The Poetics of Grief and Melancholy in East-West Conflicts and Reconciliations 9819998204, 9789819998203

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Chi Sum Garfield Lau Kelly Kar Yue Chan   Editors

The Poetics of Grief and Melancholy in East-West Conflicts and Reconciliations

The Poetics of Grief and Melancholy in East-West Conflicts and Reconciliations

Chi Sum Garfield Lau · Kelly Kar Yue Chan Editors

The Poetics of Grief and Melancholy in East-West Conflicts and Reconciliations

Editors Chi Sum Garfield Lau Hong Kong Metropolitan University Kowloon, Hong Kong

Kelly Kar Yue Chan Hong Kong Metropolitan University Kowloon, Hong Kong

ISBN 978-981-99-9820-3 ISBN 978-981-99-9821-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-9821-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore Paper in this product is recyclable.

Contents

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Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chi Sum Garfield Lau and Kelly Kar Yue Chan

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Part I Grief and Melancholy in the Chinese Literary Contexts 2

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Epitomizing the Poignancy in Poetry and Cantonese Opera: “The Heartbreaking Poetry” of Zhu Shuzhen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kelly Kar Yue Chan

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Representing Melancholy Love: “Aiqing Xiaoshuo” in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Media Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Peijie Mao

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Mourning Does not Become Beiju: Forging a Tragic Spirit of Heroic Resistance in 1920s Chinese Intellectual Discourse and Dramaturgy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Letizia Fusini Translating China for the Gazing Eyes—A Case Study of the Battle at Lake Changjin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Haoxuan Zhang

Part II 6

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Triggering of Melancholic Loss from the Cross-Cultural Perspective

Melancholy Across the Multiverse: The Everything Bagel and the Loss of Self in Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) . . . Amy Wai-sum Lee

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The Grief of Losing and the Melancholy of Being: A Journey of Dream and Awakening in Lao She’s Mr Ma and Son . . . . . . . . . . . . Chi Sum Garfield Lau

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Contents

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Poetics of Loss in Esperanto: Mao Zifu Writes in His Wheelchair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Lorraine Wong

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Mourning the Lost Self in Mei Ng’s Eating Chinese Food Naked and Lulu Wang’s The Farewell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Suet-ni Chan

Part III The Various Forms of Grief and Melancholy in Contemporary Hong Kong Discourses 10 Words on Display: Chinese Funeral Banners and Wreath Messages Through a Geosemiotic Lens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Enid Lee 11 Covering the Grief of Leaving: A Study of News Discourse on Emigration in Contemporary Hong Kong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Beatrice C. Y. Lok and Daisy P. L. Chow 12 Melancholy in Narratives of Early Career English Teachers in Hong Kong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 Jesse W. C. Yip

Editors and Contributors

About the Editors Chi Sum Garfield Lau obtained her Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from Hong Kong Baptist University. She is an Assistant Professor at Hong Kong Metropolitan University. She is responsible for courses in English Language and Literature at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Her areas of interest include Modernism, Psychoanalytic Criticism, and Comparative Studies. Kelly Kar Yue Chan completed her undergraduate degree and her master’s degree both in the discipline of Translation and Interpretation at the City University of Hong Kong. She then finished her Ph.D. in Classical Chinese Literature at the University of Edinburgh, UK. She is currently an Associate Professor in language and translation at Hong Kong Metropolitan University, teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses on culture and translation, and literary translation. Her research interests include literary translation, women’s studies in classical Chinese society, classical Chinese literature (poetry), and translation of Cantonese opera.

Contributors Kelly Kar Yue Chan Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Kowloon, Hong Kong Suet-ni Chan College of International Education, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong SAR, China Daisy P. L. Chow College of International Education, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong SAR, China Letizia Fusini SOAS, University of London, London, UK Chi Sum Garfield Lau Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Kowloon, Hong Kong

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Editors and Contributors

Amy Wai-sum Lee Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Kowloon, Hong Kong Enid Lee Okinawa International University, Ginowan, Japan Beatrice C. Y. Lok Caritas Institute of Higher Education, Hong Kong SAR, China Peijie Mao ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China Lorraine Wong University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand Jesse W. C. Yip The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China Haoxuan Zhang Durham University, Durham, UK

Chapter 1

Introduction Chi Sum Garfield Lau and Kelly Kar Yue Chan

The Poetics of Grief and Melancholy in East–West Conflicts and Reconciliations is a pioneering volume compiled to examine the representation, aesthetics and dichotomy of the notions of grief and melancholy in East–West exchanges and cultural dialogues. It investigates the topic in the dimensions of individual behaviors under specific social norms, cultural products such as literature and film, and outputs of rituals such as funeral banners and wreath messages. In his 1917 work “Mourning and Melancholia” (“Trauer und Melancholie”), Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) connects the grief of loss with melancholic emotions which may give rise to acts of mourning. He has made the suggestion that “[i]n mourning it is the world which has become poor and empty; in melancholia it is the ego itself” (246). Inspired by Freud’s stance and with the goal of providing up-to-date intellectual resources for academics, researchers and students with ardent interests in the varying exemplifications of grief and melancholy in Sino-Western contexts, the volume serves more than a discussion over the pragmatic connections of grief and melancholy in relation to the inner self and the external world. It aims at the pursuit of a contemporary theorization of grief and melancholy beyond its modern limits. To achieve this, the volume consists of three parts that address to both the common concerns and exclusive issues arise as the theme of grief and melancholy interweaves with different historical timelines, geographical settings and cultural evolutions. The four contributors in Part I: Grief and Melancholy in the Chinese Literary Contexts evaluate the exemplification of personal grief and collective melancholy in different aspects of Chinese literary texts across centuries. In Chap. 2, Kelly Kar Yue CHAN connects facets of grief and poignancy between classical Chinese poetic genres and representations in Cantonese opera excerpts in her chapter “Epitomizing C. S. G. Lau (B) · K. K. Y. Chan Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Kowloon, Hong Kong e-mail: [email protected] K. K. Y. Chan e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024 C. S. Garfield Lau and K. K. Y. Chan (eds.), The Poetics of Grief and Melancholy in East-West Conflicts and Reconciliations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-9821-0_1

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the Poignancy in Poetry and Cantonese Opera: ‘The Heartbreaking Poetry’ of Zhu Shuzhen”. The focus has been placed on one of the most distressing pieces of poetry written by the Song dynasty poetess Zhu Shuzhen, in which a melancholic sentiment is manifested and elucidated through refined poetic features and corresponding operatic arrangements. Chapter 3 “Representing Melancholy Love: ‘Aiqing xiaoshuo’ in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Media Culture” features a modern way of looking at specific emotions experienced by human beings in romantic relationships through what is being categorized as “aiqing xiaoshuo” (fiction of pathos, or mournful romance) at the turn of the twentieth century. Peijie MAO discusses how these novels are received in the big wave of the tragic literature during the time of political and literary turbulence. Letizia FUSINI, the author of Chap. 4 “Mourning Does Not Become Beiju: Forging a Tragic Spirit of Heroic Resistance in 1920s Chinese Intellectual Discourse and Dramaturgy”, juxtaposes the tragic ideas stemming from Western literature and critical theory with such imagination created by several Chinese intellectuals and novelists in the early twentieth century. The traditional understanding of tragedy and modernity has been a controversial yet reconcilable subject across the Eastern and Western borders of significance. In Chap. 5, “Translating China for the Gazing Eyes—A Case Study of The Battle at Lake Changjin”, Haoxuan ZHANG evaluates how China’s melancholic suffering in the past in its conflict with the West can be translated into and redefined as a glorious battle in modern Chinese cinema. Though it is impossible to alter history, the alignment between a country’s national state and the level of pride and confidence of its citizens can be shown through new interpretations of historical incidents in products of mass culture. The chapter focuses on the case of the Chinese blockbuster war film The Battle at Lake Changjin (2021) and how its goal of presenting a “strong China” for the domestic Chinese patriotic audiences is achieved using Western lenses and spectacles to portray China’s victory over the West. In Part II: The Triggering of Melancholic Loss from the Cross-cultural Perspective, four contributors review how the combat between personal identity, racial concerns and collective obligations could trap people in helpless and pathetic state. All the chapters in this part question the various ways cultural products such as literary works and films try to demonstrate the frustration faced by individuals who are incapable to ignore the burden that the Chinese selves imposed on them. Specifically, the role played by relocation to different geographical borders or language shift in generating or moderating one’s melancholic mood in relation to ethnicity and nationhood is emphasized. In Chap. 6, Amy Wai-sum LEE studies the Hollywood movie Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022). It features how a Chinese American family struggles over livelihood and intercultural conflicts. This sci-fi film was named best picture at the 95th Academy Awards. In “Melancholy Across the Multiverse: The Everything Bagel and the Loss of Self in Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)”, Lee opines how the departure of melancholic mood can be accomplished through breaking the constraints of physical boundary. She explores the crisis of existential anxiety

1 Introduction

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being presented through the portrayal of the multiuniverse, an imaginative spatial environment where the leading character Evelyn could transform confined gender roles and family responsibilities in the reality into new possibilities and potentials. While Lee’s suggestion over the detachment of one’s melancholy with spatial confinement is a contemporary response to the Confucian convention of emphasizing one’s inferior status away from home, Chi Sum Garfield LAU inspects the underlying cause of melancholic mood for Chinese citizens abroad. This is conducted via the narrative Mr Ma and Son (1929) written by the Chinese novelist of Manchu descent Lao She (1899–1966). Composed during Lao She’s sojourn days in Britain, this novel depicts the transition of a Chinese father and his son, Ma Tse-jen and Ma Wei, from their old lives in China to their new lives in London. In Chap. 7 “The Grief of Losing and the Melancholy of Being: A Journey of Dream and Awakening in Lao She’s Mr Ma and Son”, Lau scrutinizes how the sadness and frustrations that the characters experience in the foreign soil bring out the marginalized experience of language and cultural incompatibility could have different effects upon the melancholic mood of individuals. In Chap. 8, Lorraine WONG delves into the inner world of the Chinese Esperantist Mao Zifu (b. 1963–). Though Esperanto is the most widely spoken International Auxiliary Language (IAL), Chinese writers who are specialized in the writing of original Esperanto literature remain rare. In “Poetics of Loss in Esperanto: Mao Zifu Writes in his Wheelchair”, Wong investigates how Mao Zifu expresses his melancholic sense of loss under the joint attacks of paralysis and demographic dislocation through his poem Kantoj de Anteo [Songs of Anteo] (2006). Though the use of Esperanto seemingly enhances his marginality, it is precisely this unique choice that gives him opportunities to confess freely, when his peasant background and remote place of residence in the northwestern part of Hunan drive him away from the mainstream of the society. While people often say “there is no place like home,” the discrepancy between one’s expectations on what the home should provide and what one is supposed to contribute as a member of such a home would trigger melancholic feeling. In Chap. 9 “Mourning the Lost Self in Mei Ng’s Eating Chinese Food Naked and LuLu Wang’s The Farewell”, Suet-ni CHAN anatomizes how the internal struggle of Chinese Americans when their American mindset of emphasizing frankness among family members is not understood in the context of home. Rather, they are obliged to conceal their genuine thoughts as a demonstration of their filial rites. This book volume gathers scholars of different ethnicities, education backgrounds and academic exposure, and from various geographical locations. Besides sharing the commonality in terms of their ardent interests in Chinese culture and enthusiasm in promoting it to readers within and beyond the academia, a significant number of the contributors have close linkages with Hong Kong. In Part III: The Various Forms of Grief and Melancholy in Contemporary Hong Kong Discourses, the four contributors of the three chapters have either resided, studied or worked in Hong Kong. They reveal their sensitivity towards the delineation of melancholic disposition and mourning acts in the community.

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In Chap. 10 “Words on Display: Chinese Funeral Banners and Wreath Messages Through a Geosemiotic Lens”, Enid LEE details the geosemiotic representations of funeral banners and wreath messages at Chinese funerals in Hong Kong from inscriptional, discourse and social perspectives. The discussion has rested on the funeral occasions of tycoons and celebrity people in Hong Kong, drawing upon notions of phatic communication and a shared sense of cultural identity of the elements of melancholy from various funeral rites. Beatrice C. Y. LOK and Daisy P. L. CHOW outline in Chap. 11 “Covering the Grief of Leaving: A Study of News Discourse on Emigration in Contemporary Hong Kong” the more banal idea of migratory grief which composes of a recent notion of grief and sorrow in the contemporary context of the Hong Kong society. News discourses and narrative analyses have been included for discussion, while individual emigration stories involved might have provided various reports of identity anxiety, guilty sentiments, and pessimistic engagements among the populace. In Chap. 12 “Melancholy in Narratives of Early Career English Teachers in Hong Kong”, Jesse W. C. YIP analyzes the grief and melancholy experienced by early career teachers employed in Hong Kong schools. From the educational perspective, the chapter expounds how these teachers’ melancholic emotions are to be influenced by various socio-cultural factors and other discourses in terms of implications about well-being and career sustainability. Though the 12 chapters collected in this volume have highlighted several artistic forms produced in the imperial, modern and contemporary times with dissimilar research approaches, they share the same rationale in comprehending and dissecting the causes, discourse and aftermath of melancholy at the levels of individuals, society and nationhood. - Chi Sum Garfield LAU and Kelly Kar Yue CHAN

Reference Freud, S. (1999). Mourning and Melancholia. In J. Strachey (ed.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. (J. Strachey, trans., pp. 239–260). London: The Hogarth Press.

Chi Sum Garfield Lau obtained her Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from Hong Kong Baptist University. She is an Assistant Professor in Hong Kong Metropolitan University. She is responsible for courses in English Language and Literature at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Her areas of interest include Modernism, Psychoanalytic Criticism and Comparative Studies. Kelly Kar Yue Chan completed her undergraduate degree and her master’s degree both in the discipline of Translation and Interpretation at the City University of Hong Kong. She then finished her Ph.D. in Classical Chinese Literature at the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. She is

1 Introduction

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currently an Associate Professor in language and translation at Hong Kong Metropolitan University, teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses on culture and translation, and literary translation. Her research interests include literary translation, women’s studies in classical Chinese society, classical Chinese literature (poetry), and translation of Cantonese opera.

Part I

Grief and Melancholy in the Chinese Literary Contexts

Chapter 2

Epitomizing the Poignancy in Poetry and Cantonese Opera: “The Heartbreaking Poetry” of Zhu Shuzhen Kelly Kar Yue Chan

Abstract The notions of grief and poignancy are pervasive across the spectrum of classical Chinese literary tradition and in Chinese opera, which draws heavily on its literary counterpart. This phenomenon is due to the fact that tragic folk tales cause eternal grief in the minds of the public. Indeed, audiences tend to identify with the melancholy inherent in operatic genres, compounded by theatrical effects and other performance elements. “The Heartbreaking Poetry” 斷腸詞 [Duanchang ci] by Zhu Shuzhen 朱淑真 (1135?–1180?), a Chinese poetess of the Song dynasty, clearly illustrates its author’s painful and poignant emotional transformation following an unsuitable choice of husband, a widespread idea hinted in her poems. Two Cantonese opera songs of the same title, “The Heartbreaking Poetry,” (a solo and a duet) and another titled “Tears upon Remnant Lamp Wax” 燈花淚 [Denghua lei], help to convey the tragic short life of the persona illustrated in these sources. Referring to the title of Zhu’s poetry collection, “The Heartbreaking Poetry,” an intimate relationship between the collection and the corresponding Cantonese opera songs is evident. In this context, the persona’s extremely poignant lament is reinforced by the delicate poetic features and specific arrangements of the operatic structure carried out by the multi-layered juxtaposition of the two genres. The respective translated versions from Chinese to English are included for comparison and discussion in this chapter, as to epitomize the relationship of the melancholic representations between the two genres. Keywords Cantonese opera · “The Heartbreaking Poetry” · Poetry · Poignancy · Zhu Shuzhen

K. K. Y. Chan (B) Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Kowloon, Hong Kong e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024 C. S. Garfield Lau and K. K. Y. Chan (eds.), The Poetics of Grief and Melancholy in East-West Conflicts and Reconciliations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-9821-0_2

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2.1 Introduction Literature is believed to have had a lasting effect on the development of opera in the context of both tragedies and comedies, just as Yung remarks, “[i]ncidental references to zaju [雜劇, drama in the Yuan dynasty] in the literature suggest that it was one of the popular forms of entertainment of the time” (Yung 1989: 1). Tragedies, based on their main definition, may provide a more flexible platform for opera performers to express themselves, as audiences are always moved by heart-rending scenes and the feelings they trigger. Within the category of tragedies, the notions of grief and poignancy are prominent, as they touch on various closely related emotions, such as remorse, contempt, or anger experienced by all. As such, the concepts of grief and poignancy are prevalent across the spectrum of classical Chinese literary tradition and in Chinese opera, which draws heavily on its literary counterpart. Traditional folk tales, which led to various forms of literature, have paved the way for the advancement of the sources of operatic representations, and this phenomenon can be explained by the fact that tragic folk tales cause eternal grief in the minds of the public. “[T]he southern styles and their stories are often seen as more gentle, refined, and intricate. These differences are also paralleled in the traditional operas, which share many stories and some conventions with certain oralstorytelling forms” (Mair and Bender 2011: 311). Indeed, audiences tend to identify with the melancholy inherent in operatic genres, compounded by theatrical effects and other performance elements. It is therefore interesting to analyze the relationship between literature, especially classical Chinese poetry, and its manifestations in Chinese opera, specifically Cantonese opera, in this chapter. In terms of melancholy, one of the most notable literary representations is “The Heartbreaking Poetry” 斷腸詞 [Duanchang ci] by Zhu Shuzhen 朱淑真 (1135?– 1180?), a Chinese poetess of the Song dynasty (960–1279), which illustrates well her painful and poignant emotional transformation following an unsuitable choice of husband, a widespread idea hinted in her poems. According to unofficial records, Zhu is described in Wei Zhonggong’s 魏仲恭 (fl. 1121–1182) “Duanchang ji xu” 斷 腸集序 [“A preface to the collection of Heartbreaking poetry”] as having married a member of the lower class after her parents neglected to find her a husband (qtd. Chan 2013: 48). Tian Yiheng 田藝蘅 (fl. 1554) also states that Zhu Shuzhen’s parents neglected to find her a husband and married her to a member of the lower class who was common and vulgar. […] After that, Shuzhen felt frustrated all her life and so, in her poems, she wrote a lot about sadness to express the injustice she had suffered. She eventually passed away with regret because she could not marry a talented man as she had wished and could not find a true friend. (Tian 1997: 763)1

According to her poems, Zhu Shuzhen’s major source of regret and melancholy came from feeling that she had been treated unfairly when her unusual womanly talent should have been rewarded by a spouse with similar levels of intelligence and The original reads as follows: “父母不能擇伉儷, 乃嫁為市井民家妻, 其夫村惡篴篨, [……] 淑 真抑鬱不得志。作詩多憂怨之思, 以寫其不平之憤, 時牽情於才子, 竟無知音, 悒悒抱恚而死。” 1

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ability. From other reference sources, readers know that she did not believe that as a woman she had to be submissive and could not express her gift in writing, as male poets do: 自責二首 (其 其一) 女子弄文誠可罪, 那堪詠月更吟風。磨穿鐵硯非吾事, 繡折金針卻有功。(Zhu 1985: 211) Self-Reproving (Two Poems) – Number 1 It is truly a great guilt for women to dabble in writing, Let alone chant the breezes and even hymn the moonlight. To rub through the inkstone is not for us to handle, How more creditable it is to embroider till breaking the needle! (translation mine, qtd. Chan 2013: 84)

“Self-Reproving (Two Poems)—Number 1” clearly shows that Zhu Shuzhen referred to herself ironically, her talent being underestimated simply because of her identity as a woman. Obviously, her resentment toward the feudal oppression of women could not be released, and the poignancy thus triggered could only result in the greatest disappointment and death. Her “self-referential poem, in which she mockingly censures herself as a female author, reads as one of the most modern statements on the ambivalent role of female writers in society” (Mair 2001: 210). A woman’s grief manifests itself in the high level of “guilt” attributed to the unimaginable and invisible oppression of female talent, which was strongly discouraged in the authoritarian patriarchal society under which Zhu Shuzhen was alive. In addition, her “extramarital affair,” as hinted in some of her poems, caused concern among the literati: this behavior (although revealed only in her poems) was criticized for not conforming to conventional feudal requirements for women to remain quietly in their boudoirs (Qian 2011: 30). Thus, women like Zhu Shuzhen could never break free from the harsh bondage of conservative society to achieve their hopes for freedom (ibid.). As Hinsch (2021) notes, “while female poets usually confined themselves to benign topics, the informality of wall writing encouraged them to vent their passions and recall unpleasant memories” (97). In the case of Zhu Shuzhen, her resentment and lamentation are based on three main aspects: her longing for love since her youth, her unrecognized poetic talent, and her grief over her unhappy marriage (Chan 2013: 71–79). Several of her poems show the persona’s unfulfilled desire to find a true love with whom to share her interests in poetry.

2.2 Poetics of Grief Versus Operatic Grief In relation to the above poems written by Zhu Shuzhen, two Cantonese opera songs with the same title, “The Heartbreaking Poetry,” 斷腸詞 [Duanchang ci] (a duet and a solo) and another song titled “Tears upon Remnant Lamp Wax” 燈花淚 [Denghua lei], help to convey the short and tragic life of the persona depicted in these sources. Referring to the title of Zhu’s poetry collection “The Heartbreaking Poetry,” an

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intimate relationship between the collection and the corresponding Cantonese opera songs is evident. In this context, the persona’s extremely poignant lament is reinforced by the delicate poetic features and specific arrangements of the operatic structure carried out by the multi-layered juxtaposition of the two genres. After searching available sources of individual Cantonese opera songs (that are quite different from Cantonese opera libretti, which give a complete and untouched picture of how the story develops), a few fragmented excerpts from Zhu Shuzhen’s story, mostly taken from the disorganized pieces of her poems, strengthen the persona’s lament. After all, it is not important to determine whether it was the poetess herself who was immoral in her “extramarital affair” described in her poems; instead, it is important to understand her as a literary image, as evidenced by poetic representations: Given Zhu Shuzhen’s unofficial biography and the ‘behaviour’ revealed in her poems, it is still too difficult to locate a “factual and historical” Zhu Shuzhen; readers, in the first place, should not be affected by the ‘immoral’ behaviour emerging from the lines of her poems, especially when reading her poems concerning love. Rather it would be helpful to view her as a “created and moulded literary image” when criticising her works, especially as there is a serious shortage of information about her real life. (Chan 2013: 97)

Nevertheless, traditional Chinese critics portray Zhu as an unchaste woman. For instance, in a postscript to Jiguge ben Duanchang ci 汲古閣本斷腸詞 [Drawing from the Ancients Pavilion Version: Heartbreaking Ci-poetry], Mao Jin 毛晉 (1599– 1659) remarks that Zhu Shuzhen should be judged as “baibi wei xia 白璧微瑕 [literally a slight flaw in a piece of white jade, meaning someone who has strayed from a certain moral code]” based on her poems (qtd. Siku quanshu 1987: 627 [vol. 1488]). Despite this view, the Cantonese opera songs related to Zhu Shuzhen emphasize her poignancy at not being able to have a satisfying and harmonious conjugal relationship. In the narrative tradition of Cantonese opera libretti, it is common to incorporate the original poems written by the “voice” of the heroine. For example, in one of the versions of the Cantonese opera song “The Heartbreaking Poetry,” Zhu Shuzhen’s celebrated poem “Spring Resentment” [春怨 “Chun yuan”] appears in a fragmented manner in keeping with the style of the song: (武二歸家腔) 獨行、獨坐、獨唱、獨酬、獨臥、獨飲 [“Wu Er Returns Home”: Moving alone, sitting alone, chanting alone, drinking alone, lying alone, and still drinking alone] (Duanchang ci [duet], n.d.: 1), which is almost exactly the same as the first two lines of the poem below. Given the limitations of musical notes in Cantonese opera songs, an additional element, “duyin” [獨飲drinking alone], is added to the lines resembling the poem, while in traditional Chinese, duyin has many similarities with the expression “duchou” [獨酬 drinking alone], which appears in the same line in the song. Nevertheless, whether in the original poem or the opera song, the highlighted parts focus on the central idea of loneliness (“alone” in the description) that prevails throughout the passage, which is directly related to the expressions “grieving,” “sadness and sickness,” and “dreamless” that negatively affect the persona to a large extent. 減字木蘭花 (春 春怨) 獨行獨坐, 獨倡獨酬還獨臥。佇立傷神, 無奈春寒著摸人。此情誰見?

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淚洗殘粧無一半。愁病相仍, 剔盡寒燈夢不成。(Zhu 1985: 292–293) Spring Resentment (To the tune: Mulan hua—Reduced Words) Moving alone, sitting alone, Chanting alone, drinking alone, even lying alone. My soul is grieving when standing still, Yet what keeps teasing me is the spring chill. Who can see these feelings? Tears wash away my fading powder, with little left. Both sadness and sickness remain, Even after the cold lamp is exhausted I am yet dreamless. (translation mine, qtd. Chan 2013: 112)

Referring to the three aspects of Zhu Shuzhen’s longing for love, her unrecognized poetic talent and grief about her unfortunate marriage, the Cantonese opera version of Duanchang ci (duet) also aggravates the melancholy of the voice by integrating some of Zhu Shuzhen’s ideas suggested in her poems and her unofficial biography, with some adjustments and transformations. The following lyrics of the song thematically manifest Zhu Shuzhen’s sadness: (尾 尾腔) 心悲憤, 嫁夫粗鄙無才憑父蔭, 滿身陋習, 庸俗也愚笨, 如何共對一生缺憾? (轉乙反二黃下句) 嘆命運捉弄人! (Duanchang ci [duet], n.d.: 5) [Last segment] What grief and agony! What a rascal my husband is! Only inheriting from his father, he is rough and without talent— Abusive, vulgar and imprudent! How could I spend my life in remorse with such a person? [Lower segment, yifan erhuang style] Sigh that so unjustified is my misfortune! (translation mine)

Central to the above lyrics are the poetic and operatic representations of the poignant aesthetic shown in Zhu Shuzhen’s brief biography. According to Wei Zhonggong’s preface: “Reading her poetry, one imagines what she was like. For someone as elegant as she was to be joined with a vulgar fellow, her life was certainly wasted!” [“觀其詩, 想其人, 風韻如此, 乃下配一庸夫, 固負此生矣。”] (qtd. Egan 2013: 32). In other words, the above lyrics represent a combination of Zhu’s literary persona as revealed in her poetry and her “invented” self-description in scattered biographies and prefaces.

2.3 Unfortunate Lovers as Revealed in Poetry and Opera The idea that Zhu’s parents arranged her marriage to a vulgar official with no poetic talent and the accusation that she had an affair while longing for true love are all subtly hinted at in the lyrics. Therefore, Zhu’s established image survives in the

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lyrics, in connection with an interesting representation of her longing for an ideal lover in her dreams before she is too sick to live: (反 反線二黃) 少女情懷總是詩, 詞社結緣高雅士, 三載交往摯真, 鸞凰兩心相印。 戰鼓胡笳動人魂, 情鴛各相奔。(Duanchang ci [duet], n.d.: 4) [Erhuang in reversed tune] A young maid’s passion is like poetry, A refined gentleman I met at the poetry sharing group. Getting along for three years with our true hearts, Like firebirds, our love is tied to each other. The lovers are however scattered Upon drums and gongs on the battlefield. (translation mine)

The origin of Zhu Shuzhen’s sadness is likely to be related to the true love she met when she was young, who remained her lover even after her marriage. These lyrics are therefore a perfect example of the metamorphosis of her transcendent feelings through the brief descriptions in a few lines. More explicitly, the lyrics appear to use storytelling techniques, while Zhu’s poems more obliquely describe all of her encounters; thus, researching her life is much more difficult than expected. With regard to her longing for love, the following poem may offer some clues: 秋日偶成 初合雙鬟學畫眉, 未知心事屬他誰?待將滿抱中秋月, 分付蕭郎萬首詩。 (Zhu 1985: 177–178) Occasional Verse: autumn When I was fifteen, to paint my brows I was learning, With whom could I share my love yearnings? Awaiting when so full is the Mid-Autumn moon, Sharing with my lover countless poetic tunes. (translation mine, qtd. Chan 2013: 76)

The poignancy of Zhu Shuzhen’s poetic image is perfectly depicted by the above poem, especially when referring to the persona’s youth; for example, the images of “paint[ing] my brows” at “fifteen” and wanting to “share [her] longing for love” and “countless poetic tunes” with her loved one. This explicit declaration of a young woman’s longing for love in traditional periods may only be used to fulfill her own emotional or personal desires. Indeed, in pre-modern China, a woman’s personal taste or preference never played a role in her conjugal life. This explains the abundance of poems describing a woman’s desperate life after marriage or a woman abandoned by her lover or husband, written by both male and female poets. As suggested below, women’s long-term submission, expected by feudal society, is another component of the poignancy expressed in poetry: The convention surrounding the abandoned woman persisted because it furnished a concrete situation Chinese poets could enter and exploit poetically. But it was allowed to remain in the mainstream of Chinese poetic practice because the virtues it enshrined—endurance, submission, constancy of affection, loyalty—were those important to the Chinese ethical

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and philosophical tradition, and because of the central place allotted the feminine/feminized in the cosmological order. (Samei 2004: 15)

Female subjectivity plays an important role here, because at the time, women were not expected to voice, or even refrained from voicing, their personal concerns and affection—in short, they had to be selfless. This clearly correlates with the Cantonese opera lines above, as the opera playwright understands Zhu’s youthful desire for passion and links it to her poetic talent in the line “A young maid’s passion is like poetry.” This understanding and interpretation leads to the second line, “A refined gentleman I met at the poetry sharing group,” which was added to complete the story line and is not recorded anywhere in her biography. In another Cantonese opera song, “Tears upon Remnant Lamp Wax” 燈花淚 [Denghua lei], which tells the same story of Zhu Shuzhen, an even more melancholic feeling emerges in the form of a solo that delicately illustrates the persona’s encounters and emotional transformation. Although here, too, many of the events in the song are fictional and without proof, some lines can still be compared with the well-known poems written by Zhu Shuzhen. As the title of the song suggests, the two parts separated by “denghua” 燈花 [lamp wax] and “lei” 淚 [tears] represent a lonely and dejected woman in her boudoir, cutting the remaining wax from the candle (to prevent it from melting down) by a lamplit window. This powerful image is prevalent in Chinese culture, serving as figurative imagery: “[t]he comparison of candle drippings to tears is both an ordinary figure of speech and a cliché from the tradition of romantic poetry” (Huntington 2018: 187). From a Chinese perspective, the “candles must not melt and trickle down the sides, or that would resemble tears and betoken sorrow” (Williams 1976: 182). While “most of [Zhu Shuzhen’s] works express her melancholy and pain, quite a few were written on those occasions before or during her marriage when she chanced to be in a more buoyant frame of mind, and the writing has a certain charm and lucid elegance” (Lee and Wiles 2014: 641). At the very beginning of the song “Tears upon Remnant Lamp Wax,” the following poem, considered the best known of those attributed to Zhu Shuzhen, is included as a monologue: 生查子 (元 元夕) 去年元夜時, 花市燈如晝。月上柳梢頭, 人約黃昏後。 今年元夜時, 月與燈依舊。不見去年人, 淚溼春衫袖。(Zhu 1985: 287–288) The Night of the Lantern Festival (To the Tune: Sheng chazi) At the festival last year, Lanterns in the market were like daylight. The moon was on the tip of the willow tree, We met each other after evening light. At the festival this year, The lanterns and the moonlight still remain. But not seeing the one I saw last year, Tears wet my spring sleeve. (translation mine, qtd. Chan 2013: 137–138)

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The popularity of this poem is due to the main accusation by critics that Zhu Shuzhen had an extramarital affair, which was based on the description in the poem of a pair of lovers who meet under the moonlight (The moon was on the tip of the willow tree,/We met after the evening light). Some accusation reads, for instance, “[Zhu] Shuzhen’s poems were well written[…,] yet the one titled ‘The Night of the Lantern Festival (To the Tune: Sheng chazi)’ was criticized [for not conforming to the requirements of being a chaste woman], so it was not preferred [by the literati]” (remarked by Lu Chang 陸昶, qtd. Huang 1991: 135).2 However, there was never any clear evidence of an affair, especially as the poem was later claimed to have been composed by Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 (1007–1072) (Chan 2013: 137–141). Indeed, there was a tendency among male poets at the time to practice “androgyny […,] the male poet writing in a female voice, [that] evokes a richer ambiguity than the other devices” (Hightower and Yeh 1998: 137). Thus, it can be said that “the voice of the subject which presides over the poem, ex-centric to it, that can only exist in the poem, in its literary allusions and poetic language” (Wong 2009: 64). If one focuses only on analyzing the voice of the persona represented in the poetic lines, it does not seem important to determine whether Zhu Shuzhen or another poet (including a male poet) who wrote the poem. Indeed, gender should be interpreted from a literary perspective. As suggested by Samei, gender is “something which can be performed” 2004: 28); therefore, gender performance could be seen from another angle: “the creation of a conventionalized feminine ‘gender’ in Chinese literature [could largely be identified] by way of a ‘genre’ of poetry writing in female voice […] and its subsequent mobility from poet to poet, literary genre to literary genre, male writer to female writer, and so on” (Samei 2004: 29). Arguably, there must be slight differences between male and female perspectives in writing and expressions of concerns about love. However, it is always difficult to scrutinize the superficial content of a few poetic lines without comprehensive research into the detailed biography and historical background of the poet concerned. An interesting common point in the two Cantonese opera songs about Zhu Shuzhen is the description of her lover’s death, which is recorded nowhere, especially as it is almost impossible to know whether such a lover actually existed from her biographies and the clues in her poems. Both songs suggest Zhu Shuzhen’s desperate longing and broken heart after losing him. The following excerpt from “Tears upon Remnant Lamp Wax” is a limpid description of her lover’s death: (鳳 鳳笙怨) 灑淚獨憑樓, 憶舊, 日夜憂, 自覺人漸瘦, 念君, 駕鶴上揚州, 誰為寄離愁? (Denghua lei, n.d.: 1) [To the tune “Laments on the Phoenix Lute”] On the rails I lean alone with tears, Missing the past and desperate night and day. Leaner I’ve become, when all my mind is on you. The original reads as follows: “淑真詩好[……,] 惜其⟨生查子⟩「月上柳梢」語作人話柄, 不 足取耳。” (陸昶 歷朝名媛詩詞) (qtd. Huang 1991: 162).

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Riding on a crane, you went far away, Who could send my lamentation of separation? (translation mine)

“Riding on a crane, you went far away” [ jia he 駕鶴] is a traditional Chinese allusion to someone’s death. Indeed, “as euphemisms for passing away, the ancient Chinese language used images of the person riding away on a crane or cloud, for example, chia-ho kuei hsi [ jia he guixi] 駕鶴歸西 ‘riding on a crane to the west’” (Ssu-ma 2010: 181). Most of the tragic manifestations in Cantonese opera lyrics use the idea of death, as it is believed to create the strongest melancholic effect in drama. To strengthen this effect, many operatic pieces relating to romantic love highlight the status of miliu 彌留 [the plight immediately before someone’s death]. As both songs portray Zhu Shuzhen’s fond memories of her lover, they focus on her longing and lamentation supposedly occurring in her dreams and illusions. It should be noted that in the song, the term fengliu 風流 [literally “wind and flow,” meaning erotic passion] is also used to describe the brief erotic passion between two “illegitimate” lovers, especially as the male lover dies: -җҗҗҗҗ,җҗҗҗҗҗҗҗҗ. ( җҗҗҗ) җҗҗҗҗҗҗҗҗҗ, җҗҗҗҗҗҗҗҗҗ, җҗҗҗҗҗҗ, җҗҗҗҗҗ'җҗҗҗ. (Denghua lei, n.d.: 2-3) Thinking about our one-year aesthetic affair, I just want to be with you forever! [Slow tune, Shigong style] It’s pathetic to wake up from a good dream, How short is it for us to unite for only three hundred and sixty days! I mourn our lost affair, Even though we’re knitted with a thousand love threads, They could hardly hold your return boat! (translation mine)

The opera song “The Heartbreaking Poetry” (duet) also makes it clear that the male persona [“you” in the lyrics] left her [indicated by the first-person voice “qie” 妾] forever: (駭 駭浪驚濤) 驚聞君已命喪生! 驟覺魂飛魄散, 地暗天昏, 癡癡抱君, 妾非負心呀, 只為歲月蹭蹬呀, 無奈寒盟延禍使君! (Duanchang ci [duet], n.d.: 6) [To the tune “The Tempest”] How startling to learn of your passing! Suddenly my soul is falling apart, All chaotic, and all darkness is the night! My love, let me hold you tight

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The “you” in the last line is rendered using “shijun” 使君 [the prefect], which in some traditional Chinese poems is used similarly to the term “lord” in English—for example “The prefect has his own wife—/don’t imitate the wild mandarin duck” [使君自有婦, 莫學野鴛鴦] (qtd. Tian 2020: 11); “The prefect has his own wife/ Lo-fu has her own husband” [使君自有婦, 羅敷自有夫] (qtd. Birch 1974: 80)— suggesting some kind of illegitimacy in their affair. The feelings of distress in these lines are epitomized by a rhetorical gradation of the persona’s emotions, such as her “soul” falling apart [hun fei po san 魂飛魄散] and the night being “chaotic” and “all darkness” [figurative representations of di an tian hun 地暗天昏], triggered by her illusions after learning that her lover is dead. The “cold vow” [han meng 寒盟] in the last line of this excerpt subtly indicates that the vow between the two lovers was fragile and short-lived, which matches the “lost affair” mentioned in the other song “Tears upon Remnant Lamp Wax.” Undeniably, their unfulfilled affection, not to mention the unfortunate death of one of the lovers, constitutes an accumulation of negative feelings. It should not be ignored that these poignant feelings and the narrative of their emergence are interpreted and created by the scriptwriter based on Zhu’s poetry. Obviously, much of the poetic content is too vague to help develop the story on which the opera songs are based, as most of the origins of the poems are not traceable. Also, there is no clear indication of when and under which circumstances the songs are produced, so it is even more difficult for researchers to examine the relationship between the poems and their representations in operatic form.

2.4 Forms of Narratives of Grief and Poignancy Given the time constraints of opera performances on stage and the audience’s reception, song lyrics are usually more direct than poems, with the intent to enhance the audience’s simultaneous understanding and interpretation. Poetry usually emphasizes aesthetic values, for instance rhetorical representations, with the main purpose of evoking deep emotion. Telling the whole story or most of the events of an author’s poems in opera songs is certainly a difficult task for short operatic solo pieces like “Tears upon Remnant Lamp Wax” (which duration is only 15 min). It is therefore much more feasible to describe a brief account of the persona’s encounters during her life, accompanied by a concluding passage at the end of a song to give the audience a general idea of how the song ends: (反 反線中板) 去年元夜溺於情, 今年元夜病相思, 捱不到明年, 我生怕儂不壽; 燕歸郎未歸, 開到荼蘼花事了,

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落花隨水逝, 殘命又怎能留。 我夜夜剔銀燈, 寫罷十集斷腸詞, 願淚影心聲 (花 花) 長垂宇宙。(Denghua lei, n.d.: 4) [Mid-tone in reversed tune] At the festival last year I was obsessed with love, At the festival this year I suffer from lovesickness. How can I survive until next year with my frail body? The swallows have returned, but not you to me, The roses bloom but the other flowers wither. All of them fade with flowing water— How can my feeble life remain? Every night with the silver lamp beside me, I finish writing ten rolls of Heartbreaking Poetry. I wish my tears and my words [Rolling flowers] Will in the universe forever stay! (translation mine)

There is no doubt that this brief “concluding passage” includes the well-known poem “The Night of the Lantern Festival (To the Tune: Sheng chazi)” by Zhu Shuzhen (which was later claimed not to have been written by her) (Huang 1991: 137–141). Nevertheless, as this poem is the main source from which people have alleged Zhu’s extramarital affair, the audience of this opera song may also believe it. With Zhu expressing her main sufferings and sorrows in her poems, it is not surprising that such expressions also appear plainly, precisely, and elegantly in the opera song. By using the well-known allusions in Chinese culture to “returning swallows” [yan gui 燕歸] and “roses that bloom while other flowers wither” [kai dao tumei 開到荼 蘼], the average audience is likely to understand these references as being related to the persona’s sadness. The first reference to “returning swallows” is common in many operatic pieces, such as “He told (me) to expect his return when the swallow returns” [佢囑候郎歸在燕歸] or “The fact is that the swallow returns/without seeing my husband coming home. Ah!” [底是燕歸未見我郎歸呀] (qtd. Chan 1991: 284). The second reference to flowers, tumei 荼蘼 [roses in general], is a widely known cultural item attributed to the poem “Visiting the Garden with Spring Haze” 春暮遊 小園 by Wang Qi 王淇 (fl. 1025–1059): “Ever since the pink powder faded from her face,/The crab apple has been embellished with new colors./Roses bloom but other flowers wither,/Outside the walls where threads of thorns gather” [一從梅粉褪殘粧, 塗抹新紅上海棠。開到荼蘼花事了, 絲絲天棘出莓牆 (Zhu 2007: 14)] (translation mine). The rhetoric thus enriches the poetic effect embedded in the lyrics, with the flowers [“roses”] and birds [“swallows”] serving to manifest grief aggravated by the ideas of “blooming” and “returning.” The use of the first person in most of the excerpts above further accentuates this grief. In the other version of the Cantonese opera song “The Heartbreaking Poetry” [Duanchang ci (solo)], the feelings of loneliness and endless sorrow are even more pronounced, as the entire song is essentially a monologue sung by the persona,

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Zhu Shuzhen’s representative self. One striking element of this song is the clear incorporation of Zhu Shuzhen’s poems into the lyrics. Coincidently, the narratives in the solo version of “The Heartbreaking Poetry” and in “Tears upon Remnant Lamp Wax” both include the poem “The Night of the Lantern Festival (To the Tune: Sheng chazi),” based on which Zhu was accused of having an extramarital affair; this incident is included at the beginning of the songs to display a poetic account of her feelings: 元夜三首 (其 其三) 火燭銀花觸目紅, 揭天鼓吹鬧春風。新歡入手愁忙裏, 舊事驚心憶夢中。但願暫成人繾 綣, 不妨常任月朦朧。賞燈那得工夫醉, 未必明年此會同。(Zhu 1985: 139) The Night of the Lantern Festival (Three Poems) – Number 3 Fireworks and lanterns are dazzlingly red. Raucous music stirs the spring breezes. I worry in my haste for the start of a new love, Recalled in dreams are the pains of former affairs. For the moment, I want to feel the affections for the one, And always be with him in the misty moonlight. But—we’d better be intoxicated with the lantern flame, Or next year, things may not be the same. (translation mine, qtd. Chan 2013: 121–122)

The last four lines of the poem above are included in the last two lines of the song, serving as a conclusion: “Overflowing passion brings heartaches,/Wild wind and rain will only bury the spring flowers” [“多情招惹芳心痛, 橫來風雨葬春紅” (Duanchang ci [solo], n.d.: 1)] (translation mine). There is a sharp twist after these four lines in the poem: these pessimistic lines end the song illustrating the persona’s enduring regret over her inability to reunite with her lover, while she also “exterminates” her own affection by expressing her lament. Therefore, it is very likely that the scriptwriter is heavily influenced by Zhu’s view of her love affair, especially the beginning of the poem which has often been used as a confirmation of such a rumor. After subtly creating a link between the two poems and the song lyrics, the scriptwriter further emphasizes the persona’s grief by using terms such as “misty” (representing the hazy relationship between the two lovers), “intoxicated” (strengthening their overwhelming passion), “heartaches” (depicting a gradation of the persona’s passion from the outside to her inner mind), and “bury” (a total and definitive extinction of her passion and hopes).

2.5 Conclusion The grief and poignancy described in Zhu Shuzhen’s poems and in the opera songs discussed in this chapter are supplemented by vivid descriptions of the persona’s alleged love affair. Although this “affair” can never be proved or substantiated and is ultimately not important to generate any conclusive remarks, it is nevertheless a way

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to manifest the elements of sorrow epitomized in the original text and indicated by the nuances of the poems and lyrics. Adopting common accusations of infidelity against Zhu Shuzhen, her poems and the related Cantonese opera songs address the same issue in subtle ways, mostly penetrating the poetic and operatic lines and through specific words and phrases that signify poignancy. Neither Zhu Shuzhen’s poems nor the corresponding Cantonese opera songs seem to express the happier times of the persona’s life; they reflect only her sadness, especially after the loss of her lover. In addition to referring directly to specific lines of Zhu Shuzhen’s poems, a practice that prevails in the three songs discussed in this chapter, an interesting element is that given the numerous unknowns of Zhu’s life, many fictional and invented parts are included in the songs to enrich their content. This may, to some extent, explain why, of the three songs mentioned, two are solos. The duet of “The Heartbreaking Poetry” adds a male role by the name of “Liu” [Liu lang 劉郎], whose identity cannot be found in any record. Admittedly, for dramatic effect, Liu is only portrayed as an image reflected in Zhu’s dreams and illusions (as the story has an account that Liu is dead), and as such his presence does not add any significance to Zhu’s sorrow. As in the other two songs, Zhu is portrayed as an abandoned woman, obsessed with her past passion and unable to escape it. As a result, the story’s final echo is a heart-rending tragedy of her enduring regret over this uncertain (un)justified “extramarital affair.”

References Birch, C., ed. (1974). Studies in Chinese Literary Genres. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chan, S. Y. (1991). Improvisation in a Ritual Context: The Music of Cantonese Opera. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Chan, K. Y. (2013). Ambivalence in poetry: Zhu Shuzhen, a classical Chinese poetess. Saarbrücken: Scholars’ Press. “Denghua lei” 燈花淚 [“Tears upon Remnant Lamp Wax”]. Cantonese opera score. http://688 93333.com/sllyric/Lyric/3165.pdf. Retrieved 9 December 2022. “Duanchang ci” (duet) 斷腸詞 [“Heartbreaking Poetry”]. Cantonese opera score. http://68893333. com/sllyric/Lyric/3182.pdf. Retrieved 6 December 2022. “Duanchang ci” (solo) 斷腸詞 [“Heartbreaking Poetry”]. Cantonese opera score. http://68893333. com/sllyric/Lyric/3184.pdf. Retrieved 16 December 2022. Egan, R. (2013). The Burden of Female Talent: The Poet Li Qingzhao and Her History in China. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Asia Center. Hightower, J. R., and Yeh, F. C. Y. (1998). Studies in Chinese Poetry. New York: Harvard-Yenching Institute. Hinsch, B. (2021). Women in Song and Yuan China. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. Huang Y. L. 黃嫣梨. (1991). Zhu Shuzhen ji qi zuopin 朱淑真及其作品 [Zhu Shuzhen and Her Works, a.k.a. Zhu Shuzhen yanjiu 朱淑真研究 {A Study of Zhu Shuzhen}]. Hong Kong: Sanlian. Huntington, R. (2018). Ink and Tears: Memory, Mourning, and Writing in the Yu Family. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Lee, L. X. H., and Wiles, S., eds. (2014). Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: Tang through Ming 618 – 1644. New York: M. E. Sharpe. Mair, V., ed. (2001). The Columbia History of Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Mair, V., and Bender, M., eds. (2011). The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature. New York: Columbia University Press. Qian, H. 錢虹 (2011). Denghuo lanshan: nüxing meixue duzhao 燈火闌珊: 女性美學獨照 [Behind the Lights and Scenes: A Shot of Feminine Aesthetics]. Taipei: Showwe. Samei, M. B. (2004). Gendered Persona and Poetic Voice: The Abandoned Woman in Early Chinese Song Lyrics. Maryland: Lexington Books. Siku quanshu 四庫全書 [A Collection of the Imperial Library] (1987). Shanghai: Shanghai Guji. 1500 vols. Ssu-ma, C. (2010). The Grand Scribe’s Records (Volume VI: The Memoirs of Han China, Part II). Ed. Nienhauser, W. H.. Trans. Farmer, J. M., Giele, E., Haupt, C., He, L., Hsu, E., Nienhauser, W. H., Nürnberger, M., and Qin. Y.. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Tian, Y. H. 田藝蘅. (1997). Shi nü shi shisi juan, shiyi yi juan 詩女史十四卷、拾遺一卷 [A History of Poetry by Women: Fourteen Rolls, Collection of Omissions: One Roll]. Tainan: Zhuangyan Wenhua Shiye ( juan ten). Tian, X. F., ed. (2020). Reading Du Fu: Nine Views. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Williams, C. A. S. (1976). Outlines of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motifs. New York: Dover Publications. Wong, L. L. M. (2009). Rays of the Searching Sun: The Transcultural Poetics of Yang Mu. Brussels: Peter Lang. Yung, B. (1989). Cantonese Opera: Performance as Creative Process. New York: Cambridge University Press. Zhu, S. Z. 朱淑真 (1985). Zhu Shuzhen ji zhu 朱淑真集注 [Annotated Edition of the Collected Poetry of Zhu Shuzhen]. Annotated by Zheng Y. Z. 鄭元佐. Zhejiang: Zhejiang Guji. Zhu, S. S. 祝尚書 (2007). Song dai wenxue tantao ji 宋代文學探討集 [A Study on Song Dynasty Literature]. Zhengzhou: Daxiang.

Kelly Kar Yue Chan completed her undergraduate degree and her master’s degree both in the discipline of Translation and Interpretation at the City University of Hong Kong. She then finished her PhD in Classical Chinese Literature at the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. She is currently an Associate Professor in language and translation at Hong Kong Metropolitan University, teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses on culture and translation, and literary translation. Her research interests include literary translation, women’s studies in classical Chinese society, classical Chinese literature (poetry), and translation of Cantonese opera.

Chapter 3

Representing Melancholy Love: “Aiqing Xiaoshuo” in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Media Culture Peijie Mao

Abstract During the decade following the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912, there emerged an ephemeral wave of “aiqing xiaoshuo” (fiction of pathos, or mournful romance) in Shanghai-based popular media, which centered on the tragic dimension of human emotions in romantic relations. Literary scholars often regarded this genre of fiction scornfully, accusing it at worst of peddling banal, sentimental tales for profit, or, more equitably, of critiquing traditional family and marriage institutions. This chapter, however, proposes an understanding of the production and reception of aiqing xiaoshuo as a manifestation of the aesthetic of melancholy, experienced through a process of collective mourning. Discussed in this chapter are the themes of melancholy love and widow fidelity as they appear in some of the most popular sentimental stories by Xu Zhenya, Wu Shuangre, and Chen Diexian in the 1910s. Special attention is paid to the affective power of these tragic romances, the circulation of melancholy, and readers’ engagement with these popular texts. The author argues that this aesthetic of melancholy became a collective experience in which the processes of writing, reading, and mourning could be inextricably interwoven. Fiction of pathos thus represented a new literary interest in the intimate sphere of emotional life, and signaled the advent of a new author-reader dynamic. Consequently, both writers and readers engaged actively in a public demonstration of the authenticity of their inner emotions, collaboratively constructing a sentimental community of love in modern print media. Keywords Fiction of pathos · Melancholy · Print media · Republican China · Xu Zhenya

P. Mao (B) ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024 C. S. Garfield Lau and K. K. Y. Chan (eds.), The Poetics of Grief and Melancholy in East-West Conflicts and Reconciliations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-9821-0_3

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3.1 Introduction The decade after the founding of the Republic of China in 1912 witnessed an ephemeral wave of aiqing xiaoshuo 哀情小说 (fiction of pathos, mournful romance, or tragic love stories) in Shanghai-based popular media. “Aiqing xiaoshuo” refers to a subgenre of romantic fiction that was immensely popular in the 1910s and early 1920s, and was characterized as a type of romance with a tragic ending that centered on both the beauty and passion of romantic love and the suffering of unfulfilled love. The causes of the tragedies were various—family objection, ill fate, sickness, misunderstanding, the interference of villains, and social malaise. Wu Jianren 吴趼 人’s 1906 novel Sea of Regret (Hen hai 恨海), a harbinger of the tragic romances that would appear in the following decade, portrays the separation and tribulations of two ill-fated couples amid the turbulence and confusion of the Boxer Rebellion. While Sea of Regret heralded the tragic consciousness, psychological realism, and narrative innovations that would become the hallmark of modern Chinese novels (Tang 2000; Hanan 2004), it was Xu Zhenya 徐枕亚’s Jade Pear Spirit (Yu li hun 玉梨 魂), a poignant story of forbidden love between a schoolteacher and a young widow, that established the subgenre of fiction of pathos in print media. First published in 1913, this tragic romance soon became one of the best-selling novels of its time, with several hundred thousand copies sold over dozens of reprints in the following two decades (Fan 1994). Xu and his contemporaries, including Wu Shuangre 吴双热, Li Dingyi 李定夷, Chen Diexian 陈蝶仙 (a.k.a. Tianxu Wosheng 天虚我生), Zhou Shoujuan 周瘦鹃, and many others of the so-called “Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies School” 鸳鸯蝴蝶派,1 continued to publish tragic romances in Shanghai-based newspapers and magazines, contributing to the trend of fiction of pathos in early Republican China. Despite its popularity, this genre of fiction was scorned by contemporary New Literature writers and literary scholars because of its purported sentimentalism, hackneyed themes, and melodramatic plotlines. For example, Luo Jialun 罗家伦, a New Culture activist writing under the penname Zhixi 志希, noticed that romantic fiction full of platitudes in classical Chinese enjoyed great popularity in Shanghai, Beijing, and in inland cities. He accused Xu Zhenya’s and Li Dingyi’s novels of peddling banal, sentimental tales for profit (Luo 1919). On the other hand, popular writers applauded tragic romances for their critique of the traditional family and marriage institutions. Fan Yanqiao 范烟桥, Xu Zhenya’s contemporary, viewed the popularity of tragic love stories in the early Republican period as a reflection of unsolved social problems, particularly those arising out of family-arranged marriage and Confucian decorum: After the 1911 Revolution, the traditional marriage system based on parents’ commands and matchmakers’ words was gradually weakened. A new concept of “match and compatibility 1

“Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies School” or “Old-style School” generally refers to a group of popular writers active in early Republican Shanghai. Xu Zhenya is considered the initiator of the trend of tragic romances, and other representative writers include Wu Shuangre, Li Dingyi, Su Manshu, Chen Diexian, and Yao Yuanchu (Fan 1984, 2000; Link 1981).

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in marriage” (men dang hu dui 门当户对) emerged, and thus talented scholars and beauties had new demands. Some were courageous enough to fight for freedom of marriage, but their wish could not be fulfilled due to social constraints. Young people felt extremely distressed. Because of this status quo and new demands, writers emphasized tragic love to arouse sympathy. (Fan 1984: 272)

While Luo Jialun’s critique pointed out the problems of fiction of pathos as a form of mass culture—the formulaic, sensational, and commercial features that differentiated tragic romances from “high culture” fiction, Fan Yanqiao’s commentary elucidated the relationship between the story formula and its cultural meaning, and demonstrated how tragic romances responded to social and cultural change. Recently, scholars have attributed this wave of sentimental fiction variously to the emergence of an urban middle-class readership, the resurgence of the Chinese sentimental tradition, a new fusion of Confucian virtues and individual sentiments, and the rise of “private literature” in modern China (Link 1981; Hsia 2004; Lee 2007; Chen 2015). However, these approaches did not fully explain the mechanism by which fiction of pathos was produced in early Republican media culture, the affective power of mournful narratives, and the appeal of the genre to an urban audience on both the emotional and psychological levels. This chapter, therefore, investigates the psychoanalytic discourse of fiction of pathos, focusing on the aesthetic of melancholy in Xu Zhenya’s Jade Pear Spirit and readers’ emotional responses to tragic novels. It argues that a distinct feature of these sentimental stories was their psychological exploration and exposure of the protagonists’ (or narrators’) mental sufferings, melancholy, and grief, while facing romantic crises, separation, illness, and death. The literary representation of melancholy love paved the way for a modern discourse of qing 情 (sentiment) in a transitional society by revealing a growing interest in the inwardness of private life, by delving into the realm of individual emotions as the central point of the narrative, and by exploring new means of expression to deal with the moral tension between individuals and their milieu. In a 1923 essay, Xu Jinfu 许厪父 divided popular “stories of sentiment” (yanqing xiaoshuo 言情小说) into eight sub-categories based on the different aspects of romantic emotion portrayed in these stories. Fiction of pathos, according to Xu, was a type of romance in which love cannot culminate in happiness, and the best fiction of pathos were those stories that “can move readers to tears” (Xu 1923/1984: 38). Xu’s definition further illuminates two characteristics of such stories. First, the popularity of the genre stemmed from the manner in which it dramatized romantic feelings and challenged the traditional happy-ending scholar-beauty romances. Second, the value of fiction of pathos depended on the sincerity and intensity of the emotions portrayed and the emotive effect of the writing. Along with the wave of tragic romances came a new way of reading fiction as an act of constructing one’s emotional identity and connecting oneself to a larger community that valued the ability to shed tears and feel melancholy. What motivated authors to share their personal grief in the literary public sphere? How did authors and periodicals interact with the reading public, who not only read fiction for comfort (Link 1981) but also participated in promoting romantic novels? Fiction of pathos provides a useful framework through which to

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explore these questions, as it was a vital nexus between authors and readers, fiction production and consumption, private emotions and public life. In his seminal paper “Mourning and Melancholia,” Sigmund Freud explains the dynamics between mourning and melancholy. Both mourning and melancholy are personal reactions to the loss of loved objects. Although mourning is a painful experience, one can complete the mourning process and free the ego through “the economics of pain,” that is, by withdrawing the libido from its attachments to the lost object. In contrast, melancholy is a “profoundly painful dejection,” indicating “a lowering of the self-regarding feelings” that involves delusion, self-punishment, and impoverishment of one’s ego (Freud 1917/1957: 243–247). While Freud discusses how mourning and melancholia exert a psychological impact on individuals, Wolf Lepenie treats melancholy as a social and cultural phenomenon, a phenomenon marked by boredom, fear of action, escapism, anxiety, and loss of order, and manifested in philosophical and literary works in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe (Lepenie 1992). Freud’s explanation of the “economics of pain” and Lepenie’s treatment of melancholy as both a psychological and sociological condition are of particular interest to our understanding and examination of the fiction of pathos in early twentieth-century Chinese popular media, as melancholy in these stories was not only an expression of personal pain and grief but also a cultural and emotional response to the radical social changes of this era. This chapter focuses on two aspects of the mechanism of representing, cultivating, and producing this vogue of melancholy in Shanghai media culture. First, it examines the aesthetic of melancholy in Xu Zhenya’s Jade Pear Spirit and in mournful narratives by Wu Shuangre and Chen Diexian that center on widow fidelity set in the context of tragic stories. Second, it pays special attention to the affective power of tragic romances and to readers’ engagement with these literary works. In his discussion of the formation of the bourgeois public sphere, Jürgen Habermas famously argues that a private autonomy and the idea of “community of love” grew out of the experiences in the private sphere of the conjugal family. Subjectivity, “as the innermost core of the private, was always already oriented to an audience” (Habermas 1991: 46–49). Just like the bourgeois readers who wept over sentimental letters, diaries, and domestic novels in eighteenth-century Europe, middle-class readers in early twentieth-century Shanghai discovered their privatized individuality and emotional subjectivity through the medium of fiction of pathos. By reading, commenting on, and composing poems about these tragic romances, the empathetic reading public became enlightened by the new conceptualization of melancholy love and intimacy. Those fascinated by fiction of pathos, in particular, identified themselves with men and women of sentiment and accomplished a process of collective mourning that contributed to creating a sentimental community of love in modern print culture.

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3.2 Jade Pear Spirit: The Aesthetic of Melancholy The remarkable commercial success of tragic romances in the 1910s must be understood against the backdrop of the cult of qing in Ming-Qing literati culture and the new development in stories of sentiments in the early twentieth century. As Martin Huang puts it, both the attempt to legitimize qing as “essential to the maintenance of the Confucian social order,” and the effort to suppress qing as a mysterious “power that transcends the boundaries of life and death,” co-existed in late Ming writings on qing (Huang 2001: 44–47). Late Qing fiction reformists expressed an even more ambiguous attitude toward the writing of sentiment—on the one hand, they magnified the significance of emotions, assuming qing to be a universal principle that generated human nature and moral values; on the other hand, they viewed romantic fiction as a potential threat to social mores and norms. Xu Nianci 徐念慈 (a.k.a. Juewo 觉 我), for example, expressed concern about the popularity of romantic novels, criticizing them for using freedom as a pretext to undermine the proprieties of marriage and moral principles (Xu 1908). Theorists and critics in the early twentieth century often emphasized the social and political values of emotions while disdaining private and individual feelings. Therefore, late-Qing stories of sentiments purposely downplayed private emotions between lovers in favor of didactic messages of patriotism and moralistic concerns (Lee 2007; Mao 2021). At the beginning of Sea of Regret, Wu Jianren legitimated the social functions of emotions in an ethical framework, expanding the connotation of qing to embrace basic Confucian moral principles, including loyalty, filial piety, parental love, and friendship. In contrast, “the passion between the sexes can only be named infatuation (chi 痴); for those who waste their passion needlessly and inappropriately, that is obsession (mo 魔)” (Wu 1906/1991: 249). In his view, qing must transcend the individual self and romantic love, as it is a moral passion with a universal power, upon which human society is constructed. In late-Qing writing of emotion, such as Wu Jianren’s Sea of Regret and Fu Lin 符 霖’s Stones in the Sea (Qin hai shi 禽海石), tragic love was caused mainly by external forces like war, national crisis, social disorder, and family objection. In the fiction of pathos of the 1910s, however, personal sentiments, though still situated within the Confucian value system, were given prominence and elevated to form the meaning of life. The pathos of love in Xu Zhenya’s Jade Pear Spirit was developed around a confrontation between romantic passion and moral sentiments, interweaving an aesthetic of melancholy with the tragic theme. Xu Zhenya rose as a master of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies School sentimental novel as a result of his Jade Pear Spirit being serialized, in 1912, in the literary supplement of People’s Right (Minquan bao 民权报), a Shanghai political newspaper for which Xu served on the editorial board. The novel was published in book form in 1913 and sold out within a couple of months. In 1916, Xu published Chronicle of the Great Tear of Bygone Days (Xue hong lei shi 雪鸿泪史),2 which retold this love story in the form of the 2 Chronicle of the Great Tear of Bygone Days was originally serialized in Fiction Miscellany (Xiaoshuo congbao 小说丛报), a monthly fiction magazine edited by Xu Zhenya and Wu Shuangre in Shanghai between 1914 and 1919. It was serialized from no. 1 to no. 18 (1914–1916).

