富光荣)

Glossary 227

zhiyao gongfu shen, tiechu mocheng zhen  (even a thick iron rod can be ground into a sewing needle so long as one makes enough effort 只要功夫 深，铁杵磨成针) zhizhu  (pillar 支柱) zhongkao  (Upper Secondary School Entrance Exam 中考) zhongzhuan  (technical-vocational upper secondary school 中专) zizhong  (behave respectably 自重) zuowei nanren  (as a man 做为男人)

Index

abuse of women 149, 178, 183 academic excellence 10, 78, 91, 93, 98 – 102, 109, 111; see also mediocrity phobia academic track 6, 93 – 4, 98 achievement 126, 129 – 30, 139, 141; see also chenggong (success; outstanding accomplishment) appearance 106, 149 – 50; and marriage 197; and men 169 – 70; and romance 181 – 2; and women 155, 158 – 9, 166, 168 – 9 authority 23 – 4, 27, 48, 59, 115, 164, 185 autonomy 23 – 5, 34 – 5, 52, 80, 153, 157, 172, 178, 210 beauty see appearance body-mind separation 106 chenggong (success; outstanding accomplishment) 11, 100, 206, 211, 216, 218 – 19; and the good life 134 – 7; and husbands 130 – 4; and marriage 198; and masculinity 115 – 16, 125 – 30; price of 137 – 9 child-centeredness 4, 47, 50 – 1, 210; see also only child family childhood 4, 14n1, 31 – 3, 52 – 8; and childcenteredness 47 – 52; in Chinese history 1 – 2, 7 – 8; and communicative intimacy 58 – 63; and education 63 – 71; and helpful and dutiful children 10, 52 – 8, 71; under Maoism 49, 119 – 20, 139, 151, 179, 200; in post-Mao China 50, 52, 73, 87; and priceless children 56 – 8, 60 – 3, 66 – 71 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 49, 58, 82, 120, 122, 151; and empowerment of youth and women 178 – 9

Chinese cultural model of success 21, 102, 111, 209; see also achievement; chenggong (success; outstanding accomplishment) Chinese dialectics 13, 14, 141, 172, 201, 206, 210 – 13, 220 chores and children 53, 56, 64, 72, 73, 87, 167; see also housework command households 26 – 7, 48, 50 communication 7 – 8, 27, 59, 61, 70, 72, 177, 188, 200, 205 compensation desire 50, 68, 73, 81, 98, 110, 209 complexification of the mind and heart 176, 192, 200, 201 Compulsory Education Law 80 conformity 106, 181 Confucianism 102; and women 144 – 5; and exemplarity 207 – 10; and work 111 consumerism 7, 12, 50, 56, 105, 107, 146, 218; see also materialism convergence thesis 9, 19 – 20, 33, 205 cooking 53, 55, 56 – 7, 183 credential society 80, 215 cult of true womanhood 32 Cultural Revolution 7, 18, 49, 79, 80, 90, 98, 110, 121, 145, 149, 177 danchun (pure-heartedness) 155, 184 – 92, 200 daxue (university) 87 – 9, 91, 93 – 4, 96 – 8, 101, 107, 109 – 10, 122 – 5, 151, 155; see also universities degendering: of both sexes 106, 132, 140, 210 – 11; of women 11, 135, 144, 156 – 65, 171, 216 deliberate masculinization 145, 156, 158, 161 – 4

