i © Copyright 2016 Xiqing Zheng ii Borderless Fandom and Contemporary Popular Cultural Scene in Chinese Cyberspace Xiqing Zheng A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2016 Reading Committee: Yomi Braester, Chair Jennifer M. Bean John Christopher Hamm Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Comparative Literature, Cinema and Media iii University of Washington Abstract Borderless Fandom and Contemporary Popular Cultural Scene in Chinese Cyberspace Xiqing Zheng Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Yomi Braester Department of Comparative Literature, Cinema and Media This dissertation introduces the current Chinese internet fan culture, a subculture basing on consumption and rewriting media and literary texts of various national origins. In seven topics and case studies, I discuss the relationship between the online fan subculture and the mainstream cultural value system, showing the dynamic of consumption, reproduction and community building process of media fans. I argue that Chinese fan culture is far from a subversive community in the periphery that simply rebels against the center, but a constantly negotiating subculture that adopts various evaluation system and hierarchies from the mainstream culture and the educational institution. Compared to the pre-internet age, reading and (re)writing practices of the online fan culture do not present a significant break in its taste, content or form. iv Instead, online fan culture manifests its uniqueness in the special intimacy that each individual enjoys with the texts he/she likes and the idiosyncratic evaluation systems contingent to personal preferences and desires. This dissertation uses ethnography, including self-ethnography as the main methodology, also incorporating textual analysis and historical analysis. I assume double identities in this study as both a scholar and a fan, taking both perspectives and being responsible for both communities. This position does not guarantee that I have privilege in knowledge, but it constantly reminds me to question the relationship between the studying subject and objects in ethnography. Fan culture’s research value lies not in its literary merit as the canonical literature. It should be understood and studied under a new logic of a decentered and tribalized global society, but not without a neoliberal cultural hierarchy. Fan culture has thoroughly saturated into people’s daily life experience and shifted the meaning of being an audience in the new digital world. Fan culture is never an independent entity, but is deeply rooted in the contemporary social and cultural environment, responding to social issues and cultural debates, including the convergence of global popular culture, the complicated interactions between the internet and the print media, the blurry boundary between the mainstream and the subculture, among others. These issues directly present the unique cultural experience of contemporary Chinese youths and provide an insightful perspective to view social changes that are taking place in China. Because fan culture and community manifest themselves on the internet as decentered but interconnected tribes, they are not easily generalized and quantified. The phenomena I study are biased and localized. I do not aim for a conclusion based on a generalized view but instead, focus on the particularity of each phenomenon, especially its relationship with contemporary sociocultural details. I aim to provide a glimpse into the authentic online subculture in China, not v as an example for youth subversion, but as a mode of cultural experience on the internet in a globalizing world. i TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ iv INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 1 Invisible (or Nonexistent?) Dimensional Shield ......................................................................... 4 Fan Culture in China ................................................................................................................... 7 Fan Studies and Aca-Fan .......................................................................................................... 12 Chapters Overview ................................................................................................................... 18 Concerning Terminology .......................................................................................................... 22 CHAPTER 1. Chinese Fan Fiction: Its “Ancestors” and Lineage .............................................. 25 Intertextuality and the Boundary of Fan Fiction ....................................................................... 28 Shi Xiu and His Three Avatars ................................................................................................. 36 Rewriting, Modernism, and Genre ........................................................................................... 51 Folk Practices of Collective Writing, Premodern and Postmodern .......................................... 58 “Internet Literature” and the Revival of the Folk Tradition? ................................................... 68 CHAPTER 2. Genre Literature, Fandom and the Global Communication Tide: Novoland and Phenomena Related ....................................................................................................................... 74 What is Fantasy Anyway? ........................................................................................................ 76 High Fantasy, Novoland and the Re-imagination of “Chineseness” ........................................ 87 Quasi-Fan Fiction Community: Novoland as a Participatory Cultural Community ................. 92 Fan Community, Gossip Community ..................................................................................... 100 i ii CHAPTER 3. Border Crossing Fan Culture, Imaginary Community and Nationalism: Axis Power: Hetalia and Its Chinese Fandom .................................................................................... 109 Cultural Politics and Japanese Historical Narrative ............................................................... 114 APH Fandom, Database Consumption and Otaku .................................................................. 124 Chinese Online Nationalism and the Trespassed Dimensional Shield ................................... 134 Be a Dragon ............................................................................................................................ 144 Afterwards… .......................................................................................................................... 157 CHAPTER 4. Global Homoromance: Female Experience, Fantasy and Utopia ...................... 161 Slash/Yaoi/Danmei .................................................................................................................. 163 The Rhetoric of Resistance and Feminine Experience ........................................................... 175 The Problem with Mary Sue ................................................................................................... 182 Omegaverse, Porn and Utopia ................................................................................................ 192 CHAPTER 5. Elitism and Fantasy: Mainstream versus Subcultural Danmei Writing ............. 210 Discursive Mantras ................................................................................................................. 213 Danmei and Subcultural Capital ............................................................................................. 218 Favilla Mundi .......................................................................................................................... 229 Danmei literature, Tongzhi literature, Queer Cinema ............................................................. 235 Beijing Story, Lan Yu and Two Modes of Melodrama ........................................................... 243 Diverged Roads: Danmei as Family Melodrama .................................................................... 253 CHAPTER 6. Fansub: Amateurs vs. Professionals ................................................................... 262 Fansub, A Brief Introduction .................................................................................................. 265 ii iii Encoding, Decoding ................................................................................................................ 270 Academic Otaku: Collective Intelligence and Translational Voice ........................................ 274 Literal Translation ............................................................................................................... 276 Footnoting ........................................................................................................................... 278 Tucao ................................................................................................................................... 283 “Down to Earth” and Expectation of “Good” ......................................................................... 288 Red Book of Middle Earth: Armatures surpassing professionals? ......................................... 300 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................