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hero’s diary, and provided a more detailed account of the family background of the main characters and their psychic world. Zhang Jinglu 张静庐, a renowned Shanghai publisher, wrote in 1938 that Jade Pear Spirit was unquestionably the best-selling novel in the recent two decades (Zhang 1938/1984). The story reached an even wider audience when it was adapted into stage plays in the mid-1910s, and, in 1924, as a motion picture. Written in ornate classical Chinese, Jade Pear Spirit tells an agonizing story of platonic love between a schoolteacher named He Mengxia 何梦霞, a talented and illfated young man, and a chaste, graceful widow named Bai Liying 白梨影 (referred to as Liniang 梨娘 in the story). Mengxia falls in love with Liniang when he stays at his distant relative Mr. Cui’s house, and tutors Cui’s eight-year-old grandson, Penglang 鹏郎. Liniang, Penglang’s mother, who has been widowed for three years, is also attracted to Mengxia, but their romantic feelings are constrained by their strong moral conscience and Confucian strictures against the remarriage of widows. Tortured by their forbidden and hopeless love, the couple suffers excruciating psychic pain in both mind and body. When Liniang’s sister-in-law Cui Yunqian 崔筠倩, a student who studies in a new-style school, comes home for her vacation, Liniang sets up Mengxia with Yunqian in order to requite his love. After Mengxia and Yunqian become engaged, reluctantly, at Liniang’s insistence, Mengxia still avows his love for Liniang, and blames her for causing the misery of the three persons. Liniang dies as a result of a psychosomatic disorder, characterized by emotional stress and self-neglect, hoping that her death will save Mengxia and Yunqian’s marriage. In her letter to Yunqian, she confesses her secret love affair and blesses Yunqian’s marriage. Yunqian, however, dies of grief over the death of Liniang after she discovers the truth. The despairing Mengxia goes to Japan, and later returns to China to participate in the 1911 Revolution to overthrow the Qing Dynasty. Ultimately, he dies in the battle (Xu 1913/1991b). It has been established that Jade Pear Spirit is a semi-autobiographical novel based on Xu Zhenya’s hopeless love affair with a young widow when he served as a tutor in the Cai family. Recent studies of the correspondence between Xu and the widow have revealed that the main characters and plots of this novel were drawn from his own frustrated love. In real life, Xu and the widow enjoyed a more intimate relationship than depicted in the novel. Xu then married the widow’s niece, and no one died of heartbreak (Fan 1994, 2000). In Jade Pear Spirit, the notion of forbidden love is indeed presented as a drama of human emotions and sufferings distinguished by excessive sentimentality, strong emotionalism, extravagant expression, and tragic death. Despite the adoption of a “scholar-beauty” (caizi jiaren 才子佳人) narrative framework, Jade Pear Spirit deviated from that tradition in that instead of portraying the romance of scholars and beauties leading to a happy ending, it featured intense personal emotions and agonies with a tragic sense of melancholy love and frustrated life. This tragic sense prefigured the transition from the plot-centered scholar-beauty romances of Ming-Qing literature to modern emotion-centered sentimental stories. Xu’s best friend Wu Shuangre once remarked that Xu Zhenya’s works are spontaneous “outpourings of a melancholy heart” (Xu 1915/1931: 4). The literary representation of melancholy love in Jade Pear Spirit was achieved by Xu’s effective use of

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imagery, narrative strategies, and poetic language to craft a mournful tale of love and death that adeptly engaged readers’ emotions. This aesthetic of melancholy in Jade Pear Spirit was marked by the characters’ immoderate grief, exaggerated reaction to loss, self-pity, and extraordinary suffering. The first chapter, entitled “Flower Burial” (Zanghua 葬花), reminds the audience of the famous episode in Dream of the Red Chamber (Hong lou meng 红楼梦), and immediately connects this novel with the centuries-old “sentimental-erotic tradition in Chinese literature” (Hsia 2004: 282). The story begins with a portrayal of two trees in Mengxia’s courtyard: the first image is of delicate and fading pear blossoms shattered by storms, a scene so mournful that it arouses his pity and tears; the second is of flamboyant, glamorous magnolias that the hero nevertheless ignores. The narrator explains that Mengxia empathizes with the falling pear blossoms because they accompany him and remind him of his own frustrating and drifting life. “It is not that he has a preference (for flowers); he is just a devoted lover” (Xu 1991b: 437). After burying the fallen petals, he writes poems dedicated to the pear and magnolia trees. Later that night, he sees Bai Liying (literally, “the shadow of white pear”), who is weeping over the flower grave, and he is struck by her beauty and melancholy. The flower-burial scene, the sentimental, talented, and ill-fated hero, the sharply contrasting images of the fragile pear blossoms and the alluring magnolias, and the helpless and lonely widow, all portend the tragic direction of this story and anticipate the deaths of the main characters, exerting a strong emotional impact on the audience. As the story unfolds, readers learn that the glamorous magnolia symbolizes the modern girl Yunqian; thus, this contrast between the two flowers becomes a metaphor for the hero’s dilemma regarding two types of women: although the pear-like Liniang is the one he truly loves, he cannot resist the twist of fate that drives him to the magnolia-like Yunqian, and the engagement that ultimately takes both women’s lives. Right after the death of Liniang, Mengxia visits and weeps over the pear blossom tomb again in Chap. 28, “Heartbreak” (Duanchang 断肠), now mourning Liniang’s death and the loss of the love of his life. The narrator’s identity is finally revealed in Chap. 29, “Diary” (Riji 日记). He claims that he learns about this poignant story from an old classmate named Shichi 石痴, Mengxia’s best friend in the novel, who witnesses the love affair. This woeful tale ends with the narrator and Shichi visiting Cui’s abandoned house to look for the flower tomb and mourn Mengxia’s death and the decline of the Cui family. They are deeply saddened by the death of the pear and magnolia trees in the yard, as if nature responded to the fortunes of the human world. The recurring image of the flower tomb throughout the story thus serves as a token of melancholy love characterized by loss, separation, futility, and despair. In doing so, the narrator symbolically mourns the loss of romantic love and youth, suggesting how the author may have reconciled his own feelings of melancholy with the memory of his painful past (Xu married two years before he wrote Jade Pear Spirit) in his sentimental narrative. Liniang and Mengxia represent the classic definition of lovers in traditional “scholar-beauty” romances endowed with qing, talent (cai 才), sorrow (chou 愁), and infatuation, on which their emotional compatibility is based. Conventional morality

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has only partially resulted in the tragic death of the lovers; it is the characters’ obsession with moral principles that turns love into unbearable suffering and a process of grievous self-torture. Owing to their moral concerns governed by the Confucian order, Mengxia and Liniang’s love is always accompanied by a sense of self-pity and intense emotional drama. In the story, Mengxia and Liniang only meet twice. They avoid any physical contact, and communicate mostly by exchanging poems and letters. As a result, the plot revolves around the development of their platonic love through correspondence and poetry exchanges, in which they share their innermost private feelings and thoughts, express psychosomatic pain, and bemoan their ill fate. Sad letters, heartbreaking poems, and Yunqian’s bitter diary, are carefully embedded in the narration of this gripping love story, revealing the inner struggle and mentality of the main characters. The first exchange of letters establishes a spiritual bond between the two lonely hearts. The narrator remarks: Mengxia writes the letter to Liniang, not because he intends to flirt with her, but because he appreciates her talent and deplores her fate. And then he pities himself and laments his own fate.… When Liniang writes back, her intention coincides with his. Because she understands him, she writes back to express her feelings—that is mutual affinity. (Xu 1991b: 459)

They even demonstrate similar reactions to each other’s passionate letters. They both perform the action of reading the letter and dreaming about it, then setting it down and sighing, and finally weeping over the letter. Thus, each exchange of letters, poems, and gifts becomes a tearful ceremony through which they substitute self-imposed torment for their unfulfilled passion by moving each other to tears, “carving heart into words and gnawing blood into poems” (Xu 1991b: 488). In the climax of the story, Liniang literally drenches her letter with tears, and Mengxia bites his finger and dips the brush into his blood to write a letter to avow his eternal love. This masochistic spiritual love is so self-denying and self-destructive that, eventually, all the major characters resolve to die. As discussed earlier, Jade Pear Spirit is told through an omniscient first-person narrator who later identifies himself as “a man of a broken heart” (Xu 1991b: 591). The narrator is an affectionate character who frequently intrudes into the story with comments and explanations, praising the couple’s moral integrity and self-control, and pouring out his profound sympathy and sorrow for their unfulfilled love. Perry Link points out the dilemma of this narrator: on the one hand, the narrator makes an effort to “preserve the semblance of truth” to appeal to his readers; on the other hand, he wishes to disassociate the story from an autobiographical account by adding the imaginative ending to intensify the story’s tragic theme (Link 1981: 48–49). This ambiguous attitude is also manifested in the narrator’s remarks on this unconventional romantic relationship by stressing its emotional intimacy instead of any physical attraction. The narrator sometimes addresses the audience directly and explains what he terms “genuine emotion” (zhiqing 至情): a spiritual affinity based on deep compassion, understanding, and appreciation, rather than sexual desire. He reminds readers repeatedly that Mengxia and Liniang could have many chances for sexual fulfillment, but they decline any of these, because their love relationship “is aroused by emotions, but must be constrained by etiquette and morality” (Xu 1991b: 486).

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However, the narrator does not completely conform to the role of a traditional storyteller, as he shows no reluctance to reveal his personal emotions and subjective perceptions throughout the novel. To evoke readers’ feelings of empathy, the narrator sometimes uses free indirect speech to merge the voices of the narrator and the protagonist, a narrative technique Xu borrowed from the translations of Western novels. The following is an example appearing toward the end of Chap. 1 that describes the flower burial scene: Mengxia finds a clean spot at the edge of the rock mountain. He digs a hole, places the flower pouch inside, and then covers it with soil to make a grave so that he can recognize it in the future…. There is a sad expression on his face at this time, as he suddenly feels that his drifting life and ill fate are just like these flowers. Romantics like me can mourn and pity the hapless flowers and find a tomb to bury them. Fortunately, their souls will rest in peace underground. In contrast, I have been frustrated and alone for most of my life, relying on other people for a living. I am leading a wandering life, but I still have not met my soul mate. (Xu 1991b: 439–440)

It is noteworthy that readers have not yet been introduced to Mengxia’s personal history, which is revealed in Chap. 2, “Midnight Weep” (Yeku 夜哭), nor do they understand why he shows compassion for the falling pear blossoms while disliking the magnolias in the yard. When the narrative moves between a third-person perspective and Mengxia’s first-person experience and interior thoughts, the readers are immediately drawn to the protagonist’s consciousness. This allows them to witness “the subjective experience of a third-person, of seeing the (fictional) world through the eyes of someone else, and of gaining direct access to another person’s affective feelings and nonverbal thoughts” (Rundquist 2017: xiv). Therefore, before the development of the romantic relationship between Mengxia and Liniang, the narrator has already provided hints regarding their tragic destiny and elicited emotional responses from the reader. In identifying themselves through the mourning of the perished flowers, the narrator, the hero, and perhaps the readers deplore their own shortcomings in life. The agonies of tragic love are furthermore dramatized by the emotion-driven narrative, a narrative laden with lyrical descriptions and emotionally charged language. To make characters more engaging to readers, Xu Zhenya created a new emotional expressivity through the mixture of prose in classical Chinese, parallel prose (pianwen 骈文) that featured parallelism and ornateness, and poetry. Classical prose is used to narrate and make comments, while parallel prose is employed to convey strong imagery and feelings. Chen Jingzhi attributed Jade Pear Spirit’s success partially to the affective power of Xu’s innovative style of writing. He quoted one of Mengxia’s love letters, mostly written in exquisite four-character and sixcharacter parallel couplets, to illustrate its appeal to contemporary readers who found Xu’s narrative style “smooth and refreshing” in its elegance, neatness, and passion (Chen 1971: 69). In addition, poetry is frequently adopted to convey the characters’ inward feelings and serves as a medium for the lovers to magnify their intense emotions. These poems, mostly composed by Mengxia, vary in form. They include regulated verses, ci-poetry, and ballads. Even during their two secret meetings in person, Mengxia still writes several regulated verses to share with Liniang, in order

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to utter the pain he cannot profess in face-to-face conversations. As the narrator often adopts the perspectives of Mengxia and Liniang through a free indirect style, epistolary form, and poetry, Yunqian’s perspective is rarely depicted. Still, her mental activities are revealed through her singing in Chap. 22, “Music and Heart” (Qinxin 琴心), and in her diary in Chap. 29. In Chap. 22, Mengxia eavesdrops on Yunqian as she sings while playing the lute. In her beautiful and woeful songs, Yunqian, who has just become reluctantly engaged to Mengxia, mourns her deceased mother and brother, shows her affection for her father and Liniang, and laments her loss of happiness and freedom. Chap. 29 quotes ten entries from Yunqian’s diary, dating from just before she dies, in which she writes about her grief, regret, and desperation. In both cases, readers, previously preoccupied with the tragic death of Liniang, are able to comprehend Yunqian’s mind and feel empathy for this young girl who is also the victim of the tragic romance.

3.3 Writing and Reading Melancholy Love C.T. Hsia points out that the “sentimental-erotic literature of China” was often “death-oriented” in that the unhappy lovers were either suicidal or “trapped in a state of emotional death.” He argues that Jade Pear Spirit is not a tragedy of fate, as the tragic situation is not inevitable, and the main characters die because they are “immobilized by their moral purity” (Hsia 2004: 181, 289–290). Certainly, this tragic story questioned Chinese moral traditions that were thought to repress true love and romantic emotions in favor of moral duty and propriety, a common theme in early twentieth-century Chinese tragic romances. However, in this case, we must wonder why the author takes the sanctity of love to such an extreme, accentuating the moral purity of his characters without physical intimacy. When fictionalizing his real-life experiences, why did Xu Zhenya transform his love affair into a mournful story culminating in the tragic deaths of all the major characters, each of whom is so self-denying and anguished that death seems to be the only way to assuage his or her grief? Rey Chow maintains that sentimental stories in early Republican China are “about issues of morality, chastity, and the social demands to resist personal passions, especially from the point of view of the women involved.” “The women are left to struggle alone in the main parts of the dramas,” while their lovers participate in this scholarly sentimental world only by being weak, sick, dead, or far away (Chow 1991: 51). Hsia’s aesthetic critique and Chow’s feminist reading of the novel recall several pathological features of female melancholy as described by Freud, such as the inhibition of actions, the impoverishment of the ego, and self-reproach. Liniang chooses to die not only to sacrifice herself for love, but also to mitigate the unbearable clash between her obligation to remain chaste as a widow and her desire to submit to romantic passion, which would ruin her reputation (mingjie 名节). Liniang is never mentally free to love, as she is reluctant to transfer her attachment from her late husband to Mengxia. In identifying herself with the fallen pear blossom, she prolongs

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her mourning process to the extent that her pathological mourning has paralyzed her capacity to love. Her romantic feelings toward Mengxia develop paradoxically under the premise that she does not deserve his love because of her position as a widow. In her letters to Mengxia, she repeatedly laments her ill-fated life (boming 薄命): “I was born unfortunate, and therefore I am unwilling to burden you.… If we are meant for each other, then we shall meet in our afterlives” (Xu 1991b: 458–459). She then arranges the engagement of Mengxia and Yunqian, her substitute, only to find out that the betrothal has, in fact, also deprived her beloved sister-in-law of freedom and happiness. Meanwhile, she receives a letter from Mengxia, in which her lover accuses her of disentangling herself from the painful relationship while bringing more anguish to the other two. Her sense of guilt becomes an accusation against herself, which culminates in her decision to resolve to die in an attempt to rectify the situation. Yunqian, likewise, forfeits her life owing to the grief and self-punishment she feels after reading Liniang’s letter following her death, and learns that Liniang has given up her own life for the assumed “bliss” of the engaged couple. After Liniang’s death, Yunqian, too, is dominated by a feeling of melancholy and self-accusation. Her diary entries reveal her deep sense of loss and guilt. “I am devastated by how my sister-in-law died because of me. If I don’t die, how can I ever repay her?” “After my mother died, I still had the love of my father, elder brother, and sister-in-law; after my brother died, there were fewer people left to love me. But I did not expect that cruel fate would take away almost everyone I have loved, leaving me deprived of the joy in life,” she laments (Xu 1991b: 587, 589). Blaming herself for the death of Liniang, and possibly for the loss of her close family members, she suffers from a masochistic sense of guilt, and eventually is determined to escape the unbearable burden of guilt and self-reproach by taking her own life. If Liniang sacrifices her life for melancholy love, then Yunqian dies of melancholy itself. Unlike the classical beauty Liniang, Yunqian is a female student who has received a modern education and advocates for the new idea of free choice in love and marriage. In spite of these beliefs, however, she accepts the arranged marriage as her “ill fate” when Liniang persuades her to fulfill her filial responsibility and sacrifice herself for the benefit of the whole family. After the engagement, she quits school, isolates herself from the outside world, and lives in despair, “sitting idly in her room and devoting herself to composing sad poems to express her sorrow” (Xu 1991b: 556). Her melancholy and self-absorption can be understood as a psychological response to the loss of both loved persons and an abstraction upon which she had based her life. As Freud states, one can mourn over “the loss of some abstraction which has taken the place of one, such as one’s country, liberty, an ideal, and so on” (Freud 1957: 243). After the deaths of Yunqian’s mother and brother, her friendship with Liniang and her schoolwork helped her cope with her bereavement and develop her self-concept. But when she realizes that the friendship has been used to induce her into an unhappy marriage, and that the “new learning” she studies at school cannot resolve her personal experience of the clash between individual freedom and social propriety, she regresses to pathological mourning, which, conflated with her guilt complex after Liniang’s death, eventually takes her life.

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Owing to its vivid representation of emotions and melancholy love, Jade Pear Spirit went through many reprints, giving rise to continuous rereadings and writings. When it was first serialized in People’s Right in 1912, this beautifully written romance intrigued readers so much that an impatient reader wrote a letter to the newspaper, eager to know the ending. In response to the reader’s request, Xu Zhenya replied in public, discussing the difference between the reading and writing processes: Fiction often touches readers so much that they cannot put it down. Once they have an inkling of the story, readers become anxious to learn more about it. Knowing this mentality of readers, authors often deliberately play tricks and use techniques to create puzzles so that the story would have unexhausted implications and become more intriguing and thoughtprovoking.… Therefore, leisured authors are just the opposite of impatient readers. No wonder you, readers of Jade Pear Spirit, desire to know the whole story…. In fact, I have already planned the novel’s synopsis in the first chapter, and a perceptive reader should be able to tell. (Zheng 1983: 130)

As an editor of People’s Right, Xu Zhenya had a strong understanding of the emotional appeal of serialized fiction and of how to captivate readers and whet their increasing appetite for sentimental stories. After Jade Pear Spirit was serialized in People’s Right, readers’ letters and poems in response to the novel began appearing in the same newspaper. Some compared this novel to Dream of the Red Chamber and Encountering Sorrow (Li sao 离骚), Qu Yuan 屈原’s autobiographical and tragic poem, contributing to a new discourse of qing that reevaluated private feelings and romantic fiction in the literary public sphere of this era (Tsai 2008). When Jade Pear Spirit was published in book form, it included not only a preface from Wu Shuangre, Xu’s close friend and colleague, but also a collection of over thirty classic poems written by nine readers in response to the novel. For example, Li Yuanzhi Nüshi 李 沅芷女士, probably a female reader, expressed her emotional response to the novel in her poem: The words break my heart while I read them with tears, the more I read these sorrowful lines, the more bitter I feel. (The novel) awakens young people in love that once they fall in love, they cannot easily break free. (Xu 1991b: 433) In their poems, empathetic readers deplored the tragic fates of the main characters, shared their own feelings of frustration and loss, and extolled Xu’s talent for retelling such a moving story of love, melancholy, and death. Yet what touched them the most was the repressed and melancholy love demonstrated in Liniang’s sacrifice for love and in Mengxia’s heroic death on the battlefield to repay Liniang’s love. According to Xu Zhenya, many readers mailed dedicative poems (tici 题词 or tishi 题诗) to him after Jade Pear Spirit was published. For example, a young reader named Qiu Xiaowo 秋笑我 sent Xu thirty poems, one for each chapter of the novel, to express his appreciation for the story (Xu 1931: 16–17). When Xu’s diary novel Chronicle of the Great Tear of Bygone Days was published, it collected not only Xu’s authorial preface and detailed annotation of each chapter, but also ten prefaces and three postscripts by different authors, and over one hundred and twenty classic poems from thirty-three readers, including both original poems and jiju 集句 poems (a type of poem composed by gathering and artfully arranging lines taken from

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other poems). Those who contributed to promoting this novel included Xu Zhenya’s brother, relatives, colleagues, friends, fellow writers, and many fans of Xu’s novels. The various prefaces served to illustrate the novel’s emotive value and seriousness of purpose. In his own preface, Xu Zhenya presents two interpretations of his novel that he has observed: those who love his works say, “It is a heartbreaking story by Zhenya,” and those who criticize him believe “It is Zhenya’s self-portrait.” Though the readers show differing attitudes, both groups of readers consider him a “seed of sentiments” (youqing zhongzi 有情种子). Accepting this title, Xu insists that his writing is different from other popular romances that are meant to satisfy readers by means of great flamboyance (Xu 1916/1991a: 598). The preface by Xu Tianxiao 徐天啸, Xu Zhenya’s elder brother, confirms that “romantic fiction is a portrait of great lovers (qingzhong 情种).” He believes that only genuine romantic lovers, like his brother and the character He Mengxia, can discover and present the true meaning and characteristics of love in their writings (Xu 1991a: 599). Wei Qiumeng 韦秋梦, Xu’s friend and fellow writer, explains that the affective appeal of Jade Pear Spirit stems from its vivid representation of the intensity and authenticity of a romantic relationship doomed to failure. Such restricted love evokes emotional pain and a purified desire that surpass the romantic feelings described in traditional love stories (Xu 1991a). The rich paratexts of Jade Pear Spirit and Chronicle of the Great Tear of Bygone Days—prefaces, postscripts, dedicative poems, and annotations—indicate how the writer and readers established a mode of communicating inner experiences and feelings, in which the writing and reading of tragic romances facilitated their expression of emotions and identity. Haiyan Lee argues that the cult of qing in early twentiethcentury Chinese romances made sentiment a foundational principle of self-identity, although it was still preoccupied with “virtuous sentiments” (Lee 2007). For Xu Zhenya, the writing and rewriting of such an autobiographical story is a process of self-fashioning; many of the prefaces to his novels imply that an important feature of this story is the identification of the author with his fictional protagonist. Through the act of writing and promoting his novels, Xu constructed his self-image as a melancholy man with great literary talent. Xu once admitted that writing offered him a way of escaping his frustration and discontent with his own career and family life: he experienced unusual pleasure while writing Jade Pear Spirit and felt relieved after completing Chronicle of the Great Tear of Bygone Days (Yao 1916/1989). Having experienced an unsuccessful relationship and career setbacks, Xu transformed the feeling of frustration in his personal life into a literary imagining of the coalescence of dying for love and country. He Mengxia’s death on the battlefield is described only briefly, in Chap. 29. The description of the death scene, retold by a friend of the narrator, is even shorter than some of Mengxia’s love letters. Nevertheless, Mengxia’s abrupt change from a sentimental romantic to a courageous patriot was quite plausible to the readers of that time. Indeed, such a plot twist met readers’ expectations and fulfilled the editorial style of People’s Right, a political newspaper founded in 1912 to oppose Yuan Shikai’s despotism and advocate for civil rights and democracy. In one of the prefaces to the tale, Shen Fenglan 沈 凤览 states that because both Mengxia and Liniang are persons of “supreme inborn

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nature and sentiments” (zhixing zhiqing 至性至情), Mengxia’s dying for the nation and Liniang’s sacrifice for love is the embodiment of their emotional sincerity (Xu 1991a: 606–607). One poem, by a reader named Tao Caichou 陶采畴 endorses the conflation of heroism and love with this impassioned plea: “When (Mengxia) dies to repay the appreciation of his soul mate, do not laugh at a scholar dying for love” (Xu 1991b: 431). According to those who read and commented on Xu’s works, patriotic passion and romantic love could be understood as two sides of the same coin, as both sentiments were now recognized as the fundamental ground for the relationship between the modern subject and the nation, the latter being what Haiyan Lee terms “a community of sympathy” in Chinese discourses of sentiment (Lee 2007: 7). Furthermore, for Xu Zhenya, and probably many of his contemporaries, melancholy became a source of inspiration and self-reflection, and a means of communicating one’s emotional reactions to losses, grief, and failure in real life. In his preface to Wu Shuangre’s most famous novel, Mirror of Misfortune (Nieyuan jing 孽冤 镜), a tragic story of a young couple who commit suicide for love, Xu Zhenya eulogized the emotional genuineness in Wu’s novel and summarized three characteristics of fiction that he believed could move readers to tears: unusual distress, profound thinking, and artful writing (Xu 1931). Indeed, these characteristics contributed to the commercial success of the fiction of pathos at that time, and both Xu and his contemporaries were experts at exploiting the emotive power of fiction to move their readers. Reader-response theorist Stanley Fish defines “informed readers” as those who have semantic knowledge, literary competence, and sufficient experience to interpret texts and construct meanings within their own experience. These informed readers who share interpretive strategies for reading and writing constituted “interpretive communities” (Fish 1980). Following Fish’s definition, we may say Jade Pear Spirit’s readers were such a group of informed readers. The aesthetic of melancholy evoked anticipated emotional and aesthetic responses from a group of cultured readers who were able to read classical Chinese, appreciate Xu’s aureate style of writing, understand his intentions, and feel empathy for his characters. Through reading and weeping over Xu’s books, writing letters to the author, commenting on the stories, and composing poetry dedicated to Xu’s works, these informed readers became members of an interpretive community in which melancholy gained significant currency. In writing about their emotional responses to Jade Pear Spirit, these empathic readers imbued the novel with new meanings. They were prepared to relate themselves to the main characters, and identified Xu Zhenya, and perhaps themselves, with the protagonists. The pathos of love and, more importantly, the ability to feel melancholy love served to shape their own sense of identity as romantic individuals who were highly sensitive to human suffering. It is in this way that both Xu Zhenya and his readers participated in a public display of the authenticity of inner emotions, jointly building a sentimental community of love in modern print media.

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3.4 Melancholy and Mourning in Modern Print Culture As discussed earlier, among the various emotions evoked by tragic romances like Jade Pear Spirit, melancholy plays an essential role in eliciting readers’ empathy, thereby enriching the affective dimension of the genre. Ni Yichi 倪轶池, a contemporary of Xu Zhenya, wrote in his preface to Chronicle of the Great Tear of Bygone Days that a good writer of romantic fiction should devote his writing to “desolate love” (luomo zhi qing 落寞之情) instead of satisfying love, and delineate “feelings of loneliness and loss” ( jimie zhi qing 寂灭之情) instead of merely parting and reunion (Xu 1991a: 603). Indeed, poems dedicated to Xu’s novels are replete with references to “tears,” “pathos,” “sentimentality,” and “infatuation,” elaborating on the emotions raised by the torment and death of the lovers in the story. The affective response of readers is best exemplified by one of the postscripts by Chen Buxun 陈卜勋, who was self-identified as a “reclusive doctor.” Instead of beginning his writing by remarking on romantic fiction or on Xu Zhenya’s talent, Chen commemorates a deceased friend who died long before Jade Pear Spirit was published: My friend Wang Yuru was a man of sentiment. He wept tears whenever he read Dream of the Red Chamber, and I laughed at him, but this was because he was a better person. When I read Jade Pear Spirit the other day, I sighed, “It is a pity that Wang had not read it; otherwise, he would again be moved to tears!”... Wang has been dead for twenty years, so he could not read Jade Pear Spirit and Chronicle of the Great Tear of Bygone Days. Alas! I feel sad that my friend had no opportunity to read such great books, and I cannot feel at ease. Someday, I would like to go to Jiangnan by boat, and take these books to his grave in the mountain. I would summon his spirit, read them for him, and then burn them, letting the ashes fly like butterflies. I imagine that his soul would be brilliant enough to read them and shed the tears that never cease. (Xu 1991a: 853)

Chen Buxun further links tears with emotions and literary talent, and it is on this sentimental ground, he argues, that writers and readers can share lived experiences: “Mengxia is a person of passion (chiren 痴人), and so are Liniang and Zhenya. But am I not a man of passion too?” (Xu 1991a: 854). In Chen’s postscript, tears, sentiments, talent, and passion are all connected to one’s susceptibility to misery, loss, and suffering. Drawing on his own reaction to the loss of a dear friend, Chen pinpoints not only a shared experience of grief that readers could relate to in the real world, but also a collective aesthetic experience in which the processes of writing, reading, and mourning could be inextricably interwoven. Xu Zhenya continued to produce sentimental stories in the mid-1910s, including “Mirror of Freedom” (Ziyou jian 自由鉴), The Story of Two Maids (Shuanghuan ji 双 鬟记), and My Wife (Yu zhi qi 余之妻). All these works depict how young lovers suffer and die because of arranged marriages, social evils, and ill fortune. The pervading tragic sense and feeling of poignancy in his novels resulted partially from the tension in his own family regarding the mother- and daughter-in-law relationship, which led to the deaths of his sister-in-law and wife (Zheng 1987: 244). A decade after Jade Pear Spirit was published, Xu Zhenya compiled a number of elegiac poems to mourn the tragic death of his wife, Cai Ruizhu 蔡蕊珠, on whom the main character Cui Yunqian was based. Forty of these poems, together with a biographical account of Cai

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Ruizhu, were first published in Fiction Daily (Xiaoshuo ribao 小说日报)3 and later collected in a booklet entitled The Sorrow of a Husband (Gupen yihen 鼓盆遗恨). In July 1923, a group of Xu’s friends published an announcement in Fiction Daily to solicit memorial writings on his behalf “in the hope of easing the pain of his loss” (Wei Xu Zhenya xiansheng furen jing zheng daoci 1923: 1). This announcement also informed readers that The Sorrow of a Husband was ready to be sent out upon request. Within the next couple of months, a number of memorial writings from Xu’s friends, acquaintances, and readers, mostly in the form of regulated verses, were published in the column “Crying for Zhu” (Qizhu ji 泣珠集). Xu Zhenya, under the penname Qizhu Sheng (泣珠生, literally, “a man crying for Zhu”), also contributed several elegiac poems. In his preface to a series of plaintive poems, Xu described a dream of visiting his old residence and waiting for his wife to return home (Xu 1923). After receiving Xu’s poems, fellow writer Gu Mingdao 顾明道 composed four regulated verses in mourning for Xu’s wife. In one of these poems, Gu wrote: “The saddest thing is that one cannot endure (the pain) of rereading Jade Pear Spirit” (Gu 1928: 11). Impressed and touched by Xu’s novels and elegiac poems, Liu Yuanying 刘沅 颖, a female reader from a prominent scholar’s family in Beijing, fell in love with Xu and eventually became his second wife (Chen 1971). Circulation of memorial writings was not an uncommon literary practice in traditional China. In his study of the mourning (daowang 悼亡) narratives for deceased spouses in late imperial China, Martin Huang argues that daowang had become “an important shared social experience among the literati in that it enhanced their sense of the membership of a special homosocial community.” In mourning the deaths of spouses, either one’s own or of friends, the literati demonstrated “their special ability to articulate such mutual feelings of loss in a way that reaffirmed and solidified their standings as men of cultural sophistication” (Huang 2018: 144). The public solicitation and publication of literary works to commemorate Xu’s first wife indicated how this daowang literary tradition continued in early Republican China among “oldstyle” writers (in contrast to the Western-minded May Fourth generation of writers). Xu had long been identified with the romantic character he created in his novels; his self-image and public image as an ill-fated writer of great talent and an affectionate lover were further enhanced through his elegiac writings as a grieving husband in his actual mourning practice. The heartrending description of the mourning scene at the end of Jade Pear Spirit retrospectively reveals the relationship between elegiac writings and the public fascination with pathos, especially when it was associated with the feeling of loss and the transience of life. The aesthetic of melancholy embodied this fascination with pathos during the first few years of the Republican period, during which time the literary tradition of daowang took on a new meaning facilitated by modern print. While the “social circulation of grief” was confined to friends and intellectual peers in Ming-Qing China (Huang 2018: 141–142), the emergence of fiction of pathos allowed the general readership to participate in collective mourning, both imaginary and real. Sentimental 3

Fiction Daily was a newspaper edited by Xu Zhenya and Xu Jinfu and published between December 1922 and September 1923.

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fiction enjoyed extraordinary success at a time when the common readers in the cities, for the first time, had quick access to modern newspapers and fiction press. As we have seen in the case of Jade Pear Spirit, earlier romantic fiction usually appeared in newspaper literary supplements to attract a wide audience. Readers were sometimes invited by newspaper editors and authors to compose poems or write commentaries in response to certain serialized novels. Once accepted, their responses appeared in the newspaper. Later, readers’ contributions were often included when serialized novels were published in book form. This literary publishing practice of the popular press built a special dynamic between print media, authors, texts, and readers, enabling readers’ interaction with both the authors and other readers. Such interaction greatly facilitated the expression of shared experiences and collective feelings. More than any other fiction genre, sentimental novels that laid emphasis on mourning and mental anguish could evoke readers’ sympathy and inspire the sharing of personal experiences. A Sad Story of Lanniang (Lanniang aishi 兰娘哀史) and A Story of Sorrow in Yutian (Yutian henshi 玉田恨史) revealed the relationships between writing, reading, and mourning in the transitional era of modern China. Wu Shuangre’s A Sad Story of Lanniang is a mournful story about a young widow’s grief. Lanniang’s newly-wed husband devotes himself to preparing for the civil examinations. He leaves home soon after his marriage to take the examinations, but unfortunately falls ill and dies during his journey. While Lanniang is still mourning her husband, her mother also dies of an illness. The heirless Lanniang gives up hope in her life and follows them to the grave. Like Jade Pear Spirit, the story ends with a distressing scene at a cemetery where the author-narrator deplores that Lanniang’s infatuation drove her to die for love. The story was serialized in People’s Right simultaneously with Jade Pear Spirit in 1912, and when it was published in book form the next year, nearly half of the book’s contents were a collection of prefaces and dedicative poems, mostly solicited from People’s Right readers.4 A similar story of mourning, A Story of Sorrow in Yutian, by Chen Diexian, was serialized in “Free Talk” (Ziyou tan 自由谈), the literary supplement of Shenbao 申 报, one of the most widely circulated newspapers in Republican Shanghai. According to Chen, he wrote this fiction of pathos upon the request of Wang Dungen 王钝根, the editor of “Free Talk.” Wang’s brother-in-law, a young student studying in Shanghai, died of an illness at the age of twenty-one, after returning home to reunite with his wife. The grieving wife, Mrs. Huang, couldn’t bear the pain of loss and died a year later on the same day (Chen 1913). A Story of Sorrow in Yutian is a lengthy monologue, told from the first-person point of view of the wife. It delineates a young couple’s domestic life, and details the wife’s melancholy and despair in mourning her beloved husband, showing how bereavement and depression gradually exhaust her will to live. The novel likely drew upon Chen’s own experience of mourning his first lover, who also died of melancholia because of unfulfilled love.5 A Story of Sorrow in Yutian met with great success, moving numerous readers to tears. A female reader 4

People’s Right published Wu Shuangre’s announcement to solicit readers’ poems about A Sad Story of Lanniang in 1913, right before the story was published in book form. 5 For a study of Chen Diexian’s life and autobiographical novels, see Hanan (2004: 199–216).

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named Yongxia Nüshi 詠霞女士 wrote poems about the story and indicated that the appeal of this story came from its “psychological exploration of infatuated love,” as well as its successful portrayal of sorrows and sufferings (Chen 1915/1934: 2). Lanyun Nüshi 嬾云女士, Chen Diexian’s wife, contributed four sentimental poems in response to the novel. In these poems, she compares it with Chen’s earlier, semiautobiographical novel Destiny of Tears (Leizhu yuan 泪珠缘), and remarks: “You understand the woman’s sorrow so much, isn’t it because you have had the same experience in your previous life?” (Chen 1934: 2–3). In June 1913, “Free Talk” placed an announcement soliciting and encouraging readers’ contributions to the upcoming book version of A Story of Sorrow in Yutian: “If you are touched by its pathos, you are welcome to send us your poems, prefaces, postscripts, or fine illustrations. When the book is published, we will send you the book to express our gratitude” (Aiqing xiaoshuo 1913: 13). In the next few months, over two hundred classical poems dedicated to the story appeared in the “Nexus Through Writings” (Wenzi yinyuan 文字因缘) column of “Free Talk,” lamenting death, unfortunate love, and the transitoriness of life. As promised, these poems were collected in the book A Story of Sorrow in Yutian, published in 1915, which consists of only fifty-two pages of the story and more than eighty pages of poems and prefaces. In his preface, Dong Yuan 东园 commented: “I am a person of sorrow, burdened by sentiments; you wrote this story of sorrow to accompany me in distress” (Chen 1934: 3). It was precisely because of such empathy and exchange of emotional experiences that authors and readers formed a sentimental community through the circulation of melancholy. From newspapers to books, from novels to poetry, a sense of communal belonging was fostered through the reading, weeping, and mourning processes. Just like Xu Zhenya’s works, A Sad Story of Lanniang and A Story of Sorrow in Yutian not only serve as examples of the circulation of melancholy in public media, but also demonstrate how private emotional life gained increasing prominence for cultured readers. Both Lanniang and Mrs. Huang were extolled as paragons of virtue and love, and their deaths represented the highest form of passion, sincerity, and loyalty. Like Liniang in Jade Pear Spirit, these women are beautiful, talented, cultured, and emotionally attached to their deceased husbands and husbands’ families. Deeply saddened by the loss of their loved ones, they experience depression during their period of mourning, which ends with them following their husbands in death. Many of the dedicated poems written by readers were sentimental love poems disguised as cries of mourning, with their candid celebration of conjugal love and passion. Although some poems were complimentary of the characters’ widow’s chastity, a female virtue highly valued in Confucian culture, the emphasis was placed more on emotional than moral commitments. In other words, these young widows were not seen as being oppressed by the patriarchal family system; rather, they die for love, of their own volition, instead of fulfilling their moral duties. Their resolution to die for their deceased husbands is the ultimate expression of their passionate love. Despite the “Confucian aversion to conjugal intimacy and especially its public display” (Huang 2018: 7), the poetic responses to these stories of mourning, published first in newspapers and then collected in books, formed a very public expression of

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sentimentality and private feelings, as the orthodox values of family and gender norms started fading away and adapting to the demands of modern life. In the case of A Sad Story of Lanniang, for example, both the author and readers scorned career success obtained through civil examinations in traditional China. The narrator made a remark about the futility of China’s civil service system, calling Lanniang’s husband “a ghost of eight-legged essays.” A poem by one reader admonished young people not to prioritize the pursuit of fame: They thought domestic life would undermine official ranks, so they rate fame above relationships. No one could expect that half a year of conjugal happiness has vanished like bubbles in a moment. (Wu 1913: 21–22)

Another poem expressed sympathy for Lanniang: “In her posthumous letter, she deeply regretted that she had let her husband seek imperial titles” (Wu 1913: 12). The line was adapted from a Tang poem entitled “Lament in Boudoirs” (Guiyuan 闺怨) by Wang Changling 王昌龄. Evoking the guiyuan theme in classic poetry, readers not only showed compassion for the melancholy of the heroine, but also reevaluated the Confucian reverence for scholar-official accomplishment in the public realm. In writing mournful poems, these readers affirmed the significance of domestic bliss, conjugal relationships, and women’s private lives.

3.5 Conclusion Sentimental stories riddled with miseries, anguish, tears, and the cruelty of fate achieved unprecedented success in the early Republican fiction market. In a 1943 essay on love and literature, Yuqie 予且, a popular writer in Shanghai, pointed out the extent to which Xu Zhenya’s Chronicle of the Great Tear of Bygone Days and My Wife, and Chen Diexian’s A Story of Sorrow in Yutian had enjoyed wide circulation before the 1920s. “Almost every young student who could write some classical Chinese had read them” (Yuqie 1943/1999: 400). As discussed, Jade Pear Spirit is a romantic dramatization of melancholy love and pathos, pushing its principal characters to their limits under extreme situations. What attracted these young readers was the exploration of the intimate and emotional lives of the characters in these mournful stories, and, in particular, the characters’ intense emotional and psychological pain in facing loss, separation, and desolation. The trend of fiction of pathos in twentieth-century China, with its synthesis of the scholar-beauty tradition, the literati convention of daowang, the personal and elegiac narrative voice, and lyricism, would have been impossible without the development of the modern press and the new author-reader dynamic. Moreover, fiction of pathos presented an aesthetic of melancholy, which was characterized by emotional and aesthetic experiences that had been neglected or downplayed in Chinese literary tradition but that captured the hearts of the urban

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readers of its time. The genre signified a new literary interest in the private sphere of emotions. Such an inward turn in the narrative gave rise to a “community of love” based on private autonomy in the realm of intimate relationships. Both the authors and readers of these tragic romances participated in a collective mourning process that allowed them to convey their emotional reactions to various losses and grief within the embrace of a sentimental community. In doing so, they authenticated their individual sentiments and capacity to mourn, empathize, and endure the experiences of melancholy and loss, and, at the same time, confirmed their emotional connections to a larger community of love, in the face of the cultural crises and confusion brought about by rapid social change.

References Aiqing xiaoshuo (1913, June 27). Shenbao, p. 13. Chen, D. (1913, June 7, Tianxu wosheng). Yutian henshi [A story of sorrow in Yutian]. Shenbao, p. 13. Chen, D. (1934). Yutian henshi [A story of sorrow in Yutian]. Shanghai: Xuyuan bianjishe (Original work published 1915). Chen, J. [Jingzhi] (1971). Yuanyang hudiepai dashi Xu Zhenya [A master of Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies school]. Zhanggu yuekan, 1, 65–70. Chen, J. [Jianhua] (2015). Gonghe zhuti yu simi wenxue: Zai lun minguo chunian wenxue yu wenhua de fei jijin zhuyi zhuanxing [The Republican identity and private literature: The non-radical literary and cultural transitions in early Republican China]. Ershiyi shiji, 152, 65–83. Chow, R. (1991). Woman and Chinese modernity: The politics of reading between west and east. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Fan, B. (Ed.). (1994). Aiqing juzi: Yuanhu pai kaishan zu Xu Zhenya [A romantic writer: The forerunner of Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies school, Xu Zhenya]. Nanjing: Nanjing chubanshe. Fan, B. (Ed.). (2000). Zhongguo jinxiandai tongsu wenxueshi [A history of popular literature in modern China] (Vol. 1). Nanjing: Jiangsu jiaoyu chubanshe. Fan, Y. (1984). Minguo jiupai xiaoshuo shilue [A brief history of old-style fiction in Republican China]. In S. Wei (Ed.), Yuanyang hudie pai yanjiu ziliao [Research materials on the Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies school] (Vol. 1, pp. 268–363). Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe. Fish, S. (1980). Is there a text in this class? The authority of interpretive communities. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Freud, S. (1957). Mourning and melancholia. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 14, pp. 243–258). London: Hogarth Press (Original work published 1917). Gu, M. (1928). Tijuan xu lu [A sequel to Crying Cuckoo]. Huzhou: Wuzhou shuju. Habermas, J. (1991). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society (T. Burger, Trans.). Cambridge: MIT Press. Hanan, P. (2004). Chinese fiction of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Essays by Patrick Hanan. New York: Columbia University Press. Hsia, C. T. (2004). Hsü Chen-ya’s Yü-li hun: An essay in literary history and criticism. In C. T. Hsia on Chinese literature (pp. 269–309). New York: Columbia University Press. Huang, M. (2001). Desire and fictional narrative in late imperial China. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center. Huang, M. (2018). Intimate memory: Gender and mourning in late imperial China. Albany: State University of New York Press.

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Lee, H. (2007). Revolution of the heart: A genealogy of love in China, 1900–1950. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Lepenies, W. (1992). Melancholy and society (J. Gaines & D. Jones, Trans.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Link, P. (1981). Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies: Popular fiction in early twentieth-century Chinese cities. Berkeley: University of California Press. Luo, J. (1919, Zhixi). Jinri Zhongguo zhi xiaoshuojie [Fiction in contemporary China]. Xinchao, 1(1), 112–123. Mao, P. (2021). Popular magazines and fiction in Shanghai, 1914–1925: Modernity, the cultural imaginary, and the middle society. Lanham: Lexington Books. Rundquist, E. (2017). Free indirect style in modernism: Representations of consciousness. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Tang, X. (2000). Chinese modern: The heroic and the quotidian. Durham: Duke University Press. Tsai, C. (2008). Chumu shangxin cheng ke ai: Yi Minquan bao de lunshu changyu chongjie Yu li hun deng aiqing xiaoshuo [Yu li hun as serials in the discoursive field of Min-qüan Bao]. Zhongzheng daxue zhongwen xueshu niankan, 12, 121–160. Wei Xu Zhenya xiansheng furen jing zheng daoci [Soliciting tributes for Xu Zhenya’s wife] (1923, July 24). Xiaoshuo ribao, p. 1. Wu, J. (1991). Henhai [Sea of regret]. In Z. Wu, H. Duanmu & M. Shi (Eds.), Zhongguo jindai wenxue daxi [A treasury of modern Chinese literature] (Vol. 8, pp. 247–322). Shanghai: Shanghai shudian (Original work published 1906). Wu, S. (1913). Lanniang aishi [A sad story of Lanniang]. Shanghai: Minquan chubanshe. Xu, J. (1984). Yanqing xiaoshuo tan [On romantic fiction]. In H. Rui, B. Fan, X. Zheng, S. Xu & C. Yuan (Eds.), Yuanyang hudie pai wenxue ziliao [Literary materials on the Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies school] (Vol. 1, pp. 38–40). Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe (Original work published 1923). Xu, N (1908, Juewo). Yu zhi xiaoshuo guan [My view on fiction]. In P. Chen & X. Xia (Eds.), Ershi shiji Zhongguo xiaoshuo lilun ziliao: 1897–1916 [Materials on theories of fiction in twentieth-century China: 1897–1916] (Vol. 1, pp. 310–316]. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe. Xu, Z. (1923). The sorrow of a husband [Gupen yihen]. Shanghai: Qinghua shuju. Xu, Z. (1931). Zhenya langmo [Zhenya’s unrestrained words]. Shanghai: Qinghua shuju (Original work published 1915). Xu, Z. (1991a). Xue hong lei shi [Chronicle of the great tear of bygone days]. In Z. Wu, H. Duanmu & M. Shi (Eds.), Zhongguo jindai wenxue daxi [A treasury of modern Chinese literature] (Vol. 8, pp. 596–857). Shanghai: Shanghai shudian (Original work published 1916). Xu, Z. (1991b). Yu li hun [Jade pear spirit]. In Z. Wu, H. Duanmu, & M. Shi (Eds.), Zhongguo jindai wenxue daxi [A treasury of modern Chinese literature] (Vol. 8, pp. 426–595). Shanghai: Shanghai shudian (Original work published 1913). Yao, M. (1989). Shuanghuan ji ba [Postscript to The Story of Two Maids]. In P. Chen & X. Xia (Eds.), Ershi shiji Zhongguo xiaoshuo lilun ziliao: 1897–1916 [Materials on theories of fiction in twentieth-century China: 1897–1916] (Vol. 1, pp. 529–530]. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe (Original work published 1916). Yuqie (1999). Yuqie wenji [Collected works of Yuqie]. Zhongguo xiandai wenxue guan (Ed.). Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe. Zhang, J. (1984). Zai chubanjie ershi nian [Twenty years in the publishing circle]. In Minguo congshu [Collections on Republican China] (Series 2, Vol. 86, pp. 1–223). Shanghai: Shanghai shudian (Original work published 1938). Zheng, Y. (1983). Shubao huajiu [Old tales of books and newspapers]. Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe. Zheng, Y. (1987). Qingmo minchu wentan yishi [Anecdotes of the literary world in the late Qing and early Republican China]. Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe.

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Peijie Mao received a Ph.D. in Chinese from Stanford University. She is currently an associate professor of Chinese at ShanghaiTech University (China), and the author of Popular Magazines and Fiction in Shanghai, 1914–1925: Modernity, the Cultural Imaginary, and the Middle Society (Lexington Books, 2021). Her research interests include modern Chinese fiction, popular culture, and media studies.

Chapter 4

Mourning Does not Become Beiju: Forging a Tragic Spirit of Heroic Resistance in 1920s Chinese Intellectual Discourse and Dramaturgy Letizia Fusini

Abstract The concepts of tragedy and the tragic reached the shores of China’s intellectual arena at the turn of the twentieth century within the context of the New Culture and the May Fourth Movements and as a result of a systematic study of Western literature and critical theory, where tragedy had generally been considered the most sublime of all literary genres and the tragic was viewed as integral to the human condition, especially from the nineteenth century. Tragedy captured the imagination of several Chinese intellectuals and playwrights who, from the 1920s onwards, attempted to create their own tragic works (beiju 悲剧) with a view of forging a modern Chinese tragic spirit. But what are the characteristics of this “tragic” spirit, and how does it compare to “Western” ideas of tragedy? Moreover, does it add something new to the ongoing debates on the relationship between tragedy and modernity? The Chinese intellectuals’ early conceptualisation(s) of this genre in terms of content, structure and social function will be appraised as part of a comprehensive, transnational discourse that seeks to incorporate beiju within the broader realm of tragic theory. Particularly, by scrutinising the links between beiju and Aristotelian tragedy, it will be argued that the idea of beiju may be said to reconcile the two apparently antagonistic categories of tragedy and modernity in a way that prefigures Brecht’s epic theatre. Additionally, through an analysis of the tragic conflict underlying three tragic texts written in the 1920s by three different Chinese authors (Tian Han 田汉, Ouyang Yuqian 欧阳予倩 and Bai Wei 白薇), it will be shown that the spirit of beiju (literally “sorrowful play”) is not based on the celebration of mourning, as suggested by term’s implicit reference to Trauerspiel (literally “mourning play”), but rather consists in actively opposing evil and adversity through acts of heroic resistance that wipe out the protagonist’s initial grief, thus providing the audience with valuable models to learn from. Keywords Aristotle · Beiju · Brecht · Comparative drama · Epic theatre · Modernity · Tragedy · Trauerspiel L. Fusini (B) SOAS, University of London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024 C. S. Garfield Lau and K. K. Y. Chan (eds.), The Poetics of Grief and Melancholy in East-West Conflicts and Reconciliations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-9821-0_4

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4.1 Introduction Beiju 悲剧, the Chinese term for tragedy, is not merely a neologism borrowed from the Japanese language, as well as a calque of the German word Trauerspiel, but also encapsulates a full-fledged reinvention of the notion of tragedy. First theorised in the early Republican age within the context of the New Culture Movement (Xin wenhua yundong 新文化运动 1915–1925), beiju was conceived of by its interpreters as a true incarnation of the drama of modern times not only because it dispensed with the traditional dramatic device of the so-called “great reunion” (da tuanyuan 大团 圆) but also because it introduced and upheld a set of new values aimed at reforming not just the theatrical conventions but also the mindset of the Chinese nation. By glorifying individualism, free agency, revolt, and progress, beiju was meant to show that suffering is not caused by unfathomable forces but by human injustice and as such it reveals the contradictions inherent to human society. Going even further, suffering was presented as an opportunity to shake the people’s consciousness and to raise their awareness of reality as historical, hence fundamentally dynamic, and thus modifiable through human intervention. In other words, beiju does not take human suffering as an end in itself and does not encourage resignation in the face of evil. Rather than magnifying loss and devastation, and giving the impression that these events are irreversible, it spurs the audience to view the tragic conflict as grounded in the concrete realities of everyday life hence subject to an evolution that can have historical proportions. This view deeply resonates with the idea that, since its inception in the context of the Athenian polis, the genre of tragedy has gained prominence at times in which considerable social, political, and cultural transformations occurred, when the dominant values and morals were questioned, and the possibility of a new social order came into view (Wallace 2007). Similarly, Albert Camus (1970), himself a tragedian, once remarked that “the tragic age always seems to coincide with an evolution in which man, consciously or not, frees himself from an older form of civilization and finds that he has broken away from it without having found a new form which satisfies him” (Camus 1970: 195). Camus’ notion of ‘tragic age’ captures quite vividly the historical crisis that started to threaten the stability of the Chinese empire from as early as the first opium war (1839–1842) and culminated with the proclamation of the Republic in 1912. At the turn of the twentieth century, when it became evident that the imperial institutions had considerably weakened and the old morals had become stale and outdated, the Chinese intellectuals turned en masse to the western genre of tragedy, which they hailed as modern, and invented beiju.1 The circumstances under which beiju was born were not so dissimilar to those that brought about Attic tragedy. Felicity Rosslyn (2000), who explains the intermittent fascination of playwrights with tragedy as a response to “a contemporary disruption,” cogently observes that “tragedy depends on profound disturbances, like the invention of democracy in Athens […]” (Rosslyn 2000: 6). And democracy was precisely a The first intellectuals to make us of the term beiju in a Chinese context were Jiang Guanyun 蒋观 云 and Wang Guowei 王国维, in 1903 and 1904 respectively (See Fusini 2020: 16–17).

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key objective of the New Culture Movement that extolled the supposed “salvific” power of beiju. Although its etymological roots suggest a connection with the sub-genre of Trauerspiel (also known as Baroque tragedy), a type of drama centred on the spectacularization of psychological and physical suffering and on the exaltation of mourning as a means of interpreting reality and history, a striking feature of beiju is that it was not meant to simply portray sad events and much less so to sadden the audience. In a sense, beiju configured itself as a site of convergence between classical (i.e. Aristotelian) tragedy and modern drama in the guise of Brechtian epic theatre, two dramaturgical systems allegedly diametrically opposed that altogether exclude mourning and ascribe to the theatre a performative, i.e. productive, function. More specifically, both systems are meant to elicit a concrete reaction from the audience, be it emotional or intellectual. In Aristotle’s view, tragedy should induce the audience to experience two distinct yet interrelated emotions (pity and fear) with the purpose of achieving what he calls catharsis, a much-debated term which literally alludes to a kind of spiritual purification from said emotions. Brecht, instead, wanted the audience to remain intellectually vigilant while watching a play so that they could focus less on the characters’ own suffering than on the social circumstances that have generated that particular predicament. Since beiju has attracted little academic criticism so far, having been examined through the framework of reception studies (Gu 2017) and in relation to traditional Chinese culture (Falaschi 2002; Fusini 2020), in this chapter I intend to develop a theory of beiju in cross-cultural perspective. The Chinese intellectuals’ early conceptualisation(s) of this genre in terms of content, structure and social function will be appraised as part of a comprehensive, transnational discourse that seeks to incorporate beiju within the broader realm of tragic theory. Particularly, by scrutinising the links between beiju, Aristotelian tragedy, epic theatre and Trauerspiel, I will argue that the idea of beiju may be said to reconcile the two apparently antagonistic categories of tragedy and modernity in a way that recalls what Olga Taxidou has done in Tragedy, Modernity and Mourning (2004). Yet, while she proposed to reread Greek tragedy through the lens of Walter Benjamin’s and Bertolt Brecht’s fundamentally anti-tragic criticism of tragedy (Taxidou 2004), I propose to consider tragedy and modernity as the alpha and omega of beiju, In other words, it will be argued that beiju, while grounded on markedly Aristotelian premises, was oriented towards the transformation of society, thereby attributing to tragedy what Brecht considered an exclusive prerogative of an anti-tragic form of drama. This chapter consists of three sections. The first section focuses on the paradox of modern tragedy and elucidates the position of beiju alongside competing scholarly arguments that variously approach the relationship between tragedy and modernity, either denying the possibility for modern times to accommodate tragedy or maintaining that tragedy is a timeless genre, able to continuously regenerate itself. In the second section, beiju will be compared and contrasted with Aristotelian tragedy, Brecht’s epic theatre, and Benjamin’s notion of Trauerspiel. My aim is to produce a theoretical framework for beiju that will be tested in the third section, where I will seek to determine the nature of the tragic spirit conveyed by three beiju written in

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the 1920s: The Night the Tiger was Caught (Huo hu zhi ye 获虎之夜, 1922–1923) by Tian Han 田汉, Breaking out of Ghost Pagoda (Dachu youlingta 打出幽灵塔, 1928) by Bai Wei 白薇, and Pan Jinlian (潘金莲, 1928) by Ouyang Yuqian 欧阳 予倩. As we shall see next, the tragicness of these plays does not lie in cultivating a melancholy dimension that accentuates loss and promotes lamentation as the only possible reaction towards catastrophe, but rather in fostering a spirit of resistance and revolt, the latter being generally expressed through a specific theatrical gesture that is emotionally charged and socially oriented.

4.2 Tragedy, Modernity and Beiju One of the thorniest and most debated questions about tragedy as a dramatic genre concerns the latter’s relationship with modernity, particularly from a conceptual perspective. While tragic plays have continued to be staged across periods and cultures long after the decline of the Hellenic civilisation, several scholars and literary critics have struggled to recognise them as tragedies. In general, arguments that endorse the “untragicness” of modern tragedies contend that tragic drama (Attic and Elizabethan) and modern drama (19th- and 20th-century) propose two radically distinct views of humankind. While antiquity portrays human nature as an ambitious and quasi-divine entity that can compete with the gods, modernity regards man as a miserable creature, deprived of any agency and hence no longer holding a prominent role within the cosmos. To exemplify this claim, in The Modern Temper (1929), Joseph W. Krutch draws a comparison between Hamlet and Osvald (the protagonist of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts) and notes that while the former “has thrust upon him […] a duty to redress a wrong which concerns not merely him […] but the moral order of the universe” and that his death is a success rather than a failure because “not only has the universe regained his balance […] but a […] mighty mind has been given the opportunity […] to demonstrate the greatness of its spirit” (Krutch 1929: 130–131), the latter “has lost its ties with the natural and the supernatural world” and therefore his plight is of a more trivial nature and certainly not redemptive (Krutch 1929: 135). In The Mystic of Tragedy (1997), Chaman Ahuja proposes a more nuanced view of this issue, arguing that tragedy is certainly a multifaceted genre that has been modified and even “perverted” by various playwrights, yet he problematizes modern tragedies as being populated by “anti-heroes” (Ahuja 1997: 80, 89), for they no longer ascribe to humankind a triumphal role and an unwavering dignity, and do not offer any consolation but only limit themselves to highlight the most deplorable aspects of human existence. Ahuja calls them “tragedic plays”2 to stress the fact that they still show some residual tragic elements, such as an awareness of human nature as congenitally flawed, and yet “the overall result is the antithesis of the tragic” because rather than eliciting a certain faith in man, they crush him, thereby sinking the tragic down to the level of the pathetic and precipitating the audience into a state of deep sorrow 2

Emphasis added.

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(Ahuja 1997: 89). In The Death of Tragedy (1980/1961), George Steiner argues that what makes a conflict truly tragic is the element of transcendence and points out that in Greek tragedy the hero is powerless to avoid the destiny of suffering that has been arbitrarily imposed onto him by mysterious forces (Steiner 1980: 8). This perspective follows on from Nietzsche, for whom tragedy’s death coincided with the advent of Euripides, that he considered guilty of normalising the tragic conflict by bringing into play the dimension of human responsibility and subjectivity. On the opposite front, Arthur Miller’s and Raymond Williams’ respective theories of modern tragedy shift the focus from literature to life. In similar ways, they view tragedy as a real-life phenomenon, which emerges in phases of historical transition, characterized by unrest and uprisings. By identifying tragedy with rebellion and revolution, they make it possible for the common man to be admitted to the realm of tragic characters. Particularly, Miller (c1991) contends that the so-called “tragic flaw” is a universal trait, rather than a prerogative of those who possess a high social status or a morally superior personality and coincides with the hero’s inability to passively accept injustice. As he puts it, “Tragedy […] is the consequence of man’s total compulsion to evaluate himself justly” (Miller c1991: 86). Williams (2006) expands the purview of tragedy by linking it with the collective experience of the revolution, hence with the suffering of those who, in various historical moments, have sacrificed their lives to build a more rightful world. Williams calls “tragic” the iniquitous status quo that demands human intervention to redress it but also the revolution per se as it brings the resolution of the conflict. In Tragedy: vision and form (1981) Robert W. Corrigan theorises the existence of an immutable tragic spirit that he associates with the individual’s firm refusal to compromise (Corrigan 1981). Furthermore, in his book on the persistence of the idea of the tragic in modern times, Barnaba Maj (2003) contends that the kernel of tragic drama from the Greeks to the present has been the exposition of the dreadful and paralysing side of the human soul in a tendentious manner, i.e. by skilfully piecing together the sequence of actions so as to lay bare “the freedom of the [human] spirit, that can choose between good and evil” (Maj 2003: 61).3 He further argues that modern tragedy the focus from the hero to the masses, thus showing that the forces that can destroy humankind do not dwell in the will of some distant yet meddlesome gods but in the extremely advanced (manmade) technologies that revolutionised modern warfare. He concludes that tragedy reminds us in all times that human freedom is a double-edged sword. Within this highly polarised debate on modern tragedy, what does beiju bring to the conversation? To answer this question, it is imperative to clarify on which theoretical ground it was considered a form of modern drama by the Chinese intellectuals of the early Republican age. In principle, they were convinced that beiju, before being an innovative literary genre, was essentially another word to describe the dreadful state of affairs in which the Chinese nation had plummeted since the humiliating defeats in the nineteenth century wars against the Western powers and Japan, which 3

According to Maj, this moral freedom, which can have terrible consequences if misused, coincides with what the Greeks called deinón and the Latins called tremendum, i.e. “what terrifies and paralyzes” (Maj 2003: 60).

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had undermined the stability and credibility of the Qing empire, thus putting an end to the long-standing cultural and economic supremacy of the Chinese empire in East Asia. Simply put, the collapse of the Chinese imperial institutions was ascribed to the supposed backwardness of the traditional culture and its superstitions that induced the people to remain inert vis-à-vis the problems of society, assuming that they would automatically be resolved by some heavenly intervention in the guise of a deus ex machina. In this context, beiju seemed “modern” because the absence of a “satisfactory” ending, where wrongdoers are punished and the innocent are rewarded, shows that there is no such thing as a mechanism of karmic retribution or heavenly providence. For example, Hu Shi 胡适 (1996) considered the happy conclusion of classical plays as a “superstition of the past” (Hu 1996: 112) as well as a sign that traditional Chinese theatre was obsolete because it was totally estranged from reality. He therefore advocated an evolution of Chinese theatre and indicated beiju as a superior and progressive form of drama that clearly shows the social and material origins of evil. Xiong Foxi 熊佛西 (1926) and Bing Xin 冰心 (1926) both maintained that beiju manifested itself in the decline of their country and in the spiritual dejection of their compatriots who blamed Heaven for forsaking the Chinese nation. They were convinced the nation needed a repertoire of beiju in order to catch up with the “modern” and advanced Western world, for these were plays that could strengthen the free will of the individuals and compel them to take control of their lives and cooperate to rectify the faults of the Chinese society. Similarly, Lu Yin 庐隐 (1985) straightforwardly likened China to a large-scale beiju due to a range of man-made calamities such as social and economic inequality, famine, lack of resources etc. that prompted an increasing number of young people to commit suicide. Hong Shen 洪 深 (1932) highlighted beiju’s ability to reflect the Zeitgeist of a particular epoch and to steer society on the path of progress. To further substantiate his point, he makes a particular reference to Ibsen’s masterpiece A Doll’s House (1879) and mentions that while this play exposed the hypocrisy of the Norwegian society of his time, it also contributed to modify the views on marriage and divorce in Western society more generally. He argued that beiju unveils the connection between social evils and human decisions and that its adherence to reality is a consequence of leaving the main conflict unsolved. Ouyang Yuqian (1983) reiterated the idea that beiju is the most authentic kind of drama because “life is always a tragedy” and stressed that beiju arises when individual freedom is denied (Ouyang 1983: 214). Moreover, he identified the modernity of beiju with the conflict between the individual will and the social will. For him, an individual displays a tragic attitude when they refuse to succumb, and heroically steer the future of society towards a glorious horizon. In sum, what the notion of beiju brings to the debate about tragedy, and modernity is the belief in this genre’s ability to work towards and facilitate social progress by exerting a profound and positive impact on the audience. Arguably, these aspects make beiju a unique form of tragedy rather than a kind of “mournful play.”

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4.3 Looking Back at Aristotle, Anticipating Brecht: Beiju Versus Trauerspiel As previously anticipated, the term beiju entered the Chinese lexicon through the Japanese language, allegedly as a calque of the German compound-word Trauerspiel, whose literal meaning is “mournful play” and which in the mid-nineteenth century was used almost interchangeably with Tragödie.4 Although it is usually translated as “sorrow” or “sadness” in English, the noun bei 悲 refers to a specific emotional state that has a marked cultural significance and therefore cannot be considered an exact equivalent of “sadness”. It encapsulates a feeling of despondency caused by the awareness that it is impossible to change one’s destiny as this follows the course of a natural law. This term is usually found in Taoist texts and is generally associated with the autumn season and with ageing as the antechamber of death. Overall, bei equals a feeling of impotence and has therefore a pessimistic quality. Furthermore, albeit not directly connected with death and mourning, bei indicates the melancholia that surrounds the separation from a loved one. Mourning, instead, is encapsulated by the word ai 哀, which, however, excludes the element of fatalism (Ye 2001). As we shall see next, neither fatalism nor mourning is central to the idea of beiju. Below I will illustrate how the notion of beiju is deeply intertwined with Aristotle’s and Hegel’s respective conceptualisations of tragedy, and I will further explain how the modernity of beiju anticipates Brechtian ideas on epic theatre. Aristotle (c1991) defines tragedy as “the imitation of a complete action” and specifies that “without action there cannot be a tragedy” (Aristotle c1991: 2). He further notes that tragedy imitates a particular plot, i.e. the arrangement of incidents, which must include reversal (peripeteia) and recognition (anagnorisis) as these are suitable to elicit pity and fear from the audience because it enables the latter to discern a pattern of cause and effect in the hero’s plight. In other words, for Aristotle a play is most tragic when it is evident that the hero is fully responsible for his/her own downfall. To reinforce this claim, he states that the poet, unlike the historian, relates what can possibly happen “according to the law of probability” (Aristotle c1991: 6), hence implying that “necessity” (ananke) is not a synonym for a blind fate. Rather than passively undergoing his own destiny, Oedipus forges it through a series of actions that are meant to avoid the prophecy he received. In 19th-century German Idealism, the view that tragedy is predicated on the conflict between freedom and necessity became the catalyst for the formation of what has been recently called “the tragic ideologeme” (Carney 2005: 174), namely the tendency to reduce tragedy to a mere “drama of fate,” that capitalizes on man’s inability to control the course of his own existence. While Aristotle does not mention at all the element of “conflict,” the latter is central to the idea of beiju. As a matter of fact, and in parallel with the earliest philosophers of the tragic—most notably Schiller, Schlegel, Hegel and Schelling––the Chinese intellectuals who theorized beiju identified the Aristotelian notion of “action” with 4

One of the first Japanese writers to mention such a word (in 1892) was the leading Meiji poet, novelist and critic Kitamura Tokoku who was heavily influenced by European romanticism.

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the Idealistic notion of “conflict,” that they defined as a “clash of wills” (意志的冲 突) thus echoing what the German philosophers maintained about what constitutes tragedy’s internal engine: an unmendable contradiction between two absolutes.5 One is the hero’s free will, the other is an opposite will that can be incarnated by another individual or by any other entity that poses a limit to the hero’s struggle for selfaffirmation. What renders such a conflict tragic is that the intensity of the hero’s free will must be directly proportional to the magnitude of the counterpart’s free will. In discussing the essence of Greek tragedy, Hong Shen constructs an analogous discourse for he observes that the tragic heroes fight mightily to avoid misfortune, and in so doing, they are a testament to the greatness of humankind’s spiritual and moral resilience (Hong 1932: 3). When defining the type of conflict that is at the heart of beiju, Bing Xin and Xiong Foxi mention that it can be either an internal or external struggle whereby the hero’s willpower, determination to succeed and free will emerge prominently, thus making him stand out as a champion of individualism. Particularly, for Bing Xin it is essential that the conflict be what triggers the tragedy’s force motive and as such it has to prompt the individual to experience a dilemma. To better articulate her point, she uses the Biblical story of Abraham as an example and argues that the latter cannot be considered a tragedy because the patriarch did not show the slight sign of resistance to the will of God who asked him to sacrifice his own son (Bing 1926: 42). Xiong Foxi lists various examples of tragic situations drawn from the conflicts that typically occurred in the Chinese society of his day, most of which concerned family relationships. For him, death, illness and old age are not tragic per se but what makes them part of a beiju is the hero’s firm willingness to resist them (Xiong 1926: 40). For example, he maintains that Yuan Shikai’s death is not tragic for truly tragic is his failure to become an emperor despite all his efforts to reach his goal.6 Similarly, the peripeties of a young person who wishes to become an artist but has to fight against their parents’ will can be considered tragic, and the same can be said of those who strive to accumulate merits through good deeds in the hope of attaining salvation but are impeded to do so by the external circumstances. Other critics, such as Hu Shi, Lu Yin, and Ouyang Yuqian, focus more on the tragic effect, yet prioritising compassion over fear. In their view, the audience should naturally and instantly sympathise with the hero, and, only at later stage, they should feel compelled to reflect on what they would do should they face a similar predicament in their lives, and compassion should give way to fear. Furthermore, Lu Yin makes an important point when she contends that the cultural workers should feel compassionate about the social tragedies that affect the everyday life of the Chinese people to the extent that they should feel the urge to transpose them into dramas aimed at providing consolation to those who have been wronged but also at spurring them to develop a consciousness, “a commitment to fight and finding a light in the darkness” (Lu 1985: 61). Such a statement opens a new vista on the tragic effect, 5

What Hegel (c1991) calls two equally legitimate powers (Hegel c1991: 22). Yuan Shikai (1859–1916) was a prominent military commander who served as the first president of the Republic of China.