Index 229 democratization 17; of interpersonal relationships 26, 27, 30, 32 – 3, 47, 51, 60, 72, 205 Deng Xiaoping 79, 80, 86, 207 de Tocqueville, Alexis 19 detraditionalization 23 – 4, 52 diploma disease 80, 215 discipline 13, 17, 60, 61, 63, 101, 104 – 7, 159, 168, 194, 218 divergence thesis 9, 19 – 20, 38 dualism: Chinese 210 – 14; eclectic 206, 210, 212 – 14, 218; and gender construction 172, 215, 218; see also Chinese dialectics; dual modernity; yin-yang dual modernity 5, 147; see also socialism with Chinese characteristics Durkheim, Emile 19 economic growth: and education 33 – 4 education 6, 32, 33 – 8, 73, 78 – 82, 206; belief in 34, 37, 88, 96, 98, 109, 111, 209, 215; and excellence 98 – 102; expansion of 36, 49, 80, 81, 86, 89, 110, 215; and gender 28; and inequality 80, 81, 95; marginal status of 82 – 91; parental expectations for 65 – 7; and productivity 102 – 7; reverence for 11, 38, 79, 81, 110, 209; and romance 184 – 5, 193 – 4; and schooled society 91 – 2, 109 – 11; shadow 82, 99; and stratification 7, 73, 79, 80, 81, 214 – 15; and suzhi (quality) 214 – 15; and universities 92 – 6; and utilitarianism 107 – 9; and work 54; and worth 96 – 8; see also academic track; key schools; ordinary schools; vocational track efficiency 206; in studying 102 – 7; see also productivity effort: belief in 102 – 3; vs. talent 90, 102 – 3; see also Chinese cultural model of success emotional expressivity 12, 176 – 8 emotions 30, 71, 176 – 7, 193; see also romance entrepreneurship 87, 126 – 9, 146 ethnocentrism 20; see also convergence thesis exemplarity 207 – 10; see also exemplary norms; exemplary society exemplary norms 11, 13, 14, 38, 75, 79, 98, 107, 111, 116, 118, 130, 137, 141,

206 – 10, 213, 220; and chenggong 11, 118, 130, 137; and education 38, 79, 107 exemplary society 104, 207 failure: and masculinity 137 – 8 families 1 – 5, 8 – 14, 18, 20, 26 – 7, 30 – 3, 38 – 9, 47 – 58, 61 – 4, 66 – 8, 70 – 4, 78 – 9, 81 – 92, 94 – 9, 103 – 4, 108 – 11, 117, 119 – 23, 125 – 9, 131 – 7, 140 – 1, 144 – 6, 148 – 52, 154, 156 – 8, 160 – 1, 165 – 7, 170 – 1, 177, 179 – 81, 183 – 4, 188 – 91, 194, 197 – 200, 206 – 11, 214 – 17, 219 – 20; see also husbands; men; wives; women famine 7, 53, 63, 83, 183 female hypergamy 140, 200, 218; see also women feminism 168, 171 – 2, 218; see also women filial duty 4, 52, 55, 135 – 6, 141, 160 – 1, 177, 190 – 1, 208, 217 food: and good life 56, 57, 84; and parenting 61, 63; and poverty 83, 88; and school 91; see also famine; starvation Foucault, Michel 35 friendship: importance of 192; same-sex 192; and sexual differences 162 frugality 57, 84, 153, 217 gaokao (College Entrance Examination) 86 – 7, 99, 108, 168 gender 4, 11 – 13, 106; and chenggong (success) 131 – 2, 140 – 1; and education 35 – 6; and equality 27 – 8; and hierarchy 116; and housework 54 – 5; and Maoism 119, 121; see also husbands; men; wives; women gendered resources 197, 211, 216 generations 6 – 9; as a concept 2 – 3; and social change studies 3 – 4 globalization 11, 20, 21 – 2, 24, 38, 213 good looks see appearance Great Leap Forward 18, 79 growing up naturally 63 – 6, 72 guan 61 – 4, 66, 69, 71, 89, 208, 217 guests: and children 58 guorizi (making ends meet) 115, 124, 139, 150, 190; and marriage 181 – 2; and men 119 – 21, 151, 181 – 2; and women 148 – 9

