Modern Chinese Literature and Culture

The City as Seductress: Reimagining Shanghai in Contemporary Chinese Film and Fiction Author(s): Vivian P. Y. Lee Source: Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Vol. 17, No. 2 (FALL, 2005), pp. 133-166 Published by: Foreign Language Publications Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41490945 . Accessed: 30/05/2013 06:13
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The

City

as in

Seductress: Contemporary

Reimagining Chinese

Shanghai Film and

Fiction

Vivian P. Y. Lee the most "foreign" Chinese city,has been the Shanghai, historically inChina, of and itbearswitness to thelong quintessential symbol modernity with theWest.Recent and complex ofChina's encounter scholarship history inthe earlydecades ofthetwentieth urbanculture on Shanghai's century nature ofthecity's colonial to light themultifaceted hasbrought experience Incinema, brandof modernity.1 of itsparticular and the uniquecharacter and popular culture,images of women, especiallythose of literature, informed liberated"moderngirls," bythe embodya modernsensibility reactions of the Chinesetoward and sometimes complex, contradictory, inthe ofWestern material culture and thesuperiority domination foreign - who "other" as woman asthecharacterization ofthecolonial Inasmuch the the seductive oftencomesto personify bodyofthe East reveals very in and sexualdesireinherent ofracial discrimination impulses contradictory the imagination ofChinese itseemsto havecaptured imperialist ideology,2 writers and filmmakers sincethe earlydecades of the twentieth century.3 thedubiousunionof racialand sexual Asa figurative construct embodying of the genderedotherembodiesthe psychological complexities politics, In on a Eurocentric worldview. a colonialencounter masculinist, premised and filmmakers Chinese writers theearly decadesofthetwentieth century, fora budding also made use ofthisvalue-laden trope,butas a metaphor colonialenclavesof China's ports. treaty 1"Colonial ananalytical model modernity," Jones inhis Andrew (2001) suggested by ofthe Chinese situates the study jazzage, Chinese within a transnational modernity frame "steers usaway from a vision that ofmodern Chinese cultural asa history ormerely mechanistic reflexive reaction to encroachment" 2001: (Jones 9). imperialist Shu-mei Shih uses "semicolonialism" (2001) without and the (domination hegemony) "bifurcation" ofcolonialism and modernity tocharacterize the Chinese of experience and European Japanese imperialism. 2Robert characterizes colonialism Young asa "desiring machine" a possessed by isatonce ofinterracial unions that fantasy and Desire, alluring repulsive. especially sexual constitutes desire, says Young, the "soft ofcolonial power underbelly" relations 1995: 175). (Young

Modern Chinese Literatureand Culture 133

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3Inher discussion of the "semicolonia! ofrace and Shu-mei politics gender," Shih out the (2001: 277-278) points the "osmosis between the and city inLiu "The modern Na'ou's fiction. girl" . . . illustrates modern illusiveness girl's isinevitably as how she construed of the part phantasmagoric reality ofShanghai." (1996: Yingjin Zhang makes a similar comment: 137, 230) asa gendered "Shanghai emerges ... asa seductive woman." image

as a response to the material, and political modern consciousness cultural, later, Japan. powersof Europeand# challengeof the imperial In the fiction fromShanghai duringthis period,the abstract(and are identical to thematerial culture valuesofWestern civilization superior) - and the latent ofthecity. One emblematic signofthiscultural superiority itimplies isthe modern threat woman,usually represented psychological and sexually and as the "westernized Chinesegirl"who is independent Shihhas argued,the "westernized Chinese liberated. As Shu-mei socially fictional is alwaysthe object of desire writings girl" in male-authored "forcapitalist withall itsseductive alluresof commodification, modernity . . . [She is] a prominent and entertainment. consumption, figurein the becomes desire, and ineluctably landscape of the male protagonist's ofwhathe isas a manof desire"(Shih2001: 301). Mostof all, constitutive the figureof woman,as the "new woman" and the "moderngirl,"not in butalso "reveal[s] tension oppositeviewsof modernity" only"reflect[s] and the desirable the interwar ideas about the modern, the urban, during views of women's bodies parallel period in China,"and "contradictory 2003: 82-83). viewsof modernity itself" (Stevens contradictory to Stevens, the "modernwoman" connotesa progressive, According and patriotic womanwho is partofthe nation-building forward-looking, with of the "moderngirl,"however, correspond project.The attributes of Shanghaimodernist fiction of the period,4 a Leo Ou-fanLee's readings ofmodern who isenamored ofthe "superficial aspects cosmopolitan figure butalso "sinister who is "sophisticated and illusive" and dangerous." life," Being a "distantsiren"who luresthe "unwary. . . male subjectto his ultimate demise"(Stevens 2003: 89),the "Chinesemodern girl"resembles tradition whose"seductive feminine thefemme fataleintheWestern body" bothas a symptom and a disturbing functions of malefantasy powerthat 2004: 113). To the extentthat (Bronfen challengesmasculine authority it functions in the Chineseimaginary of urbanmodernity as a seductive identified withthe alluring, the figure of woman is invariably presence,

4SeeLee 1999. The details of physical the female inLiu Na'ou's fiction, figure "mark the ofa Lee, says appearance new of the modern woman prototype a new who also embodies aesthetic of "aphantom the (196), beauty" image, embodiment ofanexotic ideal with allthe accoutrements from foreign sources" (198).

134 Reimagining Shanghai

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exoticpresence ofWestern an identification underscored and civilization, reinforced the fascination and anxiety withwhichthe male (national) by himself vis--vis the Westand themodern (native) positions subject imperial woman. Fromthe late twentiethcentury on, Shanghai has risenfromthe ruins of war and atrocities to become yetagain the "model" fora new nationwidemodernization to bringthe worldto projectthat promises Chinaand Chinato theworld.The "romance"betweenShanghaiand the Westis beingrevisited, butthistimeon a morelevelplaying and ground, a different set of powerdynamics comes intoplayat the dawn of China's "peacefulrise" (hepingjueqi), a phraseused by China'snew leadersto characterize the new phase of China'sriseon the international horizon. Sincethe 1990s, thefigure ofthe seductress has reemerged inthe cultural ofShanghai. Infilm as wellas infiction, theseductress imagination appears as a metaphor forthe city, a site of desirewherethe politics frequently of raceand genderare playedout inthe war betweenthe sexes.5 Instead of reiterating the binariesof colonizer/colonized, and male/ self/other, femaleinthecolonial/national formulation of racial/gender relationships, Chinesefilmand fiction invite different contemporary readingsof their femalecharacters and the symbolic meanings theyembody. What is the significance of reinventing the seductress as a metaphor forthe modern inChinatoday?Is ita symptom ofwhat (westernized) city Edward Said(1985:325) callsthe "self-orientalizing" oftheOriental subject, and therefore a form of "naturalized" Inthe context of self-subjugation? late-twentieth does the as both woman and China, seductress, century city, a of a mode of back" to the dominant difference, represent politics "writing and fictional textsopen up ideologyof the state?Do some of thesefilms thegenderedmetaphor forself-reflection and cultural Ifso,what critique? narrative and aestheticstrategies are employedforthispurpose?In an to address thesequestions, thisessaylooksat howthe seductress, attempt mostprominently as the concubine and thewhore,isemployed in figured Modern Chinese Literatureand Culture 135 5For a discussion of this dimension of women's inChina seeJ. writing today, 2000. Zhang