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whereby pity and fear do not annihilate but rather stimulate the audience’s ability to remain critical vis-à-vis the dramatic events, which links beiju with the apparently anti-tragic stance of epic theatre. The insistence on the instructive function of the theatre is a guiding principle of Brecht’s theory of epic theatre, which is based on the idea that the audience should watch the staged events with a detached eye and with an attitude of intellectual alertness to avoid being mesmerised by the characters’ emotional universe. Brecht condemned the Aristotelian notion of catharsis, as he interpreted it as the mechanism through which the audience is compelled to identify with the characters hence missing the opportunity to analyse critically their actions (Brecht 2015: 141–142). This mechanism would prevent them from imagining any potential alternatives to the vicissitudes that cause them to suffer. As an antidote to empathy (Einfühlung), which he thought would alienate the audience by clouding their judgment with illusions, he proposed to defamiliarize (verfremden) the staged events to encourage the spectators to consider them unusual and hence worthy of close observation. Despite his general abhorrence of tragedy, Brecht (2015) agrees with Aristotle’s idea that the kernel of the dramatic mimesis is the plot, namely a certain way of tying together the various stages of a story so that the laws of cause and effect can be exposed. The idea of beiju anticipates the Brechtian belief that the audience should be shaken from the apathy that is said to be induced by the structure of the “old theatre” with its preference for satisfactory conclusions and the principle of poetic justice. As Hu Shi explains, this tendency was so deeply ingrained in the expectations of the Chinese theatregoers of his time that it could be considered as both a superstition and a sign of “intellectual fragility” (Hu 1996: 112) consisting in the belief that human misfortune is caused by “fate playing with people” (Hu 1996: 113), while the new theatre (i.e. beiju) should enable the audience to realize that evil and suffering do not have a metaphysical origin. However, unlike epic theatre, beiju ascribes to the Aristotelian catharsis the power to keep the audience attentive during the performance and above all to urge them to feel the need to do something to eliminate social injustice. While Brecht thought that empathy destroyed the mental activity of the spectators, by making them uncritically side with the characters, the Chinese intellectuals maintained that compassion would bring the audience to question the status quo and to become more sensitive to the interests of the nation. Bridging the gap between Aristotelian drama and epic drama as based on Brecht’s detailed comparative table, beiju enables the audience to simultaneously “have feelings” and to turn them into “insights”, and to be “immersed in an incident” while also being “put in opposition to it” (Brecht 2015: 111). This apparent contradiction is cogently solved by Hu Shi who argues that an unhappy conclusion like the one that characterizes The Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng 红楼梦) “may sadden the readers but can also help them become conscious of the inherent evil of family autocracy, as well as prompting them to reflect both on existential problems and on the issues of

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a patriarchal society” (Brecht 2015: 113).7 He further notes that what beiju underscores about human nature is that the people tend to become more prone to reflection and introspection and, consequently, more mindful of the needs of others when they are facing hardships and sorrows. Xiong Foxi goes even further and contends that beiju, with its emphasis on situations where injustice prevails, “is an art that fosters human honesty and good conscience” (Xiong 1985: 265). Therefore, it can be argued that dramatic empathy generates compassion, which then turns into indignation and culminates with solidarity at a wider level. When Xiong stresses that beiju’s function is to “protect justice,” (Xiong 1985: 264) his reasoning echoes Brecht’s arguing that the spectator is not merely an observer but also a producer of the social and historical conditions that should enable the preservation of justice: “The spectators are welcomed into the theatre as those who change the world rather than accept it, who intervene in natural and social processes in order to master them” (Xiong 1985: 144). Although beiju is discussed exclusively with reference to its functional aspects and its effects on the audience, while performance methods are overlooked, I believe that there are reasons for arguing that the idea of beiju also entails a kind of V-effect, which is meant, in Brecht’s words, to “estrange an incident or character simply by taking from the incident or character what is self-evident, familiar, obvious in order to produce wonder and curiosity” (Brecht 2015: 143). In beiju this would be achieved by abolishing the traditional dramatic device of the great reunion so that the audience could experience something completely different from what they had been used to see in the “old theatre”. Hence, in a truly Brechtian style, the spectators are no longer “immersed in something” but are “put in opposition to it” (Brecht 2015: 65), because the freezing up of the dramatic conflict, whereby the play ends with an unresolved contradiction, enables the audience to avoid getting spellbound and passively wait for some external agent to intervene as if by magic. Forcibly interrupting the traditionally cyclical nature of the plot should cause the audience to feel unsatisfied and to feel the urge to question the logic behind what they have just seen. Particularly illuminating in this regard is Hong Shen’s (1932) usage of the verb jidong 激动 to indicate how the drama of modern times (i.e. beiju) can elicit a reaction from the audience. By employing this verb in lieu of the cognate gandong 感动, which means “to touch someone emotionally”, he points out that beiju’s effect on the audience is to “agitate” them (Hong 1932: 7). The character 激, which visually represents a rising tide, is typically found in idiomatic expressions that indicate, for example, the arousal of public indignation (激起公愤), the causing of a commotion ( 激起一场风波, or the evoking of a strong opposition (激起强烈的反抗). It therefore signifies a violent surge of emotions that shake the spectators’ consciousness rather than anesthetizing it. Although they belong to the same semantic field, these two verbs may be said to represent two different phases of the audience’s desired response to beiju. Gandong may equal the empathy stage, as the audience is emotionally touched by the suffering of the hero and impressed by his moral strength, while jidong may

7

Written in the eighteenth century, it is considered the greatest classic Chinese novel of all times.

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equal the indignation stage, as the audience feels that something could have been done to prevent the hero’s demise. To better understand how the idea of beiju can be said to reconcile tragedy and modernity, it is now necessary to undertake a brief comparison with the idea of the Trauerspiel, which, unlike epic theatre, adopts a passive approach to the problem of evil and of human suffering. The “idea” of the Trauerspiel was developed by Walter Benjamin to emancipate this form of drama, which had been dismissed as a kind of “failed tragedy” (Benjamin 1998: 50) in previous scholarship. As such, he drew a clear distinction between Trauerspiel and Tragödie, applying the latter to Greek tragedy. In his view, the term Trauerspiel designates a range of German-language plays written throughout the seventeenth century by a group of Silesian playwrights, that share a close bond to the doctrine of the Reformation, which is centred on the belief that redemption cannot be achieved through good deeds––as they are always insufficient––but only through God’s grace, which is entirely gratuitous and mysteriously bestowed on man (Benjamin 1998: 78–79). The post-Renaissance view of the cosmos as no longer governed by teleological laws, the decentring of man’s position in the world, the perception of reality as a heap of ruins, deprived of universal meaning, and the reduction of history to a set of disconnected knots facilitated the emergence of a pervasive mood of mourning and melancholia linked to the loss of all certainties concerning the scope of human existence (Benjamin 1998: 81). This overwhelming inclination to mourn the loss of a once glorious past, combined with a sceptical view of the workings of history are reflected in Trauerspiel’s tendency to portray “the powers and limitations of the sovereign will” (Hoxby 2018: 522). Indeed, the typical protagonists of this type of plays are rulers who embody the dual role of tyrants and sacrificial victims. While a state of emergency prompts them to act as absolute monarchs, they nevertheless find that their actions are ineffective because all human actions are and hence doomed to fall into the void. Consequently, their decisions are slow to come, and their efforts are not conducive to salvation. Still, to exemplify the figure of the mournful sovereign, Benjamin draws on English––rather than German––drama and singles out the character of Hamlet (Benjamin 1998: 157– 158), whose grief has a far wider scope than the loss of his father and its consequences for the Danish court, but “refers rather to a much more state of disenchantment with what Hamlet sees as an empty, sterile, and barren world, which he describes as what ‘appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours’ (2.2)” (Ferber c2013: 30–31). In a world that escapes the grasp of man, where humankind has been downgraded to the level of passive observers, the theatre responds by produce plays that “are not so much concerned with the deeds of the hero as with his suffering” (Ferber c2013: 72) and that do “not ask audiences to connect the present to the past and the future through a complex chain of causes and effects” but have “the power to absorb them in the moment” (Hoxby 2018: 523). Hence, Trauerspiel dramatizes the sorrows and the lamentations of a subject whose existence unfolds itself in an “impersonal universe of indefinite extent and duration” (Hoxby 2018: 516) and is dissolved under the blows of his own passions, which are ostensibly magnified. As Benjamin puts it, these plays do not aim to sadden

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the audience are aimed for an audience who is already mournful. In the same way, they are not meant to thematize mourning in a literal sense but to reinterpret it as a kind of generalized Zeitgeist, namely the belief in a world-order that has lost its originally messianic quality, the latter being the guiding principle of (the idealist interpretation of) tragedy, of Brechtian epic drama and of beiju. As a matter of fact, a major difference between tragedy and Trauerspiel according to Benjamin is that the sacrifice of the tragic hero “is given in favour of a coming community” (Finkelde 2009: 54, emphasis in the original) because his failure to establish a new system of values based on reason rather than on myth can be redeemed by the audience who watches the play with a view of learning from the hero’s moral abnegation. Instead, the audience of a Trauerspiel is aware that they live in an irremediably fallen world where the divine grace appears only intermittently and mysteriously to relieve humankind from the constraints of original sin. As seen above, the idea of beiju lacks any reference to mourning, melancholia and the passive acceptance of misfortune, while emphasizing action as an essential ingredient of the tragic conflict, and compassion as the precondition for enabling the audience to feel capable of directly influencing the course of history. Following on from Martin Revermann (2021), who offered a new reading of epic theatre by reconfiguring it as a form of tragedy, beiju can be defined as a type of drama “where audiences would not, as previously, hope that the ‘entanglements’ […] they were watching would, somehow and by chance, be resolved happily[…]. Instead, those entanglements would now be exposed as ‘caused by humans, hence terminable by humans’” (Revermann 2021: 446). Before examining the extent to which the idea of beiju that was developed by the Chinese intellectuals of the New Culture movement can be found reflected in the dramatic output of the same period, I will briefly summarise its characteristics into what could be considered a provisional theory of beiju. Beiju is the imitation of real-life conflicts of high intensity because none of the opposing parties is willing to surrender. On one side, there is a protagonist who strives to assert his/her own will, while on the other there is an antagonist who strongly opposes and oppresses him/her. Beiju is meant to arouse compassion and fear in the audience so that, by developing a deep sympathy for the tragic character who is crushed by an unjust social order that impedes his/her personal freedom, they can feel compelled to reflect on what to do if they were involved in a similar situation. As a matter of fact, the mission of beiju is to raise the public consciousness and teach the people to interpret the social and historical circumstances of post-imperial China as a sort of tragedy, yet fostering the idea that evil is a human creation and that the belief in the existence of a divine providence represented by the dramatic device of the great reunion in classical theatre is not only an illusion but also a potential stumbling block against social progress. A distinctive trademark of beiju is the arresting of the tragic action at a moral cliff-hanger, whereby evil ultimately triumphs, or the hero dies just after accomplishing his/her mission, as this will leave the audience emotionally shocked but also frustrated and indignant. Beiju can hence be seen as a performative kind of drama because the suffering of the tragic hero is not meant to demoralise the audience or to promote a culture of

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passive acceptance of evil as an inevitable reality. Instead, it is meant to shake the audience from the deeps and to call them to actively fight against injustice outside the theatre. Therefore, contrary to what its name would suggest, Beiju does not overemphasize a fatalistic view of suffering nor is it a type of drama where mourning takes centre stage. Rather, by thematizing the iniquities that were perpetrated in the Chinese society of the post-imperial period and especially linked to the patriarchal system of Confucian culture, it brings them to the attention of the Chinese spectators as a call to action. To borrow Revermann’s words on epic drama, beiju is a kind of “cruel theatre, not in the Artaudian but in the Brechtian way.” (Revermann 2021: 445).

4.4 Forging a Tragic Spirit of Resistance to Injustice and Overcoming Mourning in Three Early Modern Beiju of the 1920s Having defined beiju as the imitation of real-life situations predicated on an unmendable and highly intense conflict of opposite wills, I will now examine how this theoretical principle, which joins together two apparently antagonistic dramatic systems such as Aristotelian tragedy and epic theatre, is applied in three popular plays of the 1920s, which can be reasonably categorised as tragedies. These are The Night the Tiger was Caught (1922–1923) by Tian Han, Breaking out of the Ghost Pagoda (1928) by Bai Wei, and Pan Jinlian (1928) by Ouyang Yuqian. I have selected these three works primarily because they fulfil what appears to be the core dramatic element of beiju, namely the absence of the great reunion, which is replaced by what I have called “the arresting of the tragic action,” namely the abrupt ending of the play at a cut-off point where the agonistic confrontation between the hero and his/her nemesis reaches a climax but no resolution occurs. Particularly, I argue that the deliberate elimination of the great reunion, which is meant to work as an eye-opener for the audience, can be considered somehow analogous to the Brechtian notion of “Gestus,” that the German playwright defines as “attitudes adopted by the characters towards one another” and to which he ascribes a distinctly social meaning as through it a very clear standpoint is asserted (Brecht 2015: 248). Furthermore, although still a matter of academic controversy, Gestus can be said to provide a tangible representation of the contrast between how reality as it is and reality as it should be, between the status quo and a new order that strives to impose itself. In the case of beiju, this manifests itself as a symbolic, conspicuous action that powerfully embodies the protagonist’s unwillingness to surrender in the tragic struggle, thereby befitting the general idea that such gestus “also affirms the power of the individual in acting out the tension between psychology and ideology, and between detachment and engagement” (Hake 2021: 165). Still, it can also configure itself as an more extended set of actions that embody a deeper personal dilemma, thus befitting Bing Xin’s idea (1926) that what constitutes beiju (rather than canju, something similar to Trauerspiel) is not simply

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the protagonist receiving an injustice but rather the fact that such a wrongdoing triggers an equal and opposite reaction, which may also generate an additional internal conflict (Bing 1926: 43). The Night the Tiger was Caught is set in the fireplace room of a country house belonging to the Wei family. Mr Wei, the head of the household and father of a young girl called Lotus, is a skilled hunter specialised in killing mountain tigers and is hoping to capture one during the night to buy a rich dowry for his daughter, whom he has determined to marry off into the Chen family. He is also aware that Lotus is reluctant to enter into an arranged marriage because she is in love with her cousin, nicknamed “Crazy Huang,” who now lives as a beggar in a Buddhist temple in the mountains. Mr Wei suspects that his daughter is secretly seeing the poor lad despite his prohibition. From the play’s outset, Lotus is depicted as a “rebel,” since she “uses to never do as told” and so is her cousin who, as Mr Wei explains, refuses to obey his command “to go herd cows in the valley” because he does not want to leave Lotus (Tian 2010: 41). When the girl appears on stage, she is in a depressed mood and not inclined to speak, if only to voice her fear of the titular tiger because the animal symbolizes the end of her personal freedom, as her father plans to use the tiger’s hide to make a quilt as part of his daughter’s trousseau and to save its meat to celebrate her wedding. She reiterates nine times her unwillingness to obey her father’s will, which makes her a tragic character while also adding one further layer of complexity to the symbolism of the tiger. As a matter of fact, Lotus’ strenuous resistance to her destiny echoes her Grandmother’s statement that young people are “‘young tigers’ and can do anything they put their mind to” (Tian 2010: 45). While her words are not directly addressed to Lotus but rather to a eighteen-year-old farmer who comes to visit them, as the play goes on, one can discern a veiled reference to what the girl will do towards the end of the play, when a major plot twist occurs, which allows her tragic attitude to fully emerge. This turning point coincides with the moment in which a heavily wounded Crazy Huang is carried into the house in lieu of a tiger. As he wants to see the lights of Lotus’ house for the last time before her wedding, he falls into the trap set up by Mr Wei and his fellow-hunters and is accidentally shot. Seeing her sweetheart in such a wretched state, Lotus’ initial reaction is to cry over his bad luck but when he asks her to look after him and her father commands her to go back into her room, she suddenly regains her original mettle and openly defies him by declaring that she belongs to Huang. The following passage effectively encapsulates the tragic nature of the conflict between Lotus and her father: Lotus: Why do I belong to the Chen family? Mr Wei: I’ve let the Chen family have you, so you belong to the Chen family. Lotus: Then I give myself to Cousin Huang. I belong to the Huang family. Mr Wei: […] How dare you talk back to your father! (Looks at Lotus, who is rubbing Crazy Huang’s hand) You still dare to touch him? Get out of here! This is none of your business! Lotus: You’ll have to kill me before I let go of his hand. (Tian 2010: 56)

The remainder of the play is overcharged with tragic forces as Mr Wei and Lotus continue to fight against each other over Huang’s agonizing body. Lotus’ stubborn

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refusal to let go of the lad’s hand and Mr Wei’s strenuous attempts at tearing their hands apart constitute the gestus around which the play’s tragic energy is crystallized: Lotus: I’ll never leave your side. In life or death, I’ll never leave you. Mr Wei: I will make you leave him. I won’t let you do this. You disrespectful girl! (Mr Wei tries to force their hands apart, but they grasp on to each other as tightly as possible) […] Lotus: No, no way. No one in this world could tear our hands apart. Mr Wei: I can! (With a force like lightning, he fiercely tears their hands apart and drags Lotus out of the room.) (Tian 2010: 56)

Lotus’ tragic gestus has a clear-cut social meaning because it symbolizes her firm intention to consider herself de facto married to the man she loves. The play ends with Lotus being beaten offstage by her father while Crazy Huang commits suicide declaring to be only “one step ahead” from his beloved. The girl’s courage and rebellious spirit are undoubtedly the force motive of this beiju and so are those of her cousin who, before dying, tells the Wei family in a passionate speech that he has tried everything he could to change his bad fate. He therefore demonstrates an equally unwavering commitment to be close to Lotus despite his uncle’s disagreement. Both lovers display what Bing Xin would call the real “beiju” attitude: defying injustice and/or an adverse destiny, rather than passively accept them. In Pan Jinlian Ouyang Yuqian rewrites the story of an iconic female character who features in two seminal novels of classical Chinese literature: Shuihu zhuan 水浒传 (The Water Margin, where she is a minor character) and Jin Ping Mei 金瓶梅 (The Plum in the Golden Vase, where she is one of the protagonists). Originally portrayed as an extremely beautiful but lascivious and wicked woman, a regular femme fatale, in this beiju Pan Jinlian is turned into a victim of the patriarchal system, which treats women as puppets who can only “dance at the strings of the men” (Ouyang 1983: 58). The crux of Pan Jinlian’s story is her extramarital affair with the arrogant womaniser Ximen Qing and their joint murder of her husband, the kind-hearted but physically unattractive Wu Da, who has caught them in the act. While in the novels her only reason for being unfaithful to her husband (and for killing him) is her marital dissatisfaction, in this 1928 beiju she is depicted as a woman who has been harassed and tyrannized by a rich and corrupted landlord (Zhang Dahu) who, seeing that she would not consent to his sexual advances, has forcibly married her off to the deformed and despotic Wu Da. Over the course of the play, she reveals that she is in love with her husband’s younger brother, the handsome and incorruptible Wu Song who, however, has always rejected her advances and utterly despises her. As she admits to Wang Po, a middle-aged teahouse-owner who comes to visit her in Scene 2 to bring her a message from Zhang Dahu, the only reason why she has accepted to become Ximen Qing’s lover is to relieve her boredom and to pass the time (Ouyang 1983: 58).

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In this play Pan Jinlian is presented as a clever young woman with a strong personality, who is compelled to become an adulterer and a murderer by the painful circumstances of her life. The structure of this beiju, where all the major events are set in the past like in Oedipus Rex, largely contributes to shed light on Pan Jinlian’s status as a victim of the men who gravitate(d) around her. Although she is the object of many conversations, Pan Jinlian appears on stage in Scene Two and Three and is seen again in Scene Five, where she is given a much more prominent stage presence. The three scenes in which she appears punctuate her transformation from a passive, pathetic character to a proactive tragic heroine, culminating in a tragic gestus. Specifically, in Scene Two she laments her condition as a woman that has been repeatedly wronged and who feels irremediably disappointed by the world of men and for this reason, she expresses four times her desire to die. Still, when Ximen Qing visits her, she has the nerve to stand up to him, telling him abruptly that she prefers her brother-in-law. When her lover threatens to curb her through physical violence, she confronts him defiantly, not at all intimidated by his menaces: Ximen: […] If he [Wu Song] and I were standing here who would you love, him or me? Jinlian: Him, naturally. Ximen: (Very surprised) Oh? You have the nerve to say so! […] Jinlian: […] I tried all kinds of ways to tempt him, but from the first to last he stuck to his principles—he really is a man of iron. At the same time you were on your knees to me begging, and I still wasn’t making any promises. And so I respect him; I only feel pity for you. Ximen: You say these things to make me angry. You know that I can kill you with my bare hands! Jinlian: Save yourself the strain. You know perfectly well that I can’t fight you; why do you have to get rough? Save your strength for someone your own size and try it out on him. […] (Ouyang 1983: 61–62)

In Scene Three she is alone with Wu Song, who is very upset about his brother’s mysterious death and is determined to discover the truth about how he died. Initially she is all set to console him but his coldness and hostility towards her make her turn defensive, and while she denies of having killed her husband, she also reiterates, this time in an indignant rather than despondent tone, her accusations against the double standards of the patriarchal system: Jinlian: Ah, so you only worry about what other people think, not about yourself? Wu Song: The thief who kills a man, and the whore who ruins a man—people don’t trust them, do you think that I, alone, should trust them? Jinlian: Whenever a man wants to abuse a woman there are lots of men to back him up. Only women who meekly allow men to torture them to death are “chaste and exemplary.” Anyone who survives an ordeal is a whore, and the woman who isn’t willing to put up with a man’s abuse is a criminal. No wonder you work for the magistrate, you’re just like him. You only preach one-sided truths. (Ouyang 1983: 65).

In the last scene, which takes place during a banquet organised by Wu Song to force Pan Jinlian to confess her crime publicly, she makes a very dramatic speech in which she not only explains how she fell into adultery and murder, but also gives evidence

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that other people have their share of responsibility in pushing her to commit those crimes. Specifically, she accuses Zhang Dahu of killing Wu Da, while Wu Song’s intention to beat her up for showing him her love made her want to commit suicide, which she eventually did not do because she met Ximen Qing. Her declarations, as shocking and illogic as they may seem at first, provide an alternative perspective on her crimes, and thus can be said to function as a form of defamiliarization effect à la Brecht, because they compel the audience to radically reappraise Jinlian’s whole story. Lastly, when Wu Song wields his sword to kill her, she openly declares her unswerving love for him and symbolically offers him her heart by baring her breasts and proclaiming her willingness to cling to him, even post-mortem by reincarnating first into an ox “to flay my hide to make boots for you” and then into a silkworm “to spin silk to make clothes for you” (Ouyang 1983: 74). Her last speech and act of stripping herself can both be seen as tragic gestus because they verbally and physically overcome the limit imposed by death, highlighting Pan Jinlian’s personal and social revolt as well as her courageous attempts at fighting her destiny rather than passively accepting it. Breaking out of Ghost Pagoda thematizes the revolt of a group of women against the patriarchate, herein embodied by an oppressive and lewd landlord (Hu Rongsheng) who treats his numerous concubines as his own property and even dares to molest his own adopted daughter, the young and frail Xiao Yuelin. The latter can be considered this beiju’s tragic heroine, who sacrifices her own life and personal aspirations to react against the master’s tyranny. At the beginning of the play, when she first appears on stage, she is described as having a “silent expression” that “exhibits an amount of desolation” (Bai 2010: 102). She is resigned to bear the destiny meted out to her and it is only through the help of Xiao Sen, a lady who works for the Women’s Federation and who later turns out to be her biological mother, that she slowly gains the necessary courage to rebel against her persecutor by directly and fearlessly confronting him and then firing at him. Throughout the play she is repeatedly encouraged to escape Hu Rosheng’s estate, not only by Xiao Sen but also by two young men who are both attached to her: one is the landlord’s son (Qiaoming) and the other is a party worker (Ling Xia). Both intend to marry Yuelin and both try to persuade her to leave what is symbolically named the ‘ghost pagoda’ for her own sake and their exhortations to do so sound like a proper call to action. In Act I Qiaoming mentions that they should keep struggling and that he is prepared “to fight to the finish” (Bai 2010: 108) to rescue her from the grips of his father whom he considers a demon. In Act III, Ling Xia, realizing that Yuelin has gone insane, urges the girl to leave the house arguing that this is the only way for them to reclaim their human dignity and to seek justice by exposing the landlord’s crimes. Further on, he incites Yuelin to resist, proclaiming that “resistance is our gospel, our road to being human!” (Bai 2010: 140–141), thus conferring a tragic quality to the conflict that opposes the evil landlord and the women who are or have been under his control. It is a tragic conflict because it does not entail a slow and excruciating martyrdom but an act of heroic, but ultimately doomed, resistance. Similar exhortations are also voiced by Yuelin’s mother and by Zheng Shaomei, the landlord’s main concubine who has had the courage to file for divorce:

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L. Fusini Zheng Shaomei: […] You are young and intelligent. You have to show your spiritual fortitude in the face of this looming catastrophe! You must show your spiritual fortitude! (She passionately grasps Xiao Yuelin, with an expression intended to excite her.) Xiao Yuelin: How can I show my spiritual fortitude? Ha, ha, ha! Zheng Shaomei: The Women’s Federation can help you solve this problem. All you have to do it put it forward again. Do it right away! Or else you can leave. Let’s get you out tonight, okay? Xiao Yuelin: Absolutely not! No way! (She jumps off the bed with a crazy laugh and walks madly all around the room.) (Bai 2010: 133)

In the final act, Yuelin assumes a tragic-heroic attitude by deciding to remain in the “ghost pagoda” to eliminate the “monster” who inhabits it: ([…] Xiao Yuelin comes onstage, rushing in through the front door. […] She peers into the dark conrners of room, then suddenly swats at the base of the wardrobe and reaches both her hands underneath it. Then she stands up and paces manically around the room.) Xiao Yuelin: Yes, I have to do it… It’s the only way!... Vengeance can’t be timid. No matter what… I have to get rid of that evil man… Even if I have to sacrifice my own life, I must get rid of that evil man!... Yes, it’s the only way! I’m not leaving, absolutely not!... Absolutely not!... I’m absolutely not leaving! (Bai 2010: 149).

During a fight, Yuelin and Hu Rosheng fire at each other, and before dying in the hands of her mother she performs a frenzied dance while singing a song in praises of rebellion and welcoming death as a form of liberation and of rebirth into a new life in a world that “has been turned upside down” (Bai 2010: 154). Both the dance and the song can be viewed as a type of tragic gestus as they mark the girl’s personal sacrifice of her life for the sake of building a just world. Moreover, Yuelin’s decision to stay in the ghost pagoda to accomplish her revenge is finally acknowledged as an act of resistance: Xiao Yuelin: Mother! Mother! Why do I deserve such happiness? Xiao Sen: It’s because you resisted that evil man to the end. Xiao Yuelin: Ah, I’ve broken out of the ghost pagoda![…] (Bai 2010: 154).

Hence, what makes Yuelin a tragic heroine is not her death following a life of atrocious sufferings but her steadfast refusal to compromise.

4.5 Conclusion In his 1933 doctoral thesis on tragedy, originally written in French, the philosopher Zhu Guangqian noted that despite their obvious unfamiliarity with this literary genre, the Chinese intellectuals who dealt with it academically would perhaps be able to approach it with an unbiased mind, hence “from a fresher point of view than some European writers” (Zhu 1987: 19). The present study, albeit preliminary, seems to confirm the above statement, for the idea of beiju that emerged in the 1920s and

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that I have tested against three seminal plays from that decade can be considered to reinvent the idea of tragedy by reconciling it with modernity. This reconciliation consists in bridging the gap between Aristotelian tragedy and Brechtian epic theatre, which was meant to be “anti-tragic” due to its rejection of emotional catharsis and its non-fatalistic view of human history. By redefining the tragic conflict as the clash of two opposite wills that are equally determined to succeed and by envisaging the tragic protagonist as embodying a spirit of resistance against evil, injustice, and oppression, beiju emphasizes action as much as Aristotle and Brecht did. Furthermore, by redefining the tragic effect as a combination of empathy, fear, and indignation, beiju reconfigures the Aristotelian catharsis into a two-stage process that is meant to simultaneously arouse an emotional and intellectual response from the audience as the latter should develop a critical (and ultimately subversive) attitude towards the social status quo, in line with Brecht’s dialectical spectator. By placing a greater emphasis on action than on contemplation, and by preventing the tragic hero(ine) from becoming engulfed in sadness and mourning, beiju turns out to be other than a Chinese form of Trauerspiel. Finally, the elimination of the traditional device of the great reunion and its replacement with a compelling theatrical gesture that symbolizes the tragic hero(ine)’s ultimate (yet doomed) refusal to surrender can be said to defamiliarize the dramatic action in a way that is akin to Brecht’s notions of gestus and V-effect. To conclude, beiju can be categorized as a modern form of tragedy because it suggests that history is not immutable, that injustice can and must be resisted and that a rebellious (rather than mournful) mood is what becomes the tragic hero(ine).

References Ahuja, C. (1997). The mystique of tragedy: exploring East and West. New Delhi: Prestige Books. Aristotle. (c1991). From The Poetics. In A. B. Coffin (Ed.), The Questions of tragedy (pp. 1–20). EMText. (Reprinted from Aristotle’ Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, by S. H. Butcher, Ed. & Trans., 1955, Dover Publications) Bai, W. (2010). Breaking Out of Ghost Pagoda (trans. P. B. Foster). In C. Xiaomei (Ed.). The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama (pp. 95–155). Columbia University Press. Benjamin, W. (1998). The Origins of German Tragic Drama (J. Osborne, Trans.). Verso. (Original work published 1928) Bing, X. (1926, November 18). Zhong xi xiju zhi bijiao [Comparing Chinese and Western Drama]. Chenbao fukan, 42–43. Brecht, B. (2015). Brecht on Theatre (M. Silberman, S. Giles, & T. Kuhn, Eds.). Bloomsbury Publishing. Camus, A. (1970). On the Future of Tragedy. In P. Thody (Ed. & Trans.) Selected Essays and Notebooks. (pp. 192–203). Penguin Books. Carney, S. (2005). Brecht and critical theory: dialectics and contemporary aesthetics. London: Routledge. Corrigan, R. W. (Ed.). (c1981). Tragedy: vision and form. Harper & Row. Falaschi, I. (2002). Beiju: la question de la “tragédie Chinoise” dans le théâtre des Yuan (1279– 1368) [Beiju: the question of the “Chinese tragedy” in the theatre of the Yuan dynasty (1279– 1368)]. [Doctoral dissertation, Institut National des Langues Orientales, INALCO].

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Ferber, I. (c2013). Philosophy and melancholy: Benjamin’s early reflections on theatre and language. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Finkelde, D. (2009). The Presence of the Baroque: Benjamin’s Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels in Contemporary Contexts. In R. J. Gobel (Ed.), A companion to the works of Walter Benjamin (pp. 46-69). Camden House. Fusini, L. (2020). Innovative or Rather Traditional? Confucianising Tragedy in May Fourth China. In K. Henry (Ed.) Translating Wor(l)ds 4 – May Fourth and Translation. (pp. 13-32). Venice University Press. Gu, T. (2017). Negotiation and instrumentalization – the reception of ‘the Tragic’ in modern Chinese literary discourse, 1917–1949. [Doctoral dissertation, The University of Edinburgh]. ERA Home. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/25839 Hake, S. (2021). Gestus in Context. In S. Brockmann (Ed.), Bertolt Brecht in Context (pp. 158–165). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108608800.021 Hegel, G. W. F. (c1991). From The Philosophy of Fine Art. In A. B. Coffin (Ed.), The Questions of tragedy (pp. 21–40). EMText. (Reprinted from The Philosophy of Fine Art, by F. P. B. Osmaston, Ed. & Trans., 1920, G. Bell & Sons, Ltd.) Hong. S. (1932). Shuyu yi ge shidai de xiju [Drama that belongs to an era]. In Hong Shen xiqu ji [Hong Shen’s writing on Chinese theatre]. (pp. 1–11). Xiandai shuju. Hoxby, B. (2018). Baroque Tragedy. In J. D. Lyons (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Baroque (pp. 516–539). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190678449.001. 0001 Hu S. (1996). Wenxue jinhua guannian yu xiju gailiang [The Concept of Literary Evolution and Theatre Reform]. In Hushi wencun [Hu Shi’s Writings] (vol. 6., pp. 106–116). Xinhua shudian jingxiao. Krutch, J.W. (1929). The Modern Temper. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. Lu, Y. (1985). Chuangzuo de wo jian [My view on Creation]. In (Eds.), Lu Yin xuanji [Lu Yin’s selected writings]. (pp. 60–61). Fujian renmin chubanshe. Maj, B. (2003). Idea del Tragico e Coscienza Storica nelle Fratture del Moderno [The Idea of the Tragic and the Historic Consciousness in the Fractures of Modernity]. Macerata: Quodlibet. Miller, A. (c1991). “Tragedy and the common man”. In A. B. Coffin (Ed.), The Questions of tragedy (pp. 85–90). EMText. (Reprinted from The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller, by Arthur Miller, 1978, Viking Penguin) Ouyang, Y. (1983). Pan Jinlian (trans. C. Swatek). In E. M. Gunn (Ed.), Twentieth-Century Chinese Drama: An Anthology (pp.52–75). Indiana University Press. Ouyang, Y. (1989). Xiju gaige zhi lilun yu shiji [Theory and Practice of Drama Reform]. In S. Guanxin (Ed.), Ouyang yuqian yanjiu xiliao [Research Materials on Ouyang Yuqian]. (pp. 189235). Zhongguo xiju chubanshe. Revermann, M. (2021). Brecht and Tragedy: Radicalism, Traditionalism, Eristics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosslyn, F. (2000). Tragic plots: a new reading from Aeschylus to Lorca. Aldershot: Ashgate. Steiner G. (1980). The Death of Tragedy. New York: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1961). Taxidou, O. (c2004). Tragedy, modernity and mourning. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Tian, H. (2010). The Night the Tiger was caught (Trans. J. S. Noble). In C. Xiaomei (Ed.). The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama (pp. 40–57). Columbia University Press. Wallace, J. (2007). The Cambridge Introduction to Tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Williams, R. (2006). Modern Tragedy. Peterborough: Ont. Broadview Press. Xiong. F. (1926, October 21). Women xianzai de da beiju [The Great Tragedy of our Time]. Chenbao fukan, 41. Xiong, F. (1985). Beiju [Tragedy]. In C. Duo (Ed.), Xiandai xijujia Xiongfoxi [Modern Playwright Xiong Foxi]. (pp. 260-269). Zhongguo xiju chubanshe.

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Ye, Z, (2001). An Inquiry into ‘Sadness’ in Chinese. In J. Harkins, & A. Wierzbicka (Eds.), Cognitive Linguistic Research [CLR]: Emotions in Cross-linguistic Perspective. (pp. 359-405). Walter de Gruyter. Zhu, G. (1987). The Psychology of Tragedy. Hong Kong: Joint Publishing Co.

Letizia Fusini is Postdoctoral Research Associate at SOAS and has taught at Goldsmiths and University of Essex. Her research focuses on Sino-Western intercultural exchanges in the field of literature and drama and with particular attention to tragedy and tragic theory. She has published essays on Chinese theatre and Comparative Literature in CLCWeb, Neohelicon, Modern Drama, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Asian Theatre Journal and edited collections including the Routledge Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature (2018). Her monograph Dionysus on the Other Shore: Gao Xingjian’s Theatre of the Tragic (Brill, 2020) proposes a new reading of Gao Xingjian’s (mainly) post-exile dramaturgy from the perspective of tragic theory.

Chapter 5

Translating China for the Gazing Eyes—A Case Study of the Battle at Lake Changjin Haoxuan Zhang

Abstract Despite Sino-West conflicts have inflicted grief and melancholy to the extent that China’s modern history is entitled as the history of Shame (Zhang in Shishang Xiandai Xing 时尚现代性 [The Modernity Fashion]. 生活·读书·新知三联书 店. SDX Joint Publishing House, Beijing, 2016), China’s major political events have always been conducted with its relations with the West, with a primary objective to be viewed on an equal level by the Western world (Chow in Primitive passions: visuality, sexuality, ethnography, and contemporary Chinese cinema. Columbia University Press, New York, 1995). Stimulated by the experience of grief in the Sino-western communication, as reflected in the case of film, nationalistic cultural translation is deliberately made to represent a “strong China”, with its strength constructed by Western audio-visual spectacles. In this regard, a multileveled system of intersemiotic translation models is proposed. The system comprises the level of culture and media. Each model of the system represents a lens through which a culture is “looked at”, demonstrating how the intersemiotic translators, by employing those lenses, expect how a culture is to be gazed at. This chapter interrogates the case of the Chinese blockbuster war film The Battle at Lake Changjin. As the highest grossing film in the history of Chinese cinema to date, the film translates China through audio-visualizing its painful and yet glorious conflict with the West (the US). The film presents a conglomeration of Occidentalist stereotypes of the West, presenting a “strong China” for the domestic Chinese patriotic audiences, through exaggerated Hollywood visual stereotypes. Using the proposed system as the underpinning methodology, based on interview data and visual analysis, this chapter analyses the film as a syndrome of cultural translation in present-day China. This is done through employing Western lenses and spectacles to translate China’s triumphant success over the West. This chapter offers insights into the ongoing audio-visual and stereotypical turn of cultural translation in the highly politicized and ironically more ethnographical world.

H. Zhang (B) Durham University, Durham, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024 C. S. Garfield Lau and K. K. Y. Chan (eds.), The Poetics of Grief and Melancholy in East-West Conflicts and Reconciliations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-9821-0_5

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Keywords Culture · China · Intersemiotic translation model · Media · System · Stereotype · The Battle at Lake Changjin

5.1 History of Shame and the Urge to Become the West’s Equal The concept of shared misery and compassion is deeply rooted in China’s history, particularly in the context of the country’s experience with imperialism and foreign domination. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, China faced numerous challenges, including internal rebellion, foreign aggression, and economic stagnation. The Opium Wars of the mid-nineteenth century, in which the British forced China to open its ports to foreign trade, marked the beginning of a long period of humiliation and loss of sovereignty for China. The first unequal treaty of Nanjing in the 1840, following China’s first major defeat against the United Kingdom, marked the beginning of Chinese modern history (Fay 1975). This notion of shared misery and compassion ironically relates to the melancholic history of modern China and arguably laid the foundation of Chinese national consciousness. Sino-western relationship in the contemporary age has thus been connected with grief and melancholy. The legacy of a shared misery and compassion continues to shape Chinese nationalism in the contemporary age. China could perceive that its territorial integrity and national pride have been undermined by Western powers. The Chinese government and media often emphasize the country’s history of suffering and humiliation at the hands of foreign powers, portraying China as a victim of Western aggression and imperialism. The grief and melancholy through the unequal relationship came at the price of China’s national pride has constituted to the alignment of China’s modern history as a “history of shame” (Zhang 2016). Shame only marks one side of Chinese national psychology, as it also breeds China as a unique case among the oppressed nations in the modern history. Unlike other colonial counterparts, China has not been deprived of its entire territorial integrity. The following quote from Rey Chow supports this idea: … the ability to preserve more or less territorial integrity as well as linguistic integrity (Chinese remains the official language) means that as a ‘third world’ country, the Chinese relation to the imperial West… is seldom purely ‘oppositional’ ideologically; on the contrary, the point has always been for China to become as strong as the West, to become the West’s equal (Chow 1995: 62).

The intermixture of shame and the eagerness to re-claim the lost power from the West is most notably represented in the Chinese blockbuster war film The Battle at Lake Changjin (长津湖, 2021). As by now the highest grossing film in the history of Chinese Cinema, this film is to be perceived as a translation of China through a conglomeration of Occidentalist stereotypes by employing audio-visual patterns from its former oppressor. The audio-visual patterns, in this context, are defined

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as intersemiotic translation models. In employing Western audio-visual patterns as models, China is depicted both as the victim and the victor of Sino-West conflicts.

5.2 To-Be-Looked-at-ness and Intersemiotic Translation Models Intersemiotic translation models (IST models), in the context of the current discussion, describes the audio-visual patterns which serve as verbal prior materials of a film. While the prior materials in development stage (e.g., real life stories, original literature) and pre-production stage (e.g., screenplay) establish the storyline and (meta-) narrative of the film, intersemiotic translation models, however, refer to the audio-visual prior materials used at the film production stage that the filmmakers employ to audio-visually establish the information included in the original narrative. Here intersemiotic translation models are defined as the audio-visual patterns such as “directing, staging, acting, setting, costume, lighting, photography, pictorial representation, music etc.” (Cattrysse 1992: 61). These materials are labelled as models because the identified patterns offer filmmakers (or intersemiotic translators) semantic solutions to translate specific information, that relates to the “pre-existing references, allusions, citations, cultural traces and materials” (Bowman 2013: 26). They may be exemplified by film techniques, visual treatment of specific classic film sequences, paintings, operas, and other pre-existing representations that provide film with audio-visual codes and inform the on-screen quality of the film. The term “model” emphasizes the functional nature of these audio-visual prior materials in translating information through specific semantic channels/parameters. It provides an opportunity for the translator’s appropriation of semiotic devices to convey information. The question remains however, concerning how to interpret these intersemiotic translation models, which are essentially audio-visual models within the framework of translation, and how they can be employed as the filter through which to translate and mediate between cultures. It is to this end that Rey Chow’s theory of cultural translation is particularly useful. Chow’s theory of cultural translation emphasizes visuality as the distinctive quality of films as opposed to verbal texts. The core of her theory lies in the primacy of what she termed as “to-be-looked-at-ness.” Taken from Laura Mulvey’s article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, where the term refers to the state of women being looked at as the objects of the male gaze (Mulvey 1985: 314), “to-be-lookedat-ness” is applied by Chow to describe the asymmetry of power between cultures, regarding how one’s culture is perceived by another. She suggests this power asymmetry is reflected in verbal language where “the languages of the third world are weaker in relation to Western languages” which results in the third world culture having to submit to a “forcible transformation through the translation process” and therefore becoming constrained by the first world culture (Chow 1995: 178). This results in an “anthropological deadlock” of submission to a one-way biased Western

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(or powerful first world) translation of the third world culture, compounded by the nativist reluctance to allow their culture to be translated (Chow 1995: 177, 178). What Kress has described as the “broad move away from words to image” (Kress 2003: 1), in Chow’s context, challenges the restricted sense of literacy and the established cultural hierarchies thereafter. The dominance of the verbal mode of signification has been questioned and different cultural groups are now able to employ different modes of signification. Under this premise, the genesis of film language therefore allows both the ethnographers and ethnographized to engage in the same (audio-) visual language where the ethnographized are now looking at what the ethnographers were looking at. The state of being-looked-at thus not only manifests the way non-Western cultures are perceived by the West, but “more significantly it is part of the active manner in which such cultures represent-ethnographize themselves” (Kress 2003: 180). In this sense, Chow defined “to-be-looked-at-ness” as “the visuality that once defined the ‘object’ status of the ethnographized culture and that has now become a predominant aspect of that culture’s self-representation” (Kress 2003: 180). It is to this end that Rey Chow argued that “being-looked-at-ness, rather than the act of looking, constitutes the primary event in cross-cultural representation” (Chow 1995: 180). “To-be-looked-at-ness,” as the core concern of Rey Chow’s theory of cultural translation, can be interpreted from several viewpoints: it presents translation as film’s capacity to play the role of a visual archive to store cultural activities “as an infinite collection of objects and people permanently on display in their humdrum existence” (Chow 1998: 174). It also describes translation as a transformation between media, in that visual film engages the audience “in ways independent of their linguistic and cultural specificities” (Chow 1998: 174). “Look,” in this sense, not only describes the fact that different forms represent different kinds of “translation” from one register to another, but also emphasizes the fact that these representations all feed into the way in which (cultural) groups are seen (Bowman 2013: 111). “To-be-looked-at-ness” thus describes the multiple forms of signifying practices as opposed to verbal linguistic signs as the two essential and distinct features, namely, “transmissibility” and “accessibility.”

In Chow’s examination, “transmissibility is that aspect of a work which, unlike the weight of philosophical depth and interiority, is literal, transparent, and thus capable of offering itself to a popular or naïve handling” (Chow 1995: 199), whereas “accessibility” defines the translation’s immediacy of perception, permitted by its literalness and transparency (Chow 1995: 199). Chow takes Benjamin’s notion of “literal” to mean “that which is superficial” (Benjamin 1968: 79), crude or naïve (Chow 1995: 186). Here, “literalness” connects with Chow’s key notion of “putting together” derived from Walter Benjamin in that “translation is primarily a process of putting together” (Chow 1995: 185, italicized in the original text). In Chow’s context, the (audio-) visual translates a culture precisely through this literalness that represents culture rather like a “fable,” or versions of stories that need to be interpreted (ibid.). To Chow, this “fable” is neither real nor false, but rather an (audio-) visual construction that demonstrates how a culture is ‘originally’ put together in its naïve, crude and transparent manner. Thus, through this “to-be-looked-at-ness” film enables both a (self-) evident translation of culture and a transmission of that culture between individuals from different cultural groups.

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To apply Chow’s theory of cultural translation to the present topic of intersemiotic translation, audio-visual patterns can be seen to manifest different meaningmaking mechanisms of signifying practices which offer a literal, transparent and more accessible way of representing a culture. This not only concerns the specific case of third world cultures, but in all cultures which, through audio-visual texts, selftranslate in order “to be looked at” inter-culturally. Under this premise, intersemiotic translation models are themselves translations of cultures in that they render the embedded cultures as audio-visual constructions “to-be-looked-at” by members of different cultural groups. The represented patterns in a model therefore function both as meaning-making mechanisms that are shared and cultivated within a culture, and as an audio-visual putting together in order to self-translate that culture. If cultures are to be regarded as “fables” or meaningful interpretations of the world, an intersemiotic translation model manifests as both a cultural lens of meaning-making and a cultural spectacle to represent this culture and enable it to be looked at inter-culturally.

5.3 System of IST Models and Transmedial Entanglement A hierarchical system of intersemiotic translation models is proposed that takes elements from Chow’s theory to interrogate the heterogeneity of these models in terms of their embedded culture and “modes of signification”. This system takes into account both the variety of cultural affiliations and the “modes of signification”, in a hierarchized system of two levels of IST models comprising ‘cultural models’ and ‘medial models’, with the latter consisting of audio-visual patterns produced by a culture.

5.3.1 Level 1—Cultural Models Cultural model is regarded as an arch-model that is subject to the locale of the translator, which could be either internal or external. According to Yuri Lotman and Boris Uspensky, culture is “a mechanism for organizing and preserving information in the consciousness of the community” (Lotman and Uspensky 1978: 214). In this sense, culture is defined as being closely related to the collective memory of the community. A system of constraints and prescriptions also closely relates culture to the texts and codes that this community produces and shares (Lotman and Uspensky 1978: 213–214). Stuart Hall similarly defines it as “a system of shared values through which a group, community or nation used to make sense of the world” (Hall 1995: 176), thus culture is agreed upon as a shared mechanism for processing information. In the context of intersemiotic translation, cultural models specify mechanisms that are intrinsically audio-visual. Applying Chow’s theory of cultural translation

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under this premise, if culture is regarded as a shared information processing mechanism, then cultural models can be regarded as an infinitely transmissible and accessible cultural lens, i.e., a meaning-making mechanism that produces an audio-visual “constructedness of the world” (Chow 1995: 201). It is this immediacy of being both transmissible and accessible that allows audio-visual patterns to translate and describe the embedded culture to be perceived by individuals from different cultural groups. The differentiation of cultures is based on the distinctions between the various communities who share and collectively identify with their own audio-visual patterns. Given that an intersemiotic translation model is employed by an intersemiotic translator who recognizes it as his/her own model, and which represents the community in which they were brought up, cultural models can be either internal or external based on the viewpoint of the translator. When translators are recognized as “culturalized”, as in “human beings representing a particular national culture” (Tyulenev 2014: 26), internal models refer to audio-visual patterns that have originated from within the translator’s native culture, whereas external models refer to the patterns that have originated from a different culture outside the translator’s native one.

5.3.2 Level 2—Medial Models Secondary to cultural models is the level of medial models which refer to the different “modes of signification” (Chow 1995: 188). Medial models identify the specific mediums which, according to Lars Elleström, present “modalities of media” through which information are mediated and perceived (Elleström 2010: 15). A medium can be differentiated into a “material modality”, “sensorial modality”, “spatiotemporal modality” or “semiotic modality” (Elleström 2010: 15), which describes in greater detail how the audio-visual manifests as distinct signification mechanisms based on which all media are realized. Medial models affiliate to cultural models in that it is through specific medial patterns that cultural groups process information. They constitute the crucial level of Rey Chow’s cultural translation, in the sense that they demonstrate different selfdescriptive “modes of signification” or, in other words, different sorts of translations that are not necessarily verbal. Given visibility endures after the dismantling of verbal signs, they constitute a different perception of cultural translation that emphasizes (audio-) visuality. The medial models present a dichotomy of intramedial models and intermedial models which are differentiated by the medium of the object of study. They are related to the media system that the intersemiotic translation project is destined for. Where the interest is filmic, intramedial models refers to audio-visual patterns that are realized within the film system, such as montage, long take, and mise-enscène. Intermedial models, however, refer to audio-visual patterns that demonstrate mechanisms originating outside the film system, such as painting, opera, music or other art forms.

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5.3.3 Transcultural and Transmedial Entanglement It is recognized that given the two hierarchized levels of intersemiotic translation models, each IST model presents a cross-level combination, locate it within a specific medium that is affiliated to a specific culture. This results in four basic forms of IST models: internal intermedial IST models (non-filmic patterns from the translator’s native culture), internal intramedial IST models (filmic patterns from the translator’s native culture), external intermedial IST models (non-filmic patterns from another culture) and external intramedial IST models (filmic patterns from another culture) (Fig. 5.1). It must be emphasized that the intercultural and trans-medial have made medial and cultural convergences increasingly integral to cultural translation, and the listed four categories of IST models seldom exist on their own. The fact that each media and culture can represent a unique complexity (see Peth˝o 2011). This only explains the frequency and inevitability of transmedial “entanglement” (to borrow the word from Chow 2010a). In Chow’s context, “entanglement” indicates an enmeshment of meetings through “partition and disparity rather than affinity and conjunction” (Peth˝o 2011: 1–2). ‘Entanglement’ is used here in combination with ‘transmedial’ and ‘transcultural’ precisely to describe the meetings of the disparate IST models that are identified in the system, presenting a convolution of cultural and medial forms. A transcultural entanglement presents a transcultural gaze of “to-be-looked-atness”, where each model could be simultaneously considered as both ‘viewed objects’ (a spectacle) and ‘viewing subjects’ (a lens). By providing a mutual enrichment of audio-visual patterns, i.e., internal audio-visual patterns may supplement those from external culture and vice versa, transcultural entanglement also presents a “puttingtogether” through which a culture can be looked at from both familiar viewpoints and images and, most importantly, from unfamiliar perspectives as “foreign bodies” (Chow 1995: 199). If the task of the translator is to liberate the imprisoned pure language (Benjamin 1968: 80), neglected information in one culture may thus be efficiently “liberated” through the modes of signification from another. If a transcultural entanglement manifests a “longing for linguistic complementarity” (Chow 1995: 188) in an effort to translate a culture from multiple angles or to

Fig. 5.1 System of intersemiotic translation models

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“liberate” that culture from entrenched taken-for-granted perceptions, then transmedial entanglements describe the specific mechanism through which a transcultural gaze is facilitated. Transmedial entanglements, can therefore, explain the situation of a post-verbal cross-cultural communication, where cultural translation is enabled via diverse signifying practices. More specifically, it describes how signifying practices of diverse medial forms converge to translate information. This involves the transportation between two kinds of already heavily mediated media, which constantly highlight the fact that what is perceived as (original) culture is already heavily mediated (Chow 1995: 193). Lotman sees transmediality as an inevitable issue of “creolization”, that occurs during the cultural explosion which predicates the self-understanding and selfdescription driven social changes when that explosion is exhausted (Lotman 2009: 15). Given that the fundamental principle of Lotman’s semiotic of culture is the ability for self-description, increasing the channels of communication gives a more diversified technological environment which makes the drive towards self-description even stronger (Ojamaa and Torop 2015: 64). Due to the necessity for cultural autocommunication, a medium is never a stable negentropy but is constantly evolving relative to other mediums. To this end, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin give a clear definition that “a medium is that which remediates” (Bolter and Grusin 1999: 65). This indicates that a medium must always interrelate with other medium. A medium therefore seldom exists on its own and “always appropriates the techniques, forms and social significance” of another media (Bolter and Grusin 1999: 65). Inevitably, transmediality invites transcultural convergence whereas transcultural gaze results in transmedial entanglement. If a transmedial convergence takes place, it is because the cultural information to be conveyed and communicated exceeds the explanatory power of a single medium. If an intercultural combination of IST models occurs, therefore, it is only because that transcultural gaze is an absolute necessity for scrutinizing a culture from beyond familiar viewpoints, in order to emancipate the information imprisoned by the lack of translation due to a deficiency of certain signifying practices of a specific culture. This is demonstrated in the case of the film The Battle at Lake Changjin where external IST models are particularly employed to translate China in its conflict with the West.

5.4 Case Study—the Battle at Lake Changjin The Battle at Lake Changjin is, to date, arguably China’s highest ever box-office grosser.1 Set in the Korean War, the film’s translation of China precisely targeted on the last major military Sino-US conflict. It is based on the story of China’s People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) 9th Army forced the US Eighth Army to withdraw in the 1 See Hoad, P. (2021). “The Battle at Lake Changjin review—China’s rabble-rousing propaganda war epic” Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/nov/19/the-battle-atlake-changjin-review.

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Battle at the Lake Changjin, a brutal and gruelling battle fought between the United States-led UN forces and the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) in the harsh and extreme winter conditions of North Korea. The battle began on November 27, 1950, when Chinese troops launched a surprise attack on US forces in the Changjin (Chosin) Reservoir area. The US forces, consisting of around 30,000 soldiers, were encircled by approximately 120,000 Chinese troops, which outnumbered them by a considerable margin. The film, told from an orthodox Chinese perspective, emphasizes China as the victor over the US, securing the unquestionable moral high ground against the overwhelmingly superior US invaders. The film portrays the Chinese soldiers as an unyielding, courageous, and stoic figure, who is capable of withstanding superior numbers and equipment and enduring the harshest of climate conditions. The Chinese soldiers’ mental and physical fortitude is presented as a superior quality that distinguishes them from the proud and well-equipped American enemy. Even when the enemy has better living conditions and food, the Chinese soldier remains resolute and undeterred. In contrast, the film depicts the US Marines as gluttonous, enjoying lavish meals while the People’s Volunteer Army suffers through meagre meals, consisting of stony potatoes. The narrative, accordingly, is not so different from the long established national memory over this incident, which was arguably emphasized as China’s nationestablishing warfare. For not only did China remedy itself of the centuries’ long history of shame by triumphing over another “treacherous” imperial West, China’s victory was accomplished with absolute spiritual resolution in enduring sufferings. The depiction of the sufferings and triumphs are enabled through suturing the experiences of the so-called “humbler heroes” (Yang 2002: 202), in this case the soldiers of the 7th Company (deliberately designed to establish a pre-connection with the 7th Company in the popular Chinese TV series Soldiers Sortie). Through the perspective of the captain of the 7th Company Wu Qianli (played by Wu Jing) and his younger brother Wu Wanli (played by Jackson Yee), major battles are depicted through the perspective of common soldiers. Having established basic viewpoints of “self” and “other” in translating China as the victor over its former oppressor from the West presented by the American troops, what distinguishes the film from its predecessors such as Yingxiong Ernü (英雄儿 女, Heroic Sons and Daughters) (1954), Shang Gan Ling (上甘岭, Battle of Triangle Hill) (1956), are the highlighted visual spectacles which define the film as a Chinese blockbuster war film. To this end, the film as a cultural translation of China presents a distinctive example of a concatenation of several IST models, each presents the visual traits of Hollywood spectacles (external intramedial IST models). The IST models are deliberately employed to comprise a strong China both in the way it fought against an overwhelming opponent and in its very capacity to represent the heroic resistance precisely through a skilful handling of the borrowed models which are employed to translate strength and power.

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5.4.1 Model 1—Grand Mise-en-Scene The most visible employment of IST models concerns the excessive employment of grand mise-en-scene made visible in the Hollywood war films, demonstrated from Apocalypse Now (1979) to Flags of Our Fathers (2008). The grand mise-en-scene presents large scale panoramic view of the military might in the battlefield taken from the subjective view from the “us” perspective, emphasizing an overwhelming visual masculinity against the opponents. The strength is communicated in depicting aggression as a spectacle. As Virilio examined, “weapons are tools not just deconstruction but also of perception” which allows war to be “the stimulants that make themselves felt through chemical, neurological processes in the sense of organs and the central nervous system, affecting human reactions and even the perceptual identification and differentiation of objects” (Virilio 1989: 8). Regarding Hollywood’s depiction of large scale military operations demonstrates, the perception is not of battlefield, but of absolute dominance in the battlefield signified by a panoramic representation of weapons and army formations as symbols of such dominance. This is represented in the collage of visual bombardment scenes in the Flags of Our Fathers. The film presents the overwhelming US naval forces that pervade the entirety of the frame unloading shells on the Japanese defences ahead of the amphibious landing on Iwo Jima. The whooshing-by fighters serve to strengthen a close-by worship from an POV angle, savouring the visual masculinity.2 In The Battle at the Lake Changjin, grand mise-en-scene is employed as an IST model to render military scales in the battlefield. It must be emphasized, however, grand mise-en-scene is employed as a meaning-making machine to render the dominance of foreign threat, manifests in the film’s depiction of the amphibious landings at Incheon––a symbolic event that marks the US’s intervention in Korea and the beginning of its supposedly military threat against the newly established PRC. In a lengthy aerial shot and CGI depiction the UN forces’ naval invasion, the grand mise-en-scene enables a translation of the scene, with the wide shot of 7th Fleet bombarding Incheon and the navy fighters launching from air craft carriers to cover the sky of Northern Korea till the Chinese borders, with the US landing forces marching fortuitously over the 38th parallel north—the politically bottom line drawn by the PRC emphasized by the line of Mao Zedong “now they have crossed the 38th parallel north, should the next step be crossing the Chinese border”.3 The scale of the invasion is rendered in detail, emphasizing the overwhelming numbers of the West’s military forces and the sheer magnitude of their attack.4 Grand mise-en-scene, in addition to the depiction of the opponent using their audio-visual mechanisms,

2

See the naval bombardment scenes ahead of the amphibious landing operation in the film Flags of Our Fathers. Dir., C. Eastwood (Time 00.21.00–00.21.38). 3 See the line presented in the film The Battle at Lake Changjin. Dir., K. Chen, D. Lam, and H.Tsui. (Time 00.16.59–00.17.03). 4 See the amphibious landing of Incheon depicted in the film The Battle at Lake Changjin. Dir., K. Chen, D. Lam, and H.Tsui. (Time 00.10.06 – 00.11.16).

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is employed to highlight the gravity of the situation and, in turn, intensifies the justification the urgency for China’s intervention as an act of self-defence.

5.4.2 Model 2—Aerial Shot and Cockpit View In addition to the rendering of the scale of foreign invasion, military supremacy of the West is also emphasized constantly throughout the film in depicting the harsh and unbalanced rivalry between the West as the invader and China as the oppressed. The West’s aerial dominance over the battlefield is depicted as the most visible signifier of this inequality. Accordingly, the aerial power is translated with greater details using the model of aerial shot and cockpit view. This is a common practice in Hollywood war films. Aerial shots and cockpit views are two cinematic techniques used to convey this power dynamic in the film. Aerial shots, as demonstrated in the air cavalry assault scene in Apocalypse Now (1978), remain a classic technique used in Hollywood war films to convey a sense of power and dominance.5 The helicopters in formation and the use of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries create a visual and auditory spectacle that reinforces the viewer’s impression of the US force’s overwhelming military might. Cockpit views demonstrate a more recent technique that have been successfully utilized in films like Dunkirk (2017).6 This technique provides an immersive and intimate view of the action, putting the audience in the pilot’s seat and creating a more visceral experience. By using this technique to depict the aerial fighting sequences, the film emphasizes the technological superiority of the West and the extent to which they are able to dominate the battlefield from the air. In The Battle at Lake Changjin, aerial shots and cockpit views are used interchangeably to depict the UN force’s aerial dominance in its ruthless bombing against the Chinese forces on the ground.7 More than a detailed and embodied experience, the model is employed not to render their tension and devotion of the pilot, but to present a probe into technical advancement that employed to translate the contrast of strength, juxtaposed above and below. This ironically coins what Rey Chow describes as the “the age of world’s target” (Chow 2010b: 17). Specifically, Chow described the drastic contrast in this way: As long as knowledge is produced in this self-referential manner, as a circuit of targeting or getting the other that ultimately consolidates the omnipotence and omnipresence of the sovereign “self”/“eye”—the “I”—that is the United States, the other will have no choice but remain just that—a target whose existence justifies only one thing, its destruction by the bomber. (ibid.) 5

See the air cavalry assault scene in the film Apocalypse Now, directed by F. Coppola. (Time 00.37.26–00.38.47). 6 See the cockpit view shots demonstrated in the film Dunkirk. Dir., C. Nolan. (e.g., Time 00.09.01– 00.09.38). 7 See the cockpit views and aerial shots of fighter squads in formation, as depicted in the film The Battle at Lake Changjin. Dir., K. Chen, D. Lam, and H. Tsui. (Time: 00.11.21–00.12.13).

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Chow further explicates the contrast of perspectives juxtaposed by the up and below: Up above in the sky, war was a matter of manoeuvres across the video screen by U.S. soldiers who had been accustomed as teenagers to playing video games at home; down below, war remained tied to the body, to manual labour, to the random disasters falling from the heavens. (Chow 2010b: 11)

One specific case regards the scene where two cockpit views of US fighter pilots procure the upper left and right corners, deciding casually to turkey shoot the Chinese troops on the ground.8 The fighter pilots, ruthlessly starting to turkey shoot soldiers on the ground (camouflaging), handle the war in a flamboyant and jokey way whereas Chinese soldiers on the ground has neither the equipment nor the capacity to fight back. In further depicting the “we-all-suffer” experience of the Chinese forces, the model is employed to depict the pilots as meta-components of the West who procures both the “technological perfection” and the will to view China as its “military target fields” (Chow 2010b: 16).

5.4.3 Model 3—Bullet Time Beyond the grand mise-en-scene and the juxtaposition of the above and the below, the battle scenes in the film comprise the detailed and dramatic representation of close combats, in line with the production team’s claim to “focus on the commoners.”9 The common heroes’ efforts in the film are depicted dramatically with slow motions of the bullets and shells, emphasizing the extraordinary fighting skills of the Chinese soldiers. In this regard, the “bullet” time techniques are employed as a foreign intramedial IST model. The “bullet-time” technique emphasizes the isolation of temporality which manifest Hollywood’s capability in dramatize and disrupt the tempo to focus on the momentary depiction of fast-moving objects. An iconic manifestation of bullet time concern the helicopter sequence in The Matrix (1999), whereas “the movement of the bullets is slowed to such an extent that we can easily follow the trajectory” (Sudmann 2016: 305). The virtual camera in the sequence reverse clockwise, to present a through view of the trajectory of the bullet.10 The technique focuses on rendering the unperceivable static point which could only be witnessed with the wonders of CGI as a 8

See the cockpit views of attacking US fighters superimposed with the wide shot of hiding Chinese troops on the ground, as depicted in the film The Battle at Lake Changjin, directed by K. Chen, D. Lam and H. Tsui (Time: 00.58.22–00.58.39). 9 Chen Kaige, as one of the three directors of the film, relates the representation of the war to the representation of the commoners, as he claims “To complete the shaping of these commoners is to complete the shaping of war”, retrieved from https://k.sina.com.cn/article_1686546714_6486a9 1a02001i6oy.html. 10 See the bullet time scene in the film The Matrix (1999) Directed by L. Wachowski and L. Wachowski (Time: 01.46.29 – 01.46.40).

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token of Hollywood’s highly advanced technological apparatus. According to Bryan Hawk, “viewers see the trajectory, the movement of the bullet, slowed down, intensified, so they can get a sense of that movement which is a primary form of reality beyond static points of visual perception” through bullet time (Hawk 2007: 118). Employed as an IST model in The Battle at Lake Changjin, bullet time is used excessively in almost every combat scene in the film. When the 7th Company storm an American outpost, bullet time is employed to depict the sniper shot through the Satchel charge, as the golden bullet slice through the explosives. In a dramatic tank battle thereafter, bullet time is also employed to represent the shells firing from both tanks, with the virtual camera rotates clockwise while the slow motion speed of the two shells collide in an extremely slow speed.11 The bullet time is employed to translate first the effort and skills of individual soldiers of the 7th Company. The isolated temporality of the bullets and shells highlights both the fierceness of battle through increasing the tension. This arrangement enables the audience to perceive the intensity of the conflicts in all its unperceivable moments. Beyond a close depiction of the micro-mechanisms of combat temporality, however, the employment of this model must be interpreted as a demonstration of the production team’s technical capability. The essence of using bullet point to translate close combats lies in the fact that the formerly oppressed is skilfully handling the most up-to-date Hollywood technology. IST model employment, in this sense, exceeds the translation of the narrative on screen but as a self-referential signifier that communicates the gazing power of the directors and their embedded Chinese culture.

