Rural taste, urban fashions: The cultural politics of rural/urban difference in contemporary China

Positions

Volumn 11, Issue 3, 2003, Pages 613-646

  Guang, Lei ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 24944468872     PISSN: 10679847     EISSN: 15278271     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/10679847-11-3-613     Document Type: Article

References (85)

1. Wang Weiming, "Chuan niezhi tuoxie man jie pao de nu ren men," Xin'an wanbao, 7 August 1996. All quotes from Wang Weiming come from this article. All translations of Chinese texts are my own.
2. See also Wang's reply to an Anhui reader, in Zhang Kun, "Yu 'Chuan' wen zuozhe Wang Weiming de duihua" [Interview with Wang Weiming], Xin'an wanbao, 14 August 1996.
3. Zhang Kun, "Yu 'Chuan' wen zuozhe Wang Weiming de duihua."
4. I am not, however, using the term ideology as Wang was using it. Wang used the term in the Chinese context to mean "politicized" (as opposed to "objective") or subjective language used by his critics. I am here following Terry Eagleton's usage of the term as he explained that "ideology is a matter of 'discourse' rather than 'language.' It concerns the actual uses of language between particular human subjects for the production of specific effects. You could not decide whether a statement was ideological or not by inspecting it in isolation from its discursive context, any more than you could decide in this way whether a piece of writing was a work of literary art" (Eagleton, Ideology: An introduction [London: Verso, 1991], 9). By discourse, I mean not only the language used in talking about migrant peasants but practices informed by such ways of talking. So discourses here encompass both linguistics and policy practice. By popular urban discourse, I primarily refer to the commentaries, utterances, and other writings (and their circulation) regarding rural migrants. It does not usually carry explicit policy implications. By the political or state policy discourse, I refer to official pronouncements; development policies, especially their control over mobility of peasants; and segmented development strategies along rural-urban lines.
5. See Pierre Bourdieu, "The Social Space and the Genesis of Groups," Social Science Information 24, no. 2 (June 1985): 195-220. In this essay Bourdieu also distinguished between "official naming" and individual or social practices, as the former was "authorized" and backed up by the force of legitimacy, while the latter were not.
6. See Zhao Shukai, "1995 nian nongmin liudong: Taishi he jiaodian" [Peasant migration in 1995], in 1995-96 nian zhongguo shehui xingshi fengxi yu yuce [Analysis and forecast of social conditions in China in 1995-1996), ed. Jiang Liu et al. (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1996), 86-89;
7. see also Dorothy Solinger, Contesting Citizenship in Urban China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), introduction.
8. For a detailed analysis of the politico-economic developments that led to massive rural-to-urban migration in China see Lei Guang, "The State, Market, and the Political Economy of Peasant Migration in Contemporary China" (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1999).
9. Wang Wuding et al., Jiushi niandai Shanghai liudong renkou [Shanghai's floating population in the 1990s] (Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe, 1995), 30-33.
10. State Statistics Bureau, China Population Statistics Yearbook (Beijing: China Statistics Press, 1994), 409. China's hukou (household registration) system divides the population into two broad juridical categories: agricultural householders and nonagricultural householders. While the hukou categorization does not correspond exactly to the rural-urban division (some nonagricultural householders, such as rural schoolteachers with nonagricultural hukou, may live in rural areas), the former approximates the latter closely in prereform China.
11. From 1968 to 1977 about sixteen million urban youths were "sent down" to the countryside "to be re-educated by peasants." The figure is from Han Jun, "Woguo nongcun laodong li zhuangyi de xianzhang yu tedian" [Current conditions and characteristics of rural labor transfer in our country], Jiang-Huai Forum, no. 2 (February 1995): 4.
12. For more on the sent-down youths in the 1960s and 1970s see Thomas Bernstein, Up to the Mountains and Down to the Villages: The Transfer of Youth from Urban to Rural China (New Haven Conn.: Yale University Press, 1977).
13. For a critique of "anti-urbanism" see William Kirkby, Urbanization in China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985).
14. For an example of the underurbanization thesis see Ivan Szelenyi, "Cities under Socialism - and After," in Cities after Socialism, ed. Gregory Andrusz, Michael Harloe, and Ivan Szelenyi (London: Blackwell, 1995), 286-317.
15. For an analysis of China's hukou system see Kam Wing Chan, Cities with Invisible Walls (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1994).