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inwhich and fictional works the a selection ofcontemporary Chinese films focuses on threetexts: isembodiedinthewoman.Mydiscussion Wang city hen Wei Hui's Sorrow Baby (Chang ge), Shanghai Anyi's SongofEverlasting Ye's film River and Lou Suzhou (Suzhou he). (Shanghaibaobei), 6The novel first in two appeared installments in the journal Zhongshan 4 (1995). nos. 3 and waspublished Song inmainland inbook form China by chubanshe and inHong (1996) Zuojia Cosmos Books This (1996). Kong by novel was refers tothe latter. The essay author the adapted subsequently by for the theater and later for a film of the same title director by Hong Kong in showcased Kwan, recently Stanley the 2005 Cannes International Festival. 7Inhis introduction tothe Hong Kong edition ofEverlasting David Sorrow, Der-wei commented (1996: 6)has Wang that Sorrow has "filled the Everlasting Tales gapleft by [Zhang Ailing's] Strange and Haifa Lifetime [Chuanqi] [Bansheng 1996: 6). yuan]" (Wang 8Wang more than sees difference Anyi between and herself, similarity Zhang her own that intellectual stressing wasshaped development by totally and cultural conditions different social Zhou Xinmin 1998: (in 1).Nonetheless, in a recent onZhang Ailing, Wang essay notes the (2002: 191-198) "worldly" inZhang's also fiction that are qualities inher own. discernible 9Xiao shimin the captures pragmatic, and business-as-usual, occasionally ofcity who character dwellers, cunning are differentiated from folks country social and cultural refinement. their by urbanits" isfrom The translation "petty Lee 1999. 136 Reimagining Shanghai ofthe City Sorrow:The ShanghaiLadyas Monument Song of Everlasting unfolds the life InSong ofEverlasting Sorrow,6 Shanghai's history through her romance with the after of who wining begins city story Wang Qiyao, thirdplace in the Miss Shanghai beautycontestof 1946, a time when lifeof The rather glamourless Shanghaiis on the vergeof disintegration. that displacesthe grand a woman thusoccupiesa "privileged" position in twentieth-century narratives of war, nation-building, and revolution China.Soon afteritspublication, critics hailed Everlasting Sorrowas the in Shanghai literature sincethe worksof Zhang biggestbreakthrough to Zhang's and WangAnyi herself was regarded as the "successor" Ailing, from herself her literary legacy,7 thoughWang hastakenpainsto distance famouspredecessor.8 In Song of Everlasting Sorrow,the foreignand exotic qualitiesof detailsof everyday Shanghaiare displacedbythe endlessand repetitive of the life.The author'sambitionto "rewrite" the literary topography evident from the the first four Chinesemetropolis is chapters beginning; detailed a familiar, domestic ambiencethrough are devotedto creating its rooftoppigeons,the numerous of Shanghai'salleyways, description and the gossip that fills "boudoirs" insidethe alleywaycommunities, in on the the air beforethe zooming heroine, Wang Qiyao.As herstory the "heart"and the "foundation" a mundane and ordinary unfolds, world, of Shanghai'smodern stage. Its glamour(Wang 1996: 3-10),takescenter 9 are distinguished the "petty urbanits" inhabitants, (xiaoshimin), bytheir and love of wisdom, pragmatism, worldly gossip. In the beginningchapters, the author repeatedlydescribesWang Qiyao's appearance in termsof her "homely beauty": she possesses

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neither the aura of a moviestar nor the ethereal beautyof a classical tragicheroine. Rather, Wang Qiyao's beauty lies in her "worldliness" herbeing partof a collective (shisu), way of life.The heroinebeing part of a "collective" is emphasizedat the beginning, whereshe is repeatedly referred to as emblematic ofa type the "WangQiyaos"(WangQiyaomen) are synonymous with the "Shanghailadies"(Shanghai dexiaojiemen)who roamthecity's streets and department stores. all,is "a typical Wang,after ofShanghai's she isalso "a monument ... daughter alleyway courtyards"; thatseemsto be able to slowdownthe passageoftime"(1996: 34-36).This to slowtimedown,however, also prefigures the heroine's apparent ability forit is herrefusal to acknowledgethe passage of time(and misfortune, itseffects on herbody)thatcauses herdemiseyearslater. Wang Qiyao is also a metonym fora verybroad profile of so-calledShanghailadies.As of the city, daughters saysthe narrator, theyare the "pillars" supporting the city's fashion and good taste,justas the alleyways are the foundation ofthecity's modern suitedas a starofthesilver (35). Never screen, glamour as a magazinecovermodel. Wangfaresmuchbetter of Officer Li,a middle-aged, Wang Qiyao soon becomesthe mistress bureaucrat oftheNationalist who diesina plane high-ranking government crash beforeChinafalls to the Communists. After a brief retreat to shortly the countryside, to herbelovedcity and beginsher "new" Wang returns lifein an old-fashioned alleyway apartment. courtyard Wang's lifestory to the landmark eventsin the history of Communist paysonlylipservice China:the symbolic dates of 1949,1957,and 1966-1976(respectively, the of the Communist the and Revolution, Anti-Rightist Movement, victory the Cultural are used as timemarkers notforpolitical events Revolution) but forWang's love story. In directoppositionto the "big world" (da and political the narrative (and the shijie)of nationalstruggle campaigns, heroineherself) focusesobsessively on the tea parties, dinner gatherings, cardgames,mahjonggames,and witty of like-minded repartees Wang's friends. Fora briefperiod,Wang's nongtangapartment home becomes Modern Chinese Literatureand Culture 137

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a covertcommunity of social outcasts, the ex-bourgeoisie who are now of the new society. To these individuals, relegatedto the margin Wang is an emblemofthe good old days, the personification of a lostworldto be order. Whilethe pettyurbanits' keptalive outsideof the new political isolation from theworld ofpolitics drawsa boundary between self-imposed the inside and the outside,private and public, individual and national, the an ever-expanding presenceof the quotidianconstitutes overwhelming interior random with its and flirtations, spacethat, effectively pushes gossip the outside,the public, and the nationalto the margins. Thata groupof petty urbanits shouldchoose to maintain a discreet and secretallegianceto the "old" wayof lifeand therefore risk exposing themselves to "classstruggle"maysound unconvincing, ifnot frivolous, in realities ofthetime.Yet,their giventhe dangerouspolitical indulgence trivialities inthe novelthrough obtainssignificance an equallyindulgent narrative thatdevoteslongpassagesto thedetaileddescription ofclothing, and domestic a technique to the food,socialetiquette, chores, comparable in take cinema that in a scene "real time" and presents long encourages the viewer to participate inthetemporality ofthe scene.Inthe novel, the betweenWang'sprivate worldand theoutside world, temporal disjunction too, is emphasizedbythe slownessof the narrative "long take," which also dramatizes a persistent desireto hold on to a fleeting momentof Within theenclosedworldofthenongtang peace and comfort. apartment, individuals are able to explore theforbidden territories of loveand desire. A mutual attraction a young developsbetweenWangand KangMingxun, manfrom an upper-middle-class in the pre-Communist family days.Kang and Wang findin each othera secretnostalgic to the passage "good old and delicacy thatis no longerpossible days,"a worldof socialrefinement underthe new socialist regime. with Wang Qiyao'sgradualdeclineis set againstherfailedrelations men.Herinitiation intothe worldof masculine desirehappensbychance when she is courtedbyMr.Cheng,a photographer. As hisfavorite cover 138 Reimagining Shanghai

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sees Wangthrough thecameralens,and she model,Mr. Chengfrequently finalbrushes. becomesan unfinished portrait awaitingthe artist's the portrait ofWang'slife withevery Similarly, gainscolorand shading encounter witha malefigure. From covermodelto MissShanghai further withan illicit the to abandonedmistress daughter, WangQiyaoseemsto fit of a gendered"other"producedbyunequal powerrelationships. profile as the femme fatalewho brings death or misfortune She mayalso qualify Li is killedin a plane crash,and the lovesick Mr.Cheng to men: Officer abandon and finally commits suicideduring livesincomplete the Cultural threelovers are lessfully Revolution. individualized characters WangQiayo's Li is than metonyms of the alluringqualitiesof the metropolis: Officer the enigmatic, of forever inscrutable, godlikefigure a personification - thatWang worships the "new" (modern)worldorder morethan love; hersecondlover, the "lostworld"ofmiddle class represents KangMingxun, to which whenshe etiquetteand socialrefinement Wang longsto return; "falls"fora manthirty Lao Kela,theirrelationship finally yearsherjunior, of selfinthe other. isfoundedon intensenostalgiaand a misrecognition As a "monument" of Shanghai's middle-class modernity, WangQiyao whatZhangXudong(2000: 360) calls"thisimaginedidentity's epitomizes Inthe end, Changtui constant love affair withitself." (Long Legs),one of heryoungacquaintances, murders an attempted As Wangduring burglary. itturns the of his theft wooden treasure box contains out, object Wang's - a gift theempty box neither cashnorgold.Wang'sobsession with treasure - revealsboth from herfirst lover and an emblemofthe heyday of herlife the emptiness of her nostalgic universe and the "nakedness"of lifein a world wheregood tasteand romance are consumed bygreedand violence. It is neither love northe loss of love,but an unfortunate coincidence of mistaken values attachedto some nonexistent "treasure"that leads to the heroine's undoing.10 the alternative worldof the city the mundane Byexploring through and apparently insignificant experience of a woman, Wang Anyi's