230 Index higher education see universities homosexuality 193 housework 29, 32, 35 – 6, 60, 65 – 6, 72 – 3, 85 – 6, 119 – 20, 124, 151 – 3, 183, 188, 190 – 1, 198, 211; and children 48, 50, 53 – 7, 167; and women 148 – 9, 156 hukou (residence status) 89, 191 – 2; see also rural urban disparities husbands 62, 70, 83, 90, 104, 109, 117, 119, 130 – 4, 137, 145 – 6, 148 – 9, 155, 157, 160 – 1, 166 – 7, 180, 182 – 3, 187 – 9, 195 – 9, 201, 210 – 11, 216; see also men Imperial Civil Service Exam 97 independence, female 147, 153, 156 – 7 individualism 22 – 3, 140; and achievement 118 – 19; and education 107 – 9; and emotions 30; expressive 23, 30, 140, 201; and romance 201; utilitarian 23, 107 – 9, 140, 158 – 9, 201, 215, 217 individualization 4, 12 – 13, 17, 19, 23 – 4, 140, 145, 201, 214 – 16, 220; and men 118; and women 29, 30, 110, 199; see also late modernity theory inequality 36, 95, 211; and education 80 – 1; and gender 27 – 8, 30 intelligence: cultivation of 66 – 7; and effort 89, 102, 103, 105; sexual difference in 132, 162, 165 intensive parenting 33, 208; see also guan intimacy 30, 61, 72, 176 irrelevance of schooling 10, 63, 82 – 6 jiandan (simplicity) 14, 178 – 84; and maximization 206; and romance 184, 198 – 9 jobs 7, 34 – 5, 37, 54, 57, 65 – 6, 84, 87 – 91, 95 – 7, 120, 122 – 3, 125 – 6, 132 – 3, 137, 149, 157, 161, 165 – 6, 168 – 9, 180 – 3, 185, 190 – 1, 215; vs. career 156, 211; and education 87 – 8, 90, 96 – 7; and women 151, 167 Jobs, Steve 126, 127, 136 joining the army 122, 151 key schools 6, 62, 67 – 70, 92 – 3, 95 – 6, 99 – 104, 107 – 9, 126, 128 – 30, 132, 135, 137 – 8, 144, 157 – 9, 161 – 2, 166 – 70, 176, 192 – 4, 196, 198

late modernity theory 9, 18 – 20, 23 – 5, 28 – 30, 147, 214 life histories 39, 204, 214; definition of 5; and interviews 3, 6 – 9; see also retrospective interviews linked lives 3 literacy rate 17, 68, 80 Liu Shaoqi 79 love 12 – 13, 29 – 30, 47, 50, 58, 71 – 5, 105 – 7, 117, 125, 134 – 6, 146, 149, 154 – 5, 160 – 1, 163, 176 – 7, 179 – 81, 184 – 5, 187 – 9, 191 – 4, 196 – 201, 206 – 8, 212, 216 – 18; see also romance Maine, Henry 19 managerial culture 26 Maoism 52, 79, 87, 116 – 17, 139, 144, 149, 151, 154 – 5, 165, 168, 179, 181, 194, 198 – 200; and children 49 – 50; and men 118 – 21; and romance 177, 178, 182, 200 – 1; and women 145 – 8, 150, 171 Mao Zedong 79 marriage 7, 12, 13, 24, 30, 119, 120, 123, 127, 131 – 2, 140, 145 – 6, 148 – 9, 155, 157, 172, 176, 177 – 87, 189, 191 – 2, 194 – 201, 211 – 12, 216; see also romance Marx, Karl 19 masculinity: exemplary 121, 136, 141, 217; and filial duty 160 – 1; hegemonic 115 – 16, 118, 139, 141, 171; lost 200, 211; post-Mao 116 – 18, 129, 135; soft/ expressive 216; and success 118, 129, 131, 139 – 40 Maslow, Abraham 23, 204 mass education 17, 36 – 7, 79 matchmaking 180, 182 materialism 22 – 3, 87; see also consumerism maximization 13 – 14, 75, 204 – 6, 219 – 20; and complementarity 210 – 14; and education 92, 111; and exemplarity 207 – 10; and the future 214 – 17; price of 217 – 19 May 4th Movement 18, 177 mediocrity phobia see academic excellence men 11, 29, 115 – 18, 139 – 41, 166 – 7, 168, 171 – 2, 215 – 16; and appearance 169 – 70; and chenggong 11; and exemplarity 208 – 9; as fathers 51, 59 – 63, 70; and the good life 134 – 7; as husbands 130 – 4; and Maoism 118 – 21;

