Mahjong politics in contemporary China: Civility, Chineseness, and mass culture

Positions

Volumn 14, Issue 1, 2006, Pages

  Festa, Paul E ^a  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33750507049     PISSN: 10679847     EISSN: 15278271     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/10679847-14-1-7     Document Type: Article

References (65)

1. See Deborah S. Davis, ed., The Consumer Revolution in Urban China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000)
2. and Deborah S. Davis, Richard Kraus, Barry Naughton, and Elizabeth J. Perry, eds., Urban Spaces in Contemporary China: The Potential for Autonomy and Community in Post-Mao China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)
3. Deborah S. Davis, "Introduction: Urban China," in Davis et al., Urban Spaces, 3
4. See Vivenne Shue, "State Sprawl: The Regulatory State and Social Life in a Small Chinese City," in Davis et al., Urban Spaces, 90-112
5. In a recent study, Peter Hays Gries interprets China's new "popular nationalism" as largely independent of official propaganda and born of genuine anti-Western sentiments, which Gries gauges by mining an impressive diversity of popular culture media. For Gries, genuine sentiments seem to be largely prepolitical, a formulation he fashions from a psychologistic grasp of emotive expressions of tears and rage tied to narrative recapitulations of China's "century of humiliation"; see Peter Hays Gries, China's New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), esp. chaps. 1, 3, and 7. My understanding of sentiments, which is implicit in the theoretical framework I advance in this article, is based on a body of anthropological work on the cultural construction of emotions
6. see particularly Lila Abu-Lughod, Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985)
7. and Catherine A. Lutz, Unnatural Emotions: Everyday Sentiments on a Micronesian Atoll and Their Challenge to Western Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998)
8. Although a proliferation of nuanced definitions exists for both mass and popular culture, the former generally implies a culture imposed from without while the latter a culture that (spontaneously) emerges from below; see John Storey, Cultural Theory and Popular Culture (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1993). My choice of mass culture and definition thereof follow from typical usage by Chinese intellectuals
9. see Shi Ren, Yeshenghuo zong-heng tan: Dangdai xianxia wenhua tansuo (Nightlife: An Investigation of Leisure Culture in Contemporary China) (Beijing: Zhongguo Wenlian Chubanshe, 1997)
10. However, one of my objectives in this article is to emphasize the fact that mass culture in China is a site of political contestation. The notion of "popular culture" in China has been explored in "Chinese Popular Culture and the State," special issue, positions: east asia cultures critique 9, no. 1 (2001)
11. As Jing Wang puts it, "Postsocialist China has moved from a coercive to a systemic regulatory form of governance"; see Jing Wang, "Culture as Leisure and Culture as Capital," positions: east asia cultures critique 9 (2001): 92
12. See Wang Shaoguang, "The Politics of Private Time: Changing Leisure Patterns in Urban China," in Davis et al., Urban Spaces, 149-72. Not surprisingly, mahjong is also an important diversion for China's soaring number of unemployed
13. Chris Rojek, Decentring Leisure: Rethinking Leisure Theory (London: Sage, 1995), 42-45
14. See Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks (New York: International Publishers, 1971)
15. and Philip Corrigan and Derek Sayer, The Great Arch (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985)
16. See Rojek, Decentring, 42-45
17. Cited in Rojek, Decentring, 42-45
18. and Gramsci, Selections, 258
