Prodigals in Love: Narrating Gay Identity and Collectivity on the Early Internet in China
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Prodigals in Love: Narrating Gay Identity and Collectivity on the Early Internet in China by Gang Pan A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of East Asian Studies University of Toronto © Copyright by Gang Pan 2015 Prodigals in Love: Narrating Gay Identity and Collectivity on the Early Internet in China Gang Pan Doctor of Philosophy Department of East Asian Studies University of Toronto 2015 Abstract This dissertation concerns itself with the eruption of a large number of gay narratives on the Chinese internet in its first decade. There are two central arguments. First, the composing and sharing of narratives online played the role of a social movement that led to the formation of gay identity and collectivity in a society where open challenges to the authorities were minimal. Four factors, 1) the primacy of the internet, 2) the vernacular as an avenue of creativity and interpretation, 3) the transitional experience of the generation of the internet, and 4) the evolution of gay narratives, catalyzed by the internet, enhanced, amplified, and interacted with each other in a highly complicated and accelerated dynamic, engendered a virtual gay social movement. Second, many online gay narratives fall into what I term “prodigal romance,” which depicts gay love as parent-obligated sons in love with each other, weaving in violent conflicts between desire and duty in its indigenous context. The prodigal part of this model invokes the archetype of the Chinese prodigal, who can only return home having excelled and with the triumph of his journey. The romantic part imbues love between men with the power of shaping and transforming the self and the weight of anchoring an identity. The result is often the parting of the two lovers, with one returning home a good son to his duty and another continuing as a ii gay orphan, wandering in pursuit of his desire. The latter is a new desiring subject who chooses to integrate his desire as a core of his identity; and he is the figure bearing the purpose of the movement. iii Acknowledgments I first of all want to express my utmost gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Richard Guisso, for many years of supervision, insightful guidance, support, encouragement and extraordinary patience that were indispensable to every step I made. As writing this thesis itself became a long journey, I could not imagine walking through it without Prof. Guisso’s help. I thank Prof. Paul Perron, a real teacher of learning and life, from the bottom of my heart. Prof. Perron taught me the narratology and semiotics that laid the basis of my dissertation. His kindness and encouragement will be a source of power from which I will always draw. I’m deeply grateful to Prof. Mariana Valverde. A profound and erudite scholar, she brought me to see the larger picture and the principal themes of the thesis. I will always remember her encouragement and selfless support with appreciation. I thank Prof. Wu Yiching for leading me to a more resolved course at a crucial point of writing. I’m grateful to Prof. Meng Yue for years of support. I’m indebted to Prof. Johanna Liu for being tremendously kind and supportive. I appreciate Prof. Hsiao-wei Rupprecht for her long-lasting consideration and support. I also got great help from Prof. Janet Poole, and I’m very grateful. I’m also very grateful to Nathaniel Thomas, without whom completing this thesis would have been much harder. He read through the dissertation and brought critical insights into the topic. His companionship at the most difficult moments of writing is something I will value forever. iv I also thank Jane Kalbfleisch for reading through a very early and rough draft of the thesis. There are many, many others to thank and I keep all your kindness in my heart. This dissertation is dedicated to my parents. Writing it helped me understand how deep their love is, and how much it shaped me and has sustained my life. This dissertation is also dedicated to the men in the research. It’s for us. v Table of Contents Contents Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... vi List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. ix List of Figures ..................................................................................................................................x Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1 Was There a Gay Identity or Collectivity Before? Homosexual Life and Signification in Pre-Internet China ...........................................................................................12 1.1 Life, time, and narrative .....................................................................................................15 1.2 An Ever-Changing China, an Ever-Changing Field of Story ............................................18 1.3 Growing up in the Field of Story of the 1980s and Coming of Age in the 1990s .............23 1.4 Ambiguity against Homosexuality ....................................................................................29 1.5 Post-1949 Homosexual Signification: Graffitiing .............................................................35 1.6 Post-Cultural Revolution Homosexual Signification in High Literature ...........................41 1.7 Narratives and Lives before the Reform and Opening ......................................................52 1.8 Post-Cultural Revolution Same-Sex Subculture: Fisheries and Legitimate Bachelors .....60 1.9 Beyond the Fishery ............................................................................................................70 1.10 Was There a Gay Identity or Collectivity Before? ............................................................74 Chapter 2 When Legitimate Bachelors Met the Internet: The Rise of Gay Identity and Collectivity on the Early Chinese Internet ................................................................................79 2.1 The Internet in China .........................................................................................................82 2.2 Building an Online Gay China ...........................................................................................97 2.3 Reddust as an Example of an Early Gay Website............................................................112 2.4 When Legitimate Bachelors Encountered the Internet ....................................................123 vi 2.5 Conclusion: Individual Agency, the Internet and Gay China ..........................................130 2.6 A New Stage of Online Gay Culture ...............................................................................136 Chapter 3 Beijing Story and the Articulation of Gay Identity .....................................................140 3.1 Beijing Story as a Cyber Sensation ..................................................................................145 3.2 The Vernacular and the Internet ......................................................................................150 3.3 Articulating Gay Identity in the Vernacular: Private Story in Private Language, Pornography, and Popular Romance................................................................................155 3.4 The Poetics of Beijing Story ............................................................................................173 3.5 Dashing into the Erotopia ................................................................................................180 3.6 Conclusion: The Articulation of Homosexuality .............................................................184 Chapter 4 Narrating Gay Identity and Collectivity as a Popular Social Movement ....................186 4.1 Narratives on Other Gay Websites ..................................................................................190 4.2 Nanfeng and Other Websites: the Rise of Gay Narratives as a Movement .....................193 4.3 Narrative Threads on “Left Bank” and Other Forums .....................................................202 4.4 The Experience of Following a Thread Story ..................................................................208 4.5 Co-Authoring a Reality ....................................................................................................217 4.6 Popular Narrative and Gay Lore ......................................................................................224 4.7 Conclusion: Narrating A Gay Collectivity Online...........................................................228 4.8 After the Initial Wave ......................................................................................................236 Chapter 5 Wandering out the Door: The Prodigal Romance of the Internet Generation ............239 5.1 The Prodigal Son in Chinese Narrative Tradition ............................................................249 5.2 The Evolution of the Prodigal Journey in the Modern Era ..............................................258 5.3 Romance, Heteronormativity, and Interpellation.............................................................267 5.4 Prodigal Romance ............................................................................................................273