16. See also Lei Guang, "Reconstituting the Rural-Urban Divide: Peasant Migration and the Rise of 'Orderly Migration' in Contemporary China," Journal of Contemporary China 10, no. 28 (August 2001): 471-493.
17. For demographic information on migrants see Lei Guang, "State, Market, and the Political Economy of Peasant Migration in Contemporary China."
18. See also Laodongbu (Ministry of Labor), "'Zhongguo nongcun laodongli jiuye yu liudong zhuangkuang diaocha' fengxi baogao" [Analysis of the results from "Investigation into rural labor flow and employment conditions"], Nongcun laodongli liudong yanjiu tongxun [Bulletin for the study of rural labor flow] B-01 (1995): 3-9.
19. See Ching-Kwan Lee, "Engendering the Worlds of Labor: Women Workers, Labor Markets, and Production Politics in the South China Economic Miracle," American Sociological Review 60, no. 3 (June 1995): 378-397;
20. Pun Ngai, "Becoming Dagongmei (Working Girls): The Politics of Identity and Difference in Reform China," China Journal, no. 42 (July 1999): 1-19;
21. Solinger, Contesting Citizenship in Urban China;
22. Li "Zhang, Strangers in the City: Reconfigurations of Space, Power, and Social Networks within China's Floating Population (Stanford Calif: Stanford University Press, 2001).
23. See Delia Davin, "Migrants and Media," in Rural Labor Flows in China, ed. Loraine A. West and Yaohui Zhao (Berkeley, Calif. : Institute of East Asian Studies, 2000), 278-291.
24. Dong Jie et al., Mangliu, Mangliu [Blind floaters, blind floaters] (Shenyang: Liaoning renmin chubanshe, 1990), 1.
25. See Wang Wuding et al., Jiushi niandai Shanghai liudong renkou;
26. Wang Jianmin and Hu Qi, Zhongguo liudong renkou [China's floating population] (Shanghai: Caijing daxue chubanshe, 1996);
27. Sun Yilun et al., Anhui liudong renkou yanjiu [A study of the floating population in Anhui] (Hefei: Monograph, 1995).
28. Dong Jie et al., Mangliu, Mangliu, 2.
29. Tian Yong, "Mingong de hukou qingjie" [Migrante' hukou complex], Nanfang Ribao [Nanfang daily], 12 April 1994.
30. See State Council, "Zhengwuyuan guanyu chuanzhi nongmin mangmu liuru chengshi de zhishi" [Political council's directive on preventing peasants from floating blindly into cities], in Zhongyang zhengfa gongba [Central government bulletin on law and administration], no. 4 (1953): 33-34;
31. Central Committee (CCP), "Zhongyang weiyuanhui, guowuyuan guanyu zhizhi nongcun renkou mangmu wailiu de zhishi" [Directives on stopping the blind outflow of peasants from rural areas], in Nongcun zhengce wenjian huibian (I): 1947-57 [Select documents on rural policies: 1947-57] (Beijing: Renmin daxue nongcun jingji xi ziliaoshi, 1957), 585-588.
32. Two intriguing observations on this point: the first is how the erasure of gender distinction in the official language is matched by a mobilization of gendered bodies in the popular discourse as noted earlier. One might suggest that the erasure and mobilization of gender are two sides of the same coin, with both serving the purpose of denying agency and individuality to women migrants. Gendered construction produces stereotypes, while the erasure of gender in official reference preserves them by ignoring gender hierarchy in society. I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for this point. A second anonymous reviewer raised an intriguing question about the similarity and difference between the representation of migrants as blind floaters and the depiction of urban flaneurs in similar terms in modern China (see Leo Oufan's recent article "Shanghai Modern: Reflections on Urban Culture in China in the 1930s," Public Culture 11, no. 1 [winter 1999]: 75-108). One key difference seems to be that, whereas the flaneur's "directionless" presence was said to have contributed to the emerging urban identity in the early twentieth century, blind floaters are often seen as antithetical to urban orderliness. In the case of the former, there was an affirmation of the individual's urban social identity (shared by a class of similarly situated people); in the case of the latter, there is a denial of migrants' individuality as reflected in the attribution of a uniform social characteristic to a diverse formation. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for the comment.
