2008 Jie Chen ALL RIGHTS RESERVED NATION, ETHNICITY, AND CULTURAL STRATEGIES THREE WAVES OF ETHNIC REPRESENTATION IN POST-1949 CHINA by JIE CHEN A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Comparative Literature written under the direction of Ban Wang and approved by ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey October, 2008 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Nation, Ethnicity, and Cultural Strategies Three Waves of Ethnic Representation in Post-1949 China By JIE CHEN Dissertation Director: Ban Wang This dissertation examines three waves of ethnic minority representation in post- 1949 China. Reading ethnic representation as a discursive site where historical imperatives and utopian visions converge and collide, this study explicates how the modern Chinese national identity has been constructed and reconstructed through the imagining and staging of a putative rejuvenating internal other. During three historical periods in particular, ethnic minority images were appropriated extensively by intellectuals and artists as remedial forces to alleviate national identity anxiety: the 17- year-period (1949-1966), the post-Mao decade (1979-1989), and the contemporary decade (late 1990s to 2008). In each of the three waves, this study demonstrates, the image of ethnic minorities functioned as a sign of alterity and adopted different meanings and connotations – ranging from national unity, exotic romanticism, traditional harmony, tenacity, and strength to eco-wisdom – in response to the changing content of the national identity anxiety. ii Contesting various binary power models (majority/minority, state/people, repression/resistance) dominant in existing studies of ethnic representation of the PRC, this dissertation argues, through textual and contextual readings of selected cinematic, art, and literary texts, that the production of ethnic representation is a fluid and historically contingent process of identity enunciation carried out by varied intellectuals and artists, who engaged in a variety of relations with the state and the general public. Whereas this process did produce a plethora of essentialist perceptions of ethnic minorities in China, and such perceptions often fed into further intellectual and aesthetic fascination with the image of the internal other, national identity construction – rather than ethnic differentiation – was at the root of the three waves of ethnic representation. Employing an interdisciplinary approach that integrates political and intellectual history into synchronic cultural and textual analyses, this study demonstrates how the Chinese imaginary of the internal other has been contingent upon the nation‟s struggle to position and “produce” itself in relation to a superior external world. In this sense, ethnic representation in China has been and continues to be performative enunciation of a modern national identity that negotiates between reconceptualizations of internal and global relationships. iii Acknowledgements Many people have contributed to the completion of this dissertation, and I would like to express my gratitude to these individuals for their assistance and support. First of all I want to thank my dissertation committee. Prof. Ban Wang has been an inspiring, generous, and supportive advisor throughout my dissertation writing process. His constructive and critical guidance has provided a major anchor for a project with multiple possibilities, but he has also respected my ideas and given me ample space to develop my own voice. His belief in my scholarly potential has stimulated me to challenge various boundaries and achieve new intellectual heights. I am grateful to Prof. Louisa Schein for taking an impassioned interest in my project and guiding me through every stage of my dissertation writing. Her work on the Miao ethnic group was a major inspiration in my reconceptualization of inter/trans-cultural relationships. Her assistance in facilitating my research with her own network and her critical reading of my chapters have been most helpful, and so has been the sense of intellectual companionship that her interest in this project has brought. Prof. Dietrich Tschanz read the draft meticulously and offered extremely helpful structural and editorial advice, which pushed me to revise and reshape my writing. Prof. Jiayan Mi from the College of New Jersey was most gracious in agreeing to be my outside reader amidst a grueling schedule, and his many suggestions on my dissertation and my future career development are sincerely appreciated. The Program of Comparative Literature at Rutgers University has provided me with a congenial and supportive academic environment. I would like to thank Prof. Janet Walker, Prof. Alessandro Vettori, and Prof. Elin Diamond for giving a variety of assistance throughout my graduate school career. The graduate student symposium at iv Comparative Literature provided a useful platform where I was able to present my work and discuss it with members of the Comparative Literature community. Many fellow graduate students, inside and outside Comparative Literature, shared my excitement and anxiety during the process of dissertation writing, and I would like to thank Xin Ning, Xiao Li, Yvette Hsieh, Lauren Scott, Gareth Hughes, and Naomi Fleming for their support and contributions. The Department of Asian Languages at Rutgers provided financial support with Teaching Assistantships during the final two years of my dissertation writing, and I am grateful to Prof. Ching-I Tu and Prof. Richard Simmons for granting the opportunity. Outside the Rutgers community I would like to thank Shi Maoming from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences for facilitating archival research, and Luo Xiuying, Jin Ou, and A You Duo for discussing their own experience of ethnic representation with me in Beijing. Cai Hui contributed to newspaper archive research in China. My deepest gratitude goes to my parents, who supported me with love and unswerving confidence over the years, even though they had to fend off increasing inquiries from friends and relatives on my seemingly perpetual studenthood. And finally, thank you to Max Köntopp for being a patient listener, a morale booster, and a selfless supporter, who accompanied me through my hardship and helped me prevail and triumph. v Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents vi List of Illustrations vii Introduction 1 Becoming Chinese, Being Subaltern: Minzu vs. the World Chapter One 26 A Historical Excursion: Minzu and the Birth of the Internal Other Chapter Two 51 The Construction of a National Style (Minzu fengge): Universalism and Particularism --- The First Wave of Ethnic Representation (1949-1966) Chapter Three 100 Dancing Between the Nation and Modernity --- The Second Wave of Ethnic Representation (1979-1989) Chapter Four 157 Dreaming about Global Power and Primordial Purity: Nation, Nature and Natives --- The Third Wave of Ethnic Representation Conclusion 211 Beyond Representation Appendix 217 Minority Films of the 17-year-period Bibliography 222 Curriculum Vita 234 vi List of illustrations 2.1 Stills from Wuduo jinhua (1959) and Hongse niangzijun (1961) 77 3.1 Chen Danqing, Going to Town II 126 3.2 Detail of Yuan Yunsheng, Water Splashing Festival: Song of Life 130 vii 1 Introduction Becoming Chinese, Being Subaltern: Minzu vs. the World Even though 2008 has not yet come to an end, we can conclude with some confidence that the year will remain in the memory of many Chinese as a significant one. The 29th Olympics, held in Beijing in August 2008, was seen by many as a site where the nation demonstrated its newly gained prosperity and power to the outside world, and it was done with nothing short of grandeur. Shadows, however, also loomed over this brilliant pageant that many Chinese considered to be a long-overdue redemption of the nation‟s humiliating modern history. Shortly after the opening ceremony shocked the world with its awe-inspiring spectacle, reports of fakery appeared in the world media. First it was the digitally constructed firework footage. Then came the story about the lip- synching child singer. Finally, the fifty-six children carrying the national flag into the stadium, representing China‟s fifty-six ethnic groups, were revealed to be all of Han ethnicity. A few months before the opening ceremony there was another accusation of fakery in the media commotion around the Olympics, but that accusation was from the other side of the media battle. On March 14th, ethnic Tibetans in Lhasa erupted in violent protest against Chinese rule in Tibet. The Chinese government, while sending military forces into Tibet to halt the violence, expelled all foreigners from the region. Without any reliable source of information, major western media responded to the event with almost uniform criticism of the Chinese government‟s bloody suppression of Tibetans‟ spontaneous and peaceful independence requests. This, many argued, proved the Chinese government‟s failure to carry out its promise to improve its human rights record made 2 during its Olympics bid. Later, it was revealed on the Internet by some overseas Chinese that many pictures purportedly depicting conflicts between Tibetans and Chinese in western media coverage were actually taken in Nepal and India, with Nepalese and Indian police