Introduction: Performing Zero
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Notes Introduction: Performing Zero 1. The Han (202 BC–AD 220) and the Tang (618–907) were dynasties. Their names became general terms for ethnic Chinese. In diaspora, for instance, Chinatown is often known as the “Street of Tang People” (Tangrenjie). “Han” is now the official name for China’s majority ethnicity, and Mandarin is known in Chinese as the “Han language” (Hanyu). 2. The term Zhongguo appears in both The Zuo Tradition (Zuozhuan, late fourth- century BC) and The Book of Documents (Shangshu, its earliest sections dating to the first half of the first millennium BC). 3. Daphne P. Lei, Operatic China: Staging Chinese Identity Across the Pacific (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 6–8. 4. Liang Qichao was an important scholar, philosopher, and reformer of the late Qing/early Republican era. 5. The writings of Stalin and terms translated from Japanese are cited as the most obvious foreign influences. See Allen Chun, “Fuck Chineseness: On the Ambiguities of Ethnicity as Culture as Identity.” Boundary 2, vol. 23, No. 2 (Summer 1996a), 111–38. 6. Historically, the term “Chinese problem” refers to the nineteenth-century racial discourse on Chinese immigrants in California. Closely linked to labor and economics, this racial discourse, along with the slogan “Chinese Must Go,” eventually resulted in the discriminatory “Chinese Exclusion Act” of 1882, the first law in US history targeting a specific nationality. The “Chinese problem” today, however, has to be discussed in the global context. 7. Their individual “national” histories and politics will be illustrated further in later chapters. 8. Daphne P. Lei (2006), 17. This idea is further explained with case studies in Chapter 2 and Chapter 4. 9. A new publication documents the 50 years (1959–2009) of Taiwan’s techni- cal aid to other countries. See Zheng Liyuan et al. Heaven and Earth Afoot: Taiwan Technicians’ Contributions without Borders (Tiandi xingjiao: Taiwan jishu renyuan wuguojie de gongxian) (Taipei: Taiwan ICDF, 2009). 10. One such famous symbol is the Dragon Gate in San Francisco’s Chinatown, a gift from the ROC government in 1969. The horizontal tablet bears an inscription in the calligraphy of Dr Sun Yat-sen: “All under Heaven Is Our Common Polity” (tianxia weigong). Using Dr Sun’s writing here is a simple way to establish the ROC’s orthodox claim over this Chinese diasporic nation, which was established during the Gold Rush era, long before the founding of either ROC or PRC. For more information on present-day San Francisco Chinatown, see Daphne P. Lei (2006), 173–205. For a sample study of the Taiwan government’s use of “Chinese dance” as a tool of diplomacy in the early years, see Szu-Ching Chang, “Dance Performance and Cultural 184 Notes 185 Diplomacy: A Study on the International Performances of Taiwanese Dance Companies 1949–1973” (Wudao zhanyan yu wenhua waijiao: xiyuan 1949–1973 nianjian Taiwan wudao tuanti guoji zhanyan zhi yanjiu) (Master’s Thesis: National Taiwan University of Art, Taiwan, 2006). 11. Wei-ming Tu, “Cultural China: The Periphery as the Center,” in The Living Tree: the Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today, ed. Tu Wei-ming (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), 1–35. Shu-mei Shih, Visuality and Identity: Sinophone Articulations Across the Pacific (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007). Lin Kehuan, Theater in Consumer Society (Xiaofei shidai de xiju) (Taipei: Bookman, 2007a). Daphne P. Lei (2006). Allen Chun (1996a), 111–38. 12. During the opening ceremony, 56 children in different ethnic attire, rep- resenting China’s 56 officially recognized ethnic groups, carried a large Chinese national flag in the procession. It was later discovered that these “ethnic” children were actually all played by children of the Han majority. See Jane Macartney and Hannah Fletcher, “New fakery scandal, as China’s ‘ethnic’ children actually come from Han majority.” The Times (16 August 2008). “Gaoshanzu” (high mountain people) is the erroneous name used by the Chinese government for Taiwanese aborigines, which consist of more than a dozen different ethnic groups. 13. According to Sina.com.hk: “The grand military parade can demonstrate to the world the strength and stability of our country under the leader- ship of the Chinese Communist Party, and also establish the authority and credibility of the fourth-generation leader Hu Jintao.” See http://news.sina. com.hk/cgi-bin/nw/show.cgi/9/1/1/968526/1.html. For related report, also see http://www.worldjournal.com/wj-la-news.php?nt_seq_id=1815845 14. According to the report, it took 9 minutes and 20 seconds to com- plete the air procession. See Taiwan News. “China’s Military Aircrafts in Display All Equipped with Real Missiles” (http://www.etaiwannews. com/etn/news_ content.php?id=1065801&lang=tc_news&cate_img=257. jpg&cate_rss=news_PD). 