10 (2002: 7-77) compares Wang Anyi the of this novel toananecdote ending a middle-aged widow who was about ofher killed ina car accident because obsession with dresses. wearing long

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nationalist narratives that fictional hasdeviatedfrom the universal history as fiction ingeneral)ofmodern characterize the historical China, (orfiction 1933) and further dogmatized exemplified byMao Dun'sZiye(Midnight, in the revolutionary literature after1949. As a fictional character, Wang for owes her to predecessors, example Qiyao popularity manyliterary that and mistresses the singsonggirls, dance hall hostesses, concubines, 11 trace this to One could earlier, lineage hua late novels such asHai shang Qing ofShanghai) orto liezhuan (Flowers late courtesan magazines. Qing writers suchas LiuNai'ou,MuShiying, fiction populateShanghai bymodern in and even Mao Dun Midnight." as "forming Leo Ou-fan Lee seestheworks ofLiuNa'ou and MuShiying a continuumof the urban trope as representedby a modernfemme on character drawnfrom femalefigures fatale"(Lee 1999: 193),a fictional real-life encounters calendarposters, or inMu'scase from magazinecovers, a crucial 1999: there is also withdancehallhostesses (Lee 219). However, who difference between Wang Qiyao and other "Shanghai" mistresses her of earlier decades.Whatdistinguishes haveappeared inthe literature is thatthrough consciousadaptationof the traits fromher predecessors who has createda heroine of the seductress or femme fatale,Wang Anyi shewas to be one. Although does notliveup to thisimageor evendesires a popularmagazinecovermodel and is well versedin the social niceties and is a masterof dresscodes,Wang's of playing hostessat gatherings, feminine charmis never perceivedas a threatto the male characters, and worldof urbansensibilities in whose "gaze" is reflected a familiar 12 name Lao Kela isovertly The isthe "Kela" Shanghainese nostalgic. word transliteration of the English Lao Kela is "color." In the novel, ofstylish introduced as"atype character" renwu ) who (fengliu the old fashion ofShanghai "preserves from the ...the word 'kela' originates ofthe word reminiscent 'color,' English era" 1996: ofthe colonial culture (Wang 339). 140 Reimagining Shanghai material comfort. declines withage, Wangiscaughtup innostalgia-tinged Asherbeauty than play thatseemsto bring backthe good old times.Rather love affair to be seduced a allows herself theseductress, man,Lao Kela by young Wang intheagingwomana bygone era ofjazz and classic whofinds (Old Color),12 sex is no longer movies. Whenage takesitstollon the beauty, Hollywood oflovebuta self-destructive adventure intoeach other's theconsummation ofhertimeand hercity, Asa "monument" universe. WangQiyao imaginary in checkbyhercommonplace has managedto keep hervanity sensibility

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until herfatalencounter with Old Color, whoseeventual desertion indirectly herdesperateattempt to hold on to the brokenpromise of the provokes the treasure at all costs. box, past,symbolized by More important as a metaphor of the moderncity Wang is herself seduced bythe elusory, and illusory, aura of the city. It is elusory because the heyday of Shanghaiinthe 1930s(she Wang as a "late comer"missed was onlysixteenin 1946); bythe same token,her "belatedness"renders - itisalready heridealizedcity on thevergeofdisintegration when illusory herstory emphasizedinthe novel begins. Wang's"belatedness"isfurther with"fashion" orvogue (shishang ), a term byherobsession encapsulating to thecommodity culture and life women's Wang'srelation style especially

- of Shanghai.To Wang and manyothercharacters fashion in the novel, to be "in vogue" is alwaysa cause foranxiety and jealousy.To the petty urbanits at Wang'ssecret itisthedesire to holdon to an outlawed parties, socialcode of shishang thatbrings themtogetherin defianceof the new mandateson individual conductand beliefsinthe socialist era. as an agent of nostalgic subversion in the socialist period, Ironically, ends in China as a victim consumed up postsocialist Wang Qiyao by her own nostalgia.Forwhereas she has survived the destructive forceof a

socialist a reenactment ofthe past ina private, tyrannical regime through she does not survive the nostalgic massconsumption universe, nostalgic of "old Shanghai"during the Deng Xiaoping-eramodernization project inthe "wholesaledestruction thathas resulted of the city's past" physical devoured (Lu 2002: 173). Wang's nostalgiaof belatednessis inevitably new and by the nostalgia of consumption, by which her individuality are reduced to that of a a out from agency commodity,13 figure walking an old calendarposter, a relicof an imaginary pastfetishized bya young of the generationdivorcedfromthe historical experienceand memory Introduced at a as the "Miss past. private party legendary Shanghai,"her presenceis "likeold clothesat the bottomof a wardrobe,""a charming a painting decoration, hungon the wall . . . the color has faded but the

13 in Onthe heroine's implication and the culture Shanghai's commodity of the potential liberating commodity, seeB.Wang 2002. Here Itake the commodification of the heroine and ascommodity" assymptoms "nostalgia of the tension and contradictions inherent inChina's economic haphazard reforms and the crisis spiritual resulting from the ofsocialist disintegration in the two decades. past ideology

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like essenceremains" (345-346).To Old Color, presence, Wang'snostalgic himto the or "timechannel"connecting old jazz songs,isjusta medium idealized past: "what he saw today is not old jazz, but a person. . . now reachedthe coreofthe gold old days"(347). By he realizedhe had finally ofa bygone and a "monument" era, Wangas an "ordinary" beauty casting to rewrite the history the seductress metaphor Wang Anyihas reworked and as to official socialist of Shanghai,bothas a counternarrative history of historical in contemporary a critique of the commodification memory Chinesesociety. From ShanghaiLadyvs. ShanghaiBaby Nostalgiato the Ever-Present: inWei the city as an ordinary IfWangAnyi has reimagined Shanghailady, thevoiceofa rebellious Hui'snovelShanghaiBabythecity speaksthrough withherconflicted valuesand to cometo terms youngwomanstruggling beliefs.Zhang Yingjin(1996) has pointedout that the cityas woman is primarily configured bymale authorswho were fascinated bythe exotic In his readingof fictional worksbyShanghai charmof the moderncity. in the 1930s,Zhang discovers thatthe modernmetropolis is modernists who are consistently personified subjectto the by female protagonists As such,the city as a genderedspace is gaze of the male narrator/author. of male vision. a product The complexexchangesbetweenthe modernist inthis isprimarily context male)and theobjectofdesire(the "gaze" (which a femmefatalefigure), cannotbe understood however, woman,usually in terms of male versus the gazed at, female,or the gazer versus simply its own because the male gaze is compromised by "marginal"position the patriarchal Chinesetradition.This ambivalenceis further vis--vis inrelation stanceofthewesternized "native" complicated bytheprecarious and the foreign of Shanghai.In TheLureof the to colonialism occupation Shu-mei Shih(2001) has pointedout thatthisdilemma isresolved Modern, a "bifurcation" of colonialism and modernity, through bythe modernists fromitscolonialorigins. Thusthe relationship bydissociating modernity 142 Reimagining Shanghai

