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A STUDY of XU XU's DRAMA SCRIPTS, 1939-1944 by JIAQI YAO MA, Hong Kong University of Science and Techn

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A STUDY of XU XU's DRAMA SCRIPTS, 1939-1944 by JIAQI YAO MA, Hong Kong University of Science and Techn COSMOPOLITANISM AT WAR: A STUDY OF XU XU'S DRAMA SCRIPTS, 1939-1944 by JIAQI YAO M.A., Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2013 B.A., East China Normal University, 2011 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Asian Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) December 2016 © Jiaqi Yao, 2016 Abstract Circumstances in China during WWII were changing constantly in areas controlled by different political powers. People traveling between the Japanese-occupied area and the Greater Rear Area controlled by the Nationalists encountered different political and cultural climates, each with both limitations and opportunities for the circulation of knowledge, information, and literature. This thesis examines how one playwright with cosmopolitan sensibilities responded to these different conditions. Specifically, I analyze the multi-act plays that Xu Xu wrote between 1938 to 1944 in two locales: Japanese-occupied Shanghai and the Nationalists’ wartime headquarters of Chongqing. I examine how war affected Xu Xu’s drama aesethics, focusing in particular on how he rewrote several of his Shanghai plays after he moved to Chongqing. I argue that Xu Xu’s multi-act plays, with their mixture of melodrama and innovation, reveal challenges with maintaining a cosmopolitan self-identity during wartime. Xu Xu, I argue, did not find a satisfactory space to write freely. In his wartime plays he propagandized for his own cosmopolitan vision, trying to thread together obligatory patriotism and aesthetic self-fullfillment. In his experience we see a Chinese intellectual self-adjusting his literary aesthetics when entering a new geo-political space, while insisting on the primacy of individual moral vision. ii Preface This thesis is an original, unpublished, independent work by the author, Jiaqi Yao. iii Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................... ii Preface ............................................................................................................................................................ iii Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................................ iv Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................................... v 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................ 1 2 From Student to Writer: A Brief Biography of Xu Xu, 1923-1938 ...................................... 10 2.1 College and Drama Societies, 1927-33 ............................................................................ 10 2.2 The Making of a Liberal Cosmopolitan, 1933-37 ........................................................ 14 2.3 A Professional Writer in Wartime Shanghai, 1938-41 ................................................. 23 2.4 A Play for Wartime Reading: An Effective Military Weapon (1939) ...................... 28 3. Xu Xu's Wartime Dramatic Vision ................................................................................................. 36 3.1 The Theatre of War: Commercial and Patriotic Plays in Shanghai ......................... 37 3.2 An Advocate of Aestheticism and "Psychical Distance" ............................................ 40 3.3 Projecting an Individualist's Humanity and Love via Drama ................................... 48 3.4 The Failure of Xu Xu's Dramas on the Wartime Stage ............................................... 63 4 Dedication to Individual Survival: Revising Plays between Shanghai and Chongqing ....................................................................... 67 4.1 The Changing Cultural Atmosphere of the "Greater Rear Area", 1938-44 .......... 68 4.2 "Return from Shanghai": Xu Xu's Self-reinvention in the Hinterland .................. 77 4.3 Occupied Cosmopolis as Spectacle: The Crisis of a Shanghai Capitalist in Moonlight over the Huangpu River (1944) .. 86 4.4 Brothers (1944): Awkward Fraternal Affection between the Nations .................... 96 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 108 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................. 114 Appendices ............................................................................................................................................... 126 Appendix A: Editions of Xu Xu's Drama Scripts ............................................................... 