5.5 Conclusion As a form of cultural translation, film permits one to see how a culture is put together in all its cruelty. This does not only a translation of culture, which is itself an audiovisual construct but also emphasises the culture itself as a construction. Each IST model presents itself as a translation of culture through a transmissive and accessible handling of spectacles and fables, however it is also because the broad move from words to image has shaped culture into an infinitely visualizable surface (Chow 2011: 560). Thus, more than “in-depth reading”, IST models emphasize “transaction” (Chow 1995: 180) through diverse medial practices of different cultural affiliations. It is through appropriation of IST models that a culture is to be looked at from different lenses. In the case of The Battle at Lake Changjin, cultural translations, are designed for the “skopos” of pleasing their target audience, purposefully a conglomerates Occidentalist stereotypes of the West, translating a “strong China” for the domestic Chinese patriotic audiences, through exaggerated Hollywood visual stereotypes, 11 See the application of bullet time technique in the film The Battle at Lake Changjin. Dir., K. Chen, D. Lam, and H. Tsui (Time: 01.10.14–01.10.19, 01.31.14–01.31.27).

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while yet picturing the West as China’s ‘hated other’. In the meantime, the entire film presents a translation of a strong China precisely in the fact that it demonstrated that China is capable of depicting its history from a technical adept way of employing the external intermedial models which are imagined to be presumably the first class standard of film making. The desire to represent the suffering and melancholy of China’s conflict urges Chinese filmmakers to adopt the gazing angle from the west as the imaginary lenses and spectacles of the strong. This decision, ironically, became, in itself a gesture in translating its translator—the Chinese history teller.

References Bowman, P. (2013). Reading Rey Chow: Visuality, Postcoloniality, Ethnicity, Sexuality. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Bolter, J. D. & Grusin, R. (1999). Remediation. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: The MIT Press. Benjamin, W. (1968/1923). ‘The Task of the Translator’, in H. Arendt. (ed.) Illuminations. Trans., H. Zohn. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 69–82. Cattrysse, P. (1992). ‘Film (Adaptation) as Translation: Some Methodological Proposals.’ Target International Journal of Translation Studies, 4(1), 53– 70. Chow, R. (1995). Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press. Chow, R. (1998). ‘Film and Cultural Identity’, in J. Hill & P. Gibson (eds.) The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 169–175. Chow, R. (2010a). Entanglement, or Transmedial Thinking about Capture. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Chow, R. (2010b). “The World of World’s Target - Atomic Bombs, Alterity, Area Studies” in P. Bowman (ed.) The Rey Chow Reader. New York: Columbia University Press. Chow, R. (2011). ‘Framing the Original: Toward a New Visibility of the Orient’, PMLA, 126(3), 555–563. Elleström, L. (2010). “The Modalities of Media: A Model for Understanding Intermedial Relations”, in L. Elleström (ed.) Media Borders, Multimodality and Intermediality. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Fay, P. W. (1975). The Opium War, 1840–1842: Barbarians in the Celestial Empire in the Early Part of the Nineteenth Century and the War by Which They Forced Her Gate Ajar. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Hall, S. (1995). ‘New Cultures for Old’, in D. Massey & P. Jess (eds.) A Place in the World? Places, Cultures and Globalization, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 175–213. Hawk, B. A. (2007). Counter-History of Composition: Toward Methodologies of Complexity. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Kress, G., (2003). Literacy in the New Media Age. London and New York: Routledge. Lotman, Y. and Upsensky, B. (1978). “On the Semiotic Mechanism of Culture”. New Literary History, 9 (2), 211–232. Lotman, Y. (2009). Culture and Explosion. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Mulvey, L. (1985). ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, in B. Nichols. (ed.) Movies and Methods Volume II: An Anthology. Berkeley and Los Angles: University of California Press, 303–315. Ojamaa, M. and Torop, P. (2015). “Transmediality of Cultural Autocommunication” International Journal of Cultural Studies, 18 (1), 61–78. Peth˝o, Á. (2011). Cinema and Intermediality: The Passion for the In-Between. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

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Sudmann, A. (2016). “Bullet Time and the Mediation of Post-Cinematic Temporality.” In S. Denson and J.Leyda (eds.) Post Cinema, Theorizing 21st – Century Film. Falmer: REFRAME books. Tyulenev, S. (2014). Translation and Society: An Introduction. London: Routledge. Virilio, P. (1989). War and Cinema: The Logistics of Perception. New York, NY: Verso. Zhang, X. (2016). Shishang Xiandai Xing 时尚现代性 [The Modernity Fashion]. 生活·读书·新知 三联书店 Beijing: SDX Joint Publishing House.

Filmography Apocalypse Now (1979) Dir., F. Coppola. [Feature Film]. American Zoetrope, Zoetrope Studios. Dunkirk (2017) Dir., K. Nolan. [Feature Film]. Syncopy, Warner Bros, Dombey Street Productions, Kaap Holland Film, Canal+, Ciné+, RatPac-Dune Entertainment. Flags of Our Fathers (2006) Dir., C. Eastwood. [Feature Film]. Dreamworks Pictures, Warner Bros, Amblin Entertainment, Malpaso Productions. The Battle at Lake Changjin (2021) Dir., K. Chen, D. Lam, and H.Tsui. [Feature Film]. Bona Film Group, August 1st Film Studio, Huaxia Film Distribution, China Film Co., Ltd., China Film Group Corporation (CFGC), Shanghai Film Group, Alibaba Pictures, Beijing Dengfeng International Culture Communications Company. Shang Gan Ling (1956) Dir., S. Lin, and M. Sha. [Feature Film]. Changchun Film Studio. The Matrix (1999) Dir., L. Wachowski, and L. Wachowski. [Feature Film]. Yingxiong Ernü (1954) Dir., Z. Wu. [Feature Film]. Changchun Film Studio. Warner Bros, Village Roadshow Pictures, Groucho Film Partnership, Silver Pictures, 3 Arts Entertainment.

Zhang, Haoxuan recently obtained a Ph.D. in Translation Studies at Durham University. His research includes intersemiotic translation, Chinese studies, visual culture and film studies. His research aims at challenging the linguistic bias of translation studies and to contribute the novel paradigm and system of intersemiotic translation models to remedy the methodological lack in due areas. Dr Zhang is also an avant-garde artist and translator, having produced many short films and experimental theatrical and constellation art. His upcoming publication would be his research monograph Exploring Intersemiotic Translation Models—A Case Study of Ang Lee’s Films by Routledge Publishing House and the translation of The Literature of the Marginalized Nations in Modern China—Focusing on Eastern European Literature by Springer Nature.

Part II

Triggering of Melancholic Loss from the Cross-Cultural Perspective

Chapter 6

Melancholy Across the Multiverse: The Everything Bagel and the Loss of Self in Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) Amy Wai-sum Lee

Abstract Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) has received critical acclaim for its imaginative presentation of existential anxiety as well as the various practical challenges the Asian American identity is facing in contemporary society. Much attention has been paid to the film’s proposal of the many possibilities of the “self” through its creative depiction of the multiverse, and how Evelyn the heroine who was in for a self-discovering adventure, verse-jumped from one possible life to the next to be acquainted with her many selves, in search of solutions to her frustrations as a middle-aged Asian woman living in America. Amidst the seemingly hopeful versejumpings and the fantastic black comedy around the laundromat owners Waymond and Evelyn, who married and came to America to start their new life, what is unmistakeable is the profound melancholy experienced by their daughter Joy, who was so lost as to have created the Everything Bagel, an existential black hole. Evelyn, who was awakened to her other possible lives (and power) across the multiverse by Waymond, was actually driven into a journey of discovery of the deep wounds that contemporary life has inflicted on not only her daughter, but other members of her family including herself. This chapter attempts to engage with the film as a visual narrative of melancholy in the age of the multiverse. Despite the seeming reconciliation at the end of the film, the void of melancholy is so overwhelming that characters such as Evelyn have to conduct verse-jumpings to find enough meaning and presence to overcome it. Keywords Asian-American identity · Melancholy and mourning · Mother-daughter relationship · Multiverse · Reproduction of mothering

A. W. Lee (B) Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Kowloon, Hong Kong e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024 C. S. Garfield Lau and K. K. Y. Chan (eds.), The Poetics of Grief and Melancholy in East-West Conflicts and Reconciliations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-9821-0_6

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6.1 Introduction Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) is a sci-fi movie jointly directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert which features a multiverse setting where individuals may jump-verse from one to another if they master the improbable skills. Interestingly at the heart of the film, it is an exploration of the relationships between the self and the other, conflicts from these relationships, and a possible reconciliation approach. It won two major awards in the 2023 Golden Globe out of six nominations, and won seven out of its eleven nominations in the 95th Academy Awards, including best picture, best director, best actress, best supporting actor and best supporting actress, and best original screenplay. Michelle Yeoh, a Chinese-Malaysian actress playing the role of a middle-aged laundromat owner living in the States, became the first Asian actor to be nominated for a Golden Globe and Academy Award in the category of best actress, which she won in both cases. She began her acceptance speech by addressing “all the little boys and girls who look like me” (Kelley 2023)— pointedly highlighting her Asian identity, which in Hollywood is really “history in the making” (Kelley 2023). Actor Ke Huy Quan, who played her husband Waymond, also faced difficulties as an Asian actor in the industry. As suitable roles were difficult to come by, he gave up acting for decades after his early debut in Spielberg’s movie,1 and withdrew to work behind the scene as an assistant director. Over the years he had worked with many famous directors, including Wong Kar-wai, and movie fans may actually see allusions to In the Mood for Love (2000) in the romantic scenes between Evelyn’s famous-actress-self and the Waymond who reminds audience of Tony Leung. Although many features of the film can be described as fantastic, the backbone of the story is based on authentic personal experiences living between two or more cultures. One of the directors Daniel Kwan is the son of immigrants from Taipei and Hong Kong, and many of the details in the film are from his personal experiences growing up in an immigrant family. The mix of Cantonese, Mandarin, and blended Chinese and English in the film, which is confusing to many audiences, is an example of the unique and challenging features he had to handle since childhood. Since 2016 when ideas about the film started to be developed, the story had been through different stages, culminating to this current one which has Evelyn, a middle-aged woman who is also a wife and mother, finding herself in the crossroad of life when she has to face the consequences of life choices that she has made before. It was reported in The Independent that Jackie Chan “had in fact been offered the lead role first, which was originally written to be a man” (Chilton 2023). Later evolutions of the story uncover the rich possibilities of having a woman and her many roles in the family and society as the core, to create a platform for reflections on self and other, interpersonal and intercultural relationships, their conflicts and potential resolutions. Michelle Yeoh’s agreement to be part of the film consolidates this focus on conflicts and resolutions of intercultural identities. 1

Quan played the character named Short Round in Steven Spielberg’s 1984 production Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. In the film, he helps Indiana escape from Lao Che.

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Intercultural conflicts and their impact on family relationships as well as personal development are not new topics in the media and other cultural narratives. Notable blockbusters such as Wayne Wong’s Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart (1985) and The Joy Luck Club (1993), John Avildsen’s The Karate Kid (1984), and An Li’s The Wedding Banquet (1993) are but just a few of the well-known and successful cultural products telling this body of personal stories, from the perspective of individuals from different generations in that context. What is interesting about this 2022 film is situating this long-term identity struggle in the context of the latest science and information technology. Director Kwan remarks that the internet “had started to create these alternative universes” and that for the first time they realise “how scary the internet was, moving from this techno optimism to this techno terror” (Yamato 2022). The film which contextualises the issues of identity and relationships of the Asian American family in an age of online world “was us trying to grapple with that chaos” (Yamato 2022) according to director Kwan. The three generations of this Asian American family each tries to grapple with their own problems in life, and through their struggles, the film seems to propose a certain way of understanding and possibly a way out of these conflicts. The following is a critical discussion of Everything Everywhere All at Once (Kwan and Scheinert 2022), focusing on Evelyn’s reluctant journey of discovery. It begins with the practical problem of the IRS audit, which threatens the livelihood of this family as well as revealing the many repressed conflicts among the individual members. While Waymond wants a divorce, and her daughter Joy has given up communicating her feelings and needs to her, Evelyn is then left with no choice but to face her situation head-on. At this moment of multiple pressure from different sides, the knowledge of the existence of her other selves across the multiverse provides Evelyn with the means to look the truth in the eye, as well as living up to her full capacity. Most importantly, this almost impossible journey is offered to her through her daughter Joy, whose counterpart in another universe has mastered the skills to jump-verse at will and has seen all of life. Her creation of the Everything Bagel is an illustration of her disappointment and a challenge to Evelyn to find meaning in what she considers a meaningless world. This reverse mother-daughter relationship nurtures Evelyn and equips her to come to an understanding with the many possibilities in life, and finally allows her to embrace the ultimate meaning of life.

6.2 The Asian American Reality: Evelyn the (Failed) Wife, Mother, and Daughter The audience are given an introduction to Evelyn and her family in the first ten minutes of the film. In the “back office” of the laundromat, which is actually where the family lives, Evelyn is sitting behind a big desk, the top of which is covered with piles of bills. We see Evelyn trying to construct an order in the bills, while mumbling

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to herself and talking to her husband at the same time. In the meantime her husband Waymond is trying to get her full attention because he has something very important to discuss with her—the audience is shown the document he is holding in his hands— he is filing for divorce. While the middle-aged couple are talking across each other, downstairs their daughter Joy has brought with her Becky, who has been her girlfriend for three years, determined to get her rightful status announced and endorsed on this big day, which is the New Year Party that Evelyn has organized for the benefit of Gong Gong, her father who comes for a visit. In the midst of all these events, Gong Gong is yelling for his breakfast in an awkwardly high pitched voice and speaking Cantonese, which can be understood by no one but Evelyn and Waymond. This picture of Evelyn and her family is unsettling in its revelation of the difficulties she and her family are facing individually as Asians living in the States. The confusing language environment which leads to miscommunication, and the “heartwrenching misunderstanding between Evelyn and Joy” (Yamato 2022) are but some typical challenges immigrant families have to face. The IRS audit is presented as a nightmare not only because it is about money, but also because a lot depends on clear and accurate communication. Waymond suggests that Joy should go with them so that she could serve as their interpreter, as this is a life-and-death situation in terms of the survival of the business. Evelyn does not want her to come because she has brought Becky the girlfriend, and admitting Joy’s queer identity to Gong Gong is the last thing Evelyn could allow to happen. So right at the beginning of the film, all hell is about to break loose, and the most obvious symptom is communication breakdown in different ways. Waymond cannot get Evelyn to even listen to him for a few minutes about his intention to divorce, Evelyn will not let Joy declare her sexual identity to Gong Gong, and Gong Gong only sees Evelyn’s American life with Waymond as a failure because she ignores his warning about developing her own potentials. Besides the issue of communication breakdown among members of the family, communications between Evelyn and the various customers are also shown to be superficial and problematic, despite the fact that some of them are long-term customers. Becky, a friendly outsider, tries to be nice but is not viewed as a member of the family, despite Evelyn’s claim that she is open-minded enough to have accepted her existence and status. There are things well known but not spoken of, there are feelings repressed and not given a chance to be expressed, and what is said are either trivial matters to cover up the gap of non-communication, or downright untruths due to incomprehension and misunderstandings. Evelyn’s life is portrayed as a series of failures—she fails to live up to her father’s expectations, she fails in becoming a good wife to Waymond, and she definitely fails in her role as a loving and understanding mother to Joy. As she is preparing for the big party and struggling with the piles of bills, she fails even herself in building a happy life. As we get deeper into Evelyn’s life, beginning with her first visit to IRS to face the government agent Deirdre Beaubeirdra, we begin to get a fuller picture of her situation—or what she has missed in the course of her life to land her here. In the lift going up to see Deirdre, Waymond suddenly reveals to her his identity—Alpha Waymond from Alpha-Verse—and the fact that their life in America is but one of the many possibilities among the multiverse. She is told that with every choice they

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make in life, another possibility is opened up in another universe, thus multiplying the network of possible lives they lead. If one can master the appropriate skill, one can jump from one universe to another, even borrowing the qualities of the other selves from the other universes. While these parallel lives have been conducted in their own universe over time in relative peace, something happens in Alpha-Verse which threatens this balance and Evelyn is the chosen one to offer help. She is the failure who ironically possesses the abilities to counteract the evil Jobu Tupaki who is building a black hole, and who is jumping verse at will causing major destruction across the multiverse. What has Evelyn to do with Jobu Tupaki, this powerful female who is feared by all? Later in the film it is revealed that Jobu Tupaki is the Alpha counterpart of Joy, whose mind splinters under the intensive training of Alpha Evelyn, and that is why in the entire universe Evelyn is the only one deemed capable of stopping her from causing more destructions. Across the multiverse, what we see is an intriguing mother-daughter relationship: Alpha Evelyn’s strong mothering causes Jobu Tupaki to break out of her control, while Evelyn in America is trying to repeat the same pattern. Jobu Tupaki’s cross-universal search for Evelyn in America to show her the “truth” is a reverse mothering experience for Evelyn, which ultimately changes her life, as well as the lives of the family members. This is an interesting reminder to us of Nancy Chodorow’s argument that “[w]omen, as mothers, produce daughters with mothering capacities and the desire to mother” (Chodorow 1978: 7). The failure of Evelyn’s mothering leads to a failure in Joy’s becoming a full human being; Evelyn’s journey of making up to her daughter turns out to be a journey of self-redemption, to become a better mother and daughter. Although Evelyn’s mother is not featured in the film, the effects of her mothering can well be seen in the relationship between Evelyn and Gong Gong. Despite his age, frailty, and not being able to communicate in English, his presence at the Wang’s still yields great power. Joy’s hope to get his endorsement of Becky, and Evelyn’s reluctant but real desire to gain his approval for the life she leads now are good examples of his real patriarchal status. Later in the film, it is also revealed that Evelyn’s choice of marrying Waymond has actually closed many other possibilities in her life: opera singer, kung fu master, actress, and the many different selves that Evelyn sees as she masters verse-jumping. The choice this Evelyn has made is a reproduction of the mothering she receives, and her tense relationship with Joy comes partly from an unconscious attempt to reproduce the same kind of mothering. It is true that Evelyn is “open-minded” in the sense that she has accepted Becky, but her refusal to let Joy present their relationship openly is an indication of how much she is still bound by her mothering. From being mothered to becoming a mother, Evelyn’s life has been shaped by many forces that are out of her control. The appearance of Alpha Waymond, who reveals to her the existence of multiverse, and the logic about choices and possibilities, has given her a chance to reflect on her life so far, and how each decision has a consequence in her present life. Jobu Tupaki’s creation of the Everything Bagel, and her cross-universal search for Evelyn is in fact a second chance for her to take over the control of her own life again, not in the sense of returning to the past and changing

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previous decisions, but learning the truth about life, and taking up the responsibilities for herself again. Thus Everything Everywhere All at Once can be seen as portraying a reverse mothering experience: a mother being mothered by her own daughter, in the end of which she becomes a better mother, a better wife, a better daughter, and most important of all, a better person.

6.3 Mother-Daughter Relationship in Reverse: Jobu Tupaki and the Truth Through the Everything Bagel If Evelyn in America is the chosen one to save the universe, then the driving force of all the actions in the film is the “all-powerful Jobu Tupaki, bent on destroying the multiverse to end the pain of her fractured relationship with Evelyn” (Yamato 2022). She is portrayed as a visually dramatic character, with completely unconventional dress-code (as she does not belong to any one place in the multiverse), and her mind is uninhibited by any rules, because she has already seen all and through all simultaneously. In the film she shows Evelyn the Everything Bagel that she has created out of boredom—a black hole that threatens to suck everything in and leaving no trace. Interestingly, when Alpha Waymond briefs Evelyn what is going on in the multiverse, he presents the story as a kind of good versus evil, and that Evelyn is the savior to face the evil Jobu Tupaki. But when Jobu Tupaki finally catches up with Evelyn, what she does is talk: she shares with Evelyn her pain, the construction of the Everything Bagel, and the pointlessness of life that she realises through this process. The following is an example of the exchange in a confrontation between Jobu Tupaki and Evelyn: Jobu: You see it all, don’t you? You can see how everything is just a random rearrangement of particles in a vibrating super position. Evelyn: I have no idea what you are talking about, but I can do this! Jobu: But you see how everything we feel gets washed away in a sea of every other possibility. You’re everywhere, you’re like me. (Kwan and Scheinert 2022, 1:29:12)

Jobu Tupaki’s fractured mind allows her to be anywhere anytime, and have access to all information about anything. This power does not grant her happiness though, instead it takes meaning out of everything—as she says “everything is just a random rearrangement of particles” (Kwan and Scheinert 2022, 1:29: 24). She shares this information with Evelyn, not to blame her, but as an action to seek understanding and companionship. Her remark that Evelyn is everywhere and like her is not one spoken by an enemy, but more like a call for help issued to a like-minded friend. In other words, despite her power, Jobu Tupaki is speaking to Evelyn like a daughter seeking her understanding and help. This reminds the audience of the unsuccessful pleads that Joy is making to Evelyn, through her attempts to get Becky officially endorsed as part of the family, and through her deliberate attention-seeking behaviour.

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In fact, Jobu Tupaki’s sharing of her own knowledge and (lack of) feelings with Evelyn is among the most poignant passages in the film. She explains the construction of the Everything Bagel: Feels nice, doesn’t it? If nothing matters, then all the pain and guilt you feel from making nothing of your life... it goes away. Sucked... into... a bagel... Oh... so cute! Come on, Evelyn, come on. [Evelyn steps away] Oh, I get it. Feeling a good thing. They got your hopes up, so I’m here to save you some time. Eventually... that all just goes away. (Kwan and Scheinert 2022, 1:01:15)

What is behind this “black hole” is “pain and guilt” from making nothing out of her life. While Alpha Waymond and his comrades see this as threatening the safety of the multiverse, to Jobu Tupaki it is the ultimate resting place for all the meaningless existence, including herself. Rather than showing anger or a desire to destroy the world to demonstrate her power, the actions and sentiments behind are more like someone in depression, grieving for the loss of something dear to her. In this case, the loss is—for lack of a better word—herself. This loss of self will be further explained in the following, in the context of her relationship with Evelyn. In relation to discussion of grief, much have been said about Freud’s distinction of mourning and melancholia, two similar sentiments on the surface, which are linked to very different psychological contents in the person. Freud describes mourning as “regularly the reaction to the loss of a loved person, or to the loss of some abstraction which has taken the place of one, such as one’s country, liberty, an ideal, and so on” (Freud 1917: 243). If we refer to Jobu Tupaki’s grief as she shares her observations and thoughts with Evelyn, one notices that she is not grieving for the loss of a person in particular or even an ideal as such. Also, Freud explains that “when the work of mourning is completed the ego becomes free and uninhibited again” (Freud 1917: 245), and the person returns to his or her prior condition. Jobu Tupaki’s grief, however, deepens as she puts more and more things into the Everything Bagel, and as her realization of the pointlessness of life is confirmed. Her condition is more similar to what Freud categorises as “melancholia.” Here is the definition of “melancholia” according to Freud: A profoundly painful dejection, cessation of interest in the outside world, loss of the capacity to love, inhibition of all activity, and a lowering of the self-regarding feelings to a degree that finds utterance in self-reproaches and self-revilings, and culminates in a delusional expectation of punishment. (Freud 1917: 244)

Admittedly Jobu Tupaki is driving the actions in the story—she builds the Everything Bagel due to boredom, gradually realises the pointlessness of all actions, and frantically verse-jumps in search of Evelyn… only to tell her that nothing matters. It is worth noting that she intends to self-destroy and Evelyn is being called to be a witness, or even accompany her to the ultimate end. In the moments with Evelyn, Jobu Tupaki behaves more like Joy than the evil hand that Alpha Waymond describes her to be. One may note that Freud’s description of the melancholic patient fits very well the tearful Joy standing outside her mother’s laundromat:

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Although Joy’s insistence to present Becky to Gong Gong openly may suggest she is being difficult, this gesture actually comes from a deep frustration and a great sadness that what she considers an essential element of herself is not openly accepted. As long as Becky is not officially recognised as her girlfriend, Joy’s sexual identity, and in turn her worth, is not endorsed, moreover by her own family. The harder it is to gain this endorsement, the more intense the confrontations will be between Joy and her family. It is useful to understand the mother-daughter relationships between American Evelyn-Joy and Alpha Evelyn-Jobu Tupaki in parallel. In America, Evelyn is reproducing her mothering on Joy, and despite her outward acceptance of Becky, she nonetheless refuses to give Joy the chance to be herself, to make her own choices in life. In other words, she is probably repeating in Joy the mothering that she receives as a child, despite her own discontent and the very much changed social and cultural circumstances. In Alpha-Verse, Evelyn spots the great potentials in young Jobu Tupaki and pushes her beyond her limits, leading to the young woman’s fractured mind and breaking out of all control. Jobu Tupaki’s transgression has an effect not only on her relationship with Alpha Evelyn, but actually on the other Evelyns across the multiverse—the Evelyns are all given a good mental and emotional shake about the choices they have made in their lives. In the specific case of the American Evelyn and Joy, the mother comes to reflect on her mothering, and offers Joy a good reason to get out of her melancholic conditions, while she herself also comes out of the shadow of the mothering she received.

6.4 The Parallel Lives: Hotdog Hand Lover, Star Teppanyaki Chef, Sentient Rock, and More While the idea of multiverse is no longer far-fetched to movie audiences, the most fantastic events in the film come from Evelyn’s experience of this vastness, in the form of the many different Evelyns that her every decision has created. The two directors remember their difficulty when brainstorming: “We need to come up with a universe that’s the biggest empathy challenge” (Yamato 2022). On the one hand they have to create “the toughest universe that was going to make Evelyn think the multiverse is gibberish when she first visits it” (Yamato 2022) and yet by the end of this experience both Evelyn and more importantly the audiences of the film would need to care about that universe. Some of the most memorable scenes of the film are those of the universe where people have hotdog as fingers. Evelyn first watches people with hotdog hands on the screen, but in the multiverse that Jobu Tupaki reveals to her, she finds herself a member of that universe, moreover with Deirdre the officer

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at IRS as her lover, which to the American Evelyn is both unlikely and downright revolting. Throughout the film, Evelyn has an interesting relationship with Deirdre. As an IRS officer, Deirdre is Evelyn’s worst nightmare as she can easily have the laundromat close down. Evelyn is wary of her and feels that Waymond bringing her cookies is but a useless appeasement. As Alpha Waymond explains to Evelyn, in order to jump from one universe to another, they need a jumping pad—and that is basically behavior which is unusual and probably does not make any sense. In the IRS building, there was a moment when Alpha Deirdre is attacking them, and Evelyn has to borrow kung fu abilities from another Evelyn across the multiverse. To jump, the unusual behavior for Evelyn to perform is to express love to her nemesis Deirdre—not only to profess love, but to actually feel it and mean it in the process. Evelyn is at first horrified by the impossibility of this task, but in the urgency of the moment, she finally accomplishes it. She has expressed genuine love for this woman whom she has always viewed as her arch enemy. For those who consider this episode simply a comic relief, Evelyn’s later experience in the multiverse further develops the idea of infinite possibilities with every passing moment. In the universe where people have hotdog as fingers, Evelyn finds herself being Deirdre’s same sex lover, and the two women spend some of the most heart-warming moments in the film together. With hotdog as fingers, the hand cannot perform the usual actions as hands do in our universe. Therefore we see Deirdre leaning on Evelyn, playing the piano with her two feet to entertain her beloved, while Evelyn listens to the music with the most content and loveliest smile. As one of the directors, Daniel Kwan, recalls how the idea of hotdog fingers may sound stupid, but they are making something very different out of this stupid idea: “in a world of hot dog hands, what is the beautiful story there? Love, of course” (Yamato 2022). For Evelyn, the experience of jumping verse is not an eye-opening scientific journey, rather it is a rite of passage to turn the impossible into reality, a reality that is going to release her from the confines of conventional ideas and practices. One other of those fantastic multiverse experience Evelyn encounters is being a star Teppanyaki Chef. The experience is meaningful not just because it shows another possible life and fantastic skills that Evelyn may have, but also because of what the co-worker Chad represents. Though Chad is not a chef, a raccoon that hides in his chef’s hat teaches him everything that a chef needs to know. Together the impossible pair makes the dream of becoming a chef a reality—the nature of the partnering is different, but the beauty and satisfaction this partnering yields is almost the same as the unlikely hotdog hand lovers. That’s why even though Chad is a rival to Evelyn in their chef universe, Evelyn still decides to help him get the raccoon back to make his life complete once more. Chad and the raccoon is a parallel experience to the hotdog hand universe where Evelyn is Deirdre’s lover, both experiences indicate not only the beauty of the impossible, but also the necessity of believing in the beauty and its existence. Having gained this insight, Evelyn is better equipped to respond to Jobu Tupaki, who is exhibiting what Freud would describe as melancholia—a loss of the ego—to the extent of desiring self-destruction.

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The complex mother-daughter relationship that Evelyn and Joy (or their counterparts in the Alpha-Verse) engage in is creatively portrayed in what I call the “sentient rock” scene. The multiverse includes places where the dominant population composes of ancestors of homo sapiens, as well as places which conditions do not favour organic life. In one of the worlds in the multiverse, we see Evelyn and Joy’s counterparts existing as two rocks, one bigger than the other, “interacting” in silent verbal form, as well as movements towards or away from each other. The mind-communication between the sentient rock mother-daughter continues the theme of their relationship in other universes—the way Joy tries to make Evelyn see the pointlessness of the world, and how she feels relief in this simple existence: “just be a rock.” It is worth noting that this unpopulated world is also one of the worlds shared by Jobu Tupaki to Evelyn, when she promises “let me help you open up your mind” from the early encounter in America. Therefore it is quite clear to the audience that all the different lives that Evelyn witnesses in her verse-jumping coincide in the hope of awakening her to her daughter’s emotional need because of her inadequate mothering. This multiverse journey for Evelyn is one of awakening and personal growth, during this process she is better equipped with all the potentials of her life.

6.5 “I Will Cherish These Few Specks of Time”: Love and the Choice of the Here and Now After Evelyn’s mind has been opened by Jobu Tupaki and through her verse-jumping encounters with herselves and counterparts of her many associates, she has finally achieved the same fractured-mind status as her daughter. While her Alpha daughter has made the observation that “the truth is—nothing matters,” and therefore strives to end her pain and guilt by self-destruction, the post-verse-jumping Evelyn has a different response to this truth. In the final section of the film, in the evening when the laundromat is to host the annual New Year Party, when the deadline for submitting the invoices to IRS has passed, when Joy threatens to abandon her family (and herself) because her identity is not accepted, and when Waymond’s desire to file for divorce is known, Evelyn comes forward to make the decision that will tie up all the loose ends across the multiverse. In fact, the parallel lives that the audience has been presented in the previous section of the film already gives a hint about Evelyn’s mental growth. Initiated by the challenge from Jobu Tupaki, Evelyn undergoes a mind-boggling mental journey, and comes to realise the importance of being true to herself rather than being a daughter who repeats the mothering she receives. Although there is no return to the past to change anything, she has learned the lesson of looking forward, and making the right decision starting from her own mothering of her daughter. Joy’s melancholic behaviour has created a reverse mother-daughter relationship in the sense that the daughter initiates a quasi-mothering process to Evelyn in the hope that she herself

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can be saved by a newly-mothered Evelyn. Interestingly, Evelyn’s journey across the multiverse is like the Greek mythological goddess Demeter’s journey to the underworld to save her beloved daughter Persephone, who was abducted by Hades the God of the underworld, only with the unexpected result of her saving herself through this engagement. Empowered by (one) Waymond’s observation that in a universe where everyone is “scared and confused” and does not know what is going on, “the only thing that I do know is that we have to be kind,” Evelyn takes control over her own life by being kind, and fighting in Waymond’s way. She goes to Gong Gong and presents Becky to him formally as Joy’s girlfriend, in Cantonese, a language that he understands, in the New Year Party. She even goes on to say that she is not like him, as she “will not abandon her daughter.” This is a clear declaration that she has become a new person, moreover a better mother than before. When Deirdre the IRS officer brings two police officers to the laundromat because Evelyn has not submitted the tax documents before the deadline, Evelyn finally expresses her true feelings about the laundromat and the kind of life they have led so far—she grabs a baseball bat and smashes the windows, shouting “I have always hated this place.” Her smashing of the laundromat, however, is constructive symbolically. If the laundromat represents the conventionally stable and ordinary immigrant livelihood, and a life for Asians in America that Waymond promises Evelyn, then her action now is a sign of her strength and independence as a middle-aged woman coming to herself and making her own choices. An important decision, regarding Joy, is her determination not to abandon her—not to abandon Joy to herself, and not to give up Jobu Tupaki to the Everything Bagel. Outside the laundromat, Joy is so tired of the pain and frustration over the years that she wants to simply drive away. The exchange between Evelyn and Joy is a direct parallel to the other mother-daughter show-downs across the multiverse: Evelyn is trying her utmost to hold back Jobu Tupaki from being sucked into the Everything Bagel, and the sentient rock Evelyn follows the sentient rock Joy as she rolls herself down the cliff to nothingness: Joy [tearfully]: So what you... you’re just gonna ignore everything else? You can be anything, anywhere. Why not go somewhere where... where your daughter is more than just... this? Here all we get... are a few specks of time where any of this actually makes any sense. Evelyn: Then I will cherish these few specks of time. (Kwan and Scheinert 2022, 2:06:53)

Evelyn’s answer to “the truth”—that nothing matters—is an unflinching and grateful acceptance of the very few moments that Joy deems inadequate. While she does not argue with Joy about the “amount” of worthy time in their life, Evelyn proposes instead to be positive and cherish the good times instead of focusing only on the disappointments. True to her promise that she will not abandon her daughter, when Joy belittles herself by calling herself “this,” Evelyn simply says that despite everything, she still chooses to be there and stay with her. While she does not profess her love as she does with the Alpha Deirdre, her action speaks much louder—grabbing Jobu Tupaki against the black hole and refusing to let go, and rolling down the cliff after Joy the rock. Despite the weirdness of having hotdog as fingers, she chooses to see the good

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in having more agile feet and being able to show love by munching each other’s hotdog fingers. The blood-spattered Evelyn in front of the laundromat is standing firm and sending out the strongest message of love by accepting the imperfections of life and being grateful for the occasional appearance of “the few specks of time.” One of these few specks of time when things do make sense, and actually makes life rewarding is the moment when Deirdre surprises everyone by asking the police officers to release the violent Evelyn. Later Evelyn sits with her outside the laundromat, and asks the usually serious and relentless lady why she lets her go. Deirdre says that under the circumstances, Evelyn’s (violent) behaviour is understandable— and she shares what Waymond has disclosed to her about the divorce. Deirdre is being kind to Evelyn in her way, because she herself has gone through similar experiences. As one middle-aged woman who has taken up responsibilities for her own life to another one sharing a similar situation, Deirdre has turned herself from Evelyn’s arch enemy to a companion in need. The two women’s cigarette time together does not approach the hotdog hand lovers’ time together in the degree of passion, but the mutual understanding and kindness shared between two people with common experience is unmistakable.

6.6 Conclusion: “She Is Not Most People” At different stages of Evelyn’s journey across the multiverse, her identity being the savior has been doubted by many people, including the Alpha team, and most of all, Evelyn herself. It is Waymond who assures everyone that “she is not most people” and believes in her potential to rise to the occasion in saving the multiverse. It turns out, as revealed later, that the danger is not so much the destruction of the multiverse, but Jobu Tupaki’s self-destruction. The seeming end of the world is actually a massive call for help from a suicidal self, a call to her mother hoping to resolve the conflicts of identity that the young self has suffered in her life. Evelyn Wang, middle-aged owner of a laundromat, facing IRS audit, divorce, lack of respect from a father who finds her inadequate, and increasing isolation from her only daughter, receives the call from Alpha verse and jumps in with no reservation. Her positive answer to the call takes her through a journey of deep self-reflection, pushing her to examine all the choices she has and has not made in the past that finally lands her in her troubled position. In the course of this multiverse journey, she retrieves her daughter from depression and self-destruction, and rediscovers her true self. At the end of the story, she is ready to continue her life, but in her own way. Although the trajectory of the story starts with conflicts and chaos and moves towards a harmonious resolution, the movement itself reveals the pain, suffering, sadness, hopelessness and pointlessness that is an inherent part of life. The chaotic life Evelyn is leading at the beginning of the film is real, Waymond’s disillusion in their marriage is real, Joy’s hopelessness is real, and even Gong Gong’s disappointment with Evelyn’s lack of achievement is also real. While audience may celebrate the positive resolution of the film, when seemingly most of the conflicts among characters

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have been resolved through a change of perspective and attitude to life, we are also reminded that these conflicts have to be faced and accepted before anything can be done about them. The last section of the film when the mind-fractured Evelyn makes up her mind to fight in Waymond’s way, her enlightenment is represented by the “eye sticker” that she put between her eyebrows, where some religions consider “the third eye” is situated. To many, the third eye is the inner eye which sees through the surface of reality, and is able to penetrate the heart of the matter. In this case, the heart of Joy’s melancholia is the lack of self-worth resulting from the mothering she receives from Evelyn, and who probably also receives the same from her own mother. The young woman’s grief resonates with many others across the multiverse, challenging not only Evelyn but also members of the audience. Evelyn’s acceptance of the mission issued by Alpha verse is therefore an acceptance of the challenge to look into this grief, to find out the reason, and possibly to identify ways of getting out of this grief. During her verse jumping, her eyes are opened and so is her heart—she feels with every single soul that she engages with and this empathy becomes one of the most powerful tools for conflict resolution. She knows, she feels, therefore she accepts and makes her choice open-eyed, not flinching from the hurt. If the original call from Jobu Tupaki is a call from melancholic grief, Evelyn answers this call by turning it into a public mourning. While mothering is a private experience, the social, cultural and historical context in which mothering takes place is public. The way Everything Everywhere All at Once makes use of the multiverse is actually turning one of the most private sentiment of grief into the most “public,” as it touches all of us. In his discussion of how Freud, Barthes, and Derrida published their personal reflections and ponderings of mourning in book form, White comments that “mourning is not a secondary concern, but a crucial ingredient of personal identity and self-determination” (White 2015: 187). Mourning, besides being a private sentiment which is a symbol of the connection between the mourner and the departed, can also have a public dimension “in which we commemorate the departed and begin to renew ourselves in relation to other people” (White 2015: 187). The writers who publish their reflection on personal mourning may therefore be understood as starting the process of self-recovery using the writing and the book. While it is not the place to discuss an “appropriate” way of mourning, whether the mourner should let go or hang on to the loss, or for how long, it is safe to say that “[t]he task of mourning must include self-gathering and self-healing which is something we may assume the departed would desire for us” (White 2015: 188). I believe that Evelyn’s story, presented as a most public journey of mourning, is also serving a similar purpose for herself and those who are associated with her. This multiverse mourning is to be understood as a “dialogue and engagement” with what is lost, “which leads to new possibilities of thinking and creative response” (White 2015: 188). Interestingly, this view of mourning as a continuous and on-going engagement echoes what the director has said about the situation in the film: We should be looking to a forward-looking multiverse, because right now this universe we’re in is on a very scary path. And the multiverse is actually a really beautiful, important

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And these possibilities, as well noted by Evelyn, can be fantastic, crazy, stupid, and senseless. But no matter what, “we definitely shouldn’t be looking backwards” (Yamato 2022) if the intention is to find solutions to the conflicts.

References Chilton, L. (2023, 2 6). Jackie Chan told Michelle Yeoh he was offered Everything Everywhere All At Once lead role first. The Independent. Retrieved 6 14, 2023, from https://www.indepe ndent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/jackie-chan-michelle-yeoh-everything-everywhereb2276941.html Chodorow, N. (1978). The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender. Oakland: University of California Press. Freud, S. (1917). Mourning and Melancholia. In S. Freud, A. Freud, & J. Strachey (Ed.), On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement: Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works (J. Strachey, Trans., pp. 243–258). London: The Hogarth Press. Kelley, S. (2023, 3 12). Read Michelle Yeoh’s full Academy Award acceptance speech. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 6 14, 2023, from https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/awards/story/ 2023-03-12/michelle-yeoh-acceptance-speech-oscars-2023 Kwan, D., & Scheinert, D. (Directors). (2022). Everything Everywhere All At Once [Motion Picture]. United States. White, R. (2015). Dialectics of Mourning. Angelaki, 20(4), 179–192. https://doi.org/10.1080/096 9725X.2015.1096644 Yamato, J. (2022, 4 14). ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ explained: Hot dog hands, empathy challenges and meaning in the absurd. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 1 20, 2023, from https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2022-04-14/everything-everyw here-all-at-once-explained-daniels-spoilers

Amy Wai-sum Lee has a background in comparative literary studies and Buddhist studies, and has published in a range of topics including feminine autobiographies, witchcraft and witchery, experiences of solitude, teenage literature of magic, marginalized experiences by female writers, and popular film and fiction. She has also written about the importance of co-curricular activities in higher education and how they play a role in creating whole person education for young people. In her teaching, she has experimented with approaches of caring pedagogy, and used literary and cultural texts to facilitate emotional wellness on top of subject knowledge. Recent research projects include using Playback Theatre to cultivate self-understanding, self-care, and building connection among diverse groups of participants. She has been an associate professor at the Department of Humanities and Creative Writing at Hong Kong Baptist University. She is now a professor at the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Hong Kong Metropolitan University.

Chapter 7

The Grief of Losing and the Melancholy of Being: A Journey of Dream and Awakening in Lao She’s Mr Ma and Son Chi Sum Garfield Lau

Abstract Lao She’s novel Mr Ma and Son (1929) was inspired by the writer’s experience of living in London from 1924 to 1929. Sinologist and historian Frances Wood regards the novel as “a bitter indictment of the racist treatment of, and ignorant attitudes to, Chinese in London in the 1920s” (Wood in Great Books of China: From Ancient Times to the Present. BlueBridge, Kantonah, NY, p 188, 2017). As a Chinese intellectual and supporter of the May Fourth Movement (1919), a patriotic socio-political reform, Lao She acknowledged the challenges of changing foreign attitudes towards China and its people. Mr Ma and Son depicts the lives of Ma Tsejen and his son, Ma Wei, in London. The two Chinese men are initially regarded as unwelcome in the Gordon Street lodging house of Mrs. Wedderburn and her daughter, Mary. The varying experiences of grief and melancholy endured by the father and his son reflect not only the divergence and incompatibility inherent in Sino–British encounters but also how different approaches to and attempts at integration lead to different outcomes. The father’s infringement on civic virtue to strengthen his own position and the son’s frustrated struggle between his doomed romance with Mary and his growing sense of Chinese nationalism at the expense of his mental health illustrate Liang Qichao’s warning that “the transformation of subjects into citizens” is “the most daunting task in modernizing the imperial state” (Lee in History of Political Thought 28(2):305–327, 2007: 309). Keywords Lao She · Mr Ma and Son · Chinese in Britain · Interracial relationship · Anti-Chinese sentiment · Racial discrimination

C. S. G. Lau (B) Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Kowloon, Hong Kong e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024 C. S. Garfield Lau and K. K. Y. Chan (eds.), The Poetics of Grief and Melancholy in East-West Conflicts and Reconciliations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-9821-0_7

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7.1 Introduction: Placing China Under Western Eyes Lao She 老舍 (1899–1966) was the pseudonym of the Chinese novelist Shu Qingchun 舒慶春. He wrote the novel Mr Ma and Son《二馬》(1929) in his mid-twenties, while teaching Chinese at the University of London. In China, the 1920s were an era of turbulence, turmoil and foreign threats: Although China retained formal sovereignty, its territory was diminished and, Sun [Yat-sen] argued, “it was crushed by the economic strengths of the Powers to a greater degree than if we were a full colony”. (Goodman and Goodman 2012: 3)

While the assertion that China was colonised is controversial, the country’s domination by the West was reflected in unflattering and demeaning Western depictions of Chinese people during this period. Although Lao She held a respectable position as a university instructor, he was a member of an ethnic minority in London during the age of imperialism, which indicated his subjugation by the British Empire. Mr Ma and Son depicts the journey of Ma Tse-jen and his son as they settle in London to run an antique shop left to Ma Tse-jen by his late brother. Living in a country whose culture is in many ways different from their own, the two men undergo various psychological changes. Ma Tse-jen has a conventional Chinese mentality, and he initially experiences melancholy and grief after leaving home. Eventually, however, he finds joy and pleasure in living in a foreign country, although he hopes to return to his homeland someday. In contrast, his son, Ma Wei, is excited to leave home for the first time. The foreign setting allows him to break free of the constraints of Chinese tradition. Ma Wei’s joy, however, is soon replaced by anxiety about his troubled romance with Mary and the pain of observing China’s devastation from afar. The changing emotions of the father and his son as they forge lives in a foreign land illustrate the linkage between the health of the Chinese nation and the mental condition of its citizens. This idea aligns with the political philosophy of Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929), a prominent advocate of Chinese nationalism. According to Tang Xiaobing, “Liang projected the ‘new citizen’ as a self-conscious and functioning member of the modern nation-state” (Tang 1996: 21). The connection between a nation and its citizens was founded on Liang’s belief that “[a]ny attempt to change the system would have to involve everyone. Individuals are thus attributed with political agency” (Lee 2007: 317). At the end of the novel, Ma Wei is still frustrated, but Ma Tse-jen pays little attention to the signs of his son’s melancholy. Through the experiences of these characters, Lao She warns of the dangers of failing to balance personal anguish with grief at the decline of the state and, especially, of the inability to recognise the weaknesses of one’s country. China’s political and economic weaknesses contribute to the West’s negative perceptions of its people: When a community, under the leadership of a government, decides to draw a boundary between itself and what is not itself, racial stereotypes are typically deployed as a way of project onto an other all the things that are supposedly alien. (Chow 2002: 59)

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False images of China are formed by foreigners who take pleasure in China’s misfortune and know China only through films or other fictional portrayals. Echoing many other critics, Jun Lei argues that Sax Rohmer’s fictional Chinese villain Fu Manchu is “the best-known stereotype of the yellow peril in English-language media” (Lei 2022: 72).1 Unfortunately, to assimilate into foreign societies, Chinese people confirm the false and over-generalised depictions of China, which reflects the county’s inability to combat derogatory characterisations: [T]he Chinese transformed into the most sinister, most foul, most loathsome and most degraded two-legged beasts on earth. In this twentieth century, people are judged according to their nation. The people of a powerful nation are people; the people of a weak nation are dogs. (Lao She 2013: 15)

Ma Wei evolves from a youth eager to start his adventure in London into a young man burdened by patriotic concerns. Conversely, Ma Tse-jen thinks little about his role in tarnishing China’s image in the eyes of foreigners. This juxtaposition offers a satirical perspective on the joy of ignorance and the melancholy that comes with understanding.

7.2 The Father’s Melancholy: Perceptions and Appearances As father and son, Ma Tse-jen and Ma Wei share many physical characteristics, such as their “big, bright and pleasant-looking” eyes (Lao She 2013: 22). However, their different personalities and levels of maturity lead them to adopt contrasting approaches to adapting to life in London. Ma Tse-jen’s preoccupation with appearances and indolence are analysed in this section to understand how the grief he carries from China gives rise to his indifferent attitude upon his arrival in London. Ma Tse-jen is highly concerned about the way people perceive him. This mentality is related to the Chinese concept of “face” 面子, a cultural concept built upon social connections: In Chinese society, on the other hand, individuals are embedded in social relationships in which there are obligations defined by the roles through which social engagements occur. This entails that a person’s face-state shall depend not only on their own behavior but also on the behavior of other persons with whom they are socially connected. (Qi 2017)

Influenced by the Chinese idiom that “a glorious place fosters talented people” 地靈人傑, Ma Tse-jen conceals his Cantonese background by falsely stating that he is from Peking.2 This act reflects the historical perception of Peking as the heart of the country and the south as a barren area. However, on learning that Sun Yat-sen 1

Sax Rohmer was the pen name of the British novelist Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward (1883–1959). The idiom originates from Wang Bo’s 王勃 writing “A Tribute to King Teng’s Tower”《滕王閣 序》 .

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(1866–1925), a native of Canton province, has overthrown the Qing dynasty (1636– 1912) and become the first provisional president of Republican China, Ma Tse-jen adds the phrase “hailing from Canton” to his visiting card (Lao She 2013: 22). Liang Qichao condemned a “clan-based” mentality and stated that “this kind of communal association was in fact a hindrance to the formation of modern citizenry” (Lee 2007: 323). He highlighted the need “to conceive guo [nation國] as a collective identity” (Zarrow 2012: 56). Ma Tse-jen also changes his clothing to make a better impression on Londoners. He puts on spectacles to make himself seem “more dignified and venerable”, although he is “neither short-sighted nor long-sighted” (Lao She 2013: 22). Although Ma Tse-jen cares about his image and demonstrates the ability to adjust his appearance and identity, travelling abroad results in frustration and melancholic feelings that give rise to a more reserved attitude. His behaviour while on the ship to London exemplifies this evolving mentality: During the forty days they spent at sea, the elder Mr Ma struggled up on deck but once. The moment he stepped out of the cabin door, the ship lurched and he was thrown head over heels. Without a murmur, he steadied himself against the door and went back inside. The second time he came up, the ship was already in London, and completely motionless. (Lao She 2013: 21)

Ma Tse-jen goes on deck only twice during the long voyage. The narrator describes him critically as “an ‘old’ element of the ‘old’ nation” who acts “without taking one more step than was necessary” (Lao She 2013: 56, 21). Ma Tse-jen’s lack of engagement throughout the journey may result from the shock of leaving the familiar and entering the unknown. Paul Pedersen studies how anxiety is caused by the uncertain expectations that arise upon immersion into a new culture: In a multicultural context, culture shock is a more or less sudden immersion into a nonspecific state of uncertainty where the individuals are not certain what is expected of them or of what they can expect from the persons around them. (Pedersen 1995: 1)

Ma Tse-jen does not make the journey to London entirely of his own volition: he goes to fulfil his late brother’s will. His journey is therefore “like some hazy dream”, and he views his surroundings in a “vague daze” (Lao She 2013: 57, 21). On the morning after his arrival in London, he feels utterly despondent, lacking a sense of belonging: He felt utterly lost and helpless, when he’d properly woken up, and recalled that he was in London, he experienced quite another feeling, that of inexpressible gloom and melancholy. His friends in Peking, the meat dumplings of the Great Beauty Restaurant, the K’un-ch’ü opera of the Exchange Virtue Theatre, his late wife, his elder brother … Shanghai … He recalled them all, and the next moment forgot them all again, but from the corners of his eyes two big teardrops escaped. (Lao She 2013: 45)

London holds no reminders of these beloved people and places from Ma Tsejen’s homeland. His feelings of loneliness are intensified by the pressure to learn the etiquette required in his new environment. As his son tries to prompt him to imitate British ways of acting and dressing, he grows increasingly irate:

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The more Mr Ma thought about it, the angrier he grew: So this is what it’s like when you go abroad! And what have I done to deserve such treatment? Yes, what have I done? Can’t get up late, or there’s no hot water! No hot water! (Lao She 2013: 54)

Ma Tse-jen is frustrated by the need to play the role of a presentable other. In his research on behaviours associated with culture shock, Paul Pedersen finds that “familiar cues about how the person is supposed to behave are missing, or the familiar cues now have a different meaning” (Pedersen 1995: 1). The discrepancy between how one behaves in one’s homeland and the way one is expected to behave in a host country may create a sense of confinement. In China, Ma Tse-jen’s actions reflected his decent and respectable personality, but in Britain, he refuses to adhere to local customs. Although Ma Tse-jen suffers from an inability to express his authentic self, it is also through his role as a foreigner in an unfamiliar culture that he is able to come to terms with the grief of losing his brother. His adulthood was characterised by consistent financial assistance from his elder brother Ma Wei-jen, including assistance in paying for Ma Tse-jen’s wedding, the ceremony that took place after the birth of his son, and even the funeral of his wife. The death of Mrs. Ma marked the first experience of grief in Ma Tse-jen’s life (Lao She 2013). This unwanted experience recurs because of Ma Tse-jen’s recognition of his inability to pay back all his brother gave to him. Ma Tse-jen is only able to reunite with his brother through a visit to his grave in London with Ma Wei, who has never met his uncle. On the night before this reunion, Ma Tse-jen thinks and dreams about his brother. “As he recalled his brother’s kindness, he felt somewhat ashamed. He’d spent so much of his brother’s money. And it was money his brother had come by through hard graft” (Lao She 2013: 63). While the realisation of his own idleness at the expense of his brother’s industriousness distresses Ma Tse-jen, the actual visit to the grave saddens him further: The black clouds in the sky, the stone pillar and the tattered wreaths combined to produce an atmosphere of forlorn desolation. A feeling of distress welled up inside Mr Ma, and he found himself shedding tears. And although Ma Wei had never met his uncle, his eyes grew red-rimmed too. (Lao She 2013: 67)

The more than 40-day-long sea voyage closes the physical distance between Ma Tse-jen and his late brother’s grave, but the tombstone eternally separates them. Although the siblings are now both present under the same foreign sky, their “reunion” is bittersweet.

7.3 The Son’s Transition from Excitement to Disappointment Unlike his father, who begrudgingly travels to London, Ma Wei is open to embracing British customs and is excited about the journey:

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It was, moreover, his first trip abroad, and the first on an ocean liner, and everything struck him as fresh and exciting. As he leant on the ship’s rail, with the sea breezes whisking up spray and blowing his face bright red, he felt almost as free as the waters of the ocean. (Lao She 2013: 21)

While his father perceives the adoption of foreign customs as an infringement on his Chinese sense of self, Ma Wei views the transition in terms of the Romantic ideals of liberty and unbounded will. Ma Wei takes great care with his attire and his behaviour as he enters his new life in London. He begins to keep his face clean shaven (Lao She 2013: 47), and on the first morning after his arrival, he gives his suit “a meticulous brush-down” ensures that he is “fully dressed”, and even thoughtfully considers whether his rising early may displease the landlady, Mrs. Wedderburn (Lao She 2013: 47). Ma Wei is aware of the need to observe British manners to gain acceptance from the local population. However, due to deep-seated racial biases, his efforts are not always successful. Anne Witchard investigates offensive stereotypes of Chinese people in Britain and remarks that “Chinese immigrants in London lived in a condition of perpetual humiliation” (Witchard 2012: 62). This observation is reflected in the novel by the attitude of Mary Wedderburn, the daughter of the landlady, who mocks her mother for letting rooms to Chinese people. Ma Wei has no choice but to bitterly restrain his emotions: Ma Wei blushed deeply, and he thought of getting up and marching out. He frowned, but didn’t get to the feet. Miss Wedderburn looked at him with a smile, as if to say, “Cringing cowards, the Chinese. They can’t even get properly angry.” (Lao She 2013: 48)

Ma Wei’s silence reflects his recognition of his subordinate position in British society. By holding back his anger, he tries to avoid further conflict and to discredit the savage image of Chinese people perpetuated in British society. This represents the entwined nature of self and nation for immigrants living on the peripheries of their host society: In particular, they struggled repeatedly to balance Chinese traditional values and modern Western ideas, and to resolve the tension between Han nationalism and minority ethnic consciousness, and to reconcile a statecentric view and a decentralised view of the Chinese nation-state. (Zhao 2004: 38)

Ma Wei’s suppression of individual emotions to better represent Chinese people and society is considered by the narrator to be an act of cowardice. This demonstrates that Chinese migrants faced a difficult choice between being ridiculed by their host society and shedding their Chinese ways and losing their ability to express their emotions. Ma Wei also reacts differently to grief than his father. The unexpected death of Ma Wei’s mother when he was eight and the subsequent absence of a female presence in his life has made him curious about women. In China, Sunday church services led by foreign missionaries were the only times Ma Wei could interact with the opposite sex, and even then this was confined to glances at women during prayers. This innocent act was condemned by Mrs. Ely, the wife of Reverend Ely:

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But many a time he was caught at it by Mrs Ely, who would report it to the Reverend Ely. And the reverend would give him a thorough telling-off, partly in English, partly in Chinese. “Little boy! Mustn’t look at young ladies during prayers! Understand?” He’d say in Chinese. “See?” He’d add in English. (Lao She 2013: 51)

Although church life under the surveillance of foreign missionaries deprived Ma Wei of meaningful interactions with women at an early age, Reverend Ely is instrumental in finding Ma Wei-jen and Ma Wei lodging in London with Mrs. Wedderburn and her daughter Mary. With the move from a Chinese church to a British household, the surveillance of God’s servant over his Chinese subjects begins to recede. Li Tze-jung, a capable shopkeeper hired by Ma Wei-jen to run his antique shop, acts as a mentor for Ma Wei as he adjusts to life in London. Li shares with Ma Wei perceptive insights into the differences between Chinese and British people. He urges Ma Wei to adopt British customs, suggesting that such assimilation may alleviate the pressure associated with adjusting to a foreign society. During his early days in London, Li was also frustrated by British customs and etiquette. He realised that expressing his authentic self would not lessen the xenophobia he faced; as “the foreigners already turn up their noses at us, [he doesn’t] see the point of doing one’s best to make them dislike [the Chinese] all the more” (Lao She 2013: 85). Li’s initial desire to remain true to himself resembled Ma Tse-jen’s approach to life in London, but he changed his mind after hearing a humiliating comment on his failure to observe British manners. At this moment, Li realised that there is nothing more “mortifying” than being treated as “a savage” (Lao She 2013: 85). The turmoil created by this humiliation engenders the idea that “Face [in the Chinese world] can, of course, be gained in recognition of what one ‘deserves’” (Ho 1976: 870). Li’s humble acceptance of his role as a perpetual insider–outsider in London assuages the melancholy created by the racist treatment he faces, and his frank evaluation of the situation convinces Ma Wei of the need to assimilate. Through the character of Li, Lao She suggests a way to resist the imperialistic degradation of China and its people. Ranbir Vohra comments that “Lao She, living in England when the glory of the British empire had reached its apex, feels that the weakness of Chinese nationalism is partly due to the lack of pride in the past among his countrymen” (Vohra 1974: 34). Chinese subjects who lived in Britain during this period were “divided into two classes: workmen and students” (Lao She 2013: 15). Over time, social strata emerged and separated these two groups, regardless of their shared ethnicity. This prejudice was upheld by the immigrants themselves, reflected in Ma Tse-jen’s appraisal of Li as a “vulgar chap” when he sees “Li’s shirt, his rolled-up sleeves and his soiled hands” (Lao She 2013: 75, 71). Sascha Auerbach suggests that “China’s inability to overcome internal class tensions precluded it from becoming a modern, capitalist nation that could operate on equal terms with Britain” (Auerbach 2013: 38). Similarly, Witchard describes the conservative mentality of Ma Tse-jen as a corrosive force that explains China’s diminished status during this period:

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While Lao She portrays the racist ideology that underwrites the many prejudices which Westerners have against the Chinese, he does not attribute all China’s ills to foreign aggression. China is weak because the old decadent order still prevails. (Witchard 2012: 123)

Ma Tse-jen’s place in the “old decadent order” differentiates his background from Li’s working-class status. However, just as Li’s identity as a Chinese subject in London makes him an insider–outsider, so his dual roles as a student and a worker indicate the fluidity of identity and the possibility for individuals to transcend the boundaries of social class. Situated at the intersections of different social classes and cultures, Li makes use of his strengths to better the lives of other Chinese workers in London. He translates for Chinese workers in addition to his other paid roles, and, although he begins translation work to supplement his income, he eventually finds happiness in helping other Chinese people. He turns Liang Qichao’s ideals of Chinese citizenship into actions; as “Liang writes, the people are expected to resume responsibilities in determining the destiny of the country” (Tang 1996: 23): And when I saw all my fellow countrymen getting mucked around and made fun of by the English police, well, I wanted to do it. I was in the same boat as those workmen – helpless. All I managed from the job was three or four pounds a month, but that was enough to see me through. (Lao She 2013: 86)

Li’s role as a translator is key for cross-cultural transmission and inter-lingual communication, as he finds a way to improve his own and his kinsmen’s lives. This illustrates Lao She’s suggestion that fraternity among Chinese people can help prevent sadness and frustration among Chinese people living abroad.

7.4 Father’s Adjustment Versus Son’s Melancholy After an adjustment period, Ma Tse-jen sheds his melancholy and embraces the seeming hospitality of the British. His stubborn mentality and limited understanding of the British prevent him from seeing others’ hypocrisy. Traditional British beliefs about racial supremacy prevent even those who have lived in China for a long time, such as Reverend Ely and Mrs. Ely, from fully understanding Chinese people and Chineseness. While China suffers under generations of foreign aggression and exploitation, Ma Tse-jen is passively exploited by the British in London and Ma Wei struggles to balance his filial duty as a Chinese son, his role as a guardian of his late uncle’s fortune, and his desire to protect and uphold China’s national dignity. Although Ma Tse-jen shows little interest in his late brother’s antique shop, he starts to cultivate his own interests in Britain. In China, he “discreetly visit[s] the singsong houses” (Lao She 2013: 23). Although he spends the early period of his life in London “pass[ing] the day in sleeping and eating, and eating and sleeping” (Lao She 2013: 21), he eventually takes up gardening and walking Mrs. Wedderburn’s Pekingese named Napoleon, as he used to keep pets and plant flowers in China. These two interests help him build a sense of companionship with Mrs. Wedderburn.

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During Ma Tse-jen’s initial meeting with Mrs. Wedderburn, he is annoyed by her chatty personality, thinking, “What a mass of rules! Marry a foreign woman and I bet she’d be on your tail all the time, like a cat after a mouse” (Lao She 2013: 42). However, growing flowers in her garden and helping look after her dog enable him to build a friendship with her. Ma Tse-jen’s shifting attitudes exemplify the interactions between cultural memory and individual desire that occur during migration. The historian and sinologist Wang Gungwu states that “[i]t was simply not possible for the desire to remain in Chinese in one way or another to be untouched by the growing pressures for change at all levels” (Wang 2007: 14). During the early stages of his life in London, Ma Tse-jen frequently mentions his desire to return to China. At Christmastime, for example, he is unmoved by the city’s festive atmosphere and celebrations: Ah it’d be nice if I were in China. Just the sort of bustle and excitement we have at New Year. No matter how much others are enjoying themselves, I can’t get into the spirit of things, celebrating a festival abroad. I only hope I can make a fortune. Then I’ll go back to China and celebrate the festivals there. (Lao She 2013: 213)

To shake his melancholy, he decides to “get back. Go home and see Mrs. Wedderburn” (Lao She 2013: 213), indicating that he does view London as his current home. His common interests with Mrs. Wedderburn help to transform his temporary lodgings into a space that resembles his old home. Ma Tse-jen’s fondness for Napoleon serves as a reminder of his life in China with his own Pekingese dog before his wife’s passing. He actively re-creates similar experiences in his new home: One day, without mentioning it to Mrs Wedderburn, Mr Ma bought a bunch of young plants in town: five or six rosebushes, fifteen or so wallflower seedlings, a heap of dahlia tubers which had just started sprouting, and a few rather unpromising chrysanthemums with very straggly stems and leaves, not looking very green. (Lao She 2013: 102)

Mrs. Wedderburn is “very fond of flowers” (Lao She 2013: 102), but her garden is barren because she lacks the time and money to maintain it. There are several reasons why Ma Tse-jen plants flowers in Mrs. Wedderburn’s garden. When he goes out to garden, he does not return to his shop (Lao She 2013: 101), allowing him to escape his expected role in London. The act of gardening may also be an attempt to adjust to English customs. Mrs. Wedderburn asks Ma Tse-jen if Chinese people like flowers, and he “caught the implication of her words, but, disinclined to argue” (Lao She 2013: 103). He then mentions how he began growing flowers after the death of his wife (Lao She 2013: 103). His gardening skills both enhance Mrs. Wedderburn’s impression of Chinese people and help him to create a comfortable domestic setting that reminds him of home. The interests shared by Ma Tse-jen and Mrs. Wedderburn demonstrate that there are similarities between people with different racial and cultural backgrounds. In the novel, Catherine Ely, daughter of Reverend Ely, voices the opinion that the source of problems in both Britain and China is that people do not read books and cultivate their personal knowledge. The British, however, do not see any humanity in the Chinese:

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The successful diffusion of Chineseness in English culture through the commodification of chinoiserie ultimately sets these objects at odds with privileged forms of English cultural capital: they are aggressively estranged from the cultural standard precisely because they are too common and too familiar. (Jenkins 2013: 217)

Although Ma Tse-jen and Mrs. Wedderburn share interests, the novel is careful to avoid implying that Britain views China as its equal. Ma Tse-jen’s interest in gardening and dog-walking within the domestic sphere are represented as feminine traits. This is also reflected in his ability to gossip with Mrs. Wedderburn but not to participate in conversations that involve national affairs. While Ma Tse-jen becomes more comfortable with his life in London, his son Ma Wei grows increasingly melancholic. Ma Tse-jen’s leisurely approach to running the shop and his excessive spending worsen the financial prospects of their household. As he is incapable of comprehending the British mentality with his Chinese mindset, Ma Tse-jen is unaware of his own culpability in becoming a victim of exploitation, which generates tensions with his son: One day Father’s shouting someone a meal, and the next he’s inviting someone to have to have a drink on him. People only have to say the Chinese are nice, and he invites them out to dinner. And when they tell him the food’s good, he has to go and invite then out again! (Lao She 2013: 117)

While it bothers Ma Wei to see his father spending unwisely on guests who take advantage of his generosity, Ma Wei’s descent into melancholy is spurred by his father’s seeming indifference to the threat of imperialist aggression faced by their homeland. Rumin Wen suggests that “[h]is superiority complex, as one of ‘sons of the celestial empire’, makes him both a ridiculous and a tragic figure. At the same time, his lack of innate self-respect is revealed by his pandering self-basement to English people” (Wen 2000: 119). Ma Tse-jen naively views superficial compliments as reflecting genuine affection for Chinese culture and cares most about the notion of “face”. Ma Wei points out that his father lies to a foreigner about having five or six wives. Because “[p]eople are convinced the Chinese have a lot of wives”, “[Ma Tse-jen] tries too hard to answer them the way they want” (Lao She 2013: 117), which perpetuates false stereotypes about China. Ma Tse-jen’s claim is a shortsighted attempt at self-aggrandisement; he does not consider how his words might reinforce Westerners’ image of China as a pre-modern patriarchal society. Ma Wei’s disapproval of his father’s actions and mentality create domestic conflicts. Several Chinese writers who lived abroad during the Republican era connected the bodies and minds of Chinese citizens with infringements on China’s territorial integrity. In the novella Sinking《沉淪》(1921), Yu Dafu 郁達夫 (1896–1945) illustrates how “[t]he dimension of national humiliation” provokes “private and psychic crisis of the self” (Chen 2003: 567). The protagonist, a Chinese student in Japan, intends to release his rage at his treatment by the Japanese by engaging in an unethical sexual relationship with a Japanese woman. Through his choice to “abandon medicine and turn to literature”, Lu Xun 魯迅 (1881–1936) adopted an optimistic approach to saving China (Pusey 1998: 30). He became a writer because his hope “was not to cure patients who were physically ill, but to enlighten his people in China

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by means of writings” (Lau 2012: 152). Lu Xun suggests that a healthy country is founded on the mental vigour and engagement of its people. Lao She, Yu Dafu and Lu Xun were all Chinese intellectuals living abroad, and they portray in their works their struggle with their physical separation from their homeland and their resulting frustration at being unable to engage in patriotic acts. While Ma Tse-jen’s mood improves as he forms relationships in London, his attitude worsens the mental state of his son. The frustration that Ma Wei faces in his domestic setting is reflected in the broader troubles faced by Chinese people in London. Ma Tse-jen is oblivious to offensive depictions of his homeland. Just as Yu Dafu and Lu Xun connect the bodies of individuals to the state of their homeland, both Ms Tse-jen and Ma Wei experience physical problems that represent assaults on the Chinese nation by foreign threats. Ma Tse-jen goes out with Mrs. Ely’s brother, Alexander, gets drunk, and injures himself: The elder Mr Ma’s head was wedged into a corner of the cab and his legs sprawled sideways, so that he looked uncannily long. One hand was placed limply on his lap, and the other lay palm upwards on the cushion of the seat. There was a blue patch on his forehead and some flecks of blood on his face, and his mouth with its scrappy moustache seemed fixed in a smile. (Lao She 2013: 130)

Although Ma Tse-jen does not consider Alexander a close friend, his lack of reaction to the latter’s racist views and his choice to maintain a friendship with him eventually lead to bodily harm. This situation also affects Ma Wei. In addition to his deteriorating mental health, Ma Wei also becomes much thinner during his time in London; on his arrival, we learn, “he wasn’t so thin then, and his brow wasn’t so tightly furrowed” (Lao She 2013: 21). The failure of Ma Tse-jen to set aside his pride and stand up for the dignity of the Chinese people perpetuates the denigration of China abroad: Liang Qichao’s political thinking nationalism invariably overrides liberalism, because the Confucian belief in fundamental harmony between the private and the public, individual rights and collective interests, persisted and led him to prioritize the group and the nation. (Tang 1996: 21)

Ma Tse-jen’s ignorance and physical injury illustrate how the insensitivity of Chinese people to their situations leads to the physical suffering of the nation at the hands of foreign powers. While Ma Tse-jen adopts a joyful attitude in London but still hopes to return to his homeland, Ma Wei grieves over the nation’s suffering, with both physical and mental manifestations. The differing moods of the father and the son satirise the joy of being ignorant and the pain of facing the truth.