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between themalegaze and itsgendered Chinese objectofdesireinmodern literature has neverbeen a simple"replica"or "naturalized copy"of the colonialprototype. In Shanghai Baby, Coco as a representativeof the "new, new ofShanghai(and China)embodiestheanxieties (xinxin renlei) generation" and tensionof the city's in a new global (and nation's)searchforidentity worldorder. Coco'ssearchforself-identity "Whoam I?") (herquestioning material and sexual liberation istherefore through writing, gratification, inthe new (dis)order of market in the postsocialist implicated capitalism linkedto the multiple era, and in a gender politicsthat is ineluctably and ruptures occasioned bythis identity disorientations, displacements, crisis. can been seen as thesurrogate selfofhercreator Wei Coco,arguably, as well as of the "fashionable woman writers" that have emerged Hui,14 on the literary scenetoday,15 who explores/exploits the opportunities and As Megan Ferry perils awaitingthe new breedof China's"moderngirls." "thefemalewriter as bad girlis backintown,"trying (2003:655) remarks, to makeitinan increasingly and versatile cultural market wherethe open femalebodyand femalesexuality are easilytranslated intorevenues and royalties. In Shanghaiaby,16 the first-person Wei Ke (who has given narrator, herself the English name Coco afterheridol,Coco Chanel),is a self-styled young writeractive in Shanghai's "yuppie" (youpi) circle A graduate of Fudan University, she has been a successful and authorof journalist a controversial but popular novel,publication of whichwas suspended when itsfirst 3,000 copies were sold out. Amongher acquaintancesare and Western who artists, intellectuals, celebrities, expatriates avant-garde timeat cocktail and private discos, exhibitions, concerts, spendtheir parties, wheresex and drugsare de rigueur. gatherings Behindthe veneerof thiscarefree and hedonistic however, lifestyle, Coco ishauntedbyan unspeakableloneliness and spiritual that emptiness borders on the nihilistic. The two sidesof herpersonality are capturedin

14 The name Wei author's Hui isthe pen without her name, given patronymic surname Zhou. Such a name be might seen asa "feminist" statement. 15 Other often-cited names to belong this are Mian Zhou Jieru, Mian, group and Zhu others. Wenying, among a discussion For of this new literary and its for phenomenon implications women writers' and autonomy agency, seeFerry 2003. 16 inShanghai in1999. 1 First published refer here tothe Cosmos Books edition The novel's erotic 2002). (Hong Kong, content serious criticism and provoked denunciation mainland authorities, by who banned the book in the finally summer of2000.

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in the tensionbetween body and mind,a tensionthat is also manifest careerand herlove life. WhileCoco the intertwined natureof herwriting in material and bodilypleasures, she uses herwriting as indulgesherself herconflicting values and desires. a meansof harmonizing/rationalizing for inherown desires overtakes theoriginal motivation Coco'sindulgence wishthatshe writea good novel. herwriting Tiantian's and melancholy Tiantianis a handsome,effeminate, young man. in shadow of Sensitiveand artistically he remains the trapped gifted, his father's by his motherand sincethe age of ten has alleged murder and idleness. Hissexualimpotence withdrawn to a life ofself-abandonment are clearinthesymbolic "removal" ofthefather (theFreudian implications as a result) the son suffers [phallic] repercussions figureand the psychic and soon Coco yields to createsan unbridgeable gap betweenthe lovers, the temptation of herown instinct and beginsa secretaffair withMark, a Germanexpatriatewhose apparentlyinsatiablesexual appetite fills withTiantian. The noveldevelopsaround the "lack" in her relationship and the lovetriangle betweenTiantian, Coco, Mark, interspersed among whichare the more or less chaotic personalstoriesof Coco's socialite her sex friends. WhileTiantianis the inspiration behindCoco's writing, lifeis the fleshand blood of herfictional to be world,whichshe intends a "semiautobiography," as Wei Hui herself has claimed in her preface just to the novelthatShanghaiBabyis semiautobiographical. - devotingherself a novel As Coco livesher "double life" to writing in sex with as an emblemof her love forTiantianand indulging herself - the splitin her character and anotherman becomes more prominent she hasgradually lostthedelicatebalancebetweenherfeminist disturbing; inpublic and private) and heruncontrollable values(something sheflaunts sexualdesire, whicheffectively turns herintoa sex object,even a tool in withMark.In Coco's narrative, her resistance to Mark's her relationship is short-lived; she even surprises herself when she sexual advancements to Markin the bathroom of a bar in what borders on a rape succumbs 144 Reimagining Shanghai

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Coco isalso a willing inpursuit ofpurephysical scene.Ironically, excitement, of whichshe is fully a complicity victim of Mark'sseductivemasculinity, Coco isadept at and cultural literature aware.Wellread inwestern theory, inisttheory, as ifto solicit intellectual and fem psychoanalytic quotingfrom to justify hererotic herAmerican and European"mentors" from credibility and selfthe alternate scenesof lovemaking adventures. Seen inthislight, of amplifying Coco'sself-disgust and the morbid havethe effect reproach whichin Coco's narrative she derivesfrom satisfaction self-debasement, To the extent effect on hertroubledconscience. also has a "purgative" the traditional caizi and talentedTiantian resembles thatthe melancholy Markcan be seen as (handsomeand talentedyoungscholar)character, of western civilization of the sheerforceand vitality the personification No intomodernity. that loomslarge inthe wake of Shanghai'sinitiation doubttheirclaimson herloyalty (both of the mindand of the body)are a constant sourceof unease forCoco. are Coco's moraland sexualtransgressions Likemanyof herfriends, to of a contemporary formof decadence that lends itself an expression withitspredecessor morethan halfa century an interesting comparison earlier.Compared with the "aesthetic decadence"17of the Shanghai the to do witheither inthe 1930s,Coco's decadence has little modernists tensionbetween her modernvalues and discontentment psychological withwestern withmodernity (as in the case of Lu Xun) or a fascination To and material culture civilization (as inthecase ofthe NewSensationists). is inseparable of friends, "aesthetic"experimentation Coco and hercircle and self-fulfillment of fromunrestrained and, in Coco's pursuit pleasure of the libidoin liberation case, it meansthe completeand simultaneous and hersex life.As Leo Ou-fanLee has pointed bothhercreative writing theterm twentieth to Chinaintheearly out,sinceitsintroduction century, and "decadence" has been associatedwithwomen's"wantondepravity," withthefigure ofthe ofdecadencehas a close relation thisinterpretation femmefatale in modernChinesefiction (Lee 1999: 232-257). Although Modern Chinese Literatureand Culture 145 17 "decadence" ofShao Onthe Xunmei, 1999: 232-257. seeLee

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Coco has intended her liaison with Markto be nothingmore than a of it gradually evolvesintoa bitter "sexual partnership," entanglement to taking he resorts discovers Coco's secret, love and lust.WhenTiantian dies. Tiantian'sdeath perhapssparks drugs,fromwhichhe eventually of whichoscillatesbetweentwo extremes Coco's confessional narrative, of are projections withthe two men,therefore, the self.Herlove affairs confession. of herfictional whichis also a leitmotif hernarcissism, ofbeinga writer contradiction A closerlookat the inherent preaching mistress is socialstance)and a foreigner's values(also a fashionable feminist as a "Shanghai ofCoco'scharacter to ourunderstanding baby."One helpful in at work Coco's occasional to note is the philosophizing irony playful thing to about the cityand itsway of life,especiallyin the casual references of Shanghai. theoriesin her description and postcolonial postmodernist betweenCoco's philosophical thereis little Nonetheless, correspondence Coco's Like thenovelshe iswriting, herlife. and thewayshe lives reflections that brings form of self-indulgence reflections are a more "intellectual" sense it allows hera fleeting to herconflicted relief feelings; temporary massof urbanits overthe undistinguished of "superiority" againstwhom Inthe novel,herphilosophical a measureof herindividuality. she defines encounters swallowed andtheorizing arequickly reflections up bytheerotic thatsustain the flowof hernarrative: we lookedat the silhouon the roof[ofthe Peace Hotel], Standing on bothsidesof the litup bythe streetlights ettesof the buildings TV Asia'stallest. the Oriental Pearl Tower, especially HuangpuRiver, of the the sky, Itslong,longsteelcolumnpierces phallus proof city's the dazzling the waves,the night-dark The ferries, grass, worship. - all thesesignsof material structures and incredible neon lights to intoxicate itself. the uses are They prosperity aphrodisiacs city to do withus,the people who liveamongthem.A car have nothing invincible accidentor a disease can killus,butthe city's prosperous, eternal. is likea planet,in perpetualmotion, silhouette as an ant on about that,I feltas insignificant When I thought the ground.(Wei 2002: 14-15;2001: 18-19) 146 Reimagining Shanghai