15. Slavoj Žižek, “The Matrix, or two sides of Perversion,” Philosophy Today, Celina Volume: 43 (1999). Claude Lévi-Strauss, “Do Dual Organizations Exist?,” in Structural Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, 1963), 131–63. 16. For a comprehensive discussion of the naming and misnaming of Chinese opera, see Daphne P. Lei (2006), 8–11. 17. As always with the counting of historical and traditional origins, one might wonder if “600 years” is a stretch. Wei Liangfu (1489–1566), whose musical innovation is often seen as having given birth to kunqu, lived 500 years ago. For a study of the origins of kunqu, see Wu Xinlei, “Introduction: A Study of the Historical Origins of Kunqu,” in Studies of Kunqu of the Early Twentieth Century (Ershishiji qianqi kunqu yanjiu) (Shenyang, PRC: Chunfeng Wenyi, 2005), 1–12. 18. UNESCO, “Kunqu Opera: Proclamations of Master Pieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity (18 May 2001).” See http://www.unesco. org/bpi/intangible_heritage/china.htm 19. See Tanaka Issei, “Development of Chinese Local Plays in the 17th and 18th Centuries,” Acta Asiatica, vol. 23 (1972): 42–62; and Aoki Masaru, History of Chinese Theatre in Recent Times (Zhongguo jinshi xiqu shi), trans. Wang Gulu 186 Notes (from Japanese: Shina kinsei gikyoku shi) (Hong Kong: Zhonghua, 1975), 376 and 468. 20. Joshua Goldstein is one of the most important scholars in recent years to have addressed the meaning of “national opera” and Mei’s US tour. See Joshua Goldstein’s “May Fourth Realism and Qi Rushan’s Theory of National Drama,” in Drama Kings: Players and Publics in the Re-Creation of Peking Opera, 1870–1937 (Berkeley: University of California, 2007), 134–71. 21. Such as “Nationalization through Iconification,” in Joshua Goldstein (2007), 264–89; and Nancy Guy, “Brokering Glory for the Chinese Nation: Peking Opera’s 1930 American Tour,” Comparative Drama, vol. 35, no. 3/4 (Fall/ Winter 2001–02), 377–92. 22. Bell Yung, Cantonese Opera: Performance as Creative Process (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), xi. 23. For the relationship among local, national, and international in jingju and yueju, see Daphne P. Lei (2006), 11–14. 24. For the declaration, see UNESCO, “Yueju opera: Inscribed in 2009 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.” http:// www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?RL=00203 25. The Oxford English Dictionary can be found online at http://www.oed.com/ 26. Eric Hobsbawn, “Introduction: Inventing Traditions,” in The Invention of Traditions, ed. Eric Hobsbawn and Terence Ranger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 1–14. 27. Wu Xinlei, “A Review of Performances of The Peony Pavilion since 1911,” in Four Hundred Years of Youth Dream: Bright Purple Deep Red Peony Pavilion (Sibainian qingchun zhi meng: Chazi yanhong mudanting), ed. Pai Hsien-yung (Taipei: Yuanliu, 2004), 58–69. This book will be referred to as Pai Hsien- yung (2004a). 28. Hobsbawn (1983), 1–14. 29. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 113–14. 30. For instance, in the international conference on jingju organized by The National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts and held in Beijing in 2007, the debate between the two camps dominated the conversation. In my opinion, there was no real “dialogue” between the two camps. 31. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Rev. edn (London and New York: Verso, 2006), 5. 32. Fredric Jameson, “Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism,” Social Text, no. 15 (Autumn 1986), 65–88. 33. Brenda S. A. Yeoh, Michael W. Charney, and Tong Chee Kiong, eds. Approaching Transnationalisms: Studies on Transnational Societies, Multicultural Contacts, and Imaginings of Home (Boston: Kluwer Academic, 2003), 2. 34. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1996, 2000 reprint), 169. 35. Aihwa Ong, “On the Edge of Empires: Flexible Citizenship among Chinese in Diaspora,” Positions, vol. 1, no. 3: 45–78. 36. Johaness Hofer, “Medical Dissertation on Nostalgia” (published in Latin in 1688). The article was translated into English by Carolyn K. Anspach. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 2 (1934): 376–91. Notes 187 37. Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia (New York: Basic Books, 2001), xiii–xiv. 38. Malcolm Chase and Christopher Shaw, “The Dimensions of Nostalgia,” in The Imagined Past: History and Nostalgia (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), 1–17. 39. Susan Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), 23. I also credit Susan Bennet for her inspiring introduction to “nostalgia.” See Performing Nostalgia: Shifting Shakespeare and the Contemporary Past (New York and London: Routledge, 1996), 1–17. 40. Boym (2001), 41–8. 41. Gilles Deleuze, Bergsonism, trans. H. Tomlison and B. Habberiam (New York: Zone Books, 1988), 59. 42. Renato Resaldo, “Imperial Nostalgia,” in Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1993), 68–87.