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7.5 The Father’s Contentment with Inter-racial Gender Relations The housing of a Chinese widower and his son with a widowed British mother and her daughter eventually leads to the development of both reciprocal and non-reciprocal infatuations. By situating Chinese and British families under the same roof, Lao She illustrates both the racial disparities between the Mas and the Wedderburns and “a conflict of values system between father and son” (Wong 2002: 132). This section of the chapter discusses how mutual respect and acceptance transform the relationship between Ma Tse-jen and Mrs. Wedderburn from a professional relationship between a landlady and her tenant into genuine companionship with the potential for further intimacy. In contrast, Ma Wei’s obsession with Mary results in despair. In the beginning of the novel, Reverend Ely persuades Mrs. Wedderburn to let her vacant rooms to “[t]wo extremely nice Chinese fellows” (Lao She 2013: 18). As the Reverend understands that British people generally perceive the Chinese to be “murderous, fire-raising, rat-eating” individuals, he plays upon this idea of British superiority by asking Mrs. Wedderburn to demonstrate “the true spirit of Christian humility” and stating that she will be able “to charge whatever [she] deem[s] fit” (Lao She 2013: 19). This begins the financial linkage between the two families. Mrs. Wedderburn and Ma Tse-jen transcend the relationship between landlord and tenant and become companions to ease each other’s loneliness. The British xenophobic mindset explains Mrs. Wedderburn’s initial impression of Ma Tse-jen and his son: When Lao She arrived in London he very soon became aware that his fear and loathing of the Chinese was fanned not only by reports of “atrocities” at the outposts of Britain’s Empire, but by the notion of a Yellow Peril at its very heart. (Witchard 2012: 87)

Due to preconceptions established by anti-Chinese films, Mrs. Wedderburn is suspicious that Ma Tse-jen and his son “don’t look as ugly as they do in the films” and considers that perhaps “they weren’t real Chinese” (Lao She 2013: 41). At this stage, she is no more than a provider of a living space and meals to the Ma family; any extra service or aid rendered requires monetary compensation. For instance, Mrs. Wedderburn tells Ma Tse-jen that she will make him lunch for a fee, saying that “[i]f you’d like a meal, I can make up a little something for you, one shilling a time” (Lao She 2013: 59). Mrs. Wedderburn initially lets her rooms to Chinese tenants for financial reasons, but the act eventually gives rise to a choice between British kinship and foreign monetary inflows. Mrs. Wedderburn’s sister, Dolly, does not visit because of her distaste for the two Chinese tenants. The prioritisation of money leads to fraying kinship ties, resulting in an outburst of grief from Mrs. Wedderburn: Mrs Wedderburn’s cheeks grew redder still, and she seemed at that instant to recall all her life’s sufferings. Her lips suddenly stopped quivering, and the grievances insider her came bursting from her lips in one rambling monologue. (Lao She 2013: 148)

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As she calms down and wishes for company, she thinks about Ma Tse-jen, not her family members: I’ll go home; go and see Mr Ma. Why did he kept on cropping up in her thoughts all the time? Funny the way it is between men and women. But he’s Chinese – people’d laugh at me. Then again, why bother what other people say? (Lao She 2013: 152).

For both Ma Tse-jen and Mrs. Wedderburn, the other’s company brings the house alive and makes it feel like a home. The level of contentment that Mrs. Wedderburn finds in this cross-cultural friendship upends her presuppositions about the incompatibility of Chinese and British people. For Ma Tse-jen, this relationship reflects his shift from adherence to Confucian doctrines to the adoption of British customs and standards of etiquette. The initial attitude of Ma Tse-jen towards Mrs. Wedderburn represents the Confucian idea of li [proper conduct 禮] that governs the moral behaviour between people of opposite sexes. Following Confucian customs, Ma Tse-jen presents a canister of tea upon meeting Mrs. Wedderburn for the first time. Instead of placing it in her hands, he places the canister on the piano, in strict adherence to the Confucian teaching of Mencius 孟子 (372–289 BC) that “[i]t is a rule of propriety for men and women not to touch hands when giving or receiving things” (Chan 1969: 75).3 While the foreign setting gives his son the liberty to openly observe the opposite gender, Ma Tse-jen manages to balance Confucian doctrine and English etiquette. This can be seen when Ma Tse-jen and Mrs. Wedderburn chat while playing with Napoleon: Rousing himself, he tentatively stretched out his hand to play with Napoleon. Mrs Wedderburn didn’t move out of his way, and even came forwards to push the dog towards him. Mr Ma’s hand almost brushed her bosom. His nerves leapt to attention. Then suddenly, in a flash of inspiration, he stood up and gave Mrs Wedderburn his chair, moving a stool over for himself. (Lao She 2013: 60)

While he is aware of proper Confucian etiquette between men and women, the foreign setting allows him partially rid himself of restrictive expectations regarding gender. He begins to behave like a British person by prioritising his female companion’s comfort over Confucian codes of conduct. The relationship between Ma Tse-jen and Mrs. Wedderburn demonstrates the necessity of mutual respect and trust when forming cross-racial relationships. The discussion of Ma Tse-jen’s domestic life in Britain illustrates China’s womanish feebleness on the stage of world politics, and the blending of gender issues with race in this specific spatial setting complicates the dynamics. For example, Ma Tsejen wishes to marry Mrs. Wedderburn, but realises that she would not be able to assimilate happily into life in China: How would she find it if I took her with me, with no society there for her, and no entertainment, and her not speaking the language, and maybe not able to stomach the food? It’d be too cruel! Going there would be the end of her, beyond any doubt. (Lao She 2013: 232)

3

Lao She mentions in the book “[m]en and Women should not touch when giving or receiving” (Lao She 2013: 43).

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Although Mrs. Wedderburn also shows affection for Ma Tse-jen, Wong Yoon-wah comments that “the pressure of social prejudice is too strong to take an unconventional step” (Wong 2002: 132). While Ma Tse-jen and Mrs. Wedderburn’s relationship is marked by reciprocal signs of affection, Ma Wei’s relationship with Mary Wedderburn is characterised by passive infatuation and personal grief.

7.6 The Son’s Romantic Frustration Ma Wei’s pursuit of love is hindered by his disadvantaged position as a Chinese immigrant in London. Carles Prado-Fonts states that “Lao She’s alienation and the peripheral position from which he wrote–a position that explains the tension, contradictions and ambivalences […]” (Prado-Fonts 2013: 356). Ma Wei is attracted to Mary Wedderburn from their first encounter. Despite the latter’s unfriendly and discriminatory attitude towards Chinese people, his feelings for her “sped from surprise to admiration, and from admiration to infatuation, like someone drinking wine for the first time, face flushing headily after just one cup” (Lao She 2013: 52–53). Ma Wei’s passive “wait and see” results in Mary’s engagement to Washington, which ends all hope of a relationship with her (Lao She 2013: 225). Although Ma Wei complains to Li Tzu-jung about his father’s passivity in the face of xenophobic remarks, he ignores Mary’s stubborn anti-Chinese biases in a similar way. This echoes Freud’s interpretation of the dichotomy between pleasure and torment: Much that the individual wants to retain because it is pleasure-giving in nevertheless part not of the ego but of an object; and much that he wished to eject because it torments him yet proves to be inseparable from the ego, arising from an inner source. (Freud 2016: 3–4)

Ma Wei’s melancholy is intensified because he cannot openly express his feelings for Mary or his sadness and frustration about their relationship. In a conversation with Mrs. Wedderburn, he does not voice his feelings, instead thinking, “I’ve fallen for your daughter. Did you know?” (Lao She 2013: 154). His fraternal bond with Li Tzu-jung allows the latter to recognise and try to assist with the former’s troubles: But I can tell you one thing. Every time you think of her, ask yourself, ‘Does she regard me, a Chinese man, as a human being?’ And of course, the next step after that brings you to the highly pertinent conclusion: ‘If she doesn’t regard me as a human being, where can love come into it?’ […] (Lao She 2013: 175)

Li clearly explains why love is not possible for Ma Wei and Mary. Although similar in background and mindset, Li is better able to balance his own desires, familial expectations and struggle for national betterment than Ma Wei is. The sinologist and historian Frances Wood 吳芳思 (1948–) highlights Li’s pragmatic attitude: His practically is evident in his acceptance of a marriage his mother has arranged for him in China (in contrast with Ma’s hopeless pursuit of Mary Wedderburn), in his ability to organise his time between work and study, and his ability to enjoy himself in London […]. (Wood 2017: 187)

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This incompatibility with Mary is not the sole fault of Ma Wei. The racism present in British society influences Mary’s discriminatory behaviours, which gives Ma Wei’s inability to find love with a British woman a racial edge. While Ma Wei holds a sentimental view of love, he understands the necessity of sacrificing his individual emotions for the well-being of the state: In his heart, he couldn’t forget Mary, but he also realised that if he went to pieces over her, he and his father would starve to death, without question. And he would be unable to render the slightest service to his motherland. (Lao She 2013: 205)

E. Ann Kaplan acknowledges the connection between individual trauma and the wider political context. She states that “[t]rauma produces new subjects, that the political-ideological context within which traumatic events occur shapes their impact, and that it is hard to separate individual and collective trauma” (Kaplan 2005: 1). Ma Wei cannot escape the tension between his individual sensibility and his patriotic sense of duty to China: Besides such actual troubles, Ma Wei also felt spiritually depressed. As springtime flourished, he grew ever more mentally and physically out of sorts, inexpressibly miserable. Such unhappiness is a heritage from primitive man, and at certain seasons it shoots forth its leaves and buds, just as the flowers do. (Lao She 2013: 307)

Ma Wei does form a healthy relationship with another British woman, Catherine Ely, the daughter of Reverend and Mrs. Ely. Unlike her parents and brother, who see their work in China as a way to generate a more prosperous life back in Britain, Catherine adopts an insider–outsider perspective on British prejudices against China and the problems faced by the Chinese crowd. Mary’s different perception of China is expressed clearly in her discussion with Mrs. Wedderburn. Mrs. Wedderburn states that “[i]f China wasn’t such a shambles of a country, where would the foreign newspapers get their bad news from?” (Lao She 2013: 96), while Catherine remarks that ‘English people know nothing about China’ (Lao She 2013: 116). Ma Wei addresses Catherine as “Elder sister” and their mentorship is characterised by reciprocity. Catherine helps Ma Wei with his English, and he teaches her Chinese in return. This mutual respect and exchange of cultures represents a model for interracial friendships. Under the prevailing social norms forbidding a romantic relationship between a Chinese man and a British woman, Ma Tse-jen’s friendship with Mrs. Wedderburn before their planned engagement and Ma Wei’s friendship with Catherine Ely demonstrate the possibility of platonic and respectful cross-gender, inter-racial relationships.

7.7 Conclusion Lao She’s Mr Ma and Son depicts the transition of Ma Tse-jen and Ma Wei from their old lives in China to their new lives in Britain and the sadness and frustrations they experience along the way. Ma Tse-jen pays little attention to the antique business left

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by his brother and instead turns to a life of domestic leisure with the companionship of Mrs. Wedderburn. While Ma Tse-jen’s generosity and the interests he shares with Mrs. Wedderburn alleviate both characters’ loneliness, their desire to marry meets with fervent resistance due to the unpopularity of Chinese people in Britain during this period. The difficulty of aligning individual desires with national background is seen in Mrs. Wedderburn’s reflection that “[s]ociety, customs and relations between men and women can never really be free. And anyway, what room, what place was there for real freedom between men and women?” (Lao She 2013: 256). Her decision to return to a purely platonic relationship with Ma Tse-jen represents the imperialist opposition to inter-racial marriages at the height of the British Empire. Ma Wei’s failed romance with Mary Wedderburn is juxtaposed with his patriotic ideals and participation in the Chinese intellectual movement. Brian Bernards claims that in this novel, Lao She is “trying to recover his wounded national pride not only as an ‘Overseas Chinese’ citizen but also as a member of the ‘Chinese race’” (Bernards 2015: 60). Ma Wei’s personal grief is intensified by the false image of China portrayed in the West and his father’s ignorant support for an anti-Chinese film. He leaves a note asking Li Tzu-jung to give the diamond ring passed on by his late uncle to Mary. The narrator then remarks that Ma Wei will not linger to see daybreak in London (Lao She 2013: 318). The description of Ma Wei’s departure strikes a note of mystery when a voice seems to reply to his farewell: “See you again sometime, London!” “See you again!” a voice seemed to answer. But whose? (Lao She 2013: 318)

This ending echoes the beginning of the novel, when Ma Wei feels a sense of hollowness while standing at Marble Arch. His wish for instant self-destruction foreshadows his failure to reconcile his ethnic identity with an unfamiliar foreign landscape. May Ma Wei’s return to London in a different historical setting witness the reconciliation of the two nations.

References Auerbach, S. (2013). “Margaret Tart, Lao She, and the Opium-Master’s Wife: Race and Class among Chinese Commercial Immigrants in London and Australia, 1866—1929.” Comparative Studies in Society and History. 55(1). 35–64. Bernards, B.C. (2015). Writing the South Seas: Imagining the Nanyang in Chinses and Southeast Asian Postcolonial Literature. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press. Chan, W.T. (1969). A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chen, E.Y. (2003). “Shame and Narcissistic Self in Yu Da-fu’s Sinking.” Canadian Review of Comparative Literature. September-December 2003. 565–585. Chow, R. (2002). The Protestant Ethnic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Columbia University Press. Freud, S. (2016). Civilization and its Discontents (J. Riviere, Trans.). New York: Dover.

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Goodman, B. and Goodman, D.S.G. (2012). Introduction: Colonialism and China. In Goodman, B. and Goodman, D.S.G. (Eds). Twentieth-century Colonialism and China: Localities, the Everyday and the World. (pp. 1–22.) Oxon: Routledge. Ho, D.Y.F. (1976). “On the Concept of Face.” American Journal of Sociology. 81(4). 867–884. Jenkins, E.Z. (2013). A Taste for China: English Subjectivity and the Prehistory of Orientalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kaplan, E.A. (2005). Trauma Culture: The Politics of Terror and Loss in Media and Literature. New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Rutgers University Press. Lao She. (2013). Mr Ma and Son (W. Dorby, Trans.). London: Penguin. Lau, C.S.G. (2012). “From Gogol to Lu Xun and After: Politics, Culture and Reception”. In Tam, K.K. and Chan, K.K.Y. (Eds.) Culture in Translation: Reception of Chinese Literature in Comparative Perspective. (pp. 151–162). Hong Kong: Open University of Hong Kong Press. Lee, T.M.L. (2007). “Liang Qichao and the Meaning of Citizenship: Then and Now.” History of Political Thought. 28(2). 305–327. Lei, J. (2022). Mastery of Words and Swords: Negotiating Intellectual Masculinities in Modern China, 1890s–1930s. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Pedersen, P. (1995). The Five Stages of Culture Shock: Critical Incidents Around the World. Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood. Prado-Fonts, C. (2013). “Beneath Two Red Banners: Lao She as a Manchu Writer in Modern China”. In Shih, S.M., Chien, H. and Bernards, B. (Eds.) Sinophone Studies: A Critical Reader. (pp. 353–363). New York: Columbia University Press. Pusey, J.R. (1998). Lu Xun and Revolution. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press. Qi: X. (2017). “Reconstructing the concept of face in cultural sociology: in Goffman’s footsteps, following the Chinese case.” The Journal of Chinese Sociology, 4(10). https://journalofchines esociology.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40711-017-0069-y. Retrieved 14 June 2022. Tang, X. (1996). Global Space and the Nationalist Discourse of Modernity: The Historical Thinking of Liang Qichao. Standford, CA: Standford University Press. Vohra, R. (1974). Lao She and the Chinese Revolution. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Wang, B. 王勃. “A Tribute to King Teng’s Tower”《滕王閣序》 . https://so.gushiwen.cn/shiwenv_c e802de625e5.aspx. Retrieved 10 June 2022. Wang, G. (2007). Mixing Memory and Desire: Tracking the Migrant Cycles. In Tan, C., Storey C. and Zimmerman, J. (Eds). Chinese Overseas: Migration, Research and Communication (pp. 3–22). Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Wen, R. (2000). The Image of Westerners in the Gaze of Cultural Criticism (C. Buckley, Trans.). In Meng, H. and Hirakawa, S. (Eds.). Image of Westerners in Chinese and Japanese Literature (pp. 115–121). Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. Witchard, A. (2012). Lao She in London. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Wong, Y.W. (2002). Post-colonial Chinese Literature in Malaysia and Singapore. River Edge, NJ: Global Publishing. Wood, F. (2017). Great Books of China: From Ancient Times to the Present. Kantonah, NY: BlueBridge. Zarrow, P. (2012). After Empire: The Conceptual Transformation of the Chinese State, 1885–1924. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Zhao, S. (2004). A Nation-state by Construction: Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Chi Sum Garfield Lau obtained her Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from Hong Kong Baptist University. She is an Assistant Professor in Hong Kong Metropolitan University. She is responsible for courses in English Language and Literature at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Her areas of interest include Modernism, Psychoanalytic Criticism and Comparative Studies.

Chapter 8

Poetics of Loss in Esperanto: Mao Zifu Writes in His Wheelchair Lorraine Wong

Abstract This chapter examines the poetics of Chinese Esperantist Mao Zifu 毛 自富 (b. 1963–), whose Kantoj de Anteo [Songs of Anteo] (2006) is one of the rare creative outputs by Chinese Esperantists, as they mostly engage in translation between Esperanto and Chinese rather than in original Esperanto literature. Mao lived through the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) in his childhood and early adolescence. Because of his age, class background, and place of residence, he did not directly suffer from this historical catastrophe; yet the Cultural Revolution allows for him to articulate his private shattered world since he has become disabled because of a traffic accident. This chapter explores Mao’s Esperanto poetry from the perspective of loss that lies at the core of humanity. Esperanto is a planned language designed by L. L. Zamenhof (1859–1917) to bridge linguistic differences at the turn of the twentieth century; it has developed into a means for oppressed ethnic groups to make themselves heard even if they speak a marginal language. Seen in this light, Mao cannot find a better language than Esperanto, given his marginal position and the universal, humanistic questions that he explores. More specifically, this chapter examines how Mao uses Esperanto and his wheelchair as external instruments to navigate his inner experience of loss, and how these external instruments transform into an organic part of his poetics. It argues that Mao creates an allegorical structure in his poetry that weaves together the individual and the historical, as he takes a backward glance at the Cultural Revolution through the lens of his troubled manhood. Keywords Allegory · The Cultural Revolution · Disability · Esperanto · Melancholia

L. Wong (B) University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024 C. S. Garfield Lau and K. K. Y. Chan (eds.), The Poetics of Grief and Melancholy in East-West Conflicts and Reconciliations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-9821-0_8

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8.1 Introduction Having written Esperanto poems since the early 1990s, Mao Zifu 毛自富 (b. 1963) remains relatively unknown outside the global circle of literary Esperantists. Up until 1985, when an accident involving a truck left him paralyzed from the waist down, Mao taught mathematics and computer science in a secondary school in Hunan 湖 南. “Mi naskiˆge venis de kampara familio,” [I was born in a peasant family], Mao said in his confessional piece “Semado sur la Vers-pado” [Sowing on the path of verse], “do mi ne povas esti denaska poeto” [thus, I cannot be a poet from birth] (Mao 1999: 115). He believes his poems exude feelings of sadness, confusion, and delirium, which is characteristic of Obscure Poetry by the avant-garde poet Bei Dao 北島 (b. 1949). In recent years, having been inspired to write and dedicate a Chinese poem to Yu Xiuhua 余秀華 (b. 1976), a female poet with cerebral palsy who made a name for herself in Lower Body Poetry, Mao also dabbled in this particular style. Mao deserves our attention not because his poems blur the boundary between “the Elevated” and “the Earthly” (van Crevel 2008: 20) or because his poems, whether they are written in Esperanto or Chinese, reveal the conditions of post-socialist China, where people like him are subject to different forms of marginalization.1 Both are true, of course, but neither one is the lens through which this chapter seeks to understand Mao’s poetry. His poetics are the subject of this chapter because they reveal loss—not so much as a thematic for poetry but as a paradoxical condition of humanity. Mao’s 2006 anthology of poetry, Kantoj de Anteo [Songs of Anteo], for which he received critical acclaim from writers of Esperanto literature, is one of the rare original creative outputs by Chinese Esperantists (who mostly engage in EsperantoChinese translation).2 In his preface to Kantoj, Miguel Fernández, for instance, reminds readers that he and his fellow literary Esperantists decided to put Mao’s poems together in the form of a book “ne pro karitato a˘u kompato, sed pro gˆ iaj poeziaj kvalitoj, pro la fakto, ke la poemaron Kantoj de Anteo meritas” [not as a charitable or merciful contribution but because of their poetic qualities, because the collection 1

Maghiel van Crevel argues that the poetics in reform-era China is fraught with the tension between two aesthetics, namely the Elevated and the Earthly, which shows the diversity and abundance of the avant-garde since the early and mid-1980s. 2 Mao also translates between Esperanto and Chinese, as well as serving on the editorial board ˆ of Granda Vortaro Esperanto-Cina, an Esperanto-Chinese dictionary published by the Chinese Foreign Languages Press in 2015. Xu Shengyue 徐聲越 (1901–1986) is another Chinese Esperanto poet. Known as Saint-Jules Zee in Esperanto, Xu had done extensive translation of Chinese poetry ˆ into Esperanto, such as Cina Antologio 1949–1959 [Chinese anthology] (1959). He contributed original Esperanto poetry to Literatura Mondo [Literary world] in the 1930s and was one of the poets in Kálmán Kalocsay’s Na˘u Poetoj [Nine poets] (1938), a collection of the works of nine poets in Esperanto. Ba Jin 巴金 (1904–2005) wrote a short story “Mia Frateto” [My little brother] (1933) and a one-act play “En la Malluma Nokto” [In the dark night] (1928). Ye Junjian 葉君健 (1914– 1999) published Forgesitaj Homoj [Forgotten people] (1937), the first book-length fictional work in Esperanto by a Chinese writer. In post-1949 China, Armand Su 蘇阿芒 (1936–1990) published poems in overseas Esperanto magazines. In the fervor of high Maoism, he was persecuted and put in jail because of his international connections. His collection of poems, Poemoj de Armand Su was published by Chinese Esperanto Press in 1992.

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of poems Songs of Anteo merits it] (Fernández 2006: 12). Mao juggles “neniam formulitajn nuntempaˆjojn” [contemporary things that have never been formulated] (Fernández 2006: 10), conjuring up a “poezian kosmon” [poetic cosmos] (Fernández 2006: 9) that overlaps that of avant-garde writers outside China. Mao’s language and world view appear so much like theirs that his fellow writers in the Iberian group believed that “Mao Zifu” was the Chinese pseudonym of a member of their own group (Fernández 2006: 8). Nicolino Rossi thinks that Mao is not wont to imitate the classical metre and rhyme prescribed in works like Parnasa Gvidlibro [Parnassian guidebook], neither is he likely to use neologisms as a shortcut to creativity (Sutton 2008: 569). Mao is able to “extract the latencies in the [Esperanto] language” and bring it back to its original purpose as envisioned by its creator L. L. Zamenhof (1859–1917), that is, to interpret and articulate distinctive and essential features in national culture, while also embedding these features in the “most nuanced of life’s circumstances” (Sutton 2008: 569). Similarly, Jorge Camacho appreciates that Mao uses “normal words” and “highly concrete and evocative images” to weave a net of symbols and metaphors (Sutton 2008: 571). Contrary to Fernández’s inclusion of Mao in the Iberian avant-garde, Camacho believes that Mao stands outside the schools of poetry with which he is familiar (my italics, Sutton 2008: 571). However, it does not mean that Mao stays inside the house of Chinese culture, offering only exotic poetics of the Other. His poems bridge human experiences, illuminating glimpses of hope at the moment when people are crushed by the cruel reality of life. Thanks to his firm hold on reality— through his use of symbols and metaphors—we sense his self, his situation, and his outcry against destiny, injustice, and servitude. Paradoxically, Mao strikes at the heart of humanity because of his marginality. Mao lived through China’s tumultuous decade: the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). However, he was too young to directly experience the violent aspects of this historical catastrophe. His peasant background and remote location in the northwestern part of Hunan 湖南 rendered Mao a seemingly irrelevant, forgettable man in the history of the Cultural Revolution. He has nothing to confess, neither does he have a story to tell about rustification or being sent down to the countryside—experiences which give many well-known contemporary Chinese writers emerging from the Cultural Revolution their literary identity. In the postrevolutionary aftermath, the time of “mind” as Maghiel van Crevel calls it (van Crevel 2008: 13), Mao experienced the fervor for Western language, thought, and literature. Yet, living like a hermit who dreamed of expressing himself to the world in Esperanto, he was fully absorbed in learning this planned language after his lifechanging accident. He was far removed from the roaring and rebellious Chinese intellectuals of the 1980s who tried to access the world through words (translating foreign-language works into Chinese) or by foot (leaving China). Indeed, Mao only began to write Esperanto poems in the early 1990s, when China began to subject itself to consumerism, marketization, and commodification at the time of “money” (van Crevel 2008: 14). Mao had no response to the “mayhem” of the June Fourth incident in 1989 (van Crevel 2008: 14). Regardless of whether his silence was because he was too

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far removed from the events in Tiananmen Square or because the topic was too politically sensitive, Mao has continuous access to China’s public discourse, publishing 3 ˆ and his work through official channels (such as the website “El Popola Cinio”) popular platforms (such as the online newspaper Jinri toutiao 今日頭條 [Today’s headlines]). Mao lived through the Cultural Revolution in his childhood and early adolescence. He looks back to this period of history not only through his personal memory but also by reading other people’s accounts and memoires of the historical turmoil (Mao’s personal communication, 29 January 2023). He only had a tangential involvement in the most violent parts of its unfolding, and the Cultural Revolution is not the only theme that inspires Mao’s poetics.4 By analyzing how the Cultural Revolution is cast in an allegorical structure in a small cluster of Mao’s poems, this chapter problematizes the representational discourse of the Cultural Revolution. Because Mao is not one of those rusticated youths who were sent down to the countryside, his poems cannot be interpreted in terms of the dilemma of pain and nostalgia, trauma and fantasy,5 which works like a master code in the representational discourse of the Cultural Revolution. Mao’s life and poetry challenge us to explore an interpretative strategy that takes seriously his social marginality and sheer unrecognizability (in existing scholarship on contemporary Chinese literature),6 without however casting his experience in the lens of exceptionalism. To help us with this task, this chapter explores Mao’s Esperanto poetry from the perspective of loss that lies at the core of humanity. Esperanto, the written medium that Mao uses, was designed by Zamenhof to bridge linguistic differences at the turn of the twentieth century. Whether or not it was Zamenhof’s original attention, Esperanto has been used to articulate cultural differences on a universal basis, such that oppressed ethnic groups could be heard even if they spoke a marginal language. Seen in this light, given his marginalized position and the universal, humanistic questions that his poems ask, Mao could not find a better language than Esperanto. More specifically, this chapter examines how Mao uses both Esperanto and his wheelchair

3

See “Poemoj de Anteo” on http://www.espero.com.cn/. Aside from the theme of the Cultural Revolution, the Book of Changes 易經, an ancient Chinese divination text dating back to the Western Zhou period (1000–750 BC), is another source of inspiration for Mao. He wrote a series of sixty four poems to echo the sixty four hexagrams in the Book of Changes. See Carlo Minnaja and Giorgio Silfer, Historio de la Esperanta Literaturo (2015). 5 Michael Berry argues that the Cultural Revolution “inspired memoires of trauma and pain alongside often equally powerful feelings of nostalgia and passion.” See A History of Pain: Trauma in Modern Chinese Literature and Film (2008: 260). 6 In some ways, Mao’s career in poetry is comparable to that of Yu Xiuhua. In van Crevel’s analysis, Yu’s poetry exemplifies the phenomenon of “non-specialist writing” that has been emerging since 2000. This writing is hard to recognize in a specific form, genre, or style because it has elements of “mainstream, subaltern, and classical-style poetry” as well as “all the structurally occasional stuff” of the everyday. See “Walk on the Wild Side: Snapshots of the Chinese Poetry Scene,” MCLC Resource Center (2017: 45). Mao is a specialist in Esperanto, but he writes poetry in both Esperanto and Chinese. It remains a challenge for us to locate his poetic works in a specific area of contemporary Chinese or Sinophone literature. 4

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as external instruments to navigate his inner experience of loss, as well as how these instruments transform into an organic part of his poethood.

8.2 Anteo as Mao’s Poethood The titular poem of Mao’s anthology of poetry introduces who he is as a poet; it begins with a voice reminding us of the chorus in a Greek tragedy: ho, anteo, sur rulseˆgo fortas veo? ho, anteo, glorpaseo jam trans heˆgo. ho, anteo sur rulseˆgo! oh! antaeus, on a wheelchair does lamenting bring strength? oh! antaeus, a glorious past, already across the hedge oh! antaeus on a wheelchair! (Mao 2006: 14)7

In Esperanto’s word formation, “o” is the ending for nouns. Mao makes use of this grammatical feature to achieve two rhymes, one with -eo and one with -eˆgo, creating a ABAAABAB rhyming scheme. This reads as having a quick flow (as if heralding the emergence of the poet) and also gives a sense of the unchangeable character of both the past and destiny. Heˆgo [hedge] and rulseˆgo [wheelchair] rhyme with each other, suggesting that Anteo was thrown over a barrier at the side of the road—a life-changing moment that puts him on a wheelchair and brings a close to a glorious past when his body was whole. This chorus-like voice reveals the identity of the poet as a version of the Libyan giant called Antaeus—Mao is Antaeus in a wheelchair. In contrast, the Antaeus with a glorious past has already crossed the hedge to the other side. The chorus-like voice expresses sorrow for this Antaeus, (“does lamenting bring strength?”), whilst simultaneously suggesting the futility of mourning our human condition. In Greek mythology, Antaeus is the son of Poseidon, the god of the Sea, and Gaea, the goddess of the Earth. He compelled travelers who passed through his land 7

All translations are mine unless stated otherwise.

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to wrestle with him; as long as he maintained contact with the earth, his mother, he was undefeatable. When Antaeus challenged Heracles to a wrestling match, Heracles discovered his source of strength; he lifted Antaeus up in the air and crushed him to death. The moment he was separated from mother earth, he was as weak as an ordinary man. Mortimer Collins regards Antaeus not only as “the Titan of the primal race of men” but also as a “poet, by the world subdued” (Collins 1866: 18). John James Piatt explores the emotional aspects of Antaeus’s dependence on mother earth for his manhood. In his dream, Piatt wanders into “Libyan solitudes” (Piatt 1872: 67) where Antaeus confesses to him: The death-in-life that I alone can know And weary of the wrestlers coming still With challenges in the air, for rest I turn To the dear bosom of my Mother Earth: She, like a mother, holds me near her heart; She, like a mother, kisses me asleep. (68–69)

As Piatt awoke and walked abroad, his shadow “made a giant’s bulk” and his “sunburnt breast beat full/Of the great blood which moved in giants’ veins” (69). His poem ends with a promise of renewal and rejuvenation from mother earth, a promise that unites us whether we are humans or giants. More recently, Sandy Solomon was also inspired by Antaeus in her rumination about home and diaspora. Just as Antaeus the giant stubbornly and dumbly needs “lumpy, black humus between the toes” or “the smooth, warmed slab of exposed granite” (Solomon 1996: 61), Solomon the poet needs “the grayed, body-imprinted chair” and: the craning light that burnishes the desk, just the particular smell of floors or walls that surround and protect reliably as one who loves us well and, more, whom we love: our own place, which we touch, which touches us; or a discipline, an approach—mind and soul strengthened, satisfied there; that field where we make our stand with the sensed possible like a big sky everywhere around and rising through us, blood in our veins, tangible, tremulous, an enthusiasm, an art. (61)

Solomon reworks Antaeus’s legendary attachment to soil, granite, or things earthly into the condition of artistic creation. He has her sympathy because she needs her home to be inspired just as he needed his ground to stay alive. It bears mentioning that

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“home” for Solomon is not an abstract concept of belonging but a concrete, material set of things, sensations, and ideas that contribute to poetry as a living art. Poetry is born in the assurance of our “home ground” (61), growing out of “the grayed, body-imprinted chair”. Indeed, poetry is produced because of our internal strength that makes “our stand with the sensed possible.” In a wheelchair, Mao, like the mythical Antaeus in defeat, is separated from the ground. However, his wheelchair creates a tangible connection to the ground, assuring him of a continuous source of inspiration. Yet, Mao as Anteo does not enjoy the embeddedness in things reassuring that Solomon outlines as the ingredients for making poems. His wheelchair means something different to him than “the grayed, body-imprinted chair” does for Solomon. While allowing for a connection with the ground, the wheelchair always reminds Mao of the redundancy of his legs, their incapacity to, in the words of Solomon, “stand with the sensed.” Through Antaeus, Mao is inspired to create a persona that is able to express his loneliness, tragic heroism, and manhood. Antaeus’s special bond with mother earth also speaks to Mao’s Chinese background, which has its own myth about the earth as a wellspring of life, an assurance of belonging, and a sedimentation of history.8 If disability is a form of banishment or exile on native soil, Mao is fundamentally lonely. His disability means that he has to live with traumatic feelings of isolation and marginalization in his own country (Mao’s personal communication, 29 June 2022). As he spirals inside his inner world, his poetry passes through this otherwise unknown world like a prism, obliquely shining a light on things, people, and events in the outer world. Mao does not believe that going abroad is an option for him because of his health condition (Mao’s personal communication, 6 February 2023). If he did go abroad, he might position himself as an exile Chinese poet, one who perhaps shared “an aura of heroic victimhood” with well-known avant-garde Chinese poets living abroad (van Crevel 2008: 144). Following the June Fourth incident, these exiled poets were charged by their counterparts in China with “claiming to be the victim of political persecution… arrogating the right to speak on behalf of all of China [and] losing touch with their mother tongue” (van Crevel 2008: 144). In other words, they are troubled by the impression of their being drawn away from China. By contrast, Mao is banished to his inner world; his exile is like an involution into deeper and denser matter through which he builds forms and attains poethood. Political victimhood does not match his inner exilic experience as Mao does not speak directly of politically sensitive topics in contemporary China. One cannot trace any sense of victimhood regarding his disability either. As Fernández suggests, there is “nenia viktimismo” [not any kind of victimhood] in Mao’s poetry; “lia situacio, kompreneble, forte speguliˆgas en lia verkaro. Sed la angoro cˆ e Mao Zifu estas multe pli profunda, multe pli esenca, metafizika” [his situation is, understandably, strongly reflected in his work. But the agony of Mao Zifu is much deeper, much more essential, and metaphysical] (Fernández 2006: 8).

See the myths about Nüwa 女媧 and Houtu 后土 in Lihui Yang, Deming An and Jessica Anderson Turner, Handbook of Chinese Mythology (2005). 8

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In the poem “Kanto de anteo,” after the chorus-like voice presents Anteo and comments on his fate in the verse “does lamenting bring strength?” Mao shifts to the voice of “I” as the poetic subject from the second stanza: ne scias mi, cˆ u signifas kant’ de cigno morton. se jese, preferas mi, l’ enkaˆga, kanti vespere. iam mi mortis. morto egalas sonˆgon. en sonˆgo vervas spirito ladtenita; korpo — ne el mumio. mondo bezonas morton, alie, kial oni fabrikas aviojn muˆse, dume ekskoke paraˆsuton!? drensant’, drensantoj miaj — el unukordo. krak, flugas sparkoj. okulojn fermu; en kor’ cˆ ielo fajru. mia plorado faligas acidaˆjon. jun’ for de flego trafis traktorajn radojn. kruroj sur sˆultroj. kie fekunda tero? manoj piedas; en vido l’ horizonto. sˆtopu orelojn, ho, vivamuloj! dolˆca la tono de ponardo. i do not know, if a swan song means death. if it does, i, the encaged, prefer to sing in the evening.

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i once died. death equals a dream. in a dream lively is a canned spirit; body — not of a mummy. a world needs death, otherwise, why does one manufacture airplanes like flies, meanwhile parachutes like castrated roosters!? cry of the swan, cries mine — of monochord. crack! sparks fly. close your eyes; in the heart let the sky catch fire. my crying drops acidity. youth, beyond cure collided with a tractor’s wheels. legs on shoulders. where is fertile land? hands walk; in my sight the horizon. plug your ears, oh, life-lovers! sweet the tone of a dagger. (14–15)9

Mao as Anteo is singing a song in the evening, a portent-laden swan song. As Anteo and the swan are brought together in death, these songs echo each other with a dull and tedious monotonous regularity. Outside their macabre world, the “lifelovers” are infatuated with the “sweet” tone that, like a dagger, unexpectedly stabs them in the back—reminding us of Heracles who lifts up Antaeus in order to kill him. As Anteo assures us, “death equals a dream,” and within a dream there is a “lively spirit.” Death, dream, and spirit form a set of concentric circles that spiral towards the prelinguistic mysterious Thing. This longing for the Thing guides Mao’s productive imagination and allows him to articulate the unpossessable in desire.

9

This poem begins each verse in a small letter and therefore “I” becomes “i.”

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In his poetry, Mao ponders what physical love or consummation is when such an act is not possible for him. In “Kanto de anteo,” he presents a world of morbidity and sterility that alludes to Anteo’s disturbed manhood. Anteo speaks of procreation as life’s decline: is death so necessary in our world that airplanes are made like flies? Flies mate to reproduce but can also harm life by spreading germs and diseases. He asks, is a parachute not like a “castrated rooster?”10 They both fall despite being high; one floats in the air while the other has a high libido. In the second, third, and fourth stanzas, Mao uses the slant rhyme of “i” and “e,” (scias, signifas, jese, preferas, vespere, vervas, alie, kial) to create a sense of aridness; and uses “o” and “u” (cigno, morto, sonˆgo, korpo, mumio, mondo) to create a sense of purposeless repetition. Antaeus in Piatt’s and Solomon’s poems inspires the faith in mutual nourishment between this tragic hero and mother earth: “I give myself to thee, and thou dost give/ Thyself to me again” (Piatt 1872: 69); and “that surround and protect reliably as one/ who loves us well and, more, whom we love/our own place, which we touch, which touches us” (Solomon 1996: 61). Conversely, Anteo is condemned to barrenness and unproductiveness. His crying produces drops of acid that deprive the earth of nutrients, all because of what happened that fateful day when “youth” hit the tractor’s wheels. By saying “youth” hit the tractor’s wheels rather than the tractor’s wheels hit youth, Mao introduces a reversed order of images in the following lines: “legs on shoulders” and “hands walk.” The image of “legs on shoulders” recurs in Mao’s other poems, acting as a pivot to his poetics of loss. Since the age of twenty two, with paralysis affecting more than half of his body, Mao sits in a wheelchair; he arranges two pencils crosswise and places them between his stiffened fingers to write on his computer (Fernández 2006). His wheelchair works prosthetically but it does not camouflage his impaired body nor does it enhance his bodily function beyond the ordinary level.11 His accident deprived him of “the right to love but there is always a loving person and a loved one within himself” (Mao 1999 104). Even though his body is a site of loss, it carries a vivacious spirit and desire—even though, as Anteo’s song tells, this spirit and desire are “encaged” and “canned.” Mao says that, “Spite al la kriplaj” [In spite of the crippled limbs], he is “ambiciante rekapti la frue perdiˆgintan junecon” [ambitious to recapture his youth that has been lost] (Mao 1999: 104). His loss cannot easily be shaped into a narrative of bodily impairment or empowerment. In disability studies, amputation is deemed to have a symbolic link with “castration and genital mutilation,” which is to say, amputation equates to “a loss of social and sexual capital” (Scheurer and Grayson 2021: 10). Although Mao did not have his legs amputated, a sense of troubled manhood permeates his poetry. As a symptom of this troubled manhood, Mao’s legs 10

Ekskoke literally means “like a former rooster.” The prefix eks- adds the meaning of “former” ˆ to the word koke (like a rooster). According to Granda Vortaro Esperanto-Cina [Great EsperantoChinese dictionary], eks- has the meanings of “former” and “castrated” (Wang 2015: 253). Whether it is “a former rooster” or a “castrated rooster,” this can be left to the reader’s imagination. 11 Oscar Pistorius and Aimee Mullin are examples of an empowered and exhibited body that showcases what Tomoko Tamari calls “prosthetic aesthetic” (2017: 25). Yu Xiuhua is an example of how body is empowered for poetic creativity. See Steven L. Riep, “Body, Disability, and Creativity in the Poetry of Yu Xiuhua.”

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seem to be what Julia Kristeva calls the “abject”—something that exists on the threshold between the self and that which lies outside. It is something that is barely separated, like excrement or waste that used to be a part of our body and that we reject to restore a symbolic order. The abject also refers to the parts of ourselves that are excluded, namely the maternal, as we traverse the mother–child dyad in order to emerge as a subject in the cultural and moral system (Kristeva 1982). Mao’s legs used to be an organic part of himself but they have since been cast on the threshold of his current life. Contrary to what Kristeva theorizes, however, Mao does not fully abject his legs or the maternal—that which creates him—in his exploration of post-trauma poethood. He crosses the threshold to return to the maternal through the persona Anteo. In fact, Mao and the maternal are both excluded from the symbolic order; they are woven once again as a mother–child dyad in Mao’s poems, even as this return to the maternal suggests life as the recurrence of death. In the confessional prose “Semado,” Mao remembers how his mother muttered to herself about suicide because of the excessive burden of looking after him. He confesses that he would want to have a daughter, “a little girl who not only could have taken the burden off his parents but also inspired him to write great poems as his muse” (Mao 1999: 106). He expresses his longing for progeny in imagined scenarios: his life would extend into the tummy of his pregnant wife like a semo [seed]; and his daughter would represent him at the Universal Esperanto Congress12 and receive the prizes for his poems on his behalf […] (1999: 105). While Mao talks about his life like daydreaming, he traverses the terrains of his disturbed manhood in his poetry, confronting that which is inherently traumatic but real. In “Tagiˆge,” [At daybreak], Mao again refers to his legs as a burden: senditaj piedoj revenas. kia laco! — la sˆultro per ili sˆarˆgita. miel’ de eldorado larmo kandela. cˆ iu poˆso pufas nur de kadukaj folioj; sur la brakoj kisosignoj, memo al memo. en sˆimaj sˆuoj ratoj nestas kaj flegas siajn idojn. sur kurten’ el vestoj araneoj pentras ringan perspektivon. re tagiˆge. 12

Since 1905, the congress of the Universal Esperanto Association has been held every year except during the periods of the two World Wars. It has a diverse program including not only business meetings but also lectures and presentations depicting the progress in promoting Esperanto culture during the year. See https://uea.org/kongresoj/partners.

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dispatched feet return. how tiring! — shoulders loaded with them. honey from eldorado candle’s teardrop. every pocket puffs up only of decayed leaves; marks of kisses on the arms, self to self. in moldy shoes rats nesting and nursing their young ones. on curtains made of clothes spiders painting a ring-shaped perspective. daybreak again. (125)

Manhood is analogous to a soldier returning with his legs loaded on his shoulders. Empty shoes turn moldy because of not being worn; pockets look full but carry only dead leaves. For Mao, every dawn is another day of abandonment and emptiness, only the rats and the spiders exude a hope of life. Mao begins his poem “la tuta vivo” [the total life] in the dark world of sexual intercourse: “kia la pordo streta! delico—ˆciam?—igas/unuojn renkontiˆgi, destine a˘u hazarde./lummanka tub’ dedala de tremo saturiˆgas.” [how narrow the door! delight—always?—go/two individuals meet, fate or chance./dark tunnel of Daedalus is saturated with trembling] (Mao 2006: 18). Sex is a recurrent act of human beings since time immemorial or so the poet says: “plor’ gˆ is plorigo, gˆ ojo funebro,/lulilo tombo. is as os, se us/ horloˆgo cˆ esi! stele’ ne starus!!” [crying until others cry, joy and grief/cradle and tomb. was is will be, if would/clock, to stop! stele wouldn’t stand!!] (Mao 2006: 18).13 As this verse also suggests, sex does not bring life, and in fact humans are heading towards death. Mao goes on to say: la morton trovas feto utere do senmorton; kutimo politiko kaj religio moro. leviˆgas en vakuo tajfuno? ludas patron infanoj; spermo estas nazmuko. sur vaporo planedon esploremuloj konstruas kiel cindrujon... a fetus has found death in the uterus, deathlessness; custom politics and religion morals a typhoon rises in a vacuum? play at being fathers 13

Mao juxtaposes different sense of time here: “was,” “is,” “will be,” “if … would.”

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children; semen is snot. on vapor explorers build a planet like an urn... (19)

Following Mao’s lyric logic of abjection, the poem ends with sterile imagery of masturbation, stillborn birth, and recurrent death.

8.3 Self and History in Mao’s Poetics Semen from masturbation, like snot, becomes another form of abjection. At the individual level, “la tuta vivo” reveals Mao’s experience of the Cultural Revolution in his early adolescence. “There was no class on biology, health, and hygiene at that time, and the textbooks said masturbation causes harm to males and leads to infertility. This made us anxious” (Mao’s personal communication, 10 February 2023). Taking a backward glance at the Cultural Revolution through the lens of his troubled manhood, Mao creates an allegorical structure in his poetry that weaves together the individual and the historical. Because of his age, class background, and geographical location, Mao did not directly suffer from the most violent aspects of the Cultural Revolution, such as the struggle sessions, denunciation rallies, and many other events that infringed upon humanity.14 Yet the Cultural Revolution enabled him to articulate his own shattered world following his paralysis. Mao conjures up frightful moments from the barren landscape of history and blasts politicized narratives and propaganda into discrete, mysterious signs. His poems are a storehouse of these signs, which are scattered like ruins in a devastated landscape. These signs cannot be reintegrated into any totalizing, master narrative but they can be ruminated over and woven into an allegorical structure of meaning. Allegory in Mao’s poetry is connected with his pain, loss, and melancholic disposition after the accident. “People overestimate pain,” Mao said, recalling how he felt immediately after the accident, “actually it was not that painful. I did not have much feeling then and actually believed that I would recover. Time makes one finally accept the reality” (Mao’s personal communication, 27 June 2022). According to Sigmund Freud, melancholia is where there is “a loss of a more ideal kind” than that in the case of grief and mourning; it is “a loss of the kind [that] has been experienced, but one cannot see clearly what has been lost” (Freud 1953: 155). The work of grief and mourning directed at the loss of Mao’s bodily function might free his ego from pain, as Freud would say. However, the loss of “a more ideal kind,” what Mao likes to call his “youth,” might turn him into a Freudian melancholic subject trapped in an 14

Mao witnessed how lies were told about grain production, how a talented English teacher from Peking University was “wasting” time in the high school of his village, and how the Red Guards destroyed an underground recess for the ashes of the Nationalist Party’s soldiers (Mao’s personal communication, 29 January 2023).

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unspecified loss, refusing to exit the house of the ego. Mao’s poetry suggests otherwise. It effects some break from the narcissistic depths of subjective suffering. In fact, poetry is therapeutic for Mao, allowing him to express himself. Through poetry, he writes to recover his youth; his poems do not reverse time or fate but they redeem his personal traumatic experience, as well as a cursed history that consigns humans to death (the Cultural Revolution being a case in point). As Benjamin (2003) suggests, the melancholic perception of the profane world, like that of the Baroque dramatists in German tragic theatre of the seventeenth century, is not yoked in paralytic sadness. These dramatists were sorrowful about the absence of meaning, despite their dogged exploration of the fallen material world; yet their metaphysical sadness, as Benjamin believes, could reveal an historical insight grounded on a self-reflective musing. Similarly, while Mao is brooding sadly in his wheelchair and looking at history as a repetitive continuum of decay and suffering, his poetry transforms his melancholic contemplation into a mode of expression that seeks to unlock historical secrets, whilst simultaneously lifting him from despair—an allegory à la Benjamin. “Allegory is thus,” Max Pensky argues, “a creative cognitive mode inseparably connected to the melancholic disposition” (Pensky 1993: 117). Returning to Mao’s poems now, we can see how he writes as an allegorist. In “la tuta vivo,” the Cultural Revolution is perceived to be as futile as male masturbation. In Mao’s poetic world, humans are plagued by the impossibility of fulfillment (and consummation) and the decay of life, much as communism inspires ordinary folk to build a “planet” on “vapor,” only to produce “an urn” (for human ashes). In a cluster of poems that allude to the Cultural Revolution, Mao reveals the fragments of history scattering “a petrified, primordial landscape” (Benjamin 2003: 166). They are ruins that are drained of their natural and inherent meaning due to their alienation by custom, politics, religion, and morals. “Fendo” [Cleft] presents a scene of emptiness and confusion, where people cannot align their thinking with their own experience but follow the norms surrounding them, like a soulless torso swinging its hands on both sides: la suno en rivero restas super kranio mia; floroj floras aeren ne en teron. sub mi edzino; nano mi multe pli altas ol gefiloj — kvankam gigantoj, cˆ iam beboj. pensado anta˘u piedlevo, kaj manoj kiel pendolnormoj. the sun on a river rests above my skull; flowers flower toward the sky, not toward the earth. on me a wife; dwarf I much taller than offspring — although giants, always babies.

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thinking before lifting a foot, and hands as regular as pendulums. (26)

The poetic subject speaks in the voice of a skeleton ghost whose skull sits beneath a serene ground where the sun shines onto a river. Underneath is a macabre world where giants and babies have changed places. Up above is a beautiful scene of tears nursing leaves, blowing breeze, and human breath [ foliojn larmo flegas; brizo elspiro] (Mao 2006: 26). The poetic subject then moves back to the macabre world: “en la ventro ludu” [let’s play inside the abdomen] (Mao 2006: 26): tranˆcilojn, se vi sˆ atus, kaj eˆc forprenu l’ kapon de mi, se vi volus. nebul’ kaj nub’ pesiˆgas sur konscienco. iam tigro nutras per sia lakto homon with knives, if you would like, and even take away the head from me, if you would like. fog and cloud weigh on conscience. a tiger at some time nourishes a person with its milk (26)

The poem presents a topsy-turvy world of physical disintegration and torn moral fabric. Human conscience is flimsy like fog and cloud, whereas the supposedly fierce animals are kindhearted and caring. The wife of the poetic subject is “above” him [edzino sur mi], not by his side (Mao 2006: 27), whereas his great-grandchildren ignore his verses [geprafiloj ignoras miajn versojn] instead of respecting him (Mao 2006: 27). The poem ends by demystifying the sun as the symbol of the helmsman of the Cultural Revolution: “la sun’ nur kreitaˆjo—lampo” [the sun only an object created—a lamp] (Mao 2006: 27). The appearance of morality and propaganda evaporates and the world is exposed as it is, in all its inhumanity. In “punskribo” [punished writing], Mao ascribes biblical meanings to the devastated landscape of the Cultural Revolution. The poetic subject asks, “sed ja kiel el rekta spino, ho/ ve, ver-dio, fari gˆ ibon?” [but, indeed, how does one create out of a straight spine, alas, truth-god, a hunchback?] (Mao 2006: 28). Intriguingly, Mao’s own damaged spine speaks to a distorted moral order where upright intellectuals were made into hunchbacks during the Cultural Revolution. The answer: “eltiri vian oston/ per viaj sango kaj larmo/ komponi kantikon” [extract your bone/ by your blood and tears/ compose a song of praise] (Mao 2006: 28). Job was tested by God through Satan for his faith and character; “dank’ al satano” [thanks to Satan], (Mao 2006: 28), the poetic subject says, “jobo komprenas veron” [Job understands a truth] (Mao 2006: 28). What is this truth? Seen through the Cultural Revolution, where people were tested in a decade of violence and chaos, God does not hold the truth. He turns

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out to be “a naughty boy” [dio estas bubo] who “loves playing a game with humans” [amas ludadon per homoj…] (Mao 2006: 28). Mao broods over human broken lives and presents their discrete, fragmentary images in his poems. However, he is not paralyzed by despair or sadness, or by an obsessive focus on his own trauma. He speaks like a “bubo” [a naughty boy] and also as a “dio” [a god] in the land of poetry where he is sovereign. From his broken spine, Mao spins images of fragmented body parts into his poems, generating an interwoven network of images that put to lie the given world of appearance, be it customs, politics, religion, or morals. In “tiam” [then], Mao once again presents an intertwinement of his fragmented body and a history cursed by betrayal, violence, and horror: bruteskaj homoj prenas sian larmon kiel vinon kaj sin ravas, eltiras siajn ostojn por plektadi vantajn glor-girlandojn. ebriaj! vermoj rampas en vivanta korpo, kap’ mortinta kreskante sur alies sˆultroj ne la doloron scias senti. brutal humans take their tears like wine and take pleasure in themselves, pull out their bones to plait conceited garlands of glory. get tipsy! worms crawl on a living body, a dead head growing on someone’s else shoulders don’t know how to feel the pain. (54)

The nightmarish imagery of mutilation, rot, and death is a regular feature in Mao’s poems about the Cultural Revolution. For what purpose do his poems redeem a cursed history? For Benjamin, the allegorist’s reading of historical fragments points toward the messianic message, or the memory of paradise, that is hidden within the fallen world (Pensky 1993). For Mao, the truth that is occluded within history is life—nothing more, nothing less. Removed from the grand narrative of politics and propaganda, scraps of human experience during the Cultural Revolution are debased; yet, at the same time, they are critically exalted as they carry insights about the paradox of humanity: why is life so desirable if suffering, killing, and death are built into it? When the lies of politics and propaganda are crumbled and blown away in Mao’s poems, the ruins left behind do not necessarily restore an originary order of bliss, just as Mao cannot go back to the time of physical soundness before his accident. Yet, these historical remains inspire further allegories to explore and illuminate the mystery of life in its primeval form. The answer to life’s paradox is deferred by

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Mao’s act of exploration in his poems; deferral is a source of Mao’s melancholy disposition but it also generates more allegories as a textual form of procreation. “Qu Yuan is dead” 屈原已死, Mao likes to say, “God is living on”上帝活著 (Mao’s personal communication, 2 February 2023). The lament of the poet Qu Yuan (c. 340 BCE–278 BCE)15 for his homeland Ying 郢 in the midst of its destruction does not change the course of history. Like Qu Yuan, Mao lives in the fallen ruins of (personal and collective) history; unlike Qu Yuan, Mao refuses to be tortured by the dark sparkling of these ruins and rejects their appeal for death. Instead, he fits these fragments together as an allegorist and lives on in a continuous exploration of the mystery of life. He lives on as a “naughty boy” in his land of poetry, salvaging the broken symbols and assigning meaning as a god. The fragments in Mao’s poetry offer an elusive glimmer, disclosing the secrets of history, albeit only obliquely.

8.4 Coda: Mao, Esperanto, and Wheelchair Mao ends his Chinese poem dedicated to Yu Xiuhua thus: “A world’s language lets the world know your twisted reason/I am scared of being burnt in desire, being slept—getting into trouble” 世界語讓世界知道你的歪理斜說/我怕燒身欲火, 被 睡, 惹——禍 (Mao’s personal communication, 30 January 2023). He alludes to Yu’s famous poem, “Crossing half of China to sleep with you” 穿過大半個中國去睡你, in which Yu expresses her longing for sexual intimacy. The “world’s language” is but Esperanto. Despite Mao’s high regard of Yu’s poems and his status as a published and respected Esperanto poet,16 Mao has not translated her poems into Esperanto. Whether or not we take literally Mao’s fear of “being burnt in desire” in the translation process, we can still understand the difficulty he faces in negotiating intellectual property rights and sourcing a publisher for this translation project (Mao’s personal communication, 30 January 2023). After all, in comparison with English and French into which Yu’s poems have been translated, Esperanto has too small a community of writers and speakers for it to live out its promise of being a universal language. So why does Mao choose Esperanto and not a more powerful language like English or French as a medium for him to recapture his youth? For Mao, Esperanto is a foreign

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Qu Yuan is an ancient poet in China and becomes a cultural archetype of patriotism in Chinese history. Qu aspired to help the King of Chu to unify the warring states under one benevolent government, and he was determined to sacrifice his life for his country. However, the King ignored his advice, leaving Qu in deep sadness. He ultimately drowned himself in the Miluo River 汨羅江. As fate would have it, the Miluo River is in Hunan where Mao lives. See The Songs of Chu: An Anthology of Ancient Chinese Poetry by Qu Yuan and Others (2017). 16 Mao’s Esperanto poems have won prizes in Belartaj Konkursoj [Fine arts competition] in 1995 and 2015. Mao has been a member of the Universal Esperanto Academia since 2022.

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language that is easier to learn than English; although it has never become his native language as it has to some Esperantists17 : It is hard to think in Esperanto as your mother tongue but I rarely write the poems in Chinese first and then translate them into Esperanto. All the Esperanto words in my poems can be looked up in a dictionary. (Mao’s personal communication, 30 January 2023).

Esperanto is like any other language: one needs to consult dictionaries and takes considerable time and effort to learn it well. Unlike other languages, Esperanto embodies a mix of downright genius and wishful thinking of its inventor Zamenhof. This paradoxical aspect of Esperanto inspires us to find ways of talking about Mao’s poems that in some ways are comparable to other cultural productions about the Cultural Revolution but in other ways are very different. The dilemma of pain and nostalgia, trauma and fantasy, which are central to the representational discourse of the Cultural Revolution, are turned in Mao’s hands into an occult exploration of life’s mystery. In his Esperanto poems, Mao glosses over Chineseness as a particular kind of difference. Paradoxically, he reinforces this particular sense of difference by enticing his global audience to seek “Chineseness” in his poems, which reveals itself in an allegorical structure of concealment. Instead of a genius contemplating alone, writing poems in Mao’s case entails the labor and diligence of working with a dictionary and combining Esperanto roots and affixes to shape his nebulous thinking—partly conceived in Chinese and partly intuited outside language—into a material poetic form that exudes love, pain, and sadness. Mao’s Esperanto poetry questions the notion of naturalness in artistic creation, challenging us to ask where we draw the boundary between the natural and the man-made, the muse and the labor. Similarly, Mao’s wheelchair does not allow us to relegate disability to Otherness, as anyone can experience it at any time.18 Even with the modest number of copies of Kantoj de Anteo, Mao has received critical attention from Hungary, Spain, Italy, and the Americas. To be understood at such a transcultural level is an incredibly satisfying experience for Mao. His poems encourage us to read beyond our repertoire of “natural” literature and rethink our assumption about art, language, and disability. Acknowledgements I thank Mao Zifu for the various dialogues that we had about poetry and his life story. I also thank Sun Mingxiao 孫明孝 (Semio in Esperanto), the director of the Esperanto Museum in China, for putting me in touch with Mao Zifu. Special thanks go to Humphrey Tonkin and Maghiel van Crevel for reading of an earlier draft of this chapter. All shortcomings in this chapter are my own.

17

William Auld, for instance, proposes the idea of “vera dulingveco” [true bilinguality] and argues that Esperantists can have equal acquaintance with their native languages and Esperanto (Auld 1978: 28). 18 I am inspired by Scheurer and Grayson’s discussion of how “amputation does not allow us to relegate disability to Otherness” (2021: 13).

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References Auld, W. (1978). Pri lingvo kaj aliaj artoj. Antwerp/La Laguna: TK/Stafeto. Benjamin, W. (2003). The Origin of German Tragic Drama. John Osborne (Trans.). London, New York: Verso. Berry, M. (2008). A History of Pain: Trauma in Modern Chinese Literature and Film. New York: Columbia University Press. Collins, M. (1866). Antaeus. Temple Bar: a London magazine for town and country readers (p. 547). ProQuest. Fernández, M. (2006). Anta˘uparolo: Poeto Mao Zifu: La neniam venkebla venkito. In Mao Zifu. Kantoj de Anteo (pp. 7–12). New York: Mondial. Freud, S. (1953). Mourning and Melancholia. In Collected Papers, vol. IV (pp. 152–170). London: Hogarth. Kristeva, J. (1982). Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Leon S. Roudiez (Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press. Mao Z. (1999). Semado sur la Vers-Pado. In Vilmos Benczik (Eds.) Lingva arto: jubilea libro omage al William Auld kaj Marjorie Boulton (pp. 104–117). Rotterdam: Universala Esperanto-Asocio. Mao Z. (2006). Kantoj de Anteo. New York: Mondial. Mao Z. (2023, May 26). Poemoj de Anteo [Poems by Anteo] http://www.espero.com.cn/ Minnaja, C. & Silfer, G. (2015). Historio de la Esperanta Literaturo. La Chaux-de-Fonds: Kooperativo de Literatura Foiro. Pensky, M. (1993). Melancholy Dialectics: Walter Benjamin and the Play of Mourning. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press. Piatt, J. J. (1872). Antaeus. In Western Windows and Other Poems (pp. 67–70). New York: The Riverside Press. Qu Y. (2017). The Songs of Chu: An Anthology of Ancient Chinese Poetry by Qu Yuan and Others. Gopal Sukhu (Eds.). New York: Columbia University of Press. Riep. S. L. (2018). Body, Disability, and Creativity in the Poetry of Yu Xiuhua. Chinese Literature Today 7(2), 32–41. Scheurer, M. & Grayson, E. (2021). Introduction: Amputation and the Semiotics of “Loss.” In E. Grayson & M. Scheurer (Eds.) Amputation in Literature and Film: Artificial Limbs, Prosthetic Relations, and the Semiotics of “Loss” (pp. 1–17). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Solomon, S. (1996). Antaeus. In Pears, Lake, Sun (p. 61). Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Sutton, G. (2008). Concise Encyclopedia of the Original Literature of Esperanto 1887–2007. New York: Mondial. Tamari, T. (2017). Body Image and Prosthetic Aesthetics: Disability, Technology and Paralympic Culture. Body & Society 23(2), 25–56. Universala Esperanto-Asocio. (2023, May 26). On UEA and its Congresses. https://uea.org/kongre soj/partners van Crevel, M. (2008). Chinese Poetry in Times of Mind, Mayhem and Money. Boston: Brill. van Crevel, M. (2017). “Walk on the Wild Side: Snapshots of the Chinese Poetry Scene,” MCLC Resource Center Publication. ˆ Wang, C. (2015). Granda Vortaro Esperanto-Cina 世界語漢語大詞典. Beijing: Chinese Foreign Languages Press. Yang, L., An, D. & Turner, J. (2005). Handbook of Chinese Mythology. http://publisher.abc-clio. com/9781576078075

Lorraine Wong received her BA in English from the University of Hong Kong, M.Phil. in Sociology from Cambridge University and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from New York University. She is a Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Otago.