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Coco'sperceptive ofthe night observations sceneof present-day Shanghai is ripewithsymbolism and aesthetic but soon sensibility, they givewayto - love talk and love making:"I liked of a moretempting kind thoughts to undress down to mybra and pantsinthe moistbreeze from the right or I'ma narcissist or Huangpu.MaybeI have a complexabout underwear, an exhibitionist or something, but I hoped thiswould somehowstimulate Tiantian's desire"(2002: 14; 2001: 15). Thisis symptomatic of the splitbetween body and mind,love and the entirestructure lust,moralvalues and carnal pleasurethat informs of the novel. Coco's internal divisionis initially in her two personified - Tiantian lovers and Mark "libido"and narcissist/idealist) (erotic (impotent

- butthe authorplayfully a "man ofthe world") takesaway bothmenin the end: Tiantian dies of an overdoseof heroin, and Markis transferred in disorientated backto Berlin. Adrift of remorse and pain,Coco feelings of a German film director (a lesbianwithwhomshe acceptsthe invitation has had an eroticencounter) to visit where she also expectsto see Berlin, Markagain. Coco's narrative ends withherasking,"Who am I?" Coco's question invites the reader to ponder the possible duality/ ofCoco'sidentity. Coco has been writing aboutwriting a novel; multiplicity what the readerhas just read is therefore the fictional novelthat Coco to finish forthe sake of herdeceased lover. Sincethe flesh-andpromises blood authorWei Hui herself admitsthe semiautobiographical explicitly nature of the novel, the ending is a deliberate transgression of the between reality and fiction that keeps the readerguessingas boundary to Coco's "trueidentity" and the possiblecorrespondences between her and Wei Hui'sprivate life.Moreimportant, we are left to ponderthe story forwhomis Coco speaking? question, is populatedbythe rising of Shanghaiin Coco's narrative generation in their midor late twenties who seek out means to yuppies every distinguish themselves from the ordinary. Their eccentric and thus lifestyle arrogance bear a closersemblance to the "bobos," a new generation of "bourgeois Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 147

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18 SeeJ. 2005: 540. Within the Wang cultures" "new taste represented by the the "rebellious are chic bobos, . . . China's are young generations safe a party-going the cool, courting the kind ofsoulunattended esprit by the sought by proponents searching I of the new European post-subcultura onrepoliticizing movement bent youth with a carnivalesque twist" cultures (J. 2005: 544^545). Wang

a social bohemians" thatemergedinthe late 1990sand are characterized dreamofbeingpartoftheglobal,'cosmopolitan' that"fans their imaginary but at the same timethey than to middle-class culture/'18 professionals, fromthe marketeconomyto satisfy make no qualms about profiting an "incestuously thin desires.Bobos,thoughoccupying theirmaterialistic cut a broad social profile and peripheral" (Shen 1999: 100) social milieu, of the and social constitution the changingdemographics that reflects Celebrities, filmmakers, wealthywidows,expatriates, metropolitan city. and fashiondesigners, real and fakeavant-garde models, writers, artists, as wellas consumers thesepeople aretheforemost trendsetters publishers: Infact, an extravagant ofthe latestfashion. parade ShanghaiBabyoffers to of the new bohemianswho have taken their "marginality" a new Takentogether, dimension. theyhave createda new habitatat the core to generatemoney, of the city withtheirimpressive consumption, ability and desire.Theycall one another"baby" or "babe" in private gatherings Thesebobos,or moreprecisely as ifitwerea code formutualrecognition. from to be differentiated are a new breed Shanghaibabies, completely in Leo Lee'sstudy of Shanghaiinthe 1930s;Wei the bohemians identified an attitudetoward modernity that is completely Hui'snoveldramatizes different from thatof "semicolonial" Shanghai. In the fictionallandscape of the novel, the "modern" milieu of Shanghai is a "nativized" version of global capital and technology jazz bars, concert halls, discos, exemplifiedby modern architecture, elaborately decorated eateries, and a shopping malls, skyscrapers, detailsconjureup a of designerlabels;these material bewildering array and dizzying modernspace thatthe new socialelitescall home. colorful in theirdailyencounter with nor resistance There is neither fascination whichis so between past and present, thismodernmirage.The rupture works oftheearlier inmany manifest appearsfleeting literary generation, in ShanghaiBabyin the occasionalviewof the Bund,the and dreamlike from the bygoneera- a and antiquatedbuildings tree-lined boulevards,

148 Reimagining Shanghai

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fashionsrather than personalexperience nostalgiainformed bycultural or historical memory. Thesecharacters, "babies" inthe latetwentieth indeed,are Shanghai's century. Comingfromdiversesocial backgrounds, theywere brought era of the 1980sand were blessed in theiradolescence up in the reform withmaterial in the previous affluence decades. Withthe unimaginable of personalwealth,the dwindling of the rapidaccumulation legitimacy Communist and a the lack of new moral code to take the Party, place of a collapsing "libido" political ideology(X. Wang 2002: 1-17),a collective outofa half-century ofrepression and deprivation. AsCoco reflects erupted on herown experience, she figures thatsex,drugs,money, and nihilism, narcissism are the natural attributes ofthe younger to whom generation, the traumas of history seem too distant and irrelevant to accountforthe and existential the new realities spiritual emptiness anxiety accompanying and unguidedfreedomof a postsocialist marketeconomy.As long as the phantasmagoria of modernity is takenat face value, itsglamourand decadence is devoidof anyspiritual or intellectual content. The City as "FallenMyth": Suzhou River In contrast to the two ratherintimate visionsof Shanghaipresentedin Sorrow and Shanghai LouYe'sfilm Suzhou/?/Ver19 SongofEverlasting Baby, with narratives to operates multiple depict present-day Shanghai as a The mainstoryline follows the lovestory space and fallenmyth. dystopian between Mada, a motorcycle and Mudan,a beautiful, innocent courier, father who makeshisliving teenage girlneglectedbyherlibertine selling from Eastern Later Mada involved with on, illegal liquor Europe. gets another womancalled Meimei, a "dancer"(she dressesas a mermaid and swimsin a gianttank) in a bar. Playedbythe same actress(Zhou Xun), Meimeiand Mudan are treatedas mysterious "doubles" who apparently do not know each other.The first an narrator, unnamedvideographer, as an intruder, a third-and first-person voiceover,a presentshimself 19 Written and directed Lou Ye# by atthe this film won the Award Tiger Film in1999 and Best Rotterdam Festival in Film and Best Actress awards the Paris Film Festival in2000.

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with and Meimei'sboyfriend. The narrative starts voyeuristic camera-eye, thenameless "camera" ourfocalpoint ofthevideographer; thenitshifts betweenMeimeiand Mada and backto the camerainthe end. freely Thefilm's SuzhouRiver, invokes thehistorical ofShanghai title, memory as a portcity.Nonetheless, the Suzhou River and the restof the film's have little, ifany,resemblance to either the clichdimageof the setting or the Pudong district, where Bund,Shanghai'scolonial headquarters, urban culture most economic and are power Shanghai'spresent vividly to the world.The videographer's shotsofthewaterfront displayed jumpy reveal thecity's most crowded withrunsordid, dilapidated neighborhoods industrial and all sorts and downbuildings, ofdomestic compounds, grimy industrial waste.Thisunseemly of the recalls its precedent sight city literary inSu Tong'sfiction, inwhich the river becomesa symbol ofdecadenceand moraldegeneration: The river thusflowsalong the north front of Fragrant CedarAvenue as ithas forcenturies. Inwinter it is icyblue-green. Nobodyknows in . . . Thereare it becomes blackish and summer. why yellow spring no longeranyfishinthe river. coal and cementpass Bargescarrying . . . The and dead rats float on the water. Oil,garbage, byeveryday. in of the era is but it has left its traces scenery bygone fadingaway, Cedar Avenue. 1995: (Su 28) Fragrant inthe wordsof the videographer, Lou Ye's Suzhou River, has "a century's worthof stories. . . and rubbish, whichmakes it the filthiest river"in Aswe shallsee, the river motif is laterdevelopedinthe Mudan/ Shanghai. Meimei/Mermaid overlap. identity The first shots of the riverand its surrounding set in motionthe between Mada and Mudan, Mada and Meimei, entangled love affairs and Meimeiand the videographer. The videographer makesa living by forprivate clients. is also a means Yet,to himphotography freelancing not the to connect to the outside world. For a significant (if onlymeans) the narrator's withthatof the partof the film, pointof view is identical 150 Reimagining Shanghai