126 Appendix B: List of Xu Xu's "Tuesday Drama Talk 火曜劇話" Essays, 1938-39 .......................... 130 iv Acknowledgements My deepest gratitude goes first to my supervisor, Dr. Christopher Rea, who guided me through my MA program and supported this study with his invaluable advice and suggestions. His knowledge of literature and theatre in Republican China extended a broader scope for my study. This project could not have been completed without his kindness, patience and encouragement. I thank Dr. Timothy Cheek and Dr. Siyuan Liu for serving on my committee. Dr. Cheek provided me historical methodologies in his class, and Dr. Liu inspired me to explore the various aspects of the theatre on the stage. Their close reading and incisive comments helped me to strengthen my argument, pointing out directions for future studies. I thank Dr. Adheesh Sathaye for chairing my defense. His example of sensibility in Sanskrit drama enriched the discussion to a new level. I would like to acknowledge the Faculty of Arts at UBC, the Chris Lin Memorial Scholarship and the Gregory Tso Memorial Scholarship in Asian Studies for funding my MA program. I would like to extend my gratitude to Dr. Sharalyn Orbaugh. Her seminar on Kamishibai inspired my primary thoughts on kitsch and propaganda. She has always been inspiring and encouraging. I thank Dr. Catherine Swatek for her amazing lecture on Ming and Qing theatre. It was a wonderful experience talking with her about the research as well as the life in Vancouver. I would also like to send my gratitude to the faculty, fellow v students and staff at Department of Asian Studies for their generous help. I thank Dr. Steve Levine, Dr. Philip Williams and Dr. Joseph Yick for their precious opinions and advice on my study of wartime history at the Western conference of the Association for Asian Studies. I’m also thankful to Dr. Edward Gunn for his thorough reply to my question on Chinese spoken drama. I would like to thank my best friend Zhou Min for her support from Beijing. I’m grateful to have her talking about academics and life experience throughout the years. Above all, I would like to thank my parents, Yao Zihua and Huang Hongqin, for their constant love and support. vi 1 Introduction In the mid-1970s, the Hong Kong literary critic Lau Shiu-ming 劉紹銘 (1934- ) wrote down his impressions of Xu Xu 徐訏 (aka Hsu Yu, 1908-80). Lau had just translated C.T. Hsia's (1921-2013) canon-making work A History of Modern Chinese Fiction into Chinese, and he recalled Xu Xu asking him why Hsia hadn't mentioned him in the book. "The atmosphere [at that moment] was of course awkward, very awkward." Lau wrote. He remembered being struck by Xu Xu's slender and melancholy face, which seemed somehow familiar. After the meeting, he realized that Xu Xu's face was identical to an image he’d seen of Don Quixote, "the Knight of Sorrowful Countenance."1 The description rings true. Xu Xu appears in many photographs as a solemn and pensive gentleman: his suit immaculate, his eyes serene, and his mouth always tightly compressed. His facial expression implies a rigid personality, as well as loneliness. Xu lived most of his life as an outsider, and these experiences endowed him not only with a unique literary vision that led to a long and successful writing career, but one marked by personal and ideological struggles. Hsia explained in the 1970s that he didn’t like Xu Xu's early works: "My personal opinions may have done him an injustice, since there may be occasional good pieces among his later works. But if a writer can’t provide a fresh and serious first impression, 1 Lau Shiu-ming, “The Knight of Sorrowful Countenance,” Pingguo ribao (Apple Daily), November 10, 2013, sec. Supplement: Guozi. Accessed February 28, 2016. http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/supplement/apple/art/20131110/18500743. 1 this is his own fault. He can’t blame others."2 Yet some of Hsia’s and Lau’s contemporaries in Hong Kong and overseas held a high opinion of Xu Xu's works. Lin Yutang 林語堂 (1895-1976), one of Xu Xu's best friends, for instance, praised Xu's works in his 1961 speech delivered in the Library of Congress: "Of the writers of short stories. Lusin [Lu Xun], Shen Tsungwen [Shen Congwen], Feng Wenping (less known), and Shü Yü [Xu Xu] are the best."3 The Hong Kong based critic Sima Changfeng (1920-80) in his 1976 A New History of Chinese Literature 中國新文學史 speaks highly of Xu Xu's writing in a variety of genres.4 And Xu Xu had long since established himself as a storyteller with mass appeal: in the 1950s, his works were adapted into more than ten films by major
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