Organizer: R. Bin Wong, University of California, Irvine
Chair: John R. Shepherd, University of Virginia
Avron A. Boretz, Cornell University
This paper describes rituals of drinking, singing, and "carousing" with bargirls by groups of men in karaoke bars, nightclubs, and similar venues in Taiwan. The materials for this discussion were gathered by the author during three years of research on an indirectly related topic. During this period I was invited to participate in drinking and singing parties, sometimes several times a week, by friends and associates belonging to two distinct groups: upper middle class entrepreneurs and white collar workers in Taichung; and the "sworn brothers" of Taitung's loosely organized underworld. The analytical focus of this paper is on the role these activities and interactions play in the reproduction of an ethos of machismo among Taiwanese men and on the ways that individuals produce themselves as "men of prowess" and "righteous brothers" by acting out certain roles in such contexts. A brief survey/discussion of these two related, generically Chinese archetypes and their various manifestations (ritual, mythology, classical literature, and modern mass media) locates these practices in a broader cultural and historical lifeworld. Given the influence of Japanese and American popular culture in modern Taiwan, and the recent increase in contacts with southeastern China and Southeast Asia, the author raises the further possibility that this may be the Taiwanese version of an emerging pan East Asian masculine archetype.
Fei wen Liu, Syracuse University
This paper is to illustrate how the Chinese women view widowhood differently from men. The ideology of chastity in China has long been regarded as the rationale underlying a woman's decision of not getting remarried after the death of her husband. Much research of widowhood thus focuses on the formation and the institutionalization of the cult of widow chastity in particular point of historical China. Many stimulating theses are proposed, varying from ideological explanations, e.g., Neo Confucianism, to the macro social economic ones. e.g., women's property rights and the maintenance of lineage integration. These analyses, though with diversified orientations, share a common standpoint, that is, approaching widowhood from men's or the lineage's model of society. We, however, hear very little about women's own voices, particularly those of the peasant class.
The focus of this paper is to address how the Chinese peasant women as protagonists interpret chastity and perceive remarriage. By focusing on women's own views, an ignored tension between two major attributes of Chinese conceptions of womanhood, "chastity" and "reproduction," is exposed. This tension is obscured from men's looking glasses because a man can practice polygyny according to the Chinese patriarchal arrangements to complement the infertility of his wife. To women, however, the conflicts between both are edged and potential. Especially for a childless widow, she has to choose which quality of womanhood to be deprived of, chastity or fertility. Chastity signifies a woman's self fulfillment and brings her honor and respect, but at the expense of having no offspring. Without a son, her life will be jeopardized in particular in her senility. Moreover, she will confront the difficulty of unstabilization of her personal identity which is constructed mainly through reproducing male descent in a patrilineal society. If a widow chooses remarriage, she might therefore be able to bear children, but encounter some other problems. She could be ridiculed because of losing fidelity. In addition, she has to struggle for re-adjusting herself into the uncertainty of a new life-again, as her first marriage. In other words, a remarriage may perpetuate what has conditioned her, and not necessarily liberate. How, then, do the Chinese peasant women manage this chastity/remarriage complex conceptually and practically? By investigating this inquiry, I aim to bring about a rethinking of how women conceive themselves and structure their lives. I also hope to improve our understandings of how the peasant women's living context is influenced by the contemporary changing political economy in China.
My analysis is built upon the field research into nushu, female literature, in Jiangyong County, Hunan Province of China. Nushu-written in the unique female specific and centuries old script (called nuzi)-is a body of literature, including biographies, letters, worship prayers and marriage laments, for women to make statements and release sentiments. The exploration of nushu allows me to construct an open analytical framework of widowhood which will expose how women as active subjects, instead of determined objects, strategically or dominantly interact with the social reality that constrains as well as inspires them.
Kuiyi Shen, Ohio State University
In response the New Culture Movement in China during the 1910s, an intensive debate about traditional Chinese painting emerged nationally in the 1920s. The focal point of the debate was whether Chinese traditional painting should assimilate the methods of Western art, if so how to absorb them, and the role Chinese painting should play in modern society. Many famous artists, writers, and scholars and most major art journals were involved in this debate. The art world was basically divided into two groups, one called "Reformist", the other "National Essence."
Both "Reformist" and "National Essence" groups realized that meaningless imitation in traditional painting, the result of a hundred years of stagnation, left it unable to meet the needs of modern society, and that the reform of Chinese painting was inevitable. However, the "reformists," most of whom had received western training in Europe or Japan and were impressed by West artists' abilities to depict objects directly from nature, believed that the reform of traditional Chinese painting required assimilating the methods of Western art. Representatives of this group were Xu Beihong, Lin Fengmian, Gao Jianfu, and Wang Yachen. As to how to reform Chinese painting with Western methods, however, there were several different opinions among the reformists.
On the other side, facing the challenge of Western influence and attacks from the "reformists," the "National Essence" group tried to find a way out within the tradition of Chinese painting itself, and regarded defending the tradition of Chinese painting as their inescapable responsibility. They, in fact, did not reject the reform of Chinese painting, and they also wanted to break away from the painting style of the late Qing period, but they tried to reform painting with ancient masters' styles and techniques of the Tang, Song, Yuan periods, not with those of Western art. The representatives of the "National Essence" group were Jin Shaocheng, Chen Shizhen, Huang Binhong, and Hu Peiheng.
In this paper, I will, through reviewing the major points of view of both groups in the debate and putting them into the political and cultural contexts of China of the time, examine the influence of the debate on the practice of traditional Chinese painting during that period and evaluate the meaning and value of this debate to the development of modern Chinese art.
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