33. See Davin, "Migrants and Media." Also George Wehrfritz, "Nightmare Cities," Newsweek, 26 December 1994-2 January 1995, 106-108;
34. Cai Hongbo et al., "Guangzhou dushi li de cunzhuang saomiao" [A glance at the urban villages in Guangzhou], Yangcheng wanbao [Yangcheng evening news], 29 July 1996, 7.
35. Liu Heping, "Shui duanzu le shenzhen dalin nugong de fanwan" [Who took the old-aged women workers' rice bowl in Shenzhen?], Shenzhenren [Shenzhen people], no. 29 (January 1996): 14-15.
36. Beijing shi laodongju (Beijing labor bureau), Waidi laijing renyuan guanli shiyong shouce [Guide to the management of outsiders in Beijing] (Beijing: Shi laodongju, 1995);
37. See Beijing shi laodongju, Waidi laijing renyuan guanli shiyong shouce, 152-156.
38. Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), 61.
39. See Zhao Shukai, "1995 nian nongmin liudong."
40. One report cites joint research by the Chinese Academy of Social Science and the Agricultural Bank of China showing that 36 percent of migrant households make less money than if their members worked at home. See Liu Zhouwei, "Mingong chao Jiang zai xian julang" [Migration tide will stir another wave], Nanfang Zhoumo [Nanfang daily], 24 January 1997.
41. Gong Yiwu, "Mingong chao" de qiluo [The rise and fall of "migration tide"] (Wuhan: Hubei renmin chubanshe, 1994), 66-92.
42. For a limit to the state's attempt in creating such spatial uniformity see Vivienne Shue, The Reach of the State (Stanford Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988).
43. See Daniel Kelliher, "Chinese Communist Political Theory and the Rediscovery of the Peasantry" Modern China 20, no. 4 (October 1994): 408.
44. State Council, "Guanyu chengxiang huafeng biaozhun de guiding" [The criteria on dividing city/towns and rural areas], in Zhonghua renmin gongheguo fagui huibian, 7-12 1955 [Collection of laws and regulations of the PRC, 7-12 1955], compiled by the State Council Legal Bureau, 411-412.
45. See Gao Xiaosheng, "Chen Huansheng's Adventure in Town," Chinese Literature 12 (December 1980): 3-12;
46. Kelliher, "Chinese Communist Political Theory and the Rediscovery of the Peasantry"; Myron Cohen, "Cultural and Political Inventions in Modern China: The Case of the Chinese 'Peasant,'" in China in Transformation, ed. Tu Wei-ming (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 151-170.
47. See, for example, the depiction of villagers by Arthur Smith, a nineteenth- century missionary in China: "There is in a Chinese village as such no intellectual life. . . . Linked with this dense ignorance and more impenetrable indifference is a most unbounded credulity. . . . Yet the rustic of this class is shrewd in his own affairs, and by no means deficient in practical intelligence" (Smith, Village Life in China: A Study in Sociology [New York: F H. Revell, 1899], 313-316).
48. See also Charles Hayford, "The Storm over the Peasant: Orientalism and Rhetoric in Construing China," in Contesting the Master Narrative, ed. Jeffrey Cox and Shelton Stromquist (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1998), 150-172.
49. Jean Oi, Rural China Takes Off (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
50. See, for example, Anita Chan, Richard Madsen, and Jonathan Unger, Chen Village (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984);
51. Edward Friedman, Paul Pickowicz, and Mark Selden, Chinese Village, Socialist State (New Haven Conn.: Yale University Press, 1991);
52. Ronald Knapp, ed., Chinese Landscapes: The Village As Place (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992).
53. Here I follow Ivan Szelenyi's usage of urbanism as involving three aspects of urban life: diversity in services, spatial planning (economizing with urban space), and existence of marginality (social norms and deviance). While writing on the distinctiveness of socialist urbanization in Eastern Europe, he remarked that there was little urbanism in the former socialist cities because of their emphasis on production, austerity, and basic provisions for all. However, rapid development of the service sector, increasing ethnic diversity, and urban marginality in recent years have brought about a revival of urbanism in the postcommunist cities. A similar process has clearly taken place in China in recent decades, especially in coastal and major cities in the country. See Szelenyi, "Cities under Socialism - and After."
54. Tang Xiaobing, "New Urban Culture and the Anxiety of Everyday Life in Contemporary China," in In Pursuit of Contemporary East Asian Culture, ed. Tang Xiaobing and Stephen Snyder (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996), 108.
55. See Cheng Li, "Rediscovering Urban Subcultures: The Contrasts between Shanghai and Beijing," in China Journal, no. 36 (July 1996): 139-153.