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comes into view: camera,and it is throughthis lens that Meimei first in an obscure,incandescent Meimeidressesas a mermaid lookingbar# and performs shows insidea huge tank(figs.1, 2). From the first nightly the camera-as-narrator feels obsessively sightof Meimei as mermaid, attracted to the mermaid's As the "camera"followsitsobject, mystique. the videographer fallsin lovewiththe seductive and mysterious Meimei. is briefly Their disturbed of Meimei, whom relationship byMada's pursuit he mistakes forMudan. The narrator then recalls, throughMeimei,the of Mada, who makesa living as a motorcycle courier. Mada fallsin story lovewithMudan,the teenage daughter of one of hisclients. the film, the videographer's narrative shifts between Throughout Meimei's recollection of Mada's story,his own flashbacks,and his reconstructions of the gaps inthe story. The dramatic turnof imaginative eventsoccurs when Mada is orderedto kidnaphisgirlfriend. Devastated Mudanjumpsintothe river doll, byMada's betrayal, holdinga mermaid a birthday and in deep giftfromMada, and disappears. Heartbroken the whom man starts he believes is remorse, young pursuingMeimei, Mudan.WhilebothMeimeiand the videographer dismiss Mada's story as a scam, thusdenying Mudan'sexistence, thecameraconsistently dwellson and idealism, Mudan'sinnocence qualitiesthatall threeothercharacters lack. In the film, Mudan's schoolgirl fondness appearance, her childlike forthe mermaid doll (fig.3), and her lack of social sophistication and with Mada's cynicism is in directcontrast and his shady pretentiousness Her kidnappingby Mada and subsequent dealings in the underworld. a redemptive momentin Mada's life, which jump intothe river signifies thentriggers Mada's searchforMudan. Mada's searchnotonlymotivates the mainactionofthe film butalso servesas a wake-upcall to Meimei,when she confronts the dead bodies of the lovers, who apparently were killedin a car accidentshortly after in Mada's past growsdeeper as she theirreunion. Meimei'sinvolvement the same peony (mudan hua) almost unconsciously applies to herself 2:Meimei atthe Figure performing camera 1:the Mermaid a inside (Meimei) Figure tank water

3:Mudan and the mermaid doll Figure

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be the tattoothatMudan has on herown bodyand hopesthatshe might that after the tragicaccident woman Mada is lookingfor(fig.4). Shortly killedthe two lovers, the narrator/videographer reappearson the scene the corpses. After the death whenhe iscalled uponto identify witnessing of the lovers, Meimeidisappearssoon afterward, leavingonlya note for the videographer: "Come and findme." 4:Meimei's tattoo Figure Lou Ye In filming of Meimei/Mudan as the mermaid, the character handheld camerato createa random, "as is" imageofthewomen, employs The camera'sapparently the jumpyshots of the riverbank. paralleling directionless movementand the random and quick editing leave the It is are existentially. audience visually disoriented, just as the characters worldof Suzhou River also in thisvisually and experientially disoriented that Meimeiand Mudan's identities and destinies overlap.At the same time,the audience is also made aware thatwhat is seen on the screenis of morethanthe videographer could possibly "record."The positioning the camera-as-character the viewerto identify (fig.5), insteadof luring withsome controlling such a visionby questioningits vision,critiques ("Camerasdon't lie," he claims)and authenticity (being part objectivity of the fiction and "represented"). the "mythical" qualitiesof Meimeias Mermaid(meirenyu, Similarly, whichcorresponds with the name Meimei),when she is "framed"by the fishtank and the videographer'scamera, are largelya scripted performance.The play with framingand perspectivesthus subtly deconstructs the videographer's privileged gaze, but it also conveysa in the interplay sense of immediacy and personalintimacy betweenthe driveand voyeuristic camera.The film's "documentary" videographer's of the "double" lifeof Meimeiand/asMudan has been noted portrayal in as fromHitchcock, critics a consciousborrowing by especially Vertigo, which the male hero'sneurosis isgradually revealedand intensified byhis withthe "double" of a woman he believesis dead (Silbergeld encounter treatmentof Suzhou River, Jerome 2004: 13-18). In a chapter-length 152 Reimagining Shanghai

5:the camera-l /eye Figure

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ofthethematic and cinematic features givesa thorough Silbergeld analysis that the filmshareswith Hitchcock's "prototype"and shows how Lou Ye has gone beyondHitchcock's to call foran "overcoming of a cynicism collective neurosis"(18) that has itsoriginin the corrupt and corrupting socioeconomic institutions. Yet the film'sslant toward the mythical and inexplicablein the use of cinematic resonateswith doubles, linkedto the Mermaidfigure, another Western film Kryztof Kieslowski's TheDouble Lifeof Veronique (1995) in whichthe heroine, Veronique,a sopranosingerfromFrance, discovers herown "double" (Weronika) while lookingout from a coach. After Weronika(also a singer)dies of heartfailureduringan audition, Veroniquebeginsto feelWeronika's presencein herlifeeventhoughthe two have nevermetor knowneach other. The inexplicable of loss feeling a film, prompts Veroniqueto give up her singingcareer.In Kieslowski's marionette artist is seen repeatedly a puppetshow in which performing a youngwoman dies and comes back as a butterfly, thusendowingthe film narrative withan otherworldly, tale-likequality thatallowsfor fairy transcendence of death or fate. imaginative In Suzhou River,Meimei,who initially dismissesthe narrative of Mada and refuses to acknowledgethe reality of her double (Mudan), comesaroundto confront herown cynicism aftershe has witnessed the tragicdeaths of the lovers.Her disappearancein the end, as Silbergeld a self-awakening. Herdecision to leavethevideographer suggests, signifies and the world of despairand confinement he represents suggestsher determination to "come backas Mudan . . . taking the pursuit of an ideal as herreality" 2004:30-31).Thefatalistic undertone of LouYe's (Silbergeld film is comparable to Kieslowski's inthe use of parallelsand contrasts to dramatize the inexplicable in coincidences lifeand humandestiny, which isoftenassociatedwithlossand premature death. Unlike who Kieslowski, has a penchant forcapturing thetragicironies ofthe humancondition by of fate or destiny weavinga "unity," usuallyin the fulfillment (tragicor Modern Chinese Literatureand Culture 153

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his Lou Ye beginsbyfirst occurrences, not),intodisjointed fragmenting of the and the videographer, perspectives story through multiple shifting 20 notes that the Kraicer (2000) Shelly film isdiscernible of the mainly "unity" - that in use inits the consistent is, style the use color contrasts and ofcolors and ofmusic. theomniscience the latter twoto discredit and byusing Mada,and Meimei, the fulfillment of destiny In Suzhou River, of the first.20 and "objectivity" a reckoning withone's double (and the double's death) is only through herfinal realizedinMeimei's challenge subsequent disappearance, partially "Come and findme," metbya blackscreen. to the videographer, Inhisanalysis ofthefilm, that,whilethe mermaid suggests Silbergeld famous Anderson's by Hans Christian figurein Suzhou Riveris inspired and herappearance inthe film "The Little Mermaid," corresponds story, the the little of with the mermaid, mermaid image Disney-inflected largely that and return in Lou Ye's film embodiesthemesof faith, fidelity, figure and tradition of water-spirits are moreakinto the Chinesemythological and the Goddess such as the Ladyof the Xiang River femaledrowning, here is the kindof "doubleof the Luo River (25-27). What is of interest The of the mermaid figurein the film. coding,"or even "triple-coding," and version ofthe mermaid to thecontemporary visualreference (Disney) Americanized the disjunction betweenherblond-haired, appearanceand dramatizesnot only the filthy, dilapidatedsettingof the Suzhou River butalso the Chineseurbanmilieu, inthe immediate herout-of-placeness urban within modern, spaceas thecity cosmopolitan Shanghai's disjunctions (and the nation)opens itself up to the global flowof capitaland cultural era. inthe postsocialist products inthe finalshotsof Mada and is Sucha disjunction vividly presented Pearl on a pieroppositethe Oriental Meimeibeforetheirdeaths:sitting and a achievements Tower,one of China'slatest modernarchitectural thetwo lovers riseto economicprominence, of Shanghai's quietly symbol intertextual fate. On an their ominous watchthe sunsetbeforemeeting oblivious to the corrupt (as a child-figure level,Mudan'scharacterization Anderson's and Mada) echoes HansChristian "adultworld"of herfather intoadulthood. . . markedby her "initiation mermaid as an "outsider," 154 Reimagining Shanghai

