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The Mediated Myth of Lin Zexu

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The Mediated Myth of Lin Zexu The Mediated Myth of Lin Zexu Thesis accepted by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Cologne for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 2016 Doctoral Candidate: Angelo Maria Cimino Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Stefan kramer Second Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Huang Weiping Abstract The present study aims at determining the role played by the media representations of the myth of Lin Zexu in China. It precisely attempts to illustrate how, as a media form of popular culture, the myth of Lin Zexu epitomizes precise practices of representations embedded in a wider cultural network whithin which, determined actors, agencies, signs, and practices – somewhat struggling and interacting over the production, communication and consumption of specific meanings and ideologies – give shape to a peculiar articulation of the social and cultural texture of Chinese society. The subject of this study are thus a series of representations of Lin Zexu conveyed by distinct Chinese media since 1978. I endeavour at analysing how Lin Zexu is a meaning-making resource produced and communicated by specific Chinese media such as Television products and various Internet content, and consumed by Chinese media users through a multiplicity of media forms – movies, documentaries, digital images, cartoon, songs, Internet database research engines, microblogs, and digital photographs – in order to allow the constructed myth of Lin Zexu of upholding Chinese society’s institutions, to legitimize its rulers, to celebrate their values, and more generally to preserve China’s trajetory and the specific way of life that follows it. By semiotically examining Lin Zexu representations’ content and meaning, their political economy of production, and partially the users’ reception and response to such media representations, I try to weave the cultural network that they generate and are simultaneously part of. This work also wishes to address the specific modalities through which the media forms of the myth of Lin Zexu exemplify a diversified cultural phenomena that I understand as the mediatisation of historical knowledge, that is the process through which the historical is culturally produced by the Chinese media – TV products, movies, Internet various content – in the form of a myth (Lin Zexu’s), supposedly conveying historical truth, and thence becoming facilitators of specific cultural experiences that people are taught and/or encouraged to recognize as Chinese history, namely their past. 2 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Stefan Kramer for his supervision, and for his constant and essential support, for sharing with me some of his finest insights, and for showing me the kind and gentle side of a great thinker. I thank Prof. Huang for her availability and interest in my thesis. I would like to thank my parents for their unconditioned support and encouragement over these years. I dedicate this thesis to them. I thank Alina for her incessant patience, sustainment, and comfort. I thank Enrica for being close even when we were distant. I also thank the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne for their support during my research stay in Shanghai, and the Ostasiatische seminar’s staff and members for their collaboration. I thank Meng Zhongjie (孟钟捷) and the Department of History at East China Normal University for their encouragement, and for making all the department’s resources available to me and to my work. I thank all the personal atmospheres that accompanied the writing of this work, in Leipzig, Cologne, Agrigento, Busteni, and Shanghai. 3 Table of Contents Introduction 5 Chapter One – Lin Zexu and “The Opium War” 18 1. A semiotic Analysis 36 2. The Opium War 51 Chapter Two – Images of the Myth 62 - Toward the Understanding of the Modern Representation of Lin Zexu 69 - Introduction to Data Analysis 78 - Conclusion 120 Chapter Three – Media Photographs of Lin Zexu 122 - Conclusion 165 Chapter Four – Mediatisation and the Myth 168 - (Mediatisation of) History, Historical Knowledge or the Historical 175 - Conclusion 204 Conclusion 207 Bibliography 220 Appendices 234 4 Introduction The present study aims at determining the role played by the media representations of the myth of Lin Zexu in China. It precisely attempts to illustrate how, as a media form of popular culture, the myth of Lin Zexu epitomizes precise practices of representations embedded in a wider cultural network whithin which, determined actors, agencies, signs, and practices – somewhat struggling and interacting over the production, communication and consumption of specific meanings and ideologies – give shape to a peculiar articulation of the social and cultural texture of