Imperial-Time-Order Ideas, History, and Modern China
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Imperial-Time-Order Ideas, History, and Modern China Edited by Ban WANG (Stanford University) WANG Hui (Tsinghua University) VOLUME 13 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ihmc Imperial-Time-Order Literature, Intellectual History, and China’s Road to Empire By Kun Qian LEIDEN | BOSTON Cover illustration: “Golden Dragon,” Photographer Melinda Chan, used with permission from Getty Images. This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1875-9394 isbn 978-90-04-30929-6 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-30930-2 (e-book) Copyright 2016 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. For Ed and Ethan ∵ Contents Acknowledgements ix Note on Romanization and Script xi List of Figures xii Introduction 1 Part 1 The Imperial-Time-Order 1 The Imperial-Time-Order: The Eternal Return of the Chinese Empire 21 Part 2 Time, Unity, and Morality from the Late Qing to Mao’s China 2 Suspended Time: Grounding the Present in the Late Qing 55 3 Split Time: Enlightenment and its Discontent 82 4 Continuous Time: Heroes in the “Protracted War” 115 5 Transitional Time: Defining “the People” and the “Nation” in Mao’s China 148 Part 3 The Return of “Empire” in the Post-Mao Period 6 Resurgent Time: The Return of “Empire” in Post-Socialist Representation 183 7 Love or Hate: The First Emperor on the Cinematic Screen 209 8 The Fascinating Empire: Emperors in Contemporary Novels 239 viii contents 9 Tianxia Revisited: Empire and Family on the Television Screen 267 10 Becoming-Minority: Chinese Characteristics in Minority Historical Fiction 294 Conclusion 329 Bibliography 338 Index 360 Acknowledgements Fourteen years ago when I first stepped onto US soil to study economics at Cornell University, I would not have imagined that someday I would become a scholar in Chinese literature and film; nine years ago when I had just started paying attention to the Chinese historical dramas on TV as a doctoral student in the program of East Asian Literature at Cornell, I would not have foreseen that someday my book would make a contribution to the understanding of modern Chinese history and historical thinking. A lot has transpired during all these years, and I owe a great deal to the understanding, inspiration, and help from professors and friends, whose encouragement and support have unfail- ingly kept me on the right track even at the most challenging times. The first person I should thank is my Ph.D. adviser at Cornell, Professor Edward M. Gunn, who admitted me to Chinese Literature even when I lacked formal training in the field. Without his confidence in me, my dream to become a literary scholar would still be a dream. From him I learned to be a positive person who encourages students to follow their passions in life. He is also the one who pointed me toward the right directions or crucial materials whenever my research seemed to be stuck, not to mention reading, commenting on, and correcting multiple drafts of this book. I am also deeply indebted to my other committee members: Timothy Murray, Thomas LaMarre, Petrus Liu, and Bruce Rusk. Professor Murray’s seminars on Gilles Deleuze inspired my discussion of time, and a semester at McGill University at the invitation of Professor LaMarre directly influenced the shape of this book. Needless to say, a book of this nature owes it existence to numerous scholars and writers who have discussed the topics I focus on, yet the ability to delineate theoretical arguments and select research materials depends largely on the professional training at the graduate school. For this I am forever grateful to the professors at Cornell, from whom I have received not only knowledge in history, literature, philosophy, and the arts, but also methodology to do research and longstanding inspiration and guid- ance. Special thanks are due to Sherman Cochran, Jonathan Culler, Dominick LaCapra, Brett de Bary, Naoki Sakai, Robin McNeil, and Satya Mohanty. Since its inception, many scholars and friends have read and commented on various chapters of this book in its different stages. I am particularly indebted to Evelyn Rawski, Katherine Carlitz, Marcia Landy, Xudong Zhang, Xiaomei Chen, Dongming Zhang, Soon Ong, Yvonne Howell, Ping Zhu, Li Guo, Minqi Li, and Xiaoling Shi. Discussions with them have greatly helped clarify my ideas and improve