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to Nancy and suffering" 2001: 262). According (Easterlin thoughtfulness "the emergenceof the mermaidproperin European lore in Easterlin, to heressential belatedness with thespreadofChristianity attests tandem folkbeliefs heldfora number ofcenturies she is... a signofdisintegrating intension withChristian therefore, (2001: 258). The mermaid, mythology" in reaction the is a product ofthe popularimagination onslaught against of a hegemonic, universalistic discourse. in In Lou Ye's film, one can also discern a similar and despair, tension, searchforlove and freedomand theirawareness the femalecharacters' searchina worldthoroughly converted to the ofthe impossibility oftheir The mermaid, can also be seen as a sign new creedof money. therefore, of China's of disintegrating social and cultural values,a starkreminder to a postsocialist Amidthe chaotictransitions froma socialist economy. the cityemergesas a criminal and decay of the river, filth, corruption, Thefish tankinwhich Meimei first underworld ofviceand violence. appears and that the is a powerful of the exploitation corruption engulfs symbol is The myth of the mermaid, womanand otherfellowdrifters. therefore, that calls itself intoquestionas soon as it is created.Lou Ye's an illusion is at best ambivalentwhen Meimei challengeshimwith videographer when he answers"yes"to herown disappearance: she knowshe is lying herquestion:"IfI leave you one day,willyou look forme? LikeMada?" the Meimeidisappears(an attempt to keep alive Mudan's legacy), After witha in a boat, ends his "recording" drunkand drifting videographer, willeventually set off whether the videographer blackout. It is uncertain of romance inthe insearchofthe missing buthiscynical refusal mermaid, shotseemsto preclude thispossibility. blackout to the moredistant Generation films that return UnlikemanyFifth of cultural visual of nature as means and political and past employ imagery framework of his filmin an critique,Lou Ye groundsthe explanatory flow of images of a gloomypresentto probe the moraland unsteady ina society from conflicts of individuals adrift disconnected psychological Modern Chinese Literatureand Culture 155

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the past (and the future). Neither is the city as a corrupt and corrupting forcepoisedagainstan alternative existence that (be itlostor imaginary) or solace to the the mayprovidehope present(e.g. nature, suffocating or characters that embodythe voice of reason or human countryside, In Lou Ye's case,the authenticity ofthe cameraas a repository of virtues). critical consciousness is cast intodoubt: "As forlove,I couldtellyouthat I saw a mermaid once sitting on the muddy bank,combingherhair.But I'd be lying." To hold on to a brokenor fallenmyth thatsymbolizes lost or to "shutoff"and shyaway from moral innocence, love,and romance, are the two alternatives that balance each otherout in the convictions, film."Drift"is perhapsan appropriate word to summarize the rhythm and pattern of movement effected to bythe camera"eye" in itsattempt the moodofan apparently aimless and random inwhich existence, capture both "myth" and romanceare doomed to a tragicand premature end. the femme fataleas a "myth" and bydisplacing thismythical Byinvoking in creature an existential hisreadingof the city wasteland,Lou Ye offers as a fallenmyth, the otherside of "Shanghaimodern." The Seductress in Contemporary Narratives City So how do we engage these variationsof the seductressfigurein a meaningfuldialogue on contemporaryimagination of the modern the seductress in the two novelsis bornout of two different city?First, ofthe city thatreflect the nuancesinthe literary perceptions imagination of ShanghaisinceChinareneweditsdialoguewithmodernity inthe early 1980s.InSongofEverlasting the of is Sorrow, history Shanghai encapsulated inthelife of an and herfailedrelations withmen. history "ordinary beauty" Thistreatment the innerlandscapeof the old city, privileges symbolized thateffectively bythe nongtanginteriors, edges out the "publicspheres" the nation and the state. In Wei Hui'snovel,Shanghaiis represented by the postmodern, inthe havenforthe new bohemians adrift postsocialist and to whomthe meaning globalflowof imagesand consumer products, 156 Reimagining Shanghai

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of the past and the future are subsumedunderthe hedonistic quest for immediate material and sexual pleasureof the present. thedelegitimization ofCommunist inthe post-Deng Second, ideology era and the gradual erosionof publictrustin the rulingregime21 have createdthe necessary socioeconomic climateforindividual negotiations with thevirtues and vicesofmodernity, a project beguninChinamorethan a century the War of ago and truncated bythe politicalupheavalsfrom Resistance Revolution Japan(1937-45)to the end of the Cultural Against in 1976.Seen inthislight, inthisessaysuggest thethreetexts discussed the forms ofsuchnegotiations inthecultural ofmodernity possible imagination in late twentieth-century China.Moresignificantly, the factthatthe two so different intheir and aesthetic womanauthors, intellectual orientations, have used the seductress as a representation of the cityinvites further on the critical contentof local productions of a presumably reflections and Eurocentric metaphor. phallocentric In Song of Everlasting the femaleprotagonist is a historical Sorrow, thatbridges the literary ofShanghai's semicolonial metaphor imagination an "ordinary pastandthepresent. By creating beauty" a typical "Shanghai of the historical drama,Wang Anyitriesto lady" as the protagonist within a familiar "domesticate" thetraumas ofwarand revolution fictional thefrustrated romances ofa withering To landscape(i.e.,through beauty). the extent thatWangQiyaoepitomizes the "local adaptation"to modern inthe pre-Communist material culture of a era,herroleas a "monument" twistupon herdeath at the handsof a petty lostworldis givenan ironic criminal. The same irony underscores the novel'stitle,Changhen ge, derived from the classicalpoem bythe Tang poet Bai Juyi about the tragiclove of another femme fatale,the legendary story Yang Guifei (YangYuhuan), the beloved concubineof the Tang emperorXuanzong (Minghuang). Insteadof drawing a parallelbetweenthe two texts, the classical allusion thediscrepancy betweenthetragic and romanticism dramatizes grandeur Modern Chinese Literatureand Culture 157 21 (2002: 7)has Xiaoying Wang characterized this ofChina's phase modernization as"the devaluation of socialist orcommunist values."

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of the story of Yang Guifei and the ordinary tribulations Wang Qiyao in her"small the interior thatisforegrounded as the world/' space ofthecity centerof thishistorical novel.Atthe same time,bysituating herheroine has within the classicalliterary tradition of the femme fatale,WangAnyi offered a historical readingof her own workas no less an "epic" in its own way.22 the heroine's"belated" nostalgiais a doubleFurthermore, the turmoil of war and revolution, it is a strategy to edged sword:during thestateand itsmonopoly on historical at countermarginalize memory; yet, thesametime, era renders WangQiyao's"belatedness"inthe postsocialist hervulnerable to the lureof a culture of nostalgic consumption. InShanghaiBaby,one discovers a moreproblematic of configuration the seductress, who threatens to come offthe pages at anytimeto bust thealready ambivalent betweenreality and fiction. The through boundary author'sovertidentification withthe heroine, a beautiful and seductive of a femme young woman possessingall the necessary qualifications and the of metafiction in the narrative are fatale, playful employment Yet the narrator's narcissistic of self-consciously postmodern. description and nudity sendsout contradictory and perplexing lovemaking messages about the heroine's and moralvalues. self-perception I have triedto delineate these contradictions in termsof a binary structure of mindand body,love and lust,moralawarenessand sexual instinct. This binary structure is thoroughly played out in Coco, who is troubledby her contradictions and yet able to carry the contradictions within heras a distinguishing mark of herindividuality. If,inWangAnyi, the foregrounding of ordinary lifemarks a consciousdecentering of the and revolutionary discourseby locating "biggerworld" of nationalistic the meaningof history ina woman'sprivate Wei Hui'stextgoes universe, further to decenter the femaleuniverse the subject/object byreimposing the heroine's unconscious internalization of sexist binary through categories in her confession-like In Shanghai Baby,the seductressis a narrative. historical (i.e., late twentieth-century productof a particular time-space 158 Reimagining Shanghai