Chapter 9

Mourning the Lost Self in Mei Ng’s Eating Chinese Food Naked and Lulu Wang’s The Farewell Suet-ni Chan

Abstract The Chinese American female protagonists in Eating Chinese Food Naked (1998), written by Mei Ng, and the film The Farewell (2019), directed by Lulu Wang, are caught up in a crisis of cultural “in-betweenness”. The sense of exclusion these characters feel in their cross-cultural encounters contributes to the painfulness of not being able to establish a sufficient sense of the self. In Eating Chinese Food Naked, food is used as an everyday ordinary topic to portray the protagonist’s melancholic depressive state and her ambivalence to a sense of self. In The Farewell, family dinners reveal the complexity of generational and cultural conflicts. The second-generation Chinese American granddaughter is distraught over her Chinese grandmother’s lack of awareness of her own terminal lung cancer diagnosis, while all the family members regard their decision of not telling the truth as a cultural norm. In dealing with various conflicts between Chinese and American values, both protagonists become entangled in the cultural roles imposed on them. During the process, they look inside themselves and struggle to search for their own individual voices, while being conscious of the impossibility of assimilating into any culture. Keywords Chinese American women · Cultural conflict · Food · Identity crisis · Loss

9.1 Introduction In both the novel Eating Chinese Food Naked (1998), written by Mei Ng, as well as the film The Farewell (2019), directed by Lulu Wang, the experience of exclusion, the question of identity crisis and the problem of assimilation between two cultures expose the painfulness of not being able to understand oneself sufficiently. In both texts, the Chinese American female protagonists are caught up in a cultural “inbetweenness.” In Eating Chinese Food Naked, the protagonist, Ruby, does not attempt S.-n. Chan (B) College of International Education, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong SAR, China e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024 C. S. Garfield Lau and K. K. Y. Chan (eds.), The Poetics of Grief and Melancholy in East-West Conflicts and Reconciliations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-9821-0_9

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to address or give voice to a collective sense of Chinese American identity, but, instead, lets herself become trapped between Chinese and American ideologies, which exacerbates the problem rather than resolves the dualities. Chinese food is used as an everyday subject to portray the protagonist’s melancholic depressive state of her ambivalent self rather than as the symbolic “other” attempting to reclaim her cultural heritage. Her quest for selfhood and autonomy is a symptom of the uncertainty of the self, which is often characterised by a sense of loss and confusion. The self is not a fixed entity, but a construct determined by different discourses. In The Farewell, Billi, the Chinese American granddaughter––while on a trip to China to visit her dying Nai Nai (Grandmother), who is unaware of her own terminal lung cancer diagnosis––finds herself at ideological odds with her parents and older relatives in China during her trip to China. She is disturbed by how her Nai Nai is deprived of the right to know her own state of health and of the autonomy to make a choice for herself when the family believes that it would be harmful to inform her of the diagnosis. The family goes so far as to ask for the doctor’s consent to hide the diagnosis completely from the patient. The protagonist considers concealment to be a kind of deceit; however, the family regards the withholding of truth to be morally permissible in Chinese culture and thus coerces the granddaughter into deceiving her Nai Nai. Faced with conflicting Chinese and American values, both protagonists become entangled in superficial rituals that impose conventional cultural roles on them, such as preserving family values and being a guardian of heritage or upholding the Chinese traditions of filial piety. Since they are incapable of escaping from these roles, their inscriptions of grief focus on loss, which can be as concrete as a loved one, or as abstract as the “death” of the autonomous self. In the process, they look within themselves and struggle to search for their own individualised voice, while, at the same time, they are aware of the impossibility of assimilating into any one culture. The melancholy that the two protagonists feel does not stem from a sense of nostalgia or an urge to lament the loss of Chineseness when assuming the role of being a Chinese American daughter/granddaughter. The melancholy originates, instead, from the protagonists’ intrinsic ambivalence while questioning the family dynamics and facing the duality of the two cultures. The struggle for recognition, subjectivity, and consolation depicted in these works is chaotic and unresolved. In both texts, the emphasis on the individual’s obligations to others undermines the notion of treating an individual as a free thinker who is responsible for his or her own fate.

9.2 The Surface of Life When cultural products of everyday life, like food, cooking etc. are used in Asian American literary works to represent and make sense of an ethnic identity, there is a common reductive tendency to compile cultural products into a collective memory and an essentialised identity associated with the idea of the “stable, culturally homogenous, historically unchanging […] national territory” (Sibley 1995: 108).

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In Food in Chinese Culture, Kwang-chih Chang brings out the importance of food and its symbolic meanings through his observation that the Chinese “inevitably use food––of which there are countless variations, many more subtle and more expressive than a tongue can convey––to help speak the language that constitutes a part of every social interaction. Within each subsegment of the Chinese food culture, food is used again differentially to express the precise social distinctions involved in the interaction” (Chang 1977: 16). When writers use food culture as a tool to convey their characters’ emotional journeys connected with their cultural identities, the narrative associated with food or food ways (including the practices of cooking and consuming habits) captures a discourse. This activity of capturing a discourse is what Roland Barthes refers to as a cultural myth. In “Toward a Psychosociology of Contemporary Food Consumption,” Barthes argues that food is “a system of communication, a body of images, a protocol of usages, situations, and behaviour”. These systems constitute cultural institutions that “necessarily imply a set of dreams, tastes, choices, and values” (Barthes 1997: 20). In other words, narratives around food contribute to a minority discourse that stresses an affiliation with a certain community. This can lead to the straightforward cultural binary of what it means to be an American or a Chinese. For example, eating a hamburger signifies Westernisation and severance from Chineseness. When this ideological framework exists as a collective belief or perception that people associate with particular food narratives, the emphasis on ethnic identity through food and food preparation generates the idea of a racial Other and exoticism. In this sense, writing about food becomes pornographic. When an individual deliberately promotes one’s ethnic heritage, this has the effect of forcing the audience into the expected forms of representation. Chinese American writer and critic, Frank Chin suggests the term “food pornography” to refer to the deliberate use of culinary imagery to gain popular appeal as an act of self-commodification and self-exoticisation (cited in Wong 1993: 55). When the predominant representative of “exotic” ethnic food becomes a way to produce knowledge about a group of people, it results in capitalising on majority expectations and falsifying Chinese subject matter. Sau-ling Cynthia Wong criticises this “food pornography”, which she views as feeding into the curious gaze of “Chineseness” as a racial expression to announce “who I am”. Wong claims that people engaged with food pornography “mak[e] a living by exploiting the ‘exotic’ aspects of one’s ethnic foodways. In cultural terms it translates to reifying perceived cultural differences and exaggerating one’s otherness in order to gain a foothold in a white-dominated social system” (Wong 1993: 55). The centrality of food in Chinese cultural discourse can serve as an exotic spectacle of what is stereotypical about the Chinese customs surrounding a community who has been historically racialised through their foodways, thus providing “a language through which to imagine Asian alterity in the American imagination” (Mannur 2009: 13). This rhetorical move reinforces myopic or monolithic representations of Chinese culture. It re-enforces the porno-culinary genre and exoticices Chinese minority culture while providing voyeuristic enjoyment for Western readers. Rather than reducing the aforementioned cultural elements to a single datum that represents a particular culture or promotes Oriental behaviours and customs, Eating Chinese Food Naked and The Farewell both illustrate anecdotal domesticity

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by offering an alternative perspective and by questioning the grand narrative of cultural sovereignty. Whether the subjects of everyday life are about cooking as a domestic routine, festive celebration or ceremonial feasts, or whether they are viewed as expressions of love or conflicts through food––they can be found all around us on a repetitive basis readily in our intimate proximity, wherever various cultural contradictions or gendered roles confront one another. According to Michel de Certeau, anecdotes are the actual practices that constitute the real-life realm. De Certeau questions how the diversity and interconnectedness of our lives can be truly noticed if our everyday lives are viewed “from above”. For example, he questions whether one really sees New York if the city is contained in a concept of a whole, graspable city: To be lifted to the summit of the World Trade Center is to be lifted out of the city’s grasp. One’s body is no longer clasped by the streets that turn and return it according to an anonymous law; nor is it possessed, whether as player or played, by the rumble of so many differences and by the nervousness of New York traffic (de Certeau 1984: 92).

The routine practices of everyday life are silent stories ignored by the grand narrative of mainstream history. Anecdotes are actions determined by the absence of power; they present alternative ways of bringing new meaning to pre-established codes. Michel de Certeau’s conceptualisation of everyday life is inherently political as it is based on the relationships between dominants and dominated. Everyday life is where dominant power relations are exerted that influences a subject’s everyday practices, ways of doing things. In Eating Chinese Food Naked, an invisibility of power in the everyday life influencing the characters’ practices that create a sense of who they are. Ruby is perplexed by the different emotions that her father, Franklin, expresses when he reuses the plastic bags from American supermarket and plastic bags from Chinatown to take out the rubbish to the street: He was calm when he used a bag from the American supermarket, but when he used a bag from Chinatown, his face would get tight and his hands quick and angry as he turned the bag inside out so the Chinese lettering didn’t show as much (Ng 1998: 65).

The reason for his behaviour of turning “Chinese bags” inside out because he does not want people to know his garbage is “Chinese garbage” (Ng 1998: 65). This trivial event of Franklin’s ordinary everyday life reveals his hidden tensions during his process of acculturation. Franklin internalises the watchful eye and regards himself as the Other in the dominant culture, being often valuated. In the novel, Franklin as the first-generation Chinese immigrant parent is not “portrayed as symbols of either hopeless cultural stagnation or unrelentingly purposeful cultural transmission” (Wong 1993, 261). The description of his trivial entails hierarchical relations, and his diasporic experience and struggle for survival in America. His experience is individualised rather than collective that focuses on the historical process of collective experience of how Chinese immigrants contribute to the building of America. For example, railroad narration is used to tell Chinese Americans’ lives and struggles in works like Maxine Hong Kingston’s Chinamen (1980) and Frank Chin’s The

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Chinaman Pacific & Frisco R.R. Co. The father’s trivial struggle has influenced how Ruby views herself. She has inherited the gaze that she struggles to position herself in different relationships. The question of “who am I?” constantly plagues her––Is she a saviour to her mother? Is she a loser to her father? Is she merely a sexy Chinese woman to her boyfriend? Her ambiguity of self is reflected in her keeping “a part of herself hidden away” and her inability to commit in a relationship (Ng 1998: 65, 87, 169). The everyday genres function not so much as a detached observation of a static, external world but as an active engagement with the daily experiences of characters and the surrounding society. Anecdotes carry concrete forms that constitute the protagonists’ struggles as experienced in the present tense instead of as an abstraction. Because they are the personal manifestations of ideological conflicts of ethic and gender issues, anecdotes give a heightened awareness to the female protagonists’ experience of the everyday, thereby playing a significant role in examining how these characters suffer from uncertainty and insecurity. For example, in The Farewell, Billi feels the strict principles of hierarchy, obligation and obedience at the dining table where she is pressured to follow the family’s endorsement of values of collectivism and conformity—lying to her grandmother about her health is a familial obligation (Wang 2019: 17:00–20:35). The family mealtime constitutes a space of frustration and silence for Billi, the only person who questions the validity of usual cultural practices, the norm of concealing the truth about terminal illness. The movie is often filled with moments of silence in between conversations which parallels Billi’s cultural dislocations and psychological loss during her visit in China. In her relatives’ eyes, her questions about values and morality exhibit typical American quality of “self-centredness.” Thus, her uncle, Haibin, often reminds her of the importance of filial piety. When Billi tries to stop her father from smoking, Uncle Haibin reprimands her by saying “Don’t control him! He’s your father, you shouldn’t control him” (Wang 2019: 1:01:15–1:01:35). Her act to father is disrespectful that goes against traditional virtue values. The actual practices of the protagonists’ lives in Eating Chinese Food Naked and The Farewell are fragmented and decentralised experiences. These practices cause the characters to break from the imposed and established order and seek, instead, to comprehend their lives and build their own meaning. When they cannot escape from social constraints and expectations of the everyday, they deviate from the normal order and then question the constrictions imposed by social institutions, which produces alternative possibilities, ways of being which are more creative, individualised and diversified. We can classify the family relations, customs and ethics exhibited in banquets, dinners, and food in Eating Chinese Food Naked and The Farewell into the purview of the conflict and acceptance between the East and the West, which emphasises “Chineseness.” Both works appear to contain a “Chinese flavour” that signifies the alien Other. By showing a pair of female bare legs sticking out of a bamboo steamer and a pair of chopsticks standing next to it, the book cover of Eating Chinese Food Naked exudes sexual overtones. This image can easily lead to an imagination that gets quickly mired in Orientalism. The cover design suggests not just some other culture or customs but the exotification of Chinese women. The reader may then presume that the Chinese female protagonist is an erotic, consumable object of one’s obsessions,

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causing the reader to presuppose the stereotypes of the mysterious Other even before reading the story. The body associated with food under the male gaze, perceived as sexual objects for male consumption reveals a “cultural economy that links identity politics to […] the exchange of commodities for social values that the body performs” (Fung 2011: ii). The cultural economy entails power relations between the dominant and the dominated and whose body is manipulable. Chinese women are constructed as the Other in the discourses of Western culture when the female body is represented as “the margins or extremes of the norm—the extremely good, pure and helpless, or the extremely dangerous, chaotic, and seductive (Bronfen 1992: 181). Chinese women are disempowered as a lure to the gaze, and fragments and parts that can be desired and consumed. Yet, the content of the novel does not attempt to show the traditional representations of femininity or the preconceived notions of a mysterious and delectable Eastern culture, which aims to appease the Western male fantasy of the East. This contradiction reveals a problem about the discourse on “Chineseness” as normalizing what could otherwise be known and thought about the subject. The identity of a Chinese American woman is discursively constructed that encourages certain expectations of how the Chinese American experience is supposed to be represented. Eating Chinese Food Naked describes the frustration and uneasiness felt by the protagonist, Ruby, when she goes back to Queens to live with her parents, Bell and Franklin, after graduating from university. Franklin migrates to America when he is eighteen and spends his life in his irritated father’s small laundry. His marriage with Bell in China is an attempt to please his father whom he finds it difficult to bond with. Franklin inherits his father’s patriarchal features and never shows affection to Bell (Ng 1998:191–193). Instead of merely using an omniscient narrative to narrate the tales of Ruby and her parents, the author of Eating Chinese Food Naked, Mei Ng embeds the voice of Ruby to recount her personal struggles in schools facing the East–West conflicts as well her parents’ tensions within themselves in order to invert a dominant discourse of storytelling, to give more expression of a personal voice beyond the dominant narrative. Ruby’s first-person narrative about her parents’ small personal stories and the authors’ third-person narrative about trivial events of Ruby’s everyday life and Ruby’s family create different narratives in interaction. In Eating Identities: Reading Food in Asian American Literature (2008), Xu Wenying notes, “the four-pronged language of food, ethnicity, space, and sexuality” constructs Ruby’s search for identity that “disobeys the either/or demand” (127). Instead of merely using an omniscient narration to tell the tales of Ruby and her parents, Mei Ng uses the voice of Ruby to recount her own personal struggles of East–West conflicts while at school, as well to portray her parents’ conflicts with each other. The author does this in order to invert one of the dominant discourses of storytelling and to give further expression to the personal voice beyond the dominant narrative that is linear, coherent, self-sufficient and closed, thus highlighting the relational constitution of one’s identity. The novel does not use food as a substitute for the female body, as the book cover suggests, but only as an anecdotal domesticity, as something that is a basic part of everyday life and as an essential component of the female protagonist’s experiences. Therefore, the narrative is often episodically structured around anecdotes about food. For example, the routines of Ruby’s family

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are presented to the reader when she goes back to live with them after finishing her university degree: In the kitchen, [Ruby’s] mother had left breakfast warming on the stove, chicken wings cooked in soy sauce, rice, and some leftover squash. […] Now [Ruby] hurried through her breakfast so she could get out of the house before her father got up. He was mad at her for messing up his schedule last night. At eleven thirty-five, she has been flossing in the bathroom. She was sick of his schedule. Every day, the same thing at the same time. He woke up at eight and put the kettle on and read the newspaper. Studied the racing sheet and drank tea and ate a hard-boiled egg at nine. At nine-thirty, he placed his two-dollar bets. After that, as if they were fine antiques, he feather-dusted the brown packages. There were washing days, stretching days, and ironing days, but no matter what day it was, at four he had a cup of tea and a roll with a slice of cheese, and then he waited for dinner, no later than six. Even his bowel movements were precisely timed: 11:30 p.m., and everyone knew to clear out of the bathroom by eleven-fifteen to be on the safe side. (Ng 1998: 65)

This detailed description of the anecdotes functions as an idiosyncrasy that represents a particular person and relationship. What has been reflected in the private sphere of this Chinese immigrant family is the family dynamics and traditional gender roles: the father, being the patriarch, who “never has anything nice to talk [about]” often complains about his wife cooking, while the mother, taking on the role of the homemaker, internalises the mistreatment of her husband (Ng 1998: 11). The daily practices are centred around the father, who imposes a rational order, which everyone in the family is expected to follow. Ruby struggles to escape from traditional patriarchy. She must deal with the traditional sexist attitudes of the time––attitudes that discredit her as well as her mother’s ability to be an autonomous self. In this patriarchal home, Ruby witnesses how her mother comes to live in a culture which strictly regulates her sexuality, confines her to the rule of her husband, and severely limits the powers which she should be able to share with her husband. The wedding banquet in The Farewell is presented as a carnivalesque performance to deceive Nai Nai (Grandmother), who is diagnosed with an advanced stage of lung cancer. The wedding is a fake one set up desperately as an excuse for the whole family to get together one last time to express their gratitude and appreciation to Nai Nai. Amid the chaos, the family orchestrates a hasty wedding banquet for Hao Hao, Billi’s cousin, and his girlfriend, Aiko (whom Hao Hao has only been in a relationship with for three months, as a ploy to sustain the established order and to continue the familial heritage in the final days of Nai Nai). The family members deem it as their responsibility and even their filial obligation to deceive Nai Nai. They view their deception as a way to protect Nai Nai from her fear the diagnosis, which they believe would burden her if she knew the truth. Although the dining table in Chinese culture is meant, generally, to bring families back into a comfortable sphere so that they can share their lives with one another and strengthen bonds, in contrast, the family reunion dining table in the movie is filled with conflicts, bitterness and dark humour, though traditions are through unspoken tensions preserved below the surface. Billi stubbornly insists on joining the family gathering in China, even though she has not been invited due to her parents’ concerns that she would not be able to maintain the white lie. Her sudden appearance in the living room of Nai Nai’s apartment pleases no one except Nai Nai. Billi suffers from a separation between her felt emotions and

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manners of expression in the dining table. She is bothered, has no appetite, and scans the table in a rather detached manner, while everyone else nibbles at their meat pie (Wang 2019: 15:50–19:45). Their communication carefully avoids the open secret. Billi is the only person who is repulsed by the idea of deceiving Nai Nai, even though she is expected to conform to the rule. Everyone’s pretence constitutes a set of rules governing their expressions at the dining table. Billi constantly adjusts her emotions to express what is accepted in this cultural context, which leads to her feelings of inauthenticity. After the dinner, Billi’s uncle, Haibin, walks her to the hotel. During their conversation, Haibin repeatedly reminds Billi that “[Nai Nai] doesn’t know. So you have to be very careful not to tell her”. He continues to repeat this regardless of how many times Billi reassures him by saying “I know”. This suggests that Haibin is testing Billi’s readiness to cooperate with him (Wang 2019: 21:30–22:20). When Billi questions the intention and desire of the family members who decide to conceal the diagnosis from Nai Nai, Uncle Haibin lectures Billi on the importance of traditional Chinese moral and ethical values: You know Billi. You need to understand something. You guys moved to a Western country a long time ago, so you’re no longer connected to the Eastern way of looking at things. In America, you think one’s life belongs to oneself. But that’s the difference between the East and the West. In the East, your life is part of a whole. Family. Society. (Wang 2019: 1:02:14–1:02:50)

Haibin explains this to Billi as if she is a pure American with no connection to Chinese attributes and lectures her about family values and how these values are essential for Confucianism. His traditional family ideological language holds a patriarchal power over her: Since families play a central role in Chinese society, these communities tend to be collectivist while American culture tends to be individualist. Chinese culture regards human relations, rather than individual rights, as the basis of morality while American culture views individual rights to be the central moral and ethical basis for society. Haibin’s emphasis of traditions and rituals shows his attempt to help Billi regain her “belonging” and “homing” to Chineseness through “reclaiming and reprocessing of habits, objects, names and histories that have been uprooted” (Ahmed et al. 2003: 9). On the surface, especially when this dialogue is highlighted in the trailer, the movie seems to revolve around Confucian cosmology, which it uses to evoke nostalgia, to resonate with the Chinese (immigrant) audience, and to engender exoticism in other audience members who find Confucianism alien to them. However, Uncle Haibin’s reprimand exposes the problem of the dominant social experience that stresses how each family member is expected to fulfil that role in a socially prescribed manner, and how one’s identity is confined to binary oppositions of either-or as if the subjectivity is only graspable “within the closed system of signification: ‘I’ always derives its values from ‘you,’ and ‘here’ from ‘there,’ just at ‘black’ refers to ‘white,’ or ‘male’ to ‘female’” (Silverman 1983:196). In this sense, identity attached with cultural symbols is framed within discursive fields that involve power imbalance. Thus, Billi is confused by the way she is muted. Her confusion raises the question of whose despair is legitimised and honoured, or neglected, and who should be able to make decisions and define morals and proper conducts.

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9.3 The Melancholic Self The process of self-discovery is a profoundly painful one involving death, loss and melancholy. Melancholy is considered to be the unresolved mourning for a lost object associated with loss, grief, dark moods of disempowerment and depression. Sigmund Freud’s foundational text “Mourning and Melancholia” provides a psychoanalytic interpretation of melancholy. For Freud, mourning and melancholia are reactions “to the loss of a loved person, or to the loss of some abstraction which has taken the place of one, such as one’s country, liberty, an ideal, and so on” (Freud 1917: 243). However, he juxtaposes melancholy with mourning by defining mourning as a painful but normal and non-pathological process for people to work through their losses, with the result that the ego becomes “free and uninhibited again” (Freud 1917: 245). On the other hand, melancholia is a form of pathological mourning where the mourner establishes “an identification of the ego with the abandoned object” (Freud 1917: 249), resulting in sadistic impulses of self-punishment. Both responses share the common character of being painful mental states; however, according to Freud, melancholy is a pathological disorder––an illness––while mourning is more rational. Judith Butler extends Freud’s ideas about loss in relation to gender and sexuality. She writes in The Psychic Life of Power: “rigid forms of gender and sexual identification, whether homosexual or heterosexual, appear to spawn forms of melancholy” (Butler 1997: 144). She argues that mourning is a violent command that aims at control and authority. It is an attempt in us to forget the losses that are unacceptable and that cannot be recognised as cultural normative directives or that cannot take part in the dominant discourse. Butler illustrates her argument with the example of compulsory heterosexuality: “heterosexual identity is purchased through a melancholic incorporation of the love that it disavows: the man who insists upon the coherence of his heterosexuality will claim that he never loved another man, and hence never lost another man” (Butler 1997: 139). Gender norms become psychically incorporated when the sexual identification is based on unresolved grief and feelings of rejection. Guilt and conscience regulate the melancholic formation of the “self” when the enforced rejection of homosexual attachments is internalised. Instead of focusing on the pathologising of melancholic experience, the protagonists’ melancholic states will be discussed as a response to the cultural ideal. Butler’s notion of melancholia provides another angle from which to view the wounded self of the female protagonists in The Farewell and Eating Chinese Food Naked. The characters’ melancholia is inscribed in loss and emerges from an “ungrievable” origin, which is not initially recognised or valued as a cohesive and homogeneous category. Butler challenges the proposition of a fixed identity as structured and reified by social norms. The ambivalent melancholic incorporation of social norms constitutes the impossibility of establishing an essence. Because of this impossibility, the protagonists are not able to make sufficient sense of themselves as the locus of wholeness, sincerity, authenticity, and sovereignty. Their subjectivity is constituted by loss––by the divisions and contradictions within a subject created by its relationships with power and discourse, and by its incorporated regulatory ideals and

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idealised norms. Power is exercised through a dominant presence. This presence produces the structures of binary classification and serves to underscore differences and ensure privileged social positioning to an established sense of who “we” are. The female protagonists describe their grief of self-discovery by revisiting their psychic loss. Their search for identity takes on a melancholic hue through the constitutive loss that mars their search for identity. As women, they are never seen as equal to men. The loss that they face comes with a diminished sense of self-regard. Their grief is tangled up in its punitive origins and comes from the struggle they have to define “who I am.” The normative ideals of regulatory cultural regimes produce subjectivities of social discipline. Because of this, their search for identity appears as a struggle over the grief that constitutes the self, which would be undermined if they were to become totally assimilated into the social order. A question arises from the process of their resistance against totalising discourses and the regulatory power: what remains of the self to give meaning to itself when their behaviours deviate from the prescribed but ambivalent social norms and expectations? In The Farewell, by asking her where she is from as she arrives at the hotel, the hotel manager questions Billi’s “Americanness.” When she replies “America,” the hotel manager doubts her Americanness and imposes his ideal of how an American should look––“America? You don’t look American.” Billi remains silent as a response to such a remark (Wang 2019: 23:20–23:35). Billi is often confronted with questions and discussions about the clashes between Chinese and American culture. In one of the dinner scenes, Jian, Billi’s mother, argues with a distant relative about whether America or China is a better country to live in. When Jian uses the example of how the pastor allows Billi to come to the church to practice the piano whenever she desires to convince the Chinese relatives that America is much better than China, where people are only concerned about making money, Billi attempts to hold down her mother’s simplistic and reductive view. She does this by stating, “That one church is not representative of all of America. We have so many problems––healthcare, guns, public education….” Billi’s opinion is dismissed by her mother (Wang 2019: 40:30– 41:30). When she faces the conflict between Chinese and American values, her choice involves a rejection of all superficial authorities and discourses, either about China or America. Later, the debate on the dining table becomes a discussion about the senses of Chineseness. Uncle Haibin declares that he will always be Chinese no matter where he lives or what passport he holds (Wang 2019: 41:57–42:04). Uncle Haibin’s essentialist “theory” of cultural identity suggests that identity consists of an inner core. The inner core is linked to belonging to a fixed culture regardless of nationalities. Culture is seen as an innate quality, an essence within an individual, and as norms that are shared within a group. Billi painfully bears the experience of alienation when dealing with the ambiguous definitions of identity. At these moments, Billi’s identity of self becomes based on how others’ perceive who she is. She becomes invisible and has no meaning as an individual. To her relatives, she is not Chinese enough; to the Chinese hotel manager, she is not American enough. If she hopes to fit into any of the prescribed patterns, her individuality will become lost and she will have to accept the external definition of her being and social norms as mechanisms of a social power that violently regulates the field of recognisable subjects, bodies, and lives. She is

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denied the right to be recognised as who she is. Her autonomous self-definition has been robbed. Therefore, throughout Billi’s stay in China, her affecting experience is often shown as she is often reduced to a “label.” She represents the non-integrated, non-majority and unrecognisable. In Eating Chinese Food Naked, there are many significant ways that the melancholy of loss is experienced by the various generations of women. For instance, how Ruby has been affected by her mother is significant. Her mother, Bell, is either silenced or made passive as a way to counter the sense of frustration and even alienation that she experiences in the patriarchal home. When Ruby asked about her grandmother, Bell told Ruby that her family wanted to give “her away to her neighbours, who had four sons and no daughters” after she was born (Ng 1998: 26). Because she was perceived as the unwanted daughter in the family, when she was only seventeen, Bell’s father asked her to “marry a man [who] had come all the way across the ocean” (Ng 1998: 26). Ruby’s father, Franklin, married Bell merely to fulfil his sonly piety to “please his father, who was a tough man to please” (Ng 1998: 30). The marriage between Bell and Franklin is defined by socially prescribed roles––the women’s role is that of a domestic labour. Chinese women are born into a world which defines the traditional constituents of femininity as family, nurturance and altruism. Bell is not fully embodied or alive but is sacrificed, confined in the claustrophobic space of the kitchen in America. Spending most her lifetime in the laundry and kitchen, Bell’s serving the family reveals the terms of a female’s marginalisation or submission to male authority: Bell had her woman’s operation […] She was alone and she would do it herself, Bell pulled herself from the bed and walked slowly to the kitchen, holding on to the wall with one hand, the other hand touching the place where her uterus used to be. When she got to the refrigerator, she found that she couldn’t open it. She put both hands on the handle and pulled; she looked around for someone to help her […] her husband was out in the store, listening to the horse races. (Ng 1998: 47)

Bell is unable to express her voice, for “Franklin’s cigar smoke is always in her throat.” Ruby comes from a family where her mother suffers from patriarchal oppression: “the only way [Franklin] knew of boosting himself up was to make his wife feel small” (Ng 1998: 32). The mother’s marginalised status in the family calls on Ruby to acknowledge the plight of the previous generation, which makes Ruby force herself to be accountable for making her mother happy. Because she perceives it as her obligation to rescue her mother from her father’s oppression, she works as a temp to save money for a trip to Florida with Bell: “All summer, Ruby had worked on convincing her mother to go on this trip, but now that she had said yes, Ruby didn’t know why she didn’t feel happy about it. […] But no one was forcing her to go on vacation […] But somehow she still felt coerced.” (Ng 1998: 200). Maternal self-sacrifice generates reciprocal behaviours on the daughter unconsciously as she and her mother “had always loved each other through sacrifice and worry” (Ng 1998: 14). It burdens Ruby, especially when she notices that her “bowl is piled high with all the good bits, and there in her mother’s bowl a heap of bones. But now she’s grown, for once in her lifetime she would like to push away the full bowl and eat from the other, the one her mother guards with both hands” (Ng 1998: 14). For Ruby,

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food is the sign of racial difference and family ties that remind her of her prescribed sexual role. Ruby’s subjectivity suffuses with a nagging sense of loss, experienced as inadequacy. She is trapped in pain to see Bell’s silence as if the latter’s being, from the start, is attached to her own subjection to normative ideals and power. She lives through a feeling of guilt that is related to the mother’s nothingness and sacrifice in the social order that underwrites a woman’s subjectivity.

9.4 Re-constructing the Loss Social norms structure and reify the proposition of a stable and coherent identity. Judith Butler’s emphasis on how the self is vulnerably constituted by norms and discourses that exceed the self suggests the non-ownership of self. The self is a performative self that constant reiterates culturally constructed norms, thus delimiting individual agency or wholeness. In Gender Trouble, Butler offers an analysis of gender and sex in terms of the repeated performances that solidify over time to affirm the naturalness of identity. Such naturalness, “bodily essence,” is situated in sustained social “performance” in speech and acts (Butler 1990: 180). Butler’s account of subjectivity emphasises how power and norms regulate bodies and experiences, particularly in the processes of subject formation. “Indeed to understand identity as practice,” Butler writes, “and as a signifying practice, is to understand culturally intelligible subjects as the resulting effects of a rule-bound discourse” (Butler 1990: 145). Because we are living within a given culture, social norms regulate our identities. Our choice and actions are established from within a space that is based on power relations. In other words, selfhood is manufactured through discourses. To make sense of the self and to avoid the fear of fragmenting the self, the internalisation of norms through repeated performances is inescapable. This is the case because performativity (repeated practices) makes our abstract living meaningful within a social structure and ultimately strives for a totality, a system of coherent relations, a fixed and stable significance in terms of identity and subjective meaning. Eating Chinese Food Naked and The Farewell carry the melancholic undertone as the characters experience how they can never be all of who they are when they fail to identity with the norms imposed on them within social discourses. They carry the loss inside themselves and the grief surrounding that loss is internalised. In Eating Chinese Food Naked, Bell appears to be a caricature in a certain state of deadness who is thought to possess a wholeness barred to the living. As a Chinese woman, Bell lives like dummy with assigned roles. Ruby lives as if she carries her mother’s death around with her as the disappearance of her subjectivity. Through her relationship with her boyfriend, Nick, Ruby is situated in a stasis that parallels the emptiness in her home. She desires intimacy because of the lack of physical expressions of affection, such as hugs and kisses that are common in her classmates’ families: “She loved [Nick] best in bed […] The trapped feeling was still there, and now it felt just as dangerous but it also felt good. And that was the scary part, that in bed it felt good” (Ng 1998: 122–123). Ruby’s subjectivity is reduced to a physical relationship. She

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regards the way communication works through physical touch as a way to rediscover the feelings that emerge from the intensity of the experience that sexual relationships offer her; yet, the act of touching feels like nothing to her. In order to ward off the fear of the disappearance of her feelings, she indulges in flings as if “she were starving”, yet ironically, she constantly convinces herself that “Maybe if she has one last fling, she might be able to commit” (Ng 1998: 169). It is possible that Ruby’s subconscious fear of being excluded from the social order creates her compulsive behaviours of engaging—performances, habits—engagements which are performed for the self and others. Ruby’s offering of her body which is presented as a hunger for physical touch that comes through her sex acts, is described more as an autoerotic gesture detached from emotions than as anything suggesting connectivity between herself and Nick, or between herself and the other flings: “She kissed him. His mouth was warm. She wanted more. He rolled on top of her. She started to open her legs. Just one more minute, she said to herself. Ten minutes later, he has his hands down her pants. Just one more minute, she told herself” (Ng 1998: 208). The affectless tone of the narrative obstructs the readers’ access to Ruby’s emotions; Ruby hoards the feeling inside herself and refuses to give up her identification with the loss. The loss that plagues her is a sacrifice that becomes a fundamental part of her selfhood, such as the relationship with her mother expresses. The way Nick approaches food signifies his desire to possess Ruby’s body and how this overrides genuine affection: He was eating all the good meaty bits and leaving the bony parts for her. This made her quiet, and she felt sad suddenly that she loved a man who took the good bits for himself. She had been taught to give the good bits to the other person and that the other person would give her the good bits, and, in this way, they would take care of each other. She watched the duck disappearing into his mouth. (Ng 1998: 234)

Ruby observes Nick’s selfishness from his poor table manners: “Ruby forgot to tell Nick not to start eating until her father picked up his chopsticks. Nick reached across the table and helped himself to a plump morsel of chicken from the far side of the plate, the side right in front of her father” (Ng 1998: 129). Nick confesses that when he is angry, he thinks, “Who is that ugly Chinese woman standing in my room?” (Ng 1998: 236). Her body is reduced to the embodiment of male desire, where the gendering and racialising of norms organises the cultural intelligibility of bodies. Because she is regarded as a tasty, delectable, and consumable beauty––the exotic “other” that fits into the stereotypical mode of the sexualisation and eroticisation of Asian women––Ruby begins to realise how the heterosexual relationship dehumanises her and eradicates her personhood. In The Farewell, Billi searches relentlessly for a subjectivity that legitimates her grief, her anger and her belief in her act of mourning, as a way to manifest saying farewell to her loved one, Nai Nai, before her death. The “untruth” that the family decides to uphold causes her to struggle to make sense of herself. This struggle takes place between her individuality and her cultural duty as a “good granddaughter” in Chinese culture. Billi experiences alienation from her cultural community, similar to Salman Rushdie’s discussion about the suffering of the migrant in Imaginary Homelands: “a triple disruption: he loses his place, he enters into an alien language,

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and he finds himself surrounded by beings whose social behaviour and codes are very unlike, and sometimes even offensive to, his own” (Rushdie 1991: 277–278). Billi awkwardly becomes the alien Other in the “homeland”, where she spends her childhood with Nai Nai. She feels displaced in a world where she is supposed to be able to identify with the norms and social approbation of the culture. Her feelings of being left out of her cultural community dissolve her sense of self. Billi can only derive her sense of self predominantly from her lost past. She understands herself as the granddaughter she once was or could have been, as if remembering were a kind of salvation that ensures the essence of the self. She mourns her loss by (re)narrating her past to her mother, who, at the same time, rejects her suggestion of staying in China to take care of Nai Nai: So what can I do? Tell me what I should do! Because [Nai Nai]’s all that’s left. One of the few good memories I have of my childhood were those summers in Nai Nai’s house where they had that garden and Ye Ye [grandfather] and I used to catch dragonflies. We moved to the States and everything was different, everyone was gone and suddenly it was just the three of us. (Wang 2019: 1:04:50–1:05:14)

This happy image of the perfect moment of childhood can only ever be a (re)construction, a (re)creation in Billi’s mind. Her recollection of her childhood in China symbolises her nostalgic construction of idealised moments from her past. This act of recollecting is pregnant with her melancholic presumption of consolation that cannot be realised in actuality. It may show a yearning for the lost past and an escape from the present, but it is not an attempt to reconstruct a lost totality or retrieve a lost utopian space. Rather, the self in memory is evoked, not as a monument to the self, but as a way to show the self’s ultimate passing as the irretrievability of the past indicates contingencies. The passing of time is the passing of the self or, even, the dissolution of a fixed and stable self. On the other hand, the dissolution is also a becoming, in a similar way to how the act of remembering re-situates oneself and allows us to recall the process of becoming. When Billi recalls the pivots of change in her life, she evokes the process of becoming at the same moment. Becoming, for Billi, is not a definitive grasping of her sense of self or of the establishment of a stable new life for herself, but is, instead, the process of defying the space of discursive constructs, the space where different cultural groups contend for power and control.

9.5 Conclusion Eating Chinese Food Naked and The Farewell de-essentialise the Chinese American family experience because they are concerned with questions of self-definition and identity without claiming Americanness or selling Chinese behaviours or customs. Both Eating Chinese Food Naked and The Farewell offer endings that do not fall into sentimentalism by resorting to either a moving denouement of the reconciliation between East and West, that is, between the Chinese parents and the Chinese American daughter, nor a collective remembrance of the past. These endings are

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not reconciliations of loss and transience. Nothing seems to be solved or concluded but all that results is merely a return to the everyday. In the ending scene of The Farewell, Billi returns to New York and strolls down the sidewalk with the weight of the world on her shoulders. She appears to be on the verge of a break down. It is unclear whether Nai Nai will be cured (Wang 2019: 1:31:44–1:32:10). In a similar vein, Eating Chinese Food Naked ends with Ruby moving to a new apartment instead of going on a trip to Florida with her mother. Neither work projects any further promises or offers anything further as a fulfilment. The two female protagonists’ parallel dissatisfactions remain intact. It seems like their everyday lives will continue in the perpetually repeated doubt of the self, which is the inevitable process of pursuing their own discovery of subjectivity amid conflicting values. The protagonists express their experiences of loss without resorting to any frameworks, discursive constructs—through which they might otherwise be able to define their subjectivity. The works are not attempts at the reconstruction of a “lost totality” nor the promise of a unified version of the self. When the protagonists’ problems persist and there are no resolutions, this expresses the impossibility of fulfilment, but, at the same time, the self only begins to exist in relation to this searching amid conflicts, complexities, and divergent meanings between two worlds. The author of Eating Chinese Food Naked and the director of The Farewell do not try to make their protagonist’s personhood coherent or comprehensible to others because the two young female protagonists who are uncertain about their future can be recognised by others only if their images and behaviours “fit” the culturally sanctioned definition. The absence of reconciliation or negotiation opens up potential sites for struggles against dominant ideologies and expectations.

References Ahmed, S., Castaneda, C., Fortier, & Sheller, M. (Eds.) (2003). Introduction. In Uprootings/ Regrounds: Questions of Home and Migration (pp. 1–19). New York: Berg. Barthes, R. (1997). Toward a Psychosociology of Contemporary Food Consumption. In C. Counihan and P. V. Esterik (Eds.), Food and Culture: A Reader (pp. 20–27). New York: Routledge. Bronfen, E. (1992). Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity and the Aesthetic. New York: Routledge. Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Butler, J. (1997). The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Chang, K. (Ed.) (1977). Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives. New Haven: Yale University Press. de Certeau, M. (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans., Steven Rendall. Berkeley: University of California Press. Freud, S. (1917). Mourning and Melancholia. In R. Angela (Ed.), Freud Sigmund and Strachey, James: On Metapsychology: The Theory of Psychoanalysis: ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principal’, ‘The Ego and the Id’, and Other Works (pp. 245–268). London: Penguin Books. Fung, E. C.-C. (2011). “Introduction to the Special Issue: Teaching Food and Foodways in Asian American Literature and Popular Culture.” Asian American Literature: Discourse and Pedagogies, 2, I–IV. https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/aaldp/vol2/iss1/1

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Mannur, A. (2009). Culinary Fictions: Food in South Asian Diasporic Culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Ng, M. (1998). Eating Chinese Food Naked. London: Hamish Hamilton. Rushdie, S. (1991). Imaginary homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981–1991. Granta in association with Penguin. Sibley, D. (1995). Geographies of Exclusion: Society and Difference in the West. Routledge: New York. Silverman, K. (1983). The Subject of Semiotics. Oxford University Press. Wang, L. (2019). The Farewell. A24. Wong, S. C. (1993). Reading Asian American Literature: from Necessity to Extravagance. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Xu, W. (2008). Eating Identities: Reading Food in Asian American Literature. University of Hawaii Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824862282

Chan, Suet-ni is Academic Coordinator of GE-English and Lecturer in English as well as Cultural Studies in College of International Education, Hong Kong Baptist University. She completed her Ph.D. in literature at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Part III

The Various Forms of Grief and Melancholy in Contemporary Hong Kong Discourses

Chapter 10

Words on Display: Chinese Funeral Banners and Wreath Messages Through a Geosemiotic Lens Enid Lee

Abstract This chapter draws on the geosemiotic framework to examine the indexicality and dialogicality of funeral banners and wreath messages at Chinese funerals in Hong Kong). Data were collected from media reports (videos, photographs, and news articles) on the high-profile “happy” funerals of casino tycoon Stanley Ho Hung Sun (1921–2020) and best-selling martial arts novelist Louis Cha Leung Yung (1924–2018). The data were analyzed with a focus on social actors, code preference, materiality, inscription, composition, emplacement, and the relations between them. The findings illustrate that the open display of funeral banners and wreath messages constitutes a semiotic aggregate representing the most conspicuous and significant cultural component of Chinese funerals in Hong Kong. In addition to being used as the main artifacts to adorn funeral halls and index the space and place for funeral rites, the banners and messages serve as a vehicle for phatic communication among the funeral participants on two different levels—an individual level and a collective level. On the individual level, the banners and messages embody the mourners’ own personal grief and respect for the deceased and provide comfort and mianzi (面子 “face”) to bereaved family members and fellow mourners. On the collective level, they signify joint efforts to overcome grief over the loss of the deceased, through reaffirming social bonds and evoking a shared sense of cultural identity and belonging not only between the living and the dead, but also among family members, friends, relatives, and sometimes even anonymous onlookers and passers-by. Keywords Chinese funeral · Dialogicality · Geosemiotics · Indexicality · Wanci · Wanlian

E. Lee (B) Okinawa International University, Ginowan, Japan e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024 C. S. Garfield Lau and K. K. Y. Chan (eds.), The Poetics of Grief and Melancholy in East-West Conflicts and Reconciliations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-9821-0_10

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10.1 Introduction The Chinese attitudes toward death are epitomized in the sayings shenglaobingsi ( 生老病死) “birth, aging, sickness, and death” and sizheweida rutuweian (死者為大 入土為安) “the deceased should be held in high esteem and buried in earth to rest in peace.”1 Having its origin in Buddhism, the first saying views death as one of the four inevitable afflictions in human life that we all need to endure and accept. The second saying is linked to the folk belief that after death, people transform into ancestral spirits and assume an elevated status. Thus, the living must treat them with dignity and respect and never speak ill of them, not only when conducting funerals and death rituals but also thereafter. These attitudes, along with other core values of Chinese culture such as compassion, filial piety, unity, harmony, and continuity are clearly expressed through the offering and displaying of wanlian (輓聯) and wanci (輓詞 or 輓辭) at funeral services. The term wanlian, or funeral couplets, originally refers to the pair of vertical banners flanking the portrait of the deceased in the center of the front of the funeral hall. They are two calligraphic scrolls each featuring a poetic line in honor of the dead person. The term is now frequently used to encompass all kinds of funeral banners, including also (1) the single horizontal banners hanging above the portrait or over the entrance to the funeral hall, technically known as wan’e (輓額); (2) the condolence messages accompanying funeral gifts, such as flower wreaths or sprays, commonly called huaquan wanlian (花圈輓聯) or huapai wanlian (花牌輓聯); and (3) the messages attached to funeral blankets,2 traditionally known as wanzhang ( 輓幛). A related term, wanci is used and understood almost indistinguishably from wanlian when describing the laments, condolences, and elegiac expressions written on funeral banners, message cards, wreath ribbons, and funeral blankets. It can also be used to denote the eulogies, in either spoken or written form, given by the family and friends of the deceased. Throughout this chapter, wanlian and wanci are used as a collective term, unless otherwise indicated, to refer to the written messages that come with the flower wreaths and funeral blankets, as well as the large funeral banners hung over the altar or flanking the portrait of the deceased. Wanlian and wanci can be written both vertically and horizontally and they may come either in pairs or as a single entity. The Chinese character 輓 (wan) in all these terms for funeral banners and funeral messages literally means “drawing or pulling a cart.” The frequent use of the character in vocabulary associated with death rituals is due to the fact that in the past, a dead person was placed on a bier carried by a horse- or ox-drawn cart to the burial 1

Unless indicated otherwise, Chinese words are written in traditional script throughout this chapter in accordance with local Hong Kong practice. 2 Funeral blankets, which are not commonly seen nowadays, were offered by the immediate family of the deceased or close relatives and friends to keep the mourners warm in a night vigil, to form a tent for an outdoor funeral, and/or to cover the body of the deceased at the funeral or for burial, particularly when the family was unable to give the dead person a proper funeral or even afford a coffin.

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ground with someone holding a large banner at the front of the procession to lead the way (Jung 2017). Although such carts are no longer to be seen in today’s funerals as death rituals and funeral traditions have gradually been simplified over the years, the offering of wanlian and wanci as funeral gifts is still common practice, with perhaps slight variations, in Chinese communities worldwide. All the received wanlian and wanci are put on display along with the funeral flowers and blankets during the funeral for attendees to view. The quantity of wanlian and wanci reflects to a large extent the social status of the deceased and his/her family. That said, wanlian and wanci are not just for show, nor are they merely artifacts to adorn the funeral hall and index the space and place for funeral rites. To better understand their role and significance in funerals as important social events, that is, their meaning for the mourners, the deceased, and even the community at large, it is necessary to adopt a holistic approach, simultaneously taking into consideration various aspects of the practice. These include not only the linguistic content of individual banners or messages (i.e., what is or is not written and how it is written), but also who the senders are, how they are related to the deceased, where the banners and messages are placed, how they are positioned in relation to one another, and even how they are recontextualized in other discourses. It is the aim of this chapter to delve into the social meaning of wanlian and wanci. In the next sections, a brief description of the theoretical framework and data sources is first given, followed by an outline of the spatial arrangement and visual elements of the typical Chinese funeral hall in Hong Kong. Next, a full discussion is presented about the geosemiotic characteristics of the wanlian and wanci displayed at the funerals of two of the most distinguished Hong Kong Chinese celebrities. Finally, some concluding remarks and suggestions for further research are offered.

10.2 Theoretical Framework Kress and van Leeuwen (2021) and Adami (2017), among others, have pointed out that all communication, be it face-to-face or distant, synchronous or asynchronous, is inherently multimodal in the sense that every communicative event consists of a combination of different semiotic resources, or modes; hence relations among modes are the key to meaning-making. As stated by Scollon and Scollon (2003), “There is a social world presented in the material world through its discourses—signs, structures, other people—and our actions produce meanings in the light of those discourses” (Scollon and Scollon 2003: 1). Their theory of geosemiotics is an integrated analytical framework that emphasizes the necessity to attend to multiple semiotic resources in the process of understanding and interpreting these discourses and signs (i.e., icons, indexes, and symbols). It combines sociocultural theory, semiotic theory, and anthropology for understanding public discourse as situated in the material world and shaped by the social and cultural context.

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Put simply, geosemiotics offers an action-based perspective on how meaning is constructed at the intersection of three interacting semiotic systems, namely, interaction order, visual semiotics, and place semiotics. Interaction order describes how one interacts in place, including the set of social relationships one takes up and tries to maintain and how one orients oneself to signs or uses them in real time action. Visual semiotics explores how images and texts are produced as meaningful wholes for interpretation. Place semiotics deals with how space is interpreted and considers the physical materiality of signs, code preference, inscription, and emplacement, and discourses in time and space. Studies that apply a geosemiotic approach involve examining these three systems in conjunction with each other. Thus, an analysis using this approach takes into consideration social actors, the socially connected world, dialogical interaction among multiple semiotic systems, and how actions are represented visually to index certain social and cultural meanings, rather than just the text content of the discourses or signs. This chapter explores the indexicality and dialogicality of the wanlian and wanci displayed at two Hong Kong celebrities’ funerals using the geosemiotic framework. Indexicality is defined as “the property of the context-dependency of signs, especially language; hence the study of those aspects of meaning which depend on the placement of the sign in the material world” (Scollon and Scollon 2003: 212). Dialogicality refers to “the property of all discourse that it responds to prior discourse and anticipates subsequent discourse; discourse always ‘speaks to’ other discourses” (Scollon and Scollon 2003: 210). The interplay of co-existing discourses or signs in a particular place—called “a semiotic aggregate”—creates “interdiscursive dialogicality… so that each takes part of its meaning from the co-presence of the other” (Scollon and Scollon 2003: 193).

10.3 Data Collection Data for the study were collected from media reports (see “Data Sources”) on the funerals for two popular celebrities in Hong Kong—Stanley Ho Hung Sun (何鴻燊 1921–2020) and Louis Cha Leung Yung (查良鏞 1924–2018). The dataset contains 51 news articles (30 in English and 21 in Chinese), 11 video clips (10:04:51), and over 700 images. A total of 261 wanlian and wanci were extracted from the data for analysis. Ho’s and Cha’s funerals were chosen for the study because both attracted considerable media attention and public interest, with extensive coverage in the local, national, and international news media offering a large amount of information, much of which is particularly relevant to our purpose. To understand the geosemiotics of the wanlian and wanci displayed at the funerals of these two celebrities, it is important to know who they were and what they had accomplished. Stanley Ho, nicknamed 賭王 (duwang, “casino king” or “king of gambling”), was a Hong Kong-born self-made multibillionaire “patriotic entrepreneur” of Chinese and European ancestry. His business empire spanned from entertainment to tourism, shipping, real estate, banking, and air transport across the globe. The charismatic tycoon

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was well-known for his philanthropic generosity, flamboyant lifestyle, and his large and complex family—he had seventeen children with four different women whom he called wives. Ho received honorary doctorates from the University of Macau and three universities in Hong Kong, and served as a member of the Standing Committee of the 9th–11th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (The CPPCC National Committee, 全國政協委員 quanguo zhengxie weiyuan) during 1998–2013. In recognition of his generosity and contributions to society, he was awarded numerous honors including Hong Kong’s and Macau’s highest honors, the Grand Bauhinia Medal (GBM, 大紫荊勳賢 dazijing xunxian) in 2010 and the Grand Lotus Medal of Honor (大蓮花榮譽勳章 dalianhua rongyu xunzhang) in 2007, and accolades from the governments of the UK, France and Portugal (“Stanley Ho” 2023). Louis Cha, better known by his pen name Jin Yong (金庸), was a world-renowned Chinese wuxia (武俠) “martial arts and chivalry” novelist with fans of all ages from all over the world. Cha was born and raised in Mainland China. He started his career as a journalist and a translator for the state-owned newspaper Ta Kung Pao (大公報) in Shanghai and moved to Hong Kong to work as a deputy editor for a local newspaper in the early 1950s. He later became a scenarist-director and a screenwriter at a local film production company, co-founded the long-standing Hong Kong daily newspaper Ming Pao (明報) and served as its editor-in-chief for years, writing editorials and serialized wuxia novels. Cha was an honorary professor at several universities in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Canada. He was awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Cambridge and the University of British Columbia, just to name a few. Cha was also known for his diligence, modesty, and curiosity. At the age of 86, he obtained a doctoral degree in oriental studies from Cambridge with his own thesis and three years later, another doctorate in Chinese literature from Peking University. Cha’s novels have been translated into many languages and adapted into movies, TV dramas, comics, and video games. He was recognized as the most prolific and celebrated modern Chinese writer and screenwriter, hence the nicknames 文學大師 (wenxue dashi, “literary giant),” 中國 的莎士比亞 (zhongguo de shashibiya “China’s Shakespeare”), and 武俠小說泰斗 (wuxia xiaoshuo taidou “guru of martial arts novels”). Like Ho, Cha’s achievements earned him many prestigious awards including accolades from the British and French governments (“Jin Yong” 2023; Liu and He 2018).

10.4 Spatial Arrangement and Visual Components Lefebvre argues in his seminal work The Production of Space that space is essentially a “social” product, by which he meant there is no such thing as a purely physical space that is totally separated from values and social practice (Lefebvre 1991: 26). Spaces are constructed, experienced, and represented by people and their social institutions. With this in mind, let us take a brief look at some of the spatial arrangements and

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decor for Chinese funerals in Hong Kong and the cultural rules associated with them before proceeding to the analysis of the wanlian and wanci at Ho’s and Cha’s funerals. The funeral ceremony usually takes place in the front part of a funeral hall where a funerary altar occupies the central position. The area is typically decorated with an abundance of fresh white flowers and a large portrait of the deceased hanging in the center. The casket of the deceased may or may not be displayed at the funeral. When displayed, it is usually placed in front of the altar. Mourners are seated on one or both sides of the hall facing the portrait. Seats closest to the front are reserved for the immediate family of the deceased and pallbearers who carry the casket. On the right or left side of the altar is a lectern behind which the funeral celebrant stands. The open display of wanlian and wanci is one of the most prominent visual components of Chinese funerals. Above the portrait of the deceased is a large horizontal banner with a four-character idiom or phrase written on it. The portrait may also be flanked by two large, vertical banners bearing a eulogistic couplet with seven characters in each verse. Flower wreaths or sprays with messages offered by mourners are laid on the floor in front of the altar or hung on an easel against the wall on either side of the altar. To ensure that the wreath messages are visible to the mourners, they are usually written in thick black ink on a large framed white placard or a pair of long white silk ribbons, and securely affixed to the upper part of the flower wreaths or sprays. Placement of the wreaths-and-messages mainly depends on how closely related the senders were to the deceased or his/her family. The wreaths-and-messages offered by members of the immediate family are placed closest to the portrait. As a rule of thumb, the ones from people with a higher status or a closer relationship with the deceased while (s)he was alive are given priority over those from people with a lower status or who were less close. This means the former will take a more noticeable position than the latter. The same applies to wreaths-and-messages from family members as well as those from friends and acquaintances. Wreaths-and-messages from the immediate family and closest relatives are usually the first to arrive at the funeral hall and carefully placed near the portrait as an integral part of the funeral decor. Since wreaths-and-messages from other mourners may arrive at any point during the funeral service, the funeral attendants must always keep a watch out for the flower deliverers and constantly reposition the existing wreaths-and-messages to make room for new arrivals. This must be done in accordance with the rules stated above and the specific instructions, if any, given by the mourning family to ensure that all the wreaths-and-messages are well-positioned. This is particularly important because failure to do so could lead to the loss of mianzi (面子) or “face” (a Chinese concept relating to ideas of honor, respect, dignity, status, prestige, and authority) on the part of both the sender and the receiver (i.e., the deceased and members of his/her family) and cause embarrassment to everyone. In ordinary Chinese funeral practice, most of the objects used or displayed in the ceremony are either black or white, including the funeral flowers and the materials used for the funeral banners and wreath messages. In cases where the deceased died naturally at an old age (roughly 75–80 or above), however, some red flowers may be added. This is because the funeral of someone who has lived a long life is considered

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a “happy farewell”, popularly known as xisang (喜喪) or xiaosang (笑喪). Red in Chinese culture signifies good luck, happiness, celebration, and prosperity. Thus, the use of both white and red flowers (or even paper) for a funeral is an expression of the simultaneous mixture of happiness and sorrow. As will be seen shortly, these feelings are also reflected at Ho’s and Cha’s funerals.

10.5 Geosemiotic Characteristics of the Wanlian and Wanci at Ho’s and Cha’s Funerals Almost all the media reports collected for the study highlighted the fact that flower wreaths filled both the interior and exterior of the funeral home where Ho’s and Cha’s funerals were held, with special attention given to those from prominent figures such as national leaders, government officials, business tycoons, movie stars, and members of the grieving families (Figs. 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4 and 10.5). When it comes to the reporting about the display of wanlian and wanci, however, there was a major difference between Chinese-language media and English-language media. While the Chinese-language media often touched upon the subject of the wanlian and wanci and many even made it the focus of their coverage, as explicitly stated in their news headlines and video titles, there was little to no mention in the English-language media. Two exceptions were the news article on Ho’s funeral in The Standard (Hong Kong) and the one on Cha’s funeral in The Straits Times (Singapore) (italicized in Excerpts #1 and #2): Excerpt #1: Stanley Ho’s funeral Family members paid tribute to casino king Stanley Ho Hung-sun amid a sea of flowers on the first day of a three-day funeral for the last “casino king.” … Ho’s portrait at the center of the hall was surrounded by green turf, red and white roses, orchids and hydrangea. The choice of the flower decoration at the vigil follows the Cantonese ritual for the deceased called “Happy Farewell,” which is for people who have passed away at the age of 80 or above. A plaque was placed near the ceiling of the hall, written by SJM Holdings vice-chairman and chief executive Ambrose So Shu-fai. Three funeral wreaths from Ho’s three surviving wives were placed in front of the photo, with words expressing their reluctance to part with their deceased husband. The wreath by Ho’s second wife, Lucina Laam Jean-ying, reads “grow old together.” [The wreath by Ho’s third wife, Ina Cha, reads,] “The pain [of losing Ho] is as painful as a music instrument breaking its string. The wreath by Ho’s fourth wife, Angela Leong On-kei, reads “unforgettable affection.” … Wreaths from Ho’s 16 children were placed behind those of Ho’s wives. Flowers and elegiac couplets that pay tribute to Ho, such as those from Queen’s College, Ho’s alma mater, were also there. (Chan, The Standard, July 9, 2020) Excerpt #2: Louis Cha’s funeral Numerous white flower wreaths adorned the building’s interior and lined its exterior. Those displayed prominently in the parlour on one side were from members of the Chinese government, including President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and Vice-Premier Han Zheng, who is also in charge of Hong Kong and Macau affairs, and former premier Zhu Rongji. On the other side were wreaths from members of the Hong Kong government, including Secretary

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Fig. 10.1 Flowers and messages from national leaders at Louis Cha’s funeral. Photo HK01/(Karma Lo)

Fig. 10.2 Flowers and messages for Stanley Ho in the media room. Photo HK01/(Yip Chi Ming)

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Fig. 10.3 Flowers and messages for Louis Cha in the hallway of the funeral home. Photos HK01/ (Karma Lo)

Fig. 10.4 Flowers and messages for Louis Cha in the foyer of the funeral home. Photos HK01/ (Karma Lo)

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Fig. 10.5 Flowers for Louis Cha on the street outside the funeral home. Photos HK01/(Karma Lo)

for Home Affairs Lau Kong-wah, Financial Secretary Paul Chan and Chief Secretary for Administration Matthew Cheung. Inside the parlour filled with lilies, there was the Chinese phrase “Yi Lan Zhong Sheng” or “a bird’s eye view of everyone” above Mr Cha’s photo. It was written by food critic Chua Lam. Flanking the photo was a couplet woven from the first word of the title of the books penned by Mr Cha. (Huang, The Straits Times, November 12, 2018)

It is perhaps not a coincidence that both exceptions were written by Chinese journalists for a readership consisting primarily of ethnic Chinese. This suggests that the underreporting of wanlian and wanci by the English media may be due to one or more of the following reasons: lack of interest in the practice among the English media reporters and readers, unawareness of its significance, inability to understand the poetic register used in the messages without sufficient knowledge of the Chinese language and culture, and/or simply difficulties in conveying their embedded meanings and values to non-Chinese readers. Chinese media coverage generally demonstrated a deeper understanding and appreciation of the significant role wanlian and wanci play in Chinese funerals by presenting a few selected examples in detail. The coverage included information such as who wrote the altar banners, who sent the wreaths-and-messages, where the wreaths-and-messages were placed, what was written in the texts, how many Chinese characters were used, and sometimes even how the senders addressed the deceased and how they signed off. Based on such information, some reporters even made their own comments, including speculations about the senders’ feelings toward the deceased and their relationships.

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To get a fuller picture of how wanlian and wanci function as a semiotic aggregate at Chinese funerals and how their meaning is constructed with the resources provided by different semiotic systems, the following analysis focuses on social actors, code preference, materiality, inscription, composition, and emplacement.

10.5.1 Social Actors When conducting a geosemiotic analysis of a communicative event, one of the first things to ask is: who are the social actors, or participants, in the event? Although both Cha’s and Ho’s funerals were widely reported in the media and captured widespread attention, neither was open to the public. Cha’s funeral was conducted as a private affair attended by family and friends only. The media were allowed to photograph and videotape the funeral hall only before and after the ceremony, but not during it. There was no public memorial service for the novelist, but a condolence book was opened for over a week at the government-run Jin Yong Gallery for the public to pay their respects. Ho’s funeral, by contrast, was less private. It was a three-day event consisting of a night vigil, a public memorial, and a funeral ceremony followed by a public procession. Although only family members and invited guests were allowed to attend the funeral ceremony on site, a large media room was set up inside the funeral home especially for members of the media so that they could watch the event through a live feed TV monitor (Fig. 10.6). Other mourners and interested individuals were able to view or participate through simultaneous live streaming on YouTube or Facebook. As reported by the media, there were so many wreaths-and-messages at both funerals that quite a few of them ended up being displayed on the street outside the funeral home or in a park nearby in the case of Ho’s funeral. Naturally, they caught the eye of passers-by and aroused their interest to stop and read the messages on the wreaths. It can be said, therefore, that the social actors at Ho’s and Cha’s funerals comprised not only the deceased, the chief mourners (i.e., family members), friends, and relatives, but also media members, passers-by, and onlookers, including intended and unintended viewers who watched the funeral on TV or social media, whether in real time or later. Evidently, not all these social actors were physically present at the funerals, nor did they all know the deceased personally or offer wreaths-andmessages to honor them. Despite all this, they all had access to view the displayed wanlian and wanci, albeit only partially and ephemerally. Interactions arising from the display of wanlian and wanci involve three parties— sender, receiver, and viewer, with the last party being the main target audience. While most viewers, whether intended or not, are just viewers, senders and receivers also play the role of viewers. It will be shown in the upcoming part of the analysis that the offering, displaying, viewing, and acknowledgement of wanlian and wanci provide significant means and opportunities for all three parties to interact with one another.