Chinese society. This work also wishes to address the specific modalities through which the media forms of the myth of Lin Zexu exemplify a diversified cultural phenomena that I understand as the mediatisation of historical knowledge, that is the process through which the historical is culturally produced by the Chinese media – TV products, Movies, Internet various content – in the form of a myth (Lin Zexu’s), supposedly conveying historical truth, and thence becoming facilitators of specific cultural experiences that people are taught and/or encouraged to recognize as Chinese history, namely their past. Lin Zexu (林则徐; August 30, 1785 – November 22, 1850) was a Chinese scholar and official during the Qing Dynasty (清朝). Today, Lin Zexu is a Chinese historical figure1 recognized for his constant uprightness and high moral grounds 1 In 1838, Lin Zexu (till then Viceroy and Governor of Hunan and Hebei Provinces), was appointed Imperial Commissioner by-then Emperor Daoguang (道光帝), and sent to Guangzhou to put an end to the importation of British opium to China. Lin Zexu’s attitude and policy toward the problem of opium consumption in Guangdong Province, led within a few months to the arrest and detention of more than 1.700 Chinese opium dealer, confiscating more than 70.000 opium pipes, and the sizing of 1.2 million kilograms of British opium which was destructed in the by-now famous burning of opium at Humen beach, in Guangdong Province. This action is considered to be catalyst of the Opium war and of the consequent defeat of the Qing Dynasty’s army against the British military fleet, which led to the signing of the first so-called unequal treaties, the Nanjing treaty (1842). The treaty granted an indemnity and extraterritoriality to Britain, the opening of five treaty ports, and the cession of Hong Kong Island. The harsh outcomes of the Opium war and the following growing influence of the European powers over China’s territory untill the establishment of People’s Republic of China in 1949, has been treated historically as a watershed in Chinese history. The humiliation suffered by China and Chinese people in those years of foreign occupation and rule, had provided the PRC with an important ideological instrument serving two main and different political visions. As a national hero Lin Zexu’s high moral ground have been employed during the Maoist era of the PRC, for the ideological identification of anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-bourgeois values and beliefs, defending, legitimizing and symbolically represent Mao’s thought of “class struggle”, “anti-imperialism”, and “Marxism-Leninism” among the most important. Since 1978 though, Lin Zexu’s representations came to symbolize the ideological shift of China’s new trajectory, 5 expressed mostly in his fight against the British in the late 1830’s and early 1840’s. Lin Zexu’s forceful opposition to the opium trade in Guangzhou, and his famous action of sizing and burning – in Humen (Guangdong Province) – the British opium, is considered to have ultimately led to the outbreak of the so called Opium War (鸦片战争), 1839-1842. His firm resistance to foreign aggression, but also his proven openess and interest to the outside world2, made him to be regarded as a national hero (民族英雄) and a patriot (爱国者) of modern and contemporary Chinese history. The subject of this study are thus a series of representations of Lin Zexu conveyed by distinct Chinese media since 1978. I endeavour at analysing how Lin Zexu is a meaning-making resource produced and communicated by specific Chinese media such as Television products and various Internet content, and consumed by Chinese media users through a multiplicity of media forms – movies, documentaries, digital images, cartoon, songs, Internet database research engines, microblogs, and digital photographs – in order to allow the constructed myth of Lin Zexu of upholding Chinese society’s institutions, to legitimize its rulers, to celebrate their values, and more generally to preserve China’s trajetory and the specific way of life that follows it. By semiotically examining Lin Zexu representations’ content and meaning, their political economy of production, and partially the users’ reception and response to such media representations, I try to weave the cultural network that they generate and are simultaneously part of. I intend to understand and show how the media productions, communications, and consumptions of the myth of Lin Zexu become multiple point of access to a broad cultural network, within which issues of identity formation, of national belonging, of production of the self and of the other, of social behaviours, of political legitimacy, of economic interests and domination, and of nation-building process are peculiarly embedded. exemplified by Deng Xiaoping’s ‘Reform and Opening up’ (改革开放, gaige kaifang), which
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