UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Chinese bodies that matter: the search for masculinity and femininity Chong, G.P.L. DOI 10.1080/09523367.2012.754428 Publication date 2013 Document Version Final published version Published in The International Journal of the History of Sport Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Chong, G. P. L. (2013). Chinese bodies that matter: the search for masculinity and femininity. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 30(3), 242-266. https://doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2012.754428 General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). 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UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:25 Sep 2021 This article was downloaded by: [Gladys Pak Lei Chong] On: 05 March 2013, At: 07:11 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK The International Journal of the History of Sport Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fhsp20 Chinese Bodies that Matter: The Search for Masculinity and Femininity Gladys Pak Lei Chong a a Department of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam, Turfdraagsterpad 9, 1012 XT, Amsterdam, The Netherlands To cite this article: Gladys Pak Lei Chong (2013): Chinese Bodies that Matter: The Search for Masculinity and Femininity, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 30:3, 242-266 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2012.754428 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and- conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. 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The International Journal of the History of Sport, 2013 Vol. 30, No. 3, 242–266, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2012.754428 Chinese Bodies that Matter: The Search for Masculinity and Femininity Gladys Pak Lei Chong* Department of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam, Turfdraagsterpad 9, 1012 XT Amsterdam, The Netherlands This article is an inquiry of why such significance has been assigned to sports in general and the Olympics in particular in China. It looks at how history and politics intersect with gender. I explain how the historicity of China’s traumatic past – how it fell prey to the western imperialists – has allowed the state to draw on the biopolitical discourse that links its subjects’ physical, mental and moral attributes to that of the survival and revival of a Chinese nation. This article examines the ways in which gender ideals/norms were inscribed onto the athletes’ bodies that helped exemplify China’s nation-building project and its pursuit of modernity. My analysis focuses on the representation of their bodies, clothes and corporal expression. Three sets of male and female athletes of three different periods were examined: (1) Liu Changchun and Yang Xiuqiong, representing the Republican China; (2) Li Ning and Lang Ping, representing the post-opening up period; (3) Liu Xiang and Guo Jingjing, representing the global China. I argue that manliness and femaleness are cultural as well as political products produced according to the needs of the nation and the state at different historical moments; and both men and women carry their share of national burden. Keywords: the sick man of Asia; gender ideals/norms; bodies; athletes; nation- building; modernity Introduction Me: Why do people cast such high expectations on Liu Xiang? Downloaded by [Gladys Pak Lei Chong] at 07:11 05 March 2013 Interviewee 1: Because Chinese do not know much about track and field sports, Liu Xiang as a Chinese performed so well in the track and field sports, then everyone certainly expected much from him. Interviewee 2: The pride of Chinese, he is the fastest. Interviewee 1: Yes, we all shared the thought that the Bird’s Nest [the National Stadium] was built for him, it cost RMB 38 billion, then he withdrew from the competition ... Track and field sports, Chinese don’t really understand them, interests in track and field sports are chiefly because of Liu Xiang, that’s why everyone was interested in track and field sports. Me: Wasn’t there a female athlete, Wang Junxia? *Email: [email protected] q 2013 Taylor & Francis The International Journal of the History of Sport 243 Interviewee 1: Yes, but that was in 1992, she broke the world record, or was it in 1991, then it was in the long-distance; short-distance, Asians are not good at that ... Chinese men are not performing so well in sports, for example, in this short-distance track and field sports competition, China had never had good results.1 The rumour that the Bird’s Nest was built for Liu Xiang spoke for the hope and expectations cast on a male athlete. Liu Xiang shot to fame overnight when he won an Olympic gold medal in the 110-meter hurdles in the 2004 Athens Games. This moment was discursively produced as a significant historical moment as it was believed that Chinese were not good at track and field games, just as my interviewees suggested. Liu might have been the first Chinese male who won a gold medal in track and field events but he was not the first Chinese gold medallist in these games. In fact, the first Chinese track and field Olympic gold medallist was Wang Junxia, a female athlete specialising in the long-distance track event in the 1996 Atlanta Games – not in 1991 or 1992 as my interviewee said. Wang Junxia was not the only one; Wang Liping (a female race walker) also won a gold medal in the 2000 Sydney Games. Wang Liping recalled that her participation in the female 20-kilometer race walk was not an important game in the eyes of the Chinese. When she won the game, no Chinese journalists were around. It was later when the journalists heard the news that they ran to the venue.2 These female athletes never enjoyed popularity like Liu. This prompts one to ask why the significance of a male athlete winning a gold medal outweighed that of female athletes. Rather than suggesting it as yet more evidence of a male-centred/-dominated discourse, I believe this could very well be a point where gender intersects with Chineseness. The ‘Chineseness’ I am referring to here is linked to China’s historical background and its march to modernity. The Olympic Games are never just about sports. How a nation-state performs in sports competitions is associated with the strength of the nation: not only in terms of its politico- economic strength but also the symbolic strength of the nation as a whole.3 In the hope of demonstrating a strong and modern China that is no longer ‘the sick man of Asia’, Chinese athletes have embodied this dream of the nation to perform well in international sports competitions. Athletes who win gold medals in the Olympics are seen as heroes/heroines, often assigned with a star-like status. Given the popularity of many athletes in contemporary China, research on the representation of both male and female Chinese athletes is rare, anthropologist Susan Brownell being an exception.4 Brownell was the first to use the constructivist approach to analyse the body politics of female athletes in the post-Mao era. Yet, none so far has used this approach to study the Chinese male athletes.5 In fact, there is a strong tendency in Chinese gender studies to focus on women.6 As Jinhua Emma Teng Downloaded by [Gladys Pak Lei Chong] at 07:11 05 March 2013 writes, ‘while our knowledge of women in China has greatly expanded, we must examine issues of masculinity as well as femininity if we wish to gain an informed understanding of gender in China’.7 While there are attempts to address this lack of ‘Chinese men studies’,8 studies on Chinese male athletes and their relation to nation-building remain scarce.9 This article seeks to scrutinise the construction of gender ideals pertaining to the Chinese athletes in the period leading up to the 2008 Olympics. Through the representation of Chinese athletes of three different Olympic moments, I study the changing perceptions on femininity and masculinity.