19. Shi Ren is a homophone for siren ("four people"), which refers to the book's four coauthors: Li Xingwu, Yin Quanyu, Li Hongfei, Hou Xiaofeng; see Shi Ren, Yeshenghuo. These are establishment or official intellectuals (as opposed to dissident intellectuals or counterelites), which means that their formulations of mass culture and leisure generally advance orthodox views and therefore are appropriate for my purpose
20. see X. L. Ding, The Decline of Communism in China: Legitimacy Crisis, 1977-1989 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). Although I cannot be certain, the four authors appear to have men's names, so I will refer to Shi Ren as "he."
21. See the contributions to Davis, Consumer Revolution
22. Wang, "Culture as Leisure," 93
23. See Michel Foucault, Ethics, Subjectivity, and Truth: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, vol. 1, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: New Press, 1994), 225
24. and Colin Gordon, "Governmental Rationality: An Introduction," in The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, ed. Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 1-51
25. See Foucault, Ethics, Subjectivity, and Truth, 223-51
26. and Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations (New York: Guilford, 1991), 59-68
27. Wang, "Politics of Private Time," 160-61
28. For example, see Chen Haiping, Tuibudao de changcheng: Zhongguo "majiang re" mianmian guan ji qi sikao (China's Indestructable Great Wall: A Study of "Mahjong Fever") (Wuhan: Changjiang Wenyi Chubanshe, 1993)
29. Gu Yue, "Cuo-ma: mingren ye fengkuang" ("Notables Are Also Crazy for Mahjong"), Xin zhoukan (New Weekly), 37-38 (1998)
30. Li Xianfu, Majiang shengsheng: Shehui wenti baogao wenxue ji (Mahjong Madness: A Collection of Reportage on Social Problems) (Beijing: Guangming Ribao Chubanshe, 1994), 54-106
31. Pen She, Fengkuang majiang cheng (Crazy Mahjong City) (Qingdao: Qingdao Chubanshe, 1992)
32. Sang Ye, "Da majiang de zhongguoren" ("The Mahjong-Playing Chinese"), Xin zhoukan (New Weekly), 37-38 (1998)
33. Xu Wenxue, "Dubo zongheng" ("On Gambling"), in Dushi chao congshu (Urban Trends Collection), ed. Z. Liu (Beijing: Minzhu Yu Jianshe Chubanshe, 1997)
34. Zhang Liya and Li Xiaobing, "Duhai chen-fu" ("Sink or Swim in the Gambling Sea"), in Dangdai Zhongguo yeshenghui (Contemporary Chinese Nightlife), ed. Y. Liu (Beijing: Huaiyi Chubanshe, 1993)
35. and Zhang Yanjun, "Majiang ye neng deng daya zhi tang" ("Mahjong Also Appeals to Refined Tastes"), Xin zhoukan (New Weekly), 37-38 (1998)
36. Gu Yue, "Cuo-ma."
37. Chen, Tuibudao, 277
38. Wuxi ribao (Wuxi Daily), "Majiang 'gang-kai' yiming guitan" ("Woman Wins on Gang-Drawn Tiles and Kicks the Bucket"), October 14, 1999. A gang-drawn tile means that after making a "four of a kind" set you replenish your hand by drawing another tile. To win on that extra tile drawn is called gangshang kaihua or gang-kai and has a high point-value
39. Nanfang dushibao (Southern City News), "Da majiang shudiao baba yu laizhang beishe xiayan" ("Boy Flees a 'Lose Your Father' Bet, Mahjong Buddy Shoots His Eye"), August 30, 1999. In a "lose your father" bet, the loser must approach the winner's father and call him "dad," a form of punishment in China that is considered a disgraceful loss of face
40. Guangzhou ribao (Canton Daily), "Qizi cheye cuo majiang zhangfu yinu tishang yao" ("Enraged Husband Injures Wife with Swift Kick for Playing Mahjong All Night"), August 30, 1999
41. Chengdu shangbao (Chengdu Business Daily), "Fu wan majiang qi buman jiuping cibei xian diuming" ("Wife Inflicts Life-Threatening Wound on Husband with Broken Wine Bottle for Playing Mahjong"), September 29, 1999
42. Yangzi wanbao (Yangzi Evening News), "Linju yao qi fumu cuo majiang shiyi-sui nuhai jing toudu zonghuo" ("Eleven-Year-Old Girl Sets Fire to Neighbors' Homes Where Parents Play Mahjong"), October 16, 1999
43. See Tian Hong, "Jiankang majiang fuchu shuimian qiaoran zoushang jingji wutai" ("'Healthy Mahjong' Quietly Takes the Stage"), Qingnian tiyu (Youth Sports), January 5, 1999