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Fig. 10.6 Members of the media watch Stanley Ho’s funeral through a live feed TV monitor in the media room. Photo HK01/(Yip Chi Ming)

10.5.2 Code Preference, Materiality and Inscription Code preference is concerned with types of languages (and writing systems) displayed and their arrangement. As a byproduct of Hong Kong’s colonial history and the continuation of its bilingual policy since it became a Special Administrative Region of China in 1997, Chinese and English are official languages of the territory with equal status, and both are commonly used in various domains. Nevertheless, Chinese remains the preferred language for traditional practices, with wanlian and wanci being no exception. That does not mean, however, that Chinese is the only permissible option. The data collected from Ho’s and Cha’s funerals show that altar banners were composed in Chinese only, whereas wreath messages (including those on funeral blankets) were mainly written in Chinese, with a few exceptions in English or a mixture of the two languages (Figs. 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8). Code-mixed messages were essentially Chinese texts with English signoffs. Aside from a handful of exceptions, the Chinese banners and messages were written in traditional Chinese characters in accordance with local Hong Kong practice rather than in simplified Chinese characters as in Mainland China and Singapore. The former is considered an “unmarked” choice and the latter a “marked” one. Since the unmarked choice is taken for granted in the given context, the marked choice has the benefit of creating a stronger visual effect and is thus sometimes used to represent a personal expression of taste or preference, as shown in the horizontal altar banner handwritten for Cha’s funeral by his food critic friend Chua Lam (Fig. 10.8). To a

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Fig. 10.7 Funeral blankets for Stanley Ho in the foyer of the funeral home. Photo HK01/(Yip Chi Ming)

large extent, the code preference in wanlian and wanci reflects the distinct nature of Hong Kong’s linguistic landscape shaped by the co-presence of Chinese, English, Chinese-English code-mixing, and the two Chinese writing systems. On a sociocultural level, it indexes a Chinese community that exhibits great respect for traditions on the one hand and acceptance of linguistic diversity on the other. Since altar banners and wreath messages are produced, offered, and displayed for different purposes, they can be easily distinguished by their size, shape, number, and location. Altar banners, which may be horizontal or vertical, are much larger than messages accompanying flower wreaths and funeral blankets. As described above, horizontal altar banners are typically single phrases formed by four characters whereas the vertical ones are typically seven-character couplets (i.e., two verses with parallel structure and related meanings). While there is always one horizontal altar banner at a funeral, which is hung either above the portrait of the deceased or over the entrance to the funeral hall, the vertical ones are optional and, if available, they are hung on both sides of the altar flanking the portrait. Wreath messages are smaller than altar banners but contain more lines and more characters. Unlike altar banners, the number of wreath messages varies greatly from one funeral to another and can be put on display in several places—below the portrait of the deceased, against the wall on both sides of the funeral hall, in the hallway, on the street outside the funeral home, or even in a neighboring park as in the case of Ho’s funeral. Other differences between altar banners and wreath messages are related to material and inscription, particularly font (handwriting, calligraphy, or word processing

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Fig. 10.8 Horizontal and vertical altar banners at Louis Cha’s funeral. Photo HK01/(Karma Lo)

fonts) and text vector (direction of writing/reading). Altar banners are typically handwritten in calligraphical style on white paper or cloth, whereas wreath messages are mostly printed in black (sometimes blue) on white paper or white silk ribbons. Wreath messages are typically printed horizontally on paper but vertically on ribbons. As shown in Fig. 10.7, messages on funeral blankets may be made with different materials. The different parts of the messages may differ in font, size, and color. Text vector can be quite confusing to unfamiliar viewers. Basically, both horizontal and vertical messages are read from top to bottom, but the left–right direction varies according to their function and shape. The horizontal ones on paper are read from left to right (L → R), whereas the vertical ones on ribbons, which usually come in pairs, are read in reverse order, i.e., the right ribbon is read before the left ribbon (R → L). Unlike wreath messages, the vector of vertical altar banners depends on the directionality of the horizontal one above the portrait of the deceased. In cases where the four characters in the horizontal altar banner are written in the traditional order, which is from right to left (R → L), the first line (i.e., 上聯 shanglian “upper part”) of the couplet is hung on the right and the second line (i.e., 下聯 xialian “lower part”) on the left (R → L). If the characters of the horizontal altar banner are written backwards, i.e., from left to right (L → R), the vertical ones are hung accordingly from left to right (L → R). Figures 10.6 and 10.8 show the horizontal altar banners above Ho’s and Cha’s portraits, both of which are read in the traditional direction from right to left (R → L). Hence, the banner for Ho is read 笑語帷幄 (xiaoyu weiwo “talking and laughing in the commander’s tent”), not 幄帷語笑 (wowei yuxiao). Likewise, the one for Cha is read 一览众生 (yilan zhongsheng “a bird’s eye view of everyone,” written

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in simplified characters), not 生众览一 (shengzhong langyi). Following the same direction (R → L), the couplet flanking Cha’s portrait is read from top to bottom, starting with the right verse, as 飛雪連天射白鹿 笑書神俠倚碧鴛 ( feixue liantian shebailu xiaoshu shenxia yibiyuan).3

10.5.3 Composition A linguistic analysis of the wreath messages revealed more variations in the Chinese ones than the English ones. The English messages typically included only two parts: an opening with the phrase “In loving memory of (name of the deceased)” or “With deepest sympathy” and a closure with the name(s) of the sender(s). By contrast, the Chinese and code-mixed messages showed a more complex rhetorical structure and a greater variety of words and expressions. They can be divided into two types: a full version and a short version. The full version is composed of five parts, each of which is discussed separately below. They are: (1) direct address to the deceased; (2) salutation; (3) main content; (4) signoff; and (5) valediction. Some of them may be omitted or merged into another. The short version contains all these elements stated except the main content. The data sample shows that full-version messages far outnumbered short-version messages, but the latter was mostly found on the wreaths from top political leaders and heads of government. In fact, the short version was so common among the ones from political leaders and high-ranking government officials that it seems to have become the norm for this group. One possible explanation is that the offering of wreaths-and-messages as funeral gifts is an act of mianzi-giving (給面子 gei mianzi) in itself. When the act is received from very important people such as national leaders, it is generally considered to be extremely honored to be given such great mianzi (很 大的面子 hen da de mianzi)—something invaluable enough that words of lament or praise would seem superfluous. Another possible explanation for the use of the short version has to do with the materials for inscription. Since the messages are printed on ribbons or placards and attached to the upper part of the wreaths, they cannot exceed a certain size. Omission of the main content would create more space for the names and titles of the senders, making them more visually noticeable and thus easier to capture on camera, whether for private collection or media reporting. (1) Direct Address to the Deceased A wreath message usually begins with a direct address to the deceased, which includes the name of the deceased, his title(s), post-nominal letters that represent the names of the honors the deceased was awarded when he was alive, and/or a kinship term 3

The couplet was woven from the first words of the titles of Cha’s most popular novels. English translation: When the flying snow linked up the heaven and the earth, the great condor shooter went after (the fox and) the deer white; he smiled at books that to dragon and chivalry give birth, while leaning on his broadsword by the mandarin ducks bright (Yue 2020).

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the wreath-and-message sender used to directly address the deceased. Below are the types of address forms observed in the data. Table 10.1 shows the 17 types of address forms found in the wreath messages for Ho. Ho’s full Chinese name appears in almost all the types (Types 1–15) except for the ones from his children (along with children-in-law and grandchildren, if available) and children-in-law (Types 16–17) who addressed him as 父親大人 ( fuqing daren, “father” + honorific suffix) or 義父大人 (yifu daren, “father-in-law” + honorific suffix), using the formal written word for “father” or “father-in-law” and the honorific suffix 大人 (daren, lit. “big person; sir/ma’am”). These word choices reflect the children’s filial piety for their father. Ho’s three surviving wives addressed him as 何鴻燊夫君 (Ho’s full name + “husband”) using his full Chinese name and the archaic word for “husband” (Type 15). In the types containing other kinship terms (consanguineal, affinal, or fictive) such as “Brother-in-law” and “Uncle” the name of the deceased is written either before or after the kinship term (Types 9–14). The other types show Ho’s full name followed by “Mr.” or “Dr.” with or without other titles or honors such as “chairman” and GBM (Types 1–8). Two uncommon types are Types 3 and 5. The former shows dual address with Ho’s name written in both English and Chinese in two separate lines, with the English name preceding the Chinese name. The latter shows Ho’s family name and given name being separated by the honorable title “Standing Committee Member of CPPCC.” Address forms containing long titles are written in two or three separate lines. As shown in Table 10.2, there were 11 types of address forms for Cha. Just like the ones for Ho, most of the types observed in the wreath messages for Cha carry the full Chinese name of the deceased, including the one with the title “Mr.” (Type 18) and the ones containing kinship terms (Types 20–21). Exceptions are Types 22, 26 and 27, all of which indicate fictive kin ties. While Type 26 contains only Cha’s family name, not his given name, Type 27 shows only the given name, not the family name. Some address forms denote the senders’ respect for Cha as a professor/former teacher (Types 19 and 23), a great martial arts novelist (Types 24, 25 and 28), or a comrade (Type 25) by using his pen name instead of his real name, or calling him a mentor (恩師 enshi), a master (大師 dashi), a kung-fu warrior (大俠 daxia), or a big brother (大兄 daxiong). Like Type 3 for Ho, Type 25 contains dual address. The only difference is that instead of the juxtaposition of an English name and a Chinese name, here we have Cha’s full Chinese name followed by his pen name, both written in the same line. (2) Salutation This part refers to the formal expressions used after addressing the deceased. Almost all the collected wreath messages contained a salutation for males, which was either 千古 (qiangu, lit. “eternal”) or 靈鑒 (lingjian, lit. “to the spirit of”). The former is the only one found in the messages for Cha. While both salutations are observed in the messages for Ho, the latter appears only in the ones from his wives and children.

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Table 10.1 Types of address forms for Stanley Ho Type

Address forms

Constituents

1

何鴻燊先生

Ho’s full name + “Mr.”

2

何鴻燊博士

Ho’s full name + “Dr.”

3

Stanley Ho 何鴻燊先生

[in English] Ho’s full name + Ho’s full name + “Mr.”

4

何鴻燊博士 GBM Grand Lotus Medal of Honour

Ho’s full name + “Dr.” + [in English] GBM Grand Lotus Medal of Honour

5

何全國 政協常委鴻燊先生

Ho’s family name + Standing Committee Member of CPPCC + Ho’s given name + “Mr.”

6

全國政協常委 大紫荊勳賢 大蓮花榮譽勳章 何鴻燊博士

Standing Committee Member of CPPCC + GBM + Grand Lotus Medal of Honour + Ho’s full name + “Dr.”

7

何鴻燊會長

Ho’s full name + “Chairman”

8

皇仁舊生會永遠名譽會長 何鴻燊博士

Name of Ho’s alma mater + ‘Permanent honorary chairman’ + Ho’s full name + “Dr.”

9

何鴻燊内兄

Ho’s full name + “Older brother-in-law” [from wife’s younger brother]

10

何鴻燊叔父

Ho’s full name + “Uncle (father’s brother)”

11

何鴻燊世伯

Ho’s full name + “Uncle (non-relative)”

12

岳姨丈何鴻燊

“Uncle” [husband of aunt-in-law] + Ho’s full name

13

妹夫何鴻燊

“Younger brother-in-law” + Ho’s full name [from wife’s older brother]

14

襟弟何鴻燊

“Younger brother-in-law” + Ho’s full name [from wife’s older brother]

15

何鴻燊夫君

Ho’s full name + “Husband”

16

父親大人

“father” + honorific suffix

17

義父大人

“father-in-law” + honorific suffix

(3) Main Content Despite being the core of a full-version wreath message, the main content is completely omitted from the short versions. In full versions, this part contains words of praise, admiration, appreciation, and/or sympathy for the deceased. Like other parts of the message, creativity is not necessary or expected for the main content. That explains why conventionalized phrases and idioms are widely used. Nevertheless, original content is not just welcomed but highly appreciated because it offers an individualized touch and an enhanced sense of respect and sincerity to the deceased. Since original content is rarely seen at the funerals of ordinary people, its mere existence automatically attracts attention and is considered indicative of the high status and/or knowledgeability of the sender as well as that of the deceased. Similar effects can be achieved using idioms or phrases that are less cliché or conventionalized. In

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Table 10.2 Types of address forms for Louis Cha Type Address forms

Constituents

18

查良鏞先生

Cha’s full name + ‘Mr.’

19

查良鏞教授

Cha’s full name + ‘Professor’

20

查良鏞表妹倩

Cha’s full name + ‘Cousin’s husband’

21

查良鏞表姑丈

Cha’s full name + ‘Uncle (father’s cousin)’

22

查良鏞世伯

Cha’s full name + ‘Uncle (non-relative)’

23

查良鏞恩師

Cha’s full name + ‘Former teacher/mentor’

24

查老良鏞大師

Cha’s family name + ‘Elder; senior’ + Cha’s given name + ‘Master’

25

查良鏞金庸大俠 Cha’s full name + (Cha’s pen name) + ‘Kung-fu warrior’

26

查伯伯

Cha’s family name + ‘Uncle (non-relative)’

27

良鏞大兄

Cha’s given name + ‘Big brother’

28

金庸先生

Cha’s pen name + ‘Mr.’

addition to the altar banners described above, there were some original and unconventional wanlian and wanci at Ho’s and Cha’s funerals. Here are some examples (Table 10.3). These examples clearly indicate that contrary to what most people think and how wanlian and wanci are described in the literature (e.g., Lu 2017; Tien 2017; Tseng 2017), the length of the main content in a Chinese wreath message is not limited to a total of four characters. It may have just one short verse made up of four characters, or it may have more verses and more characters in each verse. The examples also demonstrate that in a Chinese wreath message, it is preferable to use archaic and poetic language. This specific register can serve three purposes: (1) to distinguish wanlian and wanci from other genres; (2) to match and enhance the solemn and tranquil atmosphere of the funeral; and (3) to evoke a sense of nostalgia and memories in the mourners and help channel emotions in connection with their loss. To further understand the embedded values of wanlian and wanci, we need to take a closer look at the conventionalized idioms or phrases in the data sample. A textual analysis was performed using the KH Coder 3 software package (Higuchi 2016, 2017, 2023; Higuchi et al. 2022).4 This serves to extract the frequently occurring words and to identify their connections with one another. The results are summarized in a word/ character list (Table 10.4) and a co-occurrence network representation (Fig. 10.9). Table 10.4 shows the most frequent item was 德 (de, “virtue”), followed by 高 (gao, “high”), 永 (yong, “eternal”), 往生極樂 (wangsheng jile, “rebirth in the pure land”), 望重 (wangzhong, “good reputation”), 長 (chang, “long”), 存 (cun, “remain”), 昭 4

KH Coder 3 uses the Jaccard distance (the dissimilarity between sample sets) as a measure of cooccurrence of a term for inclusion in the co-occurrence analysis and visualization. Terms appear as nodes in a network plot based on the Fruchterman-Reingold layout algorithm. The relative frequency of terms is shown by the relative size of their node, and the relative frequency of co-occurrence of terms is shown by relative thickness of the edge connecting their nodes.

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Table 10.3 Some examples of original content or less commonly used idioms from the wanlian and wanci for Stanley Ho and Louis Cha5 Ex.

Main content

English translation

1

昊天罔 極

Your love is immeasurable and unrepayable

2

克頌先 芬

Your good virtues will be remembered and praised forever

3

白頭永 訣

Parting with my long-married husband forever

4

痛斷琴 弦

Grieving the loss of a soulmate

5

情意難 忘

Your love will never be forgotten

6

北斗同 高

As high as the North Star

7

俠骨仁 With deepest sympathy for the loss of someone with a chivalrous spirit and a 心 沉痛 loving heart 懷念

8

俠風遺 Your chivalrous spirit and teachings will be remembered forever 世 儒範 永存

9

一人江 A world of one man; the only and one man in the world 湖 江湖 一人

10

千金終 Money can’t buy trust and justice; the right way to do business is do it the 難買 世 chivalrous way 間信義 商道亦 是俠道

11

俠骨仁 Someone with a chivalrous spirit and a loving heart who helps the poor and 心 扶困 needy. An outspoken man who devoted his life to his country and people 濟苦 一士諤 諤 為國 為民 (continued)

5

Examples 3–5 were from Ho’s three wives. My translations are slightly different from those given in Excerpt #1.

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Table 10.3 (continued) Ex.

Main content

English translation

12

公去大 名留千 册 我來何 處别音 容

You are gone but your name will remain in a thousand books Where do I go to bid you farewell?

13

三千美 景家國 情懷暖 香江 九四風 采精彩 文章傳 中華

The three thousand beautiful scenes you described in your novels and your patriotism have warmed many hearts in Hong Kong. During your wonderful 94-year life, you wrote so many masterpieces to tell stories of Chinese culture

(zhao, “manifest”), 念 (nian, “recollection”), 懷 (huai, “nostalgia”), 親恩 (qin’en “parental love”), 碩 (shuo, “enormous”), 望 (wang, “reputation”), 範 ( fan, “role model”), 福壽 ( fushou, “happiness and longevity,” and 不朽 (buxiu, “immortal”). These data indicate that Chinese people attach great importance to virtues, happiness, longevity, building and maintaining a good reputation, setting a good example for others, and having gratitude and indebtedness toward one’s parents. The co-occurrence network representation in Fig. 10.9 shows that frequently occurring words/characters are interrelated and form eight clusters. Six of the clusters are interconnected and three of them are larger and more relevant than the others. The connected clusters are organized by key items such as 德 (de, “virtue”), 永 (yong, “eternal”), 長 (chang, “long”), 風 ( feng, “style”), 在 (zai, “exist”), and 千古 (qiangu, “a thousand years”). From the clustering of these items, we can conclude that virtues (including compassion, filial piety, and justice), reputation, gratitude, admiration, continuity, and eternity are the major themes underlying the wreath messages. (4) Signoff This part indicates the name (and title) of the sender, which may be a person, a couple, a family, a group of friends/alumni/colleagues, or some larger entity such as a school, a company, a government department, and so on. The data show a variety of titles, including 醫生 (yisheng, “Dr.”), 教授 ( jiaoshou, “Professor”), 主 席 (zhuxi, “Chairman”), 董事長 (dongshizhang, “President (of a company)”), 總 裁 (zongcai, “Managing Director”), 立法會議員 (lifahui yiyuan, “Member of the Legislative Council”), 保安局局長 (bao’anju juzhang, “Secretary for Security”), 財政司司長 (caizhengsi sizhang, “Financial Secretary”), and 行政長官 (xingzheng zhangguan, “Executive Officer”). Surprisingly, the titles of national leaders such as Xi Jinping (習近平) and Li Keqiang (李克強) are all omitted. One possible explanation for this is that top leaders are so well-known that they need no introduction from a title.

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Table 10.4 Frequently occurring words/characters in conventionalized idioms from the wanlian and wanci for Stanley Ho and Louis Cha Word

English translation

Freq.

Word

English translation

Freq.

德

Virtue

58

俠骨

Chivalrous spirit

3

高

High

37

典範

Good example

3

永

Eternal

35

常

Always

3

往生極樂

Rebirth in the pure land

33

猶

Still

3

望重

Good reputation

26

留

Stay

3

長

Long

22

碩望

Good reputation

3

存

Remain

20

風範

Style

3

昭

Manifest

20

中外

Home and abroad

2

念

Recollection

14

仁心

Compassion

2

懷

Nostalgia

13

名

Fame

2

親恩

Parental love

10

名孚

Famous

2

碩

Enormous

家

Home

2

9

望

Reputation

8

山

Mountain

2

範

Role model

8

文宗

Literary giant

2

福壽

Luck and longevity

7

景仰

Admire

2

不朽

Immortal

6

流

Flow

2

全歸

Have it all

6

流芳

Flow down

2

遠

Far

6

浩氣

Noble spirit

2

名垂

Name remains

5

澤

Abundance

2

在

Exist

5

生

Live

2

風

Style

5

生浄土

Birth in pure land

2

人

Human

4

英風

Heroic spirit

2

千古

A thousand years

4

道

Fay

2

江湖

The wuxia world

4

音容

Voice and face

2

Another possible explanation is, as pointed out earlier in the discussion regarding the omission of the main content in short-version messages, that omission of titles would make more space for maximizing the font sizes of the names of the senders. A signoff may also contain a self-addressing term, which is printed in a smaller font size above or before the sender’s name, to indicate the sender’s relationship to the deceased. Self-addressing terms are of two kinds: kin terms (consanguineal and affinal) and non-kin terms. Below are the self-addressing terms found in the wreath messages for Ho and Cha (Table 10.5). (5) Valediction (Complimentary Close) This part refers to the distinct two-character phrase that marks the end of a Chinese wreath message. Five different valedictions are identified in the data. They are 敬 輓 ( jingwan), 謹輓 ( jinwan), 拜輓 (baiwan), 泣輓 (qiwan), and 叩輓 (kouwan),

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Fig. 10.9 Co-occurrence network representation of frequently occurring words in conventionalized idioms from the wanlian and wanci for Stanley Ho and Louis Cha

all of which containing the Chinese character 輓 (wan) as in other funeral-related words such as wanlian and wanci. Of the five valedictions, 敬輓 ( jingwan), which roughly means “with grief and respect” in English, was the most frequently used, accounting for 90% of the messages from non-relatives and more than half of those from relatives. Compared with 敬輓, the other valedictions—謹輓 ( jinwan), 拜輓 (baiwan), 泣輓 (qiwan), and 叩輓 (kouwan), literally meaning “with grief,” “with grief and worship,” “weeping in grief” and “with grief and a deep bow,” respectively, communicate greater respect for the deceased and a stronger sense of humility of the sender. While 叩輓 (kouwan, “with grief and a deep bow”) was used in all the Chinese wreath messages from Ho’s children, it was replaced by 泣輓 (qiwan, “weeping with grief”) in the messages from his wives. The choice of valedictions reflects an awareness of the different social expectations for wives and children regarding the appropriate attitude (mood and gesture) they should have toward the death of their husband or father. These expectations are influenced by the teachings of Confucius that emphasize respect and deference to one’s parents and loyalty and obedience to one’s husband.

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Table 10.5 Two types of self-addressing terms in wreath messages for Stanley Ho and Louis Cha Kin

Non-kin

Self-addressing term

English translation

妻

Wife

孝男

Filial son

孝女

Filial daughter

媳婦

Daughter-in-law

女婿

Son-in-law

孫子

Grandson

孫女

Granddaughter

堂妹

Younger sister-in-law; wife’s younger sister

堂妹夫

Younger sister-in-law’s husband; wife’s brother-in-law

姪

Nephew; brother’s son

姪男

Nephew: brother’s son

表内姪

Cousin’s son (on father’s side)

姨甥婿

Husband of cousin’s daughter (on mother’s side)

姨甥女

Cousin’s daughter (on mother’s side)

内兄

Older brother-in-law; wife’s older brother

内嫂

Wife of older brother-in-law

襟兄

Older brother-in-law; wife’s older brother

内弟

Younger brother-in-law

内妹

Younger sister-in-law

義女

Daughter-in-law

偕子

And son

偕女

And daughter

晚

Junior

晚生

Junior

晚輩

Junior

師弟

Junior (at school)

書迷

Fan of books

10.5.4 Emplacement Emplacement is “the act of placing a sign in a physical location to activate its meaning; the meaning that derives from such an action” (Scollon and Scollon 2003: 210). Funeral altar banners and wreaths-and-messages at Chinese funerals are placed according to several rules. The positions of wanlian and wanci, however, are generally not pre-determined, except for the altar banners and wreaths-and-messages from immediate family members and people of great importance. When there is not enough room for display inside the funeral hall, wreaths-and-messages from those who are less important and those who were more distant to the deceased or his family will

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be displayed in the hallway or on the street outside the funeral hall, as in the case of Ho’s and Cha’s funerals. At both funerals, the portrait of the deceased was hung at the front of the funeral hall, with a horizontal altar banner hanging above it (i.e., the most prominent position) (Figs. 10.6 and 10.8). While that was the only altar banner displayed at Ho’s funeral, there were two vertical ones (a couplet) flanking Cha’s portrait (i.e., the second most prominent position). Since no images are found in the data sample that show the wreaths-and-messages displayed inside the hall where Cha’s funeral was held, my discussion on emplacement mainly focuses on the ones displayed at Ho’s funeral. Inside the hall where Ho’s funeral service was held, there were four areas where wreaths-and-messages were on display. The first area was the area below Ho’s portrait, which was reserved for family use only. That included Ho’s three surviving wives and 15 surviving children. Their wreaths-and-messages were placed in three rows right beneath Ho’s portrait, with the ones from the three surviving wives “sitting” on the floor occupying the front row and those from the 15 children and their families “standing” behind their mother’s in the middle and back rows, as if they were posing for a family portrait. The wreath-and-message from Ho’s second wife (who was also the only legally married wife after Ho’s first wife died) was placed in the central position and flanked on both sides by the ones from the other two wives. The one from the third wife sat on the right and the one from the fourth wife on the left. Among the wreaths-and-messages from the children, those from male children were placed right behind their own mother’s in the middle row, with those from their sisters standing behind them. The ones from the two daughters by the first wife were placed in the middle of the back row right beneath Ho’s portrait. Such arrangements reflect several hierarchical structures within the Ho family: (1) Mother > Children; (2) male children > female children; (3) second wife > third wife > fourth wife; (4) children by first wife > children by second wife > children by third wife > children by fourth wife. Evidently, (1) (3) and (4) were based on the traditional family hierarchy that emphasizes generational order, marriage order, and birth order, and (2) was based on the traditional gender hierarchy that prioritizes males. The second area was the area around the lectern, which was placed in the front right corner of the hall near the portrait of the deceased. This was where the funeral celebrant, eulogy speakers, and family members stood when they spoke, i.e., the very spot where attention was most often focused during the entire ceremony. Wreathsand-messages from national leaders were neatly placed in the order of their ranks on high stands against the wall in this area, facing the rows of seats for important guests, and those from Hong Kong’s celebrities were placed on low stands on both sides of the lectern. Wreaths-and-messages from current and former heads of government and other government officials were also placed in the area. The third and fourth areas were the area behind the rows of seats for the immediate family on the left side of the hall and the area behind the back rows of seats on its opposite side. These areas were filled with wreaths-and-flowers but it was not clear who the senders were. To sum up, all the wanlian and wanci were positioned around the portrait of the deceased in a centrifugal and hierarchical manner, forming a semiotic aggregate.

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Wreaths-and-messages from within the family were arranged in accordance with the rules based on traditional family and gender hierarchies to signify unity and harmony. Even though such rules were not applicable to placement of the wreathsand-messages from non-family members, there seemed to be a different set of hierarchical rules for different groups. For example, the more honorable/famous the sender, the more prominent position his/her wreath-and-message was given. In the case of political leaders and government officials, the ones from the national level came before those from the regional level, and the ones from current heads of government came before those from former heads. In the same vein, wreaths-and-messages from those who were in higher ranks within the system of government were given a more noticeable position than the ones from those who were in lower ranks. Such arrangements are related to the concept of mianzi in Chinese culture—a topic that will be discussed further in the next section.

10.5.5 Recontextualization and Interdiscursive Dialogicality During Ho’s funeral ceremony, several speeches were made. This included an opening address by one of Ho’s daughters, a closing speech by her younger brother, and eulogies given by some of Ho’s close friends in between. It is especially worth noting that Ho’s daughter, as described in Excerpts #3 and #4, began her speech by mentioning the names of at least 21 famous people who had sent sympathy flowers and messages, including current and former heads of state and chief executives of the governments of Hong Kong and Macau, and thanking them and others for their condolences. Excerpt #3: Stanley Ho’s funeral Pansy Ho, eldest daughter of his second wife and the descendant seen to lead the $15 billion empire, read out tributes from eminent personalities starting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang and thanked everyone for their condolences. (Hong and Wei, Bloomberg, July 10, 2020) Excerpt #4: Stanley Ho’s funeral At Friday afternoon’s funeral service, Pansy Ho thanked at least 21 present and former leaders of China, including President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang, Vice-Premier Han Zheng, as well as former premiers Zhu Rongji and Wen Jiabao for sending eulogies. Many of them also sent wreaths. (Cheung and Choy, South China Morning Post, July 10, 2020)

Mentioning the names of state leaders, heads of government and others at the beginning of the opening speech was well-timed because it immediately drew everyone’s attention to their wreaths-and-messages. From a pragmatic point of view, it was clearly an act of thanking directed at the named individuals who had given the deceased and his family a great deal of mianzi by sending wreaths-and-messages to the funeral. Given the reciprocal and collective nature of mianzi (Ho 1976), we have reason to believe that there were at least two additional meanings intended by

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the speaker. By publicly acknowledging their funeral gifts and condolences, Ho’s daughter was simultaneously reciprocating the mianzi given by political leaders and other important figures on behalf of her family and sharing it with the funeral attendees and viewers, irrespective of whether they were relatives or not. Her recontextualization of the received wanlian and wanci from one semiotic mode to another, i.e., from written discourse to spoken discourse, was in that sense a means to undertake the social obligations to share and reciprocate. Put another way, this act enabled the speaker to kill three birds with one stone. Videos and photographs released by the media and Cha’s family showed that the aforementioned leader and government officials were also among the senders of wanlian and wanci for Cha and that their flowers and messages were prominently displayed in the funeral hall, just like those at Ho’s funeral (Fig. 10.1). Considering the rules of mianzi etiquette in Chinese society, as exemplified by Ho’s daughter, it is quite possible that an acknowledgment of some kind was given at Cha’s funeral as well. Along the same lines, the fact that the offering of wreaths-and-messages by political leaders and other high-profile personalities and Ho’s daughter’s public acknowledgement were recontextualized into news and social media (e.g., YouTube and Facebook) can be understood as another way to reciprocate and share the received mianzi among the social actors. The only difference is that with the help of extensive media coverage, the scope of social actors was now expanded to the community at large. As a result of this “centrifugal spread” of discourses (Scollon and Scollon 2003: 192), the exchange and sharing of mianzi became a public matter, not just a private one.

10.6 Conclusion The study discussed in this chapter aimed to offer a more comprehensive view of the display of wanlian and wanci by adopting a multidimensional approach. While it is undeniable that Ho’s and Cha’s funerals differed somewhat from the funeral of the average person because of their lofty status and popularity, both represent the highest standard of civilian funerals in Hong Kong in all respects, including the quantity and quality of the displayed funeral banners and wreath messages, providing valuable data for research. The analysis above has illustrated that the offering-displayingviewing of wanlian and wanci is not just an old-fashioned way to honor the deceased, but an important cultural practice with profound social and cultural meaning and implications for the study of Chinese people and Chinese culture. The findings of the study can be summarized as follows: First, the display of wanlian and wanci forms a semiotic aggregate that signifies joint efforts to overcome grief over the loss of the deceased and the importance of the various hierarchical structures associated with Chinese interpersonal relationships. Second, the linguistic content of wanlian and wanci reflects a set of values that are central to the life of the Chinese people today, particularly the emphasis on having

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good virtues such as compassion and filial piety, building and maintaining a good reputation, and setting a good example for others. Third, the offering and displaying of wanlian and wanci create spaces and opportunities for interaction among the living as well as between the living and the dead. Fourth, wanlian and wanci serve as a vehicle for phatic communication, such as sharing collective memories of the dead, celebrating his/her achievements, giving/returning/sharing mianzi, inducing/enhancing a sense of groupness, building/ reaffirming social bonds, and evoking a shared sense of cultural identity and belonging. Finally, it is worth noting that the data collecting approach used in this study was based only on open access data. This limitation made it difficult for the researcher to control the quality of data and to obtain a more or less equal amount of data concerning both funerals for further analysis and comparison. In future studies, researchers may wish to shed further light on the topic by using first-hand data and expanding the scope of research to include other Chinese communities, both within China and outside, as well as the funerals of less high profile individuals. Data Sources Videos: Adieu to Louis Cha Leung-yung. (1:43). China Daily Hong Kong. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=_FSpBywZwJA Cong wanlian zhici kan He Hongshen taitai shenfeng diwei. Duwang hui ruyuan shenpi guoqi chubin ma? 從輓聯致辭看何鴻燊太太身份地位, 賭王會如願身披國旗出殯嗎? [What Stanley Ho’s wives’ wreath messages tell us about their statuses. Will Casino King be covered with the national flag at his funeral just as he wished?]. (12:01). Kuaidian Yule 快点娱乐. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=fdPOmY7AoOk Dongzhangxiwang. Duwang He Hongshen sangli. Gongji zuixin qingkuang: Zhao Shizeng, Wang Mingquan 東張西望 賭王何鴻燊喪禮 公祭最新情況 趙世曾 汪明荃 [Scoop: The funeral of Casino King Stanley Ho. Latest news and updates: Cecil Chao Sze-Tsung and Liza Wang Ming Chuen]. (5:22). TVB (official). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U_LXSVbHdI Duwang sangli disanri: Teshou qinzi wei lingjiu fuling dalian 賭王喪禮第三日 特首親自為靈 柩扶靈 大殮 [Third day of Casino King’s funeral: Hong Kong Chief Executive as one of the pallbearers]. (6:30). TVB (official) 娛樂新聞台. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuwWbc S_yNc He Hongshen shishi sangli xianchang shikuang: Qinyou qiji shenshang songbie duwang. 何鴻燊 逝世 喪禮現場實況 親友齊集神傷送別賭王 [Stanley Ho’s funeral live updates: Family and friends say goodbye to Casino King]. (1:15:30) HK01 香港01. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=d651H_6BRRw Jin Yong sangli dawan yunji: Ma Yun, Zhang Jizhong, Huang Xiaoming, Chen Qiaoen lingtang zhiji 金庸喪禮大腕雲集 馬雲張紀中黃曉明陳喬恩靈堂致祭 [Bigwigs gather at Jin Yong’s funeral: Ma Yun, Zhang Jizhong, Huang Xiaoming, and Chen Qiaoen pay repects at funeral home]. (4:38). MoreForms Media 魔方全媒. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue= 98&v=ULrys3XyEus&feature=emb_logo LIVE: Stanley Ho funeral in Hong Kong (2020, July 10). (4:08:20). South China Morning Post. https://www.facebook.com/scmp/videos/live-stanley-ho-funeral-in-hongkong/596030484 381792/

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LIVE: Stanley Ho funeral in Hong Kong. (2020, July 10). (4:04:32). South China Morning Post. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg7fFyhUmPM Stanley Ho funeral. (1:15). China Daily Hong Kong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cLraK LAQ9M Stanley Ho’s private funeral takes place in HK. (2020, July 9). (2:41). TDM Canal Macau. https:// www.facebook.com/Canal.Macau/videos/stanley-hos-private-funeral-takes-place-in-hk/273 950847199815/ Yule: He Hongshen sangli sifang qinshu daonian【娛樂】何鴻燊喪禮 四房親屬悼念 [Entertainment News: Wives and children mourn Stanley Ho at funeral]. (2:19). am730. https://www.you tube.com/watch?v=QUNzQo8E5po&t=43s

News/Magazine Articles: “A great loss to Hong Kong and Macau”: Dr Stanley Ho farewelled. (2020, July 13). Inside Asian Gaming. https://www.asgam.com/index.php/2020/07/13/a-great-loss-to-hong-kong-andmacau-dr-stanley-ho-farewelled/ Chan, E. (2020, July 9). Family comes first in parting fit for a king. The Standard. https://www.the standard.com.hk/section-news/section/4/220742/Family-comes-first-in-parting-fit-for-a-king Cheung, E., Kao, E., & Choy, G. (2018, November 12). South China Morning Post. Hong Kong’s business, showbiz and political elite attend private vigil for legendary Chinese writer Louis Cha ‘Jin Yong.’ https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/2172847/hong-kongsbusiness-showbiz-and-political-elite-turn-out Cheung, J. (2018, November 14). Cha sent on final journey. The Standard. https://www.thestandard. com.hk/section-news/section/4/202224/Cha-sent-on-final-journey Deng, H. X., Peng, K. X., Huang, W. M., Chen, L. L., Li, J. S., Yang, J. L., Liang, Z. J., Chen, X. W., Ni, L. B., & Lu, J. Y. 鄧海興 彭愷欣 黃偉民 陳蕾蕾 黎靜珊 楊嘉朗 梁子傑 陳浠文 倪禮碧 魯嘉裕. (2020.7.9, 7.10). He Hongshen shishi. Gaoguan mingren songbie duwang. Gongzhong renshi ru paidui nei jugong zhiyi 何鴻燊逝世 高官名人送別賭王 公眾人士入排隊內鞠躬致 意 [Death of Stanley Ho: Top officials bid farewell to Casino King. Members of the public line up to pay respects]. HK01 香港01. https://www.hk01.com/article/495694?utm_source=01arti clecopy&utm_medium=referral Duwang chubin. Lin Qingxia, Shi Nansheng qianwang songbie. Zhou Runfa, Liu Dehua, Zhou Xingchi songshang wanlian 賭王出殯, 林青霞、施南生前往送別, 周潤發劉德華周星馳送 上輓聯 [Casino King’s funeral procession: Brigitte Lin Ching-Hsia and Shi Nan Sun bid farewell at funeral home. Chow Yun Fat, Andy Lau and Stephen Chow send wanlian]. (2020.7.10). Kknews 每日頭條. https://kknews.cc/entertainment/44ke5oq.html Funeral of renowned novelist Jin Yong held at Hong Kong Funeral Home. (2018, November 13). Xinhuanet 新华网. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-11/13/c_137603460.htm He Chaoqiong nanyan beishang. He Chaoying shisheng tongku. Xi Mengyao hua da nongzhuang zou shizhuangxiu 何超瓊難掩悲傷, 何超盈失聲痛哭, 奚夢瑤化大濃妝走時裝秀? [Pansy Ho can’t hide her grief. Sabrina Ho sobs. Ming Xi wears heavy makeup as if she’s in a fashion show?]. (2020.7.11) Kknews 每日頭條. https://kknews.cc/entertainment/9vpl8b8.html High-profile figures attend Stanley Ho funeral in Hong Kong (2020, July 10). The Macau News. https://macaonews.org/gaming/high-profile-figures-attend-stanley-ho-funeral-in-hong-kong/ High-profile figures attend Stanley Ho funeral in HK. (2020, July 10). The Macau Post Daily. https:// www.macaupostdaily.com/article8733.html HK elite farewell gambling king Stanley Ho. (2020, July 10). The West Australian. https://thewest. com.au/news/tourism/hk-elite-farewell-gambling-king-stanley-ho-ng-s-2019877 Hong bai meigui huahai huanrao. Hengbian “Xiaoyu weiwo” dao duwang yisheng chuanqi 紅 白玫瑰花海環繞 橫匾「笑語帷幄」道賭王一生傳奇 [Surrounded by a sea of red and white roses, the horizontal funeral banner “Talking and laughing in the commander’s tent” speaks of the legendary Casino King]. (2020.7.10). Bastille Post 巴士的報. https://www.bastillepost. com/hongkong/article/6743208-%ef%bb%bf

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Hong, J., & Wei, D. (2020, July 10). Late King of Gambling Stanley Ho Draws Tributes from Xi Jinping, Hong Kong Bigwigs. Bloomberg (Asia Edition). https://www.bloomberg.com/news/art icles/2020-07-10/pansy-ho-leads-clan-as-bigwigs-pay-respects-to-king-of-gambling Hong Kong leaders, tycoons bid farewell to gaming magnate Stanley Ho (2020, July 10). The Straits Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/hong-kong-leaders-tycoons-bidfarewell-to-gaming-magnate-stanley-ho Huang, C. (2018, November 12). Prominent figures pay their final respects to Chinese writer Jin Yong in Hong Kong. The Straits Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/prominentfigures-pay-their-final-respects-to-chinese-writer-jin-yong-in-hong-kong Huang, C. (2018, November 13). Family and friends attend funeral of writer Jin Yong. The Straits Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/family-and-friends-attend-fun eral-of-writer-louis-cha Huang, C. (2018, November 13). Prominent figures pay last respects to writer Louis Cha. The Straits Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/prominent-figures-pay-last-respectsto-writer-louis-cha Jinyong sangli juxing: Ma Yun, Zhang Jizhong, Huang Xiaoming deng chuxi. Ni Kuang xianshen song laoyou zuihou yicheng 金庸丧礼举行: 马云张纪中黄晓明等出席, 倪匡现身送老友最 后一程 [Jin Yong’s funeral held. Ma Yun, Zhang Jizhong, Huang Xiaoming and others attend. Ni Kuang bids farewell to his longtime friend on his final journey]. (2018.11.12) Sohu 搜狐. https://www.sohu.com/a/274824655_388887 Jinyong sheling hengbian “Yilan zhongsheng.” Guojia lingdaoren zhisong huapai 金庸設靈橫匾 「一覽眾生」 國家領導人致送花牌 [Jin Yong’s funeral. Horizontal funeral banner reads “A bird’s eye view of everyone.” National leaders send flower wreaths]. (2018.11.12). Bastille Post 巴士的報. https://www.bastillepost.com/hongkong/article/3641452 Jinyong shishi: Wenxue jujiang sheling “Yilan zhongsheng.” Guojia lingdaoren zhisong huapai【 金庸逝世】 文學巨匠今設靈「一覽眾生」國家領導人致送花牌 [Death of Jin Yong: The literary giant’s funeral held today. “A bird’s eye view of everyone.” National leaders send flower wreaths]. (2018.11.12). HK01 香港 01. https://www.hk01.com/article/257985?utm_source=01a rticlecopy&utm_medium=referral Jinyong siren sangli jinri juxing. Ma Yun, Zhang Jizhong, Huang Xiaoming xianshen daonian 金庸 私人丧礼今日举行, 馬云張纪中黄晓明现身悼念 [Jin Yong’s private funeral held today. Ma Yun, Zhang Jizhong, and Huang Xiaoming pay respects at funeral]. (2018.11.12). QQ.com 騰 訊网. https://ent.qq.com/a/20181112/010297.htm Jinyong xiansheng sangli jinri jiang juxing. Xi Jinping zhuxi song wanlian daonian 金庸先生丧 礼今日将举行 习近平主席送挽联悼念 [Funeral for Jin Yong to be held today. Chairman Xi sends wanlian] (2018.10.30). 1905 Dianyingwang 1905 电影网. https://www.1905.com/new gallery/hdpic/1326637.shtml Jinyong xiansheng zangli juguo tongbei. Chu Ma Yun, Huang Xiaoming, Chen Qiaoen wai, zhexie wanlian lingren chijing 金庸先生葬禮舉國同悲, 除馬雲黃曉明陳喬恩外, 這些輓聯令人吃 驚 [The whole nation mourns Jin Yong’s death. In addition to the surprise appearances by Ma Yun, Huang Xiaoming and Chen Qiaoen, there are also these amazing wanlian]. (2018.11.13). iFunn. http://www.ifuun.com/a2018111317033800/ Jinyong zangli jinyou zhiqin canjia. Ni Kuang, Cai Lan zhuguai songbie laoyou 金庸葬礼仅有至 亲参加 倪匡蔡澜拄拐送别老友 [Jin Yong’s funeral attended by family and close friends only. Ni Kuang and Chua Lam arrive walking with a cane to say goodbye to their longtime friend]. (2018.11.13). huanqiu.com 环球网. https://m.huanqiu.com/article/9CaKrnKeMNv Jinyong zangli juxing. Liu Dehua, Ni Kuang, Ma Yun du lai song zuihou yicheng 金庸葬礼举行, 刘 德华、倪匡、马云都来送最后一程 [Jin Yong’s funeral held. Andy Lau, Ni Kuang, Ma Yun bid farewell on his final journey]. (2018.11.13). Shangguan Xinwen 上观新闻. https://www.jfd aily.com/wx/detail.do?id=116274 Jinyong zangli zuori juxing. Ma Yun, Liu Dehua, Zhang Jizhong du lai song zuihou yicheng. 金庸葬礼昨日举行 马云刘德华张纪中都来送最后一程 [Jin Yong’s funeral held yesterday. Ma Yun, Andy Lau, and Zhang Jizhong bid farewell on his final journey]. (2018.11.13). Sina

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Finance 新浪财经. http://finance.sina.com.cn/china/2018-11-13/doc-ihmutuea9620915.shtml? cre=tianyi&mod=pc%20pagerfin&loc=32&r=0&doct=0&rfunc=100&tj=none&tr=4 Kuo, L. (2018, October 31). ‘China’s Tolkien’: millions mourn death of martial arts novelist Jin Yong. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/31/jin-yong-dead-china-tol kein-martial-arts-novelist-louis-cha Late king of gambling Stanley Ho draws tributes from Xi Jinping, Hong Kong bigwigs. (2020, July 10). Macau Daily Times. https://macaudailytimes.com.mo/late-king-of-gambling-stanleyho-draws-tributes-from-xi-jinping-hong-kong-bigwigs.html Lee, W. L. (2020, July 13). Stanley Ho will only be laid to rest next year as there is no auspicious date for his burial in 2020. Today. https://www.todayonline.com/8days/sceneandheard/entertain ment/stanley-ho-will-only-be-laid-rest-next-year-there-no-auspicious Lei Wai Nong to represent Macao at Stanley Ho funeral in Hong Kong. (2020, July 9). The Macau News. https://macaonews.org/social-affairs/this-photo-provided-by-mazarine-asia-pacific-com munication-group-wednesday-night-shows-stanley-ho-hung-suns-funeral-in-hong-kong-onwednesday/ Liu, L., & He, S. (2018, October 31). Martial arts novelist, HK journalist Louis Cha no more. The Nation Thailand. https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/30357568 Macau officials at Stanley Ho funeral procession, Jul 10 (2020, July 9). GGRAsia. https://www.ggr asia.com/macau-officials-due-at-stanley-ho-funeral-procession-jul-10/ Master, F. (2020, July 10). Death of Macau’s casino king comes as gambling hub faces new era. Reuters (International). http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN24B0ST Ng, J., & Zhao, S. (2018, October 31). Funeral of Hong Kong martial arts novelist Louis Cha ‘Jin Yong’ to be private affair. South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/ article/2171113/fans-flock-gallery-mourn-hong-kong-martial-arts-novelist-louis-cha Personalities, Top officials gather for Stanley Ho funeral (2020, July 10). Macau Daily Times. https://macaudailytimes.com.mo/personalities-top-officials-gather-for-stanley-ho-funeral.html PHOTO REPORT: Stanley Ho funeral ceremony in Hong Kong. (2020, July 11). Macau Business. https://www.macaubusiness.com/stanley-ho-funeral-ceremony-in-hong-kong/ Qin, Z. H. 秦志鴻. (2020.7.10) He Hongshen shishi. Duwang zuihou yicheng quan shilu. Shiji sangli huafei yu 2000 wan 何鴻燊逝世|賭王最後一程全實錄 世紀喪禮花費逾 2000 萬 [Death of Stanley Ho: The casino king’s final journey in full. Funeral of the century costs over HK$20 million]. HK01 香港01. https://www.hk01.com/article/496400?utm_source=01article copy&utm_medium=referral Songbie Jinyong. Liu Dehua, Yu Qiuyu deng gejie renshi song huaquan 送别金庸, 刘德华余秋 雨等各界人士送花圈 [Farewell, Jin Yong: Andy Lau, Yu Qiuyu and many others send flower wreaths]. (2018.11.12). Beijing News 新京報. https://www.bjnews.com.cn/detail/154201459 514740.html Songbie Jinyong. Liu Dehua, Yu Qiuyu deng gejie renshi song huaquan 送别金庸, 刘德华余秋 雨等各界人士送花圈 [Farewell, Jin Yong: Andy Lau, Yu Qiuyu and many others send flower wreaths]. (2018, 11. 12) Sina Finance 新浪财经. https://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2018-11-12/ doc-ihnstwwr1410124.shtml Stanley Ho funeral procession to take place today. (2020, July 10). The Macau News. https://mac aonews.org/gaming/stanley-ho-funeral-procession-to-take-place-today/ Stanley Ho funeral procession to take place today (2020, July 10). The Macau Post Daily. https:// www.macaupostdaily.com/article8728.html Tan, T. (2020, July 9; July 14). Andy Lau, Jackie Chan & Stephen Chow said to be attending Stanley Ho’s funeral. Today. https://www.todayonline.com/8days/sceneandheard/entertainment/andylau-jackie-chan-stephen-chow-said-be-attending-stanley-hos Wang, Z. (2020, July 10). Stanley Ho’s funeral held in HK. China Daily Hong Kong. https://www. chinadailyhk.com/article/136359#Stanley-Ho’s-funeral-held-in-HK Wong, J. K. C. (2020, June 3). Memorial for Dr Stanley Ho opens to public at Hotel Lisboa. Inside Asian Gaming. https://www.asgam.com/index.php/2020/06/03/memorial-for-dr-stanleyho-opens-to-public-at-hotel-lisboa/

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Wong, J. K. C. (2020, July 8). Over 100 politicians and celebrities join funeral committee for Dr Stanley Ho. Inside Asian Gaming. https://www.asgam.com/index.php/2020/07/08/over-100-pol iticians-and-celebrities-join-funeral-committee-for-dr-stanley-ho/ Wu, Z. S. 吳子生 (2020.07.10). He Hongshen shishi. Sangli xianchang shikuang: Qinyou qiji shenshang songbie duwang 何鴻燊逝世 喪禮現場實況 親友齊集神傷送別賭王 [Death of Stanley Ho: Funeral live updates. Family and friends gather to bid farewell to Casino King]. HK01 香港01. https://www.hk01.com/article/496223?utm_source=01articlecopy&utm_medium=ref erral Zhang, K., & Su, X. (2018, November 13). Friends and family pay final respects to Chinese literary giant Louis Cha ‘Jin Yong’ South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/ society/article/2172991/friends-and-family-pay-final-respects-chinese-literary-giant Zhong dalao songbie Jinyong daxia zuihou yicheng. Huang Xiaoming yu Ma Yun xianshen. Liu Dehua xian huaquan. 众大佬送别金庸大侠最后一程, 黄晓明与马云现身, 刘德华献花圈 [Bigwigs bid farewell to Kung-fu Warrior Jin Yong on his final journey. Ma Yun seen at funeral. Andy Lau sends flower wreath]. (2018.11.12). Sohu 搜狐. https://www.sohu.com/a/274864027_ 100184449 Zhu, Y. S., & Chen, X. W. 朱雅霜 陳浠文 (2020.7.8) He Hongshen shishi. Aijiang Su Shuhui wei hengbian huibi. “Xiaoyuweiwo.” Zongjie duwang yisheng 何鴻燊逝世 愛將蘇樹輝為橫匾揮 筆「笑語帷幄」總結賭王一生 [Death of Stanley Ho: Longtime trusted lieutenant Ambrose So Shu Fai writes horizontal funeral banner “Talking and laughing in the commander’s tent” to summarize Casino King’s life]. HK01 香港01. https://www.hk01.com/article/495626?utm_sou rce=01articlecopy&utm_medium=referral Zuotian Jinyong sangli juxing. Cai Lan, Ni Kuang, Huang Xiaoming deng songbie. Ma Yun ba ge zi rangren leimu 昨天, 金庸丧礼举行!蔡澜倪匡黄晓明等送别, 马云8个字让人泪目 [Jin Yong’s funeral held yesterday. Chua Lam, Ni Kuang, Huang Xiaoming and others bid farewell. Ma Yun’s eight words touch many people]. (2018.11.13). Sohu 搜狐. https://www.sohu.com/a/ 274947890_349109 Zuotian Jinyong xiansheng zangli zai xianggang binyiguan juxing. Qi haoyou Ni Kuang, Cai Lan deng qinlin 昨天金庸先生葬礼在香港殡仪馆举行.其好友倪匡,蔡澜等 亲临 [Jin Yong’s funeral held yesterday at Hong Kong Funeral Home. His close friends Ni Kuang, Chua Lam and others attend funeral]. (2018.11.13). Sina 新浪 网. http://k.sina.com.cn/article_1191867367_p470a73e702700b9tf.html?cre=tianyi&mod=pcp agerfintoutiao&loc=26&r=9&doct=0&rfunc=100&tj=none&tr=9#/

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Ho, D. Y. F. (1976). On the concept of face. American Journal of Sociology, 81, 867–884. Hong, J., & Wei, D. (2020, July 10). Late King of Gambling Stanley Ho Draws Tributes from Xi Jinping, Hong Kong Bigwigs. Bloomberg (Asia Edition). https://www.bloomberg.com/news/art icles/2020-07-10/pansy-ho-leads-clan-as-bigwigs-pay-respects-to-king-of-gambling Huang, C. (2018, November 12). Prominent figures pay their final respects to Chinese writer Jin Yong in Hong Kong. The Straits Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/prominentfigures-pay-their-final-respects-to-chinese-writer-jin-yong-in-hong-kong Jin Yong. (2023, January 28). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_Yong Jung, J. (2017). Funeral elegy. In K. Kang & S. Lee (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Korean rites of passage (pp. 105–106). Seoul: National Folk Museum of Korean. Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2021). Reading images: The grammar of visual design (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge. Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). Oxford: Blackwell. Liu, L., & He, S. (2018, October 31). Martial arts novelist, HK journalist Louis Cha no more. The Nation Thailand. https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/30357568 Lu, W. (2017). Socio-cultural factors in analyzing the pragmeme of accommodation: A case study of the official online eulogy request system in Taiwan. In V. Parvaresh & A. Capone (Eds.), The Pragmeme of accommodation: The case of interaction around the event of death (pp. 111–128). Cham: Springer. Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. (2003). Discourses in place: Language in the material world. London: Routledge. Stanley Ho. (2023, January 28). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Ho Tien, A. (2017). To be headed for the West, riding a crane: Chinese pragmemes in the wake of someone passing. In V. Parvaresh & A. Capone (Eds.), The Pragmeme of accommodation: The case of interaction around the event of death (pp. 183–202). Cham: Springer. Tseng, M. (2017). Toward a pragmatic study of funeral discourses in Taiwan: Voice, shared situation knowledge, and metaphor. In V. Parvaresh & A. Capone (Eds.), The Pragmeme of accommodation: The case of interaction around the event of death (pp. 259–276). Cham: Springer. Yue, F. (2020, October 18). Chinese couplet by Jin Yong 金庸 Feixue liantian shebailu xiaoshu shenxia yibiyuan 飛雪連天射白鹿 笑書神俠倚碧鴛 [When the flying snow linked up the heaven and the earth, the great condor shooter went after (the fox and) the deer white; he smiled at books that to dragon and chivalry give birth, while leaning on his broadsword by the mandarin ducks bright]. https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/chinese-couplet-by-jin-yong/

Enid Lee is Professor in the Department of British and American Language and Culture at Okinawa International University, Japan. She holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics and an M.A. in English as a Second Language from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She has taught in the areas of English, linguistics, intercultural communication, and multilingual education at the undergraduate and graduate levels in Japan and Hong Kong for over twenty years. Her research interests include additional language learning and teaching, intercultural communication, nonverbal communication, heritage language maintenance, and multilingual/multicultural education.

Chapter 11

Covering the Grief of Leaving: A Study of News Discourse on Emigration in Contemporary Hong Kong Beatrice C. Y. Lok and Daisy P. L. Chow

Abstract Migration can be one of the most stressful and emotional experiences in life. Cultural bereavement, personal distress and loss constitute migratory grief. Hong Kong is a metropolis with a rich history of population movement. Its inflows and outflows have contributed to the cultural and economic development of the city. The recent wave of emigration has become a top story in local news. The media plays an essential role, not only in reporting hard facts and figures, but also in capturing and articulating the accumulated sentiments shared within the city. Due to the advancement of technology, newspapers and other mass media publications can now be viewed online and searched easily from anywhere in the world. These news discourses convey the meaning of migratory grief and influence its readers. The contemporary notion of migratory grief in Hong Kong is intertwined with the loss of identity, guilt, and pessimism. A narrative analysis of the related news reveals that reporting individual stories of migratory grief can provide positive value to society. Recognizing the shared grief experiences by the collection of individual stories of emigrants, readers can build connections with people who have chosen to stay or are being left behind in the community. These stories, indeed, serve as a community farewell to alleviate migratory grief. Keywords Cultural bereavement · Hong Kong · Loss · Migration grief · News discourse

B. C. Y. Lok Caritas Institute of Higher Education, Hong Kong SAR, China D. P. L. Chow (B) College of International Education, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong SAR, China e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024 C. S. Garfield Lau and K. K. Y. Chan (eds.), The Poetics of Grief and Melancholy in East-West Conflicts and Reconciliations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-9821-0_11

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11.1 Introduction Since the founding of Hong Kong, there have been several waves of migration. Several studies have examined the migratory impact on this city (e.g., Jarvie 1969; Wong 1992; Chan et al. 2022). Yet, discussion into the contextualized meaning of migratory grief in the city is relatively rare. Being an important component of a city’s developmental process, migration involves multifaceted forms of grief and challenges. Such complicated feelings of grief and loss can be complex yet valuable to society. If such grief and other negative feelings cannot be recognized or relieved, serious social issues could occur. Though the term “migratory grief” can be generally defined as any sorrows and/ or losses associated with the decision of one’s geographical relocation, such a sense of loss can be contextually and culturally varied among individuals over time. This is because the process of migration includes the closure of one’s life in the homeland as well as the settlement of life after relocating to a new environment—the adopted home. Many studies, therefore, argue that migratory loss appears to be overlooked or oversimplified by the public and even the migrants themselves. Considering the recent emigration wave in Hong Kong, it is worthwhile to explore the contemporary grief of migration constructed within the city. This chapter aims to comprehend the contemporary notion of migratory grief in Hong Kong. Through analyzing the discourse of reported news about recent migration published between January 2021 and January 2023 by South China Morning Post—one major English newspaper in Hong Kong, this chapter focuses on the recent emigration wave in Hong Kong, and the way such departure generates concomitant grief to the city on a societal level. It attempts to reveal some insights into the feeling of loss and sorrow associated with cross-country migration. The analysis articulates the constructed social meaning of grief that emerged through emigration. It also examines the functions of news media in creating sense and consensus by narrating a community farewell. It is hoped the analysis can extend the current understanding of migratory grief in Hong Kong.

11.2 A Brief History of Emigration in Hong Kong Migration has always been an important characteristic, which has shaped the history of Hong Kong. It transforms the development of Hong Kong and evolves the city to meet both local and global challenges. Being an ex-British colony, Hong Kong is inevitably intertwined with the movement of people; quite a few migration waves occurred, and that influenced the inflow and outflow of people. Recalling the outward movements in Hong Kong; approximately four major emigration waves are found in its history. The first wave of emigration occurred in 1958–1961 (Wong 1992). Due to the change in economic situation, many farmers in the New Territories relocated to Britain for the sake of alternative livelihoods (Watson 1975). The second emigration

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wave in the 1970s was triggered by the city’s instable political circumstance and the riots that happened in 1967. That created disturbances to the lives of people in the city, which led to another outflow of people. According to Skeldon (1991), there were over 100,000 people who left Hong Kong and moved to North America between 1970 and 1980. Owing to the Mainland political tension in 1989, the city’s third emigration wave occurred. During the third wave, many people moved to different countries including Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, etc. An upsurge of people outflow was recorded in the 1990s. The fourth emigration wave recorded the peak of exodus around 1997. The changes in political status and the sense of uncertainty about the post-1997 social situation increased the intention to emigrate foreign countries, such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States. Recently, the fifth emigration wave of the city has received increasing attention. In fact, the emigration issue in contemporary Hong Kong society has become a hot topic in local and even international media. Reviewing the emigration waves of Hong Kong, it seems that the movement of people was triggered by economic, political, educational, and social demands. It is a matrix of multiple reasons that are intertwined with pessimism and optimism from both individual and social perspectives. Chan et al. (2022: 49) argue that there are five socio-political factors: (1) mobility, (2) sense of place, (3) trust and confidence in the law and the legal system, (4) global citizenship, and (5) perception of inequality, explaining Hong Kong a migration origin. These five factors that reflect the common concerns of emigrants behind their intention to leave are highly relevant in understanding this current wave of emigration. Hong Kong Institute of Asia–Pacific Studies (2021) surveyed 716 Hong Kong citizens aged 18 or above and found that, citizens with emigration intentions to foreign countries increased from 33% to 42% between 2017 and 2021, while citizens with intention to migrate mainland China increased from 9.5% in 2020 to 11.6% in 2021. As stories about the current wave of emigration to foreign countries occupy a certain percentage of news coverage, this chapter emphasizes the exodus to countries which offer relaxed migration policies to Hongkongers since the introduction of National Security Law on 30 June 2020. According to Lee (2023), there are up to 144,500 people who have moved to the UK since 2021. These relaxed immigration policies of Western countries provide an opportunity for Hongkongers to uproot. These policies have widened the emigration access of people from different social classes. This makes the current emigration wave quite unique when professionals, elites or wealthy ones formed the only group with the choice to make decisions regarding staying or leaving in the past. The increasing outward movement of Hong Kong population is expected to be a social phenomenon in these recent years. Searching for alternative livelihoods, social environment and political system could be seen as some structural factors that explain the motivation of people leaving the city (de Haas 2011). However, these structural factors may fail to account for the motivation to migrate from an individual aspect. News articles about emigration tend to report individual stories. These stories cover emigrants’ individual perceptions and motivations of such outward movement. In addition, it uncovers the grief emigrants experienced in the process of movement.

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11.3 Features of Grief and Collective Grief When people talk about “grief,” they may think of many psychosomatic reactions such as shock, pain, fluttering in hands, trembling in stomach, etc. However, feeling and bodily movement are insufficient to the definition of grief. Grief is an emotion more complex than feelings like pleasure and pain. In fact, grief is a multifaceted consciousness, consisting of emotional, cognitive, and evaluative aspects. Lazarus (1999) pointed out that it is impossible to define emotions or differentiate emotions based on subjective observations of physical reactions as manifestation of emotions varies among individuals. Same physical reactions can be initiated by different emotions. For example, a feeling of heat in the head can be caused by jealousy, anger or shame. Therefore, while feelings are most directly perceived by grievers, they are not determinative. According to cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotion (Lazarus 2000), different emotions are associated with different core relational themes. For instance, jealousy is associated with a threat created by an intruder in a relationship; anger is associated with an offence to the experiencer or the possessions of the experiencer; shame is associated with an infringement of one’s ideal self. Grief is associated with irrevocable loss. An object “lost” is what grief is about, or the object of grief. The object of grief can be concrete or abstract, tangible or intangible, ranging from the passing of a person or a pet to the breakup of a relationship or the loss of an identity. However, not all losses turn into grief. One is less likely to grieve the loss of a toilet roll or a piece of blank A4 paper, even though the toilet roll or the piece of A4 paper are never going to be retrieved again, i.e., an irrevocable loss. What distinguishes the loss of a toilet roll and the loss of a person (e.g., a dear friend of yours passes away)? According to Nussbaum (2001), emotions are not merely about an object. The aboutness of an emotion does not refer to the mere existence of a person, a physical entity or a relationship from an objective point of view. The object must be actively seen and subjectively interpreted by the person as something with specific meaning. Nussbaum called the object of an emotion an “intentional object” (ibid: 27). The emotion aroused reflects the way the person perceives the object. For example, the shattering of a photo can be seen merely as a piece of fact, something happening in the world. This object or aboutness may cause the emotion of anger in the person if s/he sees it as an infringement of his/her property. It may cause an emotion of fear if the person sees the event as a threat. Also, a person may experience grief if the shattering of the photo is seen and interpreted as a permanent loss of something very important to him/her. Grief is a conscious state involving beliefs and perceptions. These two cognitive elements are related, yet not identical. In grief, one must see or perceive the happening of something in the world (the aboutness), for example the death of a person or the demolishing of a place. What enters our consciousness in perception is the appearance of things and events. Formation of belief that arouses grief takes a step further and “requires the discriminating power of cognition” (Nussbaum 2001: 38). Perceiving the happening of something in a certain way, one may assent to, reject or withhold

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making judgment about it. To assent to or reject what appears to be the case results in our belief in whether it is or is not the case regarding our initial perception. In grief, one assents to the perception that what happens is an irrevocable loss and the loss is of enormous importance. Lastly, the object of grief must be of paramount importance to the griever. This draws the difference in perception between the death of a family member and someone you saw on the news. The object of grief is perceived as valuable. The loss of it does not only mean the removal of that object, but more importantly the annihilation of certain values. Nussbaum (2001) explained this by recalling her grief over the death of her mother. The incident was interpreted and perceived by Nussbaum as a loss, and certainly a tremendous one. The loss was able to inspire grief and was extremely intolerable to Nussbaum because the object of grief, i.e., her mother, was invested with values. These values, on one hand, were instilled from the routines, pastimes and experiences she had with her mother. She was an important part of Nussbaum’s life and she played a significant, yet may not be easily realized, role in Nussbaum’s routine. On the other hand, the values may intrinsically come from the good qualities Nussbaum’s mother embodied, such as health, beauty, passion, empathy, enthusiasm, etc. Therefore, the death of her mother is not simply the loss of a human life, but most importantly, that of the values going along with her irrevocable loss. While emotion is an internal state, grief can be experienced not only solely at an individual level, but also collectively at a society level. Collective grief, in essence, shares the features of grief mentioned above, i.e., the irrevocable loss of a valuable object. Yet, it is different from individual grief in certain ways. While grief shared by members of the community traditionally involves wars, natural disasters, and death of national figures, such as the Holocaust during World War II and the 311 tsunami in Japan, collective grief can also grow out from divergent opinions, social conflicts and fights for social justice, such as the Black Lives Matter Movement. Collective grief sparked by the latter arouses more complex, or even incomprehensible emotion because the object of grief is less specific and is sometimes “invisible” (Wagoner & Brescó 2021). Unlike the case of individual grief, collective grief that occurs with social conflicts and moral issues seems to lack a concrete and definite object. In the case of the Black Lives Matter Movement, while people grieved over the death of African Americans caused by unlawful police actions, such deaths are also, if not primarily, the symbols of injustice and racism (Awad & Wagoner 2020). The collective grief and memory point towards the loss of justice and equality. The intangible objects of grief, i.e., justice and hope for equality, are more difficult to recognize and articulate, resulting in a more tangled form of grief. Another reason that may contribute to the complicated nature of collective grief is that there are no norms or rules of mourning rituals for a collective grief and its memory of sadness. When a person passes away, a set of norms for grief is carried out. These norms or “grieving rules” specify the rituals to be taken (e.g., whom to grieve, where to hold the ceremony and what to do, etc.) to express such grief (Doka 1989). These rituals are psychologically and socially important as the process allows the bereaved and grievers to address and communicate the loss in a visible

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and symbolic form, and accordingly help express and channel the emotion. In cases of collective grief caused by natural disasters, wars and death of national figures, we can see people gathering in public squares, bringing flowers and lighting candles. People are psychologically driven to confront the reality of loss or perform “the work of grief” (Gross 2016: 53) through certain ritual activities. Sometimes, monuments and memorial sites are set up and official memorial activities are held. These kinds of monuments can serve as preparing detachment from the loss to alleviate melancholia (Worden 2015). However, not all kinds of collective grief are or can be publicly ritualized. Grieving rituals of collective grief in the context of social conflicts may not be carried out for various reasons such as political suppression, a lack of such norms as the loss is unprecedented to the community, or the object of loss itself is too abstract to articulate. Lack of visible rituals for collective grief can be destructive to the community. Without a channel to acknowledge the loss, a void is left for closure, and it may intensify the sadness, disorientation and other forms of psychological disturbances within the community.

