View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship Repository Copyright 2011 Yanjie Wang THE ―SENT-DOWN‖ VISION: POETICS AND POLITICS OF ZHIQING LITERATURE IN POST-MAO CHINA BY YANJIE WANG DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in East Asian Languages and Cultures in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2011 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Gary G. Xu, Chair Associate Professor Rania Huntington, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison Professor Nancy Abelmann Associate Professor Dan Shao ABSTRACT This dissertation investigates the ways in which the literature of the zhiqing generation has contributed an important alternative voice in post-Mao China‘s modernity discourse. Zhiqing refers to the millions of urban junior high and high school students who were ―sent down to the countryside‖ to settle as peasants during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). Following their return to the cities in the wake of the Cultural Revolution, many zhiqing writers have been focusing on their village experiences, traditional literary forms, and ethnic minorities relevant to their ―sent down‖ localities. I argue that zhiqing literature is much more than nostalgia. Rather, it speaks to many contingencies. In writing about a more pastoral, natural, mystic, and spiritual existence, zhiqing literature is a productive force for the animation of the suppressed energy found in rural China and an important discourse countering contemporary China‘s massive modernization project. The literature of the zhiqing generation carves out an alternative temporal spatiality where the teleological, urban-based, consumerist, and material notion of modernity is astutely disputed and unsettled. This dissertation consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 is an introductory account in which I conducted a careful historicization of the sent-down movement. Instead of seeing the sent- down movement as a finished program locked in the dust of history, I contend that it continues to shape and haunt the zhiqing on practical, physical, and psychological levels. Chapter 2 focuses on the notion of heterogeneous time reflected in Han Shaogong‘s ―Homecoming‖ and A Dictionary of Maqiao. I argue that the fragile sense of time reflected in these two texts debilitates the progressive notion of modernity and ultimately demands a reconsideration of the notorious developmentalism at the center of post-Mao China‘s modernization project. Chapter 3 discusses Wang Anyi‘s works with a focus on the issue of gender and sexuality. I argue that Wang‘s ii vision of sexuality is double-edged, defying not only the Maoist repression of sexuality but also the mass culture‘s commercialization of sexuality. Chapter 4 explores the theme of corporeality reflected in Ah Cheng‘s novellas The King of Chess and The King of Trees. I examine how Ah Cheng‘s notion of corporeality functions as a critique of contemporary China‘s desire-driven, superfluous middle class taste as well as the ever more aggravated exploitation of nature in the post-Mao era. Chapter 5 investigates Zhang Chengzhi‘s aesthetic redemption of spirituality. I maintain that Zhang Chengzhi‘s twisted reclamation of the Red Guard spirit and his assertion of religious belief ultimately counteracts the post-Mao society that is saturated with materialism and consumerism. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to many who have contributed to the completion of this dissertation. Words are insufficient to convey my deepest gratitude to my advisor Professor Gary Xu. This dissertation originated and took shape out of numerous intensive discussions with him. His sharp wit, insightful comments, meticulous editing, and unyielding support have accompanied this project from its inception to its completion, and indeed, throughout my graduate studies. I am grateful for his immense faith in me that builds up my confidence while he never fails to stimulate my intellectual growth. A most compassionate mentor, he has provided me with precious opportunities and enormous care in my path of life and academic pursuit in the past six years. I am indebted to all he has done for me. I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to Professor Rania Huntington. I‘m thankful for her most inspiring and enjoyable classes in which I was animated to pursue in- depth the wondrous themes of performance, genre, and gender. I have also benefited tremendously from her teaching that nurtures sensitive eyes in reading literary texts. There are traces of thoughts and skills I gained from her classes and from the congenial conversations with her in this dissertation. I am greatly appreciative of the intellectual stimulus I have received from Professor Nancy Abelmann. I thank her for guiding me into the field of East Asian Studies in the proseminar class. Her initial trust and continuous encouragement have meant a great deal to me. I am grateful for the insightful suggestions she offered at different stages of my dissertation project. It has always been a joy and