22 For a structural and thematic between Bai comparison poem Juyi's and seeWan Yan 1998. novel, Wang's

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whereindustrial and economic dictates the nature and Shanghai), progress the scope of itshistorical and sense of identity. memory In Coco's narrative, fullof glittery Shanghaiis still imagesof modern but with her these images material unlike culture, predecessors, literary consciousnessand are quickly remainon the surfaceof the narrative ofthemoresensational erotic drama.Shanghai's to thebackdrop relegated is tornintofragments as Coco shuttles therefore, metropolitan glamour, herendlesssocial and romantic and theirscattered rendezvous, through Coco'sfragmented presenceinthe narrative aptlyreflects understanding and her deep-seatedanxiety and insecurity about being both of herself "new woman" in a world a decadent "moderngirl"and an enlightened socialand moral codes. turned itsbackon conventional thathasapparently is a monument on which is In Everlasting Sorrow , Wang Qiyao engraved In ShanghaiBaby of timeand history. the imprint , Coco livesonlyforthe is obscuredbythe decentering hersense of the past and future present; of desirein an increasingly of citylifeand the endlesscirculation rhythm lifeissuffused whereeveryday market, open and unstructured commodity withsignsand imagesbuta deeper messageis alwaysabsent.Hence,the the best conclusion to the journeyof question"Who am I?" is arguably circle thatperpetuates a hermeneutic Coco's"postmodern" soul-searching, and bodies. the playof desire,identities, of the seductressfigureare also The different conceptualizations the self-indulgent voice.InShanghaiBaby, evidentinthe use of narrative modern woman a westernized l-narrator playsthe roleof the seductress, outlook.Atthe same time,she and feminist known forherindependence in withherGerman her isalso unabashedly relationship self-orientalizing handsome whitemale)and whoseexoticcharm lover, (beingan extremely desireand arouse herinstinctive masculine sexualenergy simultaneously indecadence,in Coco'sindulgence Despiteherself-awareness, self-disgust. in in narrative results a narcissistic boththe moraland intellectual senses, boththe "self"and the turns thel-narrator's which gaze uponher"subject" Modern Chinese Literatureand Culture 159

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thetext."In bodyintoan externalized objectof desireinthe "textwithin so doing,Coco has also internalized the male gaze of herGerman lover. As a corollary,the recurrentscenes of Coco masturbatingare of thisnarrative Sorrow , the thirdsymptomatic impulse.In Everlasting from is consciously distanced the heroine's personnarrator pointof view to situatethe storytelling within a broaderhistorical so that timeframe, the individual ofdayand night life isprojected ontothecycle and the cycle seasons.The narrator's to the natural changing repeatedreferences cycle of bloom and declinethusendows this"trivial romance"withuniversal is made up of a multitude of trivialities, significance: humanity Shanghai is made up of a multitude of Wang Qiyaos,and Shanghai'sglamouris foundedupon the quotidianlifeof pettyurbanits. Thiscontemplation on history and revolution, which naturally "marginalizes" nation-building were the dominantmodes of historical formorethan a representation The coexistence ofthetwo timeframes, notonlylimits moreover, century. theemotionalinvolvement ofthe narrator inhercharacters' butalso lives, makesroom for an ironic in humor thetreatment ofthesecharacters as they intheir themselves desires and vanities. Thisironic stanceof indulge petty the narrator has subtly filtered thesentimentalism ofthe "fading beauty" motif and thereby setthestagefora seductress who has never fulfilled her roleas a femme surrendered herself to the "lureof fatale,buthas quietly the modern"and the seduction of the nostalgic present. delivers a bleakervision Comparedto the two novels,Lou Ye's film ofthe city as a fallenmyth. The figure ofthe mermaid notonlyalludesto Shanghai's"secondcoming"as China'seconomiccapitaland itsroleas a inthe newglobaleconomy, butalso addresses thedeepersocialand player moralissues thatare usually rhetoric of China's glossedoverinthe official Thefilm's use ofcharacter doubles "peacefulrise"intheworldof nations. to playthe mermaid thecontrast betweenthe mythical creature, sharpens that eventually her Mermaid,and the dark reality imperfect destroys - sexy, incarnates. Her initial and appearance as a seductress mysterious, 160 Reimagining Shanghai

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- is but a as she is seen insidethe fishtank in the nightclub rebellious, the undercoercion. As itturns fake postureperformed out, it is through - the innocent that the mermaid next door double-death of Mudan girl and itsthemesof death,reincarnation, and redemption is fulfilled, myth and lonelinessarouse are intricately played out. Meimei'svulnerability world. Her with Mudan and lead her intothe latter's a deep empathy and moralambivalence disillusionment withthe videographer's cynicism The three in her at the end of the film. isfinally disappearance registered ofthefemaledoublesencapsulate thequestforinnocence disappearances in sucha quest, and the pervasive the risks involved and transcendence, thatengulfs thosewho dare to take the plunge. cynicism Ihaveusedthree Inthepreceding representations contemporary analysis, the ways in whichthe seductress of Shanghaito demonstrate figureis In one, the quotidian visions of the city. to articulate different employed to state serve as a counternarrative of Shanghai urbanits experiences of itsown nostalgicindulgence the cityis a victim ideology;in another, the "postmodern," Stillanother portrays and nostalgicconsumption. postsocialistcityof the new bohemians torn between their higher whilethe lastdepicts thedystopian and sexual/material desires, aspirations Ifthe "new woman" and the "moderngirl"were cityas a fallenmyth. the dominanttropes for China's responsesto the phantasmagoriaof at the dawn of inthe earlydecades of the twentieth century, modernity we are socioeconomic withitsrapidly the new century climate, changing ofthe intheaesthetic a diverse imagination rangeofpossibilities witnessing visions and sometimes Theseductress embodiesdifferent contending city. in conditions and socioeconomic bornout of the new political of the city China. While images of women are stillcentralto the contemporary of the city, the gendered metaphorhas steeredaway conceptualization of anxietiesabout modernity fromitsearlierfunction as personification and nationalsurvival. into the Instead,the three examplesexaminedhere offerinsights Modern Chinese Literatureand Culture 161

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from modernization of,China's to,and critiques projects complex responses on and throwlight to the present, halfofthetwentieth the latter century ofstate thedisintegration from crises and identity thenewtensions resulting

Atthesame and the socialand moralvaluesitonce represented. ideology overdetermined usesofan already these"overdetermined" metaphor time, of the cultural within links and fissures the intricate reflect imagination inthe urban ramifications and itsmultiple overthe lastcentury modernity spaces of Chinatoday.

162 Reimagining Shanghai

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Glossary Bansheng yuan caizi Changhen ge Changtui didai Chengbei da shiji renwu fengliu Haishanghua liezhuan hepingjueqi Lao Kela LiuNa'ou Lou Ye Mada Dun Meimei meirenyu Mian Mian Mudan mudanhua Mu Shiying nongtang Shanghaibaobei Shanghaide xiaojiemen Shao Xunmei shishang shisu Su Tong Suzhou he WangAnyi Wang Qiyao Wang Qiyaomen Wei Hui xiao shimin Xiaoshuopinglun renlei Xinxin Xuanzong(Minghuang) XunzhaoShanghai (YangYuhuan) Yang Guifei youpi ZhangAiling Tf"? 'ISIf STEAI#) ;?5 ? i!lP M53S ;S /1 SBfJii ttt 1 H 'J+IJJ SH 1 SSiff! SH '.hstrPtiw SffrA () (.) MJKffi RSf

Modem Chinese Literatureand Culture 163

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Zhou Jieru zhou xun ZhuWenying Ziye Bibliography

5 mm SfcXIS

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Modernismin Shih,Shu-me.2001. The Lure of the Modern: Writing Press. of California China Semicolonia! , 1917-1937.Berkeley: University Silbergeld,Jerome.2004. Hitchcockwith a Chinese Face: Cinematic Doubles , and China'sMoral Voice.Seattle: University , Oedipal Triangles Press. of Washington The New Woman and the Sarah E. 2003. "Figuring Stevens, Modernity: Journal China."NWSA in Republican ModernGirl 15, no. 3: 82-103. Su Tong - 1995. Chengbei didai Field. (Citynorth).Taipei: Rye

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