11.4 Exodus with Grief The grief associated with emigration can be defined as “disenfranchised grief” (Doka 1989: 4). Doka described such grief as unrecognized or unsupported “when people incur a loss that is not or cannot be openly acknowledged, publicly mourned, or socially supported” (ibid). This general concept of loss provides a useful theoretical framework to study emigratory loss. The emigration experience of departure can be seen as a process of mixed traumas that influences the leavers mentally, socially and emotionally (Tummala-Narra 2001). In discussing the question of whether to leave or to stay, people’s attention is usually given to the emigration process of settling plan for a new environment in an adopted home. Before relocating to a new environment and settling down in the adopted homeland, emigrants need closure—separating themselves from the life before their departure and managing their migratory losses (Chang 2015). Western countries usually view their East Asian immigrants including Hong Kong immigrants as voluntary immigrants with strong goal-seeking capability (Frisbie et al. 2001; Lee 2009; Wilton and Constantine 2003). Such overgeneralized perception on East Asian immigrants, in fact, may undermine the actual migratory grief they struggled throughout the process. This is particular to the case of Hongkongers in the recent wave of migration. Hongkongers with emigration intentions to foreign countries are generally perceived as being self-reliant, enjoying a certain level of personal capability such as high mobility experiences in terms of studying and working overseas; and a strong sense of global citizenship (Chan et al. 2022). However, loss is rarely emphasized in the recent migration studies of the city. Indeed, most research into migratory loss was conducted in the West (e.g., Schneller 1981; Mirsky 1991; Yaglom 1993; Alvarez 1999; Markovitzky & Mosek 2005). Few studies focused on the loss of Chinese emigrants (e.g., Casado & Leung 2001; Casado et al. 2010; Chang 2015). Quite a few of these studies, in fact, adopted a quantitative

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approach in measuring migratory loss and grief from a statistical perspective. On the other hand, the meaning and construct of migratory loss and grief from a qualitative perspective still require further studies and discussion. Grief is culturally and contextually constructed (Rosenblatt 2001); it is influenced by not only personal capability, cultural values and social support system of the community, but also the factors of time. Migratory grief can be associated with different types of loss including, yet not limited to, capital resources, interpersonal resources and cultural resources. Indeed, such a sense of loss can be mental, emotional or influenced by the emergent social atmosphere. Feeling insecure and distressed by losing the sense of identity and confidence, leavers and people with an intention to live in a foreign country may struggle culturally, mentally and psychologically. Migratory loss fundamentally influences one’s decision-making on emigration. To enhance a holistic understanding of the recent emigration wave in Hong Kong, it is important to look at the complexly constructed emigratory grief in Hong Kong.

11.5 Methodology News about the recent emigration wave provides a special kind of narration for Hongkongers to recognize, accept and relieve the complicated feelings embedded in this social issue. Through analyzing a range of news articles from a local mainstream media, this chapter aims to reveal the socially constructed meaning of grief in the lens of news discourse. It also examines the functions and roles of news to the Hong Kong society on this particular social issue. An official South China Morning Post (SCMP) search engine was used in identifying and collecting relevant news articles about the emigration of Hongkongers to the West between January 2021 and January 2023. Listed articles were read and coded with nodes and themes. Explicit attention was given to the language and meanings related to loss, change, the perceived self and feeling in the selected news discourse. To avoid meaning loss in translation and misinterpretation across languages, the news discourse of this chapter included only articles written originally in English. Although this small-scale qualitative analysis may fail to provide a succinct review of grief in the recent Hong Kong migration wave, it is believed that the present analysis of these selected news articles may reflect some valuable and valid interpretation of grief in the contemporary Hong Kong context.

11.6 Analysis Migration is the movement of people—migrants leaving their hometown and relocating their settlement, properties, work, or study in a foreign land. Unlike natural disasters, accidents and deaths, which involve misfortune befalling upon people, relocating from one place to another is in itself emotionally neutral. However, news

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coverage about the latest migration wave in Hong Kong is often “perceived” as emotion-laden. Readers do not only learn about some exodus facts, but also perceive the sense of grief expressed in these emigration stories. Such migratory grief, which involves melancholy and sadness due to some kind of loss, appears to be a key analysis among the selected news articles. The representation of the recent emigration cases in the media reveals the cognitive process of how journalists understand and retrieve the memory of the news events. This special way of narration portrays the general perception of migration of the society as a whole, either explicitly or implicitly. On the other hand, readers’ knowledge and impressions towards migration are co-constructed and reinforced. An analysis of contents, i.e., the use of language and communication involved, allows the nature of migration grief to be made explicitly.

11.6.1 Uprooting the Established Self-identity Self-identity is a very complicated construct. Deconstructing and reconstructing selfidentity throughout the emigration process may trigger grief. Our identity is the product of, apart from our biological constitutions, a bunch of social, cultural, and political factors that are rooted in a particular context. The history of a place and the living experiences of the locals cultivate and form the unique content of “localness” and characteristics of the place and those who live there. Generations after generations, people who were born and grew up in that place “inherit” this “localness” and characteristics; these include the language, culture, customs, and traditional values. Therefore, referring someone as or being referred to as the people of a place such as “Hongkongers” means more than an announcement of citizenship, but also the recognition of the embodiment of the cultural contents and values of the place, e.g., “Hongkongness.” Construction of one’s self is a continuous two-way process. People adapt to the existing norms and social values of a place, as well as its physical environment, through socialization. These become important “content” of our “self.” On the other hand, via living in the place, creating new experiences with other locals and interacting with the social and physical environment, the norms, values and beliefs are re-affirmed. A place has its symbolic meaning; and a locationally-bound identity is instructive. The bond between a person and a place orientates how a person lives his or her life and contributes an important foundation to one’s self identity. Identity can be seen as a reflexive categorisation of self with perceived membership in relations to different social groups (Stets & Burke 2000; Hornsey 2008). Whereas identity is neither a solely desire-based self nor a singular construct, identity is a fluid multiple construct that can be shaped by multifaceted factors such as time, sociocultural environment and social aspiration. In the journey of classifying one’s identity, it is equally important to recognize who we are and who we are not (Zomerman et al. 2018). The construction of identity is a life-long negotiation process of one’s relation

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between self and society. The sense of identity is a dynamic construct, and an established identity can certainly be seen as one’s social access in a particular society, enabling resources and imposing obligations. Migration induces a transformation of identity. Throughout the migration process, emigrants may lose their established self-identity and social capital in their homeland. In fact, many emigrants may face identity conflicts due to the gap between expectation, value, belief and norm held by an individual (Westerman 2005). The following two news articles about the latest migration wave in Hong Kong show how the place—Hong Kong was described in the stories of two Hong Kong emigrants: With a job that paid HK$2 million a year, investment banker Tom Chan never thought of leaving his comfortable life in Hong Kong, not even at the height of anti-government protests in 2019. (“National security law: tears, fears, but a new life? Hong Kong early birds who have taken BN(O) path to Britain,” SCMP, January 26, 2021) The former restaurant manager never expected his 39-year-old daughter to pack up and go to Britain for good, after spending her entire life with him and his wife in Hong Kong, where she was born. (“Left behind: Hong Kong’s elderly face old age with less family support as children with BN(O) visas opt for new lives abroad,” SCMP, July 10, 2021)

Instead of merely naming the place, the journalists described Hong Kong as someone’s “birthplace” and a place where a person once had his “comfortable life.” The place where migrants left is more than a spot on the map. It is deeply connected to one’s life and upbringing, which constitutes a significant part of a social yet personal identity. … he felt overwhelmed as he took a final view of Beacon Hill and Lung Cheung Road, places he had been to countless times. “I saw the skyline and felt quite emotional,” he said. (“National security law: tears, fears, but a new life? Hong Kong early birds who have taken BN(O) path to Britain,” SCMP, January 26, 2021)

Accordingly, migration is not just a physical process of relocation but involves a kind of alienation that undermines or even distorts one’s identity. In fact, such migratory grief might not be reduced over time. In Markovitzky and Mosek’s study (2005), it has been found that the longer the former Soviet Union migrants stayed in Israel, the greater they felt about the loss of spiritual resources such as jokes, culture and the media. Similar ideas can be found in the news stories about some Hong Kong migrants. An interview of a 68-year-old Hong Kong former civil servant who migrated to Britain as an early bird reveals the close relation between the use of language and one’s identity: In Hong Kong, we had to use English language, though my proficiency is not Chinese. But now in Britain, we had to use more English, my “Chinese-ness” becomes a rarity. (“National security law: boost for Britain, blow to Hong Kong? How the BN(O) ticket may affect fortunes of both sides,” SCMP, January 26, 2021)

Language and culture are inseparable (Kramsch 2014). Language is an useful tool for expressing culture and recognising one’s belonging to a community. Furthermore, culture is an important component of language, and second language learners

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must orient themselves to the target language culture to fully acquire the language (Schumann 1990). In the process of integrating into the target culture and using the target language to establish new connections, emigrants may feel the loss of their mother language, original culture, original self-identity and other spiritual resources. Mastering a second language at the expense of the first language can be significantly painful and carries the implication of symbolic loss. The switch of languages deepens the migratory grief of Hong Kong migrants relocating to those English-speaking countries. Even though English is their second language, local people who migrate from Hong Kong to English-speaking countries may experience a crisis of identity owing to the sense of un-belonging. As an emigrant, one’s self-perception as a member of the “origin” society fades easily as a result of losing his/her social status, interpersonal relationships and even the accumulated experience in the homeland. In other words, self-identity is locationally bound. Detaching oneself permanently from a place may lead to a sense of insecurity that gives rise to emotional turbulence, sadness and grief. Emigrants experience an emotional burden deconstructing their established selfidentity when uprooting their homeland lives. Deconstruction of identity can be seen as a huge challenge in the migration process causing grief. In the process of reconstructing a new identity and life in a foreign country, emigrants may require extra effort to deconstruct and reconstruct their perceived self-identity and cultural norms. Emotional burden and alienation can be created in the process of negotiating their transforming identities in the new place. In fact, emigrants are recommended not to compare their new chapter with their established life and peers in the homeland as such comparison can create disappointment and increase their feelings of loss. Hou Wai-kai, an associate professor of psychology at the Education University of Hong Kong, said migrants from the city could find their career prospects not up to their expectations. “If [the migrants] think they are capable of a particular job, but there are no opportunities available, they will have to take up another job, which may cause a low level of satisfaction,” Hou said. “The discrepancy [with their former life] and comparison with peers back home could be stark” (“Turn to fellow migrants for emotional support, psychologists urge Hongkongers overseas after recent arrival commits suicide in UK,” SCMP, January 29, 2023). The process of deconstructing one’s established self-identity can be sorrowful, especially when such established self-identity involves pride and kinship.

11.6.2 Guilt The feeling of guilt is revealed in contemporary migratory grief when reading the narrated news stories of emigration. Heavy guilt can be caused by making decisions of separation during the emigration process. Thus, separation is classified as another main construct of migratory loss. Possession loss that is embedded in migratory grief can be physical, social, psychological and mental. These losses are caused by different kinds of separation. Separating from loved ones is one typical loss in the

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recent migratory wave. Such separation can be seen as losing loved ones temporarily (or fundamentally in some cases). Sometimes when people leave, they may have a feeling that their relatives or friends are left behind. Survey results by the Census and Statistics Department (Hong Kong Free Press, 12 August 2022) show that the main group of Hongkongers who have left the city are young people aged 20–24. In another survey conducted by the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce (2022), the two major groups who joined the exodus are those aged between 30–39 and between 40–49. Many of them leave with their children with the hope of having a better education and living environment for the next generation. Besides being the major workforce, these groups are the main elderly carers of the city. While a small group of elderly people leave with their children, most of them stay in Hong Kong, with or without a choice. The number of migrants leaving Hong Kong has surged with the announcement of the BN(O) scheme and the subsequent relaxation of migration requirements in Canada in 2021. The attractive offer by Western countries and the fear of continuous tightening of freedom and rights coming with the imposition of National Security Law “encourage” Hongkongers to make the migration decision, a decision that affects not only those who are going to leave but also those who would be staying behind. As shown in Figs. 11.1 and 11.2, an analysis over the contents of news coverage about migration shows clearly that “elderly,” “ageing,” “older,” “senior,” “parents,” “family,” “heartache,” “struggle” and “difficult” are among the most frequently used words. The decision to leave is often reported by Hongkongers who have recently left Hong Kong as a difficult one: But making the difficult decision to leave has resulted in arguments and heartache in some families.

Fig. 11.1 Word Cloud (“Left behind: Hong Kong’s elderly face old age with less family support as children with BN(O) visas opt for new lives abroad,” SCMP, July 10, 2021)

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Fig. 11.2 Word Cloud (“Elderly left behind in Hong Kong as families emigrate get help from charities,” SCMP, August 29, 2021)

… Fong, a retired banker who declined to be identified fully, said it was a difficult decision and he would have preferred if the whole family could move. (“National security law: stay or leave? Quarrels, heartache as Hong Kong families torn over taking up London’s BN(O) ticket,” SCMP, July 10, 2021)

Disputes between those who plan to leave and their elderly parents arise from time to time, and disagreement is sometimes escalated to an accusation of “betrayal:” “She was so angry and shouted at me. I really did not expect it,” said Cheung, 52 ... “She disagreed, and made some hurtful comments,” said Cheung, who works in customer service. Investment banker Sam Lau, 26, was hurt when his uncle told him he was “betraying his home” by wanting to leave Hong Kong. (“National security law: stay or leave? Quarrels, heartache as Hong Kong families torn over taking up London’s BN(O) ticket”, SCMP, July 10, 2021)

Some are more “fortunate”, with their decisions being received more “easily” and “peacefully.” However, tears shed at the departure gates while emigrants waving goodbye to their parents is a very common scene. These signature scenes in the recent migration wave were vividly chronicled in the local news articles: Some older men and women could be seen sobbing quietly, as their children and grandchildren bade a final goodbye before disappearing behind the barriers. (“Left behind: Hong Kong’s elderly face old age with less family support as children with BN(O) visas opt for new lives abroad,” SCMP, July 10, 2022) Recalling how his 93-year-old father broke down at the airport, Chan said: “He cried and his last words to me were to take care of myself, and goodbye. My father is quite old, so if I cannot go back to Hong Kong I might never see him again.” (“National security law: tears, fears, but a new life? Hong Kong early birds who have taken BN(O) path to Britain,” SCMP, January 26, 2022) The eldest of three, Wong says she always thought it (was) her responsibility to take care of her ageing parents, and it was a struggle deciding to leave Hong Kong. (“The long goodbye that leaves elderly in despair,” SCMP, July 10, 2021)

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Owing to the emphasis of collectivism in Confucianism, family has an important value in Chinese culture. Taking care of the parents when they are old as a return of parental love and care is considered as not only a virtue but a socially expected filial duty in Hong Kong culture. Emigrants feel guilty and face pressure of social disapproval when they fail to fulfill such duty and social expectation. The sense of guilt is caused by the acts of “leaving their parents behind.” This feeling of guilt plays a major part in the grief and sadness of the current migration wave in Hong Kong. Such guilt in grief is contextually constructed by the strong sense of family value and the heavily rooted traditional Chinese culture in local culture. Split families are another common phenomenon in the recent Hong Kong migration wave. Due to the negotiation between redeeming and closing their possession losses in the emigration process, quite a few families decided to face separation: one of the parents may stay in Hong Kong for securing income while the other parent may leave Hong Kong with the children for better education and future. Such separation creates “singled parents” and additional stress on parenting in the migration process. Even though the decision to leave Hong Kong was made for the sake of their children’s future development, many parent emigrants are not fully confident about their decision-making and have guilt to raise their children under a split family condition. The guilt experiences of these parents can be revealed in the following example of a 50-year-old mother who grew up in Vancouver as a splitting family. She returned to Hong Kong in the 1990s and left with her 10-year-old son recently for Vancouver while her husband continues to work in Hong Kong: It was not an easy decision. She struggled for months, remembering how much she missed her father growing up, and how the separation tested her parents’ relationship. But she and her husband decided splitting the family now was best to give their son time to adjust to life in Canada before starting secondary school. “I don’t know how it’s going to turn out and can only hope it’ll be OK. But I know my son is missing his dad.” (“Hong Kong’s children of ‘split families’ on the move: they emigrated, returned to work, now they’re leaving again,” SCMP, September 18, 2021)

Guilt can also be associated with one’s separation from the homeland. Emigrants who are successfully relocated to a new country may suffer from “survivor’s guilt”. These emigrants usually have a strong bond with their homeland. The physical separation from home and the feeling of abandoning one’s home jointly generate the sense of guilt. The example of Finn Lau below articulates such “survivor’s guilt:” London-based Finn Lau, who in April quit his full-time job as a surveyor to dedicate himself to advocacy, said what he struggled with most was a strong sense of “survivor’s guilt.” “The guilt of feeling lucky to have fled is heavy,” Lau said. “The only way to relieve it is to keep the faith and do more when Hongkongers are deprived of their basic rights of assembly under the security law.” (“Goodbye, Hong Kong: protesters seeking asylum abroad from national security law vow to fight on, but feel ‘survivor’s guilt’,” SCMP, June 22, 2021).

Leaving with guilt increases psychological burdens and migratory loss for emigrants and their families. Such migratory loss and its associated grief can cause depression and other psychological consequences to emigrants. The following news discourse mirrored the distress of migratory grief could cause death:

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An inquest into the death of Fion Ho Yee-king, who moved to London in April 2022, revealed last week the humanitarian worker suffered from insomnia, anxiety and depression… she had worried about her income and complained about a lack of hygiene in her shared flat just months before her suicide in November. (“Turn to fellow migrants for emotional support, psychologists urge Hongkongers overseas after recent arrival commits suicide in UK,” SCMP, January 29, 2023)

The feeling of guilt as a consequence of migration is constituted of complex expectations which are imposed by cultural norms and personal sense of moral obligation. The loss of separating from family and frustration of failing to fulfill expected responsibility increase the baggage of migratory grief in this current wave. If one cannot resolve that feeling of guilt, such migratory grief can evolve into self-criticisms and regrets, and even lead to depression as time goes by.

11.6.3 Despair and Fear People migrate for various reasons, such as avoiding wars and disasters, or looking for better education, career prospects and a living environment, or reunion with families in peacetime. The current migration wave in Hong Kong is worth our attention because during times without wars or any immediate life-threatening disasters, people usually relate their migration decision to fear, worries and hopelessness. Some have described their leaving as “fleeing”, “unwilling to leave” and many have left the city in a hurry without thoughtful planning and arrangement. Grief is about the past. Fear and despair are about the future intertwined in the current migration experience. The current situation in Hong Kong is often compared with the situation induced by the return of Hong Kong to China back in 1997. Paul Yip (SCMP, July 10, 2021), Chair Professor of Population Health at the University of Hong Kong, points out that the reasons driving people out of the city in these two migration waves are different. The 1997 migration wave was triggered by a desire for change through emigration. During the 1997 migration wave, many emigrants were worried about the uncertainty induced by the change of sovereignty. They decided to avoid such momentous political change by resettling their lives in different geographical landscapes even though they were not sure whether the consequences of such political change were opportunities or dangers to them. In contrast, the current migration wave was triggered by a realistic ongoing change experience. Since the social instability of 2019, many emigrants became distressed about their situated circumstances and felt pessimistic about their future development in Hong Kong because they felt powerless about their future in their homeland, they were eager to search for hope in a new place; therefore, they left to search for new possibilities even though the outcome is still uncertain. Their intention to transform the living circumstances they experience in the homeland is strong. The sense of pessimism and the strong desire for change are obviously revealed in the following news article, which includes interviews of eight Hong Kong people;

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some of whom have already left or are planning to leave the city, while the rest have given up the plan after having a serious reconsideration: Most of the dozen people who spoke to the Post said they wanted out because they no longer trusted the Hong Kong government. But making the difficult decision to leave has resulted in arguments and heartache in some families. Some said that in the end, they chose to stay because they could not bear to leave their elderly parents behind, or realised they could not afford to move... Fong, a retired banker who declined to be identified fully, said …. “But in the medium to long term, I can only see things deteriorating.” “The way China wants children to learn is different from the way we learned in school many years ago,” the 33-year-old IT worker said. (“National security law: stay or leave? Quarrels, heartache as Hong Kong families torn over taking up London’s BN(O) ticket,” SCMP, July 10, 2021)

As shown from the excerpts above, negative comments are quite common when people were asked to explain why they decided to leave. While some explicitly expressed their hopelessness toward their perceived future in Hong Kong in general; others at least hinted their distrust of the protection of liberty and provision of quality education, which were previously considered advantages of living in Hong Kong. Grief involves loss; the object of loss could be something tangible or intangible, or even someone who is intimately related. The feeling of “loss” experienced by Hong Kong emigrants is complicated by the history of Hong Kong as a colony and the recent political unrest and is two-fold. On the one hand, witnessing the escalating social unrest in 2019 with increasing social frustration and growing tension, some Hongkongers have lost hope regarding the future of their hometown and have felt despair about the restoration of social harmony, political landscape, and the education system. Under this atmosphere, emigrants abandoned their home, family, career and social network reluctantly, leading to the second layer of loss. While the feeling of despair and the sense of fear under the new social-political environment have resulted in Hongkongers “fleeing” the city, some admitted that they did not actually consider the threat imminent, while others reported that they were not political and did not participate in any political protests. Accordingly, looking for a “better future” in a foreign land may not be the primary emigration goal of these people as such “better future” does not come with guarntees. The second layer of loss, such as separation from families and friends, uprooting from the homeland, sacrificing current jobs and careers, etc., is more concrete, observable, quantifiable, and intensely experienced. This further injects a sense of remorse into the complex emotion of migratory grief. Resettlement to a new place is a bittersweet journey for many of these emigrants. This emigration journey offers a start-over opportunity for them to redeem and close the loss they are suffering in their homeland even though relieving migratory grief takes time.

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11.7 The Social Values of News: A Connection Between Individual Emigration Stories and a Community Farewell News reports are of special importance, adding unique, informative and authortative value to society (Van Dijk 1988a, b). They offer additional perspectives for readers to perceive different events that happen within and beyond society. However, a journalist’s angle of coverage determines the selection of relevant facts, their significance and priority. Indeed, the specific purpose and agenda of journalists affect how the selected facts and information are to be interpreted and presented. In other words, journalism is a special kind of storytelling in which journalists narrate the news stories from a particular perspective, aiming not only to report verified facts, but also perform specific social functions. In the current highly mobilized world, people emigrate and immigrate all the time for various reasons which could be personal, social, political and environmental. The stories of individual migrants can be very personal in nature. While moat individual migration stories receive limited attention, discussions do arise, and emotions stir up to a societal level when this happens on a massive scale. In a time like this, as the current situation in Hong Kong, news media play an important social and communicative role. Through reporting and narrating individual migration stories that happen in the city, the news media provide additional information leading people to consider the social aspect of migration. News reports on migration serve the function of uniting our society and relieving the community sadness of loss and separation. Many news articles about migration start with anecdotes of emigrants. Moreover, analysis shows that dialogues extracted from emigrants’ interviews with the posts and description of their stories occupy a large proportion of the text. For example, the percentages of personal stories in four news articles covering migration (published in South China Morning Post in 2021) range from around 40–88%. Table 11.1 shows the number of words attributed to anecdotes and quotes from interviews versus that to “hard” evidence and experts’ quotes: Allocating a large proportion of the text to anecdotes and direct quotes of the interviewees brings out the human side of the issue. The migration wave is not only an issue of the movement of people from one place to another, i.e., a change in population, but also a collective and shared experience of a community. Migration is a personal choice as well as a collective experience shared by the people in the city, including those who left and stayed. Such migration phenomenon can be reported in a mix of hard and soft news stories depending on the approach journalists employ. Hard-news stories usually focus on factual information and evidence such as numbers and statistics, immigration and emigration policies, statements by officials and experts; while soft-news stories put emphasis on people’s feelings and experiences. Soft-news stories aim to reflect how journalists see the phenomenon themselves and, most importantly, what they expect their readers to see and how they expect the readers to connect the report to themselves. Allocating a large proportion of the text to anecdotes and quotes of interviewees brings out the human side of the phenomenon. The organization of these news articles suggests that, more than

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Table 11.1 Number of words attributed in selected news articles Title of article

Total Number of words number attributed to of words anecdotes and quotes by emigrants

Number of words attributed to “hard” evidence and experts’ quotes

National security law: stay or leave? Quarrels, heartache as Hong Kong families torn over taking up London’s BN(O) ticket

1826

1612

214

National security law: tears, fears, but a new life? Hong Kong early birds who have taken BN(O) path to Britain

2135

1769

366

National security law: boost for Britain, blow 2145 to Hong Kong? How the BN(O) ticket may affect fortunes of both sides

851

1294

Left behind: Hong Kong’s elderly face old 1999 age with less family support as children with BN(O) visas opt for new lives abroad

1208

791

a change in population, the migration wave is a phenomenon that brings emotional impacts to people as well as the community as a whole. When a story is reported in news articles, its nature as an individual narrative transcends and becomes representative. The story and agony of the Chans reported in the news article is not only about the Chans but is perceived as one of the many emigrant families in Hong Kong. Through telling the stories of emigrants, their families, and those who stayed, journalists provide an opportunity for readers to “leash out” their emotions by relating their experiences and feelings to the stories reported. The message behind is that migration grief is not an individual suffering, but a shared sadness which is also endured by others in the city. In a sense, the news coverage of individual stories serves a healing function to the society by uniting people with common sadness in the time of migration. Besides uniting and healing society, the discussion of these migration stories allows readers to reflect on their own representation and provides a platform of transition from the grief in the (recent) past to their ongoing lives in the present. The organization of narration in these stories, the report of the scenes at the departure gates and the testimonials of those who left and those who stayed share remarkable resemblance to the news coverage of distress in that the stories often end with a positive, optimistic and “forward looking” note. As observed by Kitch and Hume (2008), negative news reporting usually highlights goodness and pays tribute to positive values. For example, the focus of emigration news is usually placed on the manifestation of collective integrity and values, providing a sense of continuity and hope: “In the UK, if you work hard, you will get somewhere,” he said. (“National security law: boost for Britain, blow to Hong Kong? How the BN(O) ticket may affect fortunes of both sides,” SCMP, January 28, 2021)

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“In Cantonese we say ‘Ngai Gei’,” he said. “It means risk and opportunity. If you look at it one way, taking a risk is also an opportunity. The other way it means an opportunity is also a risk. That is Chinese wisdom.” (“National security law: stay or leave? Quarrels, heartache as Hong Kong families torn over taking up London’s BN(O) ticket,” SCMP, July 10, 2021) “I hope I can make a contribution here, but I also feel really sad that I could not stay with my parents, my friends, my colleagues and my patients to help them work together in Hong Kong.” (“New arrivals in Britain take rough with smooth,” SCMP, August 7, 2021)

These examples confirm the role of journalism in identification and affirmation of the beliefs and values of societies. When reporting the trend of migration and telling the stories of emigrants, profound values and beliefs of Hongkongers, such as the pursuit of freedom, liberty, democracy, among stable and comfortable life and good education, are discussed. Through the news discourse, these profound values used to discuss migration and its associated grief lay in the stories being covered and beyond. Migration is a continuum process, which is transnational and transgenerational. These reported emigration stories can be extended to the future waiting to be retold and evolved as time passes. The news coverage of the current migration wave, thus, plays a role in the socialization process of constructing the ongoing identity of “Hongkongness” for the society. The feeling of despair, the experience of separation and the sense of uprootedness to relocation and resettlement are common events encountered by the emigrants in the process of migration. Grief can be a common reaction and an inevitable consequence of migration. Emigratory grief in Hong Kong in recent years can be defined as a matrix of feelings of loss, guilt, and distress. Although a single emigration story may merely represent an individual’s experience, a collection of narrated emigration news reports can provide positive values to society. The function of emigration news prepares readers to accept the loss and recognize such grief. By reading these emigration news stories, it connects known and unknown people across the city offering them an opportunity for a community farewell. Following the narrated farewell message of a well-known emigrant, Fernando Cheung has made this remark: …We are still close to each other, no matter in any corner of the world, and we will never forget why we started. (“Former Hong Kong opposition lawmaker and social welfare veteran Fernando Cheung migrates to Canada, saying ‘basic freedoms’ protected there,” SCMP, May 4, 2022)

The emigration news seems to be reporting negative anecdotes. However, uniting individual feelings of grief and loss may cultivate a sense of release within the community. Through the medium of news media, such feelings of loss and grief are not a personal anecdote, indeed, it is a social grief shared by the community as a whole. This negative news certainly has its positive contribution to the city as it affirms the values of being a Hongkonger with pride and pays tribute to the legends of Hong Kong. Rather than experiencing migratory grief as a personal process, the focus of a community farewell reported in the news solidifies the connections among and between the leavers and the stayers.

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11.8 Conclusion Migratory grief can be seen as a collective and shared experience which has positive merits and impact. Through analysing the local news discourse on the recent emigration wave in Hong Kong between January 2021 and January 2023, this chapter argues that migratory grief is a complex emotion; a holistic understanding of migratory grief requires contextualised information. The meaning of migratory grief in contemporary Hong Kong is socially constructed by a complicated feeling of guilt, despair and fear as well as the frustration of identity transition. Due to the discrepancy of expectation, norms and belief between the homeland and the adopted home, the migratory grief Hongkongers face is intertwined with the loss of original selfidentity, the shame of not fulfilling expected family and social responsibilities, and the worry of managing uncertainties. This chapter also highlights the social value of these news stories and the positive contribution of the news to the society on relieving such grief. On one hand, through reporting individual stories of loss, individual grief is transformed into a collective one. This binds the members of a community to shared experiences and beliefs. Individual lives are (re-)integrated and an identification with the group is built. On the other hand, reporting on collective loss during the current emigration wave in which Hongkongers are separating helps the community to “materialize” and “realize” their object of loss. The soft-news coverage of reported emigration stories not only documents this important moment of the city, but also provides a valuable channel for the society to release its sadness. News stories contribute to the psychological and social needs of the community. This acknowledgement is crucial for the grievers to make sense of their emotion and functions as part of the grieving ritual. Indeed, the migratory grief analysed in this chapter reflects a vital and undeniable fact that Hong Kong is enormously important to both leavers and stayers; moving out of Hong Kong can face a certain extent of irrevocable loss to the community. Migration can invoke prominent changes to the development and culture of both places (the homeland and the adopted home). One possible social value of the reported news may be the shifting of the focus from individual grief to a community farewell highlighting the opportunity of seeing emigration as a leading process to forward reunion movement and, eventually, a better reunion in future. Geographical separation from the homeland cannot completely separate one’s spiritual and cultural connections. Grief involved in the recent Hong Kong emigration wave may further transform the sense of Hongkongness locally and internationally.

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Westbrook, L., Ngai, M., & Tsang, E. (2021, July 10). The long goodbye that leaves elderly in despair. South China Morning Post. https://scmp_epaper.pressreader.com/search?query= the%20long%20goodbye%20that%20leaves%20elderly%20in%20despair&in=ALL&date= Range&startDate=2021-07-10&stopDate=2021-07-10&hideSimilar=0 Westerman, W. (2005) Between Identities. In R. Benmayor, & A. Skotnes, A. (Eds.), Migration and identity: Memory and Narrative Series (pp. 183–200). London: Transaction Publishers. Wilton, L., & Constantine, M. (2003). Length of resistance, cultural adjustment difficulties, and psychological distress symptoms in Asian and Latin American international students. Journal of College Counseling, 6, 177-186. Wong, S. (1992). Emigration and Stability in Hong Kong. Asian Survey, 32(10), 918–933. https:// doi.org/10.2307/2645049 Wong, N. (2021, June 22). Goodbye, Hong Kong: protesters seeking asylum abroad from national security law vow to fight on, but feel ‘survivor’s guilt’ South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3138186/goo dbye-hong-kong-protesters-seeking-asylum-abroad-national Worden, J.W. (2015). Theoretical perspectives on loss and grief. Death, dying, and bereavement: Contemporary perspectives, institutions, and practices, 91–103. Yaglom, M. (1993). Role of psychocultural factors in the adjustment of Soviet Jewish refugees: Applying Kleinian theory of mourning. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 23(2), 135– 145. Zomeren, M.V., Kutlaca, M. & Turner-Zwinkels (2018) Integrating who “we” are with what “we” (will not) stand for: A further extension of the Social Identity Model of Collective Action. European Review of Social Psychology, 29(1), 122–160.

Lok, Beatrice C.Y. is an Assistant Professor of the Ip Ying To Lee Yu Yee School of Humanities and Languages at Caritas Institute of Higher Education (CIHE). She is interested in the areas of sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and second language identities. Chow, Daisy P.L. is a Lecturer of Division of Arts and Languages at College of International Education, Hong Kong Baptist University. She obtained her PhD in Linguistics at the University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on the syntax-semantic interface of Cantonese, and linguistics in education. She is particularly interested in the expressiveness of Cantonese and meaning shift, with a special focus on grammaticalization of co-verbs and coinage of slangs.

Chapter 12

Melancholy in Narratives of Early Career English Teachers in Hong Kong Jesse W. C. Yip

Abstract A wealth of studies has shed light on how the identity and emotions of English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers are formed and interinfluenced. However, very few studies focus on a specific emotion of ESL teachers that adversely affects teacher professionalism. Drawing upon the notion of melancholy (Brady and Haapala 2003), this chapter conducts narrative inquiry and thematic analysis to investigate how melancholy is experienced by early career English teachers in their narratives. The research is conducted through a longitudinal qualitative multiplecase study of three ESL teachers working in secondary schools for seven years in Hong Kong. Specifically, the chapter elucidates how socio-cultural factors, such as self and personality, school culture, peer relationships, and student performance, contribute to the melancholy experienced by ESL teachers. The findings of this study serve to conceptualize the melancholic sense of ESL teachers regardless of institutional changes and provide implications for enhancing the well-being and career sustainability of ESL teachers in Hong Kong. Keywords English teachers · Hong Kong · Melancholy · Narrative inquiry · Teacher emotion

12.1 Introduction Extensive research has been conducted to examine the role of teacher emotion in professional identity development and teaching (Zembylas 2002). Teacher emotion is an indispensable component in the construction of teacher identity that affects the teaching performance (Teng 2017). Emotion can affect the quality of teaching, teacher well-being and teacher-student relationship, as teachers’ self-perception are subjective, vulnerable, dynamic and fluid (Kanno and Stuart 2011). Teacher identity and emotions emerge simultaneously during professional teacher development J. W. C. Yip (B) The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024 C. S. Garfield Lau and K. K. Y. Chan (eds.), The Poetics of Grief and Melancholy in East-West Conflicts and Reconciliations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-9821-0_12

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(Menard-Warwick 2011; Vetter et al. 2016). Thus, teacher emotions and teacher identity construction are highly related. A wealth of studies has shed light on English as a second language (ESL) teacher identity and emotions in relation to policy or institutional changes, such as educational reform and language curriculum reform (e.g., Jiang and Zhang 2021; Teng and Yip 2019; Yip et al. 2022). However, very little research focuses on how a specific emotion of ESL teachers affects teacher professionalism, mental health and sustainability. Non-institutional factors, such as peer relationship, teacher-student relationship and personal development, which arouse teacher emotion, are often overlooked. Melancholy is a complex emotion that has been the subject of research in various fields, including psychology, philosophy, literature, and art. Understanding melancholy is important due to its intimate relationship with mental illness. For example, melancholy can be associated with depression. Melancholic depression is a form of depression characterised by persistent feelings of sadness, loss of interest in activities, and physical symptoms such as sleep disturbances and loss of appetite (American Psychiatric Association 2013). Researching melancholy enhances the understanding of its manifestations and implications for mental health. Drawing upon the notion of melancholy which involves not only sadness and distress but also happiness and pleasure through self-reflection (Brady and Haapala 2003), this chapter presents a narrative analysis that investigates both positive and negative emotions and their causes in narratives of three early-career ESL teachers. Specifically, this is a longitudinal qualitative multiple-case study of three early-career ESL teachers working in secondary schools for seven years in Hong Kong. This chapter portrays and conceptualizes the melancholy of novice ESL teachers in Hong Kong and concludes with practical implications for enhancing teachers’ well-being and their career sustainability.

12.2 Teacher Emotion: The Case of ESL Teachers The holistic education advocate, John P. Miller, proposed in 1996 that teaching was composed of three constituent views: teaching as transmission, teaching as transaction, and teaching as transformation (Miller 2019). These views form the basis of the operational definition of teaching (Johnson 2015). Traditionally, teaching has been perceived as a cognitive activity and research has focused primarily on teachers’ beliefs and mindsets, teaching skills and strategies, and their pedagogical and content knowledge (Gallimore et al. 1986; Guerriero 2014; Savasci and Berlin 2012). These components undeniably influence teaching quality and effectiveness significantly and are therefore worth investigating. However, teacher emotion, which is directly related to teachers’ well-being, professional attitudes, teaching performance and teacher-student relationship, has often been neglected. Despite the fact that emotion is a key topic in the field of psychology, it is never well-demarcated, and people are often confused about the definition of emotion (Pérez-Almonacid 2019).

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In recent years, there has been growing research interest in investigating the importance of teachers’ emotions on student performance (Becker et al. 2014). In particular, uncovering the intricate dynamics between teacher emotion and teacher identity within the context of curriculum reform has provided valuable insights. Based on a cognitive social-psychological theoretical framework, van Veen et al. (2005) investigated the changes in teacher emotion and identity contingent on curriculum reform in the Dutch secondary education system. Their study revealed that teachers displayed negative emotions, including anxiety, anger, guilt and shame, as a result of lengthened working hours, heavier student portfolios and insufficient support from school administrators (van Veen et al. 2005). This implies that teachers’ personal, moral, and social concerns are at risk under a curriculum reform. Hargreaves (2004) unravelled teachers’ emotional behaviours under various forms of educational reform in elementary and secondary schools in Canada. Mandated change is found to arouse negative emotions, including anger, hatred, upset, anxiety and frustration, particularly in large-scale reforms without any consultation or sufficient support. In contrast, self-initiated change resulted in predominantly positive emotional experiences such as enthusiasm and effusive behaviour (Hargreaves 2004). The studies highlight the influence of curriculum reform, which heavily affects teaching practice in terms of pedagogical strategies and course content. The effect of curriculum on ESL teaching can also be seen in Asia, particularly in China. Specifically, recent English curriculum reforms in China have been implemented via a top-down technical approach and marked an unprecedented transformation of the education system (Yip et al. 2022). The topic of teacher emotion has also attracted immense research interest in the Asian education setting. For example, employing the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (Kaplan and Garner 2017), Jiang and Zhang (2021) examined the interactions between systems of teacher learning and identity-making when the focus of the English curriculum shifted from a general teaching approach to a specific one. The results demonstrated that changes in the belief about teaching and learning modified teachers’ goals, self-definitions and their actions. External resources, such as cultures, economy and media, and internal resources, such as gender, values and dispositions, influence the roles of emotion, learning and identity change. Another study revealed that teachers experienced a complicated and continual emotional flux during the national curriculum reform of senior secondary education in China. Such an outburst of emotions was provoked by the implementation of new policies, including using new textbooks, employing new teaching methods, and implementing new requirements for public examinations (Lee and Yin 2011). More recently, Yip et al. (2022) used identity control theory to investigate and conceptualize the impact of curriculum reform in a private university in China on the interrelationship between teachers’ identities and their emotions. Generally speaking, the teachers initially displayed positive emotions like optimism and excitement when the identified standard and the perceived self were in congruence; however, once the reform diverted from the teacher’s anticipation and thus the identified standard deviated from the perceived self, negative emotions like disappointment and anxiety began to surface (Yip et al. 2022).

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Emotions are often personal, and teachers can demonstrate different emotions even in the same workplace. Lee et al. (2013) conducted a study to evaluate teachers’ identities and emotional perceptions in the context of curriculum reform at three primary schools in Shenzhen (Lee et al. 2013). Mixed results were observed as some teachers showed positive behaviours while others felt alienated. Teng and Yip (2019) incorporated the element of intercultural migration in exploring teachers’ motivation in the identification of teacher identity of cross-border teachers from mainland China to Hong Kong. The teachers cited “isolation from local colleagues, failure to integrate into the host community due to cultural and linguistic differences, standardised school instruction, heavy workloads, students’ distrust, and students’ low English proficiency” led to the development of negative emotions, including discomfort, anger, loneliness and stress in the teaching experience (Teng and Yip 2019: 71). The alleviation was not identical for all the teachers. Some of them proactively take remedial actions to relieve stress but others opt to stay put and tolerate the situation. Huang and Yip (2021) conducted a longitudinal qualitative study and revealed how three ESL teachers have operated their teacher agency to manoeuvre their teaching and professional development. The three ESL teachers report distinct career paths owing to different career settings that impact their emotions, choice of teaching agency, and essentially, their length of teaching services. The study discovered that system-wide structures can impede teachers’ competency in mastering their personal and professional development, resulting in teachers’ tension and self-doubt about their authority as a teacher (Huang and Yip 2021). The reviewed studies scrutinised the close relationship between identity and emotion in contextual changes, including changes in the workplace and curriculum reform. However, in-depth personal feelings caused by non-institutional factors, such as interpersonal relationships and personality, have been underexplored. Moreover, while an increasing number of studies have explored the emotions of teachers from China, those of Hong Kong teachers have been overlooked. Given that emotion is believed to exert a considerable influence on teachers’ development and sustainability, exploring a specific emotion experienced by ESL teachers throughout their career is a worthwhile endeavour. Melancholy is regarded as one of the crucial emotions among novice ESL teachers, which potentially not only influences their decision-making process of their career move—whether or not they should stay in the education sector, but also affects their mental health.

12.3 Defining Melancholy The word melancholy originates from the Greek phrase “melaina kole” and carries the meaning of “black hole.” It has been broadly applied in various disciplines including arts and the medical field. The clinical definition dates back to at the time of Aristotle, when melancholy referred to a specific physiological state arising from interactions of the body’s four humours (Sullivan 2008). Later, artists, psychologists and writers attempted to shift the definition from a purely physiological state to a psychological one. The Renaissance is considered the “Golden Age of melancholy” by cultural

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historians and literary scholars (Carrera 2010). The word “melancholy” can be found twice in Hamlet, where the protagonist is regarded as the iconic representative of melancholy in the Shakespearean canon. In 1621, five years after Shakespeare’s death, the Renaissance Oxford scholar Robert Burton published the masterpiece The Anatomy of Melancholy. The book provides a comprehensive compendium of melancholy and defines melancholy as “a kind of dotage without a fever, having for his ordinary companions fear, and sadness, without any apparent occasion” (Burton 2001: 169–170). These poetic studies of melancholy provide an incredible foundation for socio-psychological research related to sadness and depression. For instance, melancholic depression is a DSM-V subtype of clinical depression characterised by anhedonia (severe loss of pleasure) and lack of mood reactivity (American Psychiatric Association 2013). Instead of defining melancholy as intimately bonded with distressing emotions, this chapter adopts another angle that is more comprehensive in defining and analysing melancholy. In the discussion of melancholy’s role in art and aesthetic connection with nature, Brady and Haapala (2003) unmasked and broadened the distinctive features of melancholy that set it aside from the narrow meanings of being a mental disorder and distinguished it from other similar emotional terms like sadness or depression. Specifically, melancholy no longer carries an emotional state of resignation like depression. Instead, it involves the distinctive element of selfreflection that makes it more positive and productive, and the associated behaviour more pensive. As a result, melancholy is elevated to a complex form of emotion that combines the polarity of both pleasant and unpleasant sides of feelings, different nature of states including affective, cognitive and perceptual, and the possession of both positive and negative qualities (Brady and Haapala 2003; Sagdahl 2021). Specifically, the unenjoyable ones “lie in feelings of loneliness, emptiness, sadness from loss, and the fear or dread that sometimes accompany that longing,” whereas the enjoyable “comes primarily through reflection, when we dwell on happy memories or fashion elaborate fantasies” (Brady and Haapala 2003). In other words, melancholy covers sadness in distressing experiences and happiness through reflecting on joyful experiences. This definition of melancholy enables researchers to connect and understand the multiple emotions an individual experiences in life, as well as the factors that contribute to the emotional experience. Thus, researching the melancholy of a teacher provides invaluable insights into how socio-contextual factors, such as self and personality, peer relationship, and student performance, affect teachers’ wellbeing and professional practice. The knowledge of teachers’ melancholy contributes substantially to the understanding of pedagogical practices, student–teacher relationships, issues of curriculum reforms, as well as power and social structures of schooling and society (Zembylas and Schutz 2009). This chapter reports a longitudinal qualitative study that sheds light on the melancholy that three early career ESL teachers experienced in Hong Kong. The findings also contribute to the understanding of the concept of melancholy among teaching professionals.

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12.4 Methodology The present study is qualitative and interpretative in the sense that the participants, researchers and other observers can provide interpretations from multiple perspectives. A qualitative design in research allows individuals to “construct reality in interaction with their social worlds” (Merriam 2009: 22). It also enables researchers to “develop an in-depth exploration of a central phenomenon” (Creswell 2012: 206). The study combines the approach of longitudinal multiple-case study design with the interpretative qualitative framework to explore the sense of melancholy that ESL teachers experienced in a career period of seven years.

12.4.1 The Participants The participants’ names and affiliated schools were anonymised to protect their privacy. The participants of the project were three full-time ESL teachers from different secondary schools in Hong Kong known as Chelsea, Janet and Sharon. These participating female teachers were purposefully selected according to their occupation, work experience and educational background. They submitted their signed consent forms for participating in this study and were willing to share their life and teaching experiences with the researcher. The following are the introductions to the three participants. Apart from her friendly and approachable demeanour, Chelsea has exhibited a serious attitude towards her studies since early years. During her upper primary education, she was selected for an elite class where her English teacher played a significant role in shaping her academic development. The teacher’s emphasis on acquiring knowledge and fostering learning through inventive and engaging pedagogies had a profound impact on Chelsea’s approach to education. Sharon is a jovial young woman who has cultivated a genuine and affable personality that has allowed her to connect with numerous individuals who share her interests at the university. Although she never intended to pursue a career in teaching, she recognised her English Language and Education double degree as an opportunity to engage with students on a regular basis, particularly during her teaching practicum experiences. Janet is of a cheerful disposition. She attended a primary school where English instruction was primarily teacher-centred, and received her secondary education at a prestigious girls’ school where teachers taught in a relaxed and less structured atmosphere for language acquisition. After encountering several inspiring teachers, Janet opted to enrol in an English education program at the university. Her interest in pursuing a teaching career has grown since primary school.

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12.4.2 Narrative Inquiry With the goal of exploring the state of melancholy of the ESL teachers, narrative inquiry is highly applicable to the study, as it enables researchers to understand and examine others’ life experiences from the perspective of seeing experience as the phenomenon under study (Connelly and Clandinin 2006). As Holland et al. (1998) point out, “through narratives, people tell others who they are, but even more importantly, they tell themselves and they try to act as though they are who they say they are” (Holland et al. 1998: 3). Self-reflection is an important component in experiencing melancholy, as it enables the emotion experiencers to feel the positive side of melancholy (Brady and Haapala 2003). Through conducting in-depth interviews, the study investigates the way melancholy was experienced by the ESL teachers in Hong Kong. The interviews were divided into two phases: the first phase was conducted from 2013/14 to 2014/15; and the second phase from 2018/19 to 2019/20. The interviews aimed at eliciting the teacher participants’ narratives related to their teaching, other duties in schools, social relationship, personal development and life experiences. Twenty sessions of interviews which lasted for at least 1 hour each were conducted and audio-recorded. Cantonese, the native language of all the participants and the interviewer, was the communication medium in the interviews. The recorded interview conversations were then transcribed into texts and translated into English. Apart from interviews, the research team also collected other data sources as supplementary data, including personal conversations between the participants, such as emails and WhatsApp exchanges, and school documents of their workplaces, such as Scheme of Work and school timetables. These supplementary data greatly enhance the understanding of each participant’s personal and professional experiences in their work.

12.4.3 Data Analysis With narratives collected from the participating ESL teachers, the interviewer began data analysis by reading the interview transcripts and the supplementary data to familiarise the transcript content and conduct thematic analysis (Merriam 2009). The data analysis and data interpretation consisted of two main steps. First, the interviewer coded the transcripts scrupulously with particular attention paid to issues related to the melancholy of these ESL teachers experienced in relation to their workplaces, family and personal development. Melancholy in this analysis was based on Brady and Haapala’s formulation as the embodiment of both positive and negative aspects of emotion (Brady and Haapala 2003). The coded items were discussed critically with joint efforts from the research team, including the author and his research assistant. Second, the identified themes and constructed narratives were then shared with the participating teachers for consent, addition of data, changes of interpretations

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and further clarifications. This process ensured the trustworthiness of the data analysis and elicited more information from the participants (Barkhuizen et al. 2014). The participants eventually agreed on the interpretations of their narratives with no significant amendment.

12.5 Findings 12.5.1 Colleagues: Support or Suppression The participants’ narratives show that their emotions were often triggered by their colleagues, with whom the participants could have supportive or conflictive relationships. Indeed, as early-career teachers, the participants might rely heavily on guidance and advice from their peers in the workplace. As Chelsea had her first teaching job at her alma mater, she was exposed to a warm and supportive working environment: Excerpt 1 I found it quite special in the first school I worked in because many of my colleagues were once my teachers. So, I felt like I have been their “child” throughout the three years of teaching there. (Chelsea, Interview 1, 2014)

Chelsea also obtained emotional support from her colleagues, who were willing to listen to her. They tried to understand the problems that she faced and worked out solutions with her: Excerpt 2 The relationships among teachers are very good. Whenever you need help from someone, you can always find somebody to support you. During my third year of teaching, I was once agitated by some students. Right after that, I approached one of the past teachers who was also teaching the same class as I did. That teacher was willing to talk to me, comfort me, and analyse the situation with me. (Chelsea, Interview 1, 2014)

Student issues, such as behavioural problems, poor academic performance and special educational needs (SEN), can challenge teachers’ teaching and bring emotional distress to teachers. Emotional support from colleagues who had richer experience in handling similar cases could help release pressure. Apart from emotional support, informational support is also crucial to an early-career teacher who is not familiar with the school culture and working conventions. Sharon often sought practical advice from her mentor and coordinators: Excerpt 3 My mentor is the junior panel coordinator. She is responsible for helping me with a lot of things and she gives me a lot of advice. We have different coordinators for each form so when I have any problems, I can also ask the coordinators. Here, class teachers work quite closely with each other to make sure that they are on the right track. For example, for my Form Three or Form One group, I could always approach other teachers and ask them questions if I don’t know what to do. (Sharon, Interview 1, 2014)

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Sharon treasured the advice of her colleagues and she once said: Excerpt 4 “I value their advice and my colleagues also value my advice. One more thing is that I am a totally new teacher, a green teacher, so they want to give a lot of advice on how to teach their students at this school” (Sharon, Interview 1, 2014).

While the suggestions given by Sharon’s colleagues were perceived as useful for her work, Janet had a rather different view regarding mentorship: Excerpt 5 There was actually a programme similar to a mentorship programme back then. The school assigned a mentor to me during my first year. However, I didn’t see that such a mentoring programme was very useful to me. It was actually the informal sharing from other teachers that helped me the most. (Janet, Interview 2, 2018)

Although Janet was provided with a mentorship programme that aimed to offer advice for her teaching and other school tasks, she did not find the mentor’s advice as helpful. Instead, she felt that informal conversations with colleagues were more useful. Apart from mentorship, intimacy among colleagues was also important in workplaces. A supportive relationship can help newcomers to integrate into a new workplace, whereas disconnection among colleagues can cause emotional distance. Janet experienced detachment from colleagues due to the management style of the superior in her second school. Excerpt 6 I finally realised that there were working environments where no sharing among colleagues was allowed. There were situations where I talked to some teachers and the panel head would come to me and asked why I talked to a particular teacher. Even if I wanted to talk to my neighbouring teacher, I need to send her messages; and if I wanted to have breakfast with some other teachers, we were always hiding from someone. I felt that such a working environment was very depressing. Sometimes when I couldn’t meet my panel head’s standards, there could be some classroom revisits or re-checking of the assignments, as punishment, etc. To me, that teaching experience was damaging. (Janet, Interview 2, 2019)

As shown in Excerpt 6, casual sharing among colleagues in the school environment appeared to be prohibited by the supervisors. Janet used to interact with her colleagues sneakily, as the panel head obstructed her from having exchanges with a particular colleague. This obstruction made Janet feel depressed. Moreover, the panel head might “punish” Janet by conducting classroom revisits and assignment checking when she failed to meet their standards of work.

12.5.2 Students: Companionship or Conflict In addition to the relationship between ESL teachers and their colleagues, students also influence teacher emotion crucially. A positive classroom atmosphere can

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increase the sense of satisfaction of a teacher, whereas a conflictive relationship with students can cause emotional distress. Despite increased pressure from students, Chelsea was happy to see the way students grew, as they became more enthusiastic about raising questions and doing extra writing practices: Excerpt 7 Here, the students ask as many questions as they can. They ask you if you can mark extra writing too. And that brings you a bit of pressure. However, it is a pleasure to see students’ growth (Chelsea, Interview 2, 2020).

Similarly, Sharon was willing to sacrifice personal time to chat with her students in her first school, a boys’ school. She successfully established a good relationship with the students who might not be keen on learning but were rather willing to share difficulties in terms of personal growth with her. These interactions were enjoyable for Sharon. Excerpt 8 Sometimes I enjoy the opportunity to understand students better and interact with them outside the classroom setting because I think the boys’ school here… and the boys here are not really that interested in learning; but beyond class time, they really love to share more about their own personal problems or growth problems with you and they are willing to build up a good relationship with teachers so I really enjoy those time, although I know that I have to sacrifice some of my personal time. (Sharon, Interview 1, 2013)

However, it is also common to see ESL teachers experience negative emotions, such as anger, frustration and powerlessness, due to their students’ actions. For instance, Janet was challenged by the hostility of students: Excerpt 9 I don’t know, like I am actually teaching 3 classes. One of the classes, they obviously think that their previous teacher is better because the teacher gave them more games in class and had more fun. So they made a few complaints to me, some of them, maybe some of them, I think there are many of them unfortunately. It’s okay. (Janet, Interview 1, 2014)

As a large number of students preferred more activities and fun in class which Janet rarely provided, they complained to her several times. Janet accepted the complaints, but she then encountered more challenges from the students. Excerpt 10 They like talking. They don’t fight with one another and they don’t have any big behavioural problems but they just keep talking and do not listen. When the exam comes, they would come over and ask questions which I have repeated thousands of times in the lessons. That would irritate me actually. I don’t like that. (Janet, Interview 2, 2014)

Janet felt irritated as a result of the behaviours of the students who did not pay attention in class and only asked questions before the examination. She experienced disappointment regarding the students’ learning attitudes. Moreover, the students’ behaviours influenced Janet’s personality during her two years of work in the school setting:

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Excerpt 11 If I have changed, I have changed from a more positive and optimistic person to a more negative, pessimistic person because of my students’ behaviours in class and because of what they said to me… because of the lack of job satisfaction. I don’t feel being appreciated. (Janet, Interview 2, 2014)

Attributing to students’ words and deeds, Janet felt her personality had changed from “a more positive and optimistic person to a more negative, pessimistic person” and she failed to obtain satisfaction from the job. The sharing of Janet revealed the effect of students on teacher emotion and self-perception. Sharon appeared to have an analogous experience that caused her anxiety. Excerpt 12 Well… actually I am still having a sense of frustration while facing the students as I cannot believe how weak they are. I have once shared my feelings with colleague, telling him that I was always worrying about whether I had made a comprehensive preparation for my class and whether I could prevent chaotic situations from arising in the classroom as I do understand the importance of maintaining discipline at school. My colleague agreed with my points too though he didn’t expect that I would have this kind of worry. (Sharon, Interview 2, 2020)

Working in a lower-achieving Chinese Medium of Instruction (CMI) school where students were relatively uninterested and weak in English, Sharon was anxious about whether her classroom management skills could prevent uncontrollable situations. She ideally hoped that her good preparation could enhance the students’ English learning. Compared with her colleague who had rich teaching experience, Sharon’s worries seemed unnecessary.

12.5.3 Work and Life: Balance or Busyness The desire and struggle for achieving work-life balance also contribute to a sense of the teachers’ melancholy. The heavy workload at schools deprives them of resting and personal time. Sharon experienced the overloading of administrative work, especially when having meetings in functional groups. She often stayed after school to assist her students with assignments (Sharon, Interview 2, 2014). Sharon gave us specific descriptions of how the work affected her life. Excerpt 13 I can only sleep more on weekends to regain my energy. So I spend less time with my parents, with my family and also with my friends. It’s a bit sad to me and frustrating because I don’t expect my life to be that busy in my first year of teaching. But in terms of work-life balance, sometimes I think I need to learn it. (Sharon, Interview 2, 2014)

Sharon was serious with her work and wanted to do her best. However, she felt difficult to achieve a good work-life balance, as her job deprived her of time to get along with her family and friends. When working in her first school, she used to

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struggle with preparing teaching materials and dealing with SEN students. Work-life imbalance caused negative emotions of the teachers: Excerpt 14 I question whether I am suitable for this job industry and sometimes I wonder if I should ever be a teacher. Should I just leave the school and leave the whole industry completely because this occupation consumes too much time in my life. I cannot feel relaxed even in holidays, as I will be worried about my teaching and incomplete administrative work. (Janet, Interview 2, 2019)

Janet was enthusiastic about being a teacher at the beginning of her career, as she could see the joy of this meaningful mission of educating the next generation (Interview 1, 2013). However, she faced heavy workload and setbacks in teaching, and became dubious about her competence and suitability in the education sector. She was unconfident in her duties and showed the fear of hindering others in the workplace. Conversely, Chelsea was more capable of getting rid of the stress and distress brought by the imbalanced life: Excerpt 15 What concerns me most is that work-life balance. Most of the time, I need to spend time on Saturday and Sunday to finish some work. But now my life is moving on to another stage. I want to start a family and spend more time with family. I am trying to find a point of balance. There must be something I need to let go of. (Chelsea, Interview 2, 2019)

Having worked as an ESL teacher in primary schools for almost six years, Chelsea realised that she must sacrifice something to strike a balance between work and life. Instead of focusing on school duties, she chose to spend more time with her family, especially on holidays, as she was reluctant to be stuck in the teaching work and wanted her life to move on to another stage of establishing a family. Similarly, Sharon was able to search for what she desired in life and maintained a work-life balance. Excerpt 16 I am not reconciled to dedicating my life to teaching. I must do what I want to do; otherwise, I will have depression. I am interested in psychology and counselling, so I pursued a master degree in psychology and now I am responsible for counselling work and offering help for the SEN students in the school. This really makes me happy in my work. (Sharon, Interview 1, 2019).

Instead of allocating time to other aspects of life, Sharon chose to make her work more interesting, so that she could obtain happiness from her work. She pursued a master’s degree in psychology and received counselling training, so that she is more capable of dealing with SEN students and counselling duties in the school. Her new endeavour in the school enhanced her job satisfaction.

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12.6 Melancholy of Early-Career ESL Teachers Employing the concept of melancholy proposed by Brady and Haapala (2003), this chapter reports a study that sheds light on the sense of melancholy of early-career ESL teachers in Hong Kong. As novice teachers, the ESL teacher participants attempted to strive for the best in their workplaces. As newcomers in an unfamiliar school setting, they needed support and guidance to integrate into the workplace. Colleagues with rich experience can be good companions whom the novice teachers might want to rely on. As a result, colleagues became particularly influential in provoking the emotions of these novice teachers. For instance, Chelsea and Sharon were happy to obtain adequate support from the senior colleagues who welcomed questions and were willing to talk with new colleagues (see Excerpts 1–3). With the support from these senior colleagues, Chelsea and Sharon felt that they had become the “students” of them. Working together, teachers value appreciation, acknowledgement, persona support and acceptance (Hargreaves 2001). In addition to colleagues, students’ attitudes, behaviours and academic performance can directly affect teacher emotion. A good teacher-student relationship facilitates a joyful and supportive learning and teaching environment, and vice versa. For example, Chelsea and Sharon enjoyed listening to students’ narratives about their personal development and difficulties regardless of the consumption of time (see Excerpts 7–8). However, the hostility of students towards a teacher could lead to irritation, frustration and job dissatisfaction (see Excerpts 9–12). Among the three teacher participants, Janet’s narratives exhibited a higher level of the melancholic emotion in an explicit way. More specifically, Janet experienced frustration, disrespect and depression because of the way her colleagues imposed pressure upon her. She was constrained from having informal conversations or gatherings with peers (see Excerpts 5–6). Other than the absence of emotional support, her physical burdens could also be seen from the “punishments” that she received if she failed to meet the superior’s standards. Moreover, she failed to establish a harmonious relationship with her students and received several student complaints (see Excerpt 9). She was angry when the students kept repeating the same questions (see Excerpt 10). The situation is analogous to Teng and Yip’s study (2019) which revealed that teachers experienced anger, stress and discomfort when students who were weak in English distrusted the teachers (Teng and Yip 2019). The poor relationship with and uncontrollability of students changed Janet’s attitude from optimistic to pessimistic (see Excerpt 11). Recalling the experiences with the hostile students, she still felt a sense of frustration. She became mentally and spiritually vulnerable and doubted her teaching capability and suitability for the profession. Later, she resigned from her teaching position and worked as an education administrative officer in a non-governmental organisation. She prioritised her family commitment and finally decided to leave Hong Kong for her daughter’s future education. During the final interview, she shared this with us: Excerpt 17

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Somehow, I feel released and have no regrets about this decision. I am more like a mother who can take care of my daughter all the time and my family are like my shelter in which I am protected and supported. I am happy to contribute to my family. (Janet, Interview 2, 2020)

After six years of work as an ESL teacher, Janet eventually abandoned her career and became a full-time housewife. She felt happy with this decision, as she realised more about herself and what she desired in life. The melancholy she experienced in teaching at schools led her to move on to another phase of life and search for the happiness she deserved. This responds to what Burton (2001) points out that melancholy is a path to gaining wisdom and understanding other profound emotions, including joy and sorrow (Burton 2001). The ESL teachers also experience melancholy in the struggle for work-life balance. School teachers in Hong Kong need to handle tremendous tasks, including teaching, administrative work and organising activities. The excessive workload deprived the teachers’ time with their family and friends and time for pursuing things in which they were interested (see Excerpt 13). The heavy workload affected their suitability and competence in working in the education sector (see Excerpt 14). This is in line with van Veen et al. (2005) who suggested that Dutch teachers displayed negative emotions, such as anxiety, guilt and shame, due to longer working hours and a heavier workload (van Veen et al. 2005). Reflecting on the busyness and stress led by the teaching position, the teachers, like Chelsea and Sharon, ascertained how they could get rid of the distressing emotion and work pressure. Chelsea understood she must let go of something to release her pressure (see Excerpt 15), and Sharon realised the importance of pursuing what she loved to do (see Excerpt 16). What Chelsea and Sharon did were self-initiated changes in terms of attitude and behaviour. Self-initiated changes can result in positive emotions (Hargreaves 2004). The melancholy brought about by the desire for work-life balance comprised the sadness and self-distrust resulting from work overload and the pleasure of letting go of something in pursuit of self-interest. A model is developed from the study’s findings and the definition of melancholy to conceptualize the idea of melancholy in ESL teaching within the Hong Kong context (Fig. 12.1). The model suggests that the melancholy experienced by novice ESL teachers often arises from three factors: colleagues, students, and workload. Regarding colleagues, the teacher participants felt joy and warmth when offered emotional and informational support (see Excerpts 1–3), but they experienced depression when excluded from informal interactions and support (see Excerpt 6). Concerning students, happiness and satisfaction were felt when students displayed eagerness to learn and improve their English (see Excerpts 7–8), while anger, disappointment, and frustration aroused when students with poor attitudes challenged and complained about their teachers (see Excerpts 9–12). Lastly, it is understandable that teachers seek a healthy work-life balance. When the workload encroached on personal and family time, causing stress and self-doubt, teachers began to question their capabilities in the education field (see Excerpts 13–15). However, the struggle to balance work and life seemed to push the teacher participants to reflect on their sources of happiness

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Colleagues

Joy Warmth Happiness Satisfaction

Melancholy Depression Anger Disappointment Frustration

Fig. 12.1 Model of novice ESL teachers’ melancholy

and find solutions to escape the unfavourable situation (see Excerpts 16–17). The model displays the characteristics of melancholy, which, as defined by Brady and Haapala (2003), consists of both negative and positive feelings.

12.7 Concluding Remarks This chapter investigates the emotions of three early-career ESL teachers in Hong Kong with particular attention to the sense of melancholy they experienced in their career and the causes of the melancholy. While prior studies focusing on teacher emotion tend to highlight the influence of institutional changes, such as educational and curriculum reforms (see Lee et al. 2013; Jiang and Zhang 2021; Yip et al. 2022), factors that are non-institutional changes have been overlooked. Based on the findings, this study suggests that teacher emotions should not be solely attributed to policy or institutional changes. Colleagues, students and workload play crucial roles in provoking the emotions of early-career ESL teachers. It is argued that melancholy can be a lens for studying teacher emotion and teacher education, as it takes account of both positive and negative emotions teachers experience, and enables researchers

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to obtain a comprehensive picture of how a particular factor is attributed to the emergence of the emotions which can significantly impact the way teachers instruct their students, their professional growth, as well as their long-term career sustainability. Although this qualitative study is small in scope and involves only three participants, it offers a unique longitudinal perspective on the in-depth experiences of novice English teachers working in Hong Kong secondary schools for seven years. The data proves to be rich in substance. Based on the findings, this study suggests a model that conceptualizes the melancholy of novice ESL teachers and the major factors leading to their melancholy in the context where institutional changes are not observed. The model not only facilitates the understanding of how melancholy emerges and is experienced by ESL teachers, but also offers a framework that enables school management and teacher educators to review, explain, and evaluate the reasons for teacher personal growth and turnover. Without a focus on the influence of institutional changes on teachers’ emotions, the model can be applied broadly to the examination of teachers’ melancholy. The study also offers implications for providing teachers with assistance in their work. It is suggested that mentorship and a supportive atmosphere can be beneficial to the integration of novice teachers into the new workplace. Teacher colleagues can provide informational support, such as advice and guidance, as well as emotional support, such as showing empathy and compliments, for the newly employed teachers to cope with difficulties in the workplace. Compared with instructing, actively listening to the novice teachers’ narratives about their distress is a more effective means of alleviating their feelings of anxiety and depression. Moreover, the school should conduct reasonable workload management to avoid teachers’ overload of their work. The primary responsibility of teachers is to educate. Excessive and burdensome administrative tasks can detract from their time for teaching-related duties and result in an unfavourable work-life balance.

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Yip, Jesse W.C. is Research Assistant Professor of Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, The Education University of Hong Kong. His research interests include healthcare discourse studies, identity theory in professional contexts, corpus-assisted discourse analysis and computer-mediated communication. He has published articles in peer-reviewed journals, such as Journal of Pragmatics, Applied Linguistics Review, and Health Communication.