44. Sheng Qi, Majiangxue (Mahjongology) (Beijing: Tongxin Chubanshe, 1999), 2
45. Sheng, Majiangxue (Mahjongology), 47
46. See Zhang Yanjun, "Majiang ye neng deng daya zhi tang," 37-38; in a 1998 interview, National Sports Bureau Director Na Quanping makes precisely this point about game simplification and gambling convenience, adding that if the tile-reduction trend continues in Sichuan then future generations will be playing with half of a full set of tiles. The healthy or competition mahjong promoted by the party-state is played with all 144 tiles
47. Majiangxue could be translated as Mahjongology or The Art of Mahjong
48. Ben Xu, "From Modernity to Chineseness: The Rise of Nativist Cultural Theory in Post-1989 China," positions: east asia cultures critique 6 (1998): 203-37
49. see Song Qiang, Zhang Zangzang, and Qiao Bian, Zhongguo keyi shuo bu (China Can Say No) (Beijing: Zhonghua Gongshang Lianhe Chubanshe, 1996). Japan's status during times of strong racist-cum-antiforeign sentiment in China is often ambiguous. As Dikotter notes, even in 1895, Li Hongzhang could "uph[o]ld the idea of a perpetual peace and harmony between China and Japan, 'so that our Asiatic yellow race will not be encroached upon by the white race of Europe'"
50. see Frank Dikotter, The Discourse of Race in Modern China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), 57. Indeed, Sheng at times includes the Japanese among the "descendants of the Yellow Emperor" and inheritors of mahjong's cultural legacy
51. Xu, "From Modernity to Chineseness," 217
52. Sheng, Majiangxue, 27-28
53. See also Richard Curt Kraus, Brushes with Power: Modern Politics and the Chinese Art of Calligraphy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 157, who notes that mahjong, like calligraphy, fishing, and opera, is widely believed to be a cure for many ills
54. see Sang, "Da majiang." A good deal of the reporter's information is drawn from an interview with Xing Xiaoquan, who is the former director of the State Physical Education Commission and wrote the preface to Majiangxue
55. Ann Anagnost, National Past-Times: Narrative, Representation, and Power in Modern China (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), 75-97
56. see Richard Baum, Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 87
57. See especially Michel de Certeau, The Practices of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 91-110
58. and Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 121-34
59. See also Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 106-7, who refers to this move as a "synoptic illusion."
60. Jing Wang, "The State Question in Chinese Popular Cultural Studies," Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 2 (2001): 40-41
61. See Gordon, "Governmental Rationality," 5
62. See Ralph Litzinger, "Government from Below: The State, the Popular, and the Illusion of Autonomy," positions: east asia cultures critique 9 (2001): 264
63. Tian, "Jiangkang majiang."
64. Indeed, the state's promotion of qigong backfired and its effort to suppress falungong has made deep breathing exercises a politically subversive act. Direct sales/pyramid schemes (chuanxiao) are another example. Initially, the state encouraged this practice, claiming that it could teach the people about the virtues of hard work and self-initiative while also providing a means of livelihood for the unemployed. Once fraud and the shashou xianxiang (the destruction of personal ties, including family, friendship, and guanxi relations) became rampant, the state reversed its position and banned direct sales; see Gao Yu, "Deng Zhenqing yu Wang Hai: Wei she xingku wei shei mang?" ("Deng Zhenqing and Wang Hai: For Whom Are They Laboring?"), Shenghuo zhoukan (Life Weekly), April 15, 1999, 15-27
65. and Han Xing, Chuanxiao da jiemu (The Unveiling of Direct Sales/Pyramid Schemes) (Beijing: Dangdai Shijie Chubanshe, 1998)