56. This study was based on Yichang, Jiangxi Province. See Feng Guilin and Li Lin, "Woguo dangdai nongmingong de xiaofei xingwei yanjiu: Yichan shi nongmingong xiaofei zhuangkuang diaocha yu fengxi" [A study of the migrants' consumption patterns in the country: Yichang case study] (paper delivered at International Symposium on Rural Labor Flow, Beijing, 25-27 June 1996), 5.
57. Zhang Henian and Shen An'an, "Shanghai wailai liudong renkou de shouru yu zhichu fengxi" [A study of the income and expense of Shanghai's migrant population] (paper delivered at International Symposium on Rural Labor Flow, Beijing, May 1996), 10.
58. Liu Zuci, "Ruci miao wen" [Such a "clever" piece], in Xin'an wanbao, 8 August 1996.
59. Yang Dongping, "City Monsoon: The Cultural Spirit of Beijing and Shanghai," Chinese Sociology and Anthropology 29, no. 2 (winter 1996-1997): 77.
60. See, for example, Aihwa Ong, Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia (Albany: SUNY Press, 1987);
61. Diane Wolf, Factory Daughters: Gender, Household Dynamics, and Rural Industrialization in Java (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992);
62. Lee Ching Kwan, Gender and the South China Miracle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998);
63. Carla Freeman, High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2000).
64. Yang Dongping, "City Monsoon," 56.
65. For the importance of symbolic capital see Pierre Bourdieu, "Social Space and Symbolic Power," Sociological Theory 7, no. 1 (spring 1989): 14-25
66. and Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984).
67. Wang Bo, "Cheng guan renyuan bixu anzhang zhifa" [City inspectors should enforce regulations according to rules], Zhibushenghuo [Party branch life], no. 7 (July 1996): 1.
68. "Xi'an nian mingong mian ai guanzhan" [Xi'an chases away migrants to give a facelift], Xingdao Daily, 25 June 1998.
69. Yu Qiuyu, "Shanghai ren" [Shanghainese], in Wenhua kulu [Culture's hard journey] (Shanghai: Dongfang chuban zhongxin, 1992), 145. Yu described Xu Guangqi this way: steeped in Chinese classical learning, Xu nevertheless befriended Jesuit pioneer Matteo Ricci and became a devout Christian even while devoting his service to the Ming emperor. There has been a renaissance in popular writings comparing Shanghai and other city cultures. They provide a window on how China's urban cultural elites come to think of their new urban cultures. For an extended review of this literature see Cheng Li, "Rediscovering Urban Subcultures."
70. Yu Qiuyu, "Shanghai ren," 150.
71. Xu Fei, "Letter to the editor," Xin'an wanbao, 7 August 1996.
72. Pinglunyuan, "Yiyi xiang yu xi" [Let's analyze a questionable piece together], Xin'an wanbao, 7 August 1996.
73. Li Zonglie, '"Chuan' wen taolun jiqi le qian ceng lang' [Debate on 'women' article causes ripple effects], Xin'an wanbao, 15 August 1996.
74. Han Han, "Mi tai yu jiao heng" [Subservience and arrogance], Xin'an wanbao, 9 August 1996.
75. Pinglunyuan, "Yiyi xiang yu xi," and Jing Guo, "Shishang de beihou" [Behind the fad], Xin'an wanbao, 14 August 1996.
76. Liu Zuci, "Ruci miao wen."
77. Shan Gang, "Women zhi kangjian hang ge zi: Di nie he cu pi" [We see only two words: Lowly and vulgar], Xin'an wanbao, 12 August 1996.
78. Jiang Weiyang, "Bie zai wanzi youyue le" [Don't show off your superiority], Xin'an wanbao, 13 August 1996.
79. Pinglunyuan, "Yiyi xiang yu xi."
80. Nian sun, "Aoqi zhong de xiao jia zi qi" [Stinginess amid arrogance], Xin'an wanbao, 13 August 1996.
81. Jiang weiyang, "Bie zai wanzi youyue le"; emphasis added.
82. See Kelliher, "Chinese Communist Political Theory and the Rediscovery of the Peasantry."
83. Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973).
84. Emily Honig, Creating Chinese Ethnicity: Subei People in Shanghai (New Haven Conn.: Yale University Press).
85. See also Kam Wing Chan, Cities with Invisible Walls;