the quality of the book. Over the years the wonderful library collections at Cornell and the University of Pittsburgh have played an indispensible role in my research. I am especially x acknowledgements grateful to our East Asian Librarian at Pitt, Haihui Zhang, for her resourceful- ness and efficient service. Essential support for my research was also provided by two institutions I have worked in—the University of Richmond and the University of Pittsburgh. Generous summer fellowships and travel grants have made my research trips and conference travel possible. In particular, the Asian Studies Center at Pitt deserves a special mention for facilitating such grants. It is often a tiring journey to publish an academic book, but the editors at Brill have made publishing this book a pleasant experience. I am particularly grateful to Qin Higley and Victoria Menson, whose professional and enthusi- astic support has made working on my manuscript an enjoyable process. I am also deeply indebted to the anonymous readers, whose comments and sug- gestions have further refined my arguments and enhanced the book. A special note of thanks goes to David Darling for his meticulous and professional copy- editing, and to my friend Xiaoling Shi for her carefully proofreading the final manuscript to make the book more presentable. An early version of Chapter Seven has appeared in Asian Cinema, 20.2 (Fall/ Winter 2009), pp. 39–67. A previous draft of Chapter Nine was included in Chinese Television in the Twenty-First Century: Entertaining the Nation, edited by Geng Song and Rouyun Bai, Routledge, 2014. A section of Chapter Five was published under the title “Biaoyan diguo: wuliu shi niandai de lishi ju” [表演帝国：五六十年代的历史剧 “Staging Empire: Historical Plays in Mao’s China”] in a Chinese language journal Xin wenxue pinglun [新文学评论 Modern Chinese Literature Criticism], Vol. 2, (May 2013), pp. 160–168. A portion of Chapter Four appeared under the title “Gendering National Imagination: Heroines and the Return of the Foundational Family in Shanghai during the War of Resistance to Japan” in Frontiers of Literary Studies in China, Vol. 8 (1) (March 2014), pp. 78–100. I thank the original publishers for granting their per- mission to reprint. Upon finishing this book, I found myself often immersed in loving memo- ries of my father, Qian Zongjiu, who passed away in 2009, just before I gradu- ated from Cornell. He was the one who first introduced me to the fascinating world of literature yet strongly discouraged me from pursuing a career in it. While he finally accepted my changing the course of my life in the US, I am sad- dened by the fact that he could not witness my graduation and see this book in print. It is as if my link to the past has been partly severed. On the other hand, my son Ethan was born last year, offering me a biological connection with the future. Whenever gazing at my son, I see the magical workings of the universe that have made time continuous. August 1, 2015, Pittsburgh Note on Romanization and Script The pinyin system of Romanization is used throughout, except in citations from sources using other systems. Since the book covers a time span for more than a century, I have chosen to use in the main text traditional Chinese char- acters for the names, terms, and materials published before the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, and simplified characters for the references that appeared after 1949. However, in the bibliography, I have followed the physical forms of the sources I actually referred to. For example, if I consulted a late Qing article reprinted in a selected volume in the 1990s in mainland China, the citation in the bibliography will appear in simplified characters. List of Figures 1.1 Outline of Ancient Chinese History 22 7.1–7.4 The film The Emperor’s Shadow (Dir. Zhou Xiaowen, 1996) 7.1 Yueyang and Gao Jianli make love for the first time 217 7.2 The Qin Army conquers Chu 218 7.3 Ying Zheng faces the river and the singing prisoners 219 7.4 The new emperor weeps in front of the cauldron. 221 7.5–7.10 The film The Emperor and the Assassin (Dir. Chen Kaige, 1998) 7.5 Ying Zheng meets Lady Zhao 225 7.6 Lady Zhao returns to see Ying Zheng 225 7.7 Ying Zheng talks to Lady Zhao 226 7.8 Lady Zhao: “I’ve come back to take Jing Ke’s body back to Yan.” 226 7.9 Lady Zhao is leaving 227 7.10 The lonely (future) emperor murmurs to himself 227 7.11–7.14 The film Hero (Dir.