Index 231 post-Mao 121 – 30; price of 137 – 9; and sex 187; see also gender; husbands; romance menstruation 184, 187, 194 mingpai daxue meng (prestigious university dream) 92 – 5 modernization 9; and childhood 30 – 33; Chinese 38 – 9; as a concept 5, 17 – 22, 38; and education 33 – 8; and gender 27 – 30, 35 – 6; and interpersonal relationships 25 – 30; and value change 22 – 5 money 55 – 7, 69, 83 – 4, 88, 104, 122 – 3 negotiation 24, 27, 62 – 3 negotiation households 27, 74 New Culture Movement (NCM) 49 obedience 48, 59 – 60, 62, 71, 72, 148, 185, 199; and men 51; and women 144 – 5; see also respect one-child policy 4, 47, 50, 72 – 3 only child family 4, 10, 13 – 4, 50, 71 – 5, 95, 111, 170, 200, 207 – 9; see also child-centeredness opportunity trap 215 ordinary schools 6, 47, 70, 93 – 7, 99 – 101, 103, 105, 107 – 8, 115, 126, 128, 130, 133 – 5, 138, 157 – 9, 162, 164 – 170, 193, 195 – 8 pampering: and children 51, 74; and women 132, 155, 188 – 9, 196, 199 parenting 47 – 9; as an art 10, 47, 68, 70, 72, 107; authoritarian 48, 74; and child-centeredness 50 – 1; and child improvement 68 – 9; and communication 61, 70 – 1; and education 65 – 7, 69 – 70; and privacy 62 – 3; and punishments 58 – 61; and sacrifice 74, 104, 207; see also education; guan; intensive parenting; peiyang (cultivation; training) patriarchy 19, 115, 145, 148, 171 – 2, 179 peiyang (cultivation; education; training) 64, 66 – 9, 74 People’s Republic of China (PRC) 7, 63, 84, 120; and romance 178; and women 145 personal families 27, 32, 74, 210 personality 9, 21 – 5, 35, 51, 56, 92, 148, 155 – 6, 183, 190 – 1, 199 – 200 play: and childhood 53, 64 – 7, 108 – 9, 218 pocket money 55, 57, 88

positional families 27, 48, 58 possible selves 95, 97, 121, 124, 126, 129 – 30, 140, 141 poverty 52 – 3, 55, 83, 84, 86, 94, 119 – 20 pragmatism 109, 130, 201 preschool 81 priceless child 10, 31 – 3, 47, 52, 75, 79, 207 – 8, 218; see also childhood privacy 32, 62 – 3, 199 productivity 64, 91, 102 – 7, 117, 119 – 20, 209; see also efficiency punishments 27, 58 – 61 pure relationships 29 – 30 rational love 107, 193, 218 reflexivity 5, 12 – 13, 21, 25, 29 – 30, 131, 171, 176, 206 relationships 1, 3 – 4, 9 – 10, 18, 22, 25 – 33, 36, 47 – 8, 50 – 2, 58 – 62, 67, 71 – 2, 74, 91, 106, 109, 146, 155, 157, 164, 172, 176 – 8, 181, 185 – 6, 192 – 4, 198, 201, 204 – 5, 210 – 11, 216; with father vs. with mother 59, 61 – 2; see also families; marriage; romance respect 27, 48, 62 – 3, 74, 80, 104, 119, 144 – 5, 160, 166 – 8, 184, 188, 194; see also obedience retirement 7, 122, 138, 180; early 109, 138, 139; and good life 138 retraditionalization 20, 57, 169, 215, 220 retrospective interviews 3, 8 risk societies 14, 18, 24 – 5, 30, 137, 214, 216, 220 romance 12, 106 – 7, 198 – 201; and danchun (pure-heartedness) 184 – 92; and emotional expressivity 176 – 8; and jiandan (simplicity) 178 – 84; and rationalism 192 – 8; see also marriage rural urban disparities 89, 178 – 9, 182 – 3, 191 – 2 schooled societies 10, 33 – 8, 71, 78, 82, 85, 86, 90 – 2, 96, 98, 100, 107, 109 – 11, 151, 204, 209, 214, 215, 217; see also education school uniforms 106, 158 – 9, 218; see also degendering; discipline self-actualization 25, 158, 204 – 5 self-expressive values 23, 26, 27, 35, 204 self-sacrifice 12, 49, 121, 148 – 50, 153, 171, 177 self-strengthening movement 18

232 Index sex 4, 8, 12, 50, 82, 100, 107, 116, 131, 140, 146, 158, 162, 169, 176 – 80, 184, 186 – 7, 192, 194 – 5, 199, 208, 216; see also romance sex differences 4, 11 – 13, 51, 106, 117, 131, 140, 145 – 6, 156, 164 – 6, 168, 170, 172, 191, 200 – 1, 215 – 16, 218 – 19; and dualism 210 – 12; see also men; women shengnü (leftover women) 146 shua nüsheng (handsome girl) 164 shyness 51, 184, 186; and other-sex relations 184, 186 socialism with Chinese characteristics 5, 49, 120 – 1; see also dual modernity son favouritism 4, 84 Spencer, Herbert 19 starvation 83, 84, 120 structure 19, 23, 25, 36, 122, 127, 140, 171, 216; dual understanding of 21 subsidiary degendering 211 substitute sons 135, 158, 160 – 1, 171, 217; see also deliberate masculinization; women ‘Supergirls’ 164 survival values 23, 26, 27, 35, 204, 205 suzhi (quality) 50, 139, 214 – 15, 217; and education 73, 75, 98, 108, 206, 208; and maximization 66 – 7, 75, 206, 208 – 9 tanlianai (romance) 179 – 81, 185 – 7, 192, 195 – 7, 199; and marriage 181, 187, 190, 195; see also romance Tönnies, Ferdinand 19 traditional society 19, 23, 24 unemployment 88, 145, 155 universities 6, 10, 27, 54, 65 – 6, 68 – 9, 78 – 81, 85 – 7, 89, 91 – 101, 103 – 5, 107 – 9, 123 – 5, 128 – 30, 135 – 6, 138, 144, 152, 160, 166, 168, 170, 184 – 5, 188, 190 – 1, 194, 209, 215; see also education university complex 92 – 8, 209

Valentine’s Day 177 virginity 12, 184, 195 virtues 144, 172, 210, 213, 218; female 148 – 9, 155 vocational schools 54, 65, 68, 70, 82, 86, 94, 122, 129, 159, 178, 182, 184 – 5, 215 wars 7, 53, 84, 119 wealth 7, 28, 37, 50, 52, 73, 116, 118, 122 – 3, 126, 129, 134, 135, 136, 146, 158, 161, 181, 189, 198, 199, 201; see also masculinity; money Weber, Max 17, 19, 20, 22, 24, 110, 214 westernization: and modernization 13, 20, 36 – 7, 38, 205 wives 119 – 20, 131 – 6, 140, 144 – 5, 147 – 8, 155, 157, 161, 166 – 7, 182, 183, 185, 187, 189 – 91, 197 – 8, 210 – 11, 216; see also women women 144 – 8, 215 – 16; and Confucianism 144 – 6; degendering of 156 – 64; and exemplarity 208 – 9; and femininity 165 – 72; as utilitarian individuals 158 – 60; and Maoism 117; and marriage 189 – 90; masculinization of 161 – 5; and self 150 – 6; and self-sacrifice 148 – 50; and sex 187; and subject positions 11 – 12; as substitute sons 160 – 1; see also gender; romance; wives yin-yang 146, 210 – 14, 218 – 19 youth with regret 98, 100, 106, 108 – 9, 123, 124, 218 zaolian (precocious love) 106, 192 zhongkao (Upper Secondary School Entrance Exam) 81, 86 – 7, 89 – 90, 93 – 4, 100 zhongzhuan (technical-vocational school) 87, 89 – 92, 122, 151, 153 – 4; attraction of 87, 89 – 91; see also vocational schools