a source of inspiration to converse with her. iv I am grateful to Professor Shao Dan for her encouraging enthusiasm in this dissertation topic as well as her unfailing support throughout. She has provided me with essential and constructive comments in the formation of this project and continued to engage in its later development. I was fortunate to have received excellent advice from her on the resources of the scholarship and references on the sent-down movement. My research has been sustained by the valuable friendship and intellectual community at the University of Illinois. I would like to express my strongest appreciation to my friends and classmates Tonglu Li, Yiju Huang, EK Tan, Liyu Li, I-In Chiang, Mei-Hsuan Chiang, Chia-rong Wu, Eric Dale, Jie Cui, Li E for their wonderful intellectual stimulations, companionship, and emotional support during all these years of graduate study. It is such a privilege to have worked and lived with them in one of the most memorable periods of my life. I am also thankful to the Graduate School for granting me the dissertation completion fellowship that has financially supported my writing process. Ken Vickery read two chapters of the draft, offered valuable insights, and painstakingly edited the documents. I‘m greatly thankful for the generous help and warmest encouragement he has given me since I started writing the dissertation. I am deeply indebted to the support from my entire family. I thank my parents Jun Wang and Liping Zhang for their nurturing love, enduring trust, and unconditioned support of my academic pursuit. My sister Yanwen Wang has been a cheerful and steadfast supporter of mine. The chats and sharing with her are always the delight of my life. I also thank my mother- in-law Ziduan Chen who cared for me lovingly during my writing process. The deepest of my gratitude is to my husband Junyi Liu, whose love is the heart of this dissertation, and my whole life. He has supported me in every step of my academic path. v Throughout the dissertation writing process, he has been my emotional mainstay and his encouragement gives meaning to my work. I give my eternal love to him. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION….…………………………………………………………………….1 CHAPTER 2: THE HETEROGENEOUS TIME: HAN SHAOGONG‘S PHANTASMAGORIC ―HOMECOMING‖ AND A DICTIONARY OF MAQIAO ………………………….33 CHAPTER 3: LANDSCAPE OF GIRLHOOD AND SEXUALITY: WANG ANYI‘S THE HERMITIC AGE AND A CENTURY ON A HILLOCK ………….....................93 CHAPTER 4: RETURN TO CORPOREALITY: HUNGER AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN AH CHENG‘S THE KING OF CHESS AND THE KING OF TREES……………………………………………………..…....145 CHAPTER 5: ZHANG CHENGZHI‘S SPIRITUAL REDEMPTION THROUGH THE AESTHETIC: THE BLACK STEED AND INVESTIGATION IN THE WESTERN PROVINCE…………..……………………………………….....199 CHAPTER 6: EPILOGUE……………………………………..………………………………………254 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………….…………………………….……………………….….…………….257 vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION My dissertation is a study of the literature of the zhiqing generation. Zhiqing, also known as educated youth or sent-down youth, refers to the millions of urban junior high and high school students who were relocated (―sent-down‖) to the countryside to settle as peasants during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). This large-scale transfer program is called ―up to the mountains and down to the villages‖ (Shangshan xiaxiang), or simply rustication movement or sent-down movement. Following their return to the cities in the wake of the program‘s failure, zhiqing writers have been focusing on their village experiences, traditional myths and literary forms, and ethnic minorities relevant to their ―sent down‖ localities; and over the past thirty years, they have become one of the driving forces of contemporary Chinese literature. In this age of China‘s relentless urbanization, where the notion of ―forward-looking‖ comprises the dominant vision, my dissertation asks: Why do zhiqing writers persist in writing about their sent-down past and the rural lands and lifestyles? I challenge the reductive notion of nostalgia that has been often evoked to interpret zhiqing literature. I suggest that zhiqing writers‘ constant recall of their sent-down past is not simply due to nostalgia, but comes out of their critique of contemporary China‘s massive modernization project. My dissertation wishes to draw attention to and investigate the ways in which 1 zhiqing literature has constituted an important alternative voice in China. Zhiqing literature speaks to many socio-historical contingencies: in writing about a more pastoral, natural, mystic, and spiritual existence, it constitutes an important discourse countering such truth-claims of capitalistic globalization as progressive teleology, developmentalism, and consumerism, which China immerses itself in. I probe the alternativeness that zhiqing writers bring forth through an examination of the sent-down movement‘s legacies, which are consciously invoked and appropriated in